Activist Bishop William Barber slams Dems for abandoning the working poor

Screengrab
Rev. William J. Barber II delivers soaring sermon in honor of Martin Luther King Jr.

Amy Goodman

DEMOCRACY NOW!

November 11, 2024


“Why is it that the issues that most of the public agrees with — healthcare, living wages, voting rights, democracy — why is it that those issues weren’t more up front?” We speak to Bishop William Barber about Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s failed election campaigns, Donald Trump’s election as president and the urgent need to unite the poor and working class. Barber is the national co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, president and senior lecturer at Repairers of the Breach and a co-author of the book White Poverty: How Exposing Myths About Race and Class Can Reconstruct American Democracy. He urges the Democratic Party to recenter economic security and poverty alleviation in its platform and draws on historical setbacks for U.S. progressive policies to encourage voters to “get back up” and “continue to fight.”democracynow.org





This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: Donald Trump and his allies celebrated his election victory with calls to implement the far-right policy plan to overhaul the federal government, known as Project 2025, as Republicans also took the Senate and will probably take the House.

Meanwhile, at the White House, President Biden Thursday said he had called President-elect Trump to congratulate him and promised a peaceful transition of power.
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: The struggle for the soul of America, since our very founding, has always been an ongoing debate and still vital today. I know for some people it’s a time for victory, to state the obvious. For others, it’s a time of loss. Campaigns are contests of competing visions. The country chooses one or the other. We accept the choice the country made. I’ve said many times, you can’t love your country only when you win. You can’t love your neighbor only when you agree.

Something I hope we can do, no matter who you voted for, is see each other not as adversaries, but as fellow Americans, bring down the temperature. I also hope we can lay to rest the question about the integrity of the American electoral system. It is honest, it is fair, and it is transparent. And it can be trusted, win or lose.


AMY GOODMAN: President Biden spoke in the Rose Garden a day after Vice President Kamala Harris conceded her loss in a speech at her alma mater Howard University.
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: While I concede this election, I do not concede the fight that fueled this campaign.


AMY GOODMAN: We begin our look at where Democrats went wrong with Bishop William Barber, national co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, which sought to increase voting among low-income residents, an often ignored but massive bloc. He’s a senior lecturer of Repairers of the Breach and founding director of the Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at Yale Divinity School, co-author of the new book White Poverty: How Exposing Myths About Race and Class Can Reconstruct American Democracy.

Bishop Barber, welcome back to Democracy Now! Talk about what you think happened in this election. Respond to Trump’s presidency and where you think the Democrats went wrong.

BISHOP WILLIAM BARBER II: Well, thank you, Amy, for getting up this morning and continuing to say “Democracy Now!”

You know, we’ve got a lot of questions that we must wrestle with deeply. We can’t be flippant or knee-jerk in this moment. We have to deal with the fact that America has often chosen wrong and had to pay for it later. We have to look at the fact that this week 71 million, 72 million people chose to return Donald Trump to the White House despite his vitriol, his anger, his regressiveness, his outright racism and lean toward fascism. And we may not know exactly what he’s going to do, and it may take him doing it to the point that even his followers are hurting so bad that they admit, they ask the question, “What did we do?”


But Nikole Hannah-Jones said something the other day, and I shared it with my co-chair Liz Theoharis, and she reminded us that 60 years after America’s first attempt at Reconstruction in the 1920s, right after the election of 18— excuse me, of 1865, 1866, in that area, the majority of Americans went back and embraced white supremacy. And if we think about where we are, we’re 60 years now after the ’60s, after the white Southern strategy.

And what did we see the other day? We’ve got to ask a deep question. We saw most Americans, many Americans did not vote. Trump got 2 million, almost 3 million votes less than he did in 2020. Harris received almost 13 million, 14 million votes less than her and Biden received in 2020. They got 81 million votes. A lot of people just didn’t vote.

And what’s the reason? We know that in 2020, when Harris and — Biden and Harris focused on living wages and voting rights out front, that they got 56% of the votes of those that make less than $50,000 a year in a family of four. But this year, the exit polls show that it was even, 49-49. Trump came up, Democrats went down. And the question becomes: Why? Did we adequately focus on the 30 million poor, low-wage, infrequent voters that held the key to the largest swing vote in the country? We reached out to more than 12 million of those persons.

We’ve got some serious questions to wrestle with. Did white women, for instance, who are against taking abortion rights, then — but also voted for Trump and chose Trump? They’re with Harris on the abortion issue but not for presidency. Where did Hispanic men turn out? We have a lot of wrestling to do. Why is it that the issues that the most of the public agrees with — healthcare, living wages, voting rights, democracy — why is it that those issues weren’t more up front? And why is it that persons would choose to vote against — for someone who’s diametrically against the very things that the percentage of the people say that they are for? We have some serious issues.


What we don’t now have the option to do is to give up. You know, I do think there were some failures also in the media. You know, we didn’t have — I didn’t see one debate where there was a focus on poverty and low wage, even though 800 people are dying a day from poverty, even though you have a million — over 32 million people making less than a living wage. We haven’t raised the minimum wage since 2009. Not one major debate. You didn’t hear about it in the Congress. Why didn’t the Democrats, for instance, bring up living wage in the Senate before the election and force a vote on it, to expose where the Republican Party actually stood on this critical issue? Because everywhere that raising the minimum wage and paid family leaves and things that matter was on the ballot, they won. They won, in Missouri, in Alaska, in places like that. We have some serious questions to ask.

But we also — lastly, Amy, I have to also say something. Somebody said Trump has a mandate. Nobody has a mandate to overturn the Constitution. Nobody has a mandate to engage something like Project 2025 to try to take us backwards and undo progress. Nobody has a mandate to say we’re not going to address people who are literally dying from the ravages of poverty. Nobody has a mandate to say we’re going to take away people’s healthcare.

We have to get up every morning from now until and still, with every nonviolent tool in our disposal, and challenge any form of regression, regardless of who is in office. And I thought about this. When Plessy v. Ferguson came down in 1896, the activists that chose against “separate but equal” fought 58 years, 58 years until they overturned it. They got up, and they continued to battle. And so, when we get up this morning, we’ve got to go back to the same kind of strength the people had when they woke up in 1877 and there was an election to turn back America; or when 1896 happened, Plessy v. Ferguson; or 1914, when a white supremacist entered the White House, played Birth of a Nation in his Oval Office; in 1955, when they woke up, and Emmett Till was killed; in 1963, when four girls were killed in Birmingham church; 1963, when a president was assassinated; 1968, when Martin King was assassinated. People had to own their tears, own their pain, own their frustration, but then still get back up and declare that we will still fight for this democracy, and we’ll not just go away and slink away into the dark.

AMY GOODMAN: So, I wanted to go to independent Senator Bernie Sanders tweeting, “It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them. While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change. And they’re right.”


Well, the DNC Chair Jaime Harrison called Sanders’s statement “straight up BS.” He said, “Biden was the most-pro worker President of my life time.”

And then there was also the comment of David Brooks, who is the well-known columnist in the paper. And I wanted to go to that column. He wrote in a piece headlined “Voters to Elites” — this is The New York Times opinion columnist David Brooks — “Do You See Me Now?” — he said, “I’m a moderate. I like it when Democratic candidates run to the center. But I have to confess that Harris did that pretty effectively and it didn’t work. Maybe the Democrats have to embrace a Bernie Sanders-style disruption — something that will make people like me,” David Brooks wrote, “feel uncomfortable.”

So, if you can —

BISHOP WILLIAM BARBER II: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: — respond to that and give us the facts on the number of people we’re talking about in this country? And, of course, it’s not just about numbers. It’s about what people are dealing with, millions of people all over this country, and they could vote.

BISHOP WILLIAM BARBER II: Right. And, Amy, what we’ve got to do is get out of our feelings. It’s a total different thing to say our policies were such and such and such, and we helped people, and whether or not that was articulated and whether or not people got it. For instance, we know that, yes, we need tax credits, child tax credit, and we support that. And yes, we need healthcare, money for housing, new housing. We’re clear about that. We support that. But to say, “Wait a minute. We have to take a look at where we were and what’s going on. Is it a messaging? What is it?” Because what we know is in every — around this country, raising, for instance, the minimum wage, that would affect 32 million people who live every day for less than a living wage. For instance, yes, we need to deal with price gouging, but people also need money to buy goods, buy gas, buy whatever. And we have not raised the minimum wage, Democrats or Republican. We’ve sat on this issue now for 15 years. We’re talking about 140 million poor and low-wage people. We’re talking about 43% of our country that’s poor and/or low-wealth. We’re talking about adult population, people who make less — who are $500 away from economic ruin. We’re talking about 800 people that die per day. This is not hyperbole. And we have to be able to talk about this.

And to talk about it is not to say that a candidate was wrong. It is to evaluate what is going on and what is going to be our position. And why, for instance, why, for instance, that we did not make a determined effort right up front that every time we opened our mouths, we said, “Listen, if you elect Democrats, from the presidency to the Congress, in the first 50 days, first hundred days, we’re going to raise the minimum wage to at least $15 or a little bit more”? We have the data. Three Nobel Peace Prize economists won the Nobel Peace proving that raising the minimum wage would not hurt jobs, would not force more taxes and would not make prices rise. At some point, we have to take this very seriously.

And, you know, I know people — everybody’s in their emotions, and should be. Now, that’s not the only issue, though. And I would agree with Jaime in this. That’s not the only issue. There’s a lot of issues. We’ve got to — that’s why we have to drill down on this. What factor did race play? What factor did sexuality play and gender play? But we have to take serious that the fundamental issues — even in Mississippi, 66% of Republicans now say that they want healthcare, that they support the Affordable Care Act, or what we used to call Obamacare. We have to take seriously, when we look at these other states — when living wages was on the ballot, it won. You know, do need to then make sure that across the country we have these things on the ballot? But what we can’t do is walk away from them.

So, we have to do introspection. We have to look at why there was less voting. We have to look at why, when — and I remember in 2020 when Biden and Harris — when they were running. Every time they talked, they said, “If you elect us, we’re going to do living wages and healthcare and voting rights.” Fifty-six percent of those who make less than $50,000 a year supported that ticket. Also, we have to own the fact that some of this is not Biden or Harris or anybody’s fault. It started when the Democrats brought up for a vote to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, and eight Democrats joined every Republican and blocked it, blocked it in the United States Senate, after it passed the House. We can’t have Democrats running rogue when they have power and voting against something at that time would have impacted 55 million people. And it would still be at 55 million if Biden had not and Harris had not increased the minimum wage for federal workers. But you run rogue when you have power, and then when you come back to the people for election, you say, “We are with you.” People are hurting out here. People are dying out here. And until we can face poverty and low wages in this country, we’re talking about 66 million white people. We’re talking about 26 million Black people, 60% of Black people, 30% of white people, 68% of Latino, 68% of Indigenous people. We cannot walk away from this issue.

And lastly, we cannot allow people to suggest that if you focus on this issue, that it’s a far-left issue. It’s an American issue. It’s a moral issue. It is a — the level of poverty and low wages in this country is a violation of our claim of our Constitution to establish justice and promote the general welfare. It is disgusting and damnable that we’ve not had a full-on dealing with this issue in the media, in the halls of Congress and in our election. Not one presidential candidate was asked at any of the two debates that were held, “Where would you — do you stand on the issue of poverty and low wages? And what are your plans to address it? And how will you lead this country?” For issues that affect nearly 50% of the population. We’ve got to face this issue.

And that’s why one of the things I’m saying, Amy, you know, Venice Williams said something in a poem that all of us ought to read. It said — she said this:

“You are awakening to the
same country you fell asleep to.
The very same country.

Pull yourself together.

And,
when you see me,
do not ask me
'What do we do now?' or
'How do we get through the next four years?'

Some of my Ancestors dealt with
at least 400 years
under worse conditions.”

She said:

“Continue to do the good work.
Continue to build bridges and not walls.
Continue to lead with compassion.
Continue to demand
the liberation of all.”

I would add to that, continue and seriously fight for living wages and healthcare and the end to genocide around the world and the end to the battle of war in Gaza. Continue, continue the fight for women’s rights. Continue to fight for children. Continue to fight to expand voting rights.

How much of this low vote was because of voter suppression? Why is it in a state like North Carolina, for instance, all of the Democrats at the top of the ticket won, and yet the presidency did not win? We have to deal with some serious questions. We can’t get in our emotions. We’ve got to ask serious questions because we have serious pain out here, that people are hurting, and millions of them didn’t vote either way. They just didn’t vote. I want people to hear that. The vote totals went down. They didn’t go up. They went down. And we have to take this very seriously.

'General feeling of dread' plagues federal workforce as Trump prepares for second term

Donald Trump with former Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Phoenix on June 6, 2024 (Gage Skidmore)

Alex Henderson   

ALTERNET

November 11, 2024

During his 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump claimed that he knew nothing about Project 2025 — the Heritage Foundation's 920-page blueprint for a second Trump Administration.

Yet many Trump critics noted the parallels between Project 25 and Trump's own Schedule F, including a proposal for mass firings of federal employees and civil servants — who would be replaced by an army of Trump loyalists.

Trump, having defeated Vice President Kamala Harris, will return to the White House on January 20, 2025. And according to CNN reporters Ella Nilsen, Rene Marsh, Gabe Cohen and Tami Luhby, federal employees are bracing for the worst.

In an article published by CNN on November 11, the journalists explain, "In his first term, Trump sidelined and ridiculed civil servants and service members, silenced government offices and stifled scientific research. Many workers quit; others stuck it out, hopeful that the 2020 election would bring a new boss in the White House. Now, they face another four years of Trump — a term that by his own account, will be worse for the government workforce than his first."

Some federal government employees were interviewed by CNN on condition of anonymity.

An employee of the U.S. Department of Energy told CNN, "I would say there is a general feeling of dread among everyone."

An employee of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) told CNN, "We are absolutely having conversations among ourselves about whether we can stomach a Round Two."

Max Stier, president and CEO of Partnership for Public Service, told CNN, "What's at stake here is the nature of our government, how it works and who it works for."


Read CNN's full report at this link.

The ‘Lost Boys’ of Gen Z: How Trump won the hearts of alienated young men

The Conversation
November 11, 2024 

A supporter of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump rallies outside an early polling precinct as voters cast their ballots in local, state, and national elections, in Clearwater, Florida, U.S., November 3, 2024. REUTERS/Octavio Jones

Generation Z was supposed to be a vanguard of progressive politics – more queer, ethnically diverse and environmentally conscious than previous generations. Spurred on by climate protests, racial equality campaigns and feminist movements, we were sold the vision that Gen Z could usher in a more progressive and equitable future.

So, how is it that Donald Trump was elected to a second term despite this cohort now having reached voting age? And how did he secure a larger share of voters under 30 than any Republican presidential candidate since 2008?

The answer may lie in Gen Z’s “Lost Boys”, as they’ve been dubbed by some in the media. Not unlike Peter Pan’s disciples, these young men are failing to mature and find purpose in today’s rapidly changing social and economic landscape. They feel overlooked and shortchanged by left-wing politics and current economic outcomes.

In Trump, they see an outlet for their grievances – a figure who promises to restore the old order and give them the recognition they believe they deserve.
Many young people see no future

Despite the narrative that Gen Z is more progressive than previous cohorts, recent voting data tell a different story when it comes to young men. While the political leanings of Gen Z women have stayed steadily left of centre, Trump’s popularity among young men surged by 15 percentage points from 2020.

To understand why so many young men are drawn to Trump’s brand of populism, it’s crucial to look at the broader social context in which they are coming of age. The “Lost Boys” in the United States are disproportionately working-class and struggling with unemployment, underemployment, addiction and mental health crises.

The statistics are alarming. With one in five men under 25 unemployed (and many not actively seeking work), they seem hesitant to adapt to a new economy that no longer offers them the opportunities it once did.


Against this backdrop, young men seek out explanations for their struggles in ways that affirm their sense of injustice. These explanations are often found in the “manosphere” – a loose confederacy of social media platforms and influencers flooded with discussions about how “woke” politics, feminism and the rise of progressive values are undermining traditional masculinity.

In these corners of the internet, young men are told their personal setbacks are not the result of a weakening worldwide economy or personal failings, but rather the consequence of a society that has become too “soft”. They hear that the push for gender equality has made traditional masculinity a thing of the past – that men are being ignored, emasculated and left behind.


The “manosphere” is a space where their grievances are validated and where they are encouraged to embrace hypermasculine ideals as a way to regain control.
Searching for validation

Enter Trump.

Flitting between manosphere influencers such as Joe Rogan and Adin Ross, Trump spent hours on podcasts and streams in the lead-up to November 5. The result was so effective that podcasters were specifically shouted out in the victory declaration speech following the election. Since Trump entered politics, he has 107 podcast credits to his name, compared with Kamala Harris’ 76.

Notably, Harris’ own interview with Rogan fell through after the podcaster refused to accept her conditions, which included travelling to meet her.

In these online spaces, Trump was humorous and humanised. And for Gen Z men who consume more news through social media than traditional outlets, he was highly accessible. Suddenly, he wasn’t just a presidential candidate, but a certified “bro” willing to openly discuss cocaine on a podcast.

Trump successfully tapped into the frustrations of these “Lost Boys”. His policies – from mass deportations to curbing diversity initiatives – are framed as solutions to the challenges these men believe they face: competition for jobs and opportunities, the erosion of masculine ideals, and the loss of a once-dominant social order.

Yet as Trump waltzes to the Republican National Convention stage with James Brown’s It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World playing in the background, it becomes apparent his appeal was never just about policies; it’s about validation. His slogan of “Make America Great Again” resonates with young men who long for an idealised past in which men’s roles were more clearly defined and opportunities more plentiful.




Trump tells these men their frustrations are valid – and they deserve to take back what they believe has been unfairly taken from them.

Where to from here?

If the future belongs to Gen Z, it’s clear this particular subset of young men is not ready to follow the same path as their progressive peers. For many “Lost Boys”, Trump is more than just a political figure – he is a symbol of empowerment in a world that increasingly leaves them behind.

As the political and cultural landscape continues to evolve, understanding this phenomenon isn’t just a matter of curiosity, but a key to addressing the needs of a generation still trying to find its place in a confusing world.

Until figures on the political left learn to be present in these spaces and address the grievances of “Lost Boys”, we may continue to see them rallying around figures like Trump in their search for meaning.

'Chaos voters': Analyst reveals why Trump supporters want to watch 'things burn'

Kathleen Culliton
November 11, 2024

Supporters wearing 'MAGA' caps gather ahead of a campaign rally featuring Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump in Grand Rapids, Michigan, U.S., November 4, 2024. REUTERS/Emily Elconi
A desire for chaos is a key reason that some supporters of President-elect Donald Trump are thrilled he'll resume the White House in 2025 despite economic plans that experts warn could ignite an "inflation bomb," feminist author Jill Filipovic argued in a MSNBC editorial Monday.

"But what if a good number of Trump’s fans are simply chaos voters?" Filipovic wrote. "They may not feel horribly mistreated so much as they resent what they perceive as the better treatment accorded to people they don’t think deserve it. These voters wouldn't be turned off by Trump’s aggression and his threats because his brash rhetoric is part of the appeal."

Trump, whom Filipovic dubbed "one of the singularly worst presidents" in American history, repeatedly targeted people of color in campaign rhetoric with anti-immigrant and wrong claims that Haitian immigrants eat pets and people who cross the border have "bad genes."

She argues these comments rallied people such as conservative commentator Ryan Girdusky, who was recently banned by CNN for expressing a racist death wish against journalist Mehdi Hasan.

Girdusky said he hoped Haasn's "beeper doesn't go off," a reference to the deadly Israeli attack targeting the militant group Hezbollah.


This violent rhetoric toward people of color was only ramped up on Election Day, journalist Justin Baragona reported.

"Girdusky says this election is a chance for 'white men' to throw a 'middle finger' at the "people who talk down to you," Baragona wrote on X. Girdusky also said on Real America’s Voice News, "This is the day you get to throw a human Molotov cocktail."

For Filipovic, it's just more proof that Trump's voters are thrilled by the prospect of "watching things burn."


"The suffering of those you deem unworthy is more appealing than appalling; maybe it’s even exciting," she wrote. "These men (and a whole lot of women too) showed up — and they torched the place."

‘Anti-war’ comedy directed by Malkovich riles Bulgarian nationalists


By AFP
November 12, 2024

Angry protesters tried to force their way into the national theatre in Sofia to disrupt the premiere of 'Arms and the Man' - Copyright AFP -
Vessela SERGUEVA

A 19th-century play directed by US actor John Malkovich has enraged nationalists in Bulgaria who call it an insult to the country — a claim the Hollywood star rejected as stirred up by the far right.

Last week’s premiere of “Arms and the Man” by renowned Irish-born playwright George Bernard Shaw sparked raucous protests by nationalist groups.

Holding up banners that read “Malkovich go home”, protesters blocked access to the Ivan Vazov National Theatre in the capital Sofia on Thursday before attempting to storm it, accusing the 70-year-old director of ridiculing the country’s history and its citizens.

“This play is a disgrace and must be banned. It makes a mockery of our ancestors who perished for Bulgaria,” shouted 21-year-old student Yoana Ilieva, part of an infuriated crowd.

After the play premiered in an almost empty theatre, Malkovich expressed his astonishment over how his production was received.

“It’s a quite odd reaction, but it is a strange time in the world — more and more people love to censor things they don’t agree with,” he said at a press conference alongside several actors on stage.

Brandishing Bulgarian flags, a mob of angry protesters verbally and physically assaulted the director of the theatre and the former culture minister among others.

The prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation into the clashes.



– ‘Get attention’ –



The play is a humorous take on the Serbo-Bulgarian conflict in the late 19th century, exploring the absurdity of war while exposing the flaws of heroic adulation and militarism.

It is a “charming, light, kind of anti-war” comedy that Malkovich had already staged on Broadway in 1985, he told AFP in an interview.

He said he considered that seeking historical accuracy in a play was “frighteningly naive”.

Malkovich said he was “pretty sure I’ve never insulted any of the 47 countries” he has worked in, adding that such an accusation “could only be posited by people who don’t know me at all”.

“I think it’s not about the play at all. And I’m not even sure it’s about me, really,” he said.

According to Malkovich, Shaw “knew nothing about Bulgaria”, saying the playwright “just wanted a place to set the war”.

He said he believed far-right protesters were trying to grab people’s “attention for the things they want”.



– ‘Obstructing freedom of expression’



Bulgaria, the EU’s poorest nation, has been plagued by political turmoil since 2021, which has favoured the country’s far right amid a surge in pro-Russian disinformation campaigns, according to NGOs in the country.

For the pro-Russian, ultra-nationalist Vazrazhdane party, the third-largest force in parliament, “not only is the play mediocre” but the production also had “totally inadequate staging”.

Bulgaria’s conservative writers’ union SBP said “such works” had no place in Bulgaria, criticising what it perceived as the “mockery of the thousands of soldiers who fell at the front for the freedom and reunification of the country”.

The play had already been staged twice by Bulgarian director Nikolay Polyakov in 1995 and 2000, without sparking large public outrage.

“The current climate is much more tense, with passions running high and hatred fanned against everything Western and American,” Polyakov told AFP.

Nikolay Hristov, a 66-year-old architect who saw the comedy with his wife on Friday, said there was “nothing anti-Bulgarian” about the “fun” play, adding it was “more about love, lies and misunderstood honour”.

The European Association of Independent Performing Arts (EAIPA) condemned “the outright obstruction of the freedom of artistic expression” by “far-right activists, on the pretext that it mocked Bulgarian national pride”.

“The rise of hatred and aggression in Europe is a direct provocation to essential human rights,” it said.

Boeing reaches settlement to avert civil trial in MAX crash


By AFP
November 11, 2024


Beleaguered aviation giant Boeing reached a last-minute settlement with the family of a fatal crash victim that was set to go to trial on November 12, 2024

 - Copyright AFP Jim WATSON

Elodie MAZEIN

Beleaguered aviation giant Boeing reached a last-minute settlement Monday with the family of a woman killed in the crash of a 737 MAX jetliner in 2019, averting a federal civil trial.

Three sources close to the case told AFP that a settlement had been agreed upon out of court, but they gave no details.

The crash of the Ethiopian Airlines plane killed 157 people. The trial was set to begin Tuesday in Chicago.

It originally involved six plaintiffs but until now all but one had settled, according to a source familiar with the case.

The hearing on Tuesday will take place to inform Judge Jorge Alonso of the settlement, who must approve the deal for it to be officially settled, the source said.

“It is a damage-only trial, meaning no evidence regarding the liability of Boeing will be presented,” the source told AFP.

The remaining case involved Manisha Nukavarapu, an Indian-born woman who was on board Ethiopian Airlines flight ET302 on March 10, 2019, when the Boeing 737 MAX 8 crashed minutes after taking off from Addis Ababa, killing all 157 people on board.

Lawyers for the plaintiff’s family did not respond to a request for comment by AFP.

The initial complaint, obtained by AFP, said Nukavarapu was in her second year of medical school residency at East Tennessee State University, where she planned to become an endocrinologist.

She had planned to take the Ethiopian Airlines flight to visit her sister in Kenya.

– Negligence –

A court document from June 2023 said that relatives of 115 victims filed civil complaints against Boeing for wrongful death and negligence, among other things, between April 2019 and March 2021.

As of October 22, there were still “30 cases pending on behalf of 29 decedents” according to a source close to the legal proceedings.

The complaints have been divided into several groups, with the next group scheduled to go to trial on April 7, 2025.

Boeing has “accepted responsibility for the MAX crashes publicly and in civil litigation because the design of the MCAS…contributed to these events,” a lawyer for Boeing said during an October hearing.

MCAS, a flight stabilizing feature, was implicated in the Ethiopian Airlines crash and a 737 MAX 8 jet operated by Lion Air, which crashed on October 29, 2018, about 10 minutes after taking off from Jakarta, Indonesia. All 189 people aboard the plane died.

After the two 737 MAX crashes, the entire 737 MAX fleet were grounded for more than 20 months for authorities to conduct an investigation.

According to Boeing, more than 90% of the civil complaints filed about the two crashes have been resolved.

“Boeing has paid billions of dollars to the crash families and their lawyers in connection with civil litigation,” an attorney for Boeing, Mark Filip, said at a hearing on October 11.

Bees help tackle elephant-human conflict in Kenya


By AFP
November 11, 2024

William Mwanduka inspects hives housing colonies of African honeybees 

- Copyright AFP Tony KARUMBA
Rose TROUP BUCHANAN

“We used to hate elephants a lot,” Kenyan farmer Charity Mwangome says, pausing from her work under the shade of a baobab tree.

The bees humming in the background are part of the reason why her hatred has dimmed.

The diminutive 58-year-old said rapacious elephants would often destroy months of work in her farmland that sits between two parts of Kenya’s world-renowned Tsavo National Park.

Beloved by tourists — who contribute around 10 percent of Kenya’s GDP — the animals are loathed by most local farmers, who form the backbone of the nation’s economy.

Elephant conservation has been a roaring success: numbers in Tsavo rose from around 6,000 in the mid-1990s to almost 15,000 elephants in 2021, according to the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS).

But the human population also expanded, encroaching on grazing and migration routes for the herds.

Resulting clashes are becoming the number one cause of elephant deaths, says KWS.

Refused compensation when she lost her crops, Mwangome admits she was mad with the conservationists.

But a long-running project by charity Save the Elephants offered her an unlikely solution — deterring some of nature’s biggest animals with some of its smallest: African honeybees.

Cheery yellow beehive fences now protect several local plots, including Mwangome’s.

A nine-year study published last month found that elephants avoided farms with the ferocious bees 86 percent of the time.

“The beehive fences came to our rescue,” said Mwangome.



– Hacking nature –



The deep humming of 70,000 bees is enough to make many flee, including a six-tonne elephant, but Loise Kawira calmly removes a tray in her apiary to demonstrate the intricate combs of wax and honey.

Kawira, who joined Save the Elephants in 2021 as their consultant beekeeper, trains and monitors farmers in the delicate art.

The project supports 49 farmers, whose plots are surrounded by 15 connected hives.

Each is strung on greased wire a few metres off the ground, which protects them from badgers and insects, but also means they shake when disturbed by a hungry elephant.

“Once the elephants hear the sound of the bees and the smell, they run away,” Kawira told AFP.

“It hacks the interaction between elephants and bees,” added Ewan Brennan, local project coordinator.

It has been effective, but recent droughts, exacerbated by climate change, have raised challenges.

“(In) the total heat, the dryness, bees have absconded,” said Kawira.

It is also expensive — about 150,000 Kenyan shillings ($1,100) to install hives — well beyond the means of subsistence farmers, though the project organisers say it is still cheaper than electric fences.



– ‘I was going to die’ –



Just moments after AFP arrived at Mwanajuma Kibula’s farm, which abuts one of the Tsavo parks, her beehive fence had seen off an elephant.

The five-tonne animal, its skin caked in red mud, rumbled into the area and then did an abrupt about-face.

“I know my crops are protected,” Kibula said with palpable relief.

Kibula, 48, also harvests honey twice a year from her hives, making 450 shillings per jar — enough to pay school fees for her children.

She is fortunate to have protection from the biggest land mammals on Earth.

“An elephant ripped off my roof, I had to hide under the bed because I knew I was going to die,” said a less-fortunate neighbour, Hendrita Mwalada, 67.

For those who can’t afford bees, Save the Elephants offers other solutions, such as metal-sheet fences that clatter when shaken by approaching elephants, and diesel- or chilli-soaked rags that deter them.

It is not always enough.

“I have tried planting but every time the crops are ready, the elephants come and destroy the crops,” Mwalada told AFP.

“That has been the story of my life, a life full of too much struggling.”

China planning to cut taxes on home buying: report

NEITHER COMMUNISM NOR SOCIALISM, 

BUT STATE CAPITALI$M

By AFP
November 12, 2024

Unfinished apartments at a complex in Xinzheng City in Zhengzhouin 2023. China is looking to slash taxes on home purchases as the government strengthens fiscal support for the ailing real estate sector - Copyright AFP/File Pedro PARDO

China is looking to slash taxes on home purchases as the government strengthens fiscal support for its ailing real estate sector, a media report said on Tuesday.

Regulators are preparing a proposal that would enable major cities such as Shanghai and Beijing to reduce the deed tax for buyers to as low as one percent from the current level of up to three percent, Bloomberg News said, citing people familiar with the matter.

The property sector has long accounted for around a quarter of gross domestic product and experienced dazzling growth for two decades, but a years-long housing slump has battered growth as authorities eye a target of around five percent for 2024.

China is trying to shore up the sector, and said in October that it would boost credit available for unfinished housing projects to more than $500 billion.

Beijing has in recent months also announced a raft of measures aimed at boosting economic activity, including rate cuts and the easing of some home purchasing restrictions.

China last week unveiled an ambitious plan to relieve public debt, aiming to turn local governments away from belt-tightening practices that have exacerbated the domestic downturn.

Policymakers approved a proposal to swap six trillion yuan ($840 billion) of hidden debt belonging to local governments for official loans with more favourable terms.

Hidden debts are defined as borrowing for which a government is liable, but not disclosed to its citizens or to other creditors.

This move would free up space for local governments to better develop the economy and protect people’s livelihoods, state broadcaster CCTV said.

Lawmakers are also eyeing the possibility of escalating trade tensions following Donald Trump’s re-election, with China’s top economic planning body on Monday urging the government to bolster domestic demand.

Trump has promised punishing tariffs on Chinese goods that threaten further grief for the world’s second-largest economy, which is already grappling with sluggish consumption on top of the prolonged housing crisis.

“In the coming period, the dominance of the domestic market in the economic cycle will become increasingly apparent,” according to a commentary written by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) in China’s Economic Daily.

Focusing on lifting domestic demand is not only a “strategic necessity for national development but also mitigates the impact of external shocks and declining external demand”, the NDRC added.

Peru’s Chancay: China’s megaport of entry to South America


By AFP
November 11, 2024


Chinese President Xi Jinping is set to inaugurate a major new Beijing-funded port in the small Peruvian town of Chancay, north of the capital Lima - Copyright AFP Cris BOURONCLE

Huge cranes loom over Peru’s massive new Chinese-funded Chancay port, a symbol of Beijing’s growing influence in South America which is set to be inaugurated by President Xi Jinping on Thursday.

“It’s nearly ready,” Gonzalo Rios, deputy general manager of the Peruvian subsidiary of Chinese port operator Cosco Shipping, which has a 60 percent stake in the facility, said during a recent visit to the deep-water port.

Situated around 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of the capital Lima, the $3.5 billion complex is expected to become a major hub for trade between South America and China.

Chancay’s maximum depth is 17.8 meters (58.4 feet), two meters deeper than Lima’s Callao port, making it capable of handling the world’s biggest container ships.

“With the addition of this port, this part of the Pacific and Peru in particular could become the logistical hub of South America,” Rios told AFP.

The facility will be unveiled by Xi and his Peruvian counterpart Dina Boluarte on the sidelines of this week’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Lima.



– South America’s ‘Silk Road’ –



The port is the latest addition to the vast collection of railways, highways and other infrastructure projects built under China’s massive Belt and Road Initiative.

Launched in 2013, the program initially focused on better connecting China with Europe, Africa and the rest of Asia but has since expanded to include South America.

Chancay, a fishing town of around 50,000 inhabitants, was chosen for its strategic location in the heart of South America.

Cosco Shipping Ports, which has a 30-year concession to operate the terminal, has forecast it will handle up to one million containers in its first year of operations.

Chancay is expected to be a major hub for imports of Asian electronics, textiles and other consumer goods and for the export of minerals, including lithium — a metal used in mobile phone and laptop batteries — from Chile and copper from both Chile and Peru.

“Peru is a source of raw materials for China,” Oscar Vidarte, professor of international relations at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, told AFP.

Bilateral trade between the Asian giant and Peru, one of Latin America’s fastest-growing economies for the past decade, stood at nearly $36 billion in 2023, making Peru China’s fourth-largest Latin American trading partner.

“Our goal is to become the Singapore of Latin America,” Peruvian Transport Minister Raul Perez told reporters at Chancay.

“We will have direct routes to Asia, in particular to China, which will reduce (shipping time) by 10, 15, even 20 days, depending on the route,” compared to 35-40 days currently, he said.

Chancay port will also serve Chile, Colombia and Ecuador, among other South American countries, allowing them to skirt ports in Mexico and the United States for trade with Asia.

“It will allow China to position itself in this part of the world,” Vidarte said.

Francisco Belaunde, a professor in international law at Lima University and other faculties, called it “part of the battle for geopolitical influence” in South America pitting China against the United States.

Connected to the Pan-American highway — a network of roads linking most of North and South America along the Pacific — through a mile-long tunnel, the port will use artificial intelligence to inspect containers for drugs and other illicit goods, according to Perez, the transport minister.

Peru is the world’s biggest cocaine producer after Colombia.

Currently, much of the drug is smuggled through the port of Guayaquil in neighboring Ecuador.

“We will use the most advanced technology to ensure the safety of the containers,” Perez said.

Toxic towns in Kyrgyzstan battling radioactive danger

By AFP
November 12, 2024

Three decades on from independence, Kyrgyzstan is still dealing with the consequences of the Cold War nuclear arms race - Copyright AFP/File Daniel Beloumou Olomo
Adina Zhorobekova

In a mask and a hazmat suit, Ermek Murataliyev drives a truck filled with Soviet-era radioactive waste along the winding mountain roads of Kyrgyzstan.

His is a hazardous mission: two such trucks crashed into ravines over the summer.

Drivers in this former Soviet Central Asian state are forbidden to stop until they reach their final destination — a storage zone where the waste will be buried under thick layers of compacted clay and rock.

Murataliyev had to undergo a medical inspection and have regular health checks to get the job.

“I have been trained on how to keep myself safe,” he said.

Three decades on from independence, Kyrgyzstan is still dealing with the consequences of the Cold War nuclear arms race, when Central Asia provided the Soviet Union with all of its uranium.

Kyrgyz authorities say there are now six million cubic metres of radioactive waste in 30 sites such as Min-Kush, which require complex and costly disposal measures.

“When the Soviet Union collapsed, Kyrgyzstan had neither the equipment nor the money to transfer the waste to safe sites,” said Ilgiz Ernis, deputy mayor of the Min-Kush municipality.

“The process was badly delayed,” he said.

The disposal work is now in its final stages and is being carried out by the Russian nuclear giant Rosatom as well as the European Union and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.



– ‘Radioactive lake’ –



Local resident Aiman Kishkenalina said “this problem is not just for Min-Kush but for all of Kyrgyzstan”.

Kishkenalina is one of around 5,600 residents of the run-down uranium mining town — a ticking time bomb with grave human and environmental consequences.

“Some experts with dosimeters found that the (radiation) level was too high in some places,” she said.

Local officials say it is in fact up to six times higher than the norm.

Radioactive waste has also been found in the river running through Min-Kush that flows into the Syr Darya, the second-largest river in the region, potentially threatening up to 80 million people.

“The (radioactive) content of the water that passes under the disposal area breaches admissible norms,” said Bakytbek Asankulov, who is in charge of radioactive security at the Kyrgyz emergency situations ministry.

Asankulov also warned of the risk of a landslide where natural disasters exacerbated by climate change are becoming more frequent.

He said a landslide triggered by either foul weather or the earthquake-prone country’s tremors could block up the river and “create a radioactive lake”.

If the water from such a lake were to burst out, it “would reach the Fergana Valley” — the most populated part of Central Asia where Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan meet.



– ‘Hair falling out’ –



Warnings from the authorities not to drink contaminated water from the river are ignored by some local inhabitants.

“We eat the livestock and we drink the milk of cows” that have drunk the water, said Perizat Berdaliyeva, a retired former accountant at the uranium mine.

Health risks from radiation were covered up in Soviet times but, unlike many other parts of the Communist bloc, atomic industry towns like Min-Kush had no food shortages.

“Everything was available,” Berdaliyeva remembered.

Scientific studies have found an abnormal prevalence of illnesses such as cancer and depleted immune systems among people living close to nuclear waste sites.

“My two daughters’ hair is falling out. They are often sick. My husband gets nose bleeds,” said Nazgul Zarylbek, 25.

Her house was recently pulled down by the authorities because it was contaminated with radiation. She received 5,000 euros ($5,300) in compensation and was re-housed in a different part of Min-Kush.

Located in a picturesque valley at an altitude of 2,000 metres (6,500 feet), Min-Kush could appear relatively normal were it not for an electronic display outside the mayor’s office showing the current radiation levels.

The town in central Kyrgyzstan wants to turn the page from its toxic past and local officials are even hoping that it could have tourism potential.

“The transfer of uranium waste to a safer area will allow Min-Kush to be taken off the red list for tourism,” deputy mayor Ernis said.

Nations approve new UN rules on carbon markets at COP29

By AFP

November 11, 2024

Carbon credits are generated by activities that reduce or avoid planet-heating greenhouse gas emissions, like planting trees or replacing polluting coal with clean-energy alternatives - Copyright AFP Tony KARUMBA

Governments at the COP29 talks approved Monday new UN standards for international carbon markets in a key step toward allowing countries to trade credits to meet their climate targets.

On the opening day of the UN climate talks in Azerbaijan, nearly 200 nations agreed a number of crucial ground rules for setting a market in motion after nearly a decade of complex discussions.

Other key aspects of the overall framework still need to be negotiated, experts said, but the decision brings closer a long-sought UN-backed market trading in high-quality credits.

“It’s hugely significant,” Erika Lennon, from the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), told AFP in Baku, saying it would “open the door” for a fully-fledged market.

Carbon credits are generated by activities that reduce or avoid planet-heating greenhouse gas emissions, like planting trees, protecting carbon sinks or replacing polluting coal with clean-energy alternatives.

One credit equals a tonne of prevented or removed heat-trapping carbon dioxide.

Since the Paris climate agreement in 2015, the UN has been crafting rules to allow countries and businesses to exchange credits in a transparent and credible market.

The benchmarks adopted in Baku will allow for the development of rules including calculating how many credits a given project can receive.

Once up and running, a carbon market would allow countries — mainly wealthy polluters — to offset emissions by purchasing credits from nations that have cut greenhouse gases above what they promised.

Purchasing countries could then put carbon credits toward achieving the climate goals promised in their national plans.

– ‘Big step closer’ –

“It gets the system a big step closer to actually existing in the real world,” said Gilles Dufrasne from Carbon Market Watch, a think tank.

“But even with this, it doesn’t mean the market actually exists,” he added, saying further safeguards and questions around governance still remain unanswered.

An earlier UN attempt to regulate carbon markets under the Paris accord were rejected in Dubai in 2023 by the European Union and developing nations for being too lax.

Some observers were unhappy that the decision in Baku left unresolved other long-standing and crucial aspects of the broader crediting mechanism, known in UN terms as Article 6.

“It’s not possible to declare victory,” said a European diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity.

There are hopes that a robust and credible UN carbon market could eventually indirectly raise the standards of the scandal-hit voluntary trade in credits.

Corporations wanting to offset their emissions and make claims of carbon neutrality have been major buyers of these credits, which are bought and exchanged but lack common standards.

But the voluntary market has been rocked by scandals in recent years amid accusations that some credits sold did not reduce emissions as promised, or that projects exploited local communities.

And the idea of offsetting as a whole faces deep scepticism from many.

“No matter how much integrity there is in the sort of the carbon markets, if what you are doing is offsetting ongoing fossil fuels with some sort of credit, you’re not actually reducing anything,” said Lennon.

Paris agreement climate goals ‘in great peril’, warns UN


By AFP
November 11, 2024

'Wake-up call': The last decade has been the hottest, deepening climate choas including floods in Valencia, Spain this month - Copyright AFP JOSE JORDAN

The Paris climate agreement’s goals “are in great peril” and 2024 is on track to break new temperature records, the United Nations warned Monday as COP29 talks opened in Baku.

The period from 2015 to 2024 will also be the warmest decade ever recorded, the UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said in a new report based on six international datasets.

WMO chief Celeste Saulo said she was sounding the “red alert”.

“It’s another SOS for the planet,” she told reporters in Baku.

The warming trend is accelerating the shrinking of glaciers and sea-level rise, and unleashing extreme weather that has wrought havoc on communities and economies around the world.

“The ambitions of the Paris Agreement are in great peril,” the WMO climate and weather agency said as global leaders gathered for high-stakes climate talks in Azerbaijan.

Under the Paris agreement, nearly every nation on Earth committed to work to limit warming to “well below” two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, and preferably to below 1.5C.

But the EU climate monitor Copernicus has already said that 2024 will exceed 1.5C.

This does not amount to an immediate breach of the Paris deal, which measures temperatures over decades, but it suggests the world is far off track on its goals.

The WMO, which relies on a broader dataset, also said 2024 would likely breach the 1.5C limit, and break the record set just last year.

– ‘New reality’ –

“Climate catastrophe is hammering health, widening inequalities, harming sustainable development, and rocking the foundations of peace. The vulnerable are hardest hit,” UN chief Antonio Guterres said in a statement.

Analysis by a team of international experts established by the WMO found that long-term global warming was currently likely to be around 1.3C, compared to the 1850-1900 baseline, the agency said.

“We need to act as soon as possible,” Saulo said, insisting that the world must “not give up on the 1.5 (ambition)”.

Monday’s report cautioned that greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere, which lock in future temperature increases even if emissions fall, hit new highs in 2023 and appeared to have climbed further this year.

Ocean heat is also likely to be comparable to the record highs seen last year, it added.

Saulo insisted that “every fraction of a degree of warming matters, and increases climate extremes, impacts and risks.

“Temperatures are only part of the picture. Climate change plays out before our eyes on an almost daily basis in the form of extreme weather,” she said.

Saulo pointed to how “this year’s record-breaking rainfall and flooding events and terrible loss of life… (had caused) heartbreak to communities on every continent.

“The incredible amount of rain in Spain was a wake-up call about how much more water a warmer atmosphere can hold,” she added.

She warned that the string of devastating extreme weather events across the world this year “are unfortunately our new reality”.

They are, she said, “a foretaste of our future”.

Climate crisis worsening already ‘hellish’ refugee situation: UN


By AFP

November 12, 2024


weather-related disasters have displaced some 220 million people inside their countries over the past decade alone - Copyright AFP/File Daniel Beloumou Olomo
Nina LARSON

Climate change is contributing to record numbers of people being uprooted from their homes globally, while worsening the often already “hellish” conditions of displacement, the United Nations said Tuesday.

With international climate talks under way in Baku, the UN refugee agency highlighted how soaring global temperatures and extreme weather events are impacting displacement numbers and conditions, as it called for more and better investment in mitigating the risks.

In a fresh report, UNHCR pointed to how climate shocks in places like Sudan, Somalia and Myanmar were interacting with conflict to push those already in danger into even more dire situations.

“Across our warming world, drought, floods, life-threatening heat and other extreme weather events are creating emergencies with alarming frequency,” UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi said in the foreword to the report.

“People forced to flee their homes are on the front lines of this crisis,” he said, pointing out that 75 percent of displaced people live in countries with high-to-extreme exposure to climate-related hazards.

“As the speed and scale of climate change increase, this figure will only continue to rise.”



– 120 million displaced –



A record 120 million people already live forcibly displaced by war, violence and persecution — most of them inside their own countries, UNHCR figures from June showed.

“Globally, the number of people that have been displaced by conflict has doubled over the last 10 years,” Andrew Harper, UNHCR’s special advisor on climate action, pointed out to AFP.

At the same time, UNHCR pointed to recent data from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre indicating that weather-related disasters have displaced some 220 million people inside their countries over the past decade alone — equivalent to approximately 60,000 displacements per day.

“We’re just seeing more and more and more people being displaced,” Harper said, lamenting a dire lack of the funds needed to support those who flee and the communities that host them.

“We are seeing across the board, a hellish situation become even tougher.”

Most refugee settlement areas, he pointed out, are found in lower-income countries, frequently “in the desert, in areas which are prone to flooding, in places without necessary infrastructure to deal with the increasing impacts of climate change”.

This is set to get worse. By 2040, the number of countries in the world facing extreme climate-related hazards is expected to rise from three to 65, UNHCR said, with the vast majority of them hosting displaced populations.



– Dangerous heat –



And by 2050, most refugee settlements and camps are projected to experience twice as many days of dangerous heat as they do today, the report cautioned.

That could not only be uncomfortable and a health hazard to the people living there, but could also lead to crop failures and livestock dying off, Harper warned.

“We’re seeing increasing loss of arable land in places exposed to climate extremes, like Niger, Burkina Faso, Sudan, Afghanistan, but at the same time we’ve got the massive increase in populations,” he said.

UNHCR is urging decision-makers gathered for the COP29 in Baku to ensure that far more of international climate financing reaches refugees and host communities most in need.

Currently, UNHCR pointed out, extremely fragile states receive only around $2 per person in annual adaptation funding, compared to $161 per person in non-fragile states.

Without more investment in building climate resilience and adaptation in such communities, more displacement towards countries less impacted by climate change will be inevitable, Harper said.

“If we don’t invest in peace, if we don’t invest in climate adaptation in these areas, then people will move,” he said.

“It’s illogical to expect them to do anything different.”

World leaders meet for climate talks, but big names missing

ByAFP
November 11, 2024

Joe Biden, Xi Jinping, Narendra Modi and Emmanuel Macron are among G20 leaders missing the event - Copyright AFP Alexander NEMENOV
Nick Perry

Dozens of world leaders convene in Azerbaijan on Tuesday for COP29 but many big names are skipping the UN climate talks where the impact of Donald Trump’s election victory is keenly felt.

More than 75 leaders are expected in Baku over two days but the heads of some of the most powerful and polluting economies are not attending this year’s summit.

Just a handful of leaders from the G20 — which accounts for nearly 80 percent of planet-heating greenhouse gas emissions — are expected in Baku, including UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

“This government believes that climate security is national security,” his Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said on X on Monday.

Joe Biden, Xi Jinping, Narendra Modi and Emmanuel Macron are among G20 leaders missing the event, where uncertainty over future US unity on climate action hung over the opening day.

Washington’s top climate envoy sought to reassure countries in Baku that Trump’s re-election would not end US efforts on global warming, even if it would be “on the back burner”.

UN climate chief Simon Stiell also appealed to solidarity, kicking talks off on Monday by urging countries to “show that global cooperation is not down for the count”.

But the opening day got off to a rocky start, with feuds over the official agenda delaying by hours the start of formal proceedings in the stadium venue near the Caspian Sea.

Later in the evening, governments approved new UN standards for a global carbon market in a key step toward allowing countries to trade credits to meet their climate targets.

COP29 president Mukhtar Babayev hailed a “breakthrough” after years of complex discussions, but more work is needed before a long-sought UN-backed market can be fully realised.



– Difficult negotiations –



The top priority at COP29 however is landing a hard-fought deal to boost funding for climate action in developing countries.

These nations — from low-lying islands to fractured states at war — are least responsible for climate change but most at risk from rising seas, extreme weather and economic shocks.

Some are pushing for the existing pledge of $100 billion a year to be raised ten-fold at COP29 to cover the future cost of their nations shifting to clean energy and adapting to climate shocks.

Babayev, a former oil executive, told negotiators that trillions may be needed, but a figure in the hundreds of billions was more “realistic”.

Nations have haggled over this for years, with disagreements over how much should be paid, and who should pay it, making meaningful progress next to impossible ahead of COP29.

“These will not be easy negotiations, perhaps the most challenging since Paris,” said Germany’s climate negotiator Jennifer Morgan.

Developing countries warn that without adequate finance, they will struggle to offer ambitious updates to their climate goals, which countries are required to submit by early next year.

The small group of developed countries that currently contributes the money wants the donor pool expanded to include other rich nations and top emitters, including China and the Gulf states, something firmly rejected by Beijing.

Stiell warned rich countries to “dispense with any idea that climate finance is charity”.

Around 50,000 people are attending summit in Azerbaijan, a petrostate wedged between Russia and Iran, including the leaders of many African, Asian and Latin American countries beset by climate disasters.

Hong Kong press union head sues WSJ for ‘unreasonable dismissal’


By AFP
November 12, 2024


Selina Cheng, head of the Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA), speaks to the media in Hong Kong on November 12, 2024 - Copyright AFP -

A former Wall Street Journal reporter began proceedings Tuesday to sue the newspaper for “unreasonable dismissal”, after she said she was fired for taking up a role heading a Hong Kong press union.

Selina Cheng reported on the Chinese electric vehicle industry for the newspaper before she was made redundant in July, weeks after she was elected chair of the Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA).

Cheng said when she was dismissed her supervisor told her the Journal’s employees “should not be seen as advocating for press freedom in a place like Hong Kong”.

“I think the Wall Street Journal has done irreparable damage to my own reputation and the Hong Kong Journalists Association’s reputation,” Cheng told reporters after filing a civil claim with the city’s Labour Department.

She said she resorted to legal action after the complaint she made within the company “never received a single update and response”, and after her request to be reinstated was rejected.

The newspaper’s actions showed “they had very little respect for employee rights here and Hong Kong’s laws”, she said.

The Wall Street Journal did not immediately reply to an AFP request to comment.

At the time of Cheng’s firing, a spokesperson for the outlet’s parent company Dow Jones confirmed that personnel changes had been made but declined to comment on Cheng’s case.

Hong Kong’s press freedom ranking has plummeted since Beijing cracked down on dissent after huge, sometimes violent democracy protests in 2019.

HKJA, a legally registered trade union, has been criticised by government officials such as the city’s security minister Chris Tang for inciting violence and hatred against the authorities during those protests.

Cheng told reporters she would also file a criminal report against the Journal under the city’s employment law, in addition to the civil claim already filed.

Under the former, an employer found guilty of terminating an employee’s contract because of their trade union membership could be fined up to HK$100,000 (US$12,856).