As the COP29 climate summit enters the final stretch in Azerbaijan, there are growing frustrations over the apparent lack of progress toward securing a deal on climate finance – seen as a crucial step in reducing emissions and limiting global warming. Henry Ridgwell reports.
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Author: SeeEU
Lithuania steps up surveillance at sea following damage to undersea cable
VILNIUS, Lithuania — Lithuania’s Navy said on Tuesday it had increased monitoring of its waters after an undersea communications cable connecting the country with Sweden had been damaged.
An assessment is now being carried out along with allies, a spokesperson for the Lithuanian armed forces told Reuters.
The cable was one of two fiber-optic cables in the Baltic Sea which were severed in recent days, raising suspicions of sabotage by bad actors, countries and companies involved said on Monday.
A spokesperson for Arelion, the owner and operator of the communications cable, told Reuters on Tuesday that the link between Lithuania and Sweden was “fully out” but that the reason remained unclear.
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Arthur Frommer, travel guide innovator, has died at 95
NEW YORK — Arthur Frommer, whose “Europe on 5 Dollars a Day” guidebooks revolutionized leisure travel by convincing average Americans to take budget vacations abroad, has died. He was 95.
Frommer died from complications of pneumonia, his daughter Pauline Frommer said Monday.
“My father opened up the world to so many people,” she said. “He believed deeply that travel could be an enlightening activity and one that did not require a big budget.”
Frommer began writing about travel while serving in the U.S. Army in Europe in the 1950s. When a guidebook he wrote for American soldiers overseas sold out, he launched what became one of the travel industry’s best-known brands, self-publishing “Europe on 5 Dollars a Day” in 1957.
“It struck a chord and became an immediate best-seller,” he recalled in an interview with The Associated Press in 2007, on the 50th anniversary of the book’s debut.
The Frommer’s brand, led today by his daughter Pauline, remains one of the best-known names in the travel industry, with guidebooks to destinations around the world, an influential social media presence, podcasts and a radio show.
Frommer’s philosophy — stay in inns and budget hotels instead of five-star hotels, sightsee on your own using public transportation, eat with locals in small cafes instead of fancy restaurants — changed the way Americans traveled in the mid- to late 20th century. He said budget travel was preferable to luxury travel “because it leads to a more authentic experience.” That message encouraged average people, not just the wealthy, to vacation abroad.
It didn’t hurt that his books hit the market as the rise of jet travel made getting to Europe easier than crossing the Atlantic by ship. The books became so popular that there was a time when you couldn’t visit a place like the Eiffel Tower without spotting Frommer’s guidebooks in the hands of every other American tourist.
Frommer’s advice also became so standard that it’s hard to remember how radical it seemed in the days before discount flights and backpacks. “It was really pioneering stuff,” Tony Wheeler, founder of the Lonely Planet guidebook company, said in an interview in 2013. Before Frommer, Wheeler said, you could find guidebooks “that would tell you everything about the church or the temple ruin. But the idea that you wanted to eat somewhere and find a hotel or get from A to B — well, I’ve got a huge amount of respect for Arthur.”
“Arthur did for travel what Consumer Reports did for everything else,” said Pat Carrier, former owner of The Globe Corner, a travel bookstore in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The final editions of Frommer’s groundbreaking series were titled “Europe from $95 a Day.” The concept no longer made sense when hotels could not be had for less than $100 a night, so the series was discontinued in 2007. But the Frommer publishing empire did not disappear, despite a series of sales that started when Frommer sold the guidebook company to Simon & Schuster. It was later acquired by Wiley Publishing, which in turn sold it to Google in 2012. Google quietly shut the guidebooks down, but Arthur Frommer — in a David vs. Goliath triumph — got his brand back from Google. In November 2013 with his daughter Pauline, he relaunched the print series with dozens of new guidebook titles.
“I never dreamed at my age I’d be working this hard,” he told the AP at the time, age 84.
Frommer also remained a well-known figure in 21st century travel, opinionated to the end of his career, speaking out on his blog and radio show. He hated mega-cruise ships and railed against travel websites where consumers put up their own reviews, saying they were too easily manipulated with phony postings. And he coined the phrase “Trump Slump” in a widely quoted column that predicted a slump in tourism to the U.S. after Donald Trump was elected president.
Frommer was born in Lynchburg, Virginia, and grew up during the Great Depression in Jefferson City, Missouri, the child of a Polish father and Austrian mother. “My father had one job after another, one company after another that went bankrupt,” he recalled. The family moved to New York when he was a teenager. He worked as an office boy at Newsweek, went to New York University and was drafted upon graduating from Yale Law School in 1953. Because he spoke French and Russian, he was sent to work in Army intelligence at a U.S. base in Germany, where the Cold War was heating up.
His first glimpse of Europe was from the window of a military transport plane. Whenever he had a weekend leave or a three-day pass, he’d hop a train to Paris or hitch a ride to England on an Air Force flight. Eventually he wrote “The GI’s Guide to Traveling in Europe,” and a few weeks before his Army stint was up, he had 5,000 copies printed by a typesetter in a German village. They were priced at 50 cents apiece, distributed by the Army newspaper, Stars & Stripes.
Shortly after he returned to New York to practice law at the firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, he received a cable from Europe. “The book was sold out, would I arrange a reprint?” he said.
Soon after he spent his month’s vacation from the law firm doing a civilian version of the guide. “In 30 days I went to 15 different cities, getting up at 4 a.m., running up and down the streets, trying to find good cheap hotels and restaurants,” he recalled.
The resulting book, the very first “Europe on 5 Dollars a Day,” was much more than a list. It was written with a wide-eyed wonder that verged on poetry: “Venice is a fantastic dream,” Frommer wrote. “Try to arrive at night when the wonders of the city can steal upon you piecemeal and slow. … Out of the dark, there appear little clusters of candy-striped mooring poles; a gondola approaches with a lighted lantern hung from its prow.”
Eventually Frommer gave up law to write the guides full-time. Daughter Pauline joined him with his first wife, Hope Arthur, on their trips starting in 1965, when she was 4 months old. “They used to joke that the book should be called ‘Europe on Five Diapers a Day,'” Pauline Frommer said.
In the 1960s, when inflation forced Frommer to change the title of the book to “Europe on 5 and 10 Dollars a Day,” he said “it was as if someone had plunged a knife into my head.”
Asked to summarize the impact of his books in a 2017 Associated Press interview, he said that in the 1950s, “most Americans had been taught that foreign travel was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, especially travel to Europe. They were taught that they were going to a war-torn country where it was risky to stay in any hotel other than a five-star hotel. It was risky to go into anything but a top-notch restaurant. … And I knew that all these warnings were a lot of nonsense.”
He added: “We were pioneers in also suggesting that a different type of American should travel, that you didn’t have to be well-heeled.”
To the end of his life, he said he avoided traveling first class. “I fly economy class and I try to experience the same form of travel, the same experience that the average American and the average citizen of the world encounters,” he said.
As Frommer aged, his daughter Pauline gradually became the force behind the company, promoting the brand, managing the business and even writing some of the content based on her own travels. Her relationship with her father was both tender and respectful, and she summed it up this way in a 2012 email to AP: “It’s wonderful to have a working partner whose mind is a steel trap, and who doesn’t just have smarts, but wisdom. His opinions, whether or not you agree with them, come from his social values. He’s a man who puts ethics at the center of his life, and weaves them into everything he does.”
In addition to Pauline, Frommer’s survivors include his second wife, Roberta Brodfeld, and four grandchildren.
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Russia vetoes UN cease-fire resolution for Sudan
Russia vetoed a United Nation resolution Monday calling for an immediate cease-fire between Sudan’s warring parties and the delivery of humanitarian aid to millions of Sudanese.
Russia was the only Security Council member that voted against the cease-fire resolution.
China, Russia’s ally, supported the resolution, drafted by the United Kingdom and Sierra Leone.
Russian Deputy U.N. Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy told the council that Moscow vetoed the resolution because Sudan’s government should be “solely” responsible for what happens in Sudan.
U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said, “It is shocking that Russia has vetoed an effort to save lives, though perhaps it shouldn’t be.”
She added, “For months, Russia has obstructed and obfuscated, standing in the way of council action to address the catastrophic situation in Sudan and playing … both sides of the conflict, to advance its own political objectives at the expense of Sudanese lives.”
British Foreign Minister David Lammy said, “One country stood in the way of the council speaking with one voice. One country is the blocker. One country is the enemy of peace. This Russian veto is a disgrace, and it shows to the world yet again, Russia’s true colors.”
Polyanskiy accused the Security Council of operating under a double standard, pointing to the council’s failure to rein in Israel with what he said are violations of humanitarian law in Gaza.
War broke out between Sudan’s military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in April 2023, in the capital, Khartoum, just before the country was set to transition to civilian rule. The violence has spread to other regions around the country.
Eleven million people in Sudan have been displaced and half of the country’s population, an estimated 25 million people, are struggling with crisis-level food insecurity, according to the United Nations. Famine was confirmed in August in the northern part of Sudan’s Darfur region.
Some information in this report came from the Associated Press and Reuters.
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Greece to repay chunk of bailout debt early
Athens, Greece — Greece will make an early repayment of 5 billion euros ($5.3 billion) in bailout-era debt in 2025, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told a banking conference in Athens on Monday, describing the move as a signal of the country’s fiscal recovery.
“This … underscores our confidence in public finances and reflects our commitment to fiscal discipline,” Mitsotakis said.
Finance Ministry officials say they plan to reduce debt through primary surpluses, loan repayments and combating tax evasion.
Greece has rebounded from a 10-year financial crisis that forced it to borrow tens of billions of euros from its European Union partners and the International Monetary Fund.
But Mitsotakis’ center-right government, elected for a second term in 2023, is struggling to address a cost of living crisis that has sapped Greeks’ spending power. Despite the lack of any substantial challenge from opposition parties, the high cost of living has nibbled away at the government’s approval ratings and triggered union anger.
The country’s two main private and public sector unions have called a general strike for Wednesday that will keep island ferries in port and disrupt other forms of transport and public services.
A protest march will be held in central Athens on Wednesday morning.
The GSEE main private sector union Monday accused the government of “refusing to take any meaningful measures that would secure workers dignified living conditions.”
“The cost of living is sky-high and our salaries rock-bottom, (while) high housing costs have left young people in a tragic position,” GSEE chairman Yiannis Panagopoulos said.
According to EU forecasts, Greece’s economy is expected to grow 2.1% in 2024 and maintain a broadly similar course over the following two years.
Unemployment, now below 10%, is expected to keep declining, while inflation is projected at 3% this year.
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Protesters in Georgia’s capital set up tent camp, demand new elections
tbilisi, georgia — Demonstrators in Georgia’s capital have set up tents on a central thoroughfare and vowed Monday to stay around the clock to demand new parliamentary elections in the country.
The October 26 election kept the governing Georgian Dream party in power, but opponents say the vote was rigged with Russia’s assistance. Many Georgians viewed the election as a referendum on the country’s effort to join the European Union. Several large protests have been held since then.
President Salome Zourabichvili, who has rejected the official results, declared on Monday that she would appeal the vote results to the Constitutional Court. Zourabichvili, who holds a mostly ceremonial position, has said Georgia has fallen victim to pressure from Moscow against joining the EU.
Critics have accused Georgian Dream, established by Bidzina Ivanishvili, a shadowy billionaire who made his fortune in Russia, of becoming increasingly authoritarian and tilted toward Moscow. The party recently pushed through laws similar to those used by the Kremlin to crack down on freedom of speech and LGBTQ+ rights.
On Sunday, demonstrators closed an avenue leading into the center of Tbilisi. Nika Melia, leader of Coalition for Change, one of the opposition groups, voiced hope that the protests around the clock will mark “the beginning of the intense, strong protest movement that will finish with the fall of Ivanishvili’s regime.”
The EU suspended Georgia’s membership application process indefinitely in June after the country’s parliament passed a law requiring organizations that receive more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as “pursuing the interest of a foreign power,” similar to a Russian law used to discredit organizations critical of the government.
The Central Election Commission said Georgian Dream won about 54% of the vote in October. Its leaders have rejected opposition claims of vote fraud. European election observers said the election took place in a “divisive” atmosphere marked by instances of bribery, double voting and physical violence.
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Russian opposition activists speak freely against Putin, but in Germany
Russian opposition members in exile took to the streets of Berlin Sunday to demand a pullout of Russian troops from Ukraine and the resignation of President Vladimir Putin in a protest that would have been impossible in Russia due to police and judicial pressure on opposition movements. Elizabeth Cherneff narrates this report from Ricardo Marquina in Berlin.
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Los Angeles Holocaust Museum installs freight car that transported Jews to camps
The Holocaust Museum LA recently installed a new exhibit on its roof: a German-made freight car that was used to deport Jews across Nazi-occupied Europe to the Majdanek concentration camp near Lublin, Poland. From Los Angeles, Angelina Bagdasaryan has the story, narrated by Anna Rice.
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UK sanctions Iran Air and IRISL over military transfers to Russia
London — Britain on Monday imposed sanctions against Iran’s national airline and shipping carrier, measures it said were taken in response to Iran’s transfer of ballistic missiles to Russia.
The state-owned Iran Air and Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL) will face an asset freeze for their role in supplying weapons to Russia for use on the battlefield against Ukraine, Britain said.
“Iran’s attempts to undermine global security are dangerous and unacceptable,” British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said. “We reiterate our call on Iran to cease its support for Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine.”
The sanctions will further restrict Iran Air’s direct commercial air services to and from the U.K.
Britain also sanctioned the Russian cargo ship PORT OLYA-3 for its role in transporting military supplies to Russia, it said.
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Russian attack kills 11, injures 89
A Russian attack on Ukraine’s northeast city of Sumy killed 11 people and injured at least 89, Ukrainian officials said.
“Sunday evening for the city of Sumy became hell, a tragedy that Russia brought to our land,” military administrator Volodymyr Artyukh said in a post on the Telegram messaging channel.
Sumy regional prosecutors said the attack damaged 90 apartments, 28 cars, two educational institutions and 13 buildings.
The attack followed a massive Russian bombardment of Ukraine’s power infrastructure earlier in the day, as well as news reports that the United States granted clearance for Ukraine to use long-range U.S. weapons to hit military targets in Russia.
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the country and its allies should focus on “really forcing Russia to end the war.”
“Today marked one of the largest and most dangerous Russian attacks in the entire war – 210 drones and missiles launched simultaneously – including hypersonic and aeroballistic ones,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly address.
Zelenskyy has long been lobbying for permission to use the Army Tactical Missile System, known by its initials ATACMS, to hit targets inside Russia. He said in his address that negotiating with Russian President Vladimir Putin is not an effective strategy to end the war.
“This is the answer to all those who wanted to achieve something with Putin through conversations, phone calls, hugs – appeasement. Today, this ‘dove of peace’ sent us yet another barrage of ‘Kinzhal’ and ‘Kalibr’ missiles. That’s his diplomacy. His language is treachery,” Zelenskyy said.
Long-range capabilities
President Joe Biden authorized Ukraine to use U.S.-supplied missiles to strike deeper inside Russia, easing limitations on the longer range weapons as Russia deploys up to 12,000 North Korean troops to reinforce its war, according to a U.S. official and three other people familiar with the matter, the Associated Press reported.
In recent weeks, Putin has positioned troops – including those from North Korea – along the northern border of Ukraine in a push to regain territory.
Biden had been opposed to any escalation of the war in Ukraine, and Putin has said Moscow could provide long-range weapons for others to hit Western targets if NATO allies allow Ukraine to use their arms to attack Russian territory.
But Zelenskyy has argued that the restriction on long-range weapons has hampered Ukraine’s defense against Russian attacks. Long-range capabilities, he said, are a key component of Ukraine’s victory plan.
“Today, there’s a lot of talk in the media about us receiving permission for respective actions. But strikes are not carried out with words. Such things are not announced. Missiles will speak for themselves,” Zelensky said. “They certainly will.”
Russia downs 59 drones
Meanwhile, Russia shot down 59 Ukranian drones overnight, according to the Russian defense ministry.
“During the past night, attempts by the Kyiv regime to carry out terrorist UAV attacks against targets on the territory of the Russian Federation were thwarted,” the ministry said in a statement.
The ministry said most of the drones were shot down across three regions bordering Ukraine: 45 in Bryansk, six in Kursk and three in Belgorod, Agence France-Presse reported.
Three drones were intercepted in the region of Tula, south of the capital, while two others were downed over the Moscow region.
Ukraine’s air force said on Monday that it shot down eight out of 11 Russian drones during an overnight attack.
Information from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Press was used in this report.
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UK to put Sudan resolution to vote by UN Security Council
LONDON — Britain will seek backing from other United Nations Security Council members on Monday for its demand that Sudan’s warring parties stop hostilities and allow deliveries of aid, the British foreign ministry said.
With London holding the rotating presidency of the council, British foreign minister David Lammy is due to chair a vote on a UK/Sierra Leone-proposed draft resolution, which also calls for the protection of civilians.
Lammy will say “the UK will never let Sudan be forgotten” and announce a doubling of Britain’s aid to $285 million, according to a statement from his ministry.
A power struggle between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces broke out in April 2023 ahead of a planned transition to civilian rule, killing thousands and triggering the world’s largest displacement crisis.
The ministry said Lammy would also criticize restrictions by Israel on humanitarian aid in Gaza and call for an immediate ceasefire along with the release of all hostages.
On the war in Ukraine, he was due to say that Britain “will keep standing with Ukraine until reality dawns in Moscow.” He was due to speak to media with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha.
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Latvian company to send drones to Ukraine
The Baltic states have committed to continue providing financial and material support to Ukraine’s fight against Russia in 2025. Part of that support is coming from the Latvian-led Drone Coalition. Vladislav Andrejevs has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. Video editing by Sergii Dogotar.
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Protesters in separatist Georgian region occupy government buildings, call for leader’s ouster
Tbilisi, Georgia — Opposition protesters in Georgia’s breakaway province of Abkhazia on Sunday refused to cede control of key government buildings seized during rallies earlier in the week during which at least 14 people were injured in clashes with police.
Demonstrators stormed the buildings Friday to protest new measures allowing Russians to buy property in the seaside region.
Protesters on Sunday continued to demand the ouster of self-styled Abkhazian President Aslan Bzhania, and one prominent politician vowed that the opposition would form a rival government if he refuses to step down.
“If our demands for the president’s resignation are not met, we will have to form a temporary government to ensure the normal functioning of state bodies,” Temur Gulia told his supporters, according to local agencies.
Bzhania, who is backed by Russia, signaled Sunday that he was prepared to step aside temporarily and hold early elections, even as he continued to slam the demonstrations as “an attempted coup d’etat.”
Opponents of the property agreement say it will drive up prices of apartments and boost Moscow’s dominance in the region.
On Saturday, Bzhania announced that he would only agree to a snap election if demonstrators vacated the region’s parliament building. But crowds that gathered in the Abkhazian capital, Sukhumi, rejected the deal and opposition leaders said they would only accept Bzhania’s unconditional resignation.
Meanwhile, protesters on Sunday began dismantling the security barriers around the government complex in Sukhumi.
One prominent opposition figure called the metal barriers a symbol of the authorities being out of touch.
“This barrier shows that the government has decided to fence itself off from its people,” Adgur Ardzinba said, according to local media.
Most of Abkhazia broke away from Georgia in fighting that ended in 1993, and Georgia lost control of the rest of the territory in the short war with Russia in 2008. Russia recognizes Abkhazia as an independent country, but many Abkhazians are concerned that the region of about 245,000 people is a client state of Moscow.
Abkhazia’s mountains and Black Sea beaches make it a popular destination for Russian tourists and the demand for holiday homes could be strong.
At least 14 people were injured Friday when opposition protesters clashed with police, Russian state agencies reported.
Lawmakers had gathered at the region’s parliament building to discuss ratifying measures allowing Russian citizens to buy property in the breakaway state. However, the session was postponed as demonstrators broke down the gate to the building’s grounds with a truck and streamed inside. Some threw rocks at police, who responded with tear gas.
The arrest of five opposition figures at a similar demonstration Monday set off widespread protests the next day in which bridges leading to Sukhumi were blocked.
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New global carbon trade rules adopted at UN climate summit expand inclusion, draw ire
Baku, Azerbaiijan — A new set of global carbon credit trade market standards has been agreed to during the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, or COP29, following years of deadlock. Some analysts say that under the guidelines, a bigger number of entities could join a more regulated voluntary carbon credit trading system to reduce emissions.
Known as Article 6.4, delegates agreed on the rules for establishing a system that allows trade in carbon credit between individual countries and companies, under the supervision of a centralized U.N. body. These include how to validate, verify and issue credits.
Another option, known as Article 6.2, allows countries to set their own terms to trade carbon credits bilaterally. Countries weren’t able to agree on the standards for either option before COP29.
Under the Paris Agreement to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels by the end of the century, countries have committed to green goals, including slashing carbon emissions.
The new deal could “reduce the cost of implementing national climate plans by $250 billion per year by enabling cooperation across borders,” the COP29 presidency said in a statement, which hailed the outcome as a “game-changing tool to direct resources to the developing world.”
Controversial move
The agreement is more a recognition from countries of the new rules, but negotiations are still ongoing and details are still being worked out so they are not fixed, according to Je-liang Liou, researcher at the Chung-Hua Institute for Economic Research in Taiwan.
“In the previous COP, the supervisory body usually drafted a bill for countries to discuss and decide if they approve it or not. But this year, the body of Article 6.4 approved their own draft before COP29 started so it became more of a situation for countries to give their votes,” Liou explained to VOA.
The hasty process drew ire from some countries’ negotiators, including Tuvalu’s. It said that “adopting decisions without prior consultations by the governing bodies does not reflect the Paris Agreement’s party-driven process,” according to the International Institute for Sustainable Development.
Some climate advocates also said the agreement isn’t a success, as regulations have been an issue for voluntary carbon credit trading in the past.
“We should be very concerned in the Global South, especially if we don’t have sufficient safeguards in place to protect against the possibility of land grabs, human rights abuses, threats to subsistence and forest-based livelihoods, gender and indigenous interests,” Tara Nair van Ryneveld, climate policy coordinator at the Southern African Faith Communities’ Environment Institute, or SAFCEI, told VOA News.
She cautioned against carbon credit trading as part of “false solutions” that distract from work to be done on phasing out fossil fuels.
Last year, Human Rights Watch found that the carbon offsetting projects that Cambodia’s government agreed to, the Southern Cardamom REDD+ Project, violated the rights of the indigenous Chong people. Authorities reportedly made decisions on incorporating villages into a national park two years before consulting the community.
Rights abuses aside, amid the prospect of companies joining in for carbon trading, voluntary carbon offsetting projects from companies were revealed to be ineffective in serving their purpose, according to a 2023 investigation from The Guardian newspaper and trade watchdog Corporate Accountability.
Nearly four in five of the top carbon offset projects are considered “worthless” as they can’t guarantee cutting greenhouse gases, the report found.
Despite the criticisms, Article 6.4 can be a “push toward stronger regulation and accountability” and bolster transparency in climate finance, according to Luca Taschini, director of the Centre for Business, Climate Change and Sustainability at the University of Edinburgh.
Expanded inclusion
For non-U.N. member regions like Taiwan that have long been excluded from discussions and the country-to-country trading system, the expanded system under Article 6.4 can be positive news, Liou said. This allows companies to invest in projects, potentially allowing its participation, he added.
“Taiwan isn’t eligible for bilateral carbon credit trading because it’s not a U.N. member party, so it wasn’t able to join in directly to purchase credits from developing countries and fulfill our climate commitment, but Article 6.4, compared to Article 6.2, allows Taiwan a higher chance to trade carbon credits internationally,” he elaborated.
Liou said the expanded carbon credit system – if set up and starts next year – can boost governments’ climate ambitions, amid nations’ looming submission deadline for a new climate plan by February 2025.
Self-ruled Taiwan imports almost all of its energy from other countries. Under its climate goal to source 15 percent of its power from renewables by 2025 and reaching net-zero in 2050, slashing emissions in the medium term can be challenging and carbon trade can be beneficial for the island, according to Liou.
Taschini said that Article 6 allows countries to invest in actions beyond their borders and raise global ambition.
“This is because, even if all NDCs [national determined contributions] are met, we will still fall short of our climate goals,” he explained.
The year’s largest climate conference is set to end November 22.
Some information for this article came from Reuters.
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Russia launches massive airstrike campaign in Ukraine
Russia launched a massive airstrike campaign against neighboring Ukraine on Sunday. Local officials say several people died and the power system suffered “severe damage.” VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more.
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Putin critics lead march in Berlin calling for democracy in Russia and end to war in Ukraine
Berlin — Prominent Russian opposition figures led a march of at least 1,000 people in central Berlin Sunday, criticizing Russian President Vladimir Putin and his war in Ukraine and calling for democracy in Russia.
Behind a banner that read “No Putin. No War,” the protesters were led by Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of top Putin critic Alexei Navalny, as well as Ilya Yashin and Vladimir Kara-Murza, who were freed from Russian detention in a high-profile prisoner exchange this summer.
Shouting “Russia without Putin” and other chants in Russian, the demonstrators held up signs with a wide array of messages on a red background, including “Putin = War” and “Putin is a murderer” in German.
Some marched with the flags of Russia or Ukraine, as well as a white-blue-white flag used by some Russian opposition groups.
Organizers said the march began near Potsdamer Platz and went through the Brandenburg Gate and Checkpoint Charlie and was expected to end outside the Russian Embassy.
“The march demands the immediate withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine, the trial of Vladimir Putin as a war criminal, and the release of all political prisoners in Russia,” the protesters said in a statement.
Yashin, in a statement before the demonstration, said demonstrators were “using the freedom we have here in Berlin to show the world: A peaceful, free, and civilized Russia exists.”
Navalnaya, Yashin and Kara-Murza have all billed Sunday’s rally as a show of unity at a time when recent rounds of acrimony have roiled the anti-war camp.
Russia’s exiled anti-war opposition has so far largely failed to speak with one voice and present a clear plan of action.
The landmark East-West prisoner swap in August freed key dissidents and promised to reinvigorate a movement unmoored by the death in prison of Navalny, a charismatic anti-corruption campaigner and arch-Kremlin foe.
Instead, tensions have spiked in recent months, as Navalny’s allies and other prominent dissidents swapped accusations that appeared to dash any hopes of a united anti-Kremlin front.
Many opposition-minded Russians have voiced deep frustration with the infighting, and with what some view as efforts by rivaling groups to discredit and wrest influence from one another.
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Pope Francis calls for investigation to determine if Israel’s attacks in Gaza constitute ‘genocide’
Rome — Pope Francis has called for an investigation to determine if Israel’s attacks in Gaza constitute genocide, according to excerpts released Sunday from an upcoming new book ahead of the pontiff’s jubilee year.
It’s the first time that Francis has openly urged for an investigation of genocide allegations over Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip. In September, he said Israel’s attacks in Gaza and Lebanon have been “immoral” and disproportionate, and that its military has gone beyond the rules of war.
The book, by Hernán Reyes Alcaide and based on interviews with the Pope, is entitled “Hope never disappoints. Pilgrims towards a better world.” It will be released on Tuesday ahead of the pope’s 2025 jubilee. Francis’ yearlong jubilee is expected to bring more than 30 million pilgrims to Rome to celebrate the Holy Year.
“According to some experts, what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of a genocide,” the pope said in excerpts published Sunday by the Italian daily La Stampa.
“We should investigate carefully to determine whether it fits into the technical definition formulated by jurists and international bodies,” he added.
Last year, Francis met separately with relatives of Israeli hostages in Gaza and Palestinians living through the war and set off a firestorm by using words that Vatican diplomats usually avoid: “terrorism” and, according to the Palestinians, “genocide.”
Francis spoke at the time about the suffering of both Israelis and Palestinians after his meetings, which were arranged before the Israeli-Hamas hostage deal and a temporary halt in fighting was announced.
The pontiff, who last week also met with a delegation of Israeli hostages who were released and their families pressing the campaign to bring the remaining captives home had editorial control over the upcoming book.
The war started when the militant Hamas group attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and abducting 250 as hostages and taking them back to Gaza, where dozens still remain.
Israel’s subsequent yearlong military campaign has killed more than 43,000 people, according to Gaza health officials, whose count doesn’t distinguish between civilians and fighters, though they say more than half of the dead are women and children.
The Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza has triggered several legal cases at international courts in The Hague involving requests for arrest warrants as well as accusations and denials of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.
In the new book, Francis also speaks about migration and the problem of integrating migrants in their host countries.
“Faced with this challenge, no country can be left alone and no one can think of addressing the issue in isolation through more restrictive and repressive laws, sometimes approved under the pressure of fear or in search of electoral advantages,” Francis said.
“On the contrary, just as we see that there is a globalization of indifference, we must respond with the globalization of charity and cooperation,” he added. Francis also mentioned the “still open wound of the war in Ukraine has led thousands of people to abandon their homes, especially during the first months of the conflict.”
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Norway’s Kon-Tiki Museum returns artifacts to Chile’s remote Easter Island
COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Artifacts and human remains taken by a Norwegian explorer and anthropologist in the late 1940s are being returned by a museum in Oslo to Chile’s remote territory of Easter Island in the mid-Pacific, the Kon-Tiki Museum said Wednesday.
In 1947, explorer Thor Heyerdahl sailed on a log raft named Kon-Tiki from Peru to Polynesia in 101 days to prove his theory — that the South Sea Islands were settled by seafarers from South America.
He brought 5,600 objects back from Easter Island, also known as Rapa Nui. This is the third time objects taken by him are being returned.
Many have been stored and displayed at the Kon-Tiki Museum in Oslo, Norway’s capital, and some were given back in 1986 and others 2006. The return has been a collaboration between the museum, Chile and Rapa Nui’s local authorities.
“My grandfather would have been proud of what we are about to achieve,” said Liv Heyerdahl, head of the museum and the explorer’s granddaughter.
She told the Norwegian news agency NTB that the objects were brought to Norway “with a promise that they would one day be returned.”
Among those that are being returned this time around are human remains called Ivi Tepuna and sculpted stones.
A nine-person delegation had traveled to Norway this week to collect the items. Four of them spent the night at the Oslo museum, alongside the remains as part of a ritual ceremony to take back the spirits of the remains.
“First one must awaken the spirits, and then speak to them in our original language. Food is then prepared to eat a meal with them, where the smell of the food goes to the spirits,” a member of the delegation, Laura Tarita Rapu Alarcón, told NTB.
“It is important that those who own the culture are involved in the process,” Liv Heyerdahl was quoted as saying by NTB. “Of course these remains should be returned, and it feels right because they belong to the Rapa Nui.”
In 2019, an agreement was signed in Santiago, Chile, during a visit by Norway’s King Harald. However, the COVID-19 pandemic stopped all activities in 2020, the museum said. Harald met with the Rapa Nui delegation on Tuesday.
A book about Thor Heyerdahl’s voyage — he died in 2002 at the age of 87 — has become an international bestseller, and his film of the journey won an Academy Award for best documentary in 1951.
Rapa Nui is best known for the hundreds of moai — monolithic human figures carved centuries ago by this remote Pacific island’s Rapanui people.
Covering about 164 square kilometers and home to about 7,700 people, half of them with Rapa Nui ancestry, Easter Island was formed at least 750,000 years ago by volcanic eruptions and is one of the world’s most isolated inhabited islands.
Located 3,700 kilometers from South America, Rapa Nui was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995. In 2019, it was officially renamed “Rapa Nui-Easter Island” from its previous name of just Easter Island.
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Russia launches one of its fiercest missile and drone attacks at Ukraine’s infrastructure
KYIV, Ukraine — Russia on Sunday launched a massive drone and missile attack on Ukraine, described by officials as the largest over the past months, targeting energy infrastructure and killing civilians.
The attack came as fears are mounting about Moscow’s intentions to devastate Ukraine’s power generation capacity ahead of the cold winter.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Russia had launched a total of 120 missiles and 90 drones in a large-scale attack across Ukraine. Various types of drones were deployed, he said, including Iranian-made Shaheds as well as cruise, ballistic and aircraft-launched ballistic missiles.
Ukrainian defenses shot down 140 air targets, Zelenskyy said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app.
“The enemy’s target was our energy infrastructure throughout Ukraine. Unfortunately, there is damage to objects from hits and falling debris. In Mykolaiv, as a result of a drone attack, two people were killed and six others were injured, including two children,” Zelenskyy said.
Two others were killed in the Odesa region, where the attack damaged energy infrastructure and disrupted power and water supplies, said local Gov. Oleh Kiper.
The combined drone and missile attack was the most powerful in three months, according to the head of Kyiv’s City Military Administration Serhii Popko.
Russian strikes have hammered Ukraine’s power infrastructure since Moscow’s all-out invasion of its neighbor in February 2022, prompting repeated emergency power shutdowns and nationwide rolling blackouts. Ukrainian officials have routinely urged Western allies to bolster the country’s air defenses to counter assaults and allow for repairs.
Explosions were heard across Ukraine on Sunday, including in capital, Kyiv, the key southern port of Odesa, as well as the country’s west and central regions, according to local reports.
The operational command of Poland’s armed forces wrote on X that Polish and allied aircraft, including fighter jets, have been mobilized in Polish airspace because of the “massive” Russian attack on neighboring Ukraine. The steps were aimed to provide safety in Poland’s border areas, it said.
One person was injured after the roof of a five-story residential building caught fire in Kyiv’s historic center, according to Popko.
A thermal power plant operated by private energy company DTEK was “seriously damaged,” the company said.
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Josep Borrell wraps up tumultuous time as EU’s top diplomat
Brussels — Josep Borrell took a deep breath as the train rumbled across Ukraine at the end of his final visit after five tumultuous years as the EU’s foreign policy chief.
“I feel a certain nostalgia,” the 77-year-old Spaniard said, hunching forward to be heard over the noise of the tracks.
“We’ve been working closely with these people, who are great people, who are fighting for their survival,” he said. “And who knows what’s going to happen with them?”
The job of EU top diplomat has often been seen as thankless — trying to coordinate the sometimes radically opposed positions of 27 countries, each jealously guarding their own foreign policy.
But Borrell’s tenure, wrapping up next month, has thrust him into the center of some of the most consequential events in recent world history.
He has helped steer the bloc’s response to the COVID pandemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and war in the Middle East.
Ukraine war
It was Moscow’s all-out assault in February 2022 that upended European security and came to dominate his time at the helm.
Borrell, a Socialist former Spanish foreign minister with more than 40 years of political experience, immediately pushed for the EU to pay for weapons deliveries to a country at war, a longstanding red line for the bloc.
“This was a breakthrough in the way we behaved.”
Since then, the EU has spent billions more on arming Ukraine and Russia has been hit by repeated rounds of unprecedented sanctions despite regular obstacles from reluctant EU states such as Hungary.
While the Ukraine crisis has revealed the EU’s willingness to act, the war in Gaza by contrast has been the most painful episode for Borrell.
Since Israel unleashed its devastating offensive after the October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas, the EU has had no influence to curb the suffering, with its member states deeply divided over the conflict.
He said the refusal by member states supportive of Israel to do more has damaged the EU on the global stage.
“My biggest frustration is not being able to make it understood that a violation of international law is a violation of international law, whoever does it,” Borrell said.
‘Break taboos’
The EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs is constrained by how far member states are willing to go, and a simple statement can take days of wrangling.
Borrell has frequently angered EU capitals by going beyond their agreed positions.
“One has to break taboos,” he said. “Agreed language most of the time says nothing. We agree on saying nothing.”
Critics, and there are plenty in sharp-elbowed Brussels, say Borrell has not helped his case, with numerous gaffes and some tactical missteps.
A low point of his tenure was a disastrous trip to Moscow in early 2021 when he was caught in a diplomatic ambush and failed to push back against Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov.
But as Moscow’s assault on Ukraine played out, he proved a fast learner, said Gabrielius Landsbergis, foreign minister of Lithuania, one of the Baltic states wary of nearby Russia.
“We witnessed a transformation from Russia-threat agnostic into Russia hawk — who could very well come from the Baltics,” he told AFP.
‘All things pass’
On Borrell’s final trip to Ukraine, he held talks with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, visited a drone factory, and headed to a defensive position near Russia’s border.
“It generates a lot of adrenaline,” he said, to explain how he has kept up with the pace.
Despite the weight on his shoulders, he said there have been moments of joy.
He pointed to the warm welcome he received on his final Ukraine visit, appreciation from some Palestinians and being able to help repatriate hundreds of thousands of Europeans during the pandemic.
As he leaves the stage, the global situation looks perilous, with a new U.S. administration heralding challenges for Europe, Russia advancing in Ukraine and war raging in the Middle East.
Borrell is to be replaced in the job by former Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, 47, who is expected to bring a more tightly controlled style.
“She will perform very well, and she will be very happy, and she will suffer less than me,” he said. “I wish her the best.”
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Russia’s Gazprom stops flow of natural gas to Austria, utility says
VIENNA — Russia’s state-owned natural gas company Gazprom stopped supplies to Austria early Saturday, according to the Vienna-based utility OMV, after OMV said it would stop payments for the gas following an arbitration award.
The official cutoff of supplies before dawn Saturday came after Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer on Friday held a hastily called news conference to emphasize that his country has a secure supply of alternative fuel for this winter.
OMV said it would stop paying for Gazprom gas to its Austrian arm to offset a $242 million arbitration award it won from the International Chamber of Commerce over an earlier cutoff of gas to its German subsidiary.
The Austrian utility said in an email that no gas delivery was made from 6 a.m. on Saturday.
OMV said Wednesday it has sufficient stocks to provide gas to its customers in case of a potential disruption by Gazprom and said storage in Austria was more than 90% full.
“Once again Putin is using energy as a weapon,” EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wrote in a post on social media platform X. “He is trying to blackmail Austria & Europe by cutting gas supplies. We are prepared for this and ready for the winter.”
Russia cut off most natural gas supplies to Europe in 2022, citing disputes over payment in rubles, a move European leaders described as energy blackmail over their support for Ukraine against Russia’s invasion.
European governments had to scramble to line up alternative supplies at higher prices, much of it liquefied natural gas brought by ship from the United States and Qatar.
Austria gets the bulk of its natural gas from Russia, as much as 98% in December last year, according to Energy Minister Lenore Gewessler.
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Protesters in Georgia’s separatist region refuse to give up government buildings
TBILISI, GEORGIA — Opposition protesters in Georgia’s breakaway province of Abkhazia have refused to cede control of key government buildings that demonstrators stormed to protest new measures allowing Russians to buy property in the area.
Abkhazian President Aslan Bzhania announced Saturday that he would step down and hold early elections if demonstrators vacated the region’s parliament building. But crowds that gathered in the Abkhazian capital, Sukhumi, rejected the deal, and opposition leaders said they would accept only Bzhania’s unconditional resignation.
“None of us have come here for the sake of seats [in parliament],” former Abkhazian Prime Minister Valery Bganba told the crowd in a video livestreamed on social media. “We came here to save our people, our country.”
At least 14 people were injured Friday when opposition protesters clashed with police, Russian state news outlet RIA Novosti reported.
Lawmakers had gathered at the region’s parliament building to discuss ratifying measures allowing Russian citizens to buy property in the breakaway state. However, the session was postponed because demonstrators broke through the gate to the building’s grounds with a truck and streamed inside. Some threw rocks at police, who responded with tear gas.
Most of Abkhazia broke away from Georgia in fighting that ended in 1993, and Georgia lost control of the rest of the territory in a short war with Russia in 2008. Russia recognizes Abkhazia as an independent country, but many Abkhazians are concerned that the region of about 245,000 people is a client state of Moscow.
Opponents of the property agreement say it will drive up prices of apartments and boost Moscow’s dominance in the region. Abkhazia’s mountains and Black Sea beaches make it a popular destination for Russian tourists, and the demand for holiday homes could be strong.
The arrest of five opposition figures at a similar demonstration Monday set off wide protests the next day in which bridges leading to Sukhumi were blocked.
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Protesters gather at UN climate talks in ‘global day of action’
BAKU, AZERBAIJAN — Hundreds of activists formed a human chain outside one of the main plenary halls at the United Nations climate summit on what is traditionally their biggest protest day during the two-week talks.
The demonstration in Baku, Azerbaijan, will be echoed at sites around the world in a global “day of action” for climate justice that’s become an annual event.
Activists waved flags, snapped their fingers, hummed and mumbled chants, with many covering their mouths with the word “Silenced.”
Demonstrators held up signs calling for more money to be pledged for climate finance, which involves cash for transitioning to clean energy and adapting to climate change. It comes as negotiators at the venue try to hammer out a deal for exactly that — but progress has been slow, and observers say the direction of any agreement is still unclear.
‘Keep fighting’
Lidy Nacpil said protestors like her are “not surprised” about how negotiations are going. But past wins — such as a loss and damage fund that gives developing nations cash after extreme weather events exacerbated by climate change — keep organizers going, said Nacpil, a coordinator with the Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development.
“The role we play is to increase the pressure,” she said of the action. “We know we’re not going to get the results that the world needs in this round of negotiations, but at least to bring us many steps closer is our hope, is our aim.
“I think we have no option but to keep fighting. … It’s the instinctive response that anyone, any living being, living creatures will have, which is to fight for life and fight for survival.”
Tasneem Essop said she was inspired by the action, which was challenging to organize. “To be able to pull off something where people feel their own power, exercise their own power and get inspired in this creative way, I’m super excited about this,” she said.
Essop said she’s “not very” optimistic about an outcome on finance but knows next week will be pivotal. “We can’t end up with a bad deal for the peoples of the world, those who are already suffering the impacts of climate change, those who need to adapt to an increasing and escalating crisis,” she said.
“We fight until the end.”
Climate cash
Negotiators at COP29, as the talks are known, are working on a deal that might be worth hundreds of billions of dollars to poorer nations. Many are in the Global South and already suffering the costly impact of weather disasters fueled by climate change. Several experts have said $1 trillion or more annually is needed both to compensate for such damages and to pay for a clean-energy transition that most countries can’t afford on their own.
Samir Bejanov, deputy lead negotiator of this year’s climate talks, said in a press conference that the climate finance talks were moving too slowly.
“I want to repeat our strong encouragement to all parties to make as much progress as possible,” he said. “We need everyone to approach the task with urgency and determination.”
Diego Pacheco, a negotiator from Bolivia, said the amount of money on the table for developing countries needs to be “loud and clear.”
“No more speeches but real money,” he said.
Observers also were disappointed at the pace of progress.
“This has been the worst first week of a COP in my 15 years of attending this summit,” said Mohamed Adow, of climate think tank Power Shift Africa. “There’s no clarity on the climate finance goal, the quality of the finance or how it’s going to be made accessible to vulnerable countries.
“I sense a lot of frustration, especially among the developing country blocs here,” he said.
Panama environment minister Juan Carlos Navarro agreed, telling The Associated Press he is “not encouraged” by what he’s seeing at COP29 so far.
“What I see is a lot of talk and very little action,” he said, noting that Panama is among the group of countries least responsible for warming emissions but most vulnerable to the damage caused by climate change-fueled disasters.
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Russia captures 2 villages in eastern Ukraine, defense ministry says
MOSCOW — Russian forces have captured the villages of Makarivka and Hryhorivka in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Saturday.
Makarivka is located to the south of Velyka Novosilka while Hryhorivka, which Moscow calls by its previous name of Leninskoye, is situated to the west of the town of Selydove, captured by Russia last month.
Reuters could not independently verify developments on the battlefield in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
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