World
Obama appeals to young activists to stay in climate fight
At 19, Glasgow college student Ross Hamilton doesn’t think highly of world leaders — “they chat a lot of” nonsense — or expect them to accomplish anything on a problem he cares deeply about, climate change.
But there is one former world leader Hamilton trusts, at least enough to join several hundred Glasgow college students crowding outside their college in the dark Monday in hopes of a glimpse of him: Barack Obama. “I’ve always liked him. I feel as if he’s pretty honest.”
The former U.S. president, one of the leaders responsible for the 2015 Paris climate accord, came to the U.N. global climate talks in Glasgow, wielding his cross-generational appeal to urge frustrated climate activists to stay in the fight. Even five years out of office, and now 60, Obama still claims a rapport with liberal and moderate young people in a way that President Joe Biden, 78, might not be able to pull off.
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Inside the glass-fronted building where Hamilton and other students of Glasgow’s Strathclyde University were waiting for him to emerge, Obama was sitting around a table with a dozen climate advocates from around the world, hearing them out and encouraging them.
Obama was in shirtsleeves and tieless, his hair whiter than during his presidency.
“The success of the movement shouldn’t be diminished even if some of the outcomes” have fallen short, Obama told the gathering of climate-focused people in their 20s and 30s. They included a lawmaker, a filmmaker, legal advocate, private and public businesspeople, foundation leaders and heads of activist groups.
“The question is, where are the countries that really met our expectations? And it turns out those are the places where there was pressure, where there was political mobilization, where there were activists,” Obama told them.
It’s all “going to depend on you guys to apply it,” he added.
Also Read: The magic 1.5: What’s behind climate talks’ key elusive goal
Obama as president introduced programs to move the U.S. more toward renewable fuel and away from coal, although President Donald Trump rolled back most of them.
Not all younger people are Obama fans.
Ugandan climate activist Vanessa Nakate tweeted Monday that she was 13 when the United States, under Obama’s leadership, was among rich nations promising $100 billion a year to poor countries to help them fight and cope with warming, but said those nations broke the promise.
Nakate told The Associated Press on Monday that she wasn’t attacking the former president, “but that is me speaking the truth.”
“This money was promised, but it hasn’t been delivered,” Nakate said.
Especially in Europe, young activists are credited with pressuring governments to confront climate change. Most famously, teenager Greta Thunberg in 2018 launched a climate movement that has since drawn hundreds of thousands to weekly protests to demand governments end their dependence on coal, natural gas and oil.
After the Paris deal, Glasgow was billed as the talks where roughly 200 governments would put the accord into action.
Also Read: Greta Thunberg calls UN climate talks a failure
Last Friday, Thunberg, now 18, branded the talks a “failure” after their first of two weeks. Speaking to tens of thousands of young climate demonstrators protesting Friday in the summit’s host city, Thunberg said national delegations at Glasgow were carving out loopholes for every pledge and “greenwashing” their own countries’ emissions.
Young people were finding it hard to believe a climate movement that had mobilized so many could fail, Luisa Neubauer, a leader of Thunberg’s movement in Germany, told Obama.
Neubauer told Obama she feared disillusionment was undermining peoples’ faith in democracy, “as people, especially activists, lose confidence in their governmental pledges, in what often turns out empty promises, in the lack of honesty about past failures.”
Stay the course, Obama told climate activists.
“Don’t think that you can ignore politics,” Obama said earlier, in a speech at the talks site that saw the former president draw short standing ovations.
“You don’t have to be happy about it, but you can’t ignore it. You can’t be too pure for it,” Obama said, devoting much of his speech to the young activists he said he came to Glasgow to be with it.
“It’s part of the process that is going to deliver all of us,” he said.
APEC leaders meeting to chart path forward from pandemic
U.S. President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping will have a rare virtual encounter this week as they gather online with other Pacific Rim leaders to chart a path to recovery out of the crisis brought on by the pandemic.
New Zealand is hosting this year’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, which culminates in a leader’s meeting on Saturday. Continued outbreaks of the coronavirus and related travel restrictions have confined the meeting to the virtual realm for a second straight year.
As usual, the 21 APEC members will be seeking areas where members can cooperate on easing barriers to trade and economic growth instead of trying to settle longstanding feuds.
The focus will be on “charting a path to recovery out of this once-in-a-century crisis,” New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, host of the leader’s meeting, said in a statement.
In all, APEC members account for nearly 3 billion people and about 60% of the world’s GDP. They span the Pacific rim, from Chile to Russia to Thailand to Australia.
Read: COP26: Time running out in Glasgow, as delegates wrangle over details
Officials say they’ve made significant progress during some 340 preliminary meetings. APEC members have agreed to reduce or eliminate many tariffs and border holdups on vaccines, masks and other medical products important to fighting the coronavirus, said Vangelis Vitalis, chair of the Senior Officials’ Meeting.
But big power frictions are the inevitable backdrop for the closed door summit meetings of APEC, which as an economic forum includes both Hong Kong and Taiwan in addition to communist-ruled mainland China.
Both Taiwan and China have put in applications to join a Pacific Rim trade group, the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership, with Beijing saying it will block Taiwan’s bid on the basis that the democratically governed island refuses to accept that it’s part of China.
Stephen Hoadley, an associate professor of politics and international relations at the University of Auckland, said Biden will be looking to reverse the course set by predecessor Donald Trump, who spurned regional trade deals with his America First foreign policy approach.
Since Biden has taken office, Washington has shifted back to a more internationalist approach to trade liberalization, supporting global and regional efforts such as the rules-making World Trade Organization.
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However, Biden has kept most trade, technology and investment restrictions that Trump imposed on Chinese exports and companies in place while also moving to counter Beijing’s sway in the region.
One such effort is a recent new defense agreement between Australia, the United Kingdom and the U.S. that raised eyebrows because it did not include New Zealand or other U.S. allies. The development of nuclear submarines is a major part of the new defense arrangement, and New Zealand has a longstanding nuclear-free policy.
Hoadley said the China-U.S. rivalry can be seen even in the way they describe the region, with China calling it the Asia-Pacific and the U.S. having switched years ago to calling it the Indo-Pacific, to include the democratic counterweight of India — which is not an APEC member.
Apart from the geopolitical tensions simmering at all times, the pandemic has added to uncertainty in a region that has long been viewed as an increasingly important engine of global growth.
Many economies are still struggling to emerge from the downturns that hit the region hard in 2020, stalling travel and many other activities. Prolonged outbreaks of COVID-19 infections, slow progress in vaccinations and other disruptions both to manufacturing and shipping have added to uncertainty and dragged millions of the region’s most vulnerable people back into poverty.
“Unfortunately, too, there’s been rising protectionism around the globe, and that has also made for an incredibly challenging environment for us to be operating in,” Vitalis said during a media briefing.
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He said there are areas of common ground, including improving environmental sustainability, and enhancing the untapped potential of Indigenous groups.
New Zealand’s Trade Minister Damien O’Connor said Tuesday that APEC should send a powerful message to the world ahead of a World Trade Organization meeting.
“We are facing the biggest economic shock in 75 years. We know that trade will be a strong driver in our recovery. We absolutely cannot afford to turn our attention away from an institution that has underpinned APEC’s work since its inception,” O’Connor said.
Ahead of the main leader’s meeting APEC will host a youth summit and its usual CEO summit featuring addresses by leaders and a keynote speech by human rights lawyer Amal Clooney. Ardern and German Chancellor Angela Merkel will hold a dialogue on how the pandemic has changed the world.
The pandemic APEC meetings lack the pomp and glamor of past in-person gatherings. No fancy shirts or gala balls. New Zealand made the decision last year to switch to a virtual summit. Malaysia also opted to host the 2020 APEC leader’s meeting online due to the pandemic.
India raises finance concern as COP 26 enters second week
After the big-ticket announcements that gave it possibly the most productive start for any climate meeting, the Glasgow conference was staring back at familiar contentious issues on Monday as ministers re-assembled to resolve the key differences that are holding back progress.
Host country UK’s lead negotiator Archie Young said preparations were being made to facilitate “late-night working” throughout the week. COP (Conference of Parties, the official name of the climate meetings) President Alok Sharma said negotiators needed to “shift gears” to ensure an agreement on contentious issues by Friday evening when the meeting is supposed to come to an end, reports the Indian Express.
Read: India At COP26 Says Its Solar Energy Capacity Increased 17 Times In 7 Years
The first results of the ministerial consultations, in the form of draft texts on some of the issues, are expected to be out late by Monday evening.
The issue most talked about is the one related to finance. The failure of the developed countries to put together US$ 100 billion in climate finance every year from 2020 onwards, in accordance with a promise made over a decade ago, has been the biggest disappointment. But that is not the only money that is not coming in.
Money is required for action in a lot of different areas, including adaptation, loss and damage, halting deforestation, capacity building in developing countries, and technology transfer. There isn’t adequate money flowing in anywhere. While the requirements are estimated to be in trillions of dollars every year, developed countries, which are primarily responsible for delivering climate finance, have been unable to put together even a basic sum of US$ 100 billion every year.
Lack of finance is not something new at this COP. It has persisted ever since the climate negotiations began. But the postponement of the 2020 deadline the start of the US$ 100 billion commitment by at least three years has been a big setback to the process.
India, while making a statement on behalf of the BASIC countries (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) at one of the meetings on Monday, spoke for the entire developing world when it said that the non-seriousness of the developed countries over finance was especially frustrating when several other nations had been enhancing the ambition of their climate actions.
“We would not like to see the enhanced mitigation ambitions (new targets announced by several countries, including India) reach the same fate as the pre-2020 climate finance ambition. It has been over a decade since the annual US$ 100 billion pledge and the world is still waiting for its mobilization and delivery. Trust in multilaterism and credibility of the process is at stake,” said Richa Sharma, additional secretary in the Environment Ministry and India’s lead negotiator.
“Post 2020 mitigation ambition and net zero pledges require significantly enhanced climate finance. The exact magnitude of the new finance goal can be determined through a structured process with clear timelines and milestones so that we have a new finance goal well before 2025. This is a simple ask from many developing country parties. Yet what we are getting is more workshops and in-session seminars to discuss the new goal,” Sharma said.
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“BASIC would like to warn that lack of a serious approach to climate finance will jeopardise the enhanced mitigation and adaptation ambition as well as net zero pledges of parties,” she said.
On Sunday, the COP presidency had said the final outcome from Glasgow, called decision text, must contain a provision expressing “deep concern” over the failure of the developed countries to meet the US$ 100 billion goal. It said another provision should acknowledge the urgent need to scale up finance flows to “levels needed to support developing countries”.
Among other issues requiring attention of the ministers is the particularly difficult provisions of a new carbon market being set up under the Paris Agreement. This is one of the key things holding back the finalization of the rules and procedures that will govern the implementation of the Paris Agreement.
Developed and developing countries have major differences on how to deal with accumulated unsold carbon credits with some developing countries. These carbon credits were earned in the previous market mechanism that operated under the Kyoto Protocol. But Kyoto Protocol came to an end last year, and with that ended its market mechanisms. Nations that are left with unsold carbon credits — developing countries like Brazil, India or China — want these to be transitioned to the new market mechanism being established under the Paris Agreement. Several developed countries are opposing this.
There are several issues related to carbon markets that have remained unresolved for over three years now. A resolution of these would be a major step forward.
Elsewhere, countries also have to agree on how frequently should they be updating their NDCs (or nationally determined contributions, an official reference to the climate action plans of every country) – in five year cycles, or ten-year cycles, or somewhere in between. As of now, some countries have submitted five-year action plans, while others have given ten-year plans. Standardisation of this cycle is considered necessary for proper assessment of what the world together is doing over a fixed time period, and whether it was adequate to meet the global goals to keep the temperature rise in check.
The final decision text from Glasgow could ask for the preparation of “synthesis report” every year on the action countries are taking to assess whether enough was being done to keep the global temperatures from rising beyond 1.5 degree Celsius from pre-industrial times.
Srinagar joins UNESCO Creative Cities Network 2021 as 'City of Craft and Folk Art'
In a major recognition of the crafts and arts of Jammu and Kashmir, Srinagar on Monday joined the UNESCO Creative Cities Network (UCCN) 2021, under the Crafts and Folk Arts category.
The inclusion of Srinagar in the creative city network for the arts and crafts has paved a way for the city to represent its handicrafts on the global stage through UNESCO, reports ANI.
This was announced on UNESCO's official website wherein 49 cities have joined this elite list. The exercise for UNESCO nomination was started by Jammu and Kashmir in 2018 however our nomination was not accepted then.
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This year the exercise of Dossier preparation began in the month of May. The government of India Ministry of Culture received four nominations which included Two from Madhya Pradesh Gwalior and Indore and one from West Bengal (Calcutta ) and one from Jammu and Kashmir (Srinagar).
The government of India rejected the application of Calcutta and Indore and forwarded only two nominations which included Srinagar and Gwalior. The Centre recommended the nomination of Gwalior for the Creative City of Music and Srinagar for the Creative City of Craft and Folk arts to UNESCO on June 29, 2021.
The nomination of Gwalior was rejected and that of Srinagar was accepted. This nomination is the global recognition of the rich craft legacy of Srinagar and will help us in attracting Craft Connoisseurs to Jammu and Kashmir and particularly Srinagar.
The UNESCO creative city network involves seven creative fields arts and folk art, media, film, literature, design, gastronomy and Media arts.
The dossier for nomination for Srinagar as the Creative city was first filed by Srinagar in the year 2019, however, only 2 cities, Hyderabad for Gastronomy and Mumbai for Film were chosen during that year.
Prior to the year 2019, only three Indian cities have been recognised as members of UCCN for creative cities namely, Jaipur (Crafts and Folk Arts) in 2015, Varanasi (Creative city of Music) in 2015 and Chennai (Creative city of Music) in 2017. For the year 2020 UNESCO did not call for applications for creative city network.
Read: India At COP26 Says Its Solar Energy Capacity Increased 17 Times In 7 Years
Chief Executive Officer, Jhelum Tawi Flood Recovery Project, JKERA, Dr Abid Rashid Shah, said that process of nomination of Srinagar under the UNESCO Creative City Network was undertaken and funded under the World Bank Funded Jhelum Tawi Flood Recovery Project. This is the recognition of the historical Crafts and Arts of the City.
"It is a proud moment for all of us. World Bank, Jhelum and Tawi Flood Recovery Project (JTFRP) and Department of Industries did a remarkable job in projecting the city in this regard," said Dr Shah.
Director, Technical, Planning and Coordination, JTFRP, Iftikhaar Hakeem, said that credit must go to JTFRP, Department of Industries and line departments for taking up the task positively. He said consultants were hired and work was taken up in this regard to fulfilling all the requirements.
Europe bolsters pioneering tech rules with help from Haugen
European lawmakers have pioneered efforts to rein in big technology companies and are working to strengthen those rules, putting them ahead of the United States and other parts of world that have been slower to regulate Facebook and other social media giants facing increasing blowback over misinformation and other harmful content that can proliferate on their platforms.
While Europe shares Western democratic values with the U.S., none of the big tech companies — Facebook, Twitter, Google — that dominate online life are based on the continent, which some say allowed European officials to make a more clear-eyed assessment of the risks posed by tech companies largely headquartered in Silicon Valley or elsewhere in the U.S.
But that’s only part of the explanation, said Jan Penfrat, senior policy adviser at digital rights group EDRi.
Read:Could Facebook sue whistleblower Frances Haugen?
The question, Penfrat said, should also be: “Why is the U.S. so much lagging behind? And that may be because of the immense pressure from the homegrown companies” arguing to officials in Washington that stricter rules would hobble them as they compete with, for example, Chinese rivals.
Drawing up a new package of digital rules for the 27-nation European Union is getting a boost from Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, who answered questions Monday in Brussels from a European Parliament committee. It's the latest sign of interest in her revelations that Facebook prioritized profits over safety after the former data scientist testified last month to the U.S. Senate and released internal documents.
If the EU rules are done right, “you can create a game-changer for the world, you can force platforms to price in societal risk to their business operations so the decisions about what products to build and how to build them is not purely based on profit maximization," Haugen told lawmakers. “And you can show the world how transparency, oversight and enforcement should work.”
Since Haugen left Facebook, the company has renamed itself Meta as it focuses its business on a virtual reality world called the metaverse.
“I’m shocked they picked this name,” she said. In the book that inspired the term, “the metaverse is a dystopian thing, that people’s lives are so unpleasant that they need to hide in the system for half of their day.”
Haugen has been on a European tour, meeting lawmakers and regulators in the EU and United Kingdom who are seeking her input as they work on stricter rules for online companies amid concerns that social media can do everything from magnify depression in teens to incite political violence. A wider global movement to crack down on digital giants is taking cues from Europe and gaining momentum in the U.S. and Australia.
Europe has been a trailblazer in applying more scrutiny for big tech companies, most famously by slapping Google with multibillion-dollar fines in three antitrust cases. Now, the European Union is working on a sweeping update of its digital rulebook, including requiring companies to be more transparent with users on how algorithms make recommendations for what shows up on their feeds and forcing them to swiftly take down illegal content such as hate speech.
The rules are aimed at preventing bad behavior, rather than punishing past actions, as the EU has largely done so far.
France and Germany also are bringing in legislation requiring social media platforms to take down illegal content quicker, though these rules would be superseded by the EU ones, which are expected to take effect no earlier than 2023.
Meanwhile, the U.S. has only recently started cracking down on big tech companies, with regulators fining Facebook and YouTube over allegations of privacy violations and the government suing over their huge share of the market in the last couple of years. American lawmakers have proposed measures to protect kids online and get at the algorithms used to determine what shows up on feeds, but they all face a long road to passing.
While Haugen’s testimony and the documents she has provided have shed light on how Facebook’s systems work and spurred efforts in the U.S., European lawmakers may not be that surprised by what she has to say.
Read:Ex-Facebook manager criticizes company, urges more oversight
“The fact that Facebook is disseminating polarizing content more than other kinds of content is something that people like me have been saying for years,” said Alexandra Geese, a European Union lawmaker with the Green party. “But we didn’t have any evidence to prove it.”
European lawmakers have been interested in digging in to algorithms, as they work on requiring platforms to be more transparent with users on how artificial intelligence makes recommendations on what content people see.
“It’s rather about looking under the hood and regulating the kind of mechanisms that a company, a platform established to disseminate content or to direct people down rabbit holes into extremist groups,” Geese said. What Haugen is doing is “shifting the focus, and I think this is something that many other people before didn’t see.”
In the U.K., which left the European Union last year, the government also is working on raft of digital regulations, including an online safety bill that calls for a regulator to ensure tech companies comply with rules requiring them to remove dangerous or harmful content or face big financial penalties.
For the European Union, there’s still a lot of wrangling over the final details of the rules, two packages known as the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act, which the EU Commission hopes to get approved next year.
Free speech campaigners and digital rights activists worry that EU rules requiring platforms to swiftly remove harmful content will lead to overzealous deletion of material that isn't illegal. In a bid to balance free speech requirements, users will be given the chance to complain about what content is removed.
In London, there's been a similar debate over how to define harmful but illegal content.
Both the EU and U.K. rules call for hefty fines worth up to 10% of a company's annual global turnover, which for the biggest tech companies could amount to billions of dollars in revenue.
People fleeing Ethiopia allege attacks, forced conscription
A new round of deadly attacks and forced conscription has begun against ethnic Tigrayans in an area of Ethiopia now controlled by Amhara regional authorities in collaboration with soldiers from neighboring Eritrea, people fleeing over the border to Sudan tell The Associated Press as the yearlong war intensifies.
Urgent diplomatic meetings with Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and Tigray leader Debretsion Gebremichael in an attempt to calm the fighting have found a small “window of opportunity" as the rival sides agreed a political solution through dialogue was required, African Union envoy Olesegun Obasanjo said in briefings Monday. The State Department said U.S. envoy Jeffrey Feltman saw a window to act with Obasanjo and was meeting with him in Ethiopia's capital Monday night.
Tigray forces have been approaching Addis Ababa to press the prime minister to step aside, leading Ethiopia’s government to declare a state of emergency last week while the U.S. and other countries urged citizens to leave immediately. The war has killed thousands after political tensions with the Tigray forces who once dominated the national government turned deadly.
Those fleeing the western Tigray communities of Adebay and Humera in the past week described warnings from Amhara authorities against supporting the Tigray forces. The accounts confirm warnings by the U.S. and others that Eritrean soldiers remain in the Tigray region, and they indicate that pressure is growing on Tigrayans of mixed heritage who have tried to live quietly amid what the U.S. has alleged as ethnic cleansing in western Tigray.
Read: Urgent efforts to calm Ethiopia as war reaches one-year mark
As reports grew about the Tigray forces’ momentum, Amhara authorities at a public meeting in Adebay on Oct. 29 warned residents against supporting them, two men who fled to Sudan said.
“There are people working for (the Tigray forces). You should give them to us or we will kill you all together,” one who fled, 28-year-old Mawcha Asmelash, recalled authorities saying.
Five days later, he said, Amhara militia attacked. “I saw four people being killed on the run,” he said.
He and other men hid in the bush for two days, gathering information from local women and trying to judge whether it was safe to return. But the women estimated scores of men had been killed and residents had been forbidden to bury their bodies. The women urged them to flee.
Another man who fled Adebay, 36-year-old Berhane Gebremikael, confirmed the public meeting. He said he saw one man killed as he ran from Amhara militia and the Eritrean soldiers, who he said have a camp in the community.
“They called it revenge,” he said. He described a perilous situation for Tigrayan residents of Adebay who had remained during the war, with many changing their identity, paying bribes or using mixed heritage for a measure of protection. Berhane, whose mother is Eritrean, now fears he can’t return.
“Maybe the worst things will happen in the next days,” he said. “The international community should intervene.”
A man who fled to Sudan from the city of Humera, near the Eritrean border, told the AP he had stayed there because of his part-Tigrayan heritage, but last week Amhara authorities “started collecting people. Young men and boys are being forced to join the fighting.”
Again, it started with a public warning, 28-year-old Alemu Abraha said. Then Amhara authorities, along with Eritrean soldiers, started visiting homes at night to take people away. His friends were taken, he said, and he believes the men are being sent to the Amhara region, where most fighting has occurred in recent months.
Amhara regional spokesman Gizachew Muluneh did not respond to AP questions. Amhara regional officials have asserted that western Tigray is historically their land, and during the war witnesses and humanitarian workers have described scores of thousands of Tigrayans forced from communities there.
Read: UN report says Ethiopia’s war marked by ‘extreme brutality’
Meanwhile, reports of mass detentions of Tigrayans continue under the state of emergency. An Ethiopian Orthodox Church official in Addis Ababa, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, said dozens of priests, monks, deacons and others had been detained in the capital because of their ethnicity. Ethiopian authorities have said they are detaining people suspected of supporting the Tigray forces.
The government-created Ethiopian Human Rights Commission in a statement noted with concern that “arrests appeared to be based on ethnicity” and included the elderly and mothers with children.
As the war closes in, Ethiopia’s government insists that life in the capital remains normal. On Sunday, scores of thousands of people rallied in Addis Ababa in a show of support, some carrying signs criticizing the international community, including foreign media.
On Monday, AU envoy Obasanjo, a former Nigerian president, told the AU Peace and Security Council he saw a window of opportunity after meeting separately with Ethiopia's prime minister and the Tigray leader over the weekend. The rival sides agree “the differences opposing them are political and require political solution through dialogue," he said.
The envoy added, however, that “the window of opportunity we have is very little and that time is paramount for any intervention” in the critical situation facing not only Ethiopia but the Horn of Africa at large. He repeated calls for dialogue without preconditions, an immediate cease-fire and immediate and unrestricted humanitarian access.
State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters that envoy Feltman met with the prime minister Friday and then went to neighboring Kenya to meet its president before returning to Ethiopia on Monday to “urgently press the parties to de-escalate the conflict and negotiate.” There was no indication that Feltman, like Obasanjo, went to the Tigray region. Price simply said that “we have engaged with the (Tigray forces) as well.”
The prime minister's spokeswoman has called the meeting with Feltman “constructive," with no details.
Migrants aided by Belarus try to storm border into Poland
Hundreds if not thousands of migrants sought to storm the border from Belarus into Poland on Monday, cutting razor wire fences and using branches to try and climb over them. The siege escalated a crisis along the European Union's eastern border that has been simmering for months.
Poland's interior ministry said it had rebuffed the illegal invasion and claimed the situation was under control. The Defense Ministry posted a video showing an armed Polish officer using a chemical spray through a fence at men who were trying to cut the razor wire. Some migrants threw objects at police. Video footage from Belarusian media showed people using long wooden poles or branches to try to get past a border fence as police helicopters circled overhead.
Defense Ministry video taken later Monday showed the migrants settling in for the night by the border, having put up scores of tents and cooking meals.
“A coordinated attempt to massively enter the territory of the Republic of Poland by migrants used by Belarus for the hybrid attacks against Poland has just begun,” a spokesman for Poland's security forces, Stanislaw Zaryn, said in a statement.
Noting that it's also NATO's eastern border, Zaryn stressed that the “large groups of migrants ... are fully controlled by the Belarusian security services and army.” He accused Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko of acting to destabilize Poland and other EU countries to pressure the bloc into dropping its sanctions on Minsk. Those sanctions were put into place after Belarus cracked down brutally on democracy protests.
Read: Over 2,000 migrants march out of southern city in Mexico
Piotr Mueller, Poland's government spokesperson, said 3,000 to 4,000 migrants were next to the Polish border on the Belarusian side.
Polish border officials said the border crossing in Kuznica, in the northeast, will be closed early Tuesday.
There was no way to independently verify what was happening. Journalists have limited ability to operate in Belarus and a state of emergency in Poland is keeping reporters and human rights workers out of the border area.
The massing of people at the border appeared to rev up the crisis that has being going on for months in which the autocratic regime of Belarus has encouraged migrants from the Mideast and elsewhere to illegally enter the European Union, at first through Lithuania and Latvia and now primarily through Poland.
Anton Bychkovsky, spokesman for Belarus’ State Border Guard Committee, told The Associated Press that the migrants at the border are seeking to “exercise their right to apply for refugee status in the EU.” Bychkovsky insisted they “are not a security threat.”
But the massive group was viewed as a threat by Poland and other European countries, including Germany — the main destination for many. Steffen Seibert, German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman, told reporters Monday that “the Belarusian regime is acting as a human trafficker.”
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called on the bloc's 27 nations to approve extended sanctions on the Belarusian authorities “responsible for this hybrid attack.”
She said two top EU officials — EU Commission vice president Margaritis Schinas and EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell — will travel to the main countries of origin for the migrants to “ensure that they act to prevent their own nationals from falling into the trap set by the Belarusian authorities.”
The EU said it hoped that Poland would finally accept help from Frontex, the bloc’s border agency, a step that Poland’s ruling nationalists have so far refused to do. Frontex would not comment Monday on the border situation.
In Washington, U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price expressed concern “with disturbing images and reports emanating from the Belarus-Poland border” and stressed that the U.S. “strongly condemns the Lukashenko regime’s political exploitation and coercion of vulnerable people and the regime’s callous and inhumane facilitation of irregular migration flows across its borders.”
He said the U.S. was calling on “the regime to immediately halt its campaign of orchestrating and coercing irregular migrant flows across its borders into Europe" and warned that if the regime “refuses to respect its international obligations and commitments ... we will continue to pressure Lukashenko and will not lessen our calls for accountability."
Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said on Twitter that more than 12,000 soldiers have been deployed to the border and a volunteer Territorial Defense force was put on alert. He also posted video footage of what appeared to be a large group of migrants in Belarus, near Kuznica.
Polish ministers held an emergency meeting on the border crisis, with Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki writing on Facebook that Poland's border is “sacred” and “not just a line on the map."
Read: Ransomed and beaten: Migrants face abuse in Libyan detention
Poland's deputy foreign minister, Pawel Jablonski held talks with Iraqi charge d'affaires Hussein al-Safi on ways of ending the migration crisis and thanked Iraq for having Belarus close its consulates in Baghdad and Irbil that were giving tourist visas to migrants.
Meanwhile, in Poland's EU neighbor Lithuania, officials were preparing for the possibility of a similar incursion, with the Interior Ministry proposing to declare an emergency situation.
“We are getting ready for all possible scenarios,” said Rustamas Liubajevas, the head of Lithuania's border guards.
Since the summer, Poland and Lithuania have seen thousands of migrants from the Mideast and Africa trying to cross into the EU. Poland has sought to block the attempts or send those they catch back into Belarus.
Belarusian political analyst Valery Karbalevich told the AP that the Moscow-backed Lukashenko regime seemed to be trying to use the migrants “to scare” the EU.
“The largest attack of migrants on EU borders is taking place three days after Belarus and Russia signed a new agreement on military cooperation. The Kremlin is at least aware of the details of what’s happening,” Karbalevich said.
US reopens to international travel, allows happy reunions
Parents held children born while they were stuck abroad. Long-separated couples kissed, and grandparents embraced grandchildren who had doubled in age.
The U.S. fully reopened to many vaccinated international travelers Monday, allowing families and friends to reunite for the first time since the coronavirus emerged and offering a boost to the travel industry decimated by the pandemic. The restrictions closed the U.S. to millions of people for 20 months.
Octavio Alvarez and his 14-year-old daughter zipped through a pedestrian crossing in San Diego in less than 15 minutes on their way to visit his mother-in-law in California.
“It’s a big feeling,” said Alvarez, 43, who lives in Ensenada, Mexico, a two-hour drive from San Diego. Prior to the pandemic, his family would visit California twice a month. The emotional cost of the border restrictions were “very high,” he added.
American citizens and permanent residents were always allowed to enter the U.S., but the travel bans grounded tourists, thwarted business travelers and often keep families far apart. Travelers must have proof of vaccination and a negative COVID-19 test.
“I think a lot of people have been waiting for this day,” said Eileen Bigelow, area port director for Vermont for Customs and Border Protection. “They look at it as a light at the end of the tunnel for some return of normalcy.”
There were lots of prolonged hugs at airports from coast to coast. At Newark International Airport in New Jersey, Nirmit Shelat repeatedly embraced his girlfriend, Jolly Dave, after she arrived from India, ending their nine-month separation. She was on the first flight out of the country to the United States.
“I can’t even explain in my words how happy I am," Dave said.
Gaye Camara, who lives in France, last saw her husband in New York in January 2020, not knowing it would be 21 months before they could hold each other again.
“I’m going to jump into his arms, kiss him, touch him,” said Camara, 40, as she wheeled her luggage through Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport, where the humming crowds resembled those before the pandemic, except for the face masks.
Read:US gives final clearance to COVID-19 shots for kids 5 to 11
On the U.S. borders with Mexico and Canada, where traveling back and forth was a way of life before the pandemic, the reopening brought relief. Malls, restaurants and shops in U.S. border towns were devastated by the lack of visitors from Mexico.
San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria, flanked by U.S. and Mexican officials at a celebratory news conference at the San Ysidro crossing, said the economic losses were hefty and the cutting of family ties “immeasurable.”
Retail sales in San Ysidro fell about 75% from pre-COVID levels, forcing nearly 300 businesses to close.
Edith Aguirre of Tijuana took off work to go shopping in San Diego. Bubbling with laughter, she accepted a gift bag from a duty-free store at the San Diego border crossing. She was a regular at SeaWorld in San Diego and last came to the U.S. to celebrate her 50th birthday at Disneyland in February 2020.
“It was very draining,” she said of the interruption to her cross-border life.
Sales dropped in half at David’s Western Wear shop in Nogales, Arizona, which manufactures boots popular among Mexicans.
Owner David Moore hopes his specialty products lure back customers, but he said it won't happen overnight. Many Mexicans are still trying to get expired visas renewed amid a backlog. Those who do come may be disappointed to find shelves empty because of supply chain problems.
“I really don’t think Mexican shoppers are going to come across in hordes because they have now gotten used to buying a lot of products they need in Mexico," he said.
David Jerome, president and CEO of the El Paso Chamber of Commerce on Mexico's border in Texas, said: “It won’t come back as quickly as it was shut off.”
Still, “we feel like we’re getting our neighbors back and we’re glad to get people going back to work," Jerome said.
Along Canada's boundary, cross-border hockey rivalries were upended by the travel restrictions. Churches that had members on both sides of the border were suddenly cut off from each other.
But on Monday, border traffic quickly returned.
At Vermont’s busiest international crossing with Canada, U.S. border agents said they began to notice the uptick in border crossing shortly after midnight. By mid-morning, traffic appeared steady.
Travelers at the Peace Bridge in Buffalo, New York, one of the northern border's busiest crossings, found a 2½-hour wait at 2 a.m., officials said, though within a few hours traffic was flowing more freely. The bridge typically handles about 2 million passenger vehicles from Fort Erie, Ontario, yearly, many of them bound for the region’s shopping malls, ski slopes and sporting events. Volume dropped by more than 90% during the pandemic.
Read:US details new international COVID-19 travel requirements
River Robinson’s American partner wasn’t able to be in Canada for the birth of their baby boy 17 months ago. She was thrilled to hear about the U.S. reopening and planned to take the child to the U.S. for Thanksgiving.
It’s “crazy to think he has a whole other side of the family he hasn’t even met yet,” said Robinson, who lives in St. Thomas, Ontario.
Airlines are preparing for a surge in activity — especially from Europe — after the pandemic and resulting restrictions caused international travel to plunge.
The 28 European countries that were barred made up 37% of overseas visitors in 2019, according to the U.S. Travel Association. As the reopening takes effect, carriers are increasing flights between the United Kingdom and the U.S. by 21% this month over last month, according to data from travel and analytics firm Cirium.
In a sign of the huge importance of trans-Atlantic travel for airlines, British Airways and Virgin Atlantic celebrated the reopening by synchronizing the departures of their early morning flights to New York on parallel runways at London’s Heathrow Airport.
Maria Giribet, 74, who lives on the Mediterranean isle of Majorca was headed to San Francisco where she planned to “suffocate" her twin grandchildren with hugs after missing half their lives. Gabriel and David are now 3½.
The U.S. will accept travelers who have been fully vaccinated with any of the shots approved for emergency use by the World Health Organization, not just those in use in the U.S. That’s a relief for many in Canada, where the AstraZeneca vaccine is widely used.
But millions of people around the world who were vaccinated with Russia’s Sputnik V, China’s CanSino or other shots not approved by the WHO will not be able to travel to the U.S.
Testing and quarantine requirements remained obstacles for others. A mobile testing truck was parked near the Peace Bridge in New York, promising results in 30 minutes for $225 and next-day results for $160.
Marcela Picone, 39, of the Buffalo suburb of Williamsville, has been waiting for the day her fiancé and father of her 2- and 3-year-old children can visit from Stoney Creek, Ontario. But his 15-year-old son would have to miss school to quarantine upon their return if they traveled.
“He’s a dad to two American kids," she said. "He should have had the right to come into this country the entire 19 months.”
India At COP26 Says Its Solar Energy Capacity Increased 17 Times In 7 Years
India on Sunday told the UN climate summit in Glasgow that its solar energy capacity stands at about 45 gigawatts after it increased 17 times in the last seven years, asserting that although the country represents 17 per cent of the global population, its historical cumulative emissions are only 4 per cent.
India said this while giving a presentation on its third Biennial Update Report (BUR) during the 11th Facilitative Sharing of Views (FSV) at the ongoing COP26 climate summit here, reports NDTV.
Read: India moves to patent the over century-old logos of Darjeeling’s ‘Toy Train’
The BUR was submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in February.
The key highlight of the discussion on India's third BUR was the achievement of 24 per cent reduction in emission intensity of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) over the period of 2005-2014, and the significant increase of its solar programme.
Making a statement on behalf of India, JR Bhatt, Adviser/Scientist in the Ministry of Environment, highlighted that India represents 17 per cent of the global population but its historical cumulative emissions are only 4 per cent, while current annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are only about 5 per cent.
“This is complemented by the fact that India is particularly vulnerable to climate change. However, India is nevertheless taking several mitigation actions, spanning across the entire economy and society and has progressively continued decoupling of its economic growth from greenhouse gas emissions,” said Mr Bhatt.
In the last seven years, India's installed solar energy capacity has increased 17 times, he said, adding that the solar energy capacity now stands at about 45 gigawatts.
All the Parties commended India's efforts on the BUR and its climate actions, including recent announcements of new measures.
There were questions about India's multilateral efforts to combat climate change, including the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI).
India responded by saying that disaster risk is increasing in developing countries, and this is a step to enhance international cooperation which is much needed in the current times.
On the question of an increase in forest cover, India responded that people's participation has played an important role in enhancing its forest cover, and that its forests provide all the four ecosystem services.
India highlighted that it speaks on climate change from a position of strength and responsibility.
Read:10 dead in India Covid hospital fire
“India's 15 per cent of total carbon dioxide emission in 2016 was removed from the atmosphere by the LULUCF (Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry).
“Between 2015 and 2019, the forest and tree cover increased by 13,031 square kilometer and mangrove cover increased by 235 square kilometer. Populations of Asiatic lion, elephant, rhino increased manifold in the last 5 to 6 years,” according to India's statement.
“We emphasise that India is particularly vulnerable to climate change, a point which many friends overlook in their eagerness to understand our mitigation efforts.
India moves to patent the over century-old logos of Darjeeling’s ‘Toy Train’
More than two decades after the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway (DHR) was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, India has finally registered the logos of the iconic ‘Toy Train’ internationally as its intellectual property.
The use of these logos anywhere in the world will now require written permission from India and the payment of a fee, reports the Indian Express.
The DHR, which started operations in 1880, more than 140 years ago, has two logos, both of which have been patented. One has “DHR” in bold black, intertwined letters; the other is a circular seal with a picture of mountains, forests and a river, with “Darjeeling Himalayan Railway” in white lettering on a green background around it.
Read:India At COP26 Says Its Solar Energy Capacity Increased 17 Times In 7 Years
Both logos are over a century old, and popular in world heritage circuits. They are used randomly on merchandise and communications materials by various commercial organisations in Europe, the UK and the US; even the West Bengal government has used it in communications and on merchandise in the past.
The Railway Ministry in Delhi and the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway office in Kurseong, West Bengal, initiated the process of registering the logo with the Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trademarks under the Union Ministry of Commerce and Industry in August.
The claim was then sent to the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), a specialised agency of the United Nations based in Geneva, Switzerland, in accordance with the procedure laid down in WIPO’s Vienna Classification (VCL). There is a six-month window to register any counter-claims, following which the Indian government’s claim will receive international approval.
“We have registered the logo. Anyone who wants to use it will have to take our permission,” S K Chaudhary, Divisional Railway Manager, Katihar, Northeast Frontier Railway, said. DHR is part of NFR Katihar division.
Sources said there are plans to patent the logos of India’s other mountain railways as well, such as the Mettupalayam-Udagamandalam Nilgiri Mountain Railway, the Kalka-Shimla Railway, and the Matheran Hill Railway.
Before applying to patent the DHR logos, the Railways worked to restore the original artwork on old cutlery and the walls of stations, officials said. DHR archives were mined to retrieve the oldest available artwork, and local talent was employed to create impressions and pictures.
“Some station buildings have the original logo… Original documents and other items were dug out. The logo is India’s national property. We need to protect it,” DHR director A K Mishra said.
“We can now claim patent fees or user charges if anyone uses the logos,” Mishra said. “There is no fixed rate for this as such,” he said.
DHR and the Mountain Railways of India (DHR, Nilgiri, and Kalka-Shimla) have been selected by the United Nations Postal Administration among six global UNESCO sites to be made part of its World Heritage Stamp series.
Read:10 dead in India Covid hospital fire
This will put the Darjeeling Toy Train’s ‘Iron Sherpa’ blue steam locomotives of the Darjeeling heritage train on the same pedestal as the legendary transalpine Rhaetian Railway in Switzerland, and is likely to boost its recognition and prominence around the world.
The stamp features a steam locomotive at Ghum station, the highest point on the DHR route, commanding a panoramic view of the Darjeeling Himalayas.
The stamp in a way marks the bouncing back of the Indian Railways at UNESCO World Heritage. Two years ago, the unsatisfactory state of affairs at DHR had invited scrutiny, and the property had seemed in danger of losing its prestigious World Heritage Site recognition. A fortnight-long Ghum Festival is being planned to boost the people connect and tourism prospects of the iconic Toy Train of Darjeeling.