News round-up, Monday, January 16, 2023

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“Just as teachers will have to change how they give students exams and essay assignments in light of ChatGPT, governments will have to change how they relate to lobbyists.”

— NYT

“For what purpose do we exist, and why are we required? Is artificial intelligence already more advanced than us?”

— Germán & Co

How ChatGPT Hijacks Democracy

Jan. 15, 202

CreditCredit...By David Szakaly

By Nathan E. Sanders and Bruce Schneier

Mr. Sanders is a data scientist. Mr. Schneier is a security technologist.

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Launched just weeks ago, ChatGPT is already threatening to upend how we draft everyday communications like emails, college essays and myriad other forms of writing.

Created by the company OpenAI, ChatGPT is a chatbot that can automatically respond to written prompts in a manner that is sometimes eerily close to human.

But for all the consternation over the potential for humans to be replaced by machines in formats like poetry and sitcom scripts, a far greater threat looms: artificial intelligence replacing humans in the democratic processes — not through voting, but through lobbying.

ChatGPT could automatically compose comments submitted in regulatory processes. It could write letters to the editor for publication in local newspapers. It could comment on news articles, blog entries and social media posts millions of times every day. It could mimic the work that the Russian Internet Research Agency did in its attempt to influence our 2016 elections, but without the agency’s reported multimillion-dollar budget and hundreds of employees.

Automatically generated comments aren’t a new problem. For some time, we have struggled with bots, machines that automatically post content. Five years ago, at least a million automatically drafted comments were believed to have been submitted to the Federal Communications Commission regarding proposed regulations on net neutrality. In 2019, a Harvard undergraduate, as a test, used a text-generation program to submit 1,001 comments in response to a government request for public input on a Medicaid issue. Back then, submitting comments was just a game of overwhelming numbers.

Platforms have gotten better at removing “coordinated inauthentic behavior.” Facebook, for example, has been removing over a billion fake accounts a year. But such messages are just the beginning. Rather than flooding legislators’ inboxes with supportive emails, or dominating the Capitol switchboard with synthetic voice calls, an A.I. system with the sophistication of ChatGPT but trained on relevant data could selectively target key legislators and influencers to identify the weakest points in the policymaking system and ruthlessly exploit them through direct communication, public relations campaigns, horse trading or other points of leverage.

When we humans do these things, we call it lobbying. Successful agents in this sphere pair precision message writing with smart targeting strategies. Right now, the only thing stopping a ChatGPT-equipped lobbyist from executing something resembling a rhetorical drone warfare campaign is a lack of precision targeting. A.I. could provide techniques for that as well.

A system that can understand political networks, if paired with the textual-generation capabilities of ChatGPT, could identify the member of Congress with the most leverage over a particular policy area — say, corporate taxation or military spending. Like human lobbyists, such a system could target undecided representatives sitting on committees controlling the policy of interest and then focus resources on members of the majority party when a bill moves toward a floor vote.

Once individuals and strategies are identified, an A.I. chatbot like ChatGPT could craft written messages to be used in letters, comments — anywhere text is useful. Human lobbyists could also target those individuals directly. It’s the combination that’s important: Editorial and social media comments only get you so far, and knowing which legislators to target isn’t itself enough.

This ability to understand and target actors within a network would create a tool for A.I. hacking, exploiting vulnerabilities in social, economic and political systems with incredible speed and scope. Legislative systems would be a particular target, because the motive for attacking policymaking systems is so strong, because the data for training such systems is so widely available and because the use of A.I. may be so hard to detect — particularly if it is being used strategically to guide human actors.

The data necessary to train such strategic targeting systems will only grow with time. Open societies generally make their democratic processes a matter of public record, and most legislators are eager — at least, performatively so — to accept and respond to messages that appear to be from their constituents.

Maybe an A.I. system could uncover which members of Congress have significant sway over leadership but still have low enough public profiles that there is only modest competition for their attention. It could then pinpoint the SuperPAC or public interest group with the greatest impact on that legislator’s public positions. Perhaps it could even calibrate the size of donation needed to influence that organization or direct targeted online advertisements carrying a strategic message to its members. For each policy end, the right audience; and for each audience, the right message at the right time.

What makes the threat of A.I.-powered lobbyists greater than the threat already posed by the high-priced lobbying firms on K Street is their potential for acceleration. Human lobbyists rely on decades of experience to find strategic solutions to achieve a policy outcome. That expertise is limited, and therefore expensive.

A.I. could, theoretically, do the same thing much more quickly and cheaply. Speed out of the gate is a huge advantage in an ecosystem in which public opinion and media narratives can become entrenched quickly, as is being nimble enough to shift rapidly in response to chaotic world events.

Moreover, the flexibility of A.I. could help achieve influence across many policies and jurisdictions simultaneously. Imagine an A.I.-assisted lobbying firm that can attempt to place legislation in every single bill moving in the U.S. Congress, or even across all state legislatures. Lobbying firms tend to work within one state only, because there are such complex variations in law, procedure and political structure. With A.I. assistance in navigating these variations, it may become easier to exert power across political boundaries.

Just as teachers will have to change how they give students exams and essay assignments in light of ChatGPT, governments will have to change how they relate to lobbyists.

To be sure, there may also be benefits to this technology in the democracy space; the biggest one is accessibility. Not everyone can afford an experienced lobbyist, but a software interface to an A.I. system could be made available to anyone. If we’re lucky, maybe this kind of strategy-generating A.I. could revitalize the democratization of democracy by giving this kind of lobbying power to the powerless.

However, the biggest and most powerful institutions will likely use any A.I. lobbying techniques most successfully. After all, executing the best lobbying strategy still requires insiders — people who can walk the halls of the legislature — and money. Lobbying isn’t just about giving the right message to the right person at the right time; it’s also about giving money to the right person at the right time. And while an A.I. chatbot can identify who should be on the receiving end of those campaign contributions, humans will, for the foreseeable future, need to supply the cash. So while it’s impossible to predict what a future filled with A.I. lobbyists will look like, it will probably make the already influential and powerful even more so.

German anti-coal protesters accuse police of violence

Organizers said that 35,000 protesters demonstrated on Saturday. Police put the figure at 15,000.

Le Monde with AFP

Published on January 15, 2023

Climate activists on Sunday, January 15, accused police of "pure violence" after clashes during a demonstration at a German village being razed to make way for a coal mine expansion.

In an operation that began on Wednesday, hundreds of police have been removing activists from the doomed hamlet of Luetzerath in western Germany.

The site, which has become a symbol of resistance to fossil fuels, attracted thousands of protesters on Saturday, including Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg.

Protest organizers reported that dozens had been injured in clashes with police. Indigo Drau, a spokeswoman for the organizers, on Sunday told a press conference the police had gone in with "pure violence." Officers had "unrestrainedly" beaten protesters, often on the head, she said.

Activists on Saturday had accused the police of using "massive batons, pepper spray... water cannons, dogs and horses."

At least 20 activists had been taken to hospital for treatment, said Birte Schramm, a medic with the group. Some of them had been beaten on the head and in the stomach by police, she said. Organizers said that 35,000 protesters demonstrated on Saturday. Police put the figure at 15,000.

A police spokesperson said on Sunday around 70 officers had been injured since Wednesday, many of them in Saturday's clashes.

Criminal proceedings have been launched in around 150 cases, police said, including for resistance against police officers, damage to property and breach of the peace. The situation on the ground was "very calm" on Sunday, the police spokesperson said.

About a dozen activists were still holed up in tree houses and at least two were hiding in an underground tunnel, according to the police.

Luetzerath – deserted for some time by its former inhabitants – is being demolished to make way for the extension of the adjacent open-cast coal mine. The mine, already one of the largest in Europe, is operated by energy firm RWE.

The expansion is going ahead in spite of plans to phase out coal by 2030, with the government blaming the energy crisis caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Le Monde with AFP

Chile: Pardon granted to prisoners of 2019 revolt sparks political crisis

President Gabriel Boric pardoned 12 people convicted in connection with the violence that plagued the demonstrations. This measure was marred by 'errors' and led to the resignation of the Minister of Justice and the head of the cabinet.

By Flora Genoux (Buenos Aires (Argentina) correspondent)

Published on January 16, 2023

It was a campaign promise of President Gabriel Boric (left), who came to power in Chile in March 2022. But, in trying to fulfill it, the government is now facing a major political crisis. The resignation of Minister of Justice Marcela Rios was confirmed on Saturday, January 7, as well as that of the chief of staff Matias Meza-Lopehandia, a close friend of the president.

The resignations come after Mr. Boric's decision on Dec. 30, 2022, to grant presidential pardons to people who had been convicted in connection with the violence that marred the historic 2019 anti-inequality movement. The head of state had made it one of his priorities, motivated by the need to "heal the scars" of the protests, which were violently repressed by the police. According to figures from the Chilean gendarmerie, requested by the Senate and disclosed in January 2022, 211 people were convicted or in pre-trial detention for crimes related to the demonstrations.

But the choice of the individuals pardoned – twelve men in total – immediately sparked controversy. The release of Luis Castillo, 37, was particularly shocking. Beyond his participation in the demonstrations, this man is a repeat offender, convicted several times including for robbery with violence, all of which occurred well before the social revolt, according to revelations of the television channel T13.

On Saturday, January 7, Mr. Boric acknowledged "errors" and "flaws in the execution of [his] decision" without going into detail. The measure does not meet the criteria "set by the president (...) to exclude [from the pardon] people who had a complex criminal record prior to the revolt," admitted Camila Vallejo, government spokeswoman, on Monday, without specifying how many ex-detainees are affected by this error. Nevertheless, the pardon has no legal defect and "it is not possible to revoke it," she stressed.

About thirty deaths

The right was opposed in principle to the concept of pardoning those prosecuted in connection with the protests. "The priority is to be on the side of the victims, not the offenders," said Diego Schalper, deputy and secretary general of Renovacion Nacional (right), who condemned what he called a "huge mistake." The opposition left the "security table," a space for dialogue between the government and the opposition launched in November 2022 to establish strategies to combat insecurity, which according to opinion polls is the number one concern of Chileans.

The unpopular release of some of the social revolt prisoners has become an issue since the presidential campaign at the end of 2021 and even more so since Mr. Boric took office. The ruling left-wing coalition is following in the footsteps of the 2019 movement against inequality, which in particular raised demands for new social rights. Mr. Boric echoed these demands and the corresponding need to write a new constitution. Although the project formulated during a year was amply rejected in a referendum in September 2022, its drafting must now be relaunched.

However, while the social revolt was marred by the outbursts of violent individuals, it also involved the "excessive use of force" by the police, as condemned by the UN. In all, some 30 people lost their lives and over 400 sustained eye injuries. It is in this context that Amnesty International has denounced the "disproportionate use of pre-trial detention."

Initially, the government had set its sights on an amnesty law, which was to be debated in Parliament. But without a majority or political consensus, the project floundered, finally leading to this pardon, which depends only on the will of the president. According to the Cadem institute, 64 percent of those polled were opposed to it.

'Tactical and timing error'

The release of the detainees "was used by the right to undermine the government and get its [candidate for the post of] national prosecutor," according to human rights lawyer Karinna Fernandez. The January 9 appointment of the new head of the prosecutor's office, an autonomous body responsible for conducting investigations, was the subject of arduous negotiations, while the position remained vacant for 100 days. Ms. Fernandez herself was a candidate before withdrawing from the race in November 2022. The head of the prosecutor's office "is an authority that will have an influence on the cases of police violence of the social revolt, he has, for example, the possibility of not following up on the investigations," explained the lawyer.

According to Marco Moreno, a political scientist at the Central University of Chile, the government made "a tactical and timing error. It has governed for its political tribe [the leftmost wing of the coalition] and deprived itself of a start to the year with good news about the work of the security table." As the government approaches its first year in office, "it lacks clarity and direction," argued Mr. Moreno.

When he took office on Wednesday, January 11, the new Minister of Justice, Luis Cordero, said that "since their application in the 1990s until today, grounds [for pardons] have been a source of conflict." The controversy has further undermined the president's image, which had benefited from a very relative improvement at the end of the year. According to the Cadem institute, 70% of those polled disapproved of Mr. Boric's leadership at the beginning of January, representing a peak of negative opinion.

Flora Genoux(Buenos Aires (Argentina) correspondent)

US says Venezuela President Maduro is still illegitimate

The US said Tuesday it would maintain sanctions after the fledgling opposition dissolved its 'interim government.' Joined by most Western and Latin American nations, Washington recognized Juan Guaido as interim president four years ago.

Le Monde with AFP

Published on January 4, 2023

The United States said Tuesday, January 3, it still did not consider Nicolas Maduro to be the legitimate president of Venezuela and would maintain sanctions after the fledgling opposition dissolved its "interim government."

President Joe Biden's administration said that Venezuelan government assets in the United States, notably of the state oil company, would remain legally under the authority of the opposition-led National Assembly, which was elected in 2015 but has been disempowered by Mr. Maduro's leftist government.

"Our approach to Nicolas Maduro is not changing. He is not the legitimate leader of Venezuela," State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters. "We continue to recognize what is the only remaining democratically elected institution in Venezuela today, and that's the 2015 National Assembly," Mr. Price said. Mr. Price said that existing sanctions "remain in place" and that the United States was in touch with the National Assembly on whether a new individual, group or committee would oversee government assets.

More than seven million Venezuelans have fled

The United States, under former president Donald Trump, set a goal of toppling Mr. Maduro in 2019 following elections widely seen as fraudulent and as an economic crisis wreaked havoc with shortages of basic necessities. More than seven million Venezuelans have fled their country, most to neighboring countries but with a growing number making the dangerous trek to the United States.

Joined by most Western and Latin American nations at the time, the United States four years ago recognized the National Assembly's Juan Guaido as interim president. Mr. Maduro has remained in power with backing from some segments of the population as well as the military, Russia, China and Cuba. The National Assembly – now largely a symbolic force in Caracas – on Friday voted to dissolve Mr. Guaido's "interim government."

In an interview broadcast Sunday on state television, Mr. Maduro proposed top-level talks with the Biden administration. "Venezuela is ready, totally ready, to take steps towards a process of normalization of diplomatic, consular and political relations with the current administration of the United States and with administrations to come," Maduro said.

'An exercise in political realism'

Despite not recognizing his legitimacy, the Biden administration sent a delegation that met Mr. Maduro in March and in November it gave the green light for US oil giant Chevron to resume operations in Venezuela following a spike in crude prices due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The Chevron move came after the Maduro government and opposition reached an agreement in talks in Mexico to let the United Nations administer government funds for a variety of social spending in the country.

In Caracas, National Assembly member Tomas Guanipa, whose opposition party Primero Justicia pushed to end the interim government, told reporters that last week's decision was "an exercise in political realism." "Whether Maduro is illegitimate is not up for discussion; what cannot exist is an alternative government that doesn't exercise its functions and that had been set up to achieve change quickly," said Mr. Guanipa, who served as the interim government's ambassador to Colombia.

Political support for Mr. Guaido had eroded further outside the United States, where fervent anti-communists of Cuban and Venezuelan descent are a potent political force, although generally tilting toward Mr. Trump's Republican Party.

The sharpest shift has been in Colombia, long a vociferous opponent of Mr. Maduro, where President Gustavo Petro has pursued reconciliation since he was elected last year as Colombia's first-ever leftist leader.

The European Union, while not dropping support for Mr. Guaido, since mid-2021 stopped referring to him as interim president after Mr. Maduro pushed aside the National Assembly. A French foreign ministry spokeswoman, asked Tuesday about the end of the interim government, said France "supports the democratic forces of Venezuela who will organize themselves as they so wish."

Le Monde with AFP

Whisper it, but Europe is winning the energy war with Putin

Mild weather, lower consumption and supplies from elsewhere have helped Europe take an advantage.

BY CHARLIE COOPER

JANUARY 13, 2023

Halfway through the first winter of Europe’s energy war with Russia, only one side is winning.

When Vladimir Putin warned in September that Europeans would “freeze” if the West stuck to its energy sanctions against Russia, Moscow’s fossil fuel blackmail appeared to be going exactly to plan.

European wholesale gas prices were north of €200 per megawatt hour, around 10 times higher than they had been for most of 2021. Plans were drawn up to cut gas demand and ensure supplies could move across borders to countries with the worst shortages. Regular rolling blackouts in the EU were a very real prospect.

Putin’s strategy — to make life miserable for the European public by shutting off their gas, forcing them to drop their support for Ukraine — looked a potent one.By Joshua Posaner

Boosting supplies

At great expense, European countries hoovered up global supplies of LNG in mid to late 2022, increasing imports from 83 billion cubic meters (bcm) in 2021 to 141 bcm in 2022, according to the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. That offset about three-quarters of the 80 bcm that Europe was no longer receiving from Russia’s pipelines. New LNG import infrastructure is springing up across Europe, including in Germany where six floating terminals will be operational by the end of this year.

Much of the LNG already imported — the bulk of it shipped from the U.S. — is now sitting in Europe’s network of underground storage facilities. Mild weather, combined with steep falls in gas consumption driven by higher prices, mean that those storages are still 82 percent full. That's roughly where they were when Putin made his “freeze” threat four months ago.

On January 1, European stocks were around 31 bcm higher than they had been a year earlier, according to Jack Sharples of the Oxford Institute. “That’s put us in a very good position to start the year.”

Moscow, meanwhile, is starting to feel the effects of the West’s energy countermeasures.

One analysis from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air estimated that the EU’s ban on Russian crude oil imports and the G7’s $60 per barrel price cap are together costing Russia €160 million a day.

Despite sanctions and supply cuts, Moscow made €155 billion from oil and gas exports in 2022 — 30 percent higher than the previous year. But with global oil and gas prices falling, in 2023 the Kremlin’s own estimates say that those revenues will be down 23 percent — a figure some experts think is optimistic.

So has Europe already won the energy war?

“The word ‘won’ is too bold. It’s still early winter and there are lots of things that could still go wrong,” said Dieter Helm, professor of economic policy at New College, Oxford and a former energy adviser to the European Commission. “But Europe has done vastly better than most of the commentators expected.”

“For now, things look good,” an EU diplomat agreed. “The Russians only had one weapon in the energy war: gas. It’s a strong weapon, with strong short-term impact. But they’ve used it already." The diplomat said that the EU's "arsenal" was more diverse, including: boosting renewables, getting supplies from elsewhere and taking steps to use less energy. "But we can’t afford to be complacent.”

That is a message echoed across EU capitals.

“It’s Europe 1, Russia 0,” said one EU energy minister — but the contest is far from over. For months now, European leaders have warned that next winter could be more dangerous than this one, with a tight global LNG market and the possibility of a resurgent China, reopening after COVID lockdowns, competing for a limited supply.

Paying a price

Europe’s strong position in January has also come with a cost.

Industrial output has held up reasonably well but energy-intensive sectors are taking a particularly hard hit, with production down by almost 13 percent year-on-year in November, according to ING.

Governments are also on the hook for vast energy bill support payments to consumers and businesses — totaling €705 billion across Europe according to the Bruegel think tank. Such huge sums will weigh on national budgets for years to come.

But on perhaps the key measure — public and political support for Ukraine — Russia has certainly failed in its attempt to break European resolve. Eurobarometer polling conducted in October and November and released this week shows that 73 percent of EU citizens backed the bloc’s support for Kyiv and sanctions against Russia.

There a few signs that views have changed over the course of the winter. Germany’s far right has spear-headed protests against sanctions and Hungary’s government has frequently pushed back against the EU’s stance on Ukraine — but so far such sentiments have remained a minority pursuit in Europe.  

“This is political as well as economic and I think Europeans have shown a remarkable degree of solidarity,” said Helm. “This is a European project, it needs European strategies, and the strength of the European Union has been on great display.”

News round-up, Friday, January 13, 2023

“Exxon scientists predicted there would be global heating of about 0.2C a decade due to the emissions of planet-heating gases from the burning of oil, coal and other fossil fuels. The new analysis, published in Science, finds that Exxon’s science was highly adept and the “projections were also consistent with, and at least as skillful as, those of independent academic and government models”.”

— The Guardian

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Partnering with Hawai'i for 30 years.

AES is committed to supporting the state to accelerate and responsibly transition toward a carbon-free energy future with a vast pipeline of renewable projects across the islands, totaling over 300 MW of solar and wind resources in operation or development. Working together with the State of Hawai‘i and local utilities, we are co-creating solutions that support its renewable generation goals as well as efforts to stabilize rates and increase system reliability. Our operating projects are available to provide critical power when it’s needed most, and our renewable energy projects under development will contribute toward the state’s goal of 100% renewable energy.

Reforestation day…

Since July 2015, Seaboard has been sponsoring a permanent brigade to contribute to the sustained work of recovering the forested area in the Upper Ozama River Basin.

Altice delivers innovative, customer-centric products and solutions that connect and unlock the limitless potential of its over 30 million customers over fiber networks and mobile…

Cooperate with ethical thinking -

US Republicans determined to track down Hunter Biden scandal

An investigation is already targeting the son of US President Joe Biden in a tax evasion case, but it is his business activities in Ukraine and China that fuel most of the theories around him.

By Piotr Smolar (Washington (United States) correspondent)

Published on January 13, 2023

Le Monde

US Congressman Jim Jordan shows an email from Hunter Biden during a press conference on the Biden family business investigation on Capitol Hill in Washington DC, November 17, 2022. EVELYN HOCKSTEIN / REUTERS

Hunter Biden, 52, had his first drink when he was 8 at an election night party celebrating his father. He had lost his mother and sister in a car accident when he was 2, then witnessed his older brother, Beau, die of cancer at age 46. His first marriage fell apart and he struggled then with drug and alcohol addictions.

But beyond his personal misfortunes, Mr. Biden represents a vulnerability for his father, the incumbent President of the United States. The Republicans, who won a narrow majority in the House of Representatives after the midterms elections last November, decided to attack Mr. Biden through his son over his questionable financial activities.

The White House has already stated that it does not intend to cooperate with a future House committee focused on Hunter Biden whereas it has said it would do so in other proposed topics of investigation such as the military withdrawal from Afghanistan or immigration at the Mexican border.

The president wants his son to keep a low profile so that his opponents have no leg to stand on and to reinforce the idea that he is being persecuted. But whether the strategy holds in the longer term is another question.

"This is an investigation into US President Joe Biden and why he lied to the American people about his knowledge of and involvement in his family's business schemes," James Comer, a Republican congressman from Kentucky, told journalists in November to justify the launch of the battle against the Biden family.

Democrats for their part point out the Grand Old Party's lack of interest in another matter that heightens suspicions of conflict of interest on a completely different scale. The matter covers a $2 billion investment by a Saudi fund in a new company, Affinity Partners, created by Jared Kushner, son-in-law and former adviser to Donald Trump, six months after he left the White House. Mr. Kushner had developed a close relationship with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Business activities in Ukraine and China

President Biden's son is already under investigation. Media reported that FBI and IRS agents have gathered strong evidence of tax evasion and a lie about purchasing a handgun in 2018 when Hunter Biden failed to mention his drug use. It was up to the Delaware attorney general to issue a possible indictment.

But the Republicans have a different idea. They claim to be exposing a mafia-type "family". Their conclusions are written down already even though there is no evidence that the president has taken part in any wrongdoing or questionable actions.

This is why Hunter Biden would have been better off never spilling liquid on his computer. In April 2019, he visited a repair store in Wilmington, Delaware, to save his personal files and data but he seemed to forget about going to collect the machine. This was when the drama started before becoming the greatest obsession of the MAGA – Make America Great Again – supporters.

The MacBook, which is now in the hands of the FBI, contained nearly 129,000 emails and a large number of instant messages, as well as photos and videos, mixing mundane, sordid and professional content. Bank documents, hotel bills, family chats and videos of Hunter Biden's parties with crack and prostitutes. The most controversial content, however, was about his business activities in Ukraine and China.

'Poor judgment'

The Washington Post wrote in March last year that Hunter Biden and his uncle James had received $4.8 million in 14 months in 2017 from the Chinese energy group CEFC. The newspaper reported that there was no evidence that Joe Biden was involved or personally benefited from this, although the financial relationship seemed questionable at a time when the US and China were already engaged in a systemic confrontation.

That said, an elected official's son using his name for personal gain is nothing new in Washington DC, the world's lobbying capital.

But another matter triggered the biggest suspicions: The presence of Hunter Biden on the board of directors of a Ukrainian gas company, Burisma, between 2014 and 2019, while his father served as vice president for former US president Barack Obama (2008-2016).

At the time, Joe Biden was responsible for monitoring Ukraine now torn apart by war. In an interview with ABC in late 2019, Hunter Biden denied any wrongdoing but he admitted: "In retrospect, look, I think that it was poor judgment on my part," he said, adding the Ukrainian gas sector was a "swamp."

In July 2019, Mr. Trump exerted pressure on Ukraine's then new President, Volodymyr Zelensky, to "look closely" at the role of Joe Biden and his son after Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, who was investigating Burisma, was dismissed. In reality, Mr. Shokin was considered by Washington as an opponent of judicial reform in Ukraine. The first impeachment proceedings against Mr. Trump were launched following this intervention in early 2020.

Multiple conspiracy theories

In mid-October 2020, the New York Post, a pro-Trump publication at the time, ran a front-page story on the president's son's emails. The article revealed an email sent to Hunter Biden by Vadym Pozharskyi, a senior executive at Burisma, thanking him for his invitation to Washington and the opportunity to meet his father.

The newspaper reported that, as a member of the company's board, Hunter Biden was then earning $50,000 a month. In April 2015, Joe Biden's campaign team investigated the matter and determined that no such meeting with Mr. Pozharskyi had ever taken place.

With three weeks to go before the presidential election, it was an important moment for the Democrats, even though the confusing details of the scandal were difficult to understand. A few days after the report by the New York Post, about 50 veterans from the security and intelligence services signed an open letter to denounce a possible manipulation coming from Russia.

This was not beyond the realm of reality due to prior Russian involvement, such as the cyberattack against French President Emmanuel Macron's campaign team in 2017 or the attack on the Democratic National Committee in 2016.

Those who signed the letter acknowledged later that they did not know whether the emails were authentic and could not substantiate the rumor of Russian involvement. But they said they were "highly suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role."

Since then, the Hunter Biden controversy has grown out of control. It seems unlikely that any hard truths will emerge given so many fantasies and conspiracy theories have piled up. The responsibilities are shared. The mainstream media was accused of hiding the truth and protecting Joe Biden while tech giants like Facebook and Twitter were believed to censor conservatives' posts.

Elon Musk recently revealed how Twitter was moderated behind the scenes. In doing so, Republicans were quick to denounce conspiracy and expose federal pressure on these companies. US Republican congressman James Comer said he intended to devote first hearings to this issue from early next month.

By trying to prevent the release of information from Hunter Biden's computer at the end of the 2020 presidential campaign for fear of externally orchestrated manipulation, these private companies – who are free to do as they please, but find themselves caught in the act of hypocrisy – have fueled the idea that there was some sort of coalition of elites working against the people to hide the truth.

The reality is more nuanced than that. Fox News political commentator Tucker Carlson – who promoted the racist "Great Replacement" theory of white Americans – released an accusatory documentary called Biden, Inc.

While promoting the film on Fox News, he explained that he became very close with Hunter Biden when he was living in Washington and had asked him for a letter of recommendation for his son Buckley's application to the prestigious Georgetown University in Washington.

Piotr Smolar(Washington (United States) correspondent)

Russia-Ukraine WarRussia Says It Has Taken Soledar as Kyiv Denies the Claim

A Russian victory in Soledar would be a symbolic win but have limited strategic value, analysts say.

Ivan Nechepurenko contributed reporting.

NYT, today news

A Ukrainian soldier pointing toward smoke near Soledar, in the eastern Donetsk region, on Wednesday.Credit...Libkos/Associated Press

The Russian Defense Ministry said on Friday that its troops had captured the eastern salt-mining town of Soledar, a claim quickly rejected by Ukraine’s military, which said that its soldiers were hanging on.

After a string of setbacks for Russia, capturing Soledar would represent the biggest success for Moscow’s forces in Ukraine in months, though military analysts have cautioned that the small town is of limited strategic value.

The Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement on Friday that its troops had “completed” their capture of the town overnight.

But Serhiy Cherevaty, a spokesman for Ukrainian troops fighting in the east, denied that Soledar had been captured.

“This is not true,” Mr. Cherevaty said in remarks to Ukrainian news outlets on Friday afternoon. “The fighting is ongoing.”

Earlier on Friday, Ukraine’s deputy defense minister, Hanna Maliar, said that Kyiv’s troops were still “bravely trying to hold the defense” of the town under a “high intensity” Russian offensive.

Over the last several days there have been conflicting reports about who controls Soledar, while losses mount on both sides. This week, the head of the Wagner mercenary group fighting in Ukraine claimed that his fighters had seized control of the town. Ukraine denied the reports, and the Kremlin walked back the assertion at the time.

Weeks of intense fighting have devastated Soledar, which has taken on outsize attention despite its small size and limited strategic value, as Russia sought a win after months of setbacks.

The town lies near Bakhmut, the focal point of the Kremlin’s quest to take control of the entire eastern Donbas region. The battle for Soledar, where hundreds of civilians are trapped in a town that has largely been reduced to rubble, has put into sharp relief Moscow’s costly and grinding offensive in eastern Ukraine.

Taking Soledar would give Moscow’s forces new locations to place artillery and put pressure on Ukrainian supply lines that run toward Bakhmut. But military analysts say that even if Soledar were to fall, it would not necessarily mean that Bakhmut — or the whole of the Donbas — is next.

The Russian claim came after the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank, said in an analysis on Thursday that geolocated footage indicated that Moscow’s forces “likely control most if not all of Soledar.” It called the capture “at best a Russian Pyrrhic tactical victory” after Moscow had committed significant resources, adding that the battle will have contributed to “Russian forces’ degraded combat power and cumulative exhaustion.”

“All available evidence indicates Ukrainian forces no longer maintain an organized defense in Soledar,” the institute said, adding that the fall of the town “is not an operationally significant development and is unlikely to presage an imminent Russian encirclement of Bakhmut.”

The White House’s national security spokesman, John Kirby, echoed those sentiments on Thursday when asked about the status of Soledar, cautioning that it was important to “keep this in perspective.”

“We don’t know how it’s going to go, so I’m not going to predict failure or success here,” he told reporters. “But even if both Bakhmut and Soledar fall to the Russians, it’s not going to make a — it’s not going to have a strategic impact on the war itself.”

He added: “If you look at what’s been happening over the last 10 and a half months, particularly in the Donbas, towns and villages have swapped hands quite frequently.” 

About 559 civilians — including 15 children — are trapped in the town as the brutal battle unfolds, Pavlo Kyrylenko, the head of the local Ukrainian military administration, said on Ukrainian state television on Thursday.

Revealed: Exxon made ‘breathtakingly’ accurate climate predictions in 1970s and 80s

Oil company drove some of the leading science of the era only to publicly dismiss global heating

Oliver Milman in New York

Thu 12 Jan 2023

The Guardian

The oil giant Exxon privately “predicted global warming correctly and skilfully” only to then spend decades publicly rubbishing such science in order to protect its core business, new research has found.

A trove of internal documents and research papers has previously established that Exxon knew of the dangers of global heating from at least the 1970s, with other oil industry bodies knowing of the risk even earlier, from around the 1950s. They forcefully and successfully mobilized against the science to stymie any action to reduce fossil fuel use.

A new study, however, has made clear that Exxon’s scientists were uncannily accurate in their projections from the 1970s onwards, predicting an upward curve of global temperatures and carbon dioxide emissions that is close to matching what actually occurred as the world heated up at a pace not seen in millions of years.

Exxon scientists predicted there would be global heating of about 0.2C a decade due to the emissions of planet-heating gases from the burning of oil, coal and other fossil fuels. The new analysis, published in Science, finds that Exxon’s science was highly adept and the “projections were also consistent with, and at least as skillful as, those of independent academic and government models”.

Exxon knew of climate change in 1981, email says – but it funded deniers for 27 more years

Geoffrey Supran, whose previous research of historical industry documents helped shed light on what Exxon and other oil firms knew, said it was “breathtaking” to see Exxon’s projections line up so closely with what subsequently happened.

“This really does sum up what Exxon knew, years before many of us were born,” said Supran, who led the analysis conducted by researchers from Harvard University and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. “We now have the smoking gun showing that they accurately predicted warming years before they started attacking the science. These graphs confirm the complicity of what Exxon knew and how they misled.”

The research analyzed more than 100 internal documents and peer-reviewed scientific publications either produced in-house by Exxon scientists and managers, or co-authored by Exxon scientists in independent publications between 1977 and 2014.

Photograph: Supran, et al., 2023, “Assessing ExxonMobil’s global warming projections”

The analysis found that Exxon correctly rejected the idea the world was headed for an imminent ice age, which was a possibility mooted in the 1970s, instead predicting that the planet was facing a “carbon dioxide induced ‘super-interglacial’”. Company scientists also found that global heating was human-influenced and would be detected around the year 2000, and they predicted the “carbon budget” for holding the warming below 2C above pre-industrial times.

Armed with this knowledge, Exxon embarked upon a lengthy campaign to downplay or discredit what its own scientists had confirmed. As recently as 2013, Rex Tillerson, then chief executive of the oil company, said that the climate models were “not competent” and that “there are uncertainties” over the impact of burning fossil fuels.

“What they did was essentially remain silent while doing this work and only when it became strategically necessary to manage the existential threat to their business did they stand up and speak out against the science,” said Supran.

“They could have endorsed their science rather than deny it. It would have been a much harder case to deny it if the king of big oil was actually backing the science rather than attacking it.”

Climate scientists said the new study highlighted an important chapter in the struggle to address the climate crisis. “It is very unfortunate that the company not only did not heed the implied risks from this information, but rather chose to endorse non-scientific ideas instead to delay action, likely in an effort to make more money,” said Natalie Mahowald, a climate scientist at Cornell University.

Mahowald said the delays in action aided by Exxon had “profound implications” because earlier investments in wind and solar could have averted current and future climate disasters. “If we include impacts from air pollution and climate change, their actions likely impacted thousands to millions of people adversely,” she added.

Drew Shindell, a climate scientist at Duke University, said the new study was a “detailed, robust analysis” and that Exxon’s misleading public comments about the climate crisis were “especially brazen” given their scientists’ involvement in work with outside researchers in assessing global heating. Shindell said it was hard to conclude that Exxon’s scientists were any better at this than outside scientists, however.

The new work provided “further amplification” of Exxon’s misinformation, said Robert Brulle, an environment policy expert at Brown University who has researched climate disinformation spread by the fossil fuel industry.

“I’m sure that the ongoing efforts to hold Exxon accountable will take note of this study,” Brulle said, a reference to the various lawsuits aimed at getting oil companies to pay for climate damages.

A spokesperson for Exxon said: “This issue has come up several times in recent years and, in each case, our answer is the same: those who talk about how “Exxon Knew” are wrong in their conclusions. In 2019, Judge Barry Ostrager of the NY State Supreme Court listened to all the facts in a related case before him and wrote: “What the evidence at trial revealed is that ExxonMobil executives and employees were uniformly committed to rigorously discharging their duties in the most comprehensive and meticulous manner possible….The testimony of these witnesses demonstrated that ExxonMobil has a culture of disciplined analysis, planning, accounting, and reporting.”

News round-up, Thursday, January 12, 2023

“Young people have an important role to play in the green transition, according to European Commission’s Director-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion Joost Korte: “It is not a coincidence that we move from the European Year of Youth to the Year of Skills. The skills of the future generations and in future sectors are essential to anything we want to do to successfully”

— EU

---

In 2022, we were unstoppable in accelerating the future of energy.

Let's reflect on our some of our best moments:

1. We announced our intent to exit coal by the end of 2025 and increased our ownership of AES Andes from 67% to 98%.

2. Fast Company ranked AES in the top ten of its “Best 100 Workplaces for Innovators” list.

3. We helped restore power to the people of Puerto Rico following Hurricane Fiona. Like Hawaii, we are also helping Puerto Rico in its energy transition by deploying solar plus storage on the island.

4. We released our IRP for AES Indiana, which serves as a roadmap for the company’s power generation goals. It included renewables, storage, and converting coal facilities to cleaner energy .

5. Together with Air Products, we announced a $4 billion mega-scale green hydrogen production facility in the United States, the largest green hydrogen project in the nation.

Reforestation day…

Since July 2015, Seaboard has been sponsoring a permanent brigade to contribute to the sustained work of recovering the forested area in the Upper Ozama River Basin.

Altice delivers innovative, customer-centric products and solutions that connect and unlock the limitless potential of its over 30 million customers over fiber networks and mobile…

Cooperate with ethical thinking -

Here Are All the Ways Republicans Plan to Investigate Biden

House Republicans are preparing a cascade of investigations, some overlapping, into the Biden administration and its policies. Right-wing lawmakers have said the ultimate goal is to impeach the president.

By Luke Broadwater

NYT

Jan. 11, 2023

WASHINGTON — With Washington in a state of divided government, newly empowered House Republicans are all but certain to be unable to enact their legislative agenda into law. Instead, they have made it clear that their primary mission in the 118th Congress will be investigating the Biden administration, including inquiries they say could lead to the potential impeachment of President Biden and several cabinet members.

Preparing to use their new subpoena power, Republicans have already created three special investigative committees or subcommittees, but they expect to carry out many more inquires under existing committees they now control. Some of the investigations may involve multiple panels, and top Republicans are jockeying for the biggest and most prominent pieces.

While Speaker Kevin McCarthy said last year that he had not yet seen grounds for impeaching Mr. Biden, Republicans have already introduced a host of impeachment articles against the president and members of his cabinet, and some influential members on the right have said they relish the prospect of trying him for high crimes and misdemeanors.

Here is a road map of the investigations:

The ‘Weaponization’ of Government

What committee is involved: A special subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee, led by Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio.

Substantive policy questions: This remains to be seen. The text of the resolution establishing the subcommittee gives the panel essentially open-ended jurisdiction to scrutinize any issue related to civil liberties or to examine how any agency of the federal government has collected, analyzed and used information about Americans — including “ongoing criminal investigations.” It also gives the subcommittee the authority to obtain classified information typically only provided to the Intelligence Committee, including some of the government’s most protected secrets.

Political agenda: During the 2022 campaign, Republicans promised to use their new power in Congress to scrutinize what they said was a concerted effort by the government to silence and punish conservatives at all levels, from protesters at school board meetings to former President Donald J. Trump. The panel could become a venue for targeting federal workers accused of carrying out a partisan agenda. It could also re-litigate revelations about Mr. Trump’s conduct, including the facts surrounding his effort to overturn the 2020 election or his removal of classified material from the White House, and failure to return it.

Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, called the new panel the “Select Committee on Insurrection Protection.”

Biden Family Businesses

What committees are involved: The Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which is led by Representative James R. Comer, Republican of Kentucky, and potentially the new Judiciary subcommittee.

Substantive policy questions: The Oversight Committee says the purpose of its inquiry is to inform legislation to strengthen federal ethics laws and to ensure that financial institutions have the proper internal controls and compliance programs to alert federal agencies of potential money-laundering activity.

Political agenda: Mr. Comer has pledged for months to investigate Mr. Biden’s family and its business connections. His staff has already obtained the contents of a laptop owned by Hunter Biden, the president’s son, whose business activities are under federal investigation. Mr. Comer and Mr. Jordan held a news conference on Capitol Hill detailing their plans to take the inquiry’s focus beyond the younger Mr. Biden. “This is an investigation of Joe Biden,” Mr. Comer has said.

Origins of the Covid Pandemic

What committees are involved: A special subcommittee of the Oversight Committee, and the Energy and Commerce Committee, led by Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Republican of Washington.

Substantive policy questions: Lawmakers say they want to explore whether the U.S. government should be funding so-called gain-of-function research, a narrow sliver of scientific inquiry that can involve tinkering with viruses in a way that could make them more dangerous. Such research is at the heart of Republican assertions that the pandemic may have been caused by a laboratory leak — a suggestion disputed by scientists whose research shows the outbreak most likely originated at a live animal market in Wuhan, China.

Political agenda: Republicans including Mr. Comer and Mr. Jordan have asserted, without evidence, that Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, Mr. Biden’s former medical adviser, covered up a lab leak that they allege may have caused the pandemic. They have said repeatedly that they will investigate Dr. Fauci, who is a political target for Republicans seeking to woo Trump voters. Dr. Fauci has said he has a “completely open mind” about whether the outbreak originated in a lab, but that the preponderance of evidence shows it was a natural occurrence.

How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.

China Competitiveness

What committee is involved: A new select committee focused on the strategic competition between the United States and the Chinese government, led by Representative Mike Gallagher, Republican of Wisconsin.

Substantive policy questions: The committee’s purpose is to investigate the Chinese government’s “economic, technological and security progress, and its competition with the United States.” It will examine many topics, including the economic dependence of the United States on Chinese supply chains, the nation’s security assistance to Taiwan and lobbying efforts by the Chinese government to influence local and state government, as well as academic institutions. The panel will then make recommendations for how the United States can avoid being overtaken by China in those areas.

Political agenda: This committee received bipartisan support and is unlikely to become as politically charged as other Republican-led investigations. Still, some Democrats worried that an intense focus on China could lead to xenophobic rhetoric intensifying anti-Asian sentiment in the United States.

The Withdrawal From Afghanistan

What committees are involved: The Foreign Affairs Committee, led by Representative Michael McCaul, Republican of Texas; the Armed Services Committee, led by Representative Mike D. Rogers, Republican of Alabama; and the Oversight Committee.

Substantive policy questions: Republicans on Mr. McCaul’s committee have already released an interim report titled “A Strategic Failure: Assessing the Administration’s Afghanistan Withdrawal,” and he plans to continue the investigation, now with subpoena power. It is expected to focus on planning in the run-up to the evacuation, botched efforts to extract Afghan interpreters and contractors who aided the U.S. government, and the consequences of the withdrawal.

Political agenda: Seen as among the House Republicans’ most serious investigations, the inquiry can also be used to undermine faith in the Biden administration’s competency.

Border Enforcement

What committees are involved: The Homeland Security Committee, led by Representative Mark E. Green, Republican of Tennessee; the Judiciary Committee; and the Oversight Committee.

Substantive policy questions: Investigating the Biden administration’s approach to the border will be a large focus of Republicans’ efforts for the next two years, but it is yet to be determined what policy recommendations they will make. With Congress in a state of divided power, any immigration legislation is unlikely to pass.

Political agenda: The investigations are aimed at countering the record-breaking surges of migration at the southern border that have strained resources as the Biden administration scrambles to address what members of both parties call a crisis.

At the same time, Republicans have sought to use Mr. Biden’s border policies as a political weapon against him and Democrats, blaming them for crime and capitalizing on fears among some in their hard-right base that immigrants of color will dilute their voting power. They have called for the impeachment of the homeland security secretary, Alejandro N. Mayorkas. Mr. McCarthy has said that Mr. Jordan and Mr. Comer would lead an investigation into Mr. Mayorkas to “determine whether to begin an impeachment inquiry.”

Treatment of Jan. 6 Defendants

What committees are involved: Unclear. Most likely the Oversight Committee or the Judiciary Committee and its new subcommittee.

Substantive policy questions: In a closed-door meeting in November, right-wing lawmakers including Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia extracted a promise that their leaders would investigate Nancy Pelosi, the former speaker, and the Justice Department for the treatment of defendants jailed in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Ms. Greene has released a report on conditions at the D.C. jail, and local officials have acknowledged there are longstanding issues at the facility.

Political agenda: The topic has been a focus for hard-right Republicans in Congress, who have tried to downplay or distort what happened during the deadly assault, saying that the real victims are the ordinary people who entered the Capitol and, they say, are being persecuted for their political beliefs. Many of them want retribution for Democrats’ extensive investigation into the riot, which laid out in a series of public hearings and a voluminous report the extent of Mr. Trump’s plot to cling to power after he lost the 2020 election, with help from allies inside and outside Congress.

But some Republicans would prefer not to focus on the topic, which would inevitably involve rehashing what happened during the assault and their roles in Mr. Trump’s election subversion efforts.

“We’re focused on a lot of investigations,” Mr. Comer told reporters recently, adding, “That wasn’t one of them.”

Mr. Jordan has been vague about whether he would pursue that angle in his investigation. “We’re focused on how political our Justice Department has become,” he said.

Catie Edmondson and Sheryl Gay Stolberg contributed reporting.

The fall of Li Hejun, formerly China's richest man

The founder of Hanergy, a thin-film solar panel company, was arrested by the Liaoning police on December 17, 2022, and has not been seen since.

By Frédéric Lemaître (Beijing (China) correspondent)

Published on January 12, 2023

Le Monde

Li Hejun, the former Chinese solar panel king, has disappeared. This entrepreneur, ranked as the richest Chinese in 2014, was arrested by the Liaoning police on December 17, 2022, and has not reappeared since, revealed the magazine Caixin on Wednesday, January 11. Born in 1967, Li Hejun managed at the age of 22 to borrow 50,000 yuan (a little less than €7,000 at the current rate). According to him, his sufficiently wise investments led him to amass a fortune of some 80 million yuan in five years.

In 1994, he set his sights on energy. His company Hanergy found success through investments in hydraulics. But in 2011, he took a new direction. He moved Hanergy into the thin-film solar panel space. Listed in Hong Kong in 2013, the company saw its value increase tenfold in two years. In 2015, Hurun magazine, which publishes the list of China's richest people, placed Mr. Li at the top of its ranking, valuing his fortune at 160 billion yuan.

But in May of the same year, as he explained to his shareholders that he intended to build an empire bigger than Apple, Hanergy's shares collapsed by 47% in a few dozen minutes. The listing was suspended. The company was officially taken off the stock exchange four years later.

Aura of corruption

The reason was that investors and market authorities gradually discovered that Hanergy's solar panels had only one customer: the solar parks operated by the company's subsidiaries. Mr. Li was therefore both the seller and the buyer of its products. More importantly, it turns out that the farms were primarily supplying electricity to Hanergy and almost no one else.

According to the business daily Jemian News, Mr. Li's arrest may be a consequence of the setbacks of one of his main creditors, the Bank of Jinzhou, an institution located in the northeastern province of Liaoning. The bank had officially lent 10 billion yuan to Hanergy, but according to Caixin, was actually much more invested in the company. The Bank of Jinzhou had not been able to present its 2018 balance sheet due to the resignation of its auditors, the company EY.

The bank has since been recapitalized by ICBC, a large state-owned bank, but this operation revealed the fragility of some regional banks and the aura of corruption that surrounds them. According to the Chinese press, more than 63 officials from financial institutions in Liaoning have been arrested since 2020 in anti-corruption investigations.

The US and Japan strengthen their military alliance as tensions rise in Asia

The two nations are revising their joint defense posture as they confront rising threats from North Korea and increasing aggressiveness from China.

Le Monde with AFP

Published on January 12, 2023

The United States said Wednesday, December 11, that attacks in space would invoke its defense treaty with Japan and announced the deployment of a more agile Marine unit in its ally as alarm grows over China.

Weeks after unveiling plans to ramp up defense spending, Japan sent its defense and foreign ministers to Washington for talks on updating the decades-old alliance. They will be followed two days later by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who is touring Group of Seven nations to kick off Japan's leadership year of the elite club and earlier Wednesday signed a deal with Britain to increase defense ties.

"We agree that the PRC is the greatest shared strategic challenge that we, our allies and partners face," US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told a four-way news conference with the Japanese ministers, referring to the People's Republic of China. His counterpart, Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi, said that the United States and Japan together have "a vision of a modernized alliance to acquire the posture to win in the new era of strategic competition."

As China makes rapid advances in satellites, Mr. Blinken said that the Washington and Tokyo agreed that attacks "to, from or within space" could invoke Article Five of their mutual defense treaty which considers an attack on one an attack on both.

The talks finalized a plan by the US to send a so-called Marine Littoral Regiment, a more agile unit that can boost defenses both by sea and air, to Okinawa, the southern Japanese island strategically close to Taiwan. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the unit would be in place by 2025 from a reorganization of an existing artillery regiment. "I think this is going to contribute in a major way in our effort to help defend Japan and also promote a free and open Indo-Pacific," Mr. Austin said, using the US turn of phrase for an Asia without Chinese dominance.

Taiwan risks but no 'imminent' invasion

Okinawa, under US control until 1972, is home to more than half of the 50,000 US troops in Japan, whose leaders for decades have spoken of easing the burden on a local population often resentful of the bases. Mr. Hayashi said that the Japanese government would keep working to address the concern of residents.

But Japan's calculus has shifted with the growing assertiveness of China under President Xi Jinping. Mr. Kishida's government said last month that Japan would increase defense spending by 2027 to 2% of GDP, in line with a separate goal by NATO nations, whose security concerns have also spiked due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

China claims Taiwan, a self-governing democracy, as part of its territory and last year carried out exercises seen as a test run for an invasion after a defiant visit to Taipei by Nancy Pelosi, then speaker of the US House of Representatives. "I won't second-guess Mr. Xi but what I will tell you that what we are seeing recently is some very provocative behavior on the part of China's forces," Mr. Austin said. "We believe that they endeavor to establish a new normal but whether or not that means that an invasion is imminent, you know, I seriously doubt that."

The Center for Strategic and International Studies recently released findings from wargames to chart out a Chinese invasion of Taiwan and found that Beijing would strike Japanese bases, inflicting heavy losses, although China would ultimately fail to take Taiwan.

Europe’s climate ambitions should be met with socially just and inclusive policies

Rising living costs are the number one concern for Europeans as energy supplies become a priority due to war in Ukraine — the social dimension of the green transition has never been more important.

In November, the European Commission hosted the inaugural European Employment & Social Rights Forum | via the European Commission

BY EUROPEAN COMMISSION

DECEMBER 6, 2022

Brussels, Belgium. As Europe takes more and more concrete steps to make the Green Deal become a reality, over 1,200 participants and 75 speakers came together to discuss the social dimension of the green transition at the inaugural European Employment and Social Rights Forum.

Across two days, President Ursula von der Leyen , European Commissioner for Jobs and Social Rights Commissioner Nicolas Schmit, former Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, the Belgian and Greek governments, policymakers from the European Parliament, the Czech Presidency, as well as academics, citizens and companies came together to discuss how to manage a fair, inclusive and sustainable green transition for all.

The European approach to social rights

The forum was an opportunity to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the European Pillar of Social Rights and its 20 principles, which are grouped around three key topics: equal opportunities; fair working conditions; and social protection and inclusion.

The right policies, as inspired by the European Pillar of Social Rights, can help Europeans overcome the crisis.

In her opening speech, President Ursula von der Leyen showed optimism in the face of economic recession and a difficult winter ahead, highlighting that the right policies, as inspired by the European Pillar of Social Rights, can help Europeans overcome the crisis.

Since the introduction of the Pillar of Social Rights under former president Jean-Claude Juncker, the Commission has put forward more than 130 measures to implement the pillar across the EU and deliver a social Europe that is fair, inclusive and full of opportunities. Among the most significant initiatives are the Directive for adequate minimum wages in the EU, the Pact for Skills which provides workers with quality training and lifelong learning through public-private partnerships, and the European Gender Equality Strategy supporting women’s participation in the labor market.

Many speakers underlined that commitments to social rights are and should be complementary to the green transition.

A social contract to achieve green growth

Many speakers underlined that commitments to social rights are and should be complementary to the green transition. Participants agreed that social aspects should be more deeply integrated in environmental, fiscal and economic policies. An “intergenerational approach is necessary for ensuring that young people are part of upcoming EU policies,” according to Romanian MEP and chair of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs in the European Parliament Dragoș Pîslaru.

Speakers at the event also agreed that jobs must be as much about quality as quantity. The chair of the European Commission’s High-Level Group on the future of social protection and of the welfare state in the EU, Anna Diamantoupoulou, underlined that the labor market is undergoing significant changes, and a new charter for social and labor rights will be essential for Europe to keep up.

The labor market is undergoing significant changes, and a new charter for social and labor rights will be essential for Europe to keep up.

The keynote speech from renowned economist Mariana Mazzucato stressed that achieving social goals will take true commitment and investment — on all levels. She highlighted the need for different sectors to work together in order to ensure the green transition is fair.

The need for more energy-efficient buildings was a clear example. Buildings account for 30 percent of the EU’s energy consumption, and many Europeans face soaring energy costs and deteriorating living conditions this winter.

Skills needed for the green transition

As next year has been designated as the European Year of Skills, Commissioner Schmit underlined the importance of lifelong learning and Europe’s role in facilitating it. It is essential for workers and their employers to gain new skills in order to meet the demands of the green transition.

Young people have an important role to play in the green transition, according to European Commission’s Director-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion Joost Korte: “It is not a coincidence that we move from the European Year of Youth to the Year of Skills. The skills of the future generations and in future sectors are essential to anything we want to do to successfully

Author(s):

EUROPEAN COMMISSION

News round-up, Wednesday, January 11, 2023

“Strained by the need to finance its war machine, the Russian government said on Tuesday that it had posted a $47 billion budget deficit in 2022, which is the second-highest since the break up of the Soviet Union.

The budget gap reached 3.3 trillion rubles in 2022, or 2.3 percent of the size of the Russian economy, Anton Siluanov, the country’s finance minister, said during a government meeting.”

— NYT

---

In 2022, we were unstoppable in accelerating the future of energy.

Let's reflect on our some of our best moments:

1. We announced our intent to exit coal by the end of 2025 and increased our ownership of AES Andes from 67% to 98%.

2. Fast Company ranked AES in the top ten of its “Best 100 Workplaces for Innovators” list.

3. We helped restore power to the people of Puerto Rico following Hurricane Fiona. Like Hawaii, we are also helping Puerto Rico in its energy transition by deploying solar plus storage on the island.

4. We released our IRP for AES Indiana, which serves as a roadmap for the company’s power generation goals. It included renewables, storage, and converting coal facilities to cleaner energy .

5. Together with Air Products, we announced a $4 billion mega-scale green hydrogen production facility in the United States, the largest green hydrogen project in the nation.

Reforestation day…

Since July 2015, Seaboard has been sponsoring a permanent brigade to contribute to the sustained work of recovering the forested area in the Upper Ozama River Basin.

Altice delivers innovative, customer-centric products and solutions that connect and unlock the limitless potential of its over 30 million customers over fiber networks and mobile…

Cooperate with ethical thinking -

Russian Mercenary Force Claims to Capture Town in Eastern Ukraine

NYT

Here’s what we know:

Ukraine denied losing control of Soledar, in the Donbas region. A victory there would be Russia’s first in months, after a string of humiliating losses.

The founder of a Russian mercenary force leading Moscow’s assault on the town of Soledar in eastern Ukraine claimed late Tuesday that his troops had seized control of the town, which Ukrainian defense officials denied.

The claim that Soledar had fallen to soldiers-for-hire working for Wagner Group could not be verified, and Ukraine’s defense ministry said on Twitter just before midnight local time that Russia was still trying to capture the town. At close to 1 a.m. on Wednesday, Robert Magyar, a commander of a Ukrainian air reconnaissance group, said in a statement on Telegram that Ukrainian forces were still holding the town.

“True — it’s hell” he wrote, adding the claims were “psychological pressure and propaganda.”

The assault is part of Russia’s broader push in the area around the city of Bakhmut that Moscow sees as important to achieving its goal of occupying all of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region. If true, the fall of Soledar, a relatively small municipality, would be Russia’s first significant victory in months, after a string of humiliating losses. Ukraine changed the course of the war with its capture of the Kharkiv region in September and then the city of Kherson in November, successes of far greater magnitude.

Military experts say that although taking Soledar is significant, it does not signal that the city of Bakhmut is about to fall into Russian hands. Ukraine has strongly reinforced its positions in and around Bakhmut, presenting a formidable obstacle to further progress by Moscow.

The entrepreneur who started the Wagner Group, Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, maintained in a post on the Telegram messaging app that his troops had control of all of Soledar, though he added that fighting continued.

“A cauldron has been formed in the center of the city, in which urban battles are being fought,” Mr. Prigozhin said.

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based research group, said claims that Russia had taken all of Soledar were false, citing another comment from Mr. Prigozhin earlier Tuesday on Telegram: “The Ukrainian army bravely fights for Bakhmut and Soledar. On the western outskirts of Soledar there are heavy bloody battles.”

In his nightly address on Tuesday, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine thanked the troops defending Soledar. “Today, I would like to pay special tribute to the warriors of the 46th separate airmobile brigade for their bravery and steadfastness in the defense of Soledar!” he said.

How a tiny, salt-mining town with a prewar population of 10,000 people became a focus of such a sustained assault by Wagner’s forces has been an open question. In his overnight address on Monday, Mr. Zelensky asked, “What did Russia want to gain there?”

The most critical factor is perhaps what Mr. Prigozhin and his mercenaries fighting there have to gain in terms of reputation. In Bakhmut, the Wagner Group, a private military contracting company that has recruited prisoners into its ranks, has become the main force leading the offensive for Russia, and the fighting has become bloodier.

Before the emergence of the Wagner Group’s claims on Tuesday, Britain’s defense ministry said in its daily intelligence update that Russian forces and the Wagner Group were likely now in control of most of Soledar after intense fighting over the past four days. The capture of the city, which is about six miles north of the city of Bakhmut, was likely to be part of “an effort to envelop Bakhmut from the north, and to disrupt Ukrainian lines of communication,” the update said.

A spokesman for the eastern group of Ukraine’s army, Serhiy Cherevatyi, said on national television on Tuesday that Russian artillery had struck Soledar 86 times over the past day. He described the situation as “very challenging.”

The tactics employed by the Wagner Group have resulted in a high number of casualties. In recent days, reporters for The New York Times embedded with a Ukrainian drone crew on the front line saw the bodies of Russian fighters scattered across open ground in the area around Bakhmut. Images and videos on Ukrainian social media in recent days also appear to have come from these aerial reconnaissance missions and show similar scenes.

A correction was made on 

Jan. 10, 2023

An earlier version of this article misstated the timing of the Russian claim of taking the town of Soledar. It was made on Tuesday, not Thursday.

— Megan Specia, Ivan Nechepurenko and Matthew Mpoke Bigg

Russia posts a $47 billion budget deficit for 2022, its second highest in the post-Soviet era.

Strained by the need to finance its war machine, the Russian government said on Tuesday that it had posted a $47 billion budget deficit in 2022, which is the second-highest since the break up of the Soviet Union.

The budget gap reached 3.3 trillion rubles in 2022, or 2.3 percent of the size of the Russian economy, Anton Siluanov, the country’s finance minister, said during a government meeting.

Russia’s revenues increased by 2.8 trillion rubles in 2022, or $40 billion, but that was not enough to cover rapidly increasing expenditures, which skyrocketed by 6.4 trillion rubles, or $92 billion, officials said.

At the meeting, government officials presented the economic situation as positive, with Mikhail Mishustin, the Russian prime minister, saying that “overall, those indicators aren’t bad.”

Making no specific reference to the war, Mr. Silanov, the finance minister, said: “Despite the geopolitical situation, the restrictions and sanctions, we have fulfilled all our planned goals.”

Still, the posted deficit for 2022 is second only in Russia’s post-Soviet history to the one reported for 2020, the year the coronavirus pandemic unfolded.

In the immediate aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, many experts predicted a catastrophic collapse of the country’s economy from the Western sanctions and other restrictive measures. Yet the Russian economy performed above expectations, buoyed by high commodity prices. And some sanctions, like a cap of $60 per barrel on the price for Russian oil, were introduced later in the year, softening their effect on the economy.

The Russian government has not published a detailed breakdown of its expenditures in 2022, but it is widely assumed that the bulk of the rise can be attributed to increased military spending. The government has financed the deficit by issuing bonds and using money from its rainy-day fund.

A high deficit is likely for this year, too. Russia plans to increase its military spending by a third, and Moscow’s oil revenues are expected to be pressured by the oil price cap, which compels Russian traders to sell crude at a discount.

— Ivan Nechepurenko

India launches deep-sea mining project to develop 'blue economy'

Despite the inherent environment risks, New Delhi has launched the deep-sea mining initiative valued at more than €460 million, with hopes of fulfilling its need for rare minerals.

By Sophie Landrin (New Delhi (India), correspondent)

Published on January 11, 2023

Le Monde

With a 7,517 kilometers long coastline and 1,382 islands, India has potentially priceless deposits of unique minerals in the depths of its waters. Despite the inherent environmental risks, New Delhi is determined to tap into them through its Deep Ocean mission, launched in June 2021. With a budget of more than €460 million over five years, the initiative will develop deep-sea mining technologies and resource exploration, study marine biodiversity, purchase a research vessel for ocean exploration and conduct research on ocean climate change.

The subcontinent joined the group of countries allowed to explore the ocean's depths in 2016, receiving the 25th permit granted by the International Seabed Authority (ISA), an autonomous organization within the United Nations Common System. It was awarded a 75,000-square-kilometer site in the central Indian Ocean basin, corresponding to its expanded exclusive economic zone. India will therefore be able to explore its marine resources, including polymetallic sulphides and nodules, gas hydrates and hydrothermal vents.

The government is not hiding its intentions. "The mineral exploration studies will pave the way for commercial exploitation in the near future, once the commercial exploitation code is developed by the International Seabed Authority. This component will contribute to the priority area of the 'blue economy,' namely the exploration and exploitation of minerals and energy of the deep seabed," it said in a statement at the launch of the mission.

Superabundance

The Ministry of Earth Sciences has claimed that by using only 10% of the reserve of these polymetallic nodules available in the region, India will be able to satisfy all its future needs for producing batteries. The figures put forward by the government are staggering: Per preliminary estimates, the country would have 380 million tons of polymetallic nodules, including copper, nickel, cobalt and manganese, worth about $110 billion, within this area.

To explore the depths, the Deep Ocean mission must develop a manned, self-propelled submersible capable of carrying at least three crew members and scientific equipment to a depth of 6,000 meters in the Indian Ocean. It will take four hours to descend and the same amount of time to return to the surface.

India is one of the countries that have severely criticized the French stance of prohibiting all exploitation of the seabed

The vehicle will need to have a range of 12 hours in normal operation and 96 hours in an emergency to ensure crew safety and provide oxygen. The first tests in shallow waters should begin in 2024. India will join the United States, Russia, China, Japan and Australia in the race to the bottom of the ocean.

The design and development of a submersible vehicle, the Matsya 6000 – named after the first avatar of the Hindu god Vishnu – has been entrusted to the Madras (Chennai)-based National Institute of Ocean Technology, a government agency under the Ministry of Earth Sciences that will work in collaboration with the Indian space agency. The project is to be completed by 2026, according to the minister of earth sciences.

Speaking in Parliament on December 21, Minister Jitendra Singh said that the "preliminary design of the vehicle is complete and the various components of the vehicle are being built." In addition, the Indian Maritime University has been tasked with building a low-energy river- sounding drone.

India is one of the countries that have severely criticized the French position of banning all seabed mining and is calling for discussions to ensure responsible and sustainable exploitation of the seabed. The deep-sea mining project is part of its program to develop the "blue economy," a catch-all concept, but one that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi hopes will describe one of the engines of economic growth by 2030.

Above all, with its 1.4 billion inhabitants, India has a considerable need for rare metals, electronic products, electric car batteries and more. The government has set itself the goal of having an all-electric car fleet by 2030. In the capital alone, more than 13 million gasoline- or diesel-powered vehicles are currently in use. To reduce its dependence on China, New Delhi is banking on its oceans.

Sophie Landrin(New Delhi (India), correspondent)

Bolsonaro's Mob

The Predictable Attack on Brazil's Democracy

Radical followers of Brazil's ex-president, Jair Bolsonaro, stormed the government district of Brasilía on Sunday. It was entirely predictable, and raises serious questions about the country's security forces.

By Jens Glüsing in Rio de Janeiro

09.01.2023

They were scenes reminiscent of the storming of the United States Capitol almost exactly two years ago, a violent and predictable assault on Brazil’s state institutions that was supported by numerous police officers. Since Friday, followers of right-wing radical ex-President Jair Bolsonaro had been gathering in Brasilía, allegedly for a protest in front of the National Congress. Bolsonaro’s hardcore supporters refuse to accept his defeat at the hands of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in late October. For the past several weeks, they have been demanding that the military take over.

On Saturday alone, hundreds of buses full of Bolsonaro supporters from around the country arrived in the capital. The justice minister warned security officials of the impending danger and asked that the Esplanada dos Ministerios, the vast mall leading to the National Congress, and Three Powers Plaza – so named because it is home to the Congress, the presidential office and the country’s highest court – be closed to demonstrators.

But the Civil Police of the Federal District, which is in charge of security in Brasilía, did nothing. Indeed, they even escorted the "demonstrators" in the direction of the seat of government. And those gathered in the crowd had made no secret that they were planning a raid of the kind undertaken by supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump on January 6, 2021. For days, Bolsonaro supporters had been discussing the storming of the National Congress in WhatsApp groups.

When the Bolsonaro followers then assaulted the building on Sunday, some police officers could be seen laughing and taking photos with their mobile phones. The chief of security for the Federal District, Anderson Torres, who had served as justice minister under Bolsonaro, has since been sacked. He was on his way to Florida, likely to meet with his former boss, who relocated to the U.S. state after losing the election. It is considered possible that Torres had known about the coming assault on the country’s parliament, or even took part in planning it.

The governor of the Federal District, Ibaneis Rocha, also a former Bolsonaro ally, promised that he would mobilize more police officers. By then, though, it was already too late. Some security personnel, armed with pepper spray, tried in vain to hold back the mob.

Thousands of people stormed Three Powers Plaza, with hundreds of them forcing their way into the National Congress building, the presidential palace and the seat of the Supreme Federal Court. They laid waste to offices and plenary halls, posing in the Senate and filming with their mobile phones. Only after about an hour were the police able to drive the vandals out of the presidential palace and the high court with the help of teargas. Thousands of people were still gathered out in front of the National Congress building.

Late Sunday night, the Supreme Federal Court suspended Rocha for 90 days, saying he did too little to prevent the violence.

Brazil’s parliament and highest court are on summer break until the end of the month. Lula was also out of the capital when the raids commenced, visiting victims of severe recent rainfall in the city of Araraquara in the state of São Paulo. His face flushed with anger, Lula addressed the press on Sunday night prior to returning to Brasilía, saying the federal government would intervene in the security apparatus of the Federal District, essentially placing the capital’s security in the hands of the president. "These people are fascists," Lula said of the vandals, promising that all those who participated in or helped plan the raids would be "found and penalized." He accused Bolsonaro of having inspired the storming of Brazil’s democratic institutions. "Nothing like this has ever happened in the history of the Republic," he said.

Questions about the Security Forces

Lula only took over the presidency a week ago. Hundreds of thousands of Brazilians celebrated his return to power, with Brasilía gripped by a party atmosphere. But that atmosphere has now vanished. The threat to Brazil’s democracy did not come to an end with Lula’s inauguration and is likely to continue hanging over the country for the next several months. The most pressing question is how the country’s security forces and military will respond.

Sunday’s riot has once again demonstrated the degree to which the country’s militarily organized police forces, which are under the control of the state governors, have been infiltrated by Bolsonaro supporters. Lula can really only trust the federal police force, but even there, he must be wary. The military has thus far stayed in the background and there doesn’t appear to be an imminent threat of a military putsch. But that doesn’t mean that the troops will readily obey all orders from the president, who is the commander-in-chief of Brazil’s armed forces.

Lula’s justice minister twice ordered the military to clear the tent camp that Bolsonaro followers established in front of army headquarters in Brasilía after Lula’s election on October 30. That tent camp is where radical Bolsonaro followers prepared the "protests" against Lula’s victory ceremony on Dec. 13, during which numerous buses and cars were set on fire. The radical Bolsonaro acolyte who placed an explosive device on a tanker truck intending to blow it up at the Brasilía airport also claims to have planned his attack here. But the military did nothing.

A week ago, tent-camp occupants threatened DER SPIEGEL correspondent Jens Glüsing when he visited the site. Guards from army headquarters escorted the journalist out, but they told him they could not guarantee his safety.

Bolsonaro's Reaction

The radical Bolsonaro fans are a minority among the ex-president’s supporters. They resemble a religious sect and live in a parallel world – and are incited by radical pastors from Pentecostal churches that support Bolsonaro. Lula’s government is led by "demons," said one camp occupant who called herself "Eva." "We are experiencing the day of the Apocalypse." Whereas many of Bolsonaro’s former political allies have distanced themselves from him in recent weeks, his hardcore supporters remain loyal. And they forgive him for having left the country for Florida. "I would have fled as well," Eva told DER SPIEGEL. After all, she added, Bolsonaro is being persecuted.

Initially on Sunday, Bolsonaro remained silent about the violence in Brasilía. Late last night, though, he turned to Twitter to reject Lula’s contention that he had incited the riots. Peaceful demonstrations, he wrote, are part of democracy, but the storming of government buildings went too far.

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If it is proven that Bolsonaro had incited the mob’s raid on Brazil’s democratic institutions, he could be arrested immediately upon his return to the country. It remains unclear how the U.S. might react to Bolsonaro’s presence on American soil given the suspicions that he may have been behind what amounts to an attempted putsch. Bolsonaro likely feels relatively safe in proximity to Trump in Florida, but U.S. President Joe Biden, one suspects, isn’t pleased about hosting right-wing radicals from Brazil.

On Sunday evening, governments from across Latin America and Europe expressed their solidarity with President Lula and the Brazilian democracy. The gesture of German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who met Lula before he was sworn in and was photographed arm-in-arm with the Brazilian president-elect, carries new meaning against the backdrop of Sunday. And it is clear that Lula is dependent on the international support of all democracies.

Belgien och franska Engie sluter avtal om att förlänga livslängden för två kärnkraftsreaktorer (Le Monde)

“Nuclear Power: The Road to a Carbon Free Future - konstateras att 30 länder för närvarande driver kärnkraftverk och att mer än två dussin andra länder tittar på kärnkraft för att tillgodose sina el- och klimatbehov.”

— EnergyCentral

---

In 2022, we were unstoppable in accelerating the future of energy.

Let's reflect on our some of our best moments:

1. We announced our intent to exit coal by the end of 2025 and increased our ownership of AES Andes from 67% to 98%.

2. Fast Company ranked AES in the top ten of its “Best 100 Workplaces for Innovators” list.

3. We helped restore power to the people of Puerto Rico following Hurricane Fiona. Like Hawaii, we are also helping Puerto Rico in its energy transition by deploying solar plus storage on the island.

4. We released our IRP for AES Indiana, which serves as a roadmap for the company’s power generation goals. It included renewables, storage, and converting coal facilities to cleaner energy .

5. Together with Air Products, we announced a $4 billion mega-scale green hydrogen production facility in the United States, the largest green hydrogen project in the nation.

Reforestation day…

Since July 2015, Seaboard has been sponsoring a permanent brigade to contribute to the sustained work of recovering the forested area in the Upper Ozama River Basin.

Altice delivers innovative, customer-centric products and solutions that connect and unlock the limitless potential of its over 30 million customers over fiber networks and mobile…

Cooperate with ethical thinking -

Vad är kärnkraft?

Kärnkraft är ett rent och effektivt sätt att koka vatten till ånga, som driver turbiner och producerar elektricitet.

Kärnkraftverk använder lågt anrikat uranbränsle för att producera elektricitet genom en process som kallas fission - delning av uranatomer i en kärnreaktor. Uranbränsle består av små, hårda keramiska pellets som är förpackade i långa, vertikala rör. Buntar av detta bränsle sätts in i reaktorn.

​​​​​​​Reaktorerna Doel 4 och Tihange 3 ska vara i drift i ytterligare tio år från och med 2026. Fram till dess måste landets elförsörjning hanteras.

Av Jean-Pierre Stroobants (Bryssel, Europabyrån)

Publicerad den 10 januari 2023

Le Monde

Belgiens kärnkraftsavveckling, som tillkännagavs för tjugo år sedan och sköts upp flera gånger, kanske aldrig blir verklighet. Ironiskt nog var det Tinne Van der Straeten, landets energiminister, en miljöaktivist, som tillsammans med premiärminister Alexander De Croo förhandlade fram en fortsättning av två kärnkraftsreaktorer med Engie-Electrabel, den enhet som driver Belgiens kärnkraftverk och som är en del av franska Engie.

Måndagen den 9 januari, i slutskedet av månader av häftiga förhandlingar, kom Belgiens regering och Engie överens om att förlänga reaktorerna Doel 4 och Tihange 3, de nyaste i landet, i tio år med början i november 2026.

Engie, som vid upprepade tillfällen har betonat svårigheten, för att inte säga omöjligheten, av en sådan livstidsförlängning, har lite mindre än fyra år på sig att anpassa de två enheterna.

Denna tidsram väckte frågor. Experter påpekade att det fanns en risk för bristande försörjning i landet under vintern 2025-2026, med ett möjligt underskott på cirka 1 000 megawatt. Innan de anpassas kommer de två enheterna att stängas av 2025. Och det kommer förmodligen att bli en annan regering som måste undvika ett eventuellt strömavbrott, eftersom De Croos mandat löper ut i mitten av 2024.

Kostnadsfördelning

"Vi tar vår försörjningstrygghet tillbaka i våra egna händer", sade regeringschefen. De Croo såg sig tvungen att ta upp en energifråga som alla hans föregångare noggrant hade försummat. Under två decennier har Belgiens regeringar godtagit krav från De gröna utan att förbereda alternativ till att lämna kärnkraften.

Den här gången skapade den belgiska regeringen och Engie en gemensam juridisk struktur som kommer att ansvara för förvaltningen av de två reaktorerna. Investeringar, risker och vinster kommer att delas, även om det i detta skede inte var klart om den producerade elen skulle säljas till ett fast pris. Engie kommer att fortsätta att driva anläggningarna, men den belgiska staten kommer att delta i de strategiska besluten.

"Det är ett komplicerat avtal, men det saknar motstycke", sade Van der Straeten, som tvingades överge Groen, det flamländska miljöpartiets doktrin, för att förhandla med den franska koncernen.

Engie inledde förhandlingarna från en stark position. Genom att inledningsvis säga att man vägrade en förlängning kunde man föra fram frågan om kostnadsfördelningen för nedmonteringen av fem andra reaktorer, som ska stängas 2025, samt frågor som rör avfallshantering och använt kärnbränsle.

I utbyte mot ett löfte om att "göra allt som är möjligt" för att återstarta de två enheterna inom den planerade tidsramen fick Engie en summa för kostnaden för detta "nukleära ansvar".

Förkortad tidsram

Avvecklingen ska förbli Engies ansvar, men ekonomiska tak kommer att införas för avfallshanteringen, en annan fråga som försummats av de belgiska myndigheterna. Om taken överskrids - vilket olika specialister anser vara troligt - kommer räkningen att betalas av skattebetalarna. Miljövännerna hoppades till en början att Engie skulle stå för alla kostnader.

De belgiska förhandlarna betonade att den viktigaste aspekten av diskussionen var att få en garanti från Engie om att förlänga livslängden för de två enheterna, medan Engie sade att det kunde ta minst fem år att skaffa fram det nödvändiga bränslet, inleda anbudsförfaranden och lägga fram en säkerhetsdokumentation.

I slutändan kommer det bara att ta mindre än fyra år. I gengäld fick den franska koncernen ett löfte om ett kostnadstak för avfallshanteringen.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) förklarar kärnkraftens viktiga roll i en koldioxidfri framtid

“Om IAEA
IAEA är världens centrum för samarbete på kärnkraftsområdet och strävar efter att främja en säker, trygg och fredlig användning av kärnteknik.”

— IAEA

“Nuclear Power: The Road to a Carbon Free Future - konstateras att 30 länder för närvarande driver kärnkraftverk och att mer än två dussin andra länder tittar på kärnkraft för att tillgodose sina el- och klimatbehov.”

— EnergyCentral

---

In 2022, we were unstoppable in accelerating the future of energy.

Let's reflect on our some of our best moments:

1. We announced our intent to exit coal by the end of 2025 and increased our ownership of AES Andes from 67% to 98%.

2. Fast Company ranked AES in the top ten of its “Best 100 Workplaces for Innovators” list.

3. We helped restore power to the people of Puerto Rico following Hurricane Fiona. Like Hawaii, we are also helping Puerto Rico in its energy transition by deploying solar plus storage on the island.

4. We released our IRP for AES Indiana, which serves as a roadmap for the company’s power generation goals. It included renewables, storage, and converting coal facilities to cleaner energy .

5. Together with Air Products, we announced a $4 billion mega-scale green hydrogen production facility in the United States, the largest green hydrogen project in the nation.

Reforestation day…

Since July 2015, Seaboard has been sponsoring a permanent brigade to contribute to the sustained work of recovering the forested area in the Upper Ozama River Basin.

Altice delivers innovative, customer-centric products and solutions that connect and unlock the limitless potential of its over 30 million customers over fiber networks and mobile…

Cooperate with ethical thinking -

Vad är kärnkraft?

Kärnkraft är ett rent och effektivt sätt att koka vatten till ånga, som driver turbiner och producerar elektricitet.

Kärnkraftverk använder lågt anrikat uranbränsle för att producera elektricitet genom en process som kallas fission - delning av uranatomer i en kärnreaktor. Uranbränsle består av små, hårda keramiska pellets som är förpackade i långa, vertikala rör. Buntar av detta bränsle sätts in i reaktorn.

​​​​​​​IAEA förklarar kärnkraftens viktiga roll i en koldioxidfri framtid

NOAM MAYRAZ

Konsultingenjör Future Power, Inc.

Noam Mayraz, PE, är en ledande konsult för kraftverksindustrin.  Mayraz har över fyrtio års erfarenhet av konstruktion, ingenjörsarbete och fälttjänster som projektledare, projektledare för IPP-projekt,...

10 januari 2020

EnergyCentral

IAEA förklarar kärnkraftens viktiga roll i en koldioxidfri framtid, 08 januari 2020

Kärnkraften står för 10 % av den globala elektriciteten, men för att hejda klimatförändringarna kommer världen att behöva mycket större mängder ren och tillförlitlig energi, säger Internationella atomenergiorganet (IAEA) i en kortfilm som det publicerade idag. För att hantera klimatförändringarna måste 80 procent av all el vara koldioxidsnål år 2050.

I videon - Nuclear Power: The Road to a Carbon Free Future - konstateras att 30 länder för närvarande driver kärnkraftverk och att mer än två dussin andra länder tittar på kärnkraft för att tillgodose sina el- och klimatbehov. Ryssland, Indien och Kina leder för närvarande utvecklingen av kärnkraft. Kina har nio reaktorer under uppbyggnad, vilket är det största antalet i hela landet. Länder på andra håll bygger också nya reaktorer, till exempel Finland, och Förenade Arabemiraten och Vitryssland är nära att ta sina första kärnkraftverk i drift, medan Bangladesh och Turkiet nyligen påbörjade byggandet av sina egna kärnkraftverk.

Juha Poikola från TVO kraftbolag i Finland säger i filmen: "Vår största klimathandling i Finland kommer att vara när den nya reaktorn startar i Olkiluoto." Ibrahim Halil Dere från Turkiets energiministerium säger: "Vi anser att kärnkraft är ett oumbärligt alternativ för Turkiet eftersom det är utsläppsfritt, miljövänligt, hållbart och en pålitlig el-källa."

För närvarande är 450 kärnkraftsreaktorer i drift i världen, men för att möta nya behov och utmaningar ser kärnkraftsindustrin framåt mot innovativa lösningar för långsiktig drift av befintliga reaktorer, en snabb utbyggnad av pågående kärnkraftsprogram och införandet av ny reaktorteknik, heter det i filmen. Flera länder utvecklar små modulära reaktorer (SMR) och en har redan byggts i Ryssland, tillägger filmen och hänvisar till det flytande kärnkraftverket Akademik Lomonosov.

http://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/IAEA-explains-nuclears-vital-role-in-a-carbon-freeIAEA explains nuclear's vital role in a carbon-free future

News round-up, Tuesday, January 10, 2023

“The World Bank has cast a further shadow over the already worrying expectations for the performance of the global economy in 2023. The World Economic Outlook report released on Tuesday by the institution downgraded its forecast for global economic growth this year from 3% to 1.7% after revising downwards its forecasts for 95% of developed economies and 70% of emerging economies.”

— ABC.es

---

In 2022, we were unstoppable in accelerating the future of energy.

Let's reflect on our some of our best moments:

1. We announced our intent to exit coal by the end of 2025 and increased our ownership of AES Andes from 67% to 98%.

2. Fast Company ranked AES in the top ten of its “Best 100 Workplaces for Innovators” list.

3. We helped restore power to the people of Puerto Rico following Hurricane Fiona. Like Hawaii, we are also helping Puerto Rico in its energy transition by deploying solar plus storage on the island.

4. We released our IRP for AES Indiana, which serves as a roadmap for the company’s power generation goals. It included renewables, storage, and converting coal facilities to cleaner energy .

5. Together with Air Products, we announced a $4 billion mega-scale green hydrogen production facility in the United States, the largest green hydrogen project in the nation.

Reforestation day…

Since July 2015, Seaboard has been sponsoring a permanent brigade to contribute to the sustained work of recovering the forested area in the Upper Ozama River Basin.

Altice delivers innovative, customer-centric products and solutions that connect and unlock the limitless potential of its over 30 million customers over fiber networks and mobile…

Cooperate with ethical thinking -

The World Bank warns that the global economy faces two recessions in the same decade for the first time in 80 years.

Downgrades its global growth scenario for 2023 from 3% to 1.7%, but warns that any setback would push the economy into recession.

He downgrades his forecasts for 95% of developed economies and 70% of emerging economies, for which he predicts a bleak future.

US economist and president of the World Bank, David Malpass

The US economist and President of the World Bank, David Malpass ABC

B. P. V.

Madrid

10/01/2023

ABC.es

The World Bank has cast a further shadow over the already worrying expectations for the performance of the global economy in 2023. The World Economic Outlook report released on Tuesday by the institution downgraded its forecast for global economic growth this year from 3% to 1.7% after revising downwards its forecasts for 95% of developed economies and 70% of emerging economies.

Its forecast for the advanced economies has gone from an expected growth of 2.5% a few months ago to a pyrrhic 0.5%, with a forecast of a 0.5% decline for the US economy, stagnation for the euro area, which includes Spain (previously 1.9%) and growth of 4.3% for China (compared with 5.2% previously).

However, the most worrying aspect is not the new forecasts revealed this Tuesday by the World Bank but the expectation that these may deteriorate further throughout 2023. The note released by the World Bank points out that "given fragile economic conditions, any further adverse developments, such as higher-than-expected inflation, abrupt interest rate hikes to contain it, a resurgence of the Covid-19 pandemic, or an increase in geopolitical tensions, could push the global economy into recession".

If this scenario were to occur, the phenomenon would take on historic proportions, as the global economy would chain two economic recessions in the same decade, something that has not happened since World War II or, as the World Bank points out, since 80 years ago.

The IMF warns of the risk of global recession and lowers the growth forecast for Spain to 1.3%.

The stagnation of the world economy, which will ease somewhat in 2024 when the institution forecasts growth of 2.7%, will have very negative effects on emerging economies, partly because the high indebtedness of developed economies will concentrate a large part of the available capital, which is more reduced in a context of monetary policy contraction. "Emerging and developing countries face a multi-year period of slow growth driven by heavy debt burdens and weak investment as global capital is absorbed by advanced economies facing extremely high public debt levels and rising interest rates. Weak growth and business investment will exacerbate already devastating setbacks in education, health, poverty and infrastructure and the growing demands of climate change," says World Bank president David Malpass in a statement in the Bank's release.

Biden Lawyers Found Classified Material at His Former Office

The White House said it was cooperating as the Justice Department scrutinizes the matter.

“A small number” of classified documents were discovered in President Biden’s former office at a Washington think tank, the White House said.Credit...Pete Marovich for The New York Times

By Peter Baker, Charlie Savage, Glenn Thrush and Adam Goldman

Jan. 9, 2023

NYT

WASHINGTON — President Biden’s lawyers discovered “a small number” of classified documents in his former office at a Washington think tank last fall, the White House said on Monday, prompting the Justice Department to scrutinize the situation to determine how to proceed.

The inquiry, according to two people familiar with the matter, is a type aimed at helping Attorney General Merrick B. Garland decide whether to appoint a special counsel, like the one investigating former President Donald J. Trump’s hoarding of sensitive documents and failure to return all of them.

The documents found in Mr. Biden’s former office, which date to his time as vice president, were found by his personal lawyers on Nov. 2, when they were packing files at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, according to the White House. Officials did not describe precisely how many documents were involved, what kind of information they included or their level of classification.

The White House said in a statement that the White House Counsel’s Office notified the National Archives and Records Administration on the same day the documents were found “in a locked closet” and that the agency retrieved them the next morning.

Mr. Biden had periodically used an office at the center from mid-2017 until the start of the 2020 presidential campaign, and the lawyers were packing it up in preparations to vacate the space. The discovery was not in response to any prior request from the archives, and there was no indication that Mr. Biden or his team resisted efforts to recover any sensitive documents.

Mr. Garland has assigned John R. Lausch Jr., the U.S. attorney in Chicago who was appointed by Mr. Trump, to look into the matter, according to two people familiar with the decision, confirming a CBS News report. Mr. Lausch has been scrutinizing the situation since November, according to one of the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter.

Two people familiar with the matter said that Mr. Lausch has been conducting a so-called initial investigation under a Justice Department regulation that allows an attorney general to appoint a special counsel, a special prosecutor who operates with a measure of day-to-day independence to conduct a particularly sensitive investigation.

Under the regulation, an initial investigation consists of “such factual inquiry or legal research as the attorney general deems appropriate” to “be conducted in order to better inform the decision” about whether a matter warrants the appointment of a special counsel.

The White House statement said that it “is cooperating” with the department but did not explain why Mr. Biden’s team waited more than two months to announce the discovery of the documents, which came a week before the midterm congressional elections when the news would have been an explosive last-minute development.

It also came shortly before Mr. Garland’s Nov. 18 appointment of Jack Smith as a special counsel to take over the criminal investigation into Mr. Trump’s failure to return a large number of classified documents that were sent to his Florida residence and club, Mar-a-Lago, when he left office — even after being subpoenaed.

At the time, Mr. Garland cited the fact that Mr. Trump had just announced he was running for president again, and that Mr. Biden had indicated that he is likely to run as well, as justification to transfer control of the investigation to Mr. Smith. (An attorney general retains final say over whether anyone is charged with a crime by a special counsel.)

Mr. Trump jumped on Monday’s disclosure. “When is the FBI going to raid the many houses of Joe Biden, perhaps even the White House?” he wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social. “These documents were definitely not declassified.”

That appeared to refer to Mr. Trump’s disputed claim that before leaving office he declassified all the documents the F.B.I. found when it searched Mar-a-Lago in August. No credible evidence has emerged to support that claim, and his lawyers have resisted repeating it in court, where there are professional consequences for lying. In any case, the potential charges the F.B.I. cited in its search warrant affidavit do not depend on whether intentionally mishandled documents were classified.

What we consider before using anonymous sources. Do the sources know the information? What’s their motivation for telling us? Have they proved reliable in the past? Can we corroborate the information? Even with these questions satisfied, The Times uses anonymous sources as a last resort. The reporter and at least one editor know the identity of the source.

But while Mr. Trump tried to suggest a parallel, the circumstances of the Biden discovery as described appeared to be significantly different. Mr. Biden had neither been notified that he had official records nor been asked to return them, the White House said, and his team promptly revealed the discovery to the archives and returned them within a day.

“The documents were not the subject of any previous request or inquiry by the archives,” Richard A. Sauber, a special White House counsel, wrote in the statement. “Since that discovery, the president’s personal attorneys have cooperated with the archives and the Department of Justice in a process to ensure that any Obama-Biden administration documents are appropriately in the possession of the archives.”

By contrast, in 2021 the archives repeatedly asked Mr. Trump to turn over large numbers of documents it had determined were missing. He put the agency off for months, then allowed it to retrieve 15 boxes of material in early 2022, including scores of classified documents, but it was later discovered that he kept more.

Eventually, the Justice Department obtained a grand jury subpoena for documents with classification markings remaining in Mr. Trump’s possession, and a lawyer for Mr. Trump turned over several more and told the department there were none left. But an August search by the F.B.I. found 103 more marked as classified — along with thousands of other official records.

The search warrant affidavit that the Justice Department submitted suggested that Mr. Trump was under investigation for obstruction, along with possible violations of the Espionage Act, which criminalizes the willful unauthorized retention of national security documents and failure “to deliver them on demand” to a government official entitled to take custody of them.

Still, whatever the legal questions, as a matter of political reality, the discovery will make the perception of the Justice Department potentially charging Mr. Trump over his handling of the documents more challenging. As a special counsel, Mr. Smith is handling that investigation, along with one into Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results and the Jan. 6 attack on Congress, under Mr. Garland’s supervision.

Moreover, the discovery will fuel the fires on Capitol Hill, where Republicans who have just taken the House majority were already planning multiple investigations of the Biden administration, including the decision to have the F.B.I. search Mar-a-Lago.

Representative James R. Comer, the Kentucky Republican who is in line to become the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said on Monday that he would investigate the discovery of the classified documents in Mr. Biden’s office, vowing to send letters demanding information within 48 hours.

“How ironic,” Mr. Comer said in an interview. “Now we learn that Joe Biden had documents that are considered classified. I wonder, is the National Archives going to trigger a raid of the White House tonight? Or of the Biden Center?” He added, “So now we’re going to take that information that we requested on the Mar-a-Lago raid, and we’re going to expand it to include the documents that Joe Biden has.”

The top Democrat on the committee, Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, downplayed the matter, saying that he had confidence that Mr. Garland had taken appropriate steps to review the circumstances and that Mr. Biden’s lawyers “appear to have taken immediate and proper action” to notify the archives of the documents.

The department’s leadership decided to make the unusual choice of assigning the case outside the jurisdictions involved because Mr. Lausch was a Republican appointee and his work would likelier be seen as impartial, according to a person familiar with the situation.

Mr. Biden had kept Mr. Lausch in office at the request of the two Democratic senators from Illinois, Richard J. Durbin and Tammy Duckworth, because he was investigating Michael J. Madigan, the former speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives, during the presidential transition in 2021. In March, a federal grand jury indicted Mr. Madigan, a Democrat, on 22 counts of racketeering and corruption charges.

A former top prosecutor appointed during President Barack Obama’s administration said the attorney general should turn the Biden matter over to a special counsel, just as he did the Trump investigation.

“The circumstances of Biden’s possession of classified documents appear different than Trump’s, but Merrick Garland must appoint a special counsel to investigate,” said John P. Fishwick Jr., who served as U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia from 2015 to 2017. “Merrick Garland waited too long to let us know he had opened this investigation,” he added. “To keep the confidence of the country, you need to be transparent and timely.”

A department spokesman had no comment on the matter, and would not say whether the national security division, which has spearheaded the investigation into Mr. Trump’s retention of documents at his Florida residence and resort, was also involved.

With Mr. Lausch investigating the handling of classified information in Mr. Biden’s office, and David Weiss, the U.S. attorney in Delaware, investigating the president’s son, Hunter Biden, both Trump-appointed U.S. attorneys who have remained at the department are now scrutinizing the Biden family.

Luke Broadwater and Katie Benner contributed reporting.

Supporting Ukraine to ensure peace

Editorial

The decision of France, the United States and Germany to deliver light armored combat vehicles to Ukraine reflects a shared commitment but also raises questions about the danger of escalation.

Published on January 10, 2023

Le Monde

In the war imposed on them by Vladimir Putin, one that puts the survival of their country at stake, the Ukrainians need the steadfast and appropriate support of the West. France's January 4 decision to deliver light armored combat vehicles to Ukraine marks a new stage in the assistance provided by democratic countries, as it was followed the next day by the United States and Germany. It is no longer just a matter of supplying Kyiv with defensive weapons, such as troop transport vehicles or artillery equipment, but with the means to support offensives. The French AMX-10 RCs, like the American Bradleys and German Marders, are vehicles armed with guns designed to be used as close to the front line as possible.

This evolution of the equipment delivered does not reflect a desire for escalation, but appears to be in line with the progression of Ukrainian war objectives. It is a question of helping the attacked country not only defend itself and reach a negotiation in the best possible situation, but to recover its entire territory by driving back the Russian army, and subjecting those responsible for crimes to international justice.

Russia's retreat on the ground since the summer of 2022 and Mr. Putin's pullback from red lines that are supposed to trigger retaliation seem to justify this strategy. The same goes for the worrying prospect of a large-scale Russian offensive at the end of winter, made possible by the new mobilization decreed this fall by Moscow. While the front seems to have stabilized, with more than 100,000 dead and wounded on each side according to various estimates, everything is happening as if the combatants were engaged in a race for equipment, training and personnel. The example of the false truce announced by Mr. Putin for Orthodox Christmas only reinforced the Western will to give Ukraine all the means to counter new aggressions.

Danger of escalation

While the almost simultaneous announcement of the French, American and German decisions to deliver light armored vehicles reflects a joint and coordinated commitment at a crucial moment, such a development is not without risk. It raises the question of the danger of escalation and the point at which the current proxy war could degenerate into a direct confrontation between the West and Russia. This threshold has shifted since the conflict began, but it cannot rise indefinitely. The whole point is to help the Ukrainians, without feeding the Russian rhetoric presenting Western democracies as aggressors.

Although the French decision has the benefit of removing any ambiguity about the position of Paris in the conflict, it also raises the question of its political framework and the information provided to our fellow citizens. Since the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine, Parliament has never discussed the French position in depth. It is time to involve the national legislature in decisions that engage the country in a matter that is fundamental to its security. In order to avoid any risk of extended confrontation on European soil, the West has no other choice than to do everything possible to prevent Mr. Putin from succeeding in his invasion.

The rapid end of the significant suffering linked to this war requires unwavering support for Ukraine. Because it needs to be approved over the long term, this difficult balance deserves to be clarified and debated.

News round-up, Monday, January 09, 2023

“Just imagine for a moment that you could save the world with chicken nuggets. All you would have to do is just eat them. Your teeth would sink into real meat, yet no animal would have lost its life for your meal. It will have been grown in the laboratory from a single chicken cell. Imagine that there would suddenly be enough meat from the laboratory to feed everybody in the world. Hunger would be a thing of the past. The land now used to grow corn for animal feed could be repurposed, perhaps even for a forest that could draw CO2 out of our atmosphere. Industrial livestock farming would no longer be needed.”

— Spiegel

---

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UK Government gives go-ahead for nuclear plant development with EDF

Plans for the Sizewell C nuclear plant were approved on Thursday, with French energy giant EDF saying the plant would generate about 7% of the UK's electricity needs.

By Eric Albert (London (United Kingdom) correspondent)

Published on November 18, 2022

After a series of last-minute delays over the last two months in the UK, and the recent political instability in the country, an agreement now appears to have been reached between the British government and EDF to develop a new nuclear power plant.

While delivering the autumn statement on Thursday, November 17, Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt announced the official decision to acquire a stake in Sizewell C, an EPR (European Pressurised Reactor, a nuclear reactor) project in the east of England, to be built and managed by the French electricity company.

"The government will proceed with the new nuclear power plant at Sizewell C," said Mr. Hunt. "Subject to final government approvals, the contracts for the initial investment will be signed with relevant parties, including EDF, in the coming weeks." The French utility company said it was "delighted" with the announcement.

Huge construction site

This agreement is not yet a green light for a new EPR to be built. One key element is missing: nearly €25 billion in financing. For now, the project for the plant, in which EDF and the British government will each hold a 50% stake, will be developed.

This will allow them to sideline the Chinese General Nuclear Power Group (CGN), which had been involved in Sizewell C for several years, and to bring in new cash to finance the cost of the development. The British government will contribute £700 million (€800 million) to the project.

EDF is already the operator of the UK's eight active nuclear power stations. It is also building Hinkley Point C in western England, two new EPRs with a total capacity of 3.2 gigawatts, the first of which is set to open in 2026. This huge construction site, on which more than 7,500 people work every day, was launched in 2016 and has been the subject of controversy.

At the time, the British government refused to pay a penny and EDF decided to finance the project with its own funds. However, the cost was prohibitive, and in January 2021, it was revised upwards to the cost of "£22 billion to £23 billion" (at 2015 prices; adjusted for inflation, it is close to £28 billion to £29 billion today). This decision led to the resignation of EDF's financial director, who felt that the risk was too great.

To soften the blow, the French company adopted a two-pronged approach. First, it signed an extraordinary contract with the British government, which guaranteed the sale price of electricity at £92.50 per megawatt-hour (at the time, double the market price) for 35 years. Second, it brought in CGN, which financed one-third of Hinkley Point C. At the same time, CGN took a 20% stake in the Sizewell C development project and was promised the opportunity to build a power plant using its own technology at Bradwell in northern England.

Finding investors

This all sounded brave during the "golden age" of UK-China relations proclaimed by then-Prime Minister David Cameron. Now, due to growing tensions with Beijing, the British government wants nothing to do with CGN. The Bradwell project will not see the light of day, and CGN is being asked to withdraw from Sizewell C.

To this end, the current agreement with EDF is to be signed, probably by the end of November. The British government and EDF will jointly oversee the development project, which alone requires a fairly substantial investment of around £1.5 billion.

All that remains is the trickiest part: finding investors. This time around, EDF does not want to – and cannot – finance the project from its own funds. The energy company has been trying for years to attract large North American pension funds or funds specializing in infrastructure projects which might be interested in an almost guaranteed return over a very long period, while the British government increasing its stake is an important gesture intended to reassure the French electric company. EDF hopes to conclude finance talks and make the final investment decision within 12 to 18 months.

Bolsonaro Supporters Lay Siege to Brazil’s Capital

Backers of former President Jair Bolsonaro ransacked government offices, denouncing what they falsely claim was a rigged election. Hundreds were arrested.

By Jack Nicas and André Spigariol

Jack Nicas reported from Rio de Janeiro and André Spigariol reported from Brasília. They have covered right-wing attacks on Brazil’s election systems since 2021.

Published Jan. 8, 2023Updated Jan. 9, 2023, 1:40 a.m. ET

Thousands of supporters of Brazil’s ousted former president, Jair Bolsonaro, stormed Brazil’s Congress, Supreme Court and presidential offices on Sunday to protest what they falsely claim was a stolen election, the violent culmination of years of conspiracy theories advanced by Mr. Bolsonaro and his right-wing allies.

In scenes reminiscent of the Jan. 6 storming of the United States Capitol, protesters in Brasília, Brazil’s capital, draped in the yellow and green of Brazil’s flag surged into the seat of power, setting fires, repurposing barricades as weapons, knocking police officers from horseback and filming their crimes as they committed them.

“We always said we would not give up,” one protester declared as he filmed himself among hundreds of protesters pushing into the Capitol building. “Congress is ours. We are in power.”

For months, protesters had been demanding that the military prevent the newly elected president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, from taking office on Jan. 1. Many on the right in Brazil have become convinced, despite the lack of evidence, that October’s election was rigged.

For years, Mr. Bolsonaro had asserted, without any proof, that Brazil’s election systems were rife with fraud and that the nation’s elites were conspiring to remove him from power.

Mr. Lula said Sunday that those false claims had fueled the attack on the plaza, known as Three Powers Square because of the presence of the three branches of government. Mr. Bolsonaro “triggered this,” he said in an address to the nation. “He spurred attacks on the three powers whenever he could. This is also his responsibility.”

Late Sunday, Mr. Bolsonaro criticized the protests, saying on Twitter that peaceful demonstrations are part of democracy, but that “destruction and invasions of public buildings, like what occurred today,” are not. But he also rejected Mr. Lula’s accusations, saying they were “without proof.”

At his inauguration, Mr. Lula said that uniting Brazil, Latin America’s largest country and one of the world’s biggest democracies, would be a central goal of his administration. The invasion of the capital suggests that the nation’s divisions are more profound than many had imagined, and it saddles the new president with a major challenge just one week into his administration.

After Mr. Lula was inaugurated, protesters put out calls online for others to join them for a massive demonstration on Sunday. It quickly turned violent.

Hundreds of protesters ascended a ramp to the roof of the congressional building in Brasília, the capital, while a smaller group invaded the building from a lower level, according to witnesses and videos of the scene posted on social media. Other groups of protesters splintered off and broke into the presidential offices and the Supreme Court, which are in the same plaza.

The scene was chaotic.

Protesters streamed into the government buildings, which were largely empty on a Sunday, breaking windows, overturning furniture and looting items inside, according to videos they posted online.

The crowds shouted that they were taking their country back, and that they would not be stopped. Outnumbered, the police fired what appeared to be rubber bullets, pepper spray and tear-gas canisters, including from two helicopters overhead.

“Police are cowardly trying to expel the people from Congress, but there is no way, because even more are arriving,” said one protester in a video filmed from inside Congress and showing hundreds of protesters on multiple floors. “No one is taking our country, damn it.”

Eventually Brazilian Army soldiers helped retake control of some buildings.

Mr. Lula, who was not in Brasília during the invasion, issued an emergency decree until Jan. 31 that allows the federal government to take “any measures necessary” to restore order in the capital. “There is no precedent for what these people have done, and for that, these people must be punished,” he said.

The president, who arrived in the capital late in the day to inspect the damage, said that his government would also investigate anyone who may have financed the protests.

Mr. Bolsonaro appeared to be in Florida. He flew to Orlando in the final days of his presidency, in hopes that his absence from the country would help cool off investigations into his activity as president, according to a friend of the president’s who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. He planned to stay in Florida for one to three months, this person said.

What we consider before using anonymous sources. Do the sources know the information? What’s their motivation for telling us? Have they proved reliable in the past? Can we corroborate the information? Even with these questions satisfied, The Times uses anonymous sources as a last resort. The reporter and at least one editor know the identity of the source.

Mr. Bolsonaro has never unequivocally conceded defeat in the election, leaving it to his aides to handle the transition of power and skipping the inauguration, where he was supposed to pass the presidential sash to Mr. Lula, an important symbol of the transition of power for a country that lived under a 21-year military dictatorship until 1985.

After the election, he said he supported peaceful protests inspired by “feelings of injustice in the electoral process.”

But before departing for Florida, Mr. Bolsonaro suggested to his supporters that they move on. “We live in a democracy or we don’t,” he said in a recorded statement. “No one wants an adventure.”

His calls were ignored.

The next day, thousands of his supporters remained camped outside the Army headquarters in Brasília, with many convinced that the military and Mr. Bolsonaro were about to execute a secret plan to prevent Mr. Lula’s inauguration.

“The army will step in,” Magno Rodrigues, 60, a former mechanic and janitor, said in an interview on Dec. 31, the day before Mr. Lula took office. He had been camped outside the army’s headquarters for nine weeks and said he was prepared to stay “for the rest of my life if I have to.”

One of Mr. Lula’s central challenges as president will be to unify the nation after a bitter election in which some of his supporters framed Mr. Bolsonaro as genocidal and cannibalistic, while Mr. Bolsonaro repeatedly called Mr. Lula a criminal. (Mr. Lula served 19 months in prison on corruption charges that were later thrown out.)

Surveys have shown that a sizable chunk of the population say they believe Mr. Lula stole the election, fueled by false claims that have spread across the internet and a shift among many right-wing voters away from traditional sources of news — problems that have also plagued American politics in recent years.

President Biden, who was visiting the southern U.S. border, called the protests “outrageous,” and Jake Sullivan, his national security adviser, said the United States “condemns any effort to undermine democracy in Brazil.”

“Our support for Brazil’s democratic institutions is unwavering,” Mr. Sullivan wrote on Twitter. “Brazil’s democracy will not be shaken by violence.”

Some far-right provocateurs in the United States however, cheered on the attacks, posting videos of the riots and calling the protesters “patriots” who were trying to uphold the Brazilian Constitution. Steve Bannon, a former adviser to President Donald J. Trump, called the protesters “Brazilian Freedom Fighters” in a social-media post. Mr. Bannon has had close ties with one of Mr. Bolsonaro’s sons.

At first, the rioters had a relatively easy time breaching the buildings. State police officers tried to hold them back, but they were far outnumbered. The demonstrations had been advertised widely on social media for days.

“It was scary, it was insanity,” said Adriana Reis, 30, a cleaner at Congress who witnessed the scene. “They tried hard, with pepper spray, to drive them off, but I don’t think the police could handle them all.” After protesters streamed in, “we ran away to hide,” she said.

Videos from inside Congress, the Supreme Court and the presidential offices quickly filled social-media feeds and group chats, showing protesters wearing their national flag and trudging through the halls of power, not exactly sure what to do next.

They sat in the padded chairs of the Chamber of Deputies, rifled through paperwork in the presidential offices and posed with a golden coat of arms that appeared to be ripped from the wall of the Supreme Court’s chambers. Federal officials later distributed images and videos from the presidential offices that showed destroyed computers, art ripped from frames and firearm cases that had been emptied of their guns.

The protesters were ransacking buildings that have been hailed as gems of Modernist architecture. Designed by the celebrated Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer in the 1950s, the Supreme Court, for instance, features columns of concrete clad in white marble that echo the fluttering of a sheet in the wind. And Congress is known for being capped with both a dome, under which the Senate is located, and a sort of bowl, under which the House is located.

Outside the presidential offices, they raised the flag of the Brazilian Empire, a period in the 19th century before Brazil became a democracy, and they sang Brazil’s national anthem. Videos of the rampage showed many protesters with phones aloft, filming the scene.

“There is no way to stop the people,” one protester declared as he live-streamed hundreds of protesters charging onto the roof of Congress. “Subscribe to my channel, guys.”

Several news outlets said their journalists were attacked and robbed during the rioting. And Ricardo Stuckert, Mr. Lula’s official photographer, had his passport and more than $95,000 worth of equipment stolen from a room in the presidential offices, according to his wife, Cristina Lino.

By late afternoon, military trucks had arrived.

Armed soldiers entered the presidential offices through a back door to ambush rioters inside. Shortly after, protesters began to stream out of the building, including some escorted by law enforcement officers.

By 9 p.m., more than seven hours after the invasions began, Brazil’s justice minister, Flávio Dino, said the buildings had been cleared. He said officials had arrested at least 200 people. The governor of Brasília said the number of arrests had exceeded 400.

Valdemar Costa Neto, the head of Mr. Bolsonaro’s right-wing Liberal Party, criticized the protesters.

“Today is a sad day for the Brazilian nation,” he said in a statement. “All orderly demonstrations are legitimate. Disorder has never been part of our nation’s principles.”

The Brazilian flag draped around many of the rioters on Sunday includes three words: “Order and progress.”

Reporting was contributed by Ana Ionova, Yan Boechat, Leonardo Coelho, Laís Martins and Gustavo Freitas.

Can Stem Cell Meat Save the Planet?

Eggs, chicken and fish from the laboratory: Singapore is the first country in the world to approve the sale of meat produced from stem cells. Will it be enough to feed the world?

By Maria Stöhr

06.01.2023, 20.56 Uhrken from the laboratory: Is this the future of food?

For our Global Societies project, reporters around the world will be writing about societal problems, sustainability and development in Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe. The series will include features, analyses, photo essays, videos and podcasts looking behind the curtain of globalization. The project is generously funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Just imagine for a moment that you could save the world with chicken nuggets. All you would have to do is just eat them. Your teeth would sink into real meat, yet no animal would have lost its life for your meal. It will have been grown in the laboratory from a single chicken cell. Imagine that there would suddenly be enough meat from the laboratory to feed everybody in the world. Hunger would be a thing of the past. The land now used to grow corn for animal feed could be repurposed, perhaps even for a forest that could draw CO2 out of our atmosphere. Industrial livestock farming would no longer be needed.

To be sure, solutions that sound so simple should be approached with caution. But there is a place where the utopia described above isn’t as far away as it might sound. Where such laboratory chicken can be tasted and where the nuggets are being served up on real plates. That place is Singapore.

Singapore is the first and, thus far, the only country in the world where meat grown in laboratories can be marketed to and eaten by consumers. The government is hopeful that the country can become home to the technologies behind the food of the future. It is likely, after all, to become an extremely profitable industry, with investors around the world already injecting billions of dollars into the new food sector. Alternative sources of protein, including lab-grown meat, currently make up 2 percent of the global meat market. By 2035, that share is expected to be five times as high. And now that food prices have skyrocketed due to the pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, adding to the hunger and environmental crises already afflicting the world, some experts believe that meat grown from stem cells could develop into a technological revolution.

Beyond that, Singapore is also dependent on food imports, with 90 percent coming from abroad. The country has hardly any of its own farmland. The government wants to change the situation by 2030 and is funding startups that might be able to help, such as one that is looking into ways to produce a replacement for eggs, and another that produces intelligent rooftop garden systems where heads of lettuce grow on self-watering, vertical columns. Much of the focus, though, is on stem cell technologies aimed at producing things like milk, fish and meat from stem cells.

In brief, the idea is as follows: Stem cells are taken from animals through a biopsy and are then frozen in liquid nitrogen to preserve them for several years. To produce meat, the cells are multiplied in a bioreactor. The technology isn’t quite yet ready for mass production, but theoretically, a single biopsy would be sufficient to produce hundreds of tons of meat.

The American startup Eat Just, based in Silicon Valley, is currently in the process of opening a laboratory in Singapore. The company’s focus is on producing chicken meat, which it plans to introduce to supermarkets in the coming years. In early November, the company invited a group of test subjects to the fancy Marriott Hotel in the center of Singapore to be served a dish of the future: investors, food technicians, company founders – and me.

The Dinner

During the meal, the lighting is dimmed, and a film is projected onto the wall about the climate crisis, damaged farmland, hungry populations and rising sea levels. The first three courses, all of which are vegan, even have names that recall the challenges our environment is facing: "Forest Floor," "Fields of Corn" and "Flooded Future."

We learn how people have spent millennia breeding fowl, resulting in the chicken as we know it today – one of the most important sources of protein for the global population. There are 23 billion chickens on Earth, and the video recounts how the process of feeding, slaughtering, refrigerating and transporting them requires a huge amount of energy and land, which is helping to fuel the climate crisis. All because people continue to want to eat excessive quantities of meat, even though it’s not necessary.

Finally, the course is brought in for which everyone has been waiting for this evening: chicken nuggets from the laboratory. The waitress serves the plates and presents the dish:

Throughout human history, advancements in food technology have had the power to change the way people live, things like fermenting fruit, baking bread, iodizing salt, controlling fire and domesticating animals. But for a new foodstuff, which may make sense in theory, to actually be accepted in practice, it must be affordable and available in large quantities. And more than anything, it has to taste good.

The Flavor

The knife slices through the breading and then through the meat itself. My first thought: It seems like normal chicken meat and can almost be cut through with a fork. I scratch off a bit of breading to get a better view of the meat itself. Its color is a bit lighter than normal chicken meat, a whitish-gray shade. The first bite: soft, not much resistance, a bit stringy and reminiscent of tofu. It’s a little watery. But it definitely tastes and smells like chicken.

One person at the table comments that there is room for improvement, while another says that if she had the choice, she would opt for a soybean schnitzel over one made from stem cells. They taste better, she says. But I find myself wondering, would people really be able to taste the difference on the street, given the way chicken nuggets are normally eaten – namely quickly, in large quantities and by hand? I give the meat a rating of five out of 10. Everyone at the table agrees that it’s not good enough yet. Innovation must grab your attention. Meat from the laboratory has to be better than the cheap chicken meat used by fast food chains.

But what about the other criteria? Price, availability and authorization? It’s time to head for the lab.

In the Laboratory

Serene Chng puts on a white lab coat. She is a biologist and works for Shiok Meats, a Singapore company that hopes to bring seafood made from stem cells to the market. It’s her job to find the highest quality cells to use as a starting point, those that reproduce the best.

Chng leads the way through the laboratory, where lobster, shrimp and crab stem cells are extracted and then examined. "We learn here what the cells like to eat and how often they must be fed," says Chng, referring to the nutrient solutions, full of carbohydrates, amino acids and minerals, that replace the blood that nourishes cells in living animals. "What you see here is the beginning of a revolution."

She leads the way past microscopes, UV lamps, centrifuges and devices for analyzing metabolism. The technology behind stem cell meat is borrowed from the processes used to produce certain medical drugs and vaccines. The corona vaccine produced by AstraZeneca, for example, is made using a similar process.

Chng’s coworker opens the top of the cryotank, which contains the stem cells. Nitrogen steams out of it. The most potent stem cells are kept inside, cooled to minus 196 degrees Celsius. Just one of the cells can produce as much shrimp meat as you want, says Chng. That process takes place nearby in large, stainless-steel reactors, where the cells reproduce. I had imagined entire lobsters growing in the machines, but that’s not entirely accurate. Only muscle and fat cells are reproduced, growing in a kind of soup that gets thicker and thicker until it reaches the consistency of ground meat. The cell soup is ready after six to eight weeks before being enriched with plant fibers in a process that Shiok Meats prefers not to describe in detail. The result is a kind of meat paste out of which foodstuffs can be produced. In other words, the final product like the chicken nugget, is not 100 percent meat.

Criticism of Lab-Grown Meat

As promising as the technology might sound, criticism of laboratory meat abounds. The primary focus of such criticism is the amount of energy necessary for its production, particularly for the fabrication of large quantities. If a significant share of the global population is to be fed with cultivated meat, huge bioreactors, sophisticated machinery and complex production facilities will be necessary.

I have a few questions of my own. Is lab-grown meat actually meat?

The founder of Shiok Meats, Sandhya Sriram, a stem-cell researcher, says: "Yes. It is 100 percent meat. Just imagine it like vegetables that are grown in a greenhouse instead of in nature. The result is the same, but the route taken isn’t the natural one, but a technological one."

Can vegetarians eat it as well?

Sriram: "Vegetarians who refrain from eating meat out of concern for the well-being of animals and the climate crisis are extremely interested in lab-grown meat. In cruelty-free meat."

Why is there a need for yet another meat alternative? We already have burgers made from soy, mungo beans and chickpeas.

Sriram: "It is naïve to hope that a majority of people will soon switch to vegetarianism. The consumption of meat is rising, as is the global population. Our approach is: Let people eat their meat and fish, but let’s make it sustainable."

If meat produced from stem cells is supposed to solve so many problems, why can’t I find it in the supermarket?

Two terms are consistently used when discussing the problems faced by lab-grown meat: Scaling and price. They are concerns held by stem-cell researcher Sandhya Sriram as well: "We rely on extremely expensive technologies and devices from the pharmaceutical industry, and we are using them to produce food." It will take time before sufficient lab-grown meat can be produced to sate the appetites of billions of people, she says, along with larger, cheaper bioreactors. Progress has been made, she says, but only in tiny steps.

Several years ago, says Sriram, the price of a kilogram of shrimp meat from Shiok Meats was around $10,000. Since then, though, the company has been able to reduce the price to around $50 per kilo. More time is still needed before meat from the bioreactor can come close to competing with meat from industrial livestock farming. But she believes that lab-grown meat products could become competitive within the next decade. And they must then be approved for sale. But such a process could be difficult in the European Union, since individual member states must give their thumbs up, and it is unclear how many of them might decide to protect their domestic meat industries instead.

Singapore is funding alternative food technologies, such as the company Agritisan, which constructs intelligent rooftop gardening systems so that more people can feed themselves.

Founder Alexander Tan shows one of his prototypes. Heads of lettuce grow on these vertical gardens, watered automatically from the inside of the column and powered by a solar cell on the top.

When it comes to the approval of lab-grown meat, Asia could end up taking the lead. Many countries in Asia are far more open to the technology than European countries, says Sandhya Sriram. That could be a function of the greater challenges the continent is facing when it comes to hunger and climate change-related catastrophes. Every year, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issues a "code red for humanity." In 2021, more than a million people in Asia didn’t have sufficient access to food, with farmers struggling with their harvests and fishing boats returning to port with smaller and smaller catches. Forecasts indicate that the region, currently home to 4.7 billion people, will grow by another 600 million people in the next 30 years.

A new technology to combat hunger and which can fill up more stomachs with fewer resources? That is a bit of good news.

Back to dinner at the hotel in Singapore. After the chicken nugget, the chef comes out to the dining room with yet another course he has prepared. It is again lab-grown chicken, but this time it’s "the next generation," he says. Satay skewers with peanut sauce.

Again, the aroma of grilled chicken fills the room. I pull the meat from the wooden skewers, some of it sticking. This time, the texture of the meat is firmer.

Can the world be saved by chicken nuggets or grilled chicken skewers? Will people ever buy foodstuffs produced in a manner similar to a COVID vaccine? I don’t have the answers. I pick up the last of the three satay skewers from the plate and take a bite of the chicken that was produced in a cellular soup inside a stainless-steel vat. It is saturated in marinade and peanut sauce. I’ve certainly eaten worse chicken. Seven out of 10 points.

This piece is part of the Global Societies series. The project runs for three years and is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Lubmin, the German village where the pipeline runs dry (Le Monde)

“Usually, the Baltic Sea is calm. Along the four kilometers of snow-covered beach that form the coastline of Lubmin, in northeast Germany, there’s nothing to suggest the presence of the famous Nord Stream pipelines. However, from this town of 2,100 inhabitants in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, in the former GDR, the underwater infrastructure that connects St. Petersburg, Russia, to the European continent has been providing cheap gas to all of Germany since 2012. In September 2022, a mysterious explosion damaged those facilities and buried this partnership, which had already been called into question by the invasion of Ukraine on February 24. Since then, the price of gas has almost tripled in the region.”

— Le Monde

---

In 2022, we were unstoppable in accelerating the future of energy.

Let's reflect on our some of our best moments:

1. We announced our intent to exit coal by the end of 2025 and increased our ownership of AES Andes from 67% to 98%.

2. Fast Company ranked AES in the top ten of its “Best 100 Workplaces for Innovators” list.

3. We helped restore power to the people of Puerto Rico following Hurricane Fiona. Like Hawaii, we are also helping Puerto Rico in its energy transition by deploying solar plus storage on the island.

4. We released our IRP for AES Indiana, which serves as a roadmap for the company’s power generation goals. It included renewables, storage, and converting coal facilities to cleaner energy .

5. Together with Air Products, we announced a $4 billion mega-scale green hydrogen production facility in the United States, the largest green hydrogen project in the nation.

Reforestation day…

Since July 2015, Seaboard has been sponsoring a permanent brigade to contribute to the sustained work of recovering the forested area in the Upper Ozama River Basin.

Altice delivers innovative, customer-centric products and solutions that connect and unlock the limitless potential of its over 30 million customers over fiber networks and mobile…

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By  Lucas Minisini

Published on January 7, 2023

FeatureOn the Baltic Sea coast, the village is the endpoint for the Nord Stream pipelines through which Germany can tap into cheap Russian gas. But since the war in Ukraine, the tap has been turned off.

Usually, the Baltic Sea is calm. Along the four kilometers of snow-covered beach that form the coastline of Lubmin, in northeast Germany, there's nothing to suggest the presence of the famous Nord Stream pipelines. However, from this town of 2,100 inhabitants in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, in the former GDR, the underwater infrastructure that connects St. Petersburg, Russia, to the European continent has been providing cheap gas to all of Germany since 2012. In September 2022, a mysterious explosion damaged those facilities and buried this partnership, which had already been called into question by the invasion of Ukraine on February 24. Since then, the price of gas has almost tripled in the region.

Since the beginning of the war, Lubmin has become famous worldwide. 'Even President Joe Biden knows about us,' said a resident.

In the village battered by icy winds, at the entrance of the only hotel in Lubmin, the Hotel Seebrücke, 74-year-old owner Heidrun Moritz asked the question that most of the residents have been wondering about: "Why not simply reopen Nord Stream?" Wearing a flowery apron, and with her eyes fixed on the sea, she was worried about the winter. The temperatures, already negative on this December 14, are expected to continue to drop, and she doesn't know how long she'll be able to heat her 12 rooms, which she has been renting out non-stop since 1983.

The once bustling restaurant in Lubmin has become a shadow of its former self due to rising prices that have deterred customers from indulging in their favorite ice cream or fish dishes while enjoying Christmas music in the background. The owner, a biology graduate who learned Russian in school, expressed frustration at the stalled construction of the planned extension to the one-story building, which has been in progress for years. As she stands at the counter adorned with numerous owls of varying sizes, Heidrun Moritz deplored the fact that the residents of Lubmin are "all victims of geopolitics."

'Energy capital'

Lubmin has become a symbol of Germany's energy dependence on Russia. The presence of Nord Stream AG in the municipality has brought in an annual income of between €1.5 and €2 million in local taxes, earning it the nickname of the "energy capital" of the country. However, journalists are now unwelcome in the peaceful and well-maintained streets of Lubmin, as many residents have grown tired of the constant questioning about energy and Nord Stream. When contacted by email, Mayor Axel Vogt declined to meet with Le Monde, stating that the villagers of Lubmin would like nothing more than to return to a state of "peace and tranquility." As a politically unaffiliated mayor responsible for the operation of the municipality's port and a strong supporter of local energy policy, Mr. Vogt's perspective on the matter carries significant weight.

Many people have chosen to settle in Lubmin for their retirement, drawn to the comfortable houses on the edge of the forest, or to raise their children in a small town located about 30 kilometers from the university city of Greifswald. Despite being located in a region of Germany with high unemployment rates (around 9%), Lubmin has attracted new residents due to planned housing developments that will accommodate families or workers from across the European Union. The town has also accepted Ukrainian refugees, though this decision was met with hesitation from the town hall and with criticism from residents due to the village's historical ties to Russia. Since the beginning of the war, Lubmin has gained worldwide recognition. "Even Joe Biden, the president of the United States, knows about us," said one resident on an icy street with a touch of pride.

A new controversial project

As the end of 2022 approached, the town of Lubmin remained in the news due to the Neptune, a massive ship owned by TotalEnergies that is stationed offshore. Measuring 283 meters in length and 55 meters in height, the ship is filled with liquefied gas. Its purpose is to launch a methanol port, also known as an "LNG terminal," in Lubmin. The gas, largely exported from Qatar, is cooled to -160°C to maintain its liquid form before being transported to the mainland via small boats suitable for the shallow waters off the coast. Although the recent Qatargate controversy may complicate matters, Germany has plans to build a total of 11 terminals of this type, with the first one having been inaugurated on December 12 along the North Sea coast.

Funded by Stephan Knabe and Ingo Wagner, a tax consultant and real estate entrepreneur from Potsdam near Berlin, the port of Lubmin would provide 4.5 billion cubic meters of gas per year to thousands of households through their startup, Deutsche ReGas. A significant decrease from the 55 billion cubic meters per year transported by Nord Stream 1 before September. However, according to the Lubmin pastor Katrin Krüger, "no one wants this project." Despite the lack of support, Ms. Krüger wondered if the town truly has any other options. She has observed an increase in "depressed" worshippers at her 50-seat church, which was heated to only 17°C due to rising prices.

Environmental activists in the region are concerned about the potential danger of a gas terminal in Lubmin, which is located near the Rügen and Usedom islands, important fishing and biodiversity reserves. They warned that the constant movement of polluting boats could disrupt the flow of sand and hinder the creation of oxygen in the water, which is generated by currents. Susanna Knotz, a member of BUND, the German federation for the environment and nature conservation, said that "this project would endanger the most important swan molting area in northern Germany, located very close to Lubmin."

The environmental activist stated that, despite repeated requests from various NGOs, Deutsche ReGas has only provided temporary access to documents outlining the environmental impact of the project, rather than making them publicly and indefinitely accessible as required by law. The company cited "security reasons" for this decision, without providing further information. The launch of the gas terminal, which was originally scheduled for December 1, has been postponed for several weeks without any explanation. Deutsche ReGas's communication department has simply referred to a "complicated period" in a brief email.

A long golden age

Thanks to the energy industry, Lubmin has experienced a long golden age. In the late 1960s, a nuclear power plant was built there by the Soviet Union. Advertised as "the largest in the entire GDR," it supplied more than 10% of the electricity consumed in East Germany and employed a little over 8,000 people. A job that paid twice as much as a professor's position in the communist territory, which made everyone "very proud," said Olaf Strauss, 56, who is now a technology and innovation consultant at the University of Neubrandenburg, about 80 kilometers south of Lubmin.

Hired in 1983, the young man became responsible for transferring electricity produced in the east German network, under the strict control of the Stasi, the GDR's intelligence services, whose informants were present in every department. "There was even an office for spies in the building," said the professor with a smile, in a café in Greifswald, a city near Lubmin. At the time, the engineer with a mullet participated in football tournaments with the power plant team, drank beers with his colleagues, and often fell asleep on the beach in Lubmin after his night shift to enjoy the scenery.

The village, where dozens of houses were built in a few years, became one of the "biggest economic centers in the region," with a bright future. But everything stopped in 1990. The reunified Germany refused to continue the Soviet project and began a long process of dismantling the nuclear power plant (which today still employs a little over 800 people). Some of the former employees then applied to work in Western Germany's power plants while others preferred to change careers. Thousands of workers lost their jobs overnight. "But here, the ties with Russia never disappeared," said Mr. Strauss.

A grand opening

On November 8, 2011, the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline was inaugurated with great fanfare. The then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, hailed a "new chapter in the partnership between Russia and the European Union" in front of 450 guests, including Chancellor Angela Merkel, French Prime Minister François Fillon, Matthias Warnig, a former Stasi officer close to Vladimir Putin and CEO of Nord Stream AG, and Gerhard Schröder, the former German Chancellor, who arrived by helicopter.

"The Chancellor opened the gas pipeline herself, in front of the cameras and photographers of the world," said Volker Erckmann, a retired physicist, member of the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science and founder of a research institute in Greifswald, who was present that day. After several projects rejected by the inhabitants, including a Danish coal plant and an incineration plant for the waste of the city of Naples, Italy, Lubmin rejoiced in this unique partnership and its seemingly endless financial windfall. "Nobody had imagined that an excessive dependence on Russia could become a problem," the 72-year-old scientist said, over slices of gingerbread and coffee in the living room of his spacious house, a few dozen meters from the sea.

The first doubts

The first doubts arose in 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea and invaded the Donbas region. The project for a Nord Stream 2 system, launched in 2018, which could double amounts sent to Western Europe, became a source of political tensions between the European Union and the United States, which was firmly opposed to the idea. According to Mr. Erckmann, the inhabitants of Lubmin rejected American doubts, which they considered as "outside interference."

Thanks to a "foundation for the protection of the environment and climate," a state organization that he almost entirely finances, the Russian energy giant Gazprom was able to bypass the economic sanctions planned by the United States to penalize western companies involved in the project. The construction of the new gas pipeline continued. Nord Stream 2 was completed in September 2021, but five months later, Russia invaded Ukraine and the 1,220-kilometer pipeline, which was operational, wasn't put into service in the end. "Everyone was extremely disappointed," said the physicist.

The inhabitants then decided to fight. One week after the sabotage of Nord Stream, in September 2022, which completely stopped the shipment of Russian gas (whose volumes had already been gradually reduced by Gazprom), 1,800 people gathered in Lubmin to demand the opening of the two pipelines. At the demonstration in front of the town hall, near the old railway station, Russian flags were displayed alongside slogans against the restrictions linked to Covid-19 and T-shirts with Nazi symbols, which can be seen in a video by the local media outlet Katapult present at the gathering.

Three Ukrainian refugees were threatened by demonstrators for holding up signs condemning the "murderous" Russian state: "You should leave, you don't want to know what will happen to you if you stay here," warned one of them, according to several journalists on the spot. Far-right political figures, such as the Austrian Martin Sellner, leader of the Identitären Bewegung Österreich movement, close to the American alt-right, crowded in front of the entrance to the Nord Stream power plant, amidst smoke bombs and declarations in favor of Vladimir Putin. The 30-year-old, banned from entering the United Kingdom, demanded the reopening of the facilities, without success.

Today, protests continue, but the Russian gas pipeline has taken a back seat to the now primarily anti-government demands. According to Mr. Erckmann, who has nevertheless decided to enjoy his retirement in this "turbulent" village, Nord Stream has become a source of frustration in the quiet streets of Lubmin. With a sad smile, the 70-year-old concluded: "Here, all projects end up failing..."

Looking for new sources of revenue

Today, the people of Lubmin are a bit lost. Recently, the town council has started building a museum about the history of the village, mainly to tell its long tradition of fishing, the former local livelihood, which is now almost extinct. Since the end of Nord Stream, local businesses are struggling to find new sources of income, potentially more environmentally friendly. "Plans have been drawn up for the construction of a hydrogen power plant," explained Rainer Sauerwein, 77, an environmental activist based on the island of Usedom, about 50 kilometers to the east. To power it, the wind turbines in the nearby village of Wusterhusen could be requisitioned. Several dozen new, more powerful models should also be built on the island of Rügen, opposite Lubmin.

The latest idea, a bio-fuel power plant, which runs on agricultural waste, has just been launched on the site of the old nuclear power plant. But for the German environmentalist, these are just "fantasies" aimed at camouflaging the region's investments in fossil fuels. Only tourism has remained stable in the small seaside resort on the Baltic Sea. A few tens of thousands of people travel to the guesthouses each summer to enjoy the long beach, which is less crowded than those on the neighboring islands. "The big hotel chains have never invested here," said the former scientist. "They were afraid of the energy industry, which is still quite dominant."

On the outskirts of the city, near the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines, right next to the marina, it's impossible to talk to employees working for Nord Stream AG. They have all been instructed not to talk to the press. Contrary to expectations, almost no one lost their job. Wearing fluorescent safety vests, several dozen of them are still working in the facilities, mostly to maintain the pipes. Many of the residents hope this is a sign that the pipelines may one day return to service.

Note: if you are interested in this subject, Germán & Co has written a series of essays on this topic.

The Riddle Of Non-Nord Stream Return... | Energy Central

News round-up, Friday, January 06, 2023

“What are the chances of a soft landing?
If the strained U.S. economy is going to unwind rather than unravel, it will need multiple double-edged realities to be favorably resolved.
For instance, many retail industry analysts think the holiday season may have been the last hurrah for the pandemic-era burst in purchases of goods. Some consumers may be sated from recent spending, while others become more selective in their purchases, balking at higher prices.”

— NYT

---

In 2022, we were unstoppable in accelerating the future of energy.

Let's reflect on our some of our best moments:

1. We announced our intent to exit coal by the end of 2025 and increased our ownership of AES Andes from 67% to 98%.

2. Fast Company ranked AES in the top ten of its “Best 100 Workplaces for Innovators” list.

3. We helped restore power to the people of Puerto Rico following Hurricane Fiona. Like Hawaii, we are also helping Puerto Rico in its energy transition by deploying solar plus storage on the island.

4. We released our IRP for AES Indiana, which serves as a roadmap for the company’s power generation goals. It included renewables, storage, and converting coal facilities to cleaner energy .

5. Together with Air Products, we announced a $4 billion mega-scale green hydrogen production facility in the United States, the largest green hydrogen project in the nation.

Reforestation day…

Since July 2015, Seaboard has been sponsoring a permanent brigade to contribute to the sustained work of recovering the forested area in the Upper Ozama River Basin.

Altice delivers innovative, customer-centric products and solutions that connect and unlock the limitless potential of its over 30 million customers over fiber networks and mobile…

Cooperate with ethical thinking -

Even a Soft Landing for the Economy May Be Uneven

Small businesses and lower-income families could feel pinched in the months ahead whether or not a recession is avoided this year.

By Talmon Joseph Smith

Jan. 6, 2023

One of the defining economic stories of the past year was the complex debate over whether the U.S. economy was going into a recession or merely descending, with some altitude sickness, from a peak in growth after pandemic lows.

This year, those questions and contentions are likely to continue. The Federal Reserve has been steeply increasing borrowing costs for consumers and businesses in a bid to curb spending and slow down inflation, with the effects still making their way through the veins of commercial activity and household budgeting. So most banks and large credit agencies expect a recession in 2023.

At the same time, a budding crop of economists and major market investors see a firm chance that the economy will avoid a recession, or scrape by with a brief stall in growth, as cooled consumer spending and the easing of pandemic-era disruptions help inflation gingerly trend toward more tolerable levels — a hopeful outcome widely called a soft landing.

“The possibility of getting a soft landing is greater than the market believes,” said Jason Draho, an economist and the head of Americas asset allocation for UBS Global Wealth Management. “Inflation has now come down faster than some recently expected, and the labor market has held up better than expected.”

What seems most likely is that even if a soft landing is achieved, it will be smoother for some households and businesses and rockier for others.

In late 2020 and early 2021, talk of a “K-shaped recovery” took root, inspired by the early pandemic economy’s split between secure remote workers — whose savings, house prices and portfolios surged — and the millions more navigating hazardous or tenuous in-person jobs or depending on a large-yet-porous unemployment aid system.

In 2023, if there’s a soft landing, it could be K-shaped, too. The downside is likely to be felt most by cash-starved small businesses and by workers no longer buoyed by the savings and labor bargaining power they built up during the pandemic.

In any case, more turbulence lies ahead as fairly low unemployment, high inflation and shaky growth continue to queasily coexist.

Generally healthy corporate balance sheets and consumer credit could be bulwarks against the forces of volatile prices, global instability and the withdrawal of emergency-era federal aid. Chief executives of companies that cater to financially sound middle-class and affluent households remain confident in their outlook. Al Kelly, the chief executive of Visa, the credit card company, said recently that “we are seeing nothing but stability.”

But the Fed’s projections indicate that 1.6 million people could lose jobs by late this year — and that the unemployment rate will rise at a magnitude that in recent history has always been accompanied by a recession.

“There will be some softening in labor market conditions,” Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, said at his most recent news conference, explaining the rationale for the central bank’s recent persistence in raising rates. “And I wish there were a completely painless way to restore price stability. There isn’t. And this is the best we can do.”

Will the bottom 50 percent backslide?

Over the past two years, researchers have frequently noted that, on average, lower-wage workers have reaped the greatest pay gains, with bumps in compensation that often outpaced inflation, especially for those who switched jobs. But those gains are relative and were often upticks from low baselines.

According to the Realtime Inequality tracker, created by economists at the University of California, Berkeley, inflation-adjusted disposable income for the bottom 50 percent of working-age adults grew 4.2 percent from January 2019 to September 2022. Among the top 50 percent, income lagged behind inflation. But that comparison leaves out the context that the average income for the bottom 50 percent in 2022 was $25,500 — roughly a $13 hourly pay rate.

“As we look ahead, I think it is entirely possible that the households and the people we usually worry about at the bottom of the income distribution are going to run into some kind of combination of job loss and softer wage gains, right as whatever savings they had from the pandemic gets depleted,” said Karen Dynan, a former chief economist at the Treasury Department and a professor at Harvard University. “And it’s going to be tough on them.”

Consumer spending accounts for roughly 70 percent of economic activity. The widespread resilience of overall consumption in the past year despite high inflation and sour business sentiment was largely attributed to the savings that households of all kinds accumulated during the pandemic: a $2.3 trillion gumbo of government aid, reduced spending on in-person services, windfalls from mortgage refinancing and cashed-out stock gains.

What’s left of those stockpiles is concentrated among wealthier households.

After spiking during the pandemic, the overall rate of saving among Americans has quickly plunged amid inflation.

The personal saving rate -- a monthly measure of the percentage of after-tax income that households save overall -- has dropped precipitously in recent months. 

Note: The personal saving rate is also referred to as "personal saving as a percentage of disposable personal income." Personal saving is defined as overall income minus spending and taxes paid.

Most major U.S. banks have reported that checking balances are above prepandemic levels across all income groups. Yet the cost of living is higher than it was in 2019 throughout the country. And depleted savings among the bottom third of earners could continue to ebb while rent and everyday prices still rise, albeit more slowly.

Most key economic measures are reported in “real” terms, subtracting inflation from changes in individual income (real wage growth) and total output (real gross domestic product, or G.D.P.). If government calculations of inflation continue to abate as quickly as markets expect, inflation-adjusted numbers could become more positive, making the decelerating economy sound healthier.

That wonky dynamic could form a deep tension between resilient-looking official data and the sentiment of consumers who may again find themselves with little financial cushion.

Does small business risk falling behind?

Another potential factor for a K-shaped landing could be the growing pressure on small businesses, which have less wiggle room than bigger companies in managing costs. Small employers are also more likely to be affected by the tightening of credit as lenders become far pickier and pricier than just a year ago.

In a December survey of 3,252 small-business owners by Alignable, a Boston-based small business network with seven million members, 38 percent said they had only one month or less of cash reserves, up 12 percentage points from a year earlier. Many landlords who were lenient about payments at the height of the pandemic have stiffened, asking for back rent in addition to raising current rents.

Unlike many large-scale employers that have locked in cheap long-term funding by selling corporate bonds, small businesses tend to fund their operations and payrolls with a mix of cash on hand, business credit cards and loans from commercial banks. Higher interest rates have made the latter two funding sources far more expensive — spelling trouble for companies that may need a fresh line of credit in the coming months. And incoming cash flows depend on sales remaining strong, a deep uncertainty for most.

A Bank of America survey of small-business owners in November found that “more than half of respondents expect a recession in 2023 and plan to reduce spending accordingly.” For a number of entrepreneurs, decisions to maintain profitability may lead to reductions in staff.

Some businesses wrestling with labor shortages, increased costs and a tapering off in customers have already decided to close.

Susan Dayton, a co-owner of Hamilton Street Cafe in Albany, N.Y., closed her business in the fall once she felt the rising costs of key ingredients and staff turnover were no longer sustainable.

She said the labor shortage for small shops like hers could not be solved by simply offering more pay. “What I have found is that offering people more money just means you’re paying more for the same people,” Ms. Dayton said.

That tension among profitability, staffing and customer growth will be especially stark for smaller businesses. But it exists in corporate America, too. Some industry analysts say company earnings, which ripped higher for two years, could weaken but not plunge, with input costs leveling off, while businesses manage to keep prices elevated even if sales slow.

That could limit the bulk of layoffs to less-valued workers during corporate downsizing and to certain sectors that are sensitive to interest rates, like real estate or tech — creating another potential route for a soft, if unequal, landing.

The biggest challenge to overcome is that the income of one person or business is the spending of another. Those who feel that inflation can be tamed without a collapse in the labor market hope that spending slows just enough to cool off price increases, but not so much that it leads employers to lay off workers — who could pull back further on spending, setting off a vicious circle.

What are the chances of a soft landing?

If the strained U.S. economy is going to unwind rather than unravel, it will need multiple double-edged realities to be favorably resolved.

For instance, many retail industry analysts think the holiday season may have been the last hurrah for the pandemic-era burst in purchases of goods. Some consumers may be sated from recent spending, while others become more selective in their purchases, balking at higher prices.

That could sharply reduce companies’ “pricing power” and slow inflation associated with goods. Service-oriented businesses may be somewhat affected, too. But the same phenomenon could lead to layoffs, as slowdowns in demand reduce staffing needs.

In the coming months, the U.S. economy will be influenced in part by geopolitics in Europe and the coronavirus in China. Volatile shifts in what some researchers call “systemically significant prices,” like those for gas, utilities and food, could materialize. People preparing for a downturn by cutting back on investments or spending could, in turn, create one. And it is not clear how far the Fed will go in raising interest rates.

Then again, those risk factors could end up relatively benign.

“It’s 50-50, but I have to take a side, right? So I take the side of no recession,” said Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “I can make the case on either side of this pretty easily, but I think with a little bit of luck and some tough policymaking, we can make our way through.”

Kevin McCarthy hopes for deal as US House Speaker fight hits day four

Kevin McCarthy's attempt to become House speaker has been frustrated by members of his party

By Kathryn Armstrong & Anthony Zurcher in London and Washington

Le Monde

Members of the US House of Representatives will try for a fourth day to elect a Speaker on Friday in an attempt to end a political impasse.

The frontrunner, Republican Kevin McCarthy, has so far failed to reach the 218 votes required for election.

And there is still no clear sign that any deal will win over enough colleagues to get him over that mark.

There have so far been 11 failed votes - a paralysis of government not seen since the pre-Civil War era.

The reason for him falling short is a right-wing cohort within his own party refusing to vote for him.

Mr McCarthy needs to ease the concerns of enough Republican holdouts - 16 out of 20 - to win him the speakership.

This is nearly always a formality in US politics at the start of a Speaker's two-year term following congressional elections.

For more than a day now, there has been talk of concessions Mr McCarthy could make to win them over. As talks proceed, the outlines of a potential deal have become more clear.

His hope at this point seems to be that if he can convince some of them to back him, there will be sufficient pressure on the others to throw in the towel and give up the fight.

Progress is slow and, as some McCarthy supporters grow restless, a resolution - if it comes - could still be days away.

Mr McCarthy had already offered compromises that would have weakened the Speaker's role in the House. However, these haven't been enough to break the impasse.

The Speaker of the House is the second in line to the presidency, after Vice-President Kamala Harris. They set the agenda in the House, and no legislative business can be conducted there without them.

Without a Speaker, some key functions of the House cannot be conducted - including the swearing in of members, forming committees and the passing of bills.

The so-called "Never Kevins" who are standing in Mr McCarthy's way are sceptical of the California congressman's conservative bona fides, despite his endorsement from former President Donald Trump.

Their votes are crucial because Republicans took over the House in November's midterm elections by only a slender margin of 222 to 212 in the 435-seat chamber.

There haven't been many indications that a deal is imminent, however.

One staunch member of the holdout group, Congressman Matt Gaetz, told reporters on Thursday night that he won't support any deal that "results in Kevin McCarthy becoming speaker".

The last ballot that took place on Thursday before the House was adjourned saw Mr McCarthy earn 200 votes, while 12 Republicans voted for Byron Donalds and seven for Kevin Hern. Mr Gaetz cast a protest ballot for Mr Trump to serve in the role.

Not since 1860, when the United States' union was fraying over the issue of slavery, has the lower chamber of Congress voted so many times to pick a Speaker. Back then it took 44 rounds of ballots.

Meanwhile, the minority Democrats continued to vote in unison for their leader, New York's Hakeem Jeffries, the first black person ever to lead a party in Congress. But it still seems unlikely that he could win over six Republican defectors to become Speaker.

Friday's voting will also take place on the second anniversary of the US Capitol riots, when a mob of Donald Trump supporters tried to stop Congress from certifying the Republican's 2020 election defeat.

The Kraken COVID variant is coming — but not yet

XBB.1.5 might drive higher COVID infections in Europe, but not within the next month, says the ECDC.

The good news is that Europe has some time to prepare for if and when cases go vertical | Hazem Bader/AFP via Getty images

BY CARLO MARTUSCELLI

POLITICO EU

JANUARY 6, 2023

The EU's disease control agency has good news and bad news when it comes to XBB.1.5, the coronavirus sub-variant nicknamed Kraken that is ripping through America and keeping epidemiologists up at night.

The bad news is that XBB.1.5 is spreading quickly, most likely because it has some big advantages over the currently dominant Omicron strains. The good news is that Europe has some time to prepare for if and when cases go vertical.

"There is a possibility that this variant could have an increasing effect on the number of COVID-19 cases in the EU/EEA, but not within the coming month as the variant is currently only present in the EU/EEA at very low levels," writes the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) in its recent assessment of XBB.1.5.

On Wednesday, the WHO’s COVID-19 technical lead Maria Van Kerkhove said that the health agency was concerned with how quickly the sub-variant was replacing other variants in circulation. In the U.S., it went from 4 percent of cases sequenced to 40 percent in a few weeks, according to the White House's COVID-19 Response Coordinator.

Is the cost of living crunch starting to ease?

By Johanna Treeck

However, it is not yet known whether it causes more severe infection.

The ECDC writes that the elevated pace of spread is likely due to XBB.1.5's ability to dodge immune system protection granted by previous infections or vaccination. It also has a mutation on its spike protein — the part of the virus that binds to host cells — which might provide some advantage.

For now, the sub-variant is just a blip on the radar in Europe in terms of case numbers, said the ECDC, though it has been detected in Denmark, France, Austria, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Iceland, Belgium, Czech Republic, Portugal, and Ireland. Data coming out of the U.S. suggests XBB.1.5 spreads aggressively, with cases doubling every nine days.

The danger is that an explosion of cases coincides with an already-difficult influenza and respiratory syncytial virus season, straining hospitals. In Belgium, public health authorities declared a flu epidemic due to surging cases, with the peak expected in three or four weeks.

But just because the sub-variant is exploding in the U.S. doesn't necessarily mean that Europe will soon be in the eye of the storm. "[M]ajor differences in variant circulation have been observed between North America and Europe several times during the pandemic," writes the ECDC.

Note: if you are interested in this subject, Germán & Co has written a series of essays on this topic.

The Riddle Of Non-Nord Stream Return... | Energy Central

News round-up, Thursday, January 05, 2023

“After two days of chaos and confusion on the House floor, Republicans have made it abundantly clear who is leading their party: absolutely no one.”

— NYT

---

In 2022, we were unstoppable in accelerating the future of energy.

Let's reflect on our some of our best moments:

1. We announced our intent to exit coal by the end of 2025 and increased our ownership of AES Andes from 67% to 98%.

2. Fast Company ranked AES in the top ten of its “Best 100 Workplaces for Innovators” list.

3. We helped restore power to the people of Puerto Rico following Hurricane Fiona. Like Hawaii, we are also helping Puerto Rico in its energy transition by deploying solar plus storage on the island.

4. We released our IRP for AES Indiana, which serves as a roadmap for the company’s power generation goals. It included renewables, storage, and converting coal facilities to cleaner energy .

5. Together with Air Products, we announced a $4 billion mega-scale green hydrogen production facility in the United States, the largest green hydrogen project in the nation.

Reforestation day…

Since July 2015, Seaboard has been sponsoring a permanent brigade to contribute to the sustained work of recovering the forested area in the Upper Ozama River Basin.

Altice delivers innovative, customer-centric products and solutions that connect and unlock the limitless potential of its over 30 million customers over fiber networks and mobile…

Cooperate with ethical thinking -

NEWS ANALYSIS

‘Nobody Is in Charge’: A Ragged G.O.P. Stumbles Through the Wilderness

With no unified agenda or clear leadership, Republicans face the prospect that the anti-establishment fervor that has powered the party in recent years could now devour it.

By Lisa Lerer and Reid J. Epstein

Jan. 5, 2023, 5:00 a.m. ET

After two days of chaos and confusion on the House floor, Republicans have made it abundantly clear who is leading their party: absolutely no one.

From the halls of Congress to the Ohio Statehouse to the back-room dealings of the Republican National Committee, the party is confronting an identity crisis unseen in decades. With no unified legislative agenda, clear leadership or shared vision for the country, Republicans find themselves mired in intraparty warfare, defined by a fringe element that seems more eager to tear down the House than to rebuild the foundation of a political party that has faced disappointment in the past three national elections.

Even as Donald J. Trump rarely leaves his Florida home in what so far appears to be little more than a Potemkin presidential campaign, Republicans have failed to quell the anti-establishment fervor that accompanied his rise to power. Instead, those tumultuous political forces now threaten to devour the entire party.

Nowhere was that on more vivid display than the House floor, where 20 Republicans on Wednesday stymied their party from taking control for a second day by refusing to support Representative Kevin McCarthy’s bid for speaker.

The uncertainty continued into the evening on Wednesday. After Mr. McCarthy failed on his sixth attempt to win the leadership position, the House — by a two-vote margin — agreed to adjourn until noon Thursday, a result greeted by hoots and hollers by Democrats hoping to extend his misery late into the night.

“Nobody is in charge,” John Fredericks, a syndicated right-wing radio host and former chairman of Mr. Trump’s 2016 and 2020 campaigns in Virginia, said in an interview. “Embrace the chaos. Our movement is embracing the chaos.”

That ideology of destruction defies characterization by traditional political labels like moderate or conservative. Instead, the party has created its own complicated taxonomy of America First, MAGA and anti-Trump — descriptions that are more about political style and personal vendettas than policy disagreements.

This iteration of the Grand Old Party, with its narrow majority in the House empowering conservative dissidents, represents a striking reversal of the classic political maxim that Democrats need to fall in love while Republicans just fall in line.

“The members who began this have little interest in legislating, but are most interested in burning down the existing Republican leadership structure,” said Karl Rove, the Republican strategist who embodies the party’s pre-Trump era. “Their behavior shows the absence of power corrupts just as absolutely as power does.”

Mr. Fredericks, who is typically one of the most aggressive pro-Trump voices in the conservative news media, said that even the former president’s renewed endorsement of Mr. McCarthy on Wednesday would do little to shore up the would-be speaker’s support.

A New Congress Begins

The 118th Congress opened on Jan. 3, with Republicans taking control of the House and Democrats holding the Senate.

• A Divided House: House Republicans began their new majority rule by failing to elect a speaker. The infighting has exposed a big rift in the party.

• George Santos: The new congressman from New York, a Republican who has made false claims about his background, education and finances, brings his saga to Capitol Hill.

• Pelosi Era Ends: Nancy Pelosi, the first woman to become House speaker, leaves a legacy that will be difficult for the new leadership of both parties to reach.

• Elise Stefanik: The New York congresswoman’s climb to MAGA stardom is a case study in the collapse of the old Republican establishment, but her rise may also be a cautionary tale.

Indeed, none of Mr. McCarthy’s opponents reversed course after receiving calls from Mr. Trump encouraging them to do so. Rather, Representative Lauren Boebert of Colorado took to the floor to urge her “favorite president” to change his view and tell Mr. McCarthy to withdraw his bid.

“The movement has eclipsed its Trump leadership,” Mr. Fredericks said on Wednesday. “We found 20 new leaders.”

That’s a very different definition of a leader from the traditional image of a legislator muscling policy through Congress and reshaping American life. In the new conservative ecosystem, leaders are born of the outrage that drives news coverage on the right and fuels online fund-raising.

The new political dynamics distinguish this class of Republican agitators from the self-styled revolutionaries who took control under former Speaker Newt Gingrich in 1994 or the Tea Party lawmakers who clashed with Speaker John Boehner after the party’s 2010 triumph. Those insurgent movements aspired to change the vision of the party. This group of House lawmakers, their Republican critics say, are focused far more on their personal power.

“There’s been a growing tolerance of people who do not act in good faith who consistently diminish the institution for their personal gain and advancement,” said former Representative Carlos Curbelo, a Florida Republican who was in the House for the first two years of the Trump administration. “This is the most dramatic manifestation of that toxic culture.”

While few voters are likely to be following every twist in the arcane congressional procedure, several Republicans acknowledged that the party’s infighting in the House could saddle it with an enduring perception of dysfunction.

Matt Brooks, the executive director of the powerful Republican Jewish Coalition, called for the “infidels” to pay a “real price” for their opposition, adding, “There are elements of us looking like the Keystone Kops.”

At least a few Republicans worried that the drama could have long-term effects, as the party heads into what increasingly looks like a contentious battle for the 2024 presidential nomination.

“We have to get this speakership settled and we have to go forward if we want to be successful in 2024 as a united party,” Ronna McDaniel, who faces a stiff challenge this month to her leadership of the Republican National Committee, said on Fox News on Tuesday. Pleading for lawmakers to unify behind Mr. McCarthy, she said, “This Republican-on-Republican infighting is only hurting one thing: our party.”

The uproar on the House floor even prompted some Republicans to praise a Democrat who has for years been one of their most reviled figures.

“Nancy Pelosi is the most effective speaker this country has ever had,” said former Representative Billy Long of Missouri, who claims to have coined the phrase “Trump Train” in 2015. “She never missed. She would get her people. She’d get the votes by hook or by crook.”

For their part, Democrats largely declined to comment on the spectacle. They didn’t need to: The images from President Biden’s appearance on Wednesday in Kentucky — where he shook hands with Senator Mitch McConnell in front of a bridge project funded by their bipartisan legislation — cut a sharp contrast with the arguments and pained glances on the House floor.

“It’s a little embarrassing it’s taking so long, and the way they are dealing with one another,” Mr. Biden said of House Republicans on Wednesday as he left the White House. “What I am focused on is getting things done.”

The Republican unrest has trickled down to places like the Ohio Statehouse, where State Representative Jason Stephens, a moderate Republican, joined with Democrats this week to snatch the speakership from State Representative Derek Merrin, who has co-sponsored some of the chamber’s most conservative legislation. The surprising outcome reflected the Republican caucus’s inability to unify behind a single candidate despite holding a two-thirds majority.

The Republican National Committee is also facing questions over Ms. McDaniel’s leadership. Like Mr. McCarthy, she predicted sweeping victories before the November election, and she is now being challenged by Harmeet Dhillon of California, an R.N.C. member who has argued that there must be consequences for the party’s failure to meet expectations.

Both Republican conflicts have split the conservative news media, with Tucker Carlson of Fox News backing the insurgencies while his prime-time colleagues have urged Republicans to coalesce behind Mr. McCarthy.

As in the House, the R.N.C. fight isn’t about conservative bona fides or fund-raising prowess or even fealty to Mr. Trump. Ms. Dhillon’s case against Ms. McDaniel is that the party didn’t perform strongly enough in November — and that if more Republicans had won in competitive House races, Mr. McCarthy would not be beholden to the members who have held hostage his bid to be speaker.

For House Republicans on either side of the speaker’s drama, one big question is how their constituents react. Representative Darin LaHood, a McCarthy supporter who represents a conservative district in central and Northern Illinois, said there was “no support in my district for what these guys are doing.”

Martha Zoller, a conservative talk radio host in northeast Georgia, said she had heard this week from several local party organizations that are upset with Representative Andrew Clyde, the area’s Republican congressman, over his opposition to Mr. McCarthy.

Yet while Ms. Zoller said she was partial to Mr. McCarthy as a House Republican leader, she said she and others in her corner of Georgia would like to see Republicans move on from Ms. McDaniel, whom she blamed for the party’s poor midterm showing.

“She orchestrated a lot of losses,” Ms. Zoller said. “It’s kind of like being a head football coach. When you lose, sometimes you’ve got to take the hit, even when it wasn’t your fault, and you’ve got to move on.”

In Washington, Republicans aligned with Mr. McCarthy found themselves increasingly agitated at a turn of events that had left their party paralyzed.

“I don’t blame the public if they take a negative view,” said Representative Don Bacon of Nebraska, who labeled the anti-McCarthy cadre “the Taliban 19” before its numbers grew. “This is dysfunctional, and I hate it myself. I can understand if the public does, too.”

Erdogan asks Putin to declare 'unilateral' Ukraine ceasefire

The Turkish and Russian leaders held a telephone conversation to discuss recent developments in Ukraine.

Le Monde

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan pressed his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to declare a "unilateral" ceasefire in Ukraine on Thursday, January 5.

"President Erdogan said that calls for peace and negotiations should be supported by a unilateral ceasefire and a vision for a fair solution," the Turkish presidency said following a telephone conversation between Mr. Erdogan and Mr. Putin.

Every morning, a selection of articles from Le Monde In English straight to your inbox

Mr. Erdogan was due to hold a separate conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky later on Thursday.

The Turkish leader, who refused to join Western sanctions on Russia, has used his relations with both Moscow and Kyiv to try and mediate an end to the war. Turkey hosted two early rounds of peace talks and helped strike a United Nations-backed agreement restoring Ukrainian grain deliveries across the Black Sea.

Mr. Erdogan has also repeatedly tried to bring Mr. Putin and Mr. Zelensky to Turkey for a peace summit.

Russia's spiritual leader, Patriarch Kirill, called for a one-day ceasefire in Ukraine on Orthodox Christmas, celebrated this week by both countries.

Putin's Man at the BND?German Intelligence Rocked By Russian Espionage Scandal

Germany's foreign intelligence agency, the BND, has been rocked by an espionage scandal centered around one of its staffers. The man, who is suspected of having spied for Russia, works in a department that provides critical intelligence in the Ukraine war.

By Maik Baumgärtner, Jörg Diehl, Matthias Gebauer, Martin Knobbe, Roman Lehberger, Ann-Katrin Müller, Fidelius Schmid und Wolf Wiedmann-Schmidt

Spiegel

04.01.2023

Thomas Haldenwang, the head of Germany’s Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), the country’s domestic intelligence agency, had clear words when he spoke about Russian intelligence services before the federal parliament, the Bundestag, in mid-October. He called Russia an "aggressive actor with dishonest means and motives." Two years earlier, he had already warned of an "alarming brutalization" of its methods. Russia's invasion of Ukraine, he said, represented an "aggravation of all previous factors."

To the left of Haldenwang, wearing a blue shirt with a purple tie and rimless glasses, sat Bruno Kahl, the president of the BND, Germany’s foreign intelligence service. He seemed relaxed on October 17, likely unaware at that time that his own agency had probably become a victim of that Russian aggression. Or he didn't let on about it.

On December 21, officers of the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) arrested Carsten L., the head of a BND unit, in Berlin. German Federal Prosecutor Peter Frank has accused him of providing Russia with classified intelligence information.

Two months after that October session in parliament, Kahl was forced to admit on the Thursday before Christmas Eve that there was "a possible case of treason" within his own ranks. "Restraint and discretion" are "very important in this particular case," Kahl said, adding that any details that become public would benefit Russia.

But what could be more useful to Moscow than a source right at the heart of Germany’s foreign intelligence service, with access to a whole trove of secret documents?

Was the Danger Underestimated?

It appears that the worst espionage case in years may currently be brewing in Germany. And it is hitting the very agency that didn't exactly shine with its foresight in the run-up to the Russian attack on Ukraine, long dismissing warnings from the United States and British intelligence services about the impending war.

The case is weighing heavy on the entire German government, which dithered over arms deliveries to Ukraine, at least in the first months of the invasion. Now it must face questions from its partner services around the world about a Russian mole inside the BND. Did the Germans underestimate the danger?

Berlin remained silent on the issue over the holidays. Only Federal Justice Minister Marco Buschmann of the business-friendly Free Democratic Party (FDP) commented, making a desperate attempt to spin the whole affair into a success. He said that an "important blow against Russian espionage" may have been struck.

Sebastian Fiedler, the point man for criminal policy for the parliamentary group of the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) in the Bundestag, considers this reaction to be "somewhat exaggerated." Ultimately, the operation against Carsten L. had been a success. "But above all, we now see what Russia is willing and capable of doing – in agencies, the economy and politics."

It's not a short list. Former KGB agent Vladimir Putin has upgraded his intelligence services to become the most important pillar of his power apparatus. They are a key element of his broad offensive  against the West.

Russian intelligence services influence political parties in democracies and elsewhere, interfere in free elections, foment protests in the West with false information, infiltrate the computer networks of Western governments, assassinate dissidents and compromise Western public servants.

Warnings from German Authorities Ignored

But decision-makers in Germany preferred to pretend that the shadow war with Russia was over. They largely ignored warnings from Germany's own security authorities, and they underestimated the ambition for supremacy held by Putin, who has been Russia’s president since late 1999, with one interruption when he served as prime minister due to term limits.

When incidents did occur, such as the murder  of Georgian asylum-seeker Zelimkhan Khangoshvili in Kleiner Tiergarten park in Berlin at the behest of the Russian domestic intelligence service FSB, the German government expelled a moderate number of Russian diplomats from the country. They apparently didn’t want to upset the other side too much and were afraid that they would no longer be able to run their own embassy in Moscow properly if the Kremlin expelled just as many diplomats in return.

For years, the counterintelligence departments of the BfV and the Military Counterintelligence Service suffered from chronic staff shortages. Counter-intelligence efforts at the BND – the investigation and infiltration of foreign intelligence services – were discontinued during the tenure of Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, a friend of Putin’s, in 2002. Even within the security authorities, many viewed the decision as a mistake.

Marc Polymeropoulos, the former head of operations for the CIA in Europe and Eurasia, says his warnings about Russian spies repeatedly "fell on deaf ears" in Germany. "Russia treated Europe like its playground," he says.

Officials with Eastern European intelligence services sometimes express themselves even more sharply: They were long treated by Berlin with arrogance, says one source. The source says the BND dismissed them as not being objective. "Nobody understands Russia as well as we do," was the subtext coming from the ranks of the BND, says the source.

The BND first moved to reestablish its own counterintelligence unit in 2017. German intelligence officers had to start from scratch in many places and undergo the painstaking process of acquiring new sources. Until recently, only around three dozen BND employees worked in this area.

Still, counterintelligence at the BfV domestic intelligence agency has been significantly beefed up. Recently, several Russian informers were caught in the net – though they were rather small fish: a man who passed on property plans of the German Bundestag, a Russian-born doctoral student at the University of Augsburg who had provided information to the foreign intelligence service SWR and a security guard at the British Embassy in Berlin.

Tip from Abroad Led to Suspected Double Agent

But the case of Carsten L., even if BND head Kahl has tried to present it as such, cannot be cited as evidence of increased efforts by the German intelligence services.

Shortly before Christmas, Kahl said the service had learned about the case "in the course of its intelligence work." It sounded as though the agency had discovered the suspected traitor within its ranks on its own. But that’s not what happened.

L.'s undoing was that another Western intelligence service discovered a data set in the Russian apparatus that was clearly attributable to the BND. The data included findings about Russia. It's possible that it also contained information on the BND's methods and sources. The data reportedly included findings from telecommunications surveillance that may have just been photographed from a screen.

It was only after the warning that the BND succeeded in identifying Carsten L. as the suspected mole. The agency spent weeks observing him.

In the process, another person working for the BND also came into the investigators' sights. The federal prosecutor has listed the second person as a defendant in the proceedings. She is also alleged to have opened documents on her work computer that are relevant to the investigation. However, insiders report that it is now considered unlikely that the person in question worked for the Russians. They say it is more likely that Carsten L. had tried to divert suspicion from himself through her.

Prosecutors Suspect Serious Treason

Investigators from the Federal Prosecutor’s Office and the BKA are still working to clarify the full scope of the incident and much remains unclear. Carsten L. hasn't yet commented on the accusations, with his defense attorneys thus far declining to comment.

One thing that remains hazy is a possible motive: nothing is known about any possible financial worries the suspect may have had. The officer from the Bundeswehr armed forces was working for the BND and lived with his wife and children in Bavaria. He had reportedly encountered frustrations in his job, but that's not so unusual.

The federal prosecutor is investigating the BND agent not on suspicion of "intelligence agent activity" but of "aggravated treason." It’s a far more serious accusation.

If that crime is proven, Carsten L. would have created "the risk of serious detriment to the external security of the Federal Republic of Germany" by betraying a state secret and abusing his position of responsibility to do so. That's what Section 94 of the German Criminal Code states. So, this isn't just about a civil servant providing a few official secrets. The defendant could face a prison sentence of five years to life.

The case would be unique in the recent history of the BND. The only other case that has shaken the foreign intelligence service to a similar degree is that of Markus R.

When the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution tracked down the official in 2014, they thought they were on the trail of a traitor working on Moscow’s behalf. He had offered secret documents to the Russian Consulate General in Munich. But it only became clear after his arrest that R. had actually been working for the CIA, the intelligence service of Germany's most important ally. A court sentenced him to eight years in prison.

Carsten L. also had access to a wealth of documents in his function as a unit head in the Technical Intelligence (TA) department. Investigators are still in the dark over how much information he may have supplied to Russian services and over what period of time.

A Life of Its Own

The TA department has been the source of scandals in the past. As the investigative committee on the National Security Agency (NSA) scandal, which was in session until 2017, showed, it had developed a life of its own that neither top authorities nor the Chancellery could control.

As such, former BND President Gerhard Schindler also considers it a mistake that more than 1,000 employees with the TA unit remained in Pullach, Bavaria, at the time the BND moved its headquarters to Berlin. "That, of course, makes administrative supervision difficult," he says.

At the same time, Technical Intelligence has become something of the heart of the intelligence enterprise. Employees comb through internet data streams, intercept emails and tap into phone calls and radio traffic. Around half of the several hundred reports that the BND produces each day come from the TA.

Even if the intelligence service hasn't always been respected by its partners in recent times, the TA had an excellent international reputation. One reason is that the BND still uses an outdated wiretapping method that other intelligence agencies have abandoned, and is thus able to intercept Russian military communications, for example. Since the outbreak of the war, the findings from signals intelligence at Pullach have been among the West's strongest information that they have been able to supply to the Ukrainian armed forces in the war against Russia.

And now it is this unit that has been hit by what is likely to be a dramatic leak. The consequences are hard to foresee.

Intelligence Services Need a Radical Overhaul

"The threats and hostilities against our democracy are currently massive. Illegitimate efforts to assert influence, propaganda and espionage are relevant and acute areas where our security agencies need to be much better, more resilient and sharper," says Konstantin von Notz, a member of the parliament with the Green Party and the chairman of the Parliamentary Oversight Panel for the intelligence services. It's not just the military that Germany needs to radically overhaul, he says, but "also in the area of intelligence services, and that's why we have to underpin that legally as part of the reorganization of the law for these security agencies."

The extent of the Russians' espionage activities in Europe is illustrated by cases from other countries. The Netherlands caught an "illegal" with the military intelligence GRU, who was to be smuggled in as an intern at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. In Norway, investigators uncovered a scientist who had been spying for the Russians. Meanwhile, Sweden caught two GRU operatives who had infiltrated the security agencies there. And DER SPIEGEL and its reporting partners exposed a GRU spy who had been targeting NATO and U.S. naval bases for years.

Note: if you are interested in this subject, Germán & Co has written a series of essays on this topic.

The Riddle Of Non-Nord Stream Return... | Energy Central

News round-up, Wednesday, January 04, 2023

“Everyone is afraid of this winter and tough times,” said Lorand Csurkuj Kalaman, a 42-year-old Roma from the northern Romanian region of Maramureș with five children, who says his monthly bills exceed his monthly income of €550.”

— Politico EU

---

In 2022, we were unstoppable in accelerating the future of energy.

Let's reflect on our some of our best moments:

1. We announced our intent to exit coal by the end of 2025 and increased our ownership of AES Andes from 67% to 98%.

2. Fast Company ranked AES in the top ten of its “Best 100 Workplaces for Innovators” list.

3. We helped restore power to the people of Puerto Rico following Hurricane Fiona. Like Hawaii, we are also helping Puerto Rico in its energy transition by deploying solar plus storage on the island.

4. We released our IRP for AES Indiana, which serves as a roadmap for the company’s power generation goals. It included renewables, storage, and converting coal facilities to cleaner energy .

5. Together with Air Products, we announced a $4 billion mega-scale green hydrogen production facility in the United States, the largest green hydrogen project in the nation.

Reforestation day…

Since July 2015, Seaboard has been sponsoring a permanent brigade to contribute to the sustained work of recovering the forested area in the Upper Ozama River Basin.

Altice delivers innovative, customer-centric products and solutions that connect and unlock the limitless potential of its over 30 million customers over fiber networks and mobile…

Cooperate with ethical thinking -

Winter energy emergency ‘a question of life and death’ for Europe’s Roma

Experts fear soaring energy bills may push Roma communities to the brink.

BY VICTOR JACK

POLITICO EU

DECEMBER 21, 2022 12:45 PM CET

Europe's energy price emergency is hitting the Continent's vulnerable people the hardest — and some of the most at-risk are its 12 million Roma.

The EU is scrambling to figure out how to rein in soaring natural gas prices, which has sent power prices spiraling. Those higher bills are a disaster for people already living on the edge.

“Everyone is afraid of this winter and tough times,” said Lorand Csurkuj Kalaman, a 42-year-old Roma from the northern Romanian region of Maramureș with five children, who says his monthly bills exceed his monthly income of €550.

“It affects me very hard,” he said, adding that his family relies on firewood for heating and has received no support from local authorities for heating despite submitting the relevant documents.

In Romania, for example, the 2 million Roma earn 40 percent less than the median salary, according to Alin Banu, the national coordinator at the local Roma NGO Aresel, who adds that average utility bills there are now roughly double what a family receives from the state each month.

Getting enough support from the state this winter will be a crucial lifeline for the country's Roma, for whom this is now “a question of life and death,” he said.

Romania's government said that it “provides support for home heating to all citizens that require it ... regardless of their ethnicity” including up to €418 in aid per individual, and Bucharest has “taken measures to reduce the negative impact of the crisis, such as limiting excessively high prices of firewood.”

Roma face tough times across the region.

In Serbia, where there are roughly 500,000 Roma, local nonprofit Opre Roma Serbia has helped organize regular protests on behalf of a Roma community over perceived inaction by local authorities that's left dozens of families without electricity for seven months.

“A lot of kids are getting cold because of the weather,” said Opre Roma Serbia's Jelena Reljić. “I cannot even imagine how hard it is, how hard it is for them to actually live without electricity.”

Serbia's energy ministry is now signaling it might connect residents to the grid, according to the charity.

Roma families without regular grid connections can sometimes buy electricity illegally from neighbors and can fall into debt by borrowing from loan sharks. All of this means the “tragic scenario” of increased numbers of Roma freezing to death this winter is “quite possible,” Banu said.

Falling through the cracks

In Western Europe, “many communities live in relatively better conditions,” ERRC’s Lee said.

In Britain, about four-fifths of Roma people live in permanent housing rather than traveler sites, but “the general housing situation for the Roma in the U.K. is that they live in the poorer areas … in overcrowded housing situations,” said Mihai Calin Bica, a policy coordinator at the London-based NGO Roma Support Group.

Nicoleta, a 41-year-old Roma single mother and housekeeper who lives in a one-bedroom flat in north London, says she’s more than £400 in debt to her landlord after she used her rent money to pay energy bills. 

Almost half of Europe’s Roma people are classed as “working poor” | José Sena Goulao/EPA-EFE

“I can't even remember the last time I used the oven” thanks to surging energy costs, she said. “I work three, four days per week and I barely survive.”

A November survey by Scottish NGO Romano Lav found that 91.5 percent of Roma people in Glasgow’s Govanhill area were worse off than six months ago, while 86 percent were scared of running out of money for food — even if they recieve £66 off their energy bills as part of Britain’s energy support scheme.

Of the nomadic Roma living in campsites, roughly one-third in southeastern England can't access energy bill support since this requires a direct contract with an electricity provider — and often the local authority is the only contractor at camp sites, according to Abbie Kirkby of the nonprofit Friends, Families and Travellers.

And since 97 percent of these sites have no access to mains gas, people instead rely on gas bottles — and those prices have also surged, she said.

With months of winter ahead, “the crunch is not quite there” yet Kirkby said, adding: “It's going to be very challenging year for gypsy and traveller families.”

Czech industrial model shaken by energy crisis

Heavily dependent on the automotive sector, cheap energy and Germany, the Czech economy will experience one of the biggest slowdowns in Eastern Europe in 2023.

By Marie Charrel

Published on January 4, 2023

Officially, the decision had only been postponed, but it would have come at the right time to brighten up the Czech economic outlook, which is very gloomy for the months to come. On Friday, December 9, the Volkswagen Group announced that due to economic uncertainties, it would not immediately choose the location of its next electric battery gigafactory, planned for Eastern Europe.

The Czech government had been campaigning for months to have the site in Plzen, in the east-central part of the country, over its Hungarian, Slovakian and Polish competitors. "If there's the option of building a battery factory in Europe, where electricity costs €0.15 per kilowatt hour, but it's possible to get it in China or America for €0.02 or €0.03, we are not in a position to say that we will make this choice out of solidarity," said Thomas Schäfer, the group's boss, immediately after the announcement.

For the Czech Republic, the stakes are colossal: "This gigafactory is decisive for the future of our automotive industry and, above all, for its ability to make the shift to electric," said Jiri Dvorak, a specialist on this issue at the Grant Thornton consulting firm in Prague. And, more broadly, it is crucial for the whole country: The automotive industry alone counts for 10% of the gross domestic product (GDP), 8% of jobs and 25% of exports.

Worsened by the energy crisis

Highly dependent on Germany, which takes in a third of its manufacturing, the Czech industrial sector as a whole represents nearly 30% of GDP – the highest level in Europe. "However, it has been particularly badly affected since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic" in early 2020, explained Grzegorz Sielewicz, a regional specialist at French credit insurer Coface. Penalized by the collapse of demand and the German economic slowdown, the industry has, in the meantime, faced shortages of semiconductors. This hindered manufacturing recovery in 2021.

The government was slow to respond and then introduced a cap on gas and electricity prices in November 2022

"Can you imagine, the Volkswagen model I ordered in October 2021 won't arrive until April 2023?" said Mr. Dvorak. Not surprisingly, the energy crisis has made the situation even worse. Before Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the country was 52.5% dependent on fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas largely imported from Russia); 40.8% nuclear power, thanks to its two power plants; and only 6.7% renewable energy.

In November, inflation climbed to 17.2%, including 34.3% for gas, electricity and fossil fuels, according to Eurostat. "For our electro-intensive industries, such as glass, metallurgy and chemicals, which are large consumers of gas, the shock is brutal," observed Oldrich Sklenar, a researcher at the Association for International Affairs, an independent research center based in Prague. The government was initially slow to react and then introduced a cap on gas and electricity prices for households and small businesses in November 2022. This was later extended to large companies.

It also plans to build a new nuclear reactor at the Dukovany plant (the American-Canadian Westinghouse, the French EDF and the Korean KHNP have submitted bids) in order to reduce its dependence on hydrocarbons. "But the cap will not be enough to limit the effects of price increases already recorded," warned Nicholas Farr, a country specialist at Capital Economics. "The weight of industry means that the Czech economy will experience the greatest slowdown in Eastern Europe," added Frantisek Taborsky at ING.

'We are at a turning point'

In fact, the European Commission expects growth of only 0.1% in 2023 – lower than in Slovakia (0.5%), Poland (0.7%) and the European average (0.3%). Business activity will be largely pulled down by Germany, which is expected to be in recession in 2023 (-0.6%). This is all while the Czech Republic has not yet recovered its pre-pandemic GDP level. "Beyond the emergency, it's the very economic model of the country that's being called into question," said David Marek, chief economist at Deloitte Consulting in Prague.

"Now industry must shift upmarket, and we also have to diversify into services," David Marek, chief economist at Deloitte Consulting, Prague

"We are at a turning point. Industry will no longer be able to rely on cheap energy, as it has for the past 40 years," added Pavel Sobisek, an economist at UniCredit in Prague. But the country still has a solid foundation and a long industrial tradition. Bohemia was the manufacturing heartland of the Austro-Hungarian Empire – Skoda Auto, its flagship car company bought by Volkswagen in 1991, was founded in 1895. And Czechoslovakia was one of Europe's leading industrial powers when it gained independence in 1918.

After the communist period and collectivization of the means of production, the country succeeded in modernizing its factories by turning to the West. "Now industry must shift upmarket, and we also have to diversify into services," said Mr. Marek. Skoda Auto is preparing for this in earnest: "We're going to increase the share of electric vehicles to 70% of production by 2030, with nearly €5.6 billion of investment over the next five years," said the company.

But the country will have to deal with another major obstacle: the dizzying lack of labor. Despite the economic downturn, the unemployment rate was only 2.1% in October, according to Eurostat. "Companies are struggling to recruit for all types of labor, skilled and unskilled, and this is a real obstacle to innovation," concluded Mr. Marek.

G.O.P. Fight Over Speaker Enters Its Second Day

The House is set to reconvene at noon to continue a historic floor fight — the first in a century — prompted by the Republican leader’s failure to secure a majority to become speaker.

By Catie Edmondson

NYT

Jan. 4, 2023, 5:00 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON — Republicans began their second day in control of the House on Wednesday without a leader and deadlocked about how to move forward, after Representative Kevin McCarthy of California lost three votes for the top job amid a hard-right rebellion that has prompted a historic struggle on the House floor.

Mr. McCarthy’s successive defeats on Tuesday marked the first time in a century that the House has failed to elect a speaker on the first roll call vote, and it was not clear how or when the stalemate would be resolved. After adjourning with no leader, the House was set to reconvene at noon on Wednesday to try to resolve the impasse.

A mutiny waged by ultraconservative lawmakers who for weeks have held fast to their vow to oppose Mr. McCarthy paralyzed the chamber on the first day of Republican rule, delaying the swearing in of hundreds of members of Congress, putting off any legislative work and exposing deep divisions that threatened to make the party’s House majority ungovernable.

Mr. McCarthy has vowed not to back down until he secures the post, raising the prospect of a grueling stretch of votes that could go on for days.

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“I’m staying until we win,” Mr. McCarthy told reporters between the second and third votes on Tuesday. “I know the path.”

House precedent dictates that members continue to vote until someone secures the majority needed to prevail. But until Tuesday, the House had not failed to elect a speaker on the first roll call vote since 1923, when the election stretched for nine ballots.

It was not clear how long it might take for Republicans to resolve their stalemate this time, or what Mr. McCarthy’s strategy, if any, was for coming back from an embarrassing series of defeats. He worked into the night on Tuesday, surrounded by allies, to try to secure votes.

No viable challenger has emerged, but if Mr. McCarthy continues to flounder, Republicans could shift their votes to an alternative, such as his No. 2, Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana.

On Tuesday, right-wing Republicans coalesced behind Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, a founding member of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus, as an alternative to Mr. McCarthy, but Mr. Jordan, a onetime rival who has since allied himself with Mr. McCarthy, pleaded with his colleagues to unite instead behind the California Republican.

But the party has so far refused to do so. The failed votes on Tuesday showed publicly the extent of the opposition Mr. McCarthy faces. With all members of the House present and voting, Mr. McCarthy needs to receive 218 votes to become speaker, leaving little room for Republican defections since the party controls only 222 seats.

He fell short again and again, drawing no more than 203 votes — far below a majority and fewer than the votes received by Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the Democratic leader whose caucus remained united behind him.

News round-up, Tuesday, January 03, 2023

“Absence of Jair Bolsonaro
Lula is back in power. But the day had finished. The Brazilian republic loves symbols and Lula was preparing to address the people. After a brief military review, with a tired face, the new president headed to the Three Powers Plaza. There, 30,000 supporters dressed in bright red faced the Parlatorium, the large marble platform in the Planalto Palace, from which the head of state traditionally delivers his speeches to the nation.”

— Le Monde

---

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Lula sworn in as reconciliatory president, rising from ashes of Brazilian politics

By  Bruno Meyerfeld (Brasilia, special correspondent)

Published on January 2, 2023

Brazil's new President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (4-L) takes his dog "Resistencia" by the leash as he walks up the ramp upon being welcomed by indigenous Brazilian leader and environmentalist Raoni Metuktire, known as Chief Raoni (3-L) and other community representatives at Planalto Palace after his inauguration ceremony at the National Congress, in Brasilia, on January 1, 2023. SERGIO LIMA / AFP

On the first day of 2023, at close to 5 pm, Brazil was shaking with emotion. In the Three Powers Plaza, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, 77 years old, was about to become Brazil's president for the third time. He walked up the Planalto presidential palace's long marble ramp, a symbol of Brazilian power. But beside him, there were no officials or generals in front of the tens of thousands of supporters. Holding onto Lula's arm, an Indigenous chief walks by his side: Raoni Metuktire.

The president and the cacique. The steelworker and the Kayapo. The symbolic force of the two together was irresistible. The senior Raoni, at 93 years old, recognizable by his golden feather headdress and his legendary lip plate, physically diminished, was present for this historic moment; the swearing-in of the 39th president of Brazil, seen as a moment of great national reconciliation.

The two men were not alone on the ramp. In addition to the first lady, Rosangela da Silva, the vice president, Geraldo Alckmin, and his wife, Maria Lucia, Lula brought his dog, Resistencia, who was held on a leash. Also by his side was a garbage collector, an influencer with a disability, a teacher, a metal worker, and a 10-year-old Black boy in shorts and a short-sleeved shirt. The varied faces of Brazil.

'It's carnival and revolution!'

They are the ones, in the absence of Jair Bolsonaro, who placed the presidential sash around Lula's neck: the culmination of a day of celebration, which saw this extraordinary political figure make an unprecedented comeback. Barely three years ago, the miserable child of the Nordeste, who became a trade unionist and then the president of a golden decade for Brazil (2003-2011), was in prison and condemned to end his days there in shame. Now he is back leading his country.

For Lula's supporters, the party had actually started the night before. On January 1, 2023, at midnight, Jair Bolsonaro was already officially no longer the president of Brazil. In the capital, taken by storm by left-wing supporters, people kissed for the first time of the new year under fireworks fired from Lake Paranoa. Further on, on the Ministries Esplanade, the cleaning teams were busy. Its marble halls were being washed with water.

By the early morning, there were hundreds of thousands of Lula supporters all the way up to Brazil's Monumental Axis, a grandiose avenue of 16 kilometers where the country's institutions are lined up. A gastronomic fair and a large stage were set up on the lawn with concerts scheduled until 4 am. "It's carnival and revolution!" laughed Thalis, a 41-year-old theater actor who was holding a horse costume in his hand.

Lula 'the savior'

It was a hot morning. Firemen refreshed the vast crowd with water jets and sang at the top of their lungs. "It is a cry, an emotion, which springs from the depths of our being," said Donizeti Nogueira, an executive of the Workers' Party (PT) in Tocantins (Nordeste), wearing a red fedora on his head. For those on the left, the celebration is a question of recovering their dignity after a cursed decade, which saw former president Dilma Rousseff impeached, Lula imprisoned and Jair Bolsonaro victorious. There was no holding back: "This is the greatest democratic victory of the 20th, 21st and 22nd centuries!," Donizeti enthused.

Supporters of President-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva arrive at the Esplanada dos Ministerios to attend his inauguration ceremony in Brasilia on January 1, 2023. DOUGLAS MAGNO/AFP

Firefighters spray water over supporters of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva gathering to attend his inauguration as new president outside the Planalto presidential palace in Brasilia, Brazil, Sunday, January 1, 2023. SILVIA IZQUIERDOI/AP

Two young men pass in jerseys of the Seleçao, the Brazilian national team, which had been adopted as a rallying symbol by Jair Bolsonaro's supporters. "With my husband, we wanted to reclaim these symbols, confiscated by the fascists!" said Ricardo, an engineer in his thirties. On the Esplanade, generations cross paths and pass on the baton. Juliana, 41 years old came with her daughter Anna, 17 years old. With makeup, T-shirt, dyed hair, earrings, and a strawberry sorbet in hand, the two women had covered themselves in red. "It's very important to be here together today," insisted the mother. "Lula, for me too, is the only reference, the savior," added her daughter.

"But we are only dressing like this for today. Tonight, we will go back to the hotel, and we won't come out anymore. We are too afraid of violence...," Juliana added. The threat of an attack hovered over this day. More than 8,000 police and military personnel, as well as drones and snipers, had been deployed to ensure the safety of Lula and his supporters. Some went as far as to offer him a bulletproof vest and an armored car. The new president firmly declined.

Several notable absentees

Shortly after 2:30 pm, Lula emerged from the presidential Rolls-Royce: a 1952 model of the gleaming black Silver Wraith convertible. Escorted by the Presidential Guard Battalion of Brazil on horseback, decked out in red and white uniforms, the procession set off from Brasilia's cathedral in the direction of the Congress. It was there, under its two iconic domes and in front of the assembled members of the legislative and judicial branches, that the inauguration took place.

In the austere Chamber of Deputies amphitheater, decorated with dark metal bars, the whole of Brasilia stood solemnly. Several foreign presidents also made the trip: the "comrades" of the left like the Chilean Gabriel Boric, the Argentine Alberto Fernandez, the Colombian Gustavo Petro and the ex-president of Uruguay, "Pepe" Mujica (to whom Lula reserved a particularly warm embrace). Also in attendance were King Felipe VI of Spain and the German, Angolan and Portuguese heads of state.

The assembly, however, had several notable absentees. Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro, who had been approached for a while, did not make the trip in the end. Joe Biden, who had at one time considered sending US Vice President Kamala Harris, finally sent Deb Haaland, the secretary of the interior. Emmanuel Macron was represented by Olivier Becht, the trade minister. A disappointment for those in Lula's camp.

'We bear no spirit of revenge'

Upon arrival, the president-elect greeted his distinguished guests. In order to respect protocol, he was quickly invited to take an oath and sign the act of his inauguration. He swore to "uphold, defend and apply the Constitution, observe the laws, promote the common good of the Brazilian people, support unity, integrity and independence." It was at exactly 3:06 pm that Lula became the 39th president of Brazil.

Brazil's new president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva delivers a speech after swearing in during his inauguration ceremony at the National Congress in Brasilia, on January 1, 2023. MAURO PIMENTEL / AFP

The Federative Republic of Brazil acclaimed its new leader. As if by magic, the republic was reconciled. But Lula does not have only friends in this assembly. Rosa Weber, president of the Federal Supreme Court, voted in 2018 to imprison him. Arthur Lira, president of the Chamber of Deputies, and Augusto Aras, attorney general, were until recently very loyal allies of Jair Bolsonaro.

A shrewd and skillful politician, Lula knows how to be magnanimous. Faced with the establishment that had buried him too soon, he decreed forgiveness and called for unity. "We bear no spirit of revenge against those who tried to enslave the nation to their personal and ideological designs," said the new head of state, adding that "Today, after this terrible challenge we overcame, we must say: democracy forever!"

Absence of Jair Bolsonaro

Lula is back in power. But the day had finished. The Brazilian republic loves symbols and Lula was preparing to address the people. After a brief military review, with a tired face, the new president headed to the Three Powers Plaza. There, 30,000 supporters dressed in bright red faced the Parlatorium, the large marble platform in the Planalto Palace, from which the head of state traditionally delivers his speeches to the nation.

Brazil's new President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (center) with Vice President Geraldo Alckmin and their wives, First Lady Rosangela da Silva and Maria Lucia Ribeiro Alckmin, during his inauguration ceremony at the Planalto Palace in Brasilia, January 1, 2023. CARL DE SOUZA / AFP

In the noble salon, his closest companions awaited him. PT leaders in suits and ties crossed paths with Favela activists in sneakers and caps; feathered Indigenous chiefs spoke with babalorishás, priests of the Afro-Brazilian religions, in immaculate tunics. Standing straight on her chair in the front row was a woman with a smile on her face. "This story will not end like this (...) We will come back!" Dilma Rousseff had promised in 2016 in this same palace on the day of her impeachment. She was savoring her revenge.

Jair Bolsonaro, on the other hand, had been gone for two days. Gone was the captain of the far right, who headed to Florida for several weeks. The outgoing president refused to participate in the ceremonies and to pass on the traditional sash to his successor. On December 31, 2022, reporters spotted him in the streets of Orlando, eating fried chicken from KFC and taking selfies with a handful of supporters.

The day before, Mr. Bolsonaro had given up the ghost during a final online live broadcast, recorded in the Alvorada Palace library, the residence of the head of state. From this refined place, from where he spread lies and the most delirious rumors for four years, the outgoing president appeared distraught. Trembling, nervous, the outrageous captain curiously called for "tranquility," "respect for one's neighbor," and the "search for peace and harmony."

'This nightmare has ended'

His last words were perplexing, to say the least: "Thank you very much to all of you, I embrace you all, in the struggle, and a good 2023 to all... God bless our Brazil," Mr. Bolsonaro said with a broken voice and an imploring look, both hands placed flat on the table. A long breath and a look at the ceiling followed. "Let's move forward," he concluded.
The man who had smashed through the doors of power with a battering ram finally left Brasilia through the window and on tiptoe.

Back to the Parlatorium. Lula wanted his address to be personal. During the 27 minutes, the president, with a hoarse voice, broke into tears several times. "What the Brazilian people have suffered in recent years is the slow and progressive construction of a genocide," he lamented, referring to an era of shadows, uncertainty and much suffering. But "this nightmare has come to an end," Lula promised, lyrically, calling on his supporters to use "the weapons our opponents fear most: truth, which has defeated lies; hope, which has defeated fear; and love, which has defeated hate."

This January 1st, Lula did not stop at words. Within minutes of taking office, the leftist president immediately made a myriad of decisions that ended the Bolsonarist legacy: an extension of social assistance and fuel tax exemptions; revocation of decrees liberalizing gun ownership and illegal gold mining; lifting of secrecy over administrative acts; the re-establishment of an international fund for the preservation of the Amazon.

Supporters of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva gather to attend his inauguration as new president outside the Planalto presidential palace in Brasilia, Brazil, Sunday, January 1, 2023. SILVIA IZQUIERDO/AP

It was a question of moving quickly because the new government has no state of grace. According to the Datafolha Institute, barely one Brazilian in two thinks that the current government will be able to do better than the previous one. At nightfall, a final cocktail party was organized at the Itamaraty, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, decorated with colonnades and a water garden. But Lula only stayed for a short time. The next day, he had to fly to Santos to attend Pelé's funeral. The death of a "king" for the advent of a president.

Space and Astronomy: What to Expect in 2023

By Michael Roston

Jan. 3, 2023

As years in space and astronomy go, 2022 is going to be a tough act to follow.

NASA wowed us with cosmic scenes captured by the James Webb Space Telescope. The DART mission slammed an asteroid into a new orbit. Artemis I set humanity on a course back to the moon. China finished building a new space station in orbit. SpaceX launched and landed 61 rockets in 12 months. And the invasion of Ukraine imperiled Russia’s status as a space power.

It’s a lot to measure up to, but 2023 is bound to have some excitement on the launchpad, the lunar surface and in the sky. Once again, you can get updates on your personal digital calendar by signing up for The New York Times’s Space and Astronomy Calendar. Here are some of the major events you can expect. Not all of them have certain dates yet, but Times journalists will provide additional information as it emerges.

Never miss an eclipse, meteor shower, rocket launch or other event that’s out of this world again with The Times Space and Astronomy Calendar.

New Rockets

NASA got its giant Space Launch System off the ground for the first time in 2022, lighting up the night in Florida with an incredible stream of flame as it carried the Artemis I mission toward the moon. That shifted attention to SpaceX, which is building a next generation rocket, Starship, that is also central to NASA’s crewed Artemis III moon landing attempt.

SpaceX cleared a key environmental review that would allow it to launch an uncrewed orbital test flight from South Texas if it met certain conditions. But the rocket wasn’t ready for flight in 2022. The company has not announced a date for a test this year, but regular ground tests of Starship equipment indicate it is working toward one.

The pathfinder first stage of the Vulcan Centaur, a new rocket by United Launch Alliance that will eventually replace that company’s Atlas V.Credit...United Launch Alliance

Numerous other rockets may take flight for the first time in 2023. The most important, Vulcan Centaur by United Launch Alliance, will eventually replace that company’s Atlas V, a vehicle that has been central to American spaceflight for two decades. The Vulcan relies on the BE-4 engine built by Blue Origin, the rocket company founded by Jeff Bezos. The same engine will in turn be used in Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket, which may have a test flight late this year.

A number of American private companies are expected to test new rockets in 2023, including Relativity and ABL. They could be joined by foreign rocket makers, including Mitsubishi Heavy Industries which could test Japan’s H3 rocket in February, and Arianespace, which is working toward a test flight of Europe’s Ariane 6 rocket.

New Lunar Landings

We’re guaranteed at least one lunar landing attempt in 2023. A Japanese company, Ispace, launched its M1 mission on a SpaceX rocket in December. It’s taking a slow, fuel-efficient route to the moon and is set to arrive in April, when it will try to deploy a rover built by the United Arab Emirates, a robot built by Japan’s space agency, JAXA, as well as other payloads.

There could be as many as five more lunar landing attempts this year.

NASA has hired a pair of private companies to carry payloads to the lunar surface. Both of them, Intuitive Machines of Houston and Astrobotic Technology of Pittsburgh, faced delays in 2022, but may make the trip in the coming months.

They could be joined by three government space programs’ lunar missions. India’s Chandrayaan-3 mission was delayed last year but could be ready in 2023. A Japanese mission, Smart Lander for Investigating Moon, or SLIM, aims to test the country’s lunar landing technologies. Finally, Russia’s Luna-25 mission was postponed from last September, but Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, may try this year.

New Space Telescopes

Scientists in 2019 at work with the European Space Agency’s Euclid spacecraft, which will study energy and dark matter. Its 2022 launch was postponed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.Credit...S. Corvaja/European Space Agency

Scientists in 2019 at work with the European Space Agency’s Euclid spacecraft, which will study energy and dark matter. Its 2022 launch was postponed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.Credit...S. Corvaja/European Space Agency

The Webb telescope wowed space enthusiasts and scientists with its views of the cosmos, but we may get new vantages from a variety of orbital observatories.

The most significant may be Xuntian, a Chinese mission setting off later in the year that will be like a more sophisticated version of the Hubble Space Telescope. The spacecraft will survey the universe at optical and ultraviolet wavelengths in an orbit around Earth close to the country’s Tiangong space station.

A Japanese-led mission, XRISM, pronounced chrism, could launch earlier in the year as well. The mission will use X-ray spectroscopy to study clouds of plasma, which could help to explain the universe’s composition. A European space telescope, Euclid, may also launch on a SpaceX rocket after the Russian invasion of Ukraine resulted in the spacecraft losing its seat on a Russian Soyuz rocket. It will study the universe’s dark energy and dark matter.

New Planetary Missions

A new spacecraft will head toward Jupiter this year, aiming to become the first to ever orbit another planet’s moon. The European Space Agency’s Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer, or JUICE, will launch from an Ariane 5 rocket as early as April 5 to set off to the Jovian system, arriving in 2031. Once it reaches the gas giant, it will move to conduct 35 flybys of three of the giant world’s moons: Callisto, Europa and Ganymede, all of which are believed to have subsurface oceans. In 2034, JUICE will begin orbiting Ganymede, the largest moon in the solar system.

The story behind Pope Benedict XVI’s red shoes

Pope Benedict XVI wearing brilliant red shoes arrives to attend an interreligious gathering at the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center on April 17, 2008, in Washington, D.C.

By Katie Yoder

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jan 1, 2023

When Pope Benedict XVI resigned in 2013, he stepped down as the bishop of Rome — and out of his famous red leather shoes.

During his reign as pope, Benedict’s red shoes became something of a trademark, inspiring ABC News to call him a “fashionista” and Esquire to name him “accessorizer of the year.” At another point, his loafers sparked controversy after false rumors claimed they were crafted by the high-end Italian fashion house Prada.

Benedict’s choice of shoes stands out because his predecessor and successor — St. John Paul II and Pope Francis — opted for alternatives. But popes have walked in red for centuries.

In photos of Benedict's mortal remains released by the Vatican today, he is dressed in red and gold vestments and ordinary black clerical shoes.

Pope Benedict XVI is greeted by Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd (R) following his arrival in Australia ahead of World Youth Day 2008 at Richmond RAAF Base on July 13, 2008, in Sydney, Australia. Sergio Dionisio/Getty Images

Far from a fashion statement, in the Catholic faith, red symbolizes martyrdom and the Passion of Christ.

In other words, they signify the pope following in the footsteps of Christ.

Two Italian cobblers are credited with fashioning Benedict’s shoes during his pontificate: Adriano Stefanelli and Antonio Arellano.

Stefanelli, an Italian craftsman, has created shoes for a long list of notable leaders, including St. John Paul II, Barack Obama, and George W. Bush, according to Italy’s ANSA news.

He first delivered shoes to the Vatican when he witnessed John Paul II in pain in 2003, CNA previously reported. He asked himself what he could do, personally, to help. He decided on shoes. 

That tradition continued with Benedict XVI.

The “greatest satisfaction is to see, looking at the photos and images of Benedict XVI, that the shoe is, as they say informally, well ‘used and carried,’ [and] therefore comfortable,” he told L’Osservatore Romano.

Another artisan, Arellano, mended shoes for Benedict back when he was a cardinal. Originally from Trujillo, Peru, Arellano moved to Rome in 1990 to open a shoe repair shop by the Vatican. 

When his friend the cardinal became pope, he was elated.

“Everyone was running through the streets, and I saw Cardinal Ratzinger appear on television,” he previously told CNA. “I was amazed because he was my customer and I was so happy.”

Arellano said he remembered Benedict’s shoe size — 42 — and decided to give the new pope a pair of red shoes during a general audience at the Vatican.

“When we got there to greet him, the pope recognized me, smiled, and said, ‘Here is my shoemaker.’ It was a wonderful moment, because he makes you feel important,” Arellano remembered. “He gave a blessing to me and my family and we said goodbye.”

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Benedict XVI: thinker, preacher, saint? Scholars and former students discuss legacy

That gift resulted in the Vatican requesting another pair of shoes for the pontiff to wear during the beatification of John Paul II. 

“It was awesome, because then I really did feel like I was the Holy Father’s shoemaker,” he said, adding that “it’s one thing to give the pope a present; it’s another for them to call you to specifically make some shoes for him.”

When he retired, the pope emeritus put away his red shoes in favor of leather loafers designed by a Mexican Catholic cobbler, Armando Martin Dueñas. Those three pairs — two burgundy, one brown — came to him as another gift.

Experts question the viability of the future H2Med hydro-product between Barcelona and Marseille (abc.es)

“The execution of the project will turn Spain into the world’s first renewable hydrogen hub by incorporating the first axes of the national backbone network that will connect the green hydrogen production centres with domestic demand and the two international interconnections with France and Portugal”

— abc.es

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They are committed to hydrogen production being close to demand…

Written in Spanish by Javier González Navarro

Translation by Germán & Co

Madrid

abc.es

03/01/2023

The future H2Med hydro-product that will connect Barcelona with Marseille from at least 2030 has been submitted to the call for Projects of Common Interest (PCI) to receive European funding, since its cost is estimated at around 3,000 million euros.

"The execution of the project will turn Spain into the world's first renewable hydrogen hub by incorporating the first axes of the national backbone network that will connect the green hydrogen production centres with domestic demand and the two international interconnections with France and Portugal", the Ministry for Ecological Transition stresses.

Promoted by the governments of Spain, Portugal and France, H2Med includes two cross-border infrastructures, one between Celorico da Beira (Portugal) and Zamora, and another, underwater, between Barcelona and Marseille (France), which are promoted by the respective gas system transporters and managers: Enagás on the Spanish side, REN on the Portuguese side, and GRTgaz and Terega on the French side. The underwater section will be some 400 kilometres long. Both sections will be linked to the backbone that runs from Huelva to Gijón and from there to Catalonia.

This infrastructure, announced with great fanfare by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, in an attempt to cover up the failure suffered with the MidCat - the gas pipeline that would cross the Pyrenees and which has been flatly rejected by the French President, Enmanuel Macron -, has the approval of the Spanish gas sector, although some experts question its viability.

Uncertainties

Firstly, because the countries involved have not confirmed a timetable for the project. In addition, major uncertainties have arisen in relation to the purpose, demand, technology, costs, financing and the general need for it, they stress.

The construction of this hydroproduct to transport green hydrogen to France in the long term is based on the assumption that Spain and Portugal will be able to produce enough renewable hydrogen to meet domestic demand and have a surplus for export. Both countries have increased their renewable energy generation, but this may not be enough, according to the Hydrogen Science Coalition.

"If this hydro-product is built, it will be an unnecessary expense paid for by public funds that will not alleviate the current gas crisis and, on the contrary, will further exacerbate costs for energy consumers. The leaders of France, Spain, Portugal and other countries involved must prevent H2Med from becoming another failed project turned into a stranded asset paid for by consumers like MidCat," the experts stress.

Spanish hydrogen backbone

Light blue rhombus storage centres

Image source: Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge / ABC

Source: Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge / ABC

 "Studies have shown that hydrogen-based fuels should be used mainly in sectors such as aviation or industrial processes that cannot be electrified. The use of hydrogen-based fuels instead of direct electrification alternatives requires between two and fourteen times the amount of electricity generation depending on the application and the respective technologies."

Worse than burning gas

The experts also suggest that "transporting hydrogen over long distances is potentially worse for the climate than burning natural gas and therefore it is better to produce hydrogen close to where the demand is. Producing hydrogen locally will help reduce energy dependence and improve security of supply where it is needed most.

David Cebon, Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Cambridge (UK) and member of the Hydrogen Science Coalition, says, "While it is true that we will need renewable hydrogen to accelerate the energy transition, particularly for sectors that already use 'dirty' hydrogen today, we are just at the beginning of developing a clean hydrogen supply and a clear use case. This means that the quantity and location of future hydrogen demand remains highly uncertain. Linking the justification for new gas infrastructure to future hydrogen use before we are clear on where both demand and supply of hydrogen will come from is irresponsible.

The Hydrogen Science Coalition is an international group of independent academics, scientists and engineers working to bring an evidence-based viewpoint to the hydrogen policy debate.

The cost and funding of the project are not yet clearly defined. H2Med is expensive to build and requires financial backing from buyers to reach the Financial Investment Decision (FID).

New subsea hydrogen transport lines are estimated to cost around USD 7.1 million per kilometre. The length of the H2Med pipeline could vary between 300 and 400 kilometres, so this pipeline could cost approximately 3 billion euros.

Long-term hydrogen buyers

Clean hydrogen industries in Europe and Asia highlighted the three main factors delaying their FIDs at a recent Bloomberg NEF roundtable: the need to find long-term buyers for clean hydrogen, complicated renewable energy licensing rules, and the wait to capture all available financing.

Inés Bouacida, Climate and Energy researcher at the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations, explains that "it is not yet clear whether the project will go ahead, which will depend on the technical and financial feasibility assessments of the countries involved (MidCat was rejected by French regulators, among other things, as uneconomic)". He adds that "it is not yet clear whether it will be attractive to transport hydrogen between the Iberian Peninsula and France".

The green hydrogen pipeline between Barcelona and Marseille will not be in place until the next decade

He adds that low-carbon hydrogen production "is currently almost non-existent and the consumption channels are still partly to be built, although it seems clear that hydrogen will be used mainly for the decarbonisation of industry. Therefore, production and consumption areas are still in the definition phase, which makes it difficult to plan the infrastructures for the production and consumption of hydrogen.

News round-up, Monday, January 02, 2023

“Dangerous

”In 2021, Russian gas exports to the European Union amounted to 140 billion cubic meters. They fell to 60 billion in 2022, and it is likely that in 2023 there will be no more Russian gas in our systems,” Fatih Birol, the International Energy Agency’s executive director, said at a press conference in Brussels on December, 12.”

— Le Monde

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2022, a fitful year for commodity and energy prices

Russia's invasion of Ukraine caused upheaval and fears of shortages in the energy and commodities sectors. Experts warn of shocks in a volatile market.

Le Monde

By Laurence Girard and Marjorie Cessac

Published on January 2, 2023 at 10h15, updated at 10h51 on January 2, 2023

"The year of gas and grain." The expression is Philippe Chalmin's, a professor with Université Paris-Dauphine, when he was asked to describe 2022, a year that will likely be reminded as a special of its kind in the annals of commodities.

Market tensions were high, with speculative surges resulting in historic prices, followed by sharp declines.

"Through volatility, markets reflect the anxieties of the planet," Mr. Chalmin said, anxieties which, although very real, can be amplified by financial or political entities. In 2021 already, commodity prices were on the rise, propelled by Chinese purchasing and post-pandemic economic recovery which resulted in supply tensions. The invasion of Ukraine by Russia earlier this year further boosted prices.

In the energy sector, gas prices rose strongly as Russian deliveries to Europe were drying up. On the futures markets, they culminated to an average of €100-125 per megawatt-hour (MWh), with peaks of more than €300 per MWh during the summer, compared to €20-30 before the war started.

A slight respite took hold in December in Europe, where below-average temperatures, high gas inventory levels and a shrinking demand caused by imposed frugality allowed prices to fall back to around €85, or pre-February-24 levels. Electricity prices, which had also been soaring throughout the year, were also halved in December alone, returning to below €300 per MWh.

Patrice Geoffron, director of France's Center of Geopolitics of Energy and Raw Materials (CGEMP) said 2022 "unquestionably" marked a turning point. "As in 1973, there will be a before and after. Back then, we switched from oil to nuclear power to produce electricity. This time, we have no more Russian gas and, in all likelihood, we will not go back, unless peace returns, which is now more than hypothetical," he said.

Dangerous

"In 2021, Russian gas exports to the European Union amounted to 140 billion cubic meters. They fell to 60 billion in 2022, and it is likely that in 2023 there will be no more Russian gas in our systems," Fatih Birol, the International Energy Agency's executive director, said at a press conference in Brussels on December, 12.

This would "leave an even bigger hole in the European and world gas supply," he said, adding this would translate into consequences in the coming winters.

Until now, supplies have been partly offset by purchases of liquefied natural gas, notably from the United States and Qatar, but this cannot be sustained in the long run given the impact on climate. In addition, demand is likely to increase if China's activity picks up again.

At a historical high, reached in mid-May, a ton of milling wheat was trading at €438 on Euronext, a dangerous price level for the poorest countries' populations.

Grain was also in the news. The sudden halt of exports from Black Sea ports affected by the war in Ukraine cast a shock. The importance of Ukrainian, and even more so Russian, grain exports was brought to light.

The fear of wheat shortage triggered speculation. At a historical high, reached in mid-May, a ton of milling wheat was trading at €438 on Pan-European stock exchange Euronext, a dangerous price level for the poorest countries' populations, which rely heavily on imports.

An agreement sealed at the end of July between Moscow and Kyiv – under the aegis of Turkey and the United Nations – to secure grain exports from Ukrainian ports cooled the pressure, especially since it was renewed in mid-November for 120 days.

"Thanks to this deal, five million tons of agricultural products are exported from Ukraine each month," Arthur Portier, with agricultural intelligence company Agritel, said. Meanwhile, the world's granaries filled up, with a record harvest in Russia and Australia, and a decent one in Europe. "There is no shortage of wheat today," Mr. Portier said. The same is true for corn, even if production has been lower, and rapeseed.

'In the brains of Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping'

Prices retreated as a result. In December, wheat fell below €300 per ton, returning to its end-February level but still up 20% this year. Corn, which had been priced at €377 per ton, fell back to €283 while rapeseed returned to its price of a year ago, above €550 a metric ton, after a peak close to €850.

"Cereal prices are down again, but everything is relative. Levels remain good," Benoît Piétrement, who chairs a large-scale-crop council at FranceAgriMer, a state agency in charge of allocating national as well as EU agricultural subsidies.

Similar curves were behind metal prices, whether it was copper, zinc, aluminum or nickel, all saw valuations decline, after peaking in early March. "Overall, most markets for industrial metals and non-ferrous ores are in surplus," Mr. Chalmin said.

Fears of a recession and questions over China's recent decision to loosen Covid-19 regulations are also on investors' minds. The sharpest correction affected ocean freight as logistical tensions appeared to be easing. "The freight rate for a 40-foot [12-meter] container from China to Europe fell from $10,000 to $3,000," said Mr. Chalmin.

What will happen in 2023? "A balance has been found," Mr. Piétrement said. "The market is walking a tightrope," added Mr. Portier. On the energy front, "we are assured to have to deal with higher, more unstable fossil fuel prices and shortages in Europe," said Mr. Geoffron.

"Even if we were to imagine a swift return to peace, it is obvious that Europeans will aim at reducing reliance on Russia in many areas and source elsewhere to diversify, which will be mechanically more expensive because it will be further away, requiring new infrastructure and new contracts."

Oil prices – which have been hovering around $80-85 since October, after reaching $120 in March – will also be on the radars, especially as an EU embargo on Russian crude has been active on December, 5. In retaliation, Moscow said it was ready to cut production by 5-7% in the coming days.

The decision came as North America was hit by "the blizzard of the century" and China was reopening, fueling a return of bullish trends on oil and other resources. "To make predictions, you'd have to be in the brains of Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping," Mr. Chalmin said.

The rate rises by two tenths of a point in December after the European Central Bank's latest interest rate hike.

The Euribor is out of control: is it a good time to amortise and take off part of the mortgage?

Taking out a mortgage now costs nine times more than a year ago

Russia’s War Could Make It India’s World

The invasion of Ukraine, compounding the effects of the pandemic, has contributed to the ascent of a giant that defies easy alignment. It could be the decisive force in a changing global system.

By Roger Cohen

Dec. 31, 2022

NYT

Seated in the domed, red sandstone government building unveiled by the British Raj less than two decades before India threw off imperial rule, S. Jaishankar, the Indian foreign minister, needs no reminder of how the tides of history sweep away antiquated systems to usher in the new.

Such, he believes, is today’s transformative moment. A “world order which is still very, very deeply Western,” as he put it in an interview, is being hurried out of existence by the impact of the war in Ukraine, to be replaced by a world of “multi-alignment” where countries will choose their own “particular policies and preferences and interests.”

Certainly, that is what India has done since the war in Ukraine began on Feb. 24. It has rejected American and European pressure at the United Nations to condemn the Russian invasion, turned Moscow into its largest oil supplier and dismissed the perceived hypocrisy of the West. Far from apologetic, its tone has been unabashed and its self-interest broadly naked.

“I would still like to see a more rules-based world,” Mr. Jaishankar said. “But when people start pressing you in the name of a rules-based order to give up, to compromise on what are very deep interests, at that stage I’m afraid it’s important to contest that and, if necessary, to call it out.”

In other words, with its almost 1.4 billion inhabitants, soon to overtake China as the world’s most populous country, India has a need for cheap Russian oil to sustain its 7 percent annual growth and lift millions out of poverty. That need is nonnegotiable. India gobbles up all the Russian oil it requires, even some extra for export. For Mr. Jaishankar, time is up on the mind-set that “Europe’s problems are the world’s problems, but the world’s problems are not Europe’s,” as he put it in June.

The Ukraine war, which has provoked moral outrage in the West over Russian atrocities, has caused a different anger elsewhere, one focused on a skewed and outdated global distribution of power. As Western sanctions against Russia have driven up energy, food and fertilizer costs, causing acute economic difficulties in poorer countries, resentment of the United States and Europe has stirred in Asia and Africa.

Carrying a gas canister in the Old City of Delhi. India gobbles up all the Russian oil it requires, and even some extra for export.

A tangle of electrical wires in Delhi’s Old City. For India’s leadership, the need for cheap Russian oil is nonnegotiable.

A production line at a tea manufacturer near Chennai, southeastern India. The Ukraine war and the pandemic have pushed more corporations to use India to diversify supply chains.

Grinding trench warfare on European soil seems the distant affair of others. Its economic cost feels immediate and palpable.

“Since February, Europe has imported six times the fossil fuel energy from Russia that India has done,” Mr. Jaishankar said. “So if a $60,000-per-capita society feels it needs to look after itself, and I accept that as legitimate, they should not expect a $2,000-per-capita society to take a hit.”

Here comes Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s India, pursuing its own interests with a new assertiveness, throwing off any sense of inferiority and rejecting unalloyed alignment with the West. But which India will strut the 21st-century global stage, and how will its influence be felt?

The country is at a crossroads, poised between the vibrant plurality of its democracy since independence in 1947 and a turn toward illiberalism under Mr. Modi. His “Hindu Renaissance” has threatened some of the core pillars of India’s democracy: equal treatment of all citizens, the right to dissent, the independence of courts and the media.

Democracy and debate are still vigorous — Mr. Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party lost a municipal election in Delhi this month — and the prime minister’s popularity remains strong. For many, India is just too vast and various ever to succumb to some unitary nationalist diktat.

The postwar order had no place for India at the top table. But now, at a moment when Russia’s military aggression under President Vladimir V. Putin has provided a vivid illustration of how a world of strongmen and imperial rivalry would look, India may have the power to tilt the balance toward an order dominated by democratic pluralism or by repressive leaders.

Which way Mr. Modi’s form of nationalism will lean remains to be seen. It has given many Indians a new pride and bolstered the country’s international stature, even as it has weakened the country’s pluralist and secularist model.

12 Workouts to Try in 2023

A playground on the outskirts of Chennai. India has almost 1.4 billion inhabitants and will soon overtake China as the world’s most populous country.

India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, himself a mixture of East and West through education and upbringing, described the country as “some ancient palimpsest on which layer upon layer of thought and reverie had been inscribed” without any of those layers being effaced.

He was convinced that a secular India had to accommodate all the diversity that repeated invasion had bequeathed. Not least, that meant conciliation with the country’s large Muslim minority, now about 200 million people.

Today, however, Mr. Nehru is generally reviled by Mr. Modi’s Hindu nationalist party. There are no Muslims in Mr. Modi’s cabinet. Hindu mob attacks on Muslims have been met with silence by the prime minister.

“Hatred has penetrated into society at a level that is absolutely terrifying,” the acclaimed Indian novelist Arundhati Roy said.

That may be, but for now, Mr. Modi’s India seems to brim with confidence.

The Ukraine war, compounding the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, has fueled the country’s ascent. Together they have pushed corporations to make global supply chains less risky by diversifying toward an open India and away from China’s surveillance state. They have accentuated global economic turbulence from which India is relatively insulated by its huge domestic market.

2022: A rollercoaster ride

Written in Spanish translation by Germán & Co

John Müller

ABC.es

Madrid, 31/12/2022

At first it was the verb: the game was called 'Wordle' and 'The New York Times' paid more than a million dollars for it. It was mainly circulating on Twitter, a social network that would become the talk of the town months after Elon Musk spent $44 billion to buy it. But in January, the volcano was already sleeping on La Palma and the euro was twenty years old. Rafael Nadal was enjoying his greatness in Australia and Daniel Ortega was beginning the fourth consecutive term of his dictatorship in Nicaragua. Omicron complicated Covid's exit. Until the ides of February arrived and everything changed.

The Popular Party became the Spanish Tory party, when we did not yet know how low the British Tories could sink with Boris Johnson and Liz Truss. Pablo Casado committed political suicide in front of his own creature - Isabel Díaz Ayuso - and gave way to Alberto Núñez Feijóo. That was on 23 February, but on the 24th, the following day, Putin, the man with the extra-long tables, invaded Ukraine and changed our future. There, 2022 became a real rollercoaster, never better said. It took us a while to realise that Putin was not crazy. His justifiers said the war was NATO's fault for trying to camp out in Russia's front yard like Chris Rock was responsible for Will Smith's slap at the Oscar ceremony. Unwittingly, the Russian leader enlarged NATO - Sweden and Finland asked to join - consolidated Ukraine as a national entity and united Europe. Then came the nuclear threat, the food crisis, the prominence of missiles, drones and anti-tank weapons, and the unexpected effectiveness of the Ukrainian resistance.

It was in March that Pedro Sánchez decided to change horses on the Sahara and support Morocco's plan, a Copernican turn in Spanish foreign policy that we learned about because Rabat was kind enough to publish the Spanish president's letter. Feijóo, without opening his mouth, jumped in the polls to Sánchez's beard without anyone being able to explain it properly. In April, the Galician asked for the VAT on food to be lowered. Sanchez heeded him in December.

Summer of fire

The summer scorched the Culebra mountain range and completely dried out Europe, but San Fermín returned to Pamplona. There was another tragedy at the Melilla fence, and the government showered the Moroccan gendarmes with praise. There was tension in Taiwan and a constant display of North Korean missiles. It was the year we deflected a meteorite with a rocket. The US Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade and reminded us that Roe's baby was born, named Shelley, is 51 years old and has offspring (Roe's granddaughters) despite the fact that they wanted to abort her.

It was the year of the monkey pox, the cryptocurrency crash, the rise and fall of NFTs and the stock market values of digital platforms. Bendodo skated with Spain's 'plurinationality' and the Chileans shook it off by rejecting their 'woke' Constitution. Moreno Bonilla fixed it all with an unexpected absolute majority in Andalusia.

A wretch stabbed Salman Rushdie, on the orders of the ayatollahs, and another fanatic killed Shinzo Abe, the ruler who disguised himself as Mario Bros. And queens and kings died: Elizabeth II, the global grandmother; King Pelé, pop queen Olivia Newton-John and the last Soviet king, Mikhail Gorbachev. We still don't know who blew up the Nord Stream pipeline. Iran is walking on the edge of a revolution sparked by a young woman, Mahsa Amini, and Xi renewed his autocratic mandate, but stumbled against the Covid, who has tabled a motion of no confidence in him. Sombrero' Castillo was tempted by a coup in Peru and ended up in jail. ABC interviewed Pope Francis. Oh, and Argentina won the World Cup, Spain won the Eurobasket and Real Madrid won the European Championship again! Today, the greatest threat to economic prosperity is geopolitics and, for freedom, the degradation of our democracies.

News round-up, Friday, December 30, 2022

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Israel's democracy has become an illusion

EDITORIAL

Le Monde

The new Israeli government is sympathetic to Jewish extremists and the ultra-Orthodox and plans to expand settlements, perpetuating a domination that should come at a political and diplomatic price.

Published on December 30, 2022

The composition of the new Israeli government sworn in on December 29, and the share obtained by the most radical parties ever represented in the Knesset (the Israeli Parliament), highlight an unprecedented evolution of the Jewish state. While the illiberal and reactionary shift that emerged from the ballot box concerns only the Israelis themselves, the same cannot be said of the desire to dominate the Palestinian territories, which is the other key issue for this government. The vision is no longer that of two states, but that of an annexation fraught with great peril.

More than 50 years after the conquest of Gaza and the West Bank by force, the Israeli military regime there can no longer be considered a temporary occupation. In half a century, regardless of a failing Palestinian authority, this state of exception has continued to be refined as the Israeli authorities have facilitated the settlement of Jewish Israeli citizens within these conquered territories, in violation of international law.

In recent months, there have been heated protests against the use of the term "apartheid" by human rights organizations to describe the system to which Palestinians are subjected. Israel's defenders are used to this activism, especially as the battle is not only semantic, given its potential legal implications for the International Criminal Court, which is investigating crimes committed in these territories.

The strength of this reaction cannot mask the only reality that counts, and which should provoke the only acceptable indignation: a regime is allocating different rights on the same land to different populations defined by ethnic criteria. While the Palestinians are locked up in enclaves at the whim of the occupier, a specific legal framework that benefits only Israelis of the Jewish faith guarantees the continuity between the state recognized by the international community and these occupied lands. This state of affairs is the consequence of the strategy that leads to annexation.

Israel's allies have resigned themselves to this situation, as have many Arab countries, which normalized their relations with the Jewish state without batting an eyelid. But this does not detract from the monstrosity that has been created, as illustrated by the systematic expropriation of land, the lack of freedom of movement and the use of unequal violence with complete impunity, among other things. The withdrawal from Gaza has never prevented Israel from exerting ruthless pressure on its inhabitants, as shown by the inhuman blockade imposed on this suffering territory.

To sustain this domination over the entire territorial area stretching from the Mediterranean to the border with Jordan comes at a political and diplomatic price. Israel's democratic nature is becoming an illusion. The 5 million Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank are subjected to a regime that governs every detail of their lives.

The issue also concerns the Western allies of the Jewish state. They have long exalted common values to hide their failures to act on matters related to Palestine, but these principles are nowhere to be found. They should therefore not be surprised that they arouse the indifference of a part of the world when they call, elsewhere, for the respect of the rights of peoples.

The Euribor rate rises by 3.5 points in 2022 and closes the year at 3%, the highest level since the real estate crisis.

The rate rises by two tenths of a point in December after the European Central Bank's latest interest rate hike.

The Euribor is out of control: is it a good time to amortise and take off part of the mortgage?

Taking out a mortgage now costs nine times more than a year ago

Madrid

30/12/2022

ABC.ES

Translation by Germán & Co

The Euribor has spent months climbing a mountain whose peak is still not in sight. The index to which most mortgages in Spain are referenced closes December and, therefore, the year 2022 slightly above 3%. A level that has not been exceeded as a monthly average since the real estate crash in 2008.

The new data represents a new acceleration with respect to November, having climbed another two tenths of a percentage point. Thus, in just one year the Euribor has gone from -0.502% in December 2021 to 3.01% in the same month of 2022. This represents a rise of 3.5 percentage points, the highest ever seen in the index's historical series, which began in 1999.

This is the monthly average, which is used to calculate the revision of mortgage repayments and new loans. Because the daily index has already comfortably exceeded 3%. The figure for 30 December, the last for 2022, leaves the daily Euribor at almost 3.3%, which indicates that January will see another monthly increase if this trend continues.

More and more users are turning to this type of solution to ask for a loan, given the facilities it offers.

This evolution is due to the rise in the price of money. In July, the European Central Bank (ECB) raised its benchmark interest rates for the first time in eleven years. This decision was followed by others in September, October and this December, bringing them to 2.5%.

The Euribor is closely linked to rate hikes. The index is the rate at which banks lend money to each other; if the price of money rises, so does the interest at which banks lend to each other. And this is directly reflected in the Euribor. In fact, the Euribor usually anticipates the ECB's rate hikes, as has been the case so far in 2022.

The rate started to rise at the beginning of the year and returned to positive territory in April. Since then it has not stopped rising, with the big acceleration occurring in September with a rise of one percentage point in just thirty days. It is now at 3%, but experts believe it still has some way to go.

Upward trend

Economists expect the ECB's reference rate to be above 3% in the short term. There is even talk that they could reach 4% before the end of 2023. The Euribor is already discounting these increases and, in theory, would anticipate the monetary institution's decisions.

What analysts expect is that by the middle of next year the index will be around 3.5%, putting more pressure on both variable mortgages whose repayments will have to be revised and new home loans that are taken out, which will be more expensive. As ABC reported, taking out a mortgage now is nine times more expensive than a year ago.

GOLDEN BOY

Pele the brilliant and beloved icon who never had a bad word for anyone… except, perhaps, Diego Maradona

Dave Kidd

Published: 30 Dec 2022

The Sun

A LONG-RUNNING spat with Diego Maradona, ham acting in Escape to Victory and even adverts for Viagra.

Ask anyone under the age of 50 what they actually remember about Pele and these are the likely themes.

Pele and Diego Maradona had a long-running rivalry - but now may now 'kick a ball together in the sky'Credit: EPA

Before Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo emerged, Pele and Maradona were out on their own in the debate over who was the greatest footballer of all time.

After Maradona played such a dominant role in Argentina’s 1986 World Cup victory — in Mexico City’s Azteca Stadium, like Pele’s finest hour — the Brazilian suddenly had a genuine rival for his crown as the finest player in history.

And there was little love lost between the pair, with Maradona usually the poisonous protagonist.

At various times, both men recognised the greatness of the other but there was often a barb, with Maradona once chastising Pele for supposedly allowing his former team-mate Garrincha to die in poverty.

Pele — outspoken about drug abuse in the game — often responded that he would not criticise Maradona when he was ‘ill’ due to substance abuse.

And following the Argentine’s death in 2020, Pele even said: “One day we’ll kick a ball together in the sky above.”

The Brazilian was certainly the more gallant of the two.

And to those of us who never saw him play live, Pele had a saintly glow, as if his No 10 shirt should have come with a halo.

Yet in an era when legalised violence was very much a part of football, Pele could give as good as he got.

Jimmy Greaves, an expert teller of anecdotes, had a wonderful ability to humanise the Gods of the game when I was ghostwriter for his column.

He told a gem of a story about Pele from the Little World Cup, a four-team tournament in 1964 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Brazilian FA.

Greaves and the rest of the England squad, who were due to play Portugal the next day, were in the stadium in Sao Paulo watching Pele’s Brazil take on Argentina.

Pele was being man-marked by muscular defender Jose Mesiano and after one kick too many from the Argentine, Pele leapt several feet in the air and floored his antagonist with a head-butt.

Greaves recalled the incident starting a near riot, with England players fearing for their safety, but the ref missed the flashpoint.

Despite getting off scot-free, Pele had an ineffective match and Argentina ran out 3-0 winners.

It was shocking to hear of Pele’s violent side and almost as surprising to be told that he’d ever had a poor game.

For those of us a generation or so younger than Pele, there were two regular sightings of him on television — frequent replays of his 1970 World Cup highlights reel and then the war movie Escape to Victory.

No Christmas was complete without a rerun of this classic 1981 film, with cast including Michael Caine, Sylvester Stallone and Bobby Moore, as well as Pele himself.

The movie is about a match between an allied prisoner of war team and a German army side — a thrilling 4-4 draw in which Pele’s character, Corporal Luis Fernandez, scores a spectacular overhead bicycle kick.

Before the match, Caine — player-manager of the POW XI — gives­ a detailed team talk at his blackboard of the passing game he wants his men to employ.

But Pele grabs the chalk and illustrates how he intends to dribble around the entire Nazi team and score a solo goal.

There was never any chance of him winning an Oscar for that performance — but his greatness on the football pitch was never in doubt.

And you didn’t need to have seen him play for real to understand that.

News round-up, Thursday, December 29, 2022

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Air Products and AES Announce Plans to Invest Approximately $4 Billion to Build First Mega-scale Green Hydrogen Production Facility in Texas

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Seaboard’s CEO in the Dominican Republic, Armando Rodriguez, explains how the Estrella del Mar III, a floating hybrid power plant, will reduce CO2 emissions and bring stability to the national grid…

Altice delivers innovative, customer-centric products and solutions that connect and unlock the limitless potential of its over 30 million customers over fiber networks and mobile…

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Russia launches one of the biggest attacks of the war on Ukraine's energy infrastructure

A hail of missiles on New Year's Eve knocks out power to 90% of homes in the city of Lviv and 40% of those in Kiev.

New Russian missile airstrike leaves Ukrainian population without electricity

Written in Spanish

Translation Germán & Co

ByMaría R. Sahuquillo

El País

Kiev (Special Envoy) - 29 DEC 2022

On the eve of celebrations to welcome in the new year, Russia on Thursday launched a hail of missiles over Ukraine. The sound of explosions could be heard reverberating from just after dawn in towns and cities across the country. The attack, involving 69 cruise missiles and kamikaze drones, according to the government in Kiev, is one of the largest of the Kremlin's war in Ukraine, and has been aimed primarily at Ukraine's energy infrastructure. Since the temperatures began to drop, Russia has been heavily targeting power plants. It was the tenth attack on vital infrastructure since September.

 Russian President Vladimir Putin is seeking to plunge the country into darkness and cold to break the resistance of a population already enduring a war that has entered its eleventh month. Ukraine's anti-aircraft defences have intercepted 54 of the 69 missiles the Kremlin has fired in abundance. However, Thursday's attacks have left more than 90% of the city of Lviv without power, according to the mayor's office, which also warned of severe water shortages. In Kiev, 40% of homes have been left in darkness, according to its mayor, Vitali Klitschko.

One of the Ukrainian anti-aircraft missiles fell in Belarus without reported casualties, according to BelTA, the Belarusian state news agency. The Belarusian defence ministry is investigating whether it was shot down by its air defence systems or whether it was a missile that missed its target and fell on its territory bordering Ukraine.

As the first rays of sunlight began to dawn in the Kiev sky, the drone of missiles and a grey trail swept across the sky. The anti-aircraft alarms had warned earlier that the capital, like the whole country, was under missile attack alert. Moscow fired 16 missiles at the Ukrainian capital on Thursday. All were intercepted by anti-aircraft defences, according to the Ukrainian authorities. However, remnants of the shells hit two houses, a children's playground and a factory, injuring three people, including a 14-year-old girl, according to the mayor's office.

The attacks also damaged infrastructure in the port city of Odessa, in Zitomir and in Kharkov in the north-east of the country. Several buildings, a power line and a gas pipeline were damaged in shelling outside the south-central city of Zaporiyia, according to the governor, Oleksandr Starukh. In Kherson, recaptured by Ukraine in November after months of Russian occupation, a missile hit a medical centre, according to local authorities. Two people were injured. "They dream that Ukrainians will celebrate the New Year in the dark and cold. But they cannot defeat the Ukrainian people," the Ukrainian defence ministry said on social media.

Russia has launched the large-scale attack on Ukraine from at least two ships and 13 strategic bombers, from which it fired cruise missiles, according to the Ukrainian air force leadership. Shortly before the missile barrage, Moscow dispatched swarms of kamizake drones, mostly Iranian-made aircraft, with which Kremlin troops seek to distract anti-aircraft defences before unloading the missile barrage. On Thursday, the buzzing of a swarm of at least 13 Iranian Shahed-136 drones flooded the skies over the city of Kharkov; 11 of them were shot down, officials said. In Dnipro, in the centre of the country, a strategic city, communications hub and important logistics centre, anti-aircraft defences shot down five drones, followed by a barrage of missiles. Ukraine's southern command has warned that three Russian missile-carrying ships are in combat position in the Black Sea.

Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelensky had warned a few days ago that Russia was preparing another large-scale bombardment during the festive season. "With the arrival of the Christmas season, Russian terrorists may become active again," he said a few days ago. "They despise Christian values and any values in general," he added.

Thursday's massive bombardment comes just days after a drone struck a strategic Russian air base from which Moscow has begun bombing Ukraine's vital infrastructure, in an attack that killed at least three Kremlin soldiers and exposed new cracks in Russia's anti-aircraft defences and the design of the invasion. The attack was the second drone strike against the same Engels base in the Saratov region. As in previous raids, the Ukrainian government maintains cryptic language about the drone attack: they do not claim direct responsibility for it but have pointed to it as a consequence of the Kremlin's war.

2022, a pivotal year for the environment

The year is closing with a series of agreements on climate and biodiversity, but the commitments remain insufficient and implementing them will prove hard.

By Audrey Garric

Le Monde

Published on December 29, 2022

Did 2022 mark a leap forward in international action for the environment? While real success is still far away, the year is at least ending on some positive notes.

At the last United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP15), which ended on December 19 in Montreal, countries managed to adopt a new global framework to "halt and reverse" the collapse of biodiversity on Earth by 2030. A few weeks earlier, at the equivalent climate conference, COP27 in Egypt, an agreement was found to create a fund for the irreversible damage caused by global warming. Negotiations also began to develop a legally binding international treaty aiming at ending plastic pollution.

At the same time, the European Union reached a series of agreements to accelerate its cuts in greenhouse gas emissions: reforming its carbon market, introducing a carbon border tax, and stopping the sale of new combustion engine vehicles in 2035. It also agreed to imports of products linked to deforestation, such as soy, beef and cocoa.

Across the Atlantic, the United States succeeded in passing its Inflation Reduction Act, a colossal investment plan of around €350 billion for a low-carbon transition.

While he refutes the idea of a turning point, Sébastien Treyer, executive director of the independent policy research institute IDDRI, conceded much had been achieved "with opportunities to accelerate."

With the Paris Agreement on climate change adopted in 2015, the agreement on biodiversity and the Sustainable Development Goals, "we now have all the necessary framework for action. States no longer have any excuses," Pierre Cannet, director of advocacy and campaigns at World Wildlife Fund France.

'Shared leadership'

Progress was far from certain, in the context of multiple crises (energy, food, inflation and debt). Meanwhile, the war in Ukraine has shaken multilateralism. "Before COP27 and COP15, we saw the return of postures opposing the West to the South, with compensation demands for the environmental crisis, and also for colonialism," Mr. Treyer said. "There was a very strong risk that development inequalities would scupper everything."

If countries have finally managed to cooperate, it is primarily because the Global North has recognized the Global South's financial needs and has guaranteed that there will be solidarity. "The countries of the South have agreed to extend their ambition [in protecting biodiversity and fighting global warming], even if all the money they need is not on the table," Mr. Treyer said.

Under "shared leadership" of the EU and US, developing countries "are now trying to do their part," Mr. Treyer said. China, which was initially playing a minor role, finally worked hard to reach compromise positions between developed and developing countries on the new global framework for biodiversity as it chaired COP15.

India, which is chairing the G20 for a year since December 1, intends to present itself as a climate champion. South Africa, Brazil and Colombia are also showing a new proactive approach.

At a European level, the Green Deal, which has been moving "from the high-level strategy stage to the legislation stage," according to Diana-Paula Gherasim, an energy and climate researcher at the French Institute of International Relations, is materializing.

In a context of soaring energy prices and war in Ukraine, "it was important for the EU to show that it could fight several battles in parallel and that the fight against climate change is structurally part of its action," she said.

The context of multiple crises could also help to advance environmental action because it favors a "return of state interventionism," said Mr. Treyer. It also provides substance to measures that seemed impossible to implement until now, such as a tax on fossil fuels or on air and sea transport.

The proliferation of climate disasters this year – floods in Pakistan, heat waves, droughts and fires in Europe, the devastating hurricane Ian in Cuba and Florida, etc. – has also increased awareness.

"Some taboos are finally beginning to be lifted," said Mr. Cannet, as countries spoke at the COP about fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas) – the main causes of global warming – subsidies that are harmful to the climate and biodiversity, and the problem of pesticides and plastics.

More than illustrating a new impetus, the WWF expert considers that the recent agreements reached on the environment are rather a "catch-up in terms of ambition." "We are still far from being on the right trajectory, and the step to take is immense," he said.

Seven years after the Paris Agreement, countries' commitments are still likely to result in a climate warming of 2.5°C at the end of the century, far from the goal of limiting it to 1.5°C.

Loose commitments

Not only are the promises insufficient, but their implementation has also been poor so far too, as both agreements are non-binding and do not come with sanction mechanisms in case of non-compliance.

"The commitments [made during the Paris agreement] have not yet been sufficiently transformed into national actions and especially impacts," Janet Ranganathan, executive director of the World Resources Institute (WRI), said. "They have not decreased the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere."

With regard to the unprecedented decline of species and ecosystems, achieving the ambitious targets adopted in Montreal will be a real challenge, as each state must now align its national strategies and plans with the global framework.

In order to avoid a total failure in eight years – as was the case for the targets adopted during the previous decade – countries have agreed this time on a more robust mechanism for monitoring and regular evaluation of progress.

The rapid implementation of new financial commitments will also be crucial to ensure that the Kunming-Montreal agreement is truly followed by action.

Within the EU, the implementation of the new legislation will require a "massive and sustained effort on the part of governments to deploy renewable energies and infrastructure, for example for recharging electric vehicles, or to renovate buildings," Ms. Gherasim said.

Recent progress should not obscure setbacks. The year 2022 has also seen an increased reliance on fossil fuels in the context of the energy crisis, a postponement of the European regulation to halve the use of pesticides, u-turns on European agro-ecological transition and the suspension of international negotiations on the protection of the high sea. COP27 failed to tackle fossil fuels, and the majority of countries have not raised their climate targets.

Turning the end of this year's little music into next year's allegro can only be done under certain conditions. "We will have to tackle the three systems together – food, energy and urban – which are the causes of both biodiversity erosion and climate change," said Ms. Ranganathan.

Countries of the Global North will also have to "define a new financial pact with the South," at a summit convened by French President Emmanuel Macron in June, Mr. Treyer explained. The summit will have to hold a reform of the international financial system in order to raise substantial sums in the face of environmental crises.

Ahead of COP28 in the United Arab Emirates, which will mark an occasion for a first assessment of countries' climate commitments, the United Nations secretary general has announced a climate ambition summit in September. Antonio Guterres was clear: "The price of admission is non-negotiable: [we want] credible and serious new climate action and nature-based solutions."

Covid in China: US imposes Covid testing for visitors from China

China is starting to reopen borders after three years

By Alys Davies and Frances Mao

BBC News

The US has become the latest country to impose Covid testing on visitors from China, after Beijing announced it would reopen borders next week.

Italy, Japan, Taiwan and India also announced mandatory tests, but Australia and UK said there were no new rules for travellers from China.

After three years of being closed to the world, China will let people travel more freely from 8 January.

But the country's ongoing Covid surge has sparked wariness.

China is reporting about 5,000 cases a day, but analysts say such numbers are vastly undercounted - and the daily case load may be closer to a million. Hospitals are overwhelmed and residents are struggling to find basic medicines, according to reports.

On Wednesday, the US said a lack of "adequate and transparent" Covid data in China had contributed to the decision to require Covid tests from 5 January for travellers entering the country from China, Hong Kong and Macau.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said this was needed "to help slow the spread of the virus as we work to identify... any potential new variants that may emerge".

But Beijing's foreign ministry on Wednesday had said coronavirus rules should only be instated on a "scientific" basis and accused Western countries and media of "hyping up" the situation.

Some people reacted angrily on China's censored social media.

"I thought all of the foreign countries had opened up. Isn't this racism?" read one comment that was liked 3,000 times on Weibo. The US has said testing is required of anyone coming from China, or via a third country, regardless of nationality.

But others said they understood the reason for the conditions: "This is nothing compared to all the restrictions we had for people coming into China," one user wrote.

Beijing only announced on Monday its decision to end quarantine for arrivals - effectively reopening travel in and out of the country for the first time since March 2020. Until this week, anyone entering China had to undergo quarantine in state facilities.

Before the pandemic, China had been the world's largest outbound tourism market. But it's unclear how many Chinese people will travel abroad after 8 January given that the number of flights are limited, and many citizens need to renew their passports.

The international community's reaction has varied with the UK and Australia saying they were monitoring China's Covid situation but were not planning on announcing new testing requirements.

Others have moved swiftly to announce restrictions:

• In Japan, from Friday, travellers from China will be tested for Covid upon arrival. Those who test positive will have to quarantine for up to seven days. The number of flights to and from China will also be restricted

• In India, people travelling from China and four other Asian countries must produce a negative Covid test before arriving. Positive passengers will also be put in quarantine

• Taiwan says people arriving on flights from China, as well as by boat at two islands, will have to take Covid tests on arrival from 1 January to 31 January. Those who test positive will be able to isolate at home

• Meanwhile Malaysia has put additional tracking and surveillance measures in place

• Italy has also imposed mandatory Covid testing on travellers from China

The European Commission said its health security committee would convene on Thursday to discuss "possible measures for a coordinated EU approach" to China's Covid surge.

But Italy, an EU member state and an epicentre of the virus in late 2019 and 2020, said it was moving first to "ensure the surveillance and identification" of any new variants of the virus.

Flights arriving in Milan this week were already testing passengers from China. Authorities found 52% of passengers were infected with Covid on one flight that landed on 26 December.

Initial tests of Covid-positive travellers arriving from China showed that 15 of them had Omicron variants that were already present in Italy, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said. She described the news as quite reassuring.

Italy is one of 26 European countries in the border-free Schengen zone and Ms Meloni is calling for EU-wide testing of Chinese passengers, arguing that Italy's own measures might otherwise be ineffective.

China's foreign ministry said on Wednesday that "currently the development of China's epidemic situation is overall predictable and under control".

However, the true toll of daily cases and deaths in China is unknown as officials have stopped requiring cases to be reported, and changed classifications for Covid deaths. On Sunday, officials said they would also stop releasing daily case counts.

"The infection surge in China is on expected lines," Dr Chandrakant Lahariya, an Indian epidemiologist and health systems specialist told the BBC in a recent interview.

"If you have a susceptible population that is not exposed to the virus, cases will rise. Nothing has changed for the rest of the world."

China's decision to reopen its borders marks the end of the country's controversial zero-Covid policy, which President Xi Jinping had personally endorsed.

Even as the rest of the world transitioned to living with the virus, Beijing insisted on an eradication policy involving mass testing and stringent lockdowns.

The economy took a hit and people grew both exhausted and angry - in November, the frustration spilled onto the streets in rare protests against Mr Xi and his government. Week later, Beijing began to roll back the restrictions.

News round-up, Wednesday, December 28, 2022

“Huge responsibility
This introspection should involve Europeans just as much: The outcome of the war in Ukraine will be critical for their future too. The vast majority of the 34 countries still considered to be liberal democracies by the Swedish V-Dem Institute are on their soil. On Tuesday, December 27, while talking about the heroic struggle of Iranian women, the Franco-Iranian director, writer and artist Marjane Satrapi told France Inter radio: “Today, the guardian of democracy is Europe.”

The trauma of Donald Trump’s tenure as president of the United States has consistently tarnished the image of American democracy. The shining “city on a hill” extolled by his predecessor Ronald Reagan is now a cliché.”

— Le Monde

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“Eight rings, one for each of the leaders of Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbek, and one final one for Mr. Putin himself. It’s hard not to think that this is a reference to the nine rings in The Lord of the Rings, by J. R. R. Tolkien, published in 1954.

It’s not by chance, the Kremlin established the parallel with the story “in full awareness,” according to political scientist Ekaterina Schulmann. The presidential spokesman denied this, referring to the parallel as “a simple memory.” In the British writer’s book, Sauron forged the nine rings in order to enslave men.”

— Le Monde

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Cooperate with ethical thinking -

'The problem of universalism is not the failure of freedom and democratic values, is the failure to implement them'

COLUMN

Sylvie Kauffmann

Authoritarian regimes have enjoyed momentum since the beginning of the 21st century. But those who fight them share the same ideals. It is up to Europe to modernize them.

Published on December 28, 2022

It is a fact, a rough and indisputable one, as well as a solid trend typical of the beginning of the 21st century, that 2022 could not change: Liberal democracy is declining globally, autocratic regimes have advanced and the "strong man" model is still up and running. This tendency was meticulously documented by two independent institutions, Freedom House and V-Dem.

While the phenomenon is real, it is only part of the story. The other part has been told for more than 100 days by Iranian demonstrators, for more than 300 by the citizens of Ukraine, for more than 20 months by Afghan women and for more than 20 years by Russian democrats, who are now forced today to do so from exile.

This list, of course, is by no means exhaustive. Millions of freedom-loving people in Africa, Asia and elsewhere have their place in it. It is also this part of the story that Oleksandra Matviichuk, president of the Ukrainian non-governmental organization Center for Civil Liberties, eloquently told on December 10 in Oslo, when she received the Nobel Peace Prize, shared with the Russian association Memorial and the Belarusian activist Ales Bialiatski.

Two days earlier, in Berlin, a conference brought together numerous Ukrainian, Russian and Belarusian democracy activists and European experts on the theme: "In search of lost universalism." Two of the organizers, Lena Nemirovskaya and Yuri Senokosov, belong to the generation of Soviets who believed in the universalism of Enlightenment values and the rule of law.

When the USSR collapsed, they set out to educate their fellow citizens in civics to accompany the birth of democracy. At that time, it was thought things could only go in this direction. European institutions helped them. Universalism was booming.

Only resort

The financial crisis of 2008 and then the decade of 2010 and the rise of autocracy have put a stop to this progressive vision of history. Thirty years after the fall of the USSR, Ms. Nemirovskaya and Mr. Senokossov, seen as "foreign agents" in their country, are living in exile in Riga, and their school of civic education attracts mostly teachers.

Neither they nor their friends gathered in Berlin have found anything better than the values of universalism to fight the authoritarian model. They remain the only resort – in all of these autocratic regimes, it is in their name that revolutionary movements arise. Even in China, beyond a certain point, deprivation of freedom is no longer tolerated.

The problem of "lost universalism" has nothing to do with the failure of freedom and democratic values, it is the failure to implement them. We should not have let our guard down. "Human rights cannot be upheld once and for all," Ms. Matviichuk pleaded in Oslo. "The values of modern civilization must be protected."

Now, everyone is looking back at the mistakes made as anti-democratic forces gradually regained pace, looking for ways not to repeat them. "What we were able to obtain in the 1990s happened too easily. Thinking that this transition would be quick was an illusion," Memorial historian Irina Scherbakova said.

Huge responsibility

This introspection should involve Europeans just as much: The outcome of the war in Ukraine will be critical for their future too. The vast majority of the 34 countries still considered to be liberal democracies by the Swedish V-Dem Institute are on their soil. On Tuesday, December 27, while talking about the heroic struggle of Iranian women, the Franco-Iranian director, writer and artist Marjane Satrapi told France Inter radio: "Today, the guardian of democracy is Europe."

The trauma of Donald Trump's tenure as president of the United States has consistently tarnished the image of American democracy. The shining "city on a hill" extolled by his predecessor Ronald Reagan is now a cliché.

The European Union certainly has its share of illiberal democracies and far-right parties in process of normalization but Ms. Satrapi is right: Along with a few democracies in the Asia-Pacific, it remains the bastion of the universalism of liberal values and law. It is up to the EU to modernize them, prove their effectiveness and defend them.

This is a huge responsibility, which it can only live up to by transforming itself to face a more hostile environment than it did 30 years ago. In Oslo, Ms. Matviichuk said: "Yes, the law doesn't work right now. But we do not think it is forever. We have to break this impunity cycle and change the approach to justice for war crimes." She was talking about Russia's war crimes in Ukraine, but there is a broader need for change.

In a book about the strongmen of authoritarian regimes, The Strongmen. European Encounters with Sovereign Power, political scientist Hans Kribbe describes the process by which Europe, understanding that force prevails over law in global relations, finds it cannot resign itself to being dominated.

It is not a question, he explains, of giving up on liberal values, but of becoming aware that the world is organized around divergence and no longer around the West or its ideas. To face and overcome this hurdle, Europe is discovering the path of power. Let's hope it finds it in 2023.

Sylvie Kauffmann

Vladimir Putin, the lord of the rings

As part of the meeting of the leaders of the Commonwealth of Independent States, a group of former Soviet Republics, the Kremlin chief offered eight rings to his guests and reserved the ninth for himself.

By Benoît Vitkine (Moscow (Russia) correspondent)

Published on December 28, 2022 at 08h56, updated at 09h09 on December 28, 2022

An informal summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States on December 27, 2022, including from left to right, Tajik President Emomali Rahmone, Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, and Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov. ALEXEY DANICHEV / AFP

The delicate art of official gift-giving demands a subtle mix of restraint and daring, especially in the post-Soviet space, where mostly elderly male leaders pose as staunch conservatives.

During the annual end-of-year meeting of the heads of state and government of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) held on Monday, December 26 in Saint Petersburg, Vladimir Putin chose to remain determinedly unexpected. As the host of this informal summit, the Russian leader presented his counterparts with stunning white and yellow gold rings engraved with the symbol of the regional organization and the words "Russia" and "Happy New Year 2023."

Eight rings, one for each of the leaders of Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbek, and one final one for Mr. Putin himself. It’s hard not to think that this is a reference to the nine rings in The Lord of the Rings, by J. R. R. Tolkien, published in 1954.

It’s not by chance, the Kremlin established the parallel with the story "in full awareness," according to political scientist Ekaterina Schulmann. The presidential spokesman denied this, referring to the parallel as "a simple memory." In the British writer’s book, Sauron forged the nine rings in order to enslave men.

A replica of the document accompanying the rings given by Russian President Vladimir Putin to his CIS counterparts, posted to @Pul Pervogo's Telegram account on December 26, 2022. TELEGRAM @PUL PERVOGO

Social media has been abuzz with this gift

It's particularly striking since the Ukrainian conflict is rife with references to The Lord of the Rings. In Kyiv, they often compare Ukraine to a peaceful Shire under attack by an absolute evil from Moscow’s Mordor. Russian soldiers are often referred to as "Orcs" in everyday language, as well as by Ukrainian officials, and some Russians have now defiantly reappropriated the term.

Mr. Putin's intriguing gift caused a furor on social media, with the more impertinent commenters pointing out his resemblance to Gollum, a creature who became a slave to his ring. In the minds of others, the Russian president's goal is to "keep the CIS together by the power of magic." The joke tackles a sensitive subject; the recurrent tensions between members of the organization that have led to armed clashes between Armenia and Azerbaijan, as well as between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

As part of the meeting on Monday, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian reiterated his frustration with Moscow, which continues to remain passive in the face of Azerbaijan's takeover of the Lachin corridor, which links Yerevan with Nagorno-Karabakh and is supposedly protected by Russian forces.

It was also observed that, among those present, only Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has been photographed wearing the ring. The Kremlin ally's ironclad loyalty is a hollow reminder of the regional tension caused by the "special military operation" in Ukraine.

U.S. Scrambles to Stop Iran From Providing Drones for Russia

As the war in Ukraine grinds on, some officials have become convinced that Iran and Russia are building a new alliance of convenience.

By David E. Sanger, Julian E. Barnes and Eric Schmitt

Dec. 28, 2022, 5:00 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration has launched a broad effort to halt Iran’s ability to produce and deliver drones to Russia for use in the war in Ukraine, an endeavor that has echoes of its yearslong program to cut off Tehran’s access to nuclear technology.

In interviews in the United States, Europe and the Middle East, a range of intelligence, military and national security officials have described an expanding U.S. program that aims to choke off Iran’s ability to manufacture the drones, make it harder for the Russians to launch the unmanned “kamikaze” aircraft and — if all else fails — to provide the Ukrainians with the defenses necessary to shoot them out of the sky.

The breadth of the effort has become clearer in recent weeks. The administration has accelerated its moves to deprive Iran of the Western-made components needed to manufacture the drones being sold to Russia after it became apparent from examining the wreckage of intercepted drones that they are stuffed with made-in-America technology.

U.S. forces are helping Ukraine’s military to target the sites where the drones are being prepared for launch — a difficult task because the Russians are moving the launch sites around, from soccer fields to parking lots. And the Americans are rushing in new technologies designed to give early warning of approaching drone swarms, to improve Ukraine’s chances of bringing them down, with everything from gunfire to missiles.

But all three approaches have run into deep challenges, and the drive to cut off critical parts for the drones is already proving as difficult as the decades-old drive to deprive Iran of the components needed to build the delicate centrifuges it uses to enrich near-bomb-grade uranium. The Iranians, American intelligence officials have said in recent weeks, are applying to the drone program their expertise about how to spread nuclear centrifuge manufacturing around the country and to find “dual use” technologies on the black market to sidestep export controls.

In fact, one of the Iranian companies named by Britain, France and Germany as a key manufacturer of one of the two types of drones being bought by the Russians, Qods Aviation, has appeared for years on the United Nations’ lists of suppliers to Iran’s nuclear and missile programs. The company, which is owned by Iran’s military, has expanded its line of drones despite waves of sanctions.

The administration’s scramble to deal with the Iranian-supplied drones comes at a significant moment in the war, just as Ukraine is using its own drones to strike deep into Russia, including an attack this week on a base housing some of the country’s strategic bombers. And it comes as officials in Washington and London warn that Iran may be about to provide Russia with missiles, helping alleviate Moscow’s acute shortage.

Officials across the Western alliance say they are convinced that Iran and Russia, both isolated by American-led sanctions, are building a new alliance of convenience. One senior military official said that partnership had deepened quickly, after Iran’s agreement to supply drones to the Russians last summer “bailed Putin out.”

The Biden administration, having abandoned hopes of reviving the 2015 nuclear agreement with Tehran, has been adding new sanctions every few weeks.

In the effort to stop the drone attacks, Mr. Biden’s aides are also engaging an ally with a long history of undermining Iran’s nuclear program: Israel.

In a secure video meeting last Thursday with Israel’s top national security, military and intelligence officials, Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, “discussed Iran’s growing military relationship with Russia, including the transfer of weapons the Kremlin is deploying against Ukraine, targeting its civilian infrastructure and Russia’s provision of military technology to Iran in return,” the White House said in a summary of the meeting. The statement did not offer details about how the two countries decided to address the issue.

But the fact that the administration chose to highlight the discussion, in a quarterly meeting normally focused on disrupting Iran’s nuclear capabilities, was notable. Israel and the United States have a long history of operating together in dealing with technological threats emanating from Tehran. Together they developed one of the world’s most famous and sophisticated cyberattacks, using computer code that was later called “Stuxnet,” to attack Iran’s nuclear centrifuge facilities.

Since then, Israel has made little secret of its attempts to sabotage nuclear enrichment centers.

In a statement, Adrienne Watson, the spokeswoman for the National Security Council, acknowledged the scope of the broad drive against Iran’s drone program.

“We are looking at ways to target Iranian U.A.V. production through sanctions, export controls, and talking to private companies whose parts have been used in the production,” she said, using the acronym for “unmanned aerial vehicles.”

She added, “We are assessing further steps we can take in terms of export controls to restrict Iran’s access to technologies used in drones.”

Years in the Making

Iran’s drone program had been slow to progress until recent years.Credit...Iranian Army Office

Iran’s interest in drones dates back more than three decades, as the country looked for ways that it could monitor, and harass, ships in the Persian Gulf. The Mohajer I, a predecessor to one of the drones now being sold to the Russians, made its first flight in 1986.

Progress was slow, but may have been aided in 2011 when the Central Intelligence Agency took a stealthy, unarmed RQ-170 from the Pentagon’s fleet in Afghanistan and flew it over Iran, in what appeared to be an effort to map some of the hundreds of tunnels dug by the Iranians to hide elements of their nuclear program.

A malfunction led to the aircraft landing in the desert, and President Obama briefly considered sending in a Navy SEAL team to blow it up before it fell into the hands of Iranian engineers, senior officials later reported. He decided not to take the risk, and within days the Iranians paraded the drone through the streets of Tehran, a propaganda victory.

But American intelligence officials later concluded that the aircraft likely proved a bonanza for Iranian drone designers, who could reverse engineer the craft.

It was not until 2016 that Iran announced it was beginning to develop attack drones, some in cooperation with Russia. Many of the first were placed in the hands of Iranian-backed militias, including Houthi rebels in Yemen, and they were used most effectively in 2019 in attacks on two Saudi oil processing facilities run by Saudi Aramco, the state-owned oil company.

American officials said the experiences in Saudi Arabia, and the targeting of American forces in Syria and elsewhere, gave them an appreciation of Iranian drone capabilities, and the challenge of dealing with kamikaze raids in which a small explosive is secured in the drone’s nose. But the aftermath of the invasion of Ukraine underscored that Iran knew how to mass produce the aircraft, a particular worry at a moment when there are discussions of opening an Iranian plant inside Russia.

The Iranian program has hardly been without its problems. Deliveries so far have come episodically, as Russia and Iran retrofitted the drones to operate in the cold of a Ukrainian winter. And Iran has run into supply chain issues, a problem the United States is seeking to worsen.

Iran’s interest in drones dates back more than three decades, as the country looked for ways that it could monitor, and harass, ships in the Persian Gulf. The Mohajer I, a predecessor to one of the drones now being sold to the Russians, made its first flight in 1986.

Progress was slow, but may have been aided in 2011 when the Central Intelligence Agency took a stealthy, unarmed RQ-170 from the Pentagon’s fleet in Afghanistan and flew it over Iran, in what appeared to be an effort to map some of the hundreds of tunnels dug by the Iranians to hide elements of their nuclear program.

A malfunction led to the aircraft landing in the desert, and President Obama briefly considered sending in a Navy SEAL team to blow it up before it fell into the hands of Iranian engineers, senior officials later reported. He decided not to take the risk, and within days the Iranians paraded the drone through the streets of Tehran, a propaganda victory.

But American intelligence officials later concluded that the aircraft likely proved a bonanza for Iranian drone designers, who could reverse engineer the craft.

It was not until 2016 that Iran announced it was beginning to develop attack drones, some in cooperation with Russia. Many of the first were placed in the hands of Iranian-backed militias, including Houthi rebels in Yemen, and they were used most effectively in 2019 in attacks on two Saudi oil processing facilities run by Saudi Aramco, the state-owned oil company.

American officials said the experiences in Saudi Arabia, and the targeting of American forces in Syria and elsewhere, gave them an appreciation of Iranian drone capabilities, and the challenge of dealing with kamikaze raids in which a small explosive is secured in the drone’s nose. But the aftermath of the invasion of Ukraine underscored that Iran knew how to mass produce the aircraft, a particular worry at a moment when there are discussions of opening an Iranian plant inside Russia.

The Iranian program has hardly been without its problems. Deliveries so far have come episodically, as Russia and Iran retrofitted the drones to operate in the cold of a Ukrainian winter. And Iran has run into supply chain issues, a problem the United States is seeking to worsen.

Nonetheless, despite years of sanctions on Iran’s defense sector, Iranian drones still are built largely with American and Western parts. When photographs began to circulate of circuit boards from downed drones, visibly packed with chips from American manufacturers, the White House ordered a crackdown, including calls to the firms whose products had been discovered. Almost all had the same reaction: These are unrestricted, “dual use” items whose circulation is almost impossible to stop.

The administration is trying anyway.

In September, the Biden administration tightened sanctions, specifically naming companies involved with building the aircraft for Russia. That was followed by further action in November against companies like Safiran Airport Services, a Tehran-based firm that it accused of shipping the drones on behalf of the Russian government.

In November, the Treasury Department sanctioned two companies based in the United Arab Emirates, a key U.S. ally, accusing them of collaborating with Safiran.

Michael Kofman, the director of Russian studies at CNA, a research institute in Arlington, Va., said that the sanctions were hardly an instant solution.

“Export controls are going to have an effect, but you have to be realistic about the timelines on which they will work,” Mr. Kofman said.

“Sanctions delay and make costly acquisition of components,” he said. “But determined countries will get their hands on tech for narrow defense applications, or adjust their weapon designs to what they can get, even if it’s less reliable.”

As the war grinds on, the United States, Britain, France and Germany are pressing the secretary general of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, to launch a formal investigation into whether Russia and Iran are, together, violating the terms of a U.N. restriction on the export of sophisticated arms from Iran.

Mr. Guterres has made clear that his top priority is executing a deal with Russia over the export of Ukrainian grain, to alleviate shortages, and his aides say now is not the time to risk that agreement with an investigation whose conclusion seems predictable.

Tracking the Drones

There is growing evidence that the military relationship between Iran and Russia may be a two-way street. Credit...Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times

Iran appears to be flying drones to Russian forces on cargo aircraft, usually over routes that leave little opportunity to intercept them. That means attempting to attack them on the ground — no easy task.

Until a little more than a month ago, American and British government officials say, the drones were largely based in Crimea. Then they disappeared for a number of days, reappearing in Russian-occupied areas of Zaporizhzhia province. The movements have been tracked by American and Ukrainian officials, some sitting side by side in military intelligence centers. But the drones are highly mobile, with launch systems mounted on trucks, and the Russians know they are being hunted — so they move them to safer locations, which makes tracking and striking them a difficult proposition.

“The change of launch site is likely due to Russian concerns about the vulnerability of Crimea, while it is also convenient for resupply from the weapons’ likely arrival point in Russia, at Astrakhan,” a British military assessment earlier this month said.

There is growing evidence that the military relationship may be a two-way street. Britain has accused Russia of planning to give Iran advanced military components in exchange for hundreds of drones.

“Iran has become one of Russia’s top military backers,” Britain’s defense minister, Ben Wallace, told Parliament last week.

“In return for having supplied more than 300 kamikaze drones, Russia now intends to provide Iran with advanced military components, undermining both Middle East and international security — we must expose that deal,” Mr. Wallace said.

A number of American companies, including the Edgesource Corporation and BlueHalo, both based in Virginia — have provided training or technology to help detect and defeat the Russian drones, U.S. officials said.

Edgesource has donated about $2 million in systems, including one called Windtalkers, to help Ukraine locate, identify and track incoming hostile drones more than 20 miles away, while at the same time identifying Ukraine’s own drones in the same air space, said Joseph Urbaniak, the company’s chief operating officer.

The United States has provided Ukraine with other technology to counter drones, most recently as part of a $275 million shipment of arms and equipment the Pentagon announced on Dec. 9. But American officials have declined to provide details on the specific assistance, citing operational security.

Stanley Whittingham, Nobel laureate in chemistry: "Companies are more concerned about next month's stock market than the long term". (El País)

“If today you can charge a mobile phone in less than an hour and use it all day long, it is because it has a lithium-ion battery. The same battery that goes into laptops, electric vehicles, and renewable energy storage plants. Although it has been on the market since the 1990s, its first version was created two decades earlier. During the oil crisis in the 1970s, the US company Exxon (now ExxonMobil) hired chemist Stanley Whittingham (Nottingham, UK, 1941) to find alternatives to fossil fuels. The goal was to get electric vehicles off the ground and the researcher, who had studied at Oxford and Stanford, laid the foundations for the element that would change the behaviour of mankind.”

— El País

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Stanley Whittingham, Nobel laureate in chemistry: "Companies are more concerned about next month's stock market than the long term".

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Written in Spanish, By EMANOELLE SANTOS, El País, 27 DEC 2022

Translation by Germán & Co

If today you can charge a mobile phone in less than an hour and use it all day long, it is because it has a lithium-ion battery. The same battery that goes into laptops, electric vehicles, and renewable energy storage plants. Although it has been on the market since the 1990s, its first version was created two decades earlier. During the oil crisis in the 1970s, the US company Exxon (now ExxonMobil) hired chemist Stanley Whittingham (Nottingham, UK, 1941) to find alternatives to fossil fuels. The goal was to get electric vehicles off the ground and the researcher, who had studied at Oxford and Stanford, laid the foundations for the element that would change the behaviour of mankind.

His work with superconducting materials culminated in the first prototype lithium-ion battery, which was functional but not as safe. Ten years later, physicist John Goodenough demonstrated that, by changing some elements, he could store more energy. A breakthrough that was improved by engineer Akira Yoshino, who pioneered the first commercially viable lithium-ion battery in 1991.

All three received the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the joint development of lithium-ion batteries. In his speech, Whittingan stressed the importance of interdisciplinarity and international collaboration to find the solutions the world needs. The main technical challenge is to improve the capacity of today's batteries, while at the global level, the supply chain for the elements needs to be changed and recycling needs to be encouraged. "Right now, some of the materials travel 50,000 miles (more than 80,000 kilometres) from the mine to the finished product, which doesn't make any sense," says the researcher, who stopped by the Ramón Areces Foundation, Madrid, in November to share a lecture on climate change and the critical role of energy storage.

Question: What is it like to see everyone using something you invented?

Answer. It's amazing, but we expected it. When we started working with lithium batteries, the focus was on electric vehicles. There was nothing like iPhones and laptops. It was the communications revolution that started lithium batteries.

We have to go for renewables, and I include nuclear as one of them.

Q. ExxonMobil was the big backer of this invention. What are companies doing today?

A. When I joined Exxon, most of the big companies had what they called corporate research labs. We did fundamental research related to the company. That all disappeared around 1990 and 1995. Companies should do it today because they are the only ones who can directly research future business, but I think they are more concerned about next month's stock market performance rather than what's going to happen in five or ten years. In the 1970s, they were much more concerned about the long term.

Q. Back then, they didn't invest more in improving lithium batteries because they thought it was too early and they didn't need to. Is it too late now?

A. We have to do it now. We can't burn coal and we have to get rid of most of the oil. So we must have new renewable energy sources and that requires storage. More research needs to be done to make batteries better, safer and cheaper. We have no other choice.

Q. His work with superconducting materials culminated in the first prototype lithium-ion battery, which was functional but not as safe. Ten years later, physicist John Goodenough showed that, by changing some elements, he could store more energy. A breakthrough that was improved by engineer Akira Yoshino, who pioneered the first commercially viable lithium-ion battery in 1991.

All three received the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the joint development of lithium-ion batteries. In his speech, Whittingan stressed the importance of interdisciplinarity and international collaboration to find the solutions the world needs. The main technical challenge is to improve the capacity of today's batteries, while at the global level, the supply chain for the elements needs to be changed and recycling needs to be encouraged. "Right now, some of the materials travel 50,000 miles (more than 80,000 kilometres) from the mine to the finished product, which doesn't make any sense," says the researcher, who stopped by the Ramón Areces Foundation, Madrid, in November to share a lecture on climate change and the critical role of energy storage.

Q. In most countries, the energy that is stored comes from coal, oil and gas.

A. We must have green energy in the first place. New York State no longer generates electricity from coal. I have seen that England wants to get electricity from solar panels in Morocco and they are putting a very big power cable there. In Scandinavia, almost all the power is hydroelectric. So I think countries are going to change. The energy problems that were born out of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine teach us that you cannot depend on other countries for gas and oil. We have to go for renewables, and I include nuclear energy as one of them. The battery is just a means to store energy until the moment you want to use it.

Q. What is the next step you hope to see?

A. We want to double the energy density, the energy storage of lithium batteries. In US terms, to go down from $120 per kWh to about $60. We have to get rid of some of the materials we use now, like cobalt. We probably have to stop using a lot of nickel. Also, improve the electrolyte, which is the liquid inside the battery. What I call dummy batteries have no electronic protection inside, so they can catch fire.

Q. Would increasing the energy density increase the risk of explosions?

A. Whenever energy is stored it is not particularly safe. If the gasoline engine were invented today, we would not allow 20 gallons (75 litres) of gasoline to be put under a car and then put a child's seat right on top of it. We have got used to it and it will be the same with electric vehicles. But the batteries need to be safer and we may have to stop buying the super-cheap models from certain countries.. In most countries, the energy that is stored comes from coal, oil and gas.

Q. In your Nobel lecture, you said that a good battery can last forever. Are the ones on the market of good quality?

A. A battery is designed to last as long as the device it is used in. Nobody wants to pay for a 20-year battery to put in their phone and change it every three or four years. But if you change it, you have to make sure it's a really good battery. What I call fake batteries have no electronic protection inside, so they can catch fire.

The first thing is to save energy. That's the easiest way to help the energy transition.
Q. Are governments doing enough to regulate them?

R. They should insist that any battery in circulation meets national standards. In the US, many don't and there have been fires because people charge them indoors. The controls are not good, but they are on the market and they are cheap. You have to be careful.

Q. Is recycling the solution to ensure that supply meets demand?

A. The goal in the United States is to have all batteries recycled and in New York State they are not allowed to be thrown away. Mobile phone batteries are 100% cobalt, so they are worth a lot of money. So we should encourage people to recycle them. Batteries are one example, semiconductors are another, the same with plastics. Sometimes, even when it goes for recycling, you don't know if it is actually recycled or if it (the waste) is sent to developing countries. The companies that manufacture them should be forced to recycle them at source. That has to come from governments.

Q. Elon Musk is the owner of the world's largest electric vehicle company. Should he use his influence to encourage recycling?

A. It's not clear to me that he's interested in that sort of thing. One of his former engineers has set up a recycling company right next to a large battery plant in Nevada (USA). They also claim it's going to be a mining company: they're mining old batteries for all the materials they contain. Nobody trusts him these days.

Q. China has given a lot of subsidies to make it cheaper to buy an electric vehicle. Why don't the US and Europe do it in a more significant way?

A. The US and Europe could sell many more cars if they had the batteries and materials. The wait is 12 to 24 months in the US. It's a supply chain problem. We don't have the manufacturing facilities, we don't have the mines, we don't have the skilled people. Many of the big battery factories are South Korean companies, like LG, Samsung and SK, who are now building manufacturing plants in the US. What we really want is for Americans to make their own batteries; I imagine European governments want the same thing. We need to move away from this global supply chain that doesn't work. We saw that during Covid-19 we couldn't get face masks. Now we can't get semiconductors. We have to regionalise everything.

We have to move away from this global supply chain that doesn't work. We saw it with masks during Covid-19. It's happening now with semiconductors.
 

Q. Will this problem be solved in the next few years?

A. There is a huge trend in the US to become more independent from Asia. We can't have 100% of something coming from one place, no matter where it is. We need more diversity.

Q. If you were starting your research now, what would you do?

A. The most interesting areas in science right now are not chemistry and physics, but somewhere in between these two disciplines. Another one is everything related to biomedicine, which is in between biology, engineering, chemistry and medicine. Those are the two big areas that I find most exciting. I like to do what I call focused research, which starts from fundamental research but with a practical goal in the future.

Q. On a personal level, how can you contribute to this energy transition?

A. The first thing is to save energy. The easiest way is to use less energy in everything we do. One person in the US uses about twice as much energy as each person in Europe. We can certainly cut back. And I hope that people in Europe can also cut back. We need more public transport, people not driving their cars themselves. When I worked for Exxon, we all shared a car. It was normal. That doesn't seem to happen anymore.

Q. In your Nobel lecture, you said that a good battery can last forever. Are the ones on the market of good quality?

R. A battery is designed to last as long as the device it is used in. Nobody wants to pay for a 20-year battery to put in their phone and change it every three or four years. But if you change it, you have to make sure it's a really good battery. What I call fake batteries have no electronic protection inside, so they can catch fire. The first thing is to save energy. That's the easiest way to help the energy transition.

Q. Are governments doing enough to regulate them?

R. They should insist that any battery in circulation meets national standards. In the US, many don't and there have been fires because people charge them indoors. The controls are not good, but they are on the market and they are cheap. You have to be careful.

Q. Is recycling the solution to ensure that supply meets demand?

R. The goal in the United States is to have all batteries recycled and in New York State they are not allowed to be thrown away. Mobile phone batteries are 100% cobalt, so they are worth a lot of money. So we should encourage people to recycle them. Batteries are one example, semiconductors are another, the same with plastics. Sometimes, even when it goes for recycling, you don't know if it is actually recycled or if it (the waste) is sent to developing countries. The companies that manufacture them should be forced to recycle them at source. That has to come from governments.

P. Elon Musk is the owner of the world's largest electric vehicle company. Should he use his influence to encourage recycling?

R. It's not clear to me that he's interested in that sort of thing. One of his former engineers has set up a recycling company right next to a large battery plant in Nevada (USA). They also claim it's going to be a mining company: they're mining old batteries for all the materials they contain. Nobody trusts him these days.

P. China has given a lot of subsidies to make it cheaper to buy an electric vehicle. Why don't the US and Europe do it in a more significant way?

R. The US and Europe could sell many more cars if they had the batteries and materials. The wait is 12 to 24 months in the US. It's a supply chain problem. We don't have the manufacturing facilities, we don't have the mines, we don't have the skilled people. Many of the big battery factories are South Korean companies, like LG, Samsung and SK, who are now building manufacturing plants in the US. What we really want is for Americans to make their own batteries; I imagine European governments want the same thing. We need to move away from this global supply chain that doesn't work. We saw that during Covid-19 we couldn't get face masks. Now we can't get semiconductors. We have to regionalise everything.

We have to move away from this global supply chain that doesn't work. We saw it with masks during Covid-19. It's happening now with semiconductors.
Q. Will this problem be solved in the next few years?

A. There is a huge trend in the US to become more independent from Asia. We can't have 100% of something coming from one place, no matter where it is. We need more diversity.

Q. If you were starting your research now, what would you do?

A. The most interesting areas in science right now are not chemistry and physics, but somewhere in between these two disciplines. Another one is everything related to biomedicine, which is in between biology, engineering, chemistry and medicine. Those are the two big areas that I find most exciting. I like to do what I call focused research, which starts from fundamental research but with a practical goal in the future.

Q. On a personal level, how can you contribute to this energy transition?

A. The first thing is to save energy. The easiest way is to use less energy in everything we do. One person in the US uses about twice as much energy as each person in Europe. We can certainly cut back. And I hope that people in Europe can also cut back. We need more public transport, people not driving their cars themselves. When I worked for Exxon, we all shared a car. It was normal. That doesn't seem to happen anymore.

News round-up, Friday, December 23, 2022

“Peace in a world of paradoxes and petty interests is my wish for you in this holiday season.
A heartfelt —thank you— to everyone who has read along with Germán & Co. Thank you very much; in only a short time’s period, we have already exceeded over two hundred thousand page views...
I hope that you and your loved ones have a year of good health, mutual respect, and joy in 2023.”

— Germán & Co

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Jan. 6 Panel Issues Final Report, Placing Blame for Capitol Riot on ‘One Man’

The report expanded on this summer’s televised hearings, describing in detail what it called former President Donald J. Trump’s “multipart plan” to overturn the 2020 election.

By Luke Broadwater and Maggie Haberman

Published Dec. 22, 2022

WASHINGTON — Declaring that the central cause of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol was “one man,” the House committee investigating the assault delivered its final report on Thursday, describing in extensive detail how former President Donald J. Trump had carried out what it called “a multipart plan to overturn the 2020 presidential election” and offering recommendations for steps to assure nothing like it could happen again.

It revealed new evidence about Mr. Trump’s conduct, and recommended that Congress consider whether to bar Mr. Trump and his allies from holding office in the future under the 14th Amendment’s ban on insurrectionists.

“The central cause of Jan. 6 was one man, former President Donald Trump, whom many others followed,” the report said. “None of the events of Jan. 6 would have happened without him.”

The release of the full report was the culmination of the panel’s 18-month inquiry and came three days after the committee voted to formally accuse Mr. Trump of inciting insurrection, conspiracy to defraud the United States, obstruction of an act of Congress and one other federal crime as it referred him to the Justice Department for potential prosecution. While the referrals do not compel federal prosecutors to take any action, they sent a powerful signal that a select committee of Congress believes the former president committed crimes.

“Our institutions are only strong when those who hold office are faithful to our Constitution,” Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming and the vice chairwoman of the committee, wrote in the report, adding: “Part of the tragedy of Jan. 6 is the conduct of those who knew that what happened was profoundly wrong, but nevertheless tried to downplay it, minimize it or defend those responsible.”

The report contains the committee’s legislative recommendations, which are intended to prevent future presidents from attempting a similar plot. The panel has already endorsed overhauling the Electoral Count Act, the law that Mr. Trump and his allies tried to exploit on Jan. 6 in an attempt to cling to power. The House is scheduled to give final approval to that overhaul on Friday.

Among committee recommendations were a possible overhaul of the Insurrection Act and strengthening the enforcement of the 14th Amendment’s ban on insurrectionists holding office.

The panel also said Congress should consider legislation to bolster its subpoena power and increase penalties against those who threaten election workers. And it said bar associations should consider whether any of the lawyers who aided Mr. Trump’s attempts to overturn the election should be punished.

In addition to its focus on Mr. Trump’s actions, the report went into great detail about a supporting cast of lieutenants who enabled him. Mark Meadows, his final chief of staff, and the lawyers John Eastman, Rudolph W. Giuliani, Jeffrey Clark and Kenneth Chesebro were named as potential “co-conspirators” in Mr. Trump’s various attempts to cling to power.

Mr. Trump bashed the report on his social media site, Truth Social, calling it “highly partisan.”

In a statement, Mr. Clark dismissed the committee’s report as a “last gasp” of a panel that is set to dissolve as Republicans take control of the House in January.

“This committee is now largely dead and will be fully dead on Jan. 2, 2023,” said Mr. Clark, whose phone was seized as part of a criminal investigation by the Justice Department in connection with his role in aiding Mr. Trump’s efforts.

The committee had already released the report’s executive summary, a lawyerly, 154-page narrative of Mr. Trump’s relentless drive to remain in power after he lost the 2020 election by seven million votes.

The report that follows the summary was largely an expanded version of the panel’s widely watched set of hearings this summer — which routinely drew more than 10 million viewers — with its chapter topics mirroring the themes of those sessions.

Those included Mr. Trump’s spreading of lies about the election, the creation of fake slates of pro-Trump electors in states won by President Biden, and the former president’s pressure campaign against state officials, the Justice Department and former Vice President Mike Pence. The committee’s report documents how Mr. Trump summoned a mob of his supporters to Washington and then did nothing to stop them as they attacked the Capitol for more than three hours.

The committee’s report is the result of an investigation that included more than 1,000 witness interviews and a review of more than one million pages of documents, obtained after the panel issued more than 100 subpoenas.

It documented how, at times, even Mr. Trump did not believe or take seriously some of the outlandish claims about election fraud being promoted by him and his allies. During a conference call two weeks after Election Day, the lawyer Sidney Powell asserted that “communist money” had flowed through countries like Venezuela, Cuba and perhaps China to interfere with the election.

According to testimony provided to the committee by Hope Hicks, a former top aide to Mr. Trump, he “muted his speakerphone and laughed at Powell, telling the others in the room, ‘This does sound crazy, doesn’t it?’”

At the same time, it showed how Mr. Trump encouraged his most extreme supporters to back him as he energized protesters massing in Washington on Jan. 6, with an organizer of his rally that day noting that he “likes the crazies.”

The committee on Wednesday and Thursday also released more than 40 witness testimony transcripts, a few of which provided extensive new detail about the investigation while others showed nearly three dozen witnesses invoking their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. More of them will be released before the end of the year.

The nine-member panel was made up of seven Democrats and two Republicans, all of whom gained new prominence through the tightly scripted and highly produced televised hearings, which redefined the way in which congressional investigations could be presented to the public.

“Our country has come too far to allow a defeated president to turn himself into a successful tyrant by upending our democratic institutions, fomenting violence and, as I saw it, opening the door to those in our country whose hatred and bigotry threaten equality and justice for all Americans,” Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the committee’s chairman, wrote in a foreword to the report.

Among those who received significant criticism in the report was Mr. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, whom he assigned to find ways to stop Mr. Biden from assuming power and Mr. Trump from losing it.

The committee’s report traced Mr. Giuliani’s postelection behavior from the moment Mr. Trump put him in charge of legal strategy shortly after the election to his efforts to directly pressure officials in battleground states, in some cases after the election had been certified.

“Rudy was just chasing ghosts,” the report quotes Mr. Trump’s former deputy campaign manager, Justin Clark, as saying of the earliest days after the election.

In one of the more glaring examples of Mr. Giuliani’s pressure, the report cites a call he placed to an official in Maricopa County, Ariz., asking for a return call. “Maybe we can get this thing fixed up,” he said in his message. “You know, I really think it’s a shame that Republicans sort of are both in this, kind of, situation. And I think there may be a nice way to resolve this for everybody.”

The committee also took note of state officials willing to be particularly helpful to Mr. Trump’s cause, such as Doug Mastriano, a Pennsylvania state senator who later became the Republican nominee for governor. Mr. Mastriano’s emails suggest that he spoke with Mr. Trump over three days at the end of December, and that Mr. Trump’s assistant told the White House legislative affairs director that Mr. Trump wanted letters from state senators asking Republican congressional leaders to reject the Pennsylvania electoral votes.

The bulk of the report is made of eight chapters intended to tell a narrative story of Mr. Trump’s efforts to hang on to power.

“The Big Lie,” the first chapter, recounts how Mr. Trump engaged in a premeditated plan starting on election night to falsely claim that he had won and claim that outstanding votes were fraudulent — and that he went on making those claims for months even after being informed repeatedly by his aides that he was wrong and had lost. Attorney General William P. Barr told the committee that Mr. Trump never showed any “indication of interest in what the actual facts were.”

“Donald Trump was no passive consumer of these lies,” the report said. “He actively propagated them. Time and again President Trump was informed that his election fraud claims were not true. He chose to spread them anyway. He did so even after they were legally tested and rejected in dozens of lawsuits.”

Chapter 2, titled “I Just Want to Find 11,780 Votes,” recounts how Mr. Trump sought to pressure officials in Georgia to find the votes he needed to swing the state, which had been won by Mr. Biden, into his column. It goes on to explore Mr. Trump’s largely unsuccessful pressure campaign on a wide array of officials in other swing states he had lost to find ways to reverse the outcome.

At one point, the report says, the White House switchboard left a message for the chairman of the Maricopa County board of supervisors to call Mr. Trump, who was pushing for investigations into voting machines there. (The chairman decided not to return the phone call from the president of the United States.)

Subsequent chapters cover the genesis of the so-called fake electors scheme, in which Mr. Trump and his allies sought to promote alternative slates of electors from states he had lost to try to block or delay certification of Mr. Biden’s victory, and Mr. Trump’s campaign to pressure Vice President Mike Pence into using his role overseeing the congressional certification process as president of the Senate to bring the fake elector plan to fruition.

Mr. Trump was largely reliant on Mr. Eastman to provide legal justification for Mr. Pence in effect unilaterally deciding whether to accept the outcome of the election, but the report shows that he turned to other aides to help make the case as well. It says that either Mr. Trump or Mr. Meadows “tasked John McEntee, the director of the Presidential Personnel Office, with researching the matter further. Though McEntee was one of President Trump’s close advisers, he was not a lawyer and had no relevant experience.”

As Mr. Pence resisted and Mr. Trump castigated him publicly, officials became increasingly concerned about the vice president’s safety. On the morning of Jan. 6, the report says, “an agent in the Secret Service’s intelligence division was alerted to online chatter “regarding the V.P. being a dead man walking if he doesn’t do the right thing.’”

Chapter 6, called “Be There, Will Be Wild!,” recounts how Mr. Trump “summoned a mob for help” through a Twitter post on Dec. 19 that promoted a pro-Trump protest scheduled for Jan. 6 in Washington — a message, the report said, that “focused his supporters’ anger on the joint session of Congress” that would take place that day.

Far-right groups like the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys mobilized, as did adherents of the QAnon conspiracy theory, the report said. One of the hosts on Alex Jones’s Infowars show told viewers in late December that they might have to end up “storming right into the Capitol.”

The report documents how some of the protesters came to Washington believing that Mr. Trump would march with them to the Capitol on Jan. 6. “Trump speaking to us around 11 am then we march to the capital and after that we have special plans that I can’t say right now over Facebook,” one member of a militia-affiliated group in Texas posted early that day.

The report goes on to describe Mr. Trump’s three hours of inaction as violence swept across Capitol Hill and some of his supporters called for Mr. Pence to be hanged.

At one point, Mr. Trump was informed that the Capitol Police had shot a rioter, later identified as Ashli Babbitt. “1x civilian gunshot wound to chest @ door of House chaber,” read a note on a White House pocket card that was preserved by the National Archives and seen by a White House employee on the table in front of Mr. Trump as he watched the riot unfold on television, the report said.

The eighth chapter analyzes the attack on the Capitol itself, showing how the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers appeared to storm the building in a deliberate, organized fashion, and how many individual protesters came to Washington with firearms. Eleven minutes after protesters breached the Capitol building, Mr. Trump tweeted angrily about Mr. Pence. The violence would continue for hours.

The committee later asked Mr. McEntee about Mr. Trump’s demeanor during a phone call between the two of them at the end of the day after the violence had been quelled — and specifically about whether Mr. Trump expressed sadness. “No,” Mr. McEntee said, according to the report. “I mean, I think he was shocked by, you know, it getting a little out of control, but I don’t remember sadness, specifically.”

The report contains four appendices that the committee’s investigative staff argued to include. Two are the work of the panel’s “Blue Team,” which investigated law enforcement failures and the delayed response of the National Guard to the riot.

The first detailed the flood of threats about the potential for violence that law enforcement officials received before Jan. 6, and concluded that the failure to share and act on those threats “jeopardized the lives of the police officers defending the Capitol and everyone in it.”

More than 150 officers were injured during the day’s bloody assault.

For instance, on Dec. 26, 2020, the Secret Service received a tip about the Proud Boys having “a large enough group to march into D.C. armed and will outnumber the police so they can’t be stopped.”

It stressed, “Their plan is to literally kill people,” adding: “Please, please take this tip seriously and investigate further.”

The report also documented the growing frustration inside the D.C. National Guard as soldiers were forced to sit on the sidelines while rioters were storming the Capitol.

At one point, the guard’s commander, Maj. Gen. William J. Walker, now the House sergeant-at-arms, blurted out: “Should we just deploy now and resign tomorrow?”

A third appendix, the work of the committee’s “Green Team,” focused on how Mr. Trump and his allies raised millions off the lie of a stolen election, and a fourth investigated the extent to which foreign actors played a role in the events surrounding the 2020 election, concluding that investigators found no “interference” but that Mr. Trump’s lies were a benefit to Russia and its president, Vladimir V. Putin.

The final report did not include information about some of the panel’s witnesses, including Virginia Thomas, the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas. Ms. Thomas was among allies of Mr. Trump who promoted efforts aimed at overturning the results even as the Supreme Court was considering cases related to the election. The committee’s investigators had largely viewed Ms. Thomas as a tertiary figure who was not central to the events of Jan. 6.

After US trip, Zelensky meets Poland's Duda on way back to Ukraine

The Ukrainian president said the two leaders 'discussed strategic plans for the future' during his short visit to Poland.

Le Monde with AFP

Published on December 22, 2022 at 19h47

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday, December 22, that he stopped in Poland on his return to Ukraine after visiting the United States and met President Andrzej Duda.

"On the way home, I had a meeting with a friend of Ukraine – President of Poland Andrzej Duda. We summed up the year, which brought historic challenges due to a full-scale war," Mr. Zelensky said in a statement on social media.

"We discussed strategic plans for the future, bilateral relations and interactions at the international level in 2023," Mr. Zelensky added.

Ukraine's neighbor Poland has been one of its staunchest allies against Moscow's invasion.

Zelensky said he "thanked Andrzej Duda for the strong support to Ukrainians from Poland and its citizens."

The two leaders "discussed a wide range of topics with an emphasis on strengthening the defense capabilities of the Ukrainian state and humanitarian issues," the Ukrainian presidency said. Mr. Zelensky was on his way back from the United States, where he appealed for long-term US support on his first foreign trip since Russia's invasion.

Le Monde with AFP

Paris shooting: Two dead and several injured in attack…

BBC.UK

A gunman has opened fire in central Paris, killing two people and wounding four others.

The shooting took place not far from Gare de l'Est station near a Kurdish cultural centre and a hairdresser's.

A suspect aged 69 was quickly detained by police in connection with the attack.

Authorities appealed for people to avoid the area in Rue d'Enghien, in the 10th district in Strasbourg-Saint Denis.

There is no indication yet as to the motive or the target of the shooting, although reports suggest the suspect is a French national who is known to police for two attempted killings.

"It's total panic, we've locked ourselves in," one shopkeeper told AFP news agency.

The witness said she had heard seven or eight bursts of gunfire. Two of those wounded in the shooting are said to be in a critical condition and two others were seriously injured.

Police detained the suspect without resistance and they reportedly recovered the weapon used in the attack. Prosecutors said they had opened a murder investigation. Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo praised police for their decisive action.

The street close to Château d'Eau metro station has several restaurants and shops as well as the cultural centre. Local Mayor Alexandra Cordebard said it was a very lively area.

Another witness said the street was now full of emergency services and they were waiting to be able to leave.

Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said he was heading to Paris to visit the scene of the "dramatic shooting", adding that his thoughts were with the victims' friends and family.