News round-up, Monday, November 7, 2022.
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World is on ‘highway to climate hell’, UN chief warns at Cop27 summit
António Guterres tells leaders ‘global climate fight will be won or lost in this crucial decade – on our watch’
António Guterres speaking at the Cop27 summit in Egypt on Monday. Photograph: Mohammed Salem/Reuters
Fiona Harvey and Damian Carrington in Sharm El-Sheikh
Mon 7 Nov 2022 12.15 GMT
The Guardian
Humanity is on a “highway to climate hell”, the UN secretary general has warned, saying the fight for a liveable planet will be won or lost in this decade.
António Guterres told world leaders at the opening of the Cop27 UN climate summit in Egypt on Monday: “We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator.”
He said the world faced a stark choice over the next fortnight of talks: either developed and developing countries working together to make a “historic pact” that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions and set the world on a low-carbon path – or failure, which would bring climate breakdown and catastrophe.
“We can sign a climate solidarity pact, or a collective suicide pact,” he added.
He said the world had the tools it needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, in clean energy and low-carbon technology.
“A window of opportunity remains open, but only a narrow shaft of light remains,” he said. “The global climate fight will be won or lost in this crucial decade – on our watch. One thing is certain: those that give up are sure to lose.”
Revealed: US and UK fall billions short of ‘fair share’ of climate funding
Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, the president of Egypt, said in his opening address to the summit that poor and vulnerable people around the world were already experiencing the effects of extreme weather: “The intensity and frequency of climate disasters have never been higher, in all four corners of the world, bringing wave after wave of suffering for billions of people. Is it not high time today to put an end to this suffering?”
More than 100 heads of state and government from around the world gathered in the Egyptian resort of Sharm El-Sheikh on Monday for two days of closed-door meetings and public events to discuss the climate crisis.
Rishi Sunak, the British prime minister, will attend for one day, along with Olaf Scholz of Germany, Emanuel Macron of France, and Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission. Joe Biden, the US president, will come later in the week, after the US midterm elections.
Mia Mottley, the prime minister of Barbados, will set out a new initiative on climate finance for the developing world, and African leaders including William Ruto of Kenya, Macky Sall of Senegal, and George Weah, the president of Liberia, are at the talks. The crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, is also at the meeting.
From Wednesday, the world leaders will hand over to officials and ministers for the rest of the fortnight of talks. However, the summit promises to be a fraught and difficult one, with little chance of a breakthrough.
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Countries are meeting in the shadow of the war in Ukraine, a worldwide energy and cost of living crisis, and rising global tensions. Rich and poor countries are at loggerheads as big economies have failed to cut greenhouse gas emissions quickly enough, and the poorer countries bearing the brunt of the climate crisis are receiving little of the financial assistance they need and that has been promised.
The Cop27 conference got off to a slow start, with negotiators spending more than 40 hours over the weekend wrangling over what would be on the agenda. In the end, it was agreed that the vexed issue of loss and damage – which refers to the worst impacts of the climate crisis, which are too severe for countries to adapt to – would be discussed.
Poor countries suffering loss and damage want a financial mechanism that will give them access to funding when disasters such as hurricanes, floods and droughts strike, destroying their infrastructure and tearing apart their social fabric.
It is not likely that these talks will provide a final settlement on loss and damage, but countries are hoping for progress on ways of raising and disbursing finance.
At most UN climate summits, activists and protesters play a key role. However, Egypt clamps down on dissent and its jails are full of political prisoners. Sisi’s government has promised that climate activist voices will be heard, but their activities have been curtailed, with protesters kept at a separate site and required to register in advance to be granted permission for even minor demonstrations.
Republicans sue to disqualify thousands of mail ballots in swing states
November 7, 2022
Washington Post
Republican officers and candidates in a minimum of three battleground states are pushing to disqualify hundreds of mail ballots after urging their very own supporters to vote on Election Day, in what critics are calling a concerted try at partisan voter suppression.
In Pennsylvania, the state Supreme Courtroom has agreed with the Republican Nationwide Committee that election officers shouldn’t rely ballots on which the voter uncared for to place a date on the outer envelope — even in instances when the ballots arrive earlier than Election Day. Hundreds of ballots have been put aside in consequence, sufficient to swing an in depth race.
In Michigan, Kristina Karamo, the Republican nominee for secretary of state, sued the highest election official in Detroit final month, looking for to toss absentee ballots not forged in individual with an ID, despite the fact that that runs opposite to state necessities. When requested in a current courtroom listening to, Karamo’s lawyer declined to say why the swimsuit targets Detroit, a closely Democratic, majority-Black metropolis, and never your entire state.
And in Wisconsin, Republicans won a court ruling that may stop some mail ballots from being counted when the required witness deal with will not be full.
Over the previous two years, Republicans have waged a sustained marketing campaign towards alleged voter fraud. Consultants say the litigation — which may considerably have an effect on Tuesday’s vote — represents a parallel technique of suing to disqualify mail ballots based mostly on technicalities. Whereas the rejections might have some foundation in state legislation, consultants say they seem to go towards a precept, enshrined in federal legislation, of not disenfranchising voters for minor errors.
The fits coincide with a scientific try by Republicans — led by former president Donald Trump — to influence GOP voters to forged their ballots solely on Election Day. Critics argue that the general objective is to separate Republicans and Democrats by technique of voting after which to make use of lawsuits to void mail ballots which might be disproportionately Democratic.
“They’re on the lookout for each benefit they will get, and so they’ve calculated that this can be a means that they will win extra seats,” mentioned Sylvia Albert, director of voting and elections for Widespread Trigger, a nonpartisan democracy advocacy group. “Analysis has proven that absentee ballots usually tend to be discarded if they’re voted by younger folks and other people of shade, which aren’t usually seen because the Republican base.”
Albert mentioned authorized battles over mail poll eligibility have the potential to delay outcomes and even change outcomes. In some instances, the disputes may wind up earlier than the U.S. Supreme Courtroom.
The potential for chaos is very excessive in Pennsylvania, the place the authorized combat is ongoing and will affect or postpone the result in a few of the state’s tightest races, together with a contest that would decide management of the U.S. Senate.
Republican Nationwide Committee spokeswoman Emma Vaughn mentioned in a press release that the committee sued in Pennsylvania “as a result of we’re merely asking for counties to comply with the state legislation, which by the way in which, dozens of Democrats supported.”
“We look ahead to persevering with our authorized actions to make sure that elections are administered in accordance with this bipartisan rule of legislation,” Vaughn added.
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf (D) issued a press release Sunday evening during which he asserted that “no voter ought to be disenfranchised just because they made a minor error in filling out their poll.”
“This was not a controversial idea in our nation or our commonwealth till not too long ago, with the rise of the Huge Lie and the efforts to unfold mis- and disinformation within the days main as much as the final election,” Wolf continued. “I urge counties to proceed to make sure that each vote counts.”
Election officers are braced for a repeat of a protracted standoff following Pennsylvania’s Could major between state officers and three counties — Berks, Fayette and Lancaster — that refused to incorporate undated ballots of their licensed outcomes.
Wolf’s administration sued these counties in July to pressure them to incorporate the ballots, nearly all of which have been forged by Democrats, courtroom information present. In August, a state judge ordered the counties to incorporate “all lawfully forged ballots,” together with these with lacking dates, of their licensed outcomes.
Republicans then efficiently persuaded the state Supreme Courtroom to reverse that coverage for the final election in a choice launched final week. The state courtroom deadlocked on whether or not rejecting the ballots was a violation of voters’ federal civil rights.
Widespread Trigger and others shortly filed a federal swimsuit looking for to overturn the state courtroom ruling on the grounds that rejecting ballots over a technical error violates the Civil Rights Act. The case stays pending.
The date printed on the envelope of a mail poll is a “meaningless technicality” that has no bearing on officers’ capability to guage whether or not the poll has been forged on time by a certified voter, the criticism says.
The federal courts have already weighed in on the difficulty: Earlier this 12 months, the U.S. Courtroom of Appeals for the third Circuit discovered that failing to rely undated mail ballots is a violation of federal civil rights legislation. Nonetheless, the U.S. Supreme Courtroom injected uncertainty into the difficulty by vacating that call and instructing that the case be dismissed as moot as a result of the election in query had already handed.
Within the meantime, voting rights teams and others have launched a full-court press to inform voters throughout Pennsylvania whose ballots had been rejected and wanted to be mounted or changed. At the least 7,000 such ballots have been rejected statewide for quite a lot of causes, together with the lacking date, in response to information compiled by the Pennsylvania Division of State. Activists mentioned the determine might be a lot greater as a result of many counties have refused to publish the data.
In Philadelphia, the state’s largest metropolis and a Democratic bastion, greater than 2,000 such ballots have been rejected. Election officers posted lists of voters on-line with directions to return to Metropolis Corridor up by way of Election Day to forged a substitute poll. Nick Custodio, a deputy metropolis commissioner, mentioned in a phone interview {that a} regular trickle of residents confirmed up over the weekend to vote anew.
Shoshanna Israel, a coordinator with the liberal Working Households Social gathering in Philadelphia, mentioned her group assigned 49 volunteers to contact voters with ballots needing a repair. The group has contacted 1,800 voters since final Tuesday.
However not everybody could make it to Metropolis Corridor.
“I’m completely disabled,” mentioned Jean Terrizzi, 95, who was listed as having returned a poll with a lacking date. She added that she had an vital medical appointment on Monday and would simply need to “let it go” and never have her vote counted.
“This voting state of affairs is horrible,” she mentioned, declining to state her political affiliation. “It’s very disgraceful.”
Republicans additionally sued to dam counties from notifying voters who uncared for up to now their ballots to present them the prospect to repair them. The trouble failed, however counties might select whether or not to take action, that means not all voters will probably be given a chance to right poll errors.
Small numbers of votes may make a distinction within the form of shut races to which Pennsylvania has turn out to be accustomed.
“For those who can get rid of 1 p.c of the votes and so they are inclined to lean Democratic, then that offers you that statistical benefit,” mentioned Clifford Levine, a Pittsburgh-based election lawyer for Democrats.
“This isn’t about stopping fraud,” Levine mentioned. “It’s about discounting mail ballots. There’s simply no query.”
Republican candidates in Pennsylvania, together with gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano, have been vocal in urging supporters to forged ballots on Election Day, not by mail.
Jeff Mandell, a Democratic election lawyer in Wisconsin, mentioned there was much less of a coordinated effort in that state to steer Republicans towards Election Day, though Trump made that pitch at an look this 12 months.
Underneath Wisconsin legislation, an absentee voter should discover a witness — often a partner, relative or buddy — to attest that the voter legally accomplished the poll. The witness should signal the poll envelope and supply an deal with.
Republicans efficiently sued this 12 months to toss steering from the Wisconsin Elections Fee permitting native election officers to fill in incomplete witness addresses on ballots. When voting rights teams sought new pointers on what lacking components within the deal with would enable for tossing a poll, judges dominated that it was too near the election to vary state coverage.
“There’s a concerted effort by the Republican infrastructure, the occasion, and others working with it, in addition to Republican leaders within the legislature, to undermine absentee voting and make it more durable for folks to vote that means,” Mandell mentioned.
How votes are cast and counted is increasingly decided in courtrooms
Wisconsin Republicans who spoke out in favor of the swimsuit mentioned state legislation is obvious that solely a voter might right an incomplete deal with.
“Lawless poll curing can’t and won’t be allowed to proceed,” Republican Senate Majority Chief Devin LeMahieu mentioned in a press release issued on the time. “We’re placing the complete weight of the legislature behind this lawsuit to close down [the Wisconsin Elections Commission’s] defiant and flagrant abuse of the legislation.”
Republicans and Democrats in Michigan say they assume the lawsuit introduced by Karamo, the GOP secretary of state nominee, has little likelihood of success. Democratic election lawyer Mark Brewer known as the Karamo lawsuit “racist, frivolous, and sanctionable.”
In a textual content change, Karamo lawyer Daniel Hartman mentioned the candidate, who’s Black, filed the swimsuit in Detroit partly due to what he described as the town’s historical past of election safety breaches. Karamo has been an outspoken proponent of the baseless declare that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.
Even when the swimsuit fails, different challenges are taking part in out: In current days, county clerks throughout Michigan have acquired emails from organized teams making an attempt to dispute the eligibility of voters who requested or forged absentee ballots, suggesting there could possibly be extra litigation to return.
Tom Hamburger in Washington and Patrick Marley in Madison, Wis., contributed to this report.
A German Company's Questionable Involvement in Russia
A joint venture of the German company Wintershall Dea delivers gas condensate to Gazprom. The Russian state-owned corporation in turn provides aviation fuel to two military bases believed to be behind air strikes that have been internationally criticized as possible war crimes.
By Frederik Obermaier, Claus Hecking, Hans Koberstein, Ferdinand Kuchlmayr und Ruben Schaar
04.11.2022, 19.04 Uhr
Fueling the War: A German Company's Questionable Involvement in Russia - DER SPIEGEL
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