Russia is preparing a ‘loyalty agreement’ requirement for foreigners
Guy Faulconbridge and Lidia Kelly – November 29, 2023
Steam rises from chimneys of a heating power plan over the skyline of central Moscow
MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russia’s interior ministry has prepared draft legislation that would force foreigners to sign a “loyalty agreement” forbidding them from criticising official policy, discrediting Soviet military history, or contravening traditional family values.
Since President Vladimir Putin ordered troops into Ukraine in February 2022, Russia has introduced a slew of tough laws that outlaw discrediting the military, and courts have handed down long jail sentences to opposition activists.
As the 2024 presidential election approaches, Putin has cast the war as part of an existential battle with the West, saying he will defend Russia’s “sacred” civilisation from what he portrays as the West’s decadence.
The TASS state news agency reported on Wednesday that the draft legislation had been prepared by the interior ministry and would force all foreigners entering Russia to sign an agreement that essentially restricts what they can say in public.
A foreigner entering Russia would be prohibited from “interfering with the activities of public authorities of the Russian Federation, discrediting in any form the foreign and domestic state policy of the Russian Federation, public authorities and their officials”, TASS said.
The proposed agreement would include clauses about morality, family, “propaganda about non-traditional sexual relations” and history.
In particular, foreigners would be barred from “distorting the historical truth about the feat of the Soviet people in the defence of the Fatherland and its contribution to the victory over fascism”.
The Soviet Union is estimated to have lost at least 27 million people in World War Two and eventually pushed Nazi forces back to Berlin. Governments loyal to Moscow then took power across swathes of eastern Europe.
It was not clear from Russian media reports which foreigners the draft legislation – if it becomes law – would apply to or what the punishment would be for not adhering to the “agreement” which foreigners would have to sign upon entry to Russia.
The Kremlin declined to comment on the initiative.
‘LOYALTY AGREEMENT’
Opposition activists and foreign diplomats in Moscow have for months been warning that the authorities are toughening their stance on any dissent ahead of the presidential election.
The Kremlin said earlier this month that some measure of censorship was needed as Russian troops were fighting in Ukraine, and cautioned those who wanted to criticise the military to think carefully before they did.
For the draft to become law, it has to be introduced to the State Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament, and to go through committee review and several readings before being submitted to Putin for signing.
The chairman of the Duma’s CIS Affairs Committee said that the draft law was well advanced and was being worked on by the interior ministry, the government, the presidential administration as well as his committee.
“The draft law on the so-called ‘loyalty agreement’ with migrants entering the Russian Federation is in a high degree of readiness,” Leonid Kalashnikov told Interfax.
Kalashnikov said some details of the proposed law were still to be worked out. The interior ministry did not immediately respond to requests for a comment.
The law has not yet been introduced formally in parliament, according to Reuters searches of the Duma’s database.
Since the start of its war in Ukraine, Russia has imposed a number of restrictions on foreigners from what it calls “unfriendly countries” – meaning those that have imposed sanctions on it over its war in Ukraine.
(Reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne and Guy Faulconbridge in Moscow; Editing by Andrew Osborn and Nick Macfie)
World to reckon with future of fossil fuels at COP28 climate summit
Valerie Volcovici, Kate Abnett and Maha El Dahan – November 29, 2023
Climate activists denounce fossil fuel companies near the Eiffel Tower in Paris‘Cop28 UAE’ logo is displayed on the screen during the opening ceremony of Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week (ADSW) under the theme of ‘United on Climate Action Toward COP28’, in Abu Dhabi
WASHINGTON/BRUSSELS/DUBAI (Reuters) -Delegates from nearly 200 countries will convene this week for the COP28 climate summit in Dubai, where conference host and OPEC member the UAE hopes to sell the vision of a low-carbon future that includes, not shuns, fossil fuels.
That narrative, also backed by other big oil producer nations, will reveal international divisions at the summit over how to combat global warming.
Countries are split over whether to prioritise phasing out coal and oil and gas, or scaling up technologies such as carbon capture to try to diminish their climate impact.
The annual United Nations summit from Nov. 30 to Dec. 12 takes place as the world is poised to shatter another record for the hottest year in 2023, and as reports confirm countries’ climate pledges are not enough to avert the worst impacts of global warming.
Among the decisions nations must make in the gleaming, high-tech city of Dubai will be whether to agree, for the first time, to gradually “phase out” global consumption of fossil fuels and replace them with sources including solar and wind.
The International Energy Agency, the West’s energy watchdog, issued a report ahead of the conference defining its position.
It called the idea of widespread carbon capture, to contain emissions from burning fossil fuels, an illusion and said the fossil fuel industry must decide between deepening the climate crisis or shifting to clean energy.
In response, OPEC accused the IEA of vilifying oil producers.
Greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels are the biggest cause of climate change.
OIL MAN AT THE HELM
The arguments for and against continued use of fossil fuel have focused on COP’s incoming president Sultan al-Jaber.
His position as CEO of the UAE’s national oil company ADNOC has raised concerns among campaigners, some U.S. Congress members and EU lawmakers over whether he can be an impartial broker of a climate deal.
Jaber has vehemently denied a report from the BBC and the Centre for Climate Reporting (CCR) that he planned to discuss potential gas and other commercial deals with over a dozen governments ahead of the summit.
“These allegations are false, not true, incorrect, are not accurate. And it’s an attempt to undermine the work of the COP28 presidency,” Jaber told a news conference on Wednesday.
Jaber has said the phase-down of fossil fuels is “inevitable”, but also that the industry needs to be included in the debate of finding climate solutions and presented himself as ideally placed to mediate.
Climate campaigners are not reassured.
“We have a world which has more fossil fuels than ever,” said Ani Dasgupta, president of the World Resources Institute, a climate NGO. “What we should be looking for is a commitment to actually reduce fossil fuels.”
Jaber says he has been rallying support from companies for COP28 pledges aimed at reducing emissions from oil and gas operations.
Many representatives of the industry will be present in Dubai as this year’s gathering of 70,000 registered attendees takes on the character of trade show.
Organisers say the record attendance will include the biggest business participation for any U.N. climate summit yet.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Britain’s King Charles are also set to attend, although U.S. President Joe Biden will not.
TAKING STOCK
Away from the high-profile visitors, a major task for the country delegations at COP28 will be to assess how far off track the world is from a goal set in Paris in 2015 to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), while aiming for a cap of 1.5C.
This process, known as the global stocktake, should yield a high-level plan telling countries what they need to do.
Governments will then have to turn that global plan into national policies and targets to submit to the U.N. in 2025.
Leading up to the conference, the European Union, U.S. and UAE have rallied support for a deal to triple global renewable energy installed by 2030. Over 100 countries have backed this deal, officials told Reuters, but countries including China and India have not.
U.S. officials and others are hopeful a climate deal agreed earlier this month between the world’s biggest emitters China and the U.S. may also set a positive tone for the talks.
The two countries agreed to boost renewable energy and “accelerate the substitution for coal, oil and gas generation”.
CLIMATE FINANCE
Another task for the conference is to launch the world’s first climate damage fund to help countries that have already suffered irreparable damage from climate change impacts, such as drought, floods and rising sea levels.
Representatives from developed and developing countries have struck a tentative agreement on its design, but all countries at COP28 need to approve it for it to lead to a final deal.
Gayane Gabrielyan, Armenia’s negotiator on the fund, told Reuters it is crucial the “loss and damage” fund agreement is approved now, ahead of elections next year in countries, such as the U.S. that could shatter the political consensus.
Another test is whether wealthy nations announce hundreds of millions of dollars needed to launch the fund at COP28. The European Union and the U.S. have already said they will contribute and are pressuring countries like China and the UAE to follow.
“Speaking from previous experience, unfortunately most of the global agreements, most of the global climate related pledges went uncompleted,” said Najib Ahmed, National Consultant at Somalia’s Climate Ministry.
“But again, we cannot lose hope.”
(Reporting by Valerie Volcovici and Kate Abnett; Editing by Josie Kao and Barbara Lewis)
COP28: What is it, who’s going and what are the key sticking points?
World leaders are set to meet at the UN climate summit in Dubai for the next two weeks to discuss tackling climate change
Rabina Khan, Contributor – November 29, 2023
Representatives from around the world will gather at Expo City in Dubai, UAE, for COP28. (AP) (Kamran Jebreili, Associated Press)
Thousands of politicians, economists, faith leaders, activists and many others are convening in Dubai for the latest UN climate conference, COP28.
This year’s event, which kicks off today, will focus on ramping up the shift to clean energy by cutting greenhouse gas emissions before 2030 in a bid to limit the impact of climate change.
But with competing priorities at play, the likelihood of consensus among the key players around the major sticking points remains in the balance.
This year, even the location of the conference has sparked some controversy.
The UAE has invested heavily in solar and wind energies, but it also remains one of the world’s top oil-producing nations.
“It is the equivalent of appointing the CEO of a cigarette company to oversee a conference on cancer cures,” said campaign group 350.org.
COP28 president-designate and the UAE’s special envoy for climate change Sultan Al Jaber has defended his country hosting the latest round of climate talks. (AP) (Kamran Jebreili, Associated Press)
COP28 agenda
As in previous years, the central issues are cutting fossil fuels and the greenhouse gases driving climate change by ramping up the shift to clean energy.
COP28 aims to prioritise securing funding for climate action in less affluent countries, fostering inclusivity, and addressing diverse issues like nature, people, health, finance and food and work towards a new agreement benefiting developing nations.
Although the hope is to continue to limit global temperature rises to 1.5֯C – the world is currently on track for 2.4-2.6C of warming – and the efforts being pursued to tackle this have been described by the UN as “nowhere near ambitious enough”.
The focus will also be on how people can best use nature and land use, moving to clean energy sources and making COP28 the “most inclusive” ever.
COP28 will focus on clean energy, aiming to cut greenhouse gas emissions before 2030, fostering inclusivity, and addressing issues like nature, people, health, finance, and food. (Source: COP28) (COP28)
Who are the key players?
King Charles III, prime minister Rishi Sunak, and foreign secretary David Cameron will be the most high-profile UK representatives.
However, their popularity among some allies remains uncertain due to Sunak’s support for North Sea oil and recent retreat on domestic net zero targets. His decision to advise against Charles attending COP27 also raised eyebrows.
The conference itself is being hosted by Sultan al Jaber – the boss of one of the world’s largest oil companies, the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) – and whose appointment was greeted with scepticism. He insists he wants to guide major oil and gas producers toward emission reduction goals, focusing on eliminating methane emissions by 2030.
However, the UAE this week had to fend off uncomfortable allegations from leaked documents that it planned to use meetings to promote deals for its national oil and gas companies to other countries. A COP28 spokesperson described the documents as “inaccurate”.
The absence of US president Joe Biden means climate envoy John Kerry will attempt to navigate disagreements on climate finance and broader US-China tensions.
His relationships with Al Jaber and Beijing’s Xie Zhenhua, the vice-chairman of China’s top economic development body, could shape the summit’s outcomes. While viewed positively, Xie’s stance on a fossil fuel “phase-out” remains a point of contention.
Pope Francis, pictured here meeting Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber at the Vatican in October, will make history as the first pope to attend the global climate summit at this year’s COP28. (Abaca Press/Alamy Live News) (ABACAPRESS, Abaca Press)
Russia, a major carbon polluter with a recent climate pledge aiming for net zero by 2060, will be represented by Vladimir Putin’s climate adviser, Ruslan Edelgeriyev.
Saudi Arabia’s stance on oil, gas, and coal will also likely pose challenges. Chief negotiator Khalid al-Mehaid will defend fossil fuels with a focus on reducing pollution, transitioning to renewables.
At the other end of the spectrum, the UN climate chief Simon Stiell, from Grenada, balances the interests of nearly 200 nations, seeking difficult answers and clear targets for climate action.
Representing the least-developed countries, Madeleine Diouf Sarr, head of the climate change division in Senegal’s Ministry of Environment will prioritise clear targets for adaptation and financial support amid growing concerns of the disproportionate impact of climate change on vulnerable nations.
The presence of philanthropist and former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates at COP28 underscores the intersection of environmental responsibility and business. (Reuters) (Leah Millis / reuters)
And Barbados prime minister Mia Mottley,willchampion climate equity, pushing for financial mechanisms benefiting vulnerable nations. Her outspoken calls for a just global financial system and debt-pause clauses have often resonated on the international stage.
Two other familiar faces include Pope Francis, who will make history as the first pope to attend the climate summit, and Bill Gates.
Gates will wear two hats at COP28: advocating for climate action through philanthropy and investing in green technologies. His presence underscores the intersection of environmental responsibility and business.
Watch: Barbados – Prime Minister Addresses United Nations General Debate, 78th Session
https://youtube.com/watch?v=ftHsJscUARU%3Frel%3D0
COP28: The sticky points
Differing views on the future of “unabated” fossil fuels, like coal, oil, and gas without emissions capture, are anticipated at COP28. While the UAE’s Al Jaber calls for a gradual “phase down”, the European Union is likely to advocate for a complete “phase out”.
Financial issues loom, with the unclear implementation of a “loss and damage” fund from richer to poorer countries, and the US rejecting climate reparations for historical emissions.
The EU aims to lead with a groundbreaking deal to phase out “unabated” coal, oil, and gas globally, but resistance is expected from major fossil fuel producers like Saudi Arabia and developing nations reliant on fossil fuels for economic growth.
China, the US, India and Russia are the top four polluters, according to data from Statista, China was the biggest emitter of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in 2021, accounting for nearly 31% of the global emissions. The world’s top five largest polluters were responsible for roughly 60% of global CO2 emissions in 2021.
COP28’s key challenge is staying below a 1.5C temperature rise. To achieve this, there’s a push for a binding energy package—tripling renewable energy by 2030 and deploying 1.5 terawatts yearly.
Financial clarity is crucial, demanding a $200bn annual increase for the Global South, according to 350.org, an international movement of ordinary people working to end the age of fossil fuels.
“As civil society campaigners, demonstrations and protests are expected to be limited to the UN-designated zones only but we are determined to make our voices heard and that this COP28 should be one that leads to decisive action to tackle the climate crisis,” Kim Bryan, 350’s associate director told Yahoo!.
Watch COP28 climate change summit begins: Here’s what you need to know
Are the annual climate summits working? These countries are going to the courts, instead
Ella Nilsen, CNN – November 29, 2023
Few leaders paint a picture of the climate crisis as vividly as United Nations chief António Guterres. He has accused world leaders of opening “the gates of hell” and said the planet is “heading into uncharted territories of destruction” after deadly heat waves and floods.
“The current fossil fuel free-for-all must end now,” Guterres said last year. “It is a recipe for permanent climate chaos and suffering.”
Yet the UN climate summit, known as COP, is tedious. It is full of jargon, snail-paced developments and painful consensus-building that can be broken by a single country’s veto.
Now some are asking: Is the process even working? Some small island nations — countries that are facing irrevocable change from rising seas — say no.
Over the decades, these painstaking negotiations have worked to prevent several catastrophic degrees of global warming. COP’s biggest win was the Paris Agreement, widely seen as one of the most effective environment treaties, which set a goal to limit global warming to well under 2 degrees Celsius, and preferably to 1.5 — a target that climate scientists, advocates and most countries have since rallied around.
Before those talks, the world was on track for roughly 4 degrees of warming. Countries’ pledges after Paris pushed that to 2.5 to 2.9 degrees, according to recent UN figures.
But the Paris Agreement was voluntary by design, in large part due to the influence of the US, and it relies on a system of collective shaming and competitive ambition in lieu of legal consequences. It contained “very few obligations” for major polluters, said Payam Akhavan, an attorney for the Commission of Small Island States on Climate Change and International Law.
Vanuatu, Tuvalu and Antigua and Barbuda are now asking international courts to issue “advisory opinions” that could fundamentally change future COPs by compelling countries to set legally binding targets to cut climate pollution, rather than voluntary ones.
“The turn toward international litigation is an attempt to put some teeth in the toothless Paris regime, by declaring the 1.5-degree target is a binding target and not discretionary,” Akhavan told CNN.
As world leaders head to Dubai for COP28 this week, this courtroom strategy is raising eyebrows among the United States’ current and former climate negotiators, who say that while diplomacy can be stubborn and slow, it yields progress.
Even fierce climate advocates who agree COP should be more ambitious still believe the summit is a powerful and worthwhile endeavor.
“There is a lot of questioning whether this process will deliver or not,” Ani Dasgupta, president and CEO of international climate nonprofit World Resources Institute, told CNN. “However, I believe COP, or some version of COP, will remain and absolutely is needed. This is the only forum that I know where poor countries actually have a place at the table that is equal, to negotiate with rich countries across a vastly important topic.”
‘Countries move farther when they move together’
COP’s detractors and advocates alike agree it is a crucial annual meeting, but also one that is plodding and technical. An errant word or piece of punctuation can derail negotiations, and it can — and often does — take years for incremental progress to happen.
“I would say it’s necessary, but maybe not sufficient,” said Sue Biniaz, the deputy for US climate envoy and former Secretary of State John Kerry.
Sue Biniaz, the US deputy climate envoy, at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, on October 31, 2022. – Frances F. Denny/The New York Times/Redux
Biniaz has a lot of experience at COPs; she was the United States’ lead climate lawyer for more than two decades and was one of the key authors of the Paris Agreement.
Both Biniaz and other former top US climate negotiators told CNN that although each climate summit is often judged as a singular event, it is more important to look at the year leading up to it.
“It’s necessary because the fact that it meets annually and puts pressure on countries is a good thing, and we’re in a lot better position with the annual COPs and the Paris Agreement than we would have been without it,” Biniaz told CNN. “At the same time, it is really difficult and challenging to get agreement among everyone in the world, particularly when you have geopolitical issues, and some countries may be more motivated to reach agreement than others.”
International politics and the dynamics within countries matter to the success or failure of COP. There is no better recent example of than the shockwave that surged through the summit when former President Donald Trumppulled the US out of the Paris agreement in 2017 — a move President Joe Biden reversed upon taking office.
In this June 2017 photo, President Donald Trump after announcing his intention to abandon the Paris Agreement in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, DC. – Doug Mills/The New York Times/Redux
Still, former and current US negotiators say climate diplomacy has helped keep the world’s temperature from reaching truly alarming highs.
“If you look at those first assessments coming out of the scientific community back then, we were looking at an incremental temperature gain of about 7 degrees,” said Jonathan Pershing, a former Kerry deputy who now directs the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation’s environment program. “Seven degrees, today, is unimaginable.”
Pershing added that the fact the world’s governments are now racing to keep to below 2 degrees of warming is an “extraordinary transition.”
“The collective endeavor has fundamentally altered the trajectory of greenhouse gas emissions,” Pershing said. “I think countries move farther when they move together.”
The annual summit has also become the most visible rallying point for global climate action, former US climate envoy Todd Stern told CNN. The summits used to largely be a gathering of only government climate negotiators, but each year COP becomes much larger — drawing advocates, businesses (including fossil fuel companies) and think tanks from all corners of the globe.
In this 2009 photo, Todd Stern, US special envoy for climate change, listens to questions during a press conference in the Bella Center in Copenhagen. – Jens Astrup/AFP/Getty Images
Stern thinks the growing spectacle of COP is a positive force, impossible to ignore even for groups that used to deny climate change’s existence. Even US House Republicans have sent a delegation for the past two years.
“It’s a two-week moment in the course of the year when people around the world — or at least some meaningful subset of people around the world — are paying attention to it,” Stern said. “That needs to keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger because that puts pressure on governments.”
Too little, too slow
Attorneys for the small island nations who are rocking the boat at COP say the proof it isn’t working is in the extreme heat felt around the world this year, and the global records smashed.
The world’s governments are working to hold global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius — above which scientists say a hotter world with more severe droughts and intense storms will become difficult to adapt to.
But 1.5 degrees is no longer an abstract concept; the world briefly crossed that temperature threshold this summer, though scientists caution it will take several years above that limit to say with confidence it’s been officially exceeded. This summer was a taste of life at this threshold: Wildfires raged across Europe, mighty rivers like the Mississippi and the Amazon fell to new lows, and hot-tub-like ocean water killed coral reefs and rapidly intensified hurricanes and cyclones.
“It’s not as if 1.5 is safe in any way, but we are very much on track to cross it,” said Margaretha Wewerinke-Singh, an international lawyer representing the island nation Vanuatu in climate litigation at the International Court of Justice. “Clearly we need more mitigation ambition to make sure we don’t end up with an unlivable world.”
The potential for an unlivable world weighs heavily on young COP negotiators, who are urging swift action to cut climate pollution.
Mitzi Jonelle Tan, of the Philippines, center, participates in a Fridays for Future protest calling for money for climate action at the COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, in 2022. – Peter Dejong/AP/File
Hailey Campbell, a 25-year-old, Hawaii-based climate adaptation specialist who successfully lobbied for more official youth representation at COP, told CNN it is sometimes disconcerting to spend long hours and days at international summits debating the precise words on climate finance and ramping down fossil fuel use, then return to her Honolulu home and see climate impacts first-hand.
“You go back home and you’re like, ‘sea level rise is still here, [we] still need to do something about it,’” said Campbell, the co-executive director of advocacy group Care About Climate. “If I had to pick just one thing to come out of this year’s COP, it would be language to commit to an equitable phase-out of all fossil fuels.”
Two of the world’s highest courts are expected to weigh in on the small island nations’ cases as soon as next year. While the advisory opinions alone can’t force faster action from countries, it can “inject some urgency, some political will, some vision” into the annual climate talks and protect the “inalienable rights” — the very survival — of these disappearing nations, Wewerinke-Singh said.
“I think that the COP process has failed,” Akhavan said. “But we must make it work because we have no other choice.”
In an investigation published over the weekend, the Times wrote that the commutation for Jonathan Braun, a drug smuggler, had “broader implications than previously known.”
Braun was two and a half years into a 10 year sentence for running a major marijuana ring, and was also being pursued by the Justice Department for predatory lending to small businesses.
According to the Times, Braun’s family used a connection to Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and a senior White House adviser, to secure the commutation.
Freeing Braun reportedly jeopardized a Justice Department criminal investigation into predatory lenders, in which prosecutors had been negotiating with Braun to flip on industry insiders in exchange for clemency.
That deal went out the window when Braun was freed, the Times reported.
“What does this all tell us?” Psaki, a former White House press secretary under President Joe Biden, asked on “Inside With Jen Psaki.”
“For one, it tells us that ‘tough on crime’ Donald Trump upended a federal investigation by his own Justice Department. That’s not how it’s supposed to work.”
She continued: “It also tells us how Trump and his administration ran pretty fast and loose with presidential pardons — a tremendous power that usually runs through a highly vetted process out of the Department of Justice.”
She referred to an “old quote” and maxim of dictators: “For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law.”
Psaki warned: “That is how Donald Trump has operated. And that is how he will continue to operate if he ever gets the leverage of government again.”
Jeff Bezos’ superyacht is in South Florida. It’s so big it has to anchor at a seaport
Madeleine Marr – November 29, 2023
Motorsport Images/Michael Potts/Motorsport Images//Sipa USA
South Florida, meet The Koru.
That’s the name of Jeff Bezos’ colossal yacht that just dropped anchor in Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale. The word means “new beginnings” in Maori, the language spoken by indigenous Polynesians of mainland New Zealand, where the Amazon founder’s private jet was spotted in 2020.
How ginormous is this triple-masted behemoth? Roughly 400 feet long and 250 feet tall, it’s the size of a cruise ship. That ginormous.
The luxury schooner is so big it can’t even hang with other leisure ships; she reportedly is parked near two oil tankers. It has two pools, a hot tub, multiple lounges, dining areas and bars, and perhaps the pièce de résistance, a wooden figurehead on the prow rumored to be modeled after Bezos’ fiancée, Lauren Sanchez.
The 59-year-old billionaire shelled out about $500M for his snazzy new toy, which was built just for him in the Netherlands by Oceanco, the company that also constructed Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones’ superyacht, the Bravo Eugenia.
Get used to seeing The Koru around, especially if you set sail on a vacation. Bezos, a Palmetto High alum, lives back here full time now, after spending three decades in Seattle, busy reinventing the way the world shops.
Russia’s Putin, shown alongside Orthodox icon image, warns West against meddling
Guy Faulconbridge – November 28, 2023
Russian President Putin attends a plenary session of the World Russian People’s Council, via video link in Sochi
MOSCOW (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin, whose picture was shown between two giant images of an ancient Orthodox icon on Tuesday, warned the West ahead of elections in March 2024 that any foreign meddling in Russia would be considered an act of aggression.
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has led to the most serious confrontation between Moscow and the West since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, prompting Putin to pivot towards China.
Since the invasion, Putin has changed the narrative of the war, casting it as an existential battle between sacred Russian civilisation and an arrogant West which he says is in cultural, political and economic decline.
Speaking to the World Russian People’s Council, led by the head of Russia’s Orthodox church, Patriarch Kirill, Putin’s picture was shown on a giant screen beside two copies of an ancient Orthodox icon. Such icons are stylised, often gilded, religious paintings considered sacred in Orthodox churches.
The Russian Orthodox Church is an ardent institutional supporter of Russia’s war in Ukraine, and Putin has espoused its conservatism as part of his vision for Russia’s national identity.
The Kremlin chief said that the West was gripped by racist Russophobia which casts Russians as a people of backward “slaves” and warned that the United States allegedly wanted to dismember and plunder Russia’s vast resources.
Putin, 71, cautioned that Russians themselves should remember the lessons of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, the civil war and the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, which he said had allowed the division of the Russian people.
“I want to underscore: We consider any interference from outside, provocations aimed at causing inter-ethnic or inter-religious conflicts as aggressive acts against our country,” Putin said.
“I want to emphasise again that any attempt to sow inter-ethnic and inter-religious discord, to split our society is a betrayal, a crime against the whole of Russia. We will not allow anyone to divide Russia.”
The West casts Putin as a dictator who has led Russia into an imperial-style land grab that has weakened Russia and forged Ukrainian statehood, while uniting the West and handing NATO a post-Cold War mission.
Putin says that the West is now failing in Ukraine and that its attempt to defeat Russia has also failed.
The Kremlin chief claims Western attempts to isolate Russia with the toughest-ever sanctions imposed on a major economy were evidence for what he believed is historic Western racism against Russians.
The West, which denies it wants to rip Russia apart, has said it wants to help Ukraine defeat Russian forces on the battlefields of Ukraine, eject Russian soldiers and punish Putin for the war.
Putin thanked Russian businessmen for evading the West’s sanctions.
“It was by combining the efforts of the state and business that we thwarted the unprecedented economic aggression of the West: its sanctions blitzkrieg failed,” Putin said.
The presidential election campaign is due to start next month and Putin is expected to run, a step that would ensure at least another six years at the helm for the former KGB spy, who has been in power since 2012, and before that, from 2000 to 2008.
Patriarch Kirill said he would pray for Putin to continue his work for the “benefit” of Russia and its people.
(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Bernadette Baum)
Putin accuses the West of trying to ‘dismember and plunder’ Russia in a ranting speech
Associated Press – November 28, 2023
Russian President Vladimir Putin listens to VTB Bank Chairman Andrei Kostin during their meeting in Moscow, Russia, Monday, Nov. 27, 2023. (Mikhail Klimentyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)
MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, in a ranting speech before a presidential election campaign, cast Moscow’s military action in Ukraine as an existential battle against purported attempts by the West to destroy Russia.
Putin, who has been in power for more than two decades and is the longest-serving Russian leader since Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, is expected to soon declare his intention to seek another six-year term in a presidential election next March.
“We are defending the security and well-being of our people, the highest, historical right to be Russia — a strong, independent power, a country-civilization,” Putin said, accusing the U.S. and its allies of trying to “dismember and plunder” Russia.
Ukraine and its Western allies have condemned the Russian action against Ukraine as an unprovoked act of aggression.
“We are now fighting for the freedom of not only Russia, but the whole world,” Putin said in a speech to participants of a meeting organized by the Russian Orthodox Church.
He denounced what he described as Western “Russophobia,” claiming that “our diversity and unity of cultures, traditions, languages, and ethnic groups simply don’t fit into the logic of Western racists and colonialists, into their cruel scheme of total depersonalization, disunity, suppression and exploitation.”
“If they can’t do it by force, they will try to sow strife,” he said, vowing to block “any outside interference, provocations with the aim of causing interethnic or interreligious conflicts as aggressive actions against our country, as an attempt to once again foment terrorism and extremism in Russia as a tool to fight us.”
Russian authorities have intensified their crackdown on dissent amid the fighting in Ukraine, arresting and imprisoning protesters and activists and silencing independent news outlets.
Putin said that the U.S.-dominated global order has become increasingly decrepit, declaring that “it is our country that is now at the forefront of creating a more equitable world order.”
“And I want to emphasize: without a sovereign, strong Russia, no lasting, stable world order is possible,” he said.
Why the Florida homeowners insurance crisis should worry us all
Climate change is making millions of homes across the country difficult or impossible to insure
Alexander Nazaryan, Snr W.H. Correspondent – November 28, 2023
Makatla Ritchter wades through flood waters after having to evacuate her home when the flood waters from Hurricane Idalia inundated it on August 30, 2023 in Tarpon Springs, Florida. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images) (Getty Images)
Earlier this year, Chicago native Steve Swanson decided to move full-time to Sanibel Island, Fla., where he had vacationed as a child. A boomerang-shaped barrier island in the Gulf of Mexico, Sanibel was devastated by Hurricane Ian last year, but Swanson did something that would have been unthinkable anywhere in the country a few years ago: He purchased a small house but declined to purchase homeowner’s insurance, which would reimburse him in case of another disaster.
“You self-insure,” Swanson said in an interview with Yahoo News, describing how he adds each month to a rainy-day fund against natural disasters instead of paying a premium to an insurance company. “And then you just hope that it never happens.”
Swanson’s experience is becoming increasingly common. He landed on the frontline of a budding home insurance crisis that has hit coastal and inland states alike. Insurance companies are pulling out of states where evermore frequent natural disasters mean those companies have to pay out large claims after a home is destroyed in a wildfire, leveled by a mudslide or wrecked by a flood,
A firefighter points at a potential hot spot of the Rabbit Fire, which tore through Moreno Valley, Calif., in July. (Jon Putman/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images) (SOPA Images/LightRocket via Gett)
Research has shown that rising ocean temperatures are causing hurricanes to gain strength more quickly, and to dump more rain than they did in the past. When those hurricanes destroy homes, insurance companies pay for the damage. To cover those expenses, they raise premiums.
Thanks to mounting hurricane losses, home insurance premiums in Florida have risen an astonishing 300% in the last five years, according to the financial news site Benzinga. Residents there now pay an average of $4,200 per year for home insurance, more than double the national average of $1,700, a stark increase that could lead to the reversal of torrid population growth that has made Florida the third-most-populous state in the country.
The soaring rates in Florida reflect how frequently the state is battered by devastating storms. “No other state has reported sustained losses for property insurers like Florida has since its last profitable year in 2016,” Mark Friedlander, spokesman for the insurance lobby group Insurance Information Institute, recently told the New York Times.
A destroyed house is seen in Keaton Beach, Florida in August after Hurricane Idalia made landfall. (Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images) (AFP via Getty Images)
“It’s a global problem,” insurance expert Lara Mowery recently told the Associated Press.
In all, the United States saw 23 weather-related disasters in 2023 that each caused more than $1 billion of damage.
According to the First Street Foundation, which studies climate risk, 35.6 million homes across the country could see their insurance policies become more expensive, or disappear entirely, as insurers flee high-risk states. “That is crippling. Absolutely crippling,” First Street CEO Matthew Eby told CBS News. “And so those homes are not, from an investment scenario, something that you would invest in.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis at Jack Trice Stadium in Ames, Iowa in September. (Jeffrey Becker/USA Today Sports) (USA Today Sports / reuters)
Governors from both parties have struggled to help homeowners with rocketing insurance costs, but critics of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is currently running for the Republican presidential nomination, say he has played politics instead of engaging in sound policy.
Home insurance costs are expected to rise by 40% in Florida in 2023; state governments have some power to limit those hikes, or to make cheaper government insurance available, but they cannot entirely halt or reverse market — or climate — forces. And when those forces descend on homeowners, it is inevitable that chief executives get blamed.
“Ron DeSantis doesn’t believe there’s a climate change crisis,” says Swanson, the recent Sanibel Island transplant. “He is ignoring the problem, by and large. And he’s not really addressing the insurance crisisf either. It is a very stark lack of leadership on his part.”
Some in the insurance industry say that the diminishing number of insurers in Florida is due to the fact that it is too easy to sue insurance companies there. And those lawsuits could be especially damaging to the smaller insurers who now operate in Florida, now that larger companies such as Farmers have bailed on the state.
“This is a man-made crisis,” Insurance Information Institute spokesman Friedlander told CNN in June. “That volume of lawsuits will drive more of these regional companies out of business.”
Earlier this year, DeSantis signed a new law that makes it harder to sue insurance companies, but critics charge that he and the law’s supporters have greatly exaggerated the frequency of frivolous lawsuits. They say the power to take legal action against an insurance company is important for policyholders who do not believe they have been adequately compensated for damage caused to their properties.
Stedi Scuderi looks over her apartment after flood water inundated it when Hurricane Ian passed through the area on September 29, 2022 in Fort Myers, Florida. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images) (Getty Images)
In August, Florida residents of a retirement community in Pembroke Pines staged protests after they saw their home insurance rise. “We have no choice, we have to sell,” one resident said. “As a matter of fact, I just put my house on the market 10 minutes ago.”
Younger prospective homeowners face similar challenges. Many of them are saddled with college debt and a job market geared either toward narrow expertise or service work. To make matters worse, housing has gotten more expensive across the country.
Soaring insurance rates are the proverbial cherry on a homeownership cake nobody wants to take the responsibility for having baked.
When it comes to walking and type 2 diabetes risk, it’s not just how much you do it that helps — it’s also how fast you move, a new study has found.
Brisk walking is associated with a nearly 40% lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes later in life, according to the study published Tuesday in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
“Previous studies have indicated that frequent walking was associated with a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes in the general population, in a way that those with more time spent walking per day were at a lower risk,” said the study’s lead author Dr. Ahmad Jayedi, a research assistant at the Social Determinants of Health Research Center at the Semnan University of Medical Sciences in Iran.
But prior findings haven’t offered much guidance on the optimal habitual walking speed needed to lower diabetes risk, and comprehensive reviews of the evidence are lacking, the authors said.
Going a certain pace during your walk may help lower your type 2 diabetes risk, according to a new study. – LeoPatrizi/E+/Getty Images
The study authors reviewed 10 previous studies conducted between 1999 and 2022, which assessed links between walking speed — measured by objective timed tests or subjective reports from participants — and the development of type 2 diabetes among adults from the United States, the United Kingdom and Japan.
After a follow-up period of eight years on average, compared with easy or casual walking those who walked an average or normal pace had a 15% lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes, the researchers found. Walking at a “fairly brisk” pace meant a 24% lower risk than those who easily or casually walked. And “brisk/striding walking had the biggest benefit: a 39% reduction in risk.
Easy or casual walking was defined as less than 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) per hour. Average or normal pace was defined as 2 to 3 miles (3.2 to 4.8 kilometers) per hour. A “fairly brisk” pace was 3 to 4 miles (4.8 to 6.4 kilometers) per hour. And “brisk/striding walking” was more than 4 (6.4 kilometers) per hour. Each kilometer increase in walking speed above brisk was associated with a 9% lower risk of developing the disease.
That faster walking may be more beneficial isn’t surprising, but the researchers’ “ability to quantify the speed of walking and incorporate that into their analysis is interesting,” said Dr. Robert Gabbay, chief scientific and medical officer for the American Diabetes Association, via email. Gabbay wasn’t involved in the study.
The study also affirms the idea that “intensity is important for diabetes prevention,” said Dr. Carmen Cuthbertson, an assistant professor of health education and promotion at East Carolina University who wasn’t involved in the study, via email. “Engaging in any amount of physical activity can have health benefits, but it does appear that for diabetes prevention, it is important to engage in some higher intensity activities, such as a brisk walk, to gain the greatest benefit.”
Understanding the benefits of brisk walking
The study doesn’t prove cause-and-effect, Gabbay said, but “one can imagine that more vigorous exercise could result in being more physically fit, reducing body weight and therefore insulin resistance and lowering the risk of diabetes.”
Dr. Michio Shimabukuro, a professor and chairman of the department of diabetes, endocrinology and metabolism at the Fukushima Medical University School of Medicine, agreed — adding that “increased exercise intensity due to faster walking speeds can result in a greater stimulus for physiological functions and better health status.” Shimabukuro wasn’t involved in the study.
Walking speed may also simply reflect health status, meaning healthier people are likely to walk faster, said Dr. Borja del Pozo Cruz, principal investigator of health at the University of Cadiz in Spain, who wasn’t involved in the research.
“There is a high risk of reverse causality, (wherein) health deficits are more likely to explain the observed results,” del Pozo Cruz added. “We need randomized controlled trials to confirm — or otherwise — the observed results.”
Lowering your diabetes risk
The overall message “is that walking is an important way to improve your health,” Gabbay said. “It may be true that walking faster is even better. But given the fact that most Americans do not get sufficient walking in the first place, it is most important to encourage people to walk more as they’re able to.”
If you want to challenge yourself, however, using a fitness tracker — via a watch, pedometer or smartphone app — can help you objectively measure and maintain your walking pace, experts said.
If you can’t get a fitness tracker, an easy alternative for tracking exercise intensity is the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s “talk test,” which relies on understanding how physical activity affects heart rate and breathing. If, while walking, you’re able to talk with a labored voice but not sing, your pace is probably brisk.
