World
360cr people face inadequate access to water: UN agency
Around 360 crore people currently face inadequate access to water at least a month per year, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said in its State of Global Water Resources 2021 report published on Tuesday.
The figure is projected to increase to more than 5 billion by 2050. The report assesses the effects of climate, environmental and societal change on the Earth's water resources. Its aim is to support the monitoring and management of global freshwater resources in an era of growing demand and limited supplies.
It shows that due to the influence of climate change and a La Nina event (period cooling of ocean surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific), the year 2021 witnessed large areas of the globe recording drier than normal conditions. Compared with the 30-year hydrological average, the area with below-average streamflow last year was approximately two times larger than the above-average area.
Read: World’s largest active volcano Mauna Loa erupts in Hawaii
Between 2001 and 2018, the interagency mechanism United Nations Water reported that 74 percent of all natural disasters were water-related. The recent 27th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP27) has urged governments to further integrate water into adaptation efforts. It was the first time that water has been referenced in a COP outcome document in recognition of its critical importance.
According to WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas, though the impacts of climate change are often felt through water -- such as more intense and frequent droughts, more extreme flooding, more erratic seasonal rainfall and accelerated melting of glaciers -- there is still insufficient understanding of changes in the distribution, quantity and quality of freshwater resources.
Read: World population at 8 billion: What new challenges will it create?
The WMO report aims to fill this knowledge gap, which would be helpful in providing universal access in the next five years to early warnings of hazards, such as floods and droughts, he said.
Less than half of UK population Christian; rapid growth for Muslims: Census
Fewer than half the people in England and Wales consider themselves Christian, according to the most recent census — the first time the country's official religion has been followed by a minority of the population.
Britain has become less religious — and less white — in the decade since the last census, figures from the 2021 census released Tuesday by the Office for National Statistics revealed.
Read more: Europe’s inflation likely hasn’t peaked, says central bank chief Lagarde
Some 46.2% of the population of England and Wales described themselves as Christian on the day of the 2021 census, down from 59.3% a decade earlier. The Muslim population grew from 4.9% to 6.5% of the population, while 1.7% identified as Hindu, up from 1.5%.
More than 1 in 3 people — 37% — said they had no religion, up from 25% in 2011.
The other parts of the U.K., Scotland and Northern Ireland, report their census results separately.
Secularism campaigners said the shift should trigger a rethink of the way religion is entrenched in British society. The U.K. has state-funded Church of England schools, Anglican bishops sit in Parliament’s upper chamber, and the monarch is “defender of the faith” and supreme governor of the church.
Andrew Copson, chief executive of the charity Humanists U.K., said “the dramatic growth of the non-religious” had made the U.K. “almost certainly one of the least religious countries on Earth.”
“One of the most striking things about these results is how at odds the population is from the state itself,” he said. “No state in Europe has such a religious set-up as we do in terms of law and public policy, while at the same time having such a non-religious population.”
Read more: Riots in Belgium, Netherlands after Morocco win at World Cup
Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell, one of the most senior clerics in the Church of England, said the data was “not a great surprise,” but was a challenge to Christians to work harder to promote their faith.
“We have left behind the era when many people almost automatically identified as Christian, but other surveys consistently show how the same people still seek spiritual truth and wisdom and a set of values to live by,” he said.
Almost 82% of people in England and Wales identified as white in the census, down from 86% in 2011. Some 9% said they were Asian, 4% Black and 3% from “mixed or multiple” ethnic backgrounds, while 2% identified with another ethnic group.
Europe’s inflation likely hasn’t peaked, says central bank chief Lagarde
The head of the European Central Bank said Monday she does not believe inflation has peaked after reaching the highest levels on record.
ECB President Christine Lagarde also told European lawmakers that the bank isn't through raising interest rates to combat those price spikes.
There is too much uncertainty to know whether inflation, which hit 10.6% in October, would come down soon in the 19 countries that use the euro currency, Lagarde said.
When looking at what is driving inflation, “whether it is food and commodities at large, or whether it is energy, we do not see the components or the direction that would lead me to believe that we have reached peak inflation and that it is going to decline in short order," she said.
That means the central bank will “continue to tame inflation with all the tools that we have," primarily interest rate hikes, Lagarde told the European Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
Read more: European leader calls on world, China to pressure Russia
Following the bank's third major rate hike in October, marking its fastest pace of increases ever, the ECB expects "to raise rates further to the levels needed to ensure that inflation returns to our 2% medium-term target in a timely manner," she said.
The ECB has joined the U.S. Federal Reserve and other central banks around the world in rapidly raising rates to combat inflation that spiked as the global economy recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic, then got worse after Russia invaded Ukraine. Central banks risk tipping economies into recession as the world copes with an energy crisis, higher food costs and currencies weakening against the U.S. dollar.
The Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development predicted the international economy would expand only 2.2% next year. Most economists expect a recession in places like Europe, the U.S. and the United Kingdom next year, with ECB Vice President Luis de Guindos saying this month that risk “has become more likely" in the eurozone.
Russia's war hit Europe particularly hard, “given our proximity to the conflict and our dependence on energy imports" from Russia, Lagarde said Monday.
Read more: Record inflation puts the squeeze on Eurozone economies
After Russia cut back most natural gas to Europe, sending energy prices soaring, governments have provided aid to help households and businesses with their bills.
Lagarde warned officials not to worsen inflation by ensuring support is “targeted, tailored and temporary" to those most at need and avoids weakening the push to cut energy use.
Biden, Macron ready to talk Ukraine, trade in state visit
French President Emmanuel Macron is headed to Washington for the first state visit of Joe Biden’s presidency — a revival of diplomatic pageantry that had been put on hold because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Biden-Macron relationship had a choppy start. Macron briefly recalled France’s ambassador to the United States last year after the White House announced a deal to sell nuclear submarines to Australia, undermining a contract for France to sell diesel-powered submarines.
But the relationship has turned around with Macron emerging as one of Biden’s most forward-facing European allies in the Western response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This week’s visit — it will include Oval Office talks, a glitzy dinner, a news conference and more — comes at a critical moment for both leaders.
The leaders have a long agenda for their Thursday meeting at the White House, including Iran’s nuclear program, China’s increasing assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific and growing concerns about security and stability in Africa’s Sahel region, according to U.S. and French officials. But front and center during their Oval Office meeting will be Russia’s war in Ukraine, as both Biden and Macron work to maintain economic and military support for Kyiv as it tries to repel Russian forces.
READ: Biden strengthening US policy to stem sexual violence in war zones, including in Ukraine
In Washington, Republicans are set to take control of the House, where GOP leader Kevin McCarthy says Republicans will not write a “blank check” for Ukraine. Across the Atlantic, Macron’s efforts to keep Europe united will be tested by the mounting costs of supporting Ukraine in the nine-month war and as Europe battles rising energy prices that threaten to derail the post-pandemic economic recovery.
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby on Monday described Macron as the “dynamic leader” of America’s oldest ally while explaining Biden’s decision to honor the French president with the first state visit of his presidency.
The U.S. tradition of honoring foreign heads of state dates back to Ulysses S. Grant, who hosted King David Kalakaua of the Kingdom of Hawaii for a more than 20-course White House dinner, but the tradition has been on hold since 2019 because of COVID-19 concerns.
“If you look at what’s going on in Ukraine, look at what’s going on in the Indo Pacific and the tensions with China, France is really at the center of all those things,” Kirby said. “And so the president felt that this was exactly the right and the most appropriate country to start with for state visits.”
Macron was also Republican Donald Trump’s pick as the first foreign leader to be honored with a state visit during his term. The 2018 state visit included a jaunt by the two leaders to Mount Vernon, the Virginia estate of George Washington, America’s founding president.
Macron was scheduled to arrive in Washington on Tuesday evening ahead of a packed day of meetings and appearances in and around Washington on Wednesday — including a visit to NASA headquarters with Vice President Kamala Harris and talks with Biden administration officials on nuclear energy.
On Thursday, Macron will have his private meeting with Biden followed by a joint news conference and visits to the State Department and Capitol Hill before Macron and his wife, Brigitte Macron, are feted at the state dinner. Grammy winner Jon Batiste is to provide the entertainment.
READ: Biden says “unlikely” that missile hitting Poland was fired from Russia
Macron will head to New Orleans on Friday, where he is to announce plans to expand programming to support French language education in U.S. schools, according to French officials.
For all of that, there are still areas of tension in the U.S.-French relationship.
Biden has steered clear of embracing Macron’s calls on Ukraine to resume peace talks with Russia, something Biden has repeatedly said is a decision solely in the hands of Ukraine’s leadership.
Perhaps more pressing are differences that France and other European Union leaders have raised about Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, sweeping legislation passed in August that includes historic spending on climate and energy initiatives. Macron and other leaders have been rankled by a provision in the bill that provides tax credits to consumers who buy electric vehicles manufactured in North America.
The French president, in making his case against the subsidies, will underscore that it’s crucial for “Europe, like the U.S., to come out stronger ... not weaker” as the world emerges from the tumult of the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to a senior French government official who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity to preview private talks.
Macron earlier this month said the subsidies could upend the “level playing field” on trade with the EU and called aspects of the Biden legislation “unfriendly.”
READ: World’s largest active volcano Mauna Loa erupts in Hawaii
The White House, meanwhile, plans to counter that the legislation goes a long way in helping the U.S. meet global efforts to curb climate change. The president and aides will also impress on the French that the legislation will also create new opportunities for French companies and others in Europe, according to a senior Biden administration official who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity to preview the talks.
Macron’s visit comes about 14 months after the relationship hit its nadir after the U.S. announced its deal to sell nuclear submarines to Australia.
After the announcement of the deal, which had been negotiated in secret, France briefly recalled its ambassador to Washington. A few weeks later Macron met Biden in Rome ahead of the Group of 20 summit, where the U.S. president sought to patch things up by acknowledging his administration had been “clumsy” in how it handled the issue.
Macron’s visit with Harris to NASA headquarters on Wednesday will offer the two countries a chance to spotlight their cooperation on space.
France in June signed the Artemis Accords, a blueprint for space cooperation and supporting NASA’s plans to return humans to the moon by 2024 and to launch a historic human mission to Mars.
The same month, the U.S. joined a French initiative to develop new tools for adapting to climate change, the Space for Climate Observatory.
Camels in Qatar feel the pressure from World Cup tourists
Shaheen stretched out on the sand and closed his eyes, but there was little time to rest for the camel. World Cup fans coming in droves to the desert outside Doha were ready for their perfect Instagram moment: riding a camel on the rolling dunes.
As Qatar welcomes more than a million fans for the monthlong World Cup, even its camels are working overtime. Visitors in numbers the tiny emirate has never before seen are rushing to finish a bucket list of Gulf tourist experiences between games: ride on a camel’s back, take pictures with falcons and wander through the alleyways of traditional markets.
On a recent Friday afternoon, hundreds of visitors in soccer uniforms or draped in flags waited for their turn to mount the humpbacked animals. Camels that did not rise were forced up by their handlers. When one camel let out a loud grunt, a woman from Australia shrieked, “it sounds like they’re being violated!” Nearby, a group of men from Mexico dressed in white Qatari thobes and headdresses took selfies.
“It’s really an amazing feeling because you feel so tall,” 28-year-old Juan Gaul said after his ride. The Argentine fan was visiting Qatar for a week from Australia.
Cashing in on the opportunity are the animals’ handlers who, thanks to the World Cup, are making several times more than they normally would.
Read more: On outskirts of Doha, laborers watch World Cup they built
“There’s a lot of money coming in,” said Ali Jaber al Ali, a 49 year-old Bedouin camel herder from Sudan. “Thank god, but it’s a lot of pressure.”
Al Ali came to Qatar 15 years ago but has worked with camels since he was a child. On an average weekday before the World Cup, Al Ali said his company would offer around 20 rides per day and 50 on weekends. Since the World Cup started, Al Ali and the men he works with are providing 500 rides in the morning and another 500 in the evening. The company went from having 15 camels to 60, he said.
“Tour guides want to move things fast,” Al Ali said, “so they add pressure on us.”
As crowds formed around them, many camels sat statue-like with cloth muzzles covering their mouths and bright saddles on their bodies. The smell of dung filled the air.
Like other Gulf cultures, camels once provided Qataris a vital form of transport and helped in the exploration and development of trade routes. Today, the ungulates figure into cultural pastimes: camel racing is a popular sport that takes place on old-school tracks outside the city.
Al Ali said he knows when an animal is tired — usually if it refuses to get up or sits back down after rising to its feet. He can identify each camel by its facial features.
Read more: Qatar World Cup: US journalist says he was ‘detained’ over rainbow shirt
“I am a Bedouin. I come from a family of Bedouins who care for camels. I grew up loving them,” Al Ali said.
But the sudden rise in tourists means there’s less time to rest between rides, he said. A short ride lasts just 10 minutes while longer ones run 20 to 30 minutes long.
Normally, Al Ali said a camel can rest after five rides. “Now, people are saying we can’t wait ... because they have other plans they need to go to in the middle of the desert," he said.
Since the World Cup started, the animals are taken for 15 to 20 — sometimes even 40 rides — without a break.
Al Ali's day starts around 4:30 a.m., when he feeds the animals and gets them ready for customers. Some tourists have been arriving at dawn, he said, hoping to get the perfect sunrise shot, “so we have to work with them and take photos for them."
From midday until 2 p.m, both handlers and camels rest, he said. “Then we start getting ready for the afternoon battle."
But not every visitor has been taken by the experience.
Pablo Corigliano, a 47 year-old real estate agent from Buenos Aires, said he was hoping for something more authentic. The excursions start on a stretch of desert by the side of a highway, not far from the industrial city of Mesaieed and its vast oil refineries.
“I was expecting something more wild,” said Corigliano. “I thought I would be crossing the desert, but when I arrived, I saw a typical tourist point.”
Soon after, Corigliano and a group of friends looked for a dune buggy to race into the desert.
China lockdown protests pause as police flood city streets
With police out in force, there was no word of additional protests against strict government anti-pandemic measures Tuesday in Beijing, as temperatures fell well below freezing. Shanghai, Nanjing and other cities where online calls to gather had been issued were also reportedly quiet.
Rallies against China’s unusually strict anti-virus measures spread to several cities over the weekend in the biggest show of opposition to the ruling Communist Party in decades. Authorities eased some regulations, apparently to try to quell public anger, but the government showed no sign of backing down on its larger coronavirus strategy, and analysts expect authorities to quickly silence the dissent.
In Hong Kong Monday, about 50 students from mainland China sang at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and some lit candles in a show of support for those in mainland cities who demonstrated against restrictions that have confined millions to their homes. Hiding their faces to avoid official retaliation, the students chanted, “No PCR tests but freedom!” and “Oppose dictatorship, don’t be slaves!”
The gathering and a similar one elsewhere in Hong Kong were the biggest protests there in more than a year under rules imposed to crush a pro-democracy movement in the territory, which is Chinese but has a separate legal system from the mainland.
“I’ve wanted to speak up for a long time, but I did not get the chance to,” said James Cai, a 29-year-old from Shanghai who attended a Hong Kong protest and held up a piece of white paper, a symbol of defiance against the ruling party’s pervasive censorship. ”If people in the mainland can’t tolerate it anymore, then I cannot as well.”
It wasn’t clear how many people have been detained since the protests began in the mainland Friday, sparked by anger over the deaths of 10 people in a fire in the northwestern city of Urumqi. That prompted angry questions online about whether firefighters or victims trying to escape were blocked by locked doors or other anti-virus controls. Authorities denied that, but the incident became a target for public frustration about the controls.
Read more: China's Xi faces public anger over draconian 'zero COVID'
Without mentioning the protests, the criticism of Xi or the fire, some local authorities eased restrictions Monday.
The city government of Beijing announced it would no longer set up gates to block access to apartment compounds where infections are found.
“Passages must remain clear for medical transportation, emergency escapes and rescues,” said Wang Daguang, a city official in charge of epidemic control, according to the official China News Service.
Guangzhou, a manufacturing and trade center that is the biggest hot spot in China’s latest wave of infections, announced some residents will no longer be required to undergo mass testing.
The U.S. Embassy advised citizens to prepare for all eventualities and said Ambassador Nicholas Burns and other American diplomats have “regularly raised our concerns on many of these issues directly."
“We encourage all U.S. citizens to keep a 14-day supply of medications, bottled water, and food for yourself and any members of your household," the Embassy said in a statement Monday.
In Washington, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby “obviously, there are people in China that — that have — have concerns about that," referring to lockdowns.
“And they’re protesting that, and we believe they should be able to do that peacefully," Kirby said at a Monday briefing.
Urumqi, where the fire occurred, and another city in the Xinjiang region in the northwest announced markets and other businesses in areas deemed at low risk of infection would reopen this week and public bus service would resume.
“Zero COVID,” which aims to isolate every infected person, has helped to keep China’s case numbers lower than those of the United States and other major countries. But tolerance for the measures has flagged as people in some areas have been confined at home for up to four months and say they lack reliable access to food and medical supplies.
The ruling party promised last month to reduce disruption by changing quarantine and other rules known as the “20 Guidelines." But a spike in infections has prompted cities to tighten controls.
On Tuesday, the number of daily cases dipped slightly to 38,421 after setting new records over recent days. Of those, 34,860 were among people who showed no symptoms.
The ruling party newspaper People’s Daily called for its anti-virus strategy to be carried out effectively, indicating Xi’s government has no plans to change course.
“Facts have fully proved that each version of the prevention and control plan has withstood the test of practice,” a People’s Daily commentator wrote.
Read more: Protests over China's COVID controls spread across country
In Hong Kong, protesters at Chinese University put up posters that said, “Do Not Fear. Do Not Forget. Do Not Forgive,” and sang including “Do You Hear the People Sing?” from the musical “Les Miserables.” Most hid their faces behind blank white sheets of paper.
“I want to show my support,” said a 24-year-old mainland student who would identify herself only as G for fear of retaliation. “I care about things that I couldn’t get to know in the past.”
University security guards videotaped the event but there was no sign of police.
At an event in Central, a business district, about four dozen protesters held up blank sheets of paper and flowers in what they said was mourning for the fire victims in Urumqi and others who have died as a result of “zero COVID” policies.
Police cordoned off an area around protesters, who stood in small, separate groups to avoid violating pandemic rules that bar gatherings of more than 12 people. Police took identity details of participants but there were no arrests.
Hong Kong has tightened security controls and rolled back Western-style civil liberties since China launched a campaign in 2019 to crush a pro-democracy movement. The territory has its own anti-virus strategy that is separate from the mainland.
Hong Kong's Chief Executive John Lee is a law-and-order hardliner who led the crackdown on protesters, including on university campuses.
Both the Hong Kong government and the State Council, China's Cabinet, issued statements Monday pledging to uphold public order and the authority of the National Security Law, which gives authorities sweeping powers to charge demonstrators with crimes including sedition.
Protests also occurred over the weekend in Guangzhou near Hong Kong, Chengdu and Chongqing in the southwest, and Nanjing in the east, according to witnesses and video on social media. Guangzhou has seen earlier violent confrontations between police and residents protesting quarantines.
Most protesters have complained about excessive restrictions, but some turned their anger at Xi, China's most powerful leader since at least the 1980s. In a video that was verified by The Associated Press, a crowd in Shanghai on Saturday chanted, “Xi Jinping! Step down! CCP! Step down!”
The British Broadcasting Corp. said one of its reporters was beaten, kicked, handcuffed and detained for several hours by Shanghai police but later released.
The BBC criticized what it said was Chinese authorities’ explanation that its reporter was detained to prevent him from contracting the coronavirus from the crowd. “We do not consider this a credible explanation,” the broadcaster said in a statement.
Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Zhao Lijian said the BBC reporter failed to identify himself and “didn’t voluntarily present” his press credential.
“Foreign journalists need to consciously follow Chinese laws and regulations,” Zhao said.
Swiss broadcaster RTS said its correspondent and a cameraman were detained while doing a live broadcast but released a few minutes later. An AP journalist was detained but later released.
5 Connecticut officers charged after Black man paralyzed in police van
Five Connecticut police officers were charged Monday with cruelly neglecting a Black man after he was partially paralyzed in the back of a police van, despite his repeated and desperate pleas for help.
Randy Cox, 36, was being driven to a New Haven police station June 19 for processing on a weapons charge when the driver braked hard at an intersection to avoid a collision, causing Cox to fly headfirst into a metal partition in the van.
“I can’t move. I’m going to die like this. Please, please, please help me,” Cox said minutes after the crash.
As Cox pleaded for help, some of the officers at the detention center mocked him and accused him of being drunk and faking his injuries, according to dialogue captured by surveillance and body-worn camera footage. Officers dragged Cox by his feet from the van and placed him in a holding cell prior to his eventual transfer to a hospital.
“I think I cracked my neck,” Cox said after the van arrived at the detention center.
“You didn't crack it, no, you drank too much ... Sit up,” said Sgt. Betsy Segui, one of the five officers charged.
Cox was later found to have a fractured neck and was paralyzed.
Read more: Columbus police officer fatally shoots girl swinging knife
The five New Haven police officers were charged with second-degree reckless endangerment and cruelty, both misdemeanors. The others charged were Officer Oscar Diaz, Officer Ronald Pressley, Officer Jocelyn Lavandier and Officer Luis Rivera. All have been on administrative leave since last summer.
Messages seeking comment were sent to attorneys for the officers.
Though each officer faces the same charges, some seemed to take Cox's pleas more seriously than others. Diaz, who drove the transport van, pulled over after Cox complained of his injury, spoke to him and requested that an ambulance meet them at the detention center. However, Diaz did not render medical attention to Cox as he lay face down on the floor.
The officers turned themselves in at a state police barracks Monday. Each was processed, posted a $25,000 bond and are due back in court Dec. 8, according to a news release from state police.
New Haven's police chief, speaking to reporters Monday along with the city's mayor, said it was important for the department to be transparent and accountable.
“You can make mistakes, but you can’t treat people poorly, period. You cannot treat people the way Mr. Cox was treated,” said Police Chief Karl Jacobson.
The case has drawn outrage from civil rights advocates like the NAACP, along with comparisons to the Freddie Gray case in Baltimore. Gray, who was also Black, died in 2015 after he suffered a spinal injury while handcuffed and shackled in a city police van.
Read more: Seven US police shot in deadly stand-off
An attorney for Cox's family, Ben Crump, said Monday that the New Haven officers need to be held accountable.
“It is important — when you see that video of how they treated Randy Cox and the actions and inactions that led to him being paralyzed from his chest down — that those police officers should be held to the full extent of the law,” Crump said.
Cox was arrested June 19 after police said they found him in possession of a handgun at a block party. The charges against him were later dropped.
Cox’s family filed a federal lawsuit against the city of New Haven and the five officers in September. The lawsuit alleges negligence, exceeding the speed limit and failure to have proper restraints in the police van.
Four of the officers filed motions last week claiming qualified immunity from the lawsuit, arguing that their actions in the case did not violate any “clearly established” legal standard.
New Haven officials announced a series of police reforms this summer stemming from the case, including eliminating the use of police vans for most prisoner transports and using marked police vehicles instead. They also require officers to immediately call for an ambulance to respond to their location if the prisoner requests or appears to need medical aid.
Australia argues against 'endangered' Barrier Reef status
Australia’s environment minister said Tuesday her government will lobby against UNESCO adding the Great Barrier Reef to a list of endangered World Heritage sites.
Officials from the U.N. cultural agency and the International Union for Conservation of Nature released a report on Monday warning that without “ambitious, rapid and sustained” climate action, the world’s largest coral reef is in peril.
The report, which recommended shifting the Great Barrier Reef to endangered status, followed a 10-day mission in March to the famed reef system off Australia’s northeast coast that was added to the World Heritage list in 1981.
Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek said the report was a reflection on Australia’s previous conservative government, which was voted out of office in May elections after nine years in power.
She said the new center-left Labor Party government has already addressed several of the report’s concerns, including action on climate change.
“We’ll very clearly make the point to UNESCO that there is no need to single the Great Barrier Reef out in this way" with an endangered listing, Plibersek told reporters.
read more: Coral reefs' survival at stake: Unesco
“The reason that UNESCO in the past has singled out a place as at risk is because they wanted to see greater government investment or greater government action and, since the change of government, both of those things have happened,” she added.
The new government has legislated to commit Australia to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 43% below the 2005 level by 2030.
The previous government only committed to a reduction of 26% to 28% by the end of the decade.
Plibersek said her government has also committed 1.2 billion Australian dollars ($798 million) to caring for the reef and has canceled the previous government’s plans to build two major dams in Queensland state that would have affected the reef’s water quality.
“If the Great Barrier Reef is in danger, then every coral reef in the world is in danger,” Plibersek said. “If this World Heritage site is in danger, then most World Heritage sites around the world are in danger from climate change.”
The report said Australia’s federal government and Queensland authorities should adopt more ambitious emission reduction targets in line with international efforts to limit future warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times.
Read more: Great Barrier Reef enters crucial period in coral bleaching
The minor Greens party, which wants Australia to slash its emissions by 75% by the end of the decade, called for the government to do more to fight climate change in light of the report.
Jodie Rummer, a marine biologist at James Cook University in Townville who has worked on the reef for more than a decade, supported calls for Australia to aim for a 75% emissions reduction.
“We are taking action, but that action needs to be much more rapid and much more urgent,” Rummer told Australian Broadcasting Corp.
“We cannot claim to be doing all we can for the reef at this point. We aren’t. We need to be sending that message to the rest of the world that we are doing everything that we possibly can for the reef and that means we need to take urgent action on emissions immediately,” she added.
Feedback from Australian officials, both at the federal and state level, will be reviewed before Paris-based UNESCO makes any official proposal to the World Heritage committee.
In July last year, the previous Australian government garnered enough international support to defer an attempt by UNESCO to downgrade the reef’s status to “in danger” because of damage caused by climate change.
The Great Barrier Reef accounts for around 10% of the world’s coral reef ecosystems. The network of more than 2,500 reefs covers 348,000 square kilometers (134,000 square miles).
Australian government scientists reported in May that more than 90% of Great Barrier Reef coral surveyed in the latest year was bleached, in the fourth such mass event in seven years.
Bleaching is caused by global warming, but this is the reef’s first bleaching event during a La Niña weather pattern, which is associated with cooler Pacific Ocean temperatures, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Authority said in its annual report.
Bleaching in 2016, 2017 and 2020 damaged two-thirds of the coral.
Coral bleaches as a response to heat stress and scientists hope most of the coral will recover from the latest event.
Buffalo gunman pleads guilty in racist supermarket massacre
The white gunman who massacred 10 Black shoppers and workers at a Buffalo supermarket pleaded guilty Monday to murder and hate-motivated terrorism charges, guaranteeing he will spend the rest of his life in prison.
Payton Gendron, 19, entered the plea Monday in a courthouse roughly two miles from the grocery store where he used a semiautomatic rifle and body armor to carry out a racist assault he hoped would help preserve white power in the U.S.
Gendron, who was handcuffed and wore an orange jumpsuit, occasionally licked and clenched his lips as he pleaded guilty to all of the most serious charges in the grand jury indictment, including murder, murder as a hate crime and hate-motivated domestic terrorism, which carries an automatic sentence of life without parole.
He answered “yes” and “guilty" as Judge Susan Eagan referred to each victim by name and asked whether he killed them because of their race. Gendron also pleaded guilty to wounding three people who survived the May attack.
Many of the relatives of those victims sat and watched, some dabbing their eyes and sniffling. Speaking to reporters later, several said the plea left them cold. It didn’t address the bigger problem, which they said is racism in America.
Read more: Youngest of 10 Buffalo shooting victims being laid to rest
“His voice made me feel sick, but it showed me I was right,” said Zeneta Everhart, whose 20-year-old son was shot in the neck but survived. “This country has a problem. This country is inherently violent. It is racist. And his voice showed that to me.”
After the roughly 45-minute proceeding ended, Gendron's lawyers suggested that he now regrets his crimes, but they didn't elaborate or take questions.
“This critical step represents a condemnation of the racist ideology that fueled his horrific actions on May 14,” said Gendron’s lawyer, Brian Parker. “It is our hope that a final resolution of the state charges will help in some small way to keep the focus on the needs of the victims and the community.”
Gendron's parents, in their first public statement, said the guilty plea ensures their son will be held accountable. Paul and Pamela Gendron said they “pray for healing for everyone affected." They thanked law enforcement authorities who investigated the case, adding they will “continue to provide any assistance we can."
“We remain shocked and shattered to learn that our son was responsible for the hideous attack at the Tops grocery store on May 14, 2022,” said the emailed statement, which was provided to The Associated Press by their attorney.
Gendron has pleaded not guilty to separate federal hate crime charges that could result in a death sentence if he is convicted. The U.S. Justice Department has not said whether it will seek capital punishment. Acknowledgement of guilt and a claim of repentance could potentially help Gendron in a penalty phase of a death penalty trial.
The plea comes at a time when many Americans have become nearly desensitized to mass shootings. In recent weeks, there have been deadly attacks at a Walmart in Virginia, at a gay club in Colorado and at the University of Virginia.
Read more: Buffalo shooting latest example of targeted racial violence
Just days after Gendron’s rampage in Buffalo, a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers at a school in Uvalde, Texas.
Gendron wore body armor and used a legally purchased AR-15 style rifle in his attack on the Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo. Those killed ranged in age from 32 to 86 and included an armed security guard died trying to protect customers, a church deacon and the mother of a former Buffalo fire commissioner. Gendron surrendered when police confronted him as he emerged from the store.
Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown, who was in the courtroom for Gendron’s guilty plea, told reporters afterwards that “It was important to hear why these precious lives were snatched from us for no other reason than the color of their skin.”
The mayor, a Democrat, called for a ban on assault weapons, as did Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia. Relatives of the victims reiterated their calls for Congress and the FBI to address white supremacy and gun violence. "We are literally begging for those in power to do something about it," said Garnell Whitfield, whose 86-year-old mother, Ruth Whitfield, was killed."
White supremacy was Gendron’s motive. He said in documents posted online just before the attack that he’d picked the store, about a three hour drive from his home in Conklin, New York, because it was in a predominantly Black neighborhood. He said he was motivated by a belief in a massive conspiracy to dilute the power of white people by “replacing” them in the U.S. with people of color.
“Swift justice,” is how Erie County District Attorney John Flynn described Monday’s result, noting that it’s the first time anyone in the state of New York has been convicted of the hate-motivated terrorism charge. His sentencing is scheduled for Feb. 15.
Attorney Benjamin Crump, who represents several of the victims’ families, said they remain baffled that the gunman survived. They want harsh punishment, he said: “We want him to be treated as the heinous, cold blooded vicious murderer that he was for killing all these innocent Black people. It is emotional and we are angry.”
Mark Talley, the son of Geraldine Talley, who was killed, called on authorities to incarcerate him in Erie County, in the same community where he caused so much pain, so that he might face the same horror experienced by his victims. “I want that pain to eat at him every second of every day for the rest of his life,” Talley said.
Talley and Everhart said they were offended by Gendron's tone and cleaned-up appearance in court. They said a Black defendant would have been treated differently. Gendron is a “thug,” they said.
“We show them in a way that doesn’t make them threatening, and it’s disgusting,” Everhart said.
“Am I happy he’s gong to jail for life?" Talley said. “What would make me happy is if America acknowledged its history of racism.”
Lull in Russian attacks against Ukraine energy, aid pledged
Russia held back Monday from launching a new round of strikes that have been expected against power stations and other key infrastructure in Ukraine, as officials warned a lingering energy and water crisis from earlier attacks could prompt more evacuations from the capital.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, hosting the largest delegation of top foreign officials since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a Russian invasion of Ukraine over nine months ago, insisted that better air defenses were needed from allies “to break this vicious cycle" of Russian air strikes followed by Ukrainian rebuilding of damaged infrastructure.
"Every time we will be restoring it, the Russians will be destroying it,” he told counterparts from seven Baltic and Nordic countries.
The foreign ministers from Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Iceland, Sweden, Norway and Finland pledged more military, economic and humanitarian aid as an energy crisis deepens and Ukrainian forces seek to move on with a counteroffensive against Russian troops.
Sweden said it had provided a 270-million-euro ($279 million) package of air defense systems, ammunition, all-terrain vehicles and personal winter gear for troops. Finland pledged to take in more Ukrainian refugees. In Washington, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the U.S. is working with partners and allies to provide energy and water replacement equipment to Ukraine.
Read more: Pockets of shelling across Ukraine as wintry warfare looms
In Israel — which has straddled a fine political line in the conflict — Channel 13 reported that a high-level Ukrainian delegation recently visited to discuss an Israeli pledge to provide a system that detects incoming missiles. Israel’s Defense Ministry declined comment.
Israel has voiced support for Ukraine but has refused so far to provide it arms or impose sanctions against Moscow because of its sensitive ties with Russia. Israel's and Russia's militaries communicate to avoid conflict in Syria. Israel also does not want to endanger the large Jewish community in Russia.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned late Sunday that Russian troops “are preparing new strikes, and as long as they have missiles, they won’t stop.” He met Monday with senior government officials to discuss what actions to take.
“The upcoming week can be as hard as the one that passed,” he predicted
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg insisted Putin was intent on using frost, snow and ice to his advantage, not only on the battleground but against Ukrainian civilians.
“President Putin is now trying to use the winter as a weapon of war against Ukraine, and this is horrific and we need to be prepared for more attacks,” he said on the eve of a two-day meeting of NATO foreign ministers — including those who visited Kyiv on Monday — in Bucharest, Romania. “That’s the reason why NATO’s allies have stepped up their support to Ukraine.”
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said some of the city's 3 million people might have to be evacuated to where essential services would be less prone to shutdowns caused by missile attacks.
For weeks, Russia has been pounding energy facilities around Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities with missile strikes, usually on Mondays at the work week's beginning, resulting in outages of power and water supplies.
Based on the pattern of infrastructure attacks and the Russian military's preparation time, an advisor to Ukraine's interior minister said on national TV that the next strikes could occur in another week. A Ukrainian military spokesman also said on national TV that Russian aircraft had intensified their activity over Ukraine on Monday.
Read more: Civilians escape Kherson after Russian strikes on freed city
With temperatures hovering around freezing, and expected to dip as low as minus 11C (12 Fahrenheit) in little more than a week, international help was increasingly focused on items like generators and transformers, to make sure blackouts that affect everything from kitchens to operating rooms are as limited and short as possible. The power situation was so dire that Ukraine's energy trader — in normal times an exporter — tested importing electricity from neighboring Romania.
Putin “continues trying to make Ukraine a black hole — no light, no electricity, no heating to put the Ukrainians into the darkness and the cold,” said European foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, who is leading a meeting of EU ministers in Bucharest to help Ukraine with its humanitarian crisis. “So we have to continue our support providing more material for the Ukrainians to face the winter without electricity.”
Ukraine’s energy provider Ukrenergo said Monday it is still short 27% of output and that “the scale and complexity of the damage are high, and repair works have continued around the clock."
Power supply was restored to 17% of residents in the southern city of Kherson, which Ukraine reclaimed earlier this month. The Russians have continued pounding the city with artillery barrages from newly consolidated positions across the Dnieper River. Britain's Defense Ministry reported that the strikes reached a record high, 54, on Sunday.
Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address Monday that Russian forces had fired 258 times on 30 settlements of in the Kherson region over the past week, and had damaged a water pumping station for Mykolaiv.
Ukraine’s presidential office said Monday that at least four civilians were killed and 11 others wounded in the latest Russian attacks. It said intense fighting is continuing in the east, with the Russians shelling Bakhmut and Toretsk.
“People are sheltering in the basements, many of which are filled by water,” said Donetsk Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko. “They have been living in catastrophic conditions without power or heating.”
Also Monday, Russia denied that it plans to withdraw from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine, which it has occupied since the early days of the war.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in a call with reporters that it was pointless to look for signs of a pullback from the plant “when there are none and there can’t be.”
Peskov's comments were in response to Ukrainian claims that Russian forces were bound to retreat from the plant as they face a Ukrainian counteroffensive.
The plant was shut down because of repeated shelling, for which Russia and Ukraine have traded blame. The U.N. nuclear watchdog and international leaders have urged Russia to demilitarize the plant to avoid a nuclear disaster, but Moscow has rejected the demands, arguing that it needs to maintain troops there to ensure its safety.
Also Monday, a Russian official told the Tass news agency that nuclear workers who have refused to sign contracts with a Russian company claiming to have take over the plant's operations are barred from entry.