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Biden tells Pacific islands leaders that he hears their warnings about climate change and will act
President Joe Biden on Monday told leaders from the 18-member Pacific Islands Forum that he has heard their warnings about the impact of climate change on their region and that his administration is committed to helping them meet the challenge.
Pacific islands leaders gathered Monday for the start of a two-day Washington summit. Many have been critical of rich countries for not doing enough to control climate change despite being responsible for much of the problem, and for profiting from loans provided to vulnerable nations to mitigate the effects.
At the summit’s start, Biden said his administration is requesting Congress approve $200 million in new assistance for the region, including financing to help the islands prepare for climate and natural hazards and improve infrastructure. Biden has put a premium on improving ties in the Pacific at a time of rising U.S. concern about China’s growing military and economic influence.
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“I want you to know I hear you, the people in the United States and around the world hear you,” Biden told the leaders. “We hear your warnings of a rising sea and (that) they pose an existential threat to your nations. We hear your calls for reassurance that you never, never, never will lose your statehood, or membership of the U.N. as a result of a climate crisis. Today, the United States is making it clear that this is our position as well.”
As part of the summit, the U.S. is formally establishing diplomatic relations with two South Pacific nations, the Cook Islands and Niue. Secretary of State Antony Blinken took part in separate signing ceremonies with Niue Premier Dalton Tagelagi and Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown to mark the new elevated relations.
“Today, we celebrate shared history, common values and people-to-people ties between our two nations, Tagelagi said at the Niue ceremony. ”We have been looking forward to this day.”
Brown welcomed the elevation of U.S. relations with the Cook Islands and said the U.S.-Pacific islands partnership could be an important tool for helping the region achieve its aspirations.
“These milestones celebrate areas of change and demonstrate that with unshakable resolve and leadership, remarkable achievements are possible,” Brown said.
The forum includes Australia, the Cook Islands, Micronesia, Fiji, French Polynesia, Kiribati, Nauru, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Republic of Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu.
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Kiribati signed onto a $29.1 million partnership with the U.S.-backed Millennium Corporation Challenge. The group will assist the island country with dozens of low-lying atolls and help boost its workforce.
Some of the leaders attended an NFL game in Baltimore on Sunday and visited a U.S. Coast Guard cutter in the city’s harbor for a briefing on combating illegal fishing and other maritime issues. Biden announced Monday that later this year he would deploy a U.S. Coast Guard vessel to the region to collaborate and train with Pacific islands nations.
At last year’s summit, the White House unveiled its Pacific strategy, an outline of its plan to assist the region’s leaders on pressing issues like climate change, maritime security and protecting the region from overfishing. The administration pledged the U.S. would add $810 million in new aid for Pacific islands nations over the next decade, including $130 million on efforts to stymie the impacts of climate change.
The leaders also met Monday with Biden’s special envoy on climate, John Kerry, for closed-door talks focused on climate change. Blinken and U.N. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield were hosting the leaders at the State Department for a dinner.
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Kerry and Samantha Power, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, will host the leaders on Tuesday for climate talks with members of the philanthropic community. The leaders also plan to meet with members of Congress. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will host a roundtable with the leaders and members of the business community.
Power last month traveled to Fiji to open a new USAID mission that will manage agency programs in nine Pacific islands countries: Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, and Palau. The U.S. this year has opened embassies in Solomon Islands and Tonga, and is on track to open an embassy in Vanuatu early next year.
Biden earlier this year had to cut short a planned visit to the Indo-Pacific, scrapping what was to be a historic stop in Papua New Guinea, as well as a visit to Australia for a gathering with fellow leaders of the so-called Quad partnership so he could focus on debt limit talks in Washington. He would have been the first sitting U.S. president to visit Papua New Guinea.
Biden is set to honor Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese with a state visit next month.
He spoke no English, had no lawyer. An Afghan man’s case offers a glimpse into US immigration court
The Afghan man speaks only Farsi, but he wasn’t worried about representing himself in U.S. immigration court. He believed the details of his asylum claim spoke for themselves.
Mohammad was a university professor, teaching human rights courses in Afghanistan before he fled for the United States. Mohammad is also Hazara, an ethnic minority long persecuted in his country, and he said he was receiving death threats under the Taliban, who reimposed their harsh interpretation of Sunni Islam after taking power in 2021.
He crossed the Texas border in April 2022, surrendered to Border Patrol agents and was detained. A year later, a hearing was held via video conference. His words were translated by a court interpreter in another location, and he said he struggled to express himself — including fear for his life since he was injured in a 2016 suicide bombing.
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At the conclusion of the nearly three-hour hearing, the judge denied him asylum. Mohammad said he was later shocked to learn that he had waived his right to appeal the decision.
“I feel alone and that the law wasn’t applied,” said Mohammad, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition that only his first name be used, over fears for the safety of his wife and children, who are still in Afghanistan.
Mohammad’s case offers a rare look inside an opaque and overwhelmed immigration court system where hearings are often closed, transcripts are not available to the public and judges are under pressure to move quickly with ample discretion. Amid a major influx of migrants at the border with Mexico, the courts — with a backlog of 2 million cases -– may be the most overwhelmed and least understood link in the system.
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AP reviewed a hearing transcript provided by Mona Iman, an attorney with Human Rights First now representing Mohammad. Iman also translated Mohammad’s comments to AP in a phone interview from Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas.
The case reflects an asylum seeker who was ill-equipped to represent himself and clearly didn’t understand what was happening, according to experts who reviewed the transcript. But at least one former judge disagreed and said the ruling was fair.
Now Mohammad’s attorney has won him a new hearing, before a different judge — a rare second chance for asylum cases. Also giving Iman hope is a decision this week by the Biden administration to give temporary legal status to Afghan migrants living in the country for more than a year. Iman believes he qualifies and said he will apply.
But Mohammed has been in detention for about 18 months, and he fears he could remain in custody and still be considered for deportation.
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AP sought details and comment from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The agency didn’t address questions on Mohammad’s case but said noncitizens can pursue all due process and appeals and, once that’s exhausted, judges’ orders must be carried out.
____For his April 27 hearing, Mohammad submitted photos of his injuries from the 2016 suicide bombing that killed hundreds at a peaceful demonstration of mostly Hazaras. He also gave the court threatening letters from the Taliban and medical documents from treatment for head wounds in 2021. He said militants beat him with sticks as he left the university and shot at him but missed.
In court, the government argued that Mohammad encouraged migration to the U.S. on social media, changed dates and details related to his history, and had relatives in Europe, South America and other places where he could have settled.
In ruling, Judge Allan John-Baptiste said the threats didn’t indicate Mohammad would still be at risk, and that his wife and children hadn’t been harmed since he left.
Mohammad tried to keep arguing his case, but the judge told him the evidentiary period was closed. He asked Mohammad whether he planned to appeal or would waive his right to do so.
Mohammad kept describing his claim, but John-Baptiste reminded him he’d already ruled. Mohammad said if the judge was going to ignore the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan, he wouldn’t ask for an appeal. John-Baptiste indicated he had considered it.
“You were not hit by the gunshot or the suicide bomber,” John-Baptiste said. “The harm that you received does not rise to the level of persecution.”
Mohammad continued, explaining how his family lives in hiding, his wife concealing her identity with a burqa.
“OK, are you going to appeal my decision or not?” John-Baptiste ultimately asked.
“No, I don’t,” Mohammad said.
“And we don’t want you to make the decision now that you can’t come back later and say you want to appeal. This is final, OK, sir?” John-Baptiste said.
“Yes. OK, I accept that,” Mohammad said.
He later asked whether he could try to come back legally. The judge started to explain voluntary departure, which would allow him to return in less than a decade, but corrected himself and said Mohammad didn’t qualify.
“I’m sorry about that, but, you know, I’m just going to have to order you removed,” John-Baptiste said. “I wish you the best of luck.”
Mohammad later told AP he couldn’t comprehend what was happening in court. He’d heard from others in detention that he had a month to appeal.
“I didn’t understand in that moment that the right would be taken from me if I said no,” he said.
___Former immigration judge Jeffrey Chase, who reviewed the transcript, said he was surprised John-Baptiste waived Mohammad’s right to appeal and that the Board of Immigration Appeals upheld that decision. Case law supports granting protection for people who belong to a group long persecuted in their homelands even if an individual cannot prove specific threats, said Chase, an adviser to the appeals board.
But Andrew Arthur, another former immigration judge, said John-Baptiste ruled properly.
“The respondent knew what he was filing, understood all of the questions that were asked of him at the hearing, understood the decision, and freely waived his right to appeal,” Arthur, a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for immigration restrictions, said via email.
Chase said the hearing appeared rushed, and he believes the case backlog played a role.
“Immigration judges hear death-penalty cases in traffic-court conditions,” said Chase, quoting a colleague. “This is a perfect example.”
Overall, the 600 immigration judges nationwide denied 63% of asylum cases last year, according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. Individual rates vary wildly, from a Houston judge who denied all 105 asylum requests to a San Francisco one denying only 1% of 108 cases.
John-Baptiste, a career prosecutor appointed during the Trump administration’s final months, denied 72% of his 114 cases.
Before Mohammad decided to flee, his wife applied for a special immigrant visa, which grants permanent residency to Afghans who worked for the U.S. government or military, along with their families.
But that and other legal pathways can take years. While they waited, Mohammad said, the Taliban came looking for him but instead detained and beat his nephew. Mohammad described making the devastating decision to leave his family, who had no passports.
He opted for a treacherous route through multiple countries to cross the U.S.-Mexico border, which has seen the number of Afghans jump from 300 to 5,000 in a year.
Mohammad said he crossed into Pakistan, flew to Brazil and headed north. He slept on buses and trekked through Panama’s notorious Darien Gap jungle, where he said he saw bodies of migrants who didn’t make it.
Mohammad planned to live with a niece in North Carolina. Now he fears if he’s sent home and his wife gets her visa, they’ll be separated again.
Deportations to Afghanistan are extremely rare, with a handful each year.
Attorney Iman said they’re grateful Mohammad’s case has been reopened, with a hearing scheduled for Oct. 4. She is fighting for his immediate release.
“I have no doubt that his case would have turned out differently had he been represented,” Iman said. “This is exactly the type of vulnerable individual that the U.S. government has promised, has committed to protect, since it withdrew from the country.”
Menendez gains a primary opponent as calls for his resignation grow after indictment
Rep. Andy Kim of New Jersey announced on Saturday that he will run against Sen. Robert Menendez in the state’s Democratic primary for Senate next year, saying he feels compelled to run against the three-term senator after he and his wife were indicted on sweeping corruption charges.
Kim’s surprise announcement came as a growing number of Democrats are calling for Menendez to step down. Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman became the first Democratic senator to do so, and several members of New Jersey’s congressional delegation, along with the state's Democratic governor, have said he should resign.
“This is not something I expected to do, but I believe New Jersey deserves better,” Kim said in a statement. “We cannot jeopardize the Senate or compromise our country’s integrity. I believe it’s time we restore faith in our democracy, and that’s why I am stepping up and running for Senate.”
The calls for Menendez, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, come after he and his wife Nadine were indicted on Friday for using his powerful position to aid the authoritarian government of Egypt and also to pressure federal prosecutors to drop a case against a friend. The three-count indictment lists a series of bribes they were paid by three New Jersey businessmen in exchange for the corrupt acts — gold bars, a luxury car and cash.
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It is the second indictment on bribery charges for Menendez — and the second time he has had to relinquish his post as the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations panel. He regained the leadership spot in 2018 after the case ended with a deadlocked jury.
The immediate calls for his resignation are a contrast from when he was first charged eight years ago, signaling that he could be in deep trouble with his party, and with his voters, as his 2024 reelection approaches.
Menendez was defiant after Friday’s indictment, saying in a statement Friday evening that “I am not going anywhere.” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., announced that Menendez would have to step down as chairman per Senate Democratic caucus rules, since he has been charged with a felony. But he did not call for Menendez to step down.
In a statement on Saturday, Fetterman became the first Senate Democrat to do so, saying that his Senate colleague is “entitled to the presumption of innocence under our system, but he is not entitled to continue to wield influence over national policy, especially given the serious and specific nature of the allegations. I hope he chooses an honorable exit and focuses on his trial.”
Several Democrats in New Jersey’s House delegation also called on Menendez to go, including Reps. Donald Norcross, Josh Gottheimer, Frank Pallone, Bill Pascrell, Mikie Sherrill and Bonnie Watson Coleman.
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“This is a sad day for our great state,” said Pascrell, a senior member of the House who has served in the New Jersey delegation with Menendez for almost three decades. “The hallmark of our justice system is the presumption of innocence and the senator deserves his day in court. But given the gravity of these charges, I do not believe that Senator Menendez can continue to carry out the important duties of his office for our state.”
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy also demanded Menendez’s immediate resignation, saying the allegations were “so serious" that they compromise the senator’s ability to serve.
Two notable New Jersey Democrats who have not called on Menendez to step down: Democratic Sen. Cory Booker, his New Jersey colleague in the Senate, and his son, Rep. Rob Menendez, who said in a statement that he has “unwavering confidence” in his father.
Authorities who searched Menendez’s home last year found more than $100,000 worth of gold bars, as well as over $480,000 in cash — much of it hidden in closets, clothing and a safe, prosecutors say. The indictment includes photos of cash stuffed in envelopes in jackets bearing Menendez’s name and of a luxury car that prosecutors say was given to the couple as a bribe from the businessmen.
Prosecutors say Menendez directly interfered in criminal investigations, including by pushing to install a federal prosecutor in New Jersey he believed could be influenced in a criminal case against a businessman and associate of the senator. He also tried to use his position of power to try to meddle in a separate criminal investigation by the New Jersey Attorney General’s office, the indictment says.
Other accusations include repeated actions by Menendez to benefit Egypt despite U.S. government misgivings over the country’s human rights record that in recent years have prompted Congress to attach restrictions on aid. His efforts include ghostwriting a letter to fellow senators encouraging them to lift a hold on $300 million in aid to Egypt, one of the top recipients of U.S. government support, as well as transmitting nonpublic information to Egyptian officials through communications with the businessmen.
Menendez responded that there was an “active smear campaign” against him.
“For years, forces behind the scenes have repeatedly attempted to silence my voice and dig my political grave,” he said in a statement.
David Schertler, a lawyer for Menendez’s wife, Nadine, said she “denies any criminal conduct and will vigorously contest these charges in court.”
US issues more sanctions over Iran drone program after nation’s president denies supplying Russia
The U.S. on Tuesday imposed sanctions on seven people and four companies in China, Russia and Turkey who officials allege are connected with the development of Iran’s drone program.
The U.S. accuses Iran of supplying Russia with drones used to bomb Ukrainian civilians as the Kremlin continues its invasion of Ukraine.
The latest development comes after Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi denied his country had sent drones to Russia for use in the war in Ukraine.
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“We are against the war in Ukraine,” President Raisi said Monday as he met with media executives on the sidelines of the world’s premier global conference, the high-level leaders’ meeting at the U.N. General Assembly.
The parties sanctioned Tuesday by Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control include: An Iranian drone company previously sanctioned in 2008, now doing business as Shahin Co., its managing executives, a group of Russian parts manufacturers and two Turkish money exchangers, Mehmet Tokdemir and Alaaddin Aykut.
Treasury said the action builds on a set of sanctions it issued last March, when Treasury sanctioned 39 firms linked to an alleged shadow banking system that helped to obfuscate financial activity between sanctioned Iranian firms and their foreign buyers, namely for petrochemicals produced in Iran.
5 Americans flown out of Tehran in a prisoner swap deal with Iran
Brian E. Nelson, Treasury’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said Iran’s “continued, deliberate proliferation” of its drone program enables Russia “and other destabilizing actors to undermine global stability.”
“The United States will continue to take action” against Iran’s drone program, he said.
Matthew Miller, a spokesman for the State Department, said the U.S. “will continue to use every tool at our disposal to disrupt these efforts and will work with Allies and partners to hold Iran accountable for its actions.”
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Among other things, the sanctions deny the people and firms access to any property or financial assets held in the U.S. and prevent U.S. companies and citizens from doing business with them.
Tensions between the U.S. and Iran remain high, despite the release of five American detainees from Iran this week in exchange for the release of nearly $6 billion in frozen Iranian assets.
5 Americans flown out of Tehran in a prisoner swap deal with Iran
Five prisoners sought by the U.S. in a swap with Iran flew out of Tehran on Monday, officials said, part of a deal that saw nearly $6 billion in Iranian assets unfrozen.
Despite the deal, tensions are almost certain to remain high between the U.S. and Iran, which are locked in various disputes, including over Tehran's nuclear program. Iran says the program is peaceful, but it now enriches uranium closer than ever to weapons-grade levels.
The planned exchange has unfolded amid a major American military buildup in the Persian Gulf, with the possibility of U.S. troops boarding and guarding commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of all oil shipments pass.
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Two people, including a senior Biden administration official, said that the prisoners left Tehran on Monday. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the exchange was ongoing.
In addition to the five freed Americans, two U.S. family members flew out, according to the Biden administration official.
Flight-tracking data showed a Qatar Airways flight take off from Tehran's Mehrabad International Airport, which has been used for exchanges in the past. Several of the former prisoners could be seen climbing the stairs to the flight in video released by Iranian media.
The plane was expected to land in Doha, Qatar. Meanwhile, Nour News, a website believed to be close to Iran's security apparatus, said two of the Iranian prisoners had arrived in Doha for the swap.
Earlier, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said that the exchange would take place Monday after nearly $6 billion in once-frozen Iranian assets reached Qatar.
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"Fortunately Iran's frozen assets in South Korea were released and God willing today the assets will start to be fully controlled by the government and the nation," Kanaani said.
"On the subject of the prisoner swap, it will happen today and five prisoners, citizens of the Islamic Republic, will be released from the prisons in the U.S.," he added. "Five imprisoned citizens who were in Iran will be given to the U.S. side."
He said two of the Iranian prisoners will stay in the U.S.
Mohammad Reza Farzin, Iran's Central Bank chief, later came on state television to acknowledge the receipt of over 5.5 billion euros — $5.9 billion — in accounts in Qatar. Months ago, Iran had anticipated getting as much as $7 billion.
The planned exchange comes ahead of the convening of world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly this week in New York, where Iran's hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi will speak.
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The deal has already opened U.S. President Joe Biden to fresh criticism from Republicans and others who say that the administration is helping boost the Iranian economy at a time when Iran poses a growing threat to American troops and Mideast allies. That could have implications in his reelection campaign as well.
On the U.S. side, Washington has said the planned swap includes Siamak Namazi, who was detained in 2015 and was later sentenced to 10 years in prison on spying charges; Emad Sharghi, a venture capitalist sentenced to 10 years; and Morad Tahbaz, a British-American conservationist of Iranian descent who was arrested in 2018 and also received a 10-year sentence. All of their charges have been widely criticized by their families, activists and the U.S. government.
U.S. officials have so far declined to identify the fourth and fifth prisoner.
The five prisoners Iran has said it seeks are mostly held over allegedly trying to export banned material to Iran, such as dual use electronics that can be used by a military.
The two that Nour News said were in Doha were: Mehrdad Ansari, an Iranian sentenced to 63 months in prison in 2021 for obtaining equipment that could be used in missiles, electronic warfare, nuclear weapons and other military gear, and Reza Sarhangpour Kafrani, an Iranian charged in 2021 over allegedly unlawfully exporting laboratory equipment to Iran.
The cash represents money South Korea owed Iran — but had not yet paid — for oil purchased before the U.S. imposed sanctions on such transactions in 2019.
The U.S. maintains that, once in Qatar, the money will be held in restricted accounts and will only be able to be used for humanitarian goods, such as medicine and food. Those transactions are currently allowed under American sanctions targeting the Islamic Republic over its advancing nuclear program.
Iranian government officials have largely concurred with that explanation, though some hard-liners have insisted, without providing evidence, that there would be no restrictions on how Tehran spends the money.
Iran and the U.S. have a history of prisoner swaps dating back to the 1979 U.S. Embassy takeover and hostage crisis following the Islamic Revolution. Their most recent major exchange happened in 2016, when Iran came to a deal with world powers to restrict its nuclear program in return for an easing of sanctions.
The West accuses Iran of using foreign prisoners — including those with dual nationality — as bargaining chips, an allegation Tehran rejects.
Negotiations over a major prisoner swap faltered after then-President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew America from the nuclear deal in 2018. From the following year on, a series of attacks and ship seizures attributed to Iran have raised tensions.
Meanwhile, Iran's nuclear program now enriches closer than ever to weapons-grade levels. While the head of the United Nations' nuclear watchdog has warned that Iran now has enough enriched uranium to produce "several" bombs, months more would likely be needed to build a weapon and potentially miniaturize it to put it on a missile — if Iran decided to pursue one.
Iran maintains its nuclear program is peaceful, and the U.S. intelligence community has kept its assessment that Iran is not pursuing an atomic bomb.
Iran has taken steps in recent months to settle some issues with the International Atomic Energy Agency. But the advances in its program have led to fears of a wider regional conflagration as Israel, itself a nuclear power, has said it would not allow Tehran to develop the bomb. Israel bombed both Iraq and Syria to stop their nuclear programs, giving the threat more weight. It also is suspected in carrying out a series of killings targeting Iran's nuclear scientists.
Iran also supplies Russia with the bomb-carrying drones Moscow uses to target sites in Ukraine in its war on Kyiv, which remains another major dispute between Tehran and Washington
Special UN summit, protests, week of talk turn up heat on fossil fuels and global warming
The heat is about to be turned up on fossil fuels, the United States and President Joe Biden.
As a record-smashing and deadly hot summer draws to a close, the United Nations and the city that hosts it are focusing on climate change and the burning of coal, oil and natural gas that causes it. It features a special U.N. summit and a week of protests and talk-heavy events involving leaders from business, health, politics and the arts. Even a royal prince — William — is getting in on the action.
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The annual Climate Week, which coincides with the U.N. General Assembly, kicks off Sunday with tens of thousands of people expected in the “March to End Fossil Fuels” Manhattan rally, one of hundreds of worldwide protests.
This week “is the start of an incredible pressure cooker that we are all part of,” said Jean Su, a march organizer and energy justice director for the Center for Biological Diversity. “It is coming from the top down, from that chief of the United Nations and now it is coming from bottom up in over 400 distributed actions across the world.”
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Much of the heat is coming from Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who is convening a new Climate Ambition Summit on Wednesday that has a special twist: Only leaders from nations that bring new and meaningful action will be allowed to speak. And the U.N. isn’t saying yet who will get that chance.
It won’t be Biden, who is speaking Tuesday at the U.N., the White House said. Nor will it be the leaders of China, the United Kingdom, Russia or France – all major players in the development and use of fossil fuels -- who won’t even be in New York.
Guterres has repeatedly aimed his criticism at fossil fuels, calling them “incompatible with human survival.” He and scientific reports out of the United Nations have emphasized that the only way to curb warming and meet international goals is to “phase out” fossil fuels.
Phase-out is a term that world leaders in past climate negotiations and meetings of large economic powers have refused to back, instead opting for watered-down phrases such as “phase down” of unabated coal, allowing fossil use if its emissions are somehow captured and stored. The president of the upcoming international climate negotiations in Dubai is an oil executive from the United Arab Emirates and will be speaking at Wednesday’s summit, though his dual role has upset activists and some scientists.
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“This really is an unprecedented soft power moment where the U.N. chief is throwing fossil fuels into the limelight and forcing heads of states to respond,” Su said. “Whether it’s yes or no, he’s at least forcing them to respond as to will you commit to no new fossil fuel development in line with climate science?”
But U.N. chiefs have little real power, said Climate Analytics CEO Bill Hare, a climate scientist.
“They can talk. They can persuade. They can from time-to-time constructively criticize and that’s all the tools that he’s got,” Hare said. “The U.N. secretary-general has moral authority and he’s using that.”
Guterres “can shame leaders who show up with pitiful offers in terms of climate action,” said Power Shift Africa Director Mohamed Adow, a longtime climate diplomacy observer. “We’ve got to a point where we can no longer be able to afford the velvet glove diplomacy.”
Guterres will ask nations to accelerate their efforts to rid themselves of carbon-based energy, with the richest nations that can afford it going first and faster, and providing financial aid to the poorer nations that can’t afford it, said Selwin Hart, Guterres’ special adviser for climate action.
“We know the use of fossil fuels is the main cause of the climate crisis, coal, oil and gas,” Hart said Friday. “We need to accelerate the global transition away from fossil fuels. But it must be just, fair and equitable.”
But the same 20 richest economies who promise to slice carbon emissions “are now issuing new oil and gas licensing at a time when the (International Energy Agency and the science-based Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has clearly stated that this is incompatible with the 1.5 degree (Celsius, 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) goal of the Paris Agreement,” Hart said.
Yet speeding to net zero emissions of carbon requires rapid and huge reshaping of the energy landscape that “could inflict serious harm on the economy,” American Energy Alliance President Thomas Pyle said last month.
Environmental activists calculate that five rich northern countries – the United States, Canada, Australia, Norway and the United Kingdom – that talk about cutting back emissions are responsible for more than half of the planned expansion of oil and gas drilling through 2050. The United States accounts for more than one-third.
So activists and protesters at Sunday’s march say they are aiming their frustration – and pressure - at Biden and America.
However, Biden has repeatedly trumpeted last year’s Inflation Reduction Act, which includes $375 billion to fight climate change, mostly on solar panels, energy efficiency, air pollution controls and emission-reducing equipment for coal- and gas-fueled power plants.
“They want to be seen as the good guys, but the fact is they have very little to back it up,” said Brandon Wu, policy director at ActionAid USA. He pointed to the new drilling plans and said the United States has failed to deliver on its promised climate-based financial aid to poor countries and has not increased its money pledges like other nations.
“How much carnage does the planet have to suffer for global leaders to act?” Su said. “We want President Biden and other major oil gas producers to phase out fossil fuels.”
US House of Representatives to open Biden impeachment inquiry
Speaker Kevin McCarthy said Tuesday he is directing a House committee to open an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden over his family's business dealings, launching historic proceedings ahead of the 2024 election.
McCarthy said the House Oversight Committee's investigation so far has found a “culture of corruption” around the Biden family as Republicans probe the business dealings of Biden's son, Hunter Biden, from before the Democratic president took office.
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“These are allegations of abuse of power, obstruction and corruption, and they warrant further investigation by the House of Representatives,” McCarthy, R-Calif., said outside the speaker's office at the Capitol. "That’s why today I am directing our House committee to open a formal impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.”
The announcement comes as the Republican leader faces mounting pressure from his right flank to take action against Biden while he also is struggling to pass legislation needed to avoid a federal government shutdown at the end of the month.
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An inquiry is step toward impeachment, and McCarthy essentially outlined potential charges. He is is planning to convene lawmakers behind closed doors multiple times this week, including for a meeting to discuss the Biden impeachment.
The Republican leader is once again at a political crossroads — trying to keep his most conservative lawmakers satisfied and prevent his own ouster. It’s a familiar political bind for McCarthy, who is juggling the impeachment inquiry and the government shutdown threat with no clear end game.
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Government funding is to run out on Sept. 30, which is the end of the federal fiscal year, and Congress must pass new funding bills or risk a shutdown and the interruption of government services.
Biden’s White House has dismissed the impeachment push as politically motivated.
“Speaker McCarthy shouldn’t cave to the extreme, far-right members who are threatening to shut down the government unless they get a baseless, evidence-free impeachment of President Biden. The consequences for the American people are too serious,” White House spokesman Ian Sams has said.
The impeachment push comes as Trump, who was twice impeached by the House but acquitted by the Senate, faces more serious charges in court. Trump has been indicted four times this year, including for trying to overturn the 2020 election Biden won.
"This is a transparent effort to boost Donald Trump’s campaign by establishing a false moral equivalency between Trump — the four time-indicted former president" and Biden, who faces “zero evidence of wrongdoing whatsoever,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee.
House Republicans are probing the business dealings of Hunter Biden but so far have not produced hard evidence linking them and the president. They have shown a few instances largely during the time the elder Biden was Barack Obama's vice president when he spoke by phone with his son and stopped by dinners his son was hosting with business partners.
An impeachment inquiry would provide more heft to the House investigation, especially as it battles in court for access to Biden family financial records.
Republicans contend the Justice Department has not fully probed the allegations against Hunter Biden, and say he received preferential treatment in what they call a sweetheart plea deal that recently collapsed. The Department of Justice has appointed a special prosecutor in that probe.
"We will go wherever the evidence takes us,” McCarthy said.
The White House has insisted Biden was not involved in his son’s business dealings. And Democrats on the Oversight Committee are stepping up to fight against what they view as unfounded claims against him ahead of the 2024 election.
Rep. James Comer, the Republican chairman leading the Oversight Committee, is digging into the Biden family finances and is expected to seek banking records for Hunter Biden as the panel tries to follow the flow of money.
On Tuesday, Comer demanded the State Department produce documents about the work Biden did as vice president during the Obama administration to clean up corruption in Ukraine. Comer wants to understand the State Department's views of former Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin, whom Biden and many Western allies wanted removed from office because of allegations of corruption.
This comes as federal government funding is set to run out on Sept. 30, which is the end of the federal fiscal year, and Congress must pass new funding bills or risk a shutdown and the interruption of government services.
Conservatives who power McCarty's majority want to slash spending, and the hard right is unwilling to approve spending levels the speaker negotiated with Biden earlier this year.
McCarthy is trying to float a 30-day stopgap measure to keep government running to Nov. 1, but conservatives are balking at what's called a continuing resolution, or CR, as they pursue cuts.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., said late Monday exiting McCarthy's office she has “red lines" against any new money being spent for COVID-19 vaccines or mandates or Russia's war in Ukraine.
Another Republican, Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, a top Trump ally, is warning that McCarthy could face blowback from conservatives if he does not push hard for spending cuts.
At the start of the year, Gaetz and other Republicans secured agreements from McCarthy as he struggled to win their votes to become House speaker.
Under the House rules, McCarthy's opponents are able to call a vote at any time to try to oust the speaker from office.
Eileen Donahoe appointed US State Dept’s special envoy, coordinator for Digital Freedom
Eileen C Donahoe has been appointed as the US State Department’s special envoy and coordinator for Digital Freedom.
“I welcome the appointment of Dr Eileen Donahoe as the State Department’s special envoy and coordinator for Digital Freedom in the Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy,” said US Secretary of State Antony J Blinken on Monday.
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The president’s appointment of Dr Donahoe reinforces the importance of digital freedom and values-based technology governance work as Administration and Department priorities, he said, adding that as Special Envoy and Coordinator, Dr Donahoe will leverage her deep technical knowledge and foreign policy experience to advance US priorities around online freedoms, digital inclusion, and information integrity.
“Dr Donahoe has built a distinguished career promoting human rights and digital freedom both within and outside of government and is uniquely qualified to lead in this role. She joins us from the Global Digital Policy Incubator (GDPi) at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, where she served as the Executive Director,” said Blinken.
Also read: All countries including Bangladesh should have free and fair elections: US State Dept
Dr Donahoe previously served as the first US ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva.
She was also Director of Global Affairs at Human Rights Watch where she represented the organization worldwide on human rights foreign policy, with a special focus on Internet governance and digital security.
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“We are excited to welcome Dr. Donahue back to the State Department in this important leadership role,” Blinken said.
First lady Jill Biden tests positive for COVID-19, but President Biden's results negative so far
First lady Jill Biden tested positive for COVID-19 Monday but is experiencing only mild symptoms, her spokeswoman said.
President Joe Biden was tested for the virus following his wife's positive test, but his results were negative. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the president would continue testing regularly and would be monitored for symptoms.
Jill Biden will remain at the couple's home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, for the time being, communications director Elizabeth Alexander said. The first lady had planned to start the new school year Tuesday at Northern Virginia Community College, where she teaches English and writing.
Due to her condition, she was working with school officials to arrange substitute teachers for her classes, Alexander said.
The first lady had traveled with her husband to Florida on Saturday to inspect the damage from Hurricane Idalia. President Biden then spent part of the Labor Day weekend at the Delaware beach house before traveling Monday to a union event in Philadelphia and then back to the White House.
The Bidens both contracted COVID previously, last summer.
Election workers have gotten death threats and warnings they will be lynched, US government says
More than a dozen people nationally have been charged with threatening election workers by a Justice Department unit trying to stem the tide of violent and graphic threats against people who count and secure the vote.
Government employees are being bombarded with threats even in normally quiet periods between elections, secretaries of state and experts warn. Some point to former President Donald Trump and his allies repeatedly and falsely claiming the 2020 election was stolen and spreading conspiracy theories about election workers. Experts fear the 2024 election could be worse and want the federal government to do more to protect election workers.
The Justice Department created the Election Threats Task Force in 2021 led by its public integrity section, which investigates election crimes. John Keller, the unit's second in command, said in an interview with The Associated Press that the department hoped its prosecutions would deter others from threatening election workers.
Also read: All countries including Bangladesh should have free and fair elections: US State Dept
"This isn't going to be taken lightly. It's not going to be trivialized," he said. "Federal judges, the courts are taking misconduct seriously and the punishments are going to be commensurate with the seriousness of the conduct."
Two more men pleaded guilty Thursday to threatening election workers in Arizona and Georgia in separate cases. Attorney General Merrick Garland said the Justice Department would keep up the investigations, adding, "A functioning democracy requires that the public servants who administer our elections are able to do their jobs without fearing for their lives."
The unit has filed 14 cases and two have resulted in yearslong prison sentences, including a 2 1/2-year sentence Monday for Mark Rissi, an Iowa man charged with leaving a message threatening to "lynch" and "hang" an Arizona election official. He had been "inundated with misinformation" and now "feels horrible" about the messages he left, his lawyer Anthony Knowles said.
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A Texas man was given 3 1/2 years earlier this month after suggesting a "mass shooting of poll workers and election officials" last year, charges stated. In one message, the Justice Department said, the man wrote: "Someone needs to get these people AND their children. The children are the most important message to send." His lawyer did not return a message seeking comment.
One indictment unveiled in August was against a man accused of leaving an expletive-filled voicemail after the 2020 election for Tina Barton, a Republican who formerly was the clerk in Rochester Hills, Michigan, outside Detroit. According to the indictment, the person vowed that "a million plus patriots will surround you when you least expect it" and "we'll … kill you."
Barton said it was just one of many threats that left her feeling deeply anxious.
"I'm really hopeful the charges will send a strong message, and we won't find ourselves in the same position after the next election," she said.
Also read: US supports Bangladesh’s goal of holding a free, fair and peaceful election: State Dept
Normally, the periods between elections are quiet for the workers who run voting systems around the U.S. But for many, that's no longer true, said Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat who has pushed back against conspiracy theories surrounding elections.
"I anticipate it will get worse as we end this year and go into the presidential election next year," Griswold said.
Griswold said the threats come in "waves," usually following social media posts by prominent figures about false claims the 2020 election was stolen or blog posts on far-right websites. While the nation is more informed about the threats to election workers, she worries that there haven't been enough prosecutions and states haven't taken enough action to protect workers.
"Do we have the best tools to get through the next period of time? Absolutely not," Griswold said.
Election officials note that there have been thousands of threats nationwide yet relatively few prosecutions. They say they understand the high bar to actually prosecute a case but that more could be done.
Liz Howard, a former Virginia election official now at the Brennan Center for Justice's elections and government program, called on the Justice Department to hire a senior adviser with existing relationships with election officials to improve outreach.
About 1 in 5 election workers know someone who left their election job for safety reasons and 73% of local election officials said harassment has increased, according to a Brennan Center survey published in April.
The task force has reviewed more than 2,000 reports of threats and harassment across the country since its inception, though most of those cases haven't brought charges from prosecutors who point to the high legal bar set by the Supreme Court for criminal prosecution. Communication must be considered a "true threat," one that crosses a line to a serious intent to hurt someone, in order to be a potential crime rather than free speech, Keller said.
"We are not criminalizing or frankly discouraging free speech by actions that we're taking from a law enforcement perspective," he said.
The task force's work is unfolding at a time when Trump and other Republicans have accused the Biden administration of using the Justice Department to target political opponents, although the task force itself hasn't been targeted publicly by Republicans.
Many GOP leaders have sharply criticized the federal prosecutions of Trump and of rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and Trump himself faces a federal indictment in Washington, D.C., and a state indictment in Georgia over his efforts to overturn 2020 election results. He has denied wrongdoing and said he was acting within the law. A series of federal and state investigations and dozens of lawsuits have not uncovered any evidence the election was rigged.
Trump is the front-runner for the GOP nomination for president in 2024 and continues in his speeches and online posts to argue the 2020 election was rigged.
For many election workers, the threats have been a major driving factor to leave the job, hollowing out the ranks of experience ahead of 2024, said Dokhi Fassihian, the deputy chief of strategy and program at Issue One, a nonpartisan reform group representing election officials.
About 1 in 5 election officials in 2024 will have begun service after the 2020 election, the Brennan Center survey found.
"Many are deciding it's just not worth it to stay," Fassihian said.