Russia poses as peacemaker, stepping up attacks on Ukraine’s east
Russia has sought to paint itself as a peacemaker in the war it started in Ukraine, calling NATO and Ukraine warmongers and storming out of the Organization for Security and Co-pperation in Europe (OSCE). Russia formally withdrew the country’s delegation from the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly on Wednesday, after citing “discriminatory approaches, double standards and total Russophobia”. The last straw, it said, was Romania’s refusal to grant the Russian delegation visas to attend the OSCE’s annual session in Bucharest this week. The diplomatic posture appeared designed to push back against Ukraine’s peace conference in Switzerland last month, part of a global diplomatic process in which Ukraine has tried to win countries over to its view of how the war should end. Respecting Ukraine’s “territorial integrity” is key to that view, and was part of a statement at the end of the conference. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy followed up on the Swiss conference last Friday when he said his government was working on finalising aspects of a comprehensive peace formula by the end of the year. (Al Jazeera) “We are currently working on three detailed plans in energy, food security and [prisoner] exchanges,” Zelenskyy said during a live broadcast of a Ukrainian telethon, naming the three themes on which the Switzerland summit reached the greatest consensus. On Wednesday, Ukraine said it would submit a draft resolution on nuclear safety to the United Nations General Assembly in the coming days. Ukraine and its allies have called on Russian troops to withdraw from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, saying their presence there risks turning it into a military target. Russia seized upon Hungarian premier Viktor Orban’s unannounced visit to Kyiv on Tuesday to portray Zelenskyy as anything but a seeker of peace. Orban, whose country assumes the rotating presidency of the European Union this month, met with Zelenskyy to propose “a ceasefire tied to a deadline, which could offer the opportunity to accelerate peace talks”. A drone view shows destroyed buildings in the front-line town of Chasiv Yar in the Donetsk region, Ukraine, in this screengrab obtained from social media video released on July 4, 2024 [Special Purpose Battalion ‘Donbas’ of the 18th Slavic Brigade of the NGU/via Reuters] Zelenskyy did not accept that formula but seized on the chance to improve relations with Hungary, which has stood out in the European Union for its opposition to more assistance for Ukraine. Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova held up Zelenskyy’s rejection as proof that Ukraine is not serious about peace. “All that peace rhetoric is just a smokescreen, smoke and mirrors, cliches or memes. Abstract words that must be learned by heart and voiced, while there is only one goal, which was declared by the collective West, namely to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia,” she said. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov sought to play on Hungary’s Euroscepticism, saying, “we don’t expect anything” from Orban’s visit to Kyiv,” adding that Orban would be obliged to serve “Brussels’ interests rather than Hungary’s national interests”. Zelenskyy explained his opposition to a ceasefire in an interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer. “A ceasefire is the best option for the Russians so they can prepare for taking even more,” he said. His view of NATO was exactly the opposite of Zacharova’s. As he has often said before, he felt Ukraine’s allies were deliberately holding back support to not embarrass Russian President Vladimir Putin with a rapid defeat: “Everybody is still afraid that Russia can split apart, everybody is afraid of what will happen to Russia without Putin and whether it will stay as it is or get worse.” (Al Jazeera) Throughout this war, Zelenskyy has asked for more than allies were willing to consider giving Ukraine, and in the case of tanks, armoured fighting vehicles, medium-range missiles and fighter planes, he eventually got it. But he has not managed to get the United States to sign off on the use of long-range weapons anywhere in Russia, only in territories facing an imminent new invasion. Ukrainian MP Oleksiy Goncharenko expressed some of Ukraine’s frustration with NATO’s self-restraint, saying the alliance should establish a no-fly zone over western Ukraine. “I do not understand [why] NATO cannot deploy air defence systems along the Polish border,” Goncharenko told the AFP news agency. “This will make it possible to defend the border of Poland and Moldova and to establish a reliable no-fly zone in western and southern parts of Ukraine.” NATO has said it does not wish to become directly part of the war in Ukraine, so as not to provoke a wider war with Russia. Russia stalled on the ground Russia’s diplomatic posturing as peacemaker has taken place against continued hostilities but a disappointing Russian military performance in the past week, as Ukrainian troops managed to defend their turf against any significant advances. The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said Russian forces were making particular efforts to capture territory in Toretsk, in the Donetsk region. Toretsk lies between Chasiv Yar to the north and Avdiivka to the south, both areas Moscow has prioritised this year. “The Russian military command may intend to leverage the ongoing Toretsk push to create operational opportunities for advances in either the Chasiv Yar or Avdiivka areas,” said the ISW. Russia’s offensives have given it more than 500 square kilometres (193 square miles) of territory this year, but at a high cost. (Al Jazeera) Russian opposition news outlet Meduza analysed Russian Federal Statistics Service (Rosstat) mortality data to estimate that Russian war-related deaths in Ukraine doubled last year, relative to 2022. After factoring in social trends and COVID-related deaths, it said at least 40,500 young Russian men died last year above trend levels, versus 24,000 in 2022. The biggest increase over two years was in the 25-29 age group, the analysis found, whereas the highest excess mortality rate was in the 35-39 age group. This would appear to confirm the suspicion expressed in Western think tank analyses that Russian casualties increased sharply in the
What could the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling mean for US foreign policy?
The United States Supreme Court’s decision to expand presidential immunity has caused alarm among legal experts, who fear the ramifications may extend beyond the country’s borders. On Monday, the court’s conservative majority ruled that any “official acts” a president takes — even beyond the office’s “core constitutional functions” — would enjoy “presumptive immunity” from prosecution. But in the US, the president also serves as the head of the military, and experts say Monday’s decision could further strengthen a culture of impunity for actions taken abroad. Samuel Moyn, a professor of law and history at Yale University, said the decision erodes the few guardrails left to govern US foreign policy. Already, the US Congress gives presidents wide latitude to take actions overseas, and the country refuses to recognise the authority of bodies like the International Criminal Court (ICC). “There was already a large consensus among conservative and liberal elites that a US president should never be restricted by international courts outside of the country,” Moyn told Al Jazeera. “What was extraordinary about Monday’s ruling is that it seems to take that attitude and import it — to apply it to courts inside the country as well as outside.” Former President Donald Trump made broad claims to presidential immunity when facing criminal indictments [File: Julia Nikhinson/AP Photo] A powerful shield The ruling came about after former President Donald Trump asserted far-reaching claims to presidential immunity, as he tried to dodge four separate criminal indictments in US courts. “Trump asserts a far broader immunity than the limited one we have recognized,” the court majority explained in its opinion. Still, it held that any act deemed an “official” part of the presidency could be shielded from criminal charges. But even the court acknowledged that this could herald “king”-like executive powers with few criminal constraints. Foreign policy was one area the dissenting justices highlighted. “From this day forward, Presidents of tomorrow will be free to exercise the Commander-in-Chief powers, the foreign-affairs powers, and all the vast law enforcement powers enshrined in [the US Constitution] however they please — including in ways that Congress has deemed criminal,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her dissent. Already, the Supreme Court had established legal precedent in the 1980s that gave presidents “absolute immunity” from civil damages for their conduct while in office. That put presidential actions out of reach of laws like the Alien Tort Statute, which allows foreign nationals to pursue human rights violations in US civil courts. The US Supreme Court has a conservative six-to-three majority [J Scott Applewhite/AP Photo] An evolving executive But experts say that Monday’s decision continues a trend of giving ever-greater power to the executive branch over matters of foreign affairs. Under the US Constitution, the president and Congress share the powers to shape foreign policy. But the legislative branch has ceded ground to the presidency, particularly in periods of national emergency such as the Cold War and the attacks on September 11, 2001. While it is difficult to pinpoint a single moment when authority over foreign affairs became concentrated in the White House, overseas conflicts helped strengthen what some critics call “the imperial presidency”. Coined in 1973, that term describes a perception among some historians that the US presidency has exceeded its constitutionally mandated powers, particularly when it comes to overseas actions like warfare. The US Constitution gives Congress the exclusive authority to declare war, but the last time it formally did so was in World War II. The Cold War, meanwhile, saw an ever-growing number of defence and intelligence bodies take shape under executive control. That period saw institutions like the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) crop up in 1947, and the National Security Agency in 1952. Experts say these defence and intelligence groups helped the US wage a global campaign to expand its influence, sometimes through clandestine operations and even torture and assassination. At times, after revelations of abuses, the legislative branch tried to claw back influence over US foreign policy. One example came in the early 1970s, when an emboldened Congress barred President Richard Nixon from sending weapons to the government of Pakistan after a campaign of brutal repression came to light. It also moved to rein in the president’s secretive military incursions into Cambodia during the Vietnam War. But such stabs at oversight proved to be the exception rather than the rule, and presidents have historically faced few consequences for overseas actions that could constitute violations of international and domestic law. Nixon, for instance, continued to send weapons to Pakistan, albeit through proxies like Jordan, in defiance of Congress’s sanctions. Former President Richard Nixon, centre, was criticised for circumventing the US Congress in foreign affairs [Nixon Library handout/Reuters] ‘Rule of law at home but none abroad’ The country’s appetite for reining in the White House continued to diminish after the September 11 attacks, according to experts like Moyn. After President George W Bush declared a global so-called “war on terror” in 2001, US presidents have carried out military operations in nearly 80 countries. Critics say perceived enemies have been captured and tortured in the name of national security, including at CIA black sites and the detention centre in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The 2014 drone strike that killed the Yemeni American Muslim leader Anwar al-Awlaki also raised uncomfortable questions about whether a sitting president should be able to execute a US citizen without a trial. US courts have mostly declined to weigh in on such matters, Moyn explained. He said that presidents have largely been given a “permission slip” to take drastic overseas actions, with government legal advisers finding creative ways to give human rights abuses the imprimatur of legal compliance. President Barack Obama, for instance, signed an executive order to end the torture programme launched under Bush. But while Obama admitted the US “tortured some folks”, he declined to prosecute those responsible under the previous administration, calling on the country to “look forward, not back”. The US has also been hostile to international efforts to ensure criminal acts
Americans swat away high fuel prices and gear up for record July 4 travels
Record 71 million people are expected to travel on upcoming long weekend, a growth trajectory similar to pre-pandemic. High fuel costs and the threat of a hurricane are not expected to dampen Americans’ desire to hit the road, with vacationers preparing for record travel to kick off Fourth of July holiday festivities. Motorist group AAA expects a record of almost 71 million people to travel around the United States Independence Day holiday, growth similar to a pre-pandemic trajectory. Some 60 million people will drive with nearly 6 million flying to their destinations, while approximately 4.6 million people will take buses, trains or cruises during the holiday period, according to AAA’s forecast. “We’ve never seen numbers like this,” AAA spokesperson Andrew Gross said, “2024’s travel seems to be what 2020 would have been, had it not been for the pandemic.” Travel during the summer months in the US will be closely watched from multiple fronts this year, as it could offer central bank officials and policymakers an important measure of consumer sentiment in an election year. Inflation was unchanged in May even as consumer spending rose, boosting hopes that the US Federal Reserve might be able to control inflation while avoiding a recession. Petrol prices have eased over the past few months, with the national average price for a gallon of motor fuel at $3.50 ($0.92 a litre) on Tuesday, a three-cent decline from last year. Domestic airfare is 2 percent cheaper than last year, with an average domestic round trip costing $800, according to AAA booking data. ‘Wanting to travel’ Despite recent declines, fuel prices remain well above historical levels. The average price for a gallon of petrol was $2.74 ($0.72 a litre) during the July Fourth week in 2019, and the weekly average price from 2015 through 2019 was less than $2.50 a gallon (0.66 a litre), according to US Energy Information Administration data. Still, vacationers’ travel plans are largely unaffected by higher prices this year, according to a survey of more than 1,000 people by auto retail group American Trucks. Four-week average US petrol demand hit a one-year high of 9.2 million barrels per day (bpd) last week as retailers stockpiled before the holiday, EIA data showed on Wednesday. Four-week average jet fuel demand was at 1.7 million bpd, identical to a seven-month high hit earlier in June. “What we have noticed is that it’s more about the rate of change than the price itself that affects the psyche of consumers,” said John LaForge, head of real asset strategy at Wells Fargo Investment Institute. Since the price of petrol has not moved dramatically higher or lower in the past six months, consumer psyche is largely unaffected by it, LaForge said. For now, US vacation travel is unlikely to be affected by Hurricane Beryl, which has brought devastation to some Caribbean Islands since Monday, but is expected to weaken considerably as it reaches Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula by Thursday night. US fuel inventories are also better stocked than they have been in recent years, providing motorists a buffer from sudden price shocks in case the hurricane disrupts refining operations. “Americans are optimistic and wanting to travel, there’s no denying it,” GasBuddy analyst Patrick De Haan said. Adblock test (Why?)
Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 860
As the war enters its 860th day, these are the main developments. Here is the situation on Thursday, July 4, 2024. Fighting At least five people were killed and dozens injured in a Russian missile and drone attack on the southeastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro. At least one person was killed and 14 injured in a series of Russian attacks that struck Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, including the regional capital of Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city. At least one person was killed and three injured in a Russian missile attack on Ukraine’s Poltava region. Regional governor Filip Pronin said one person was in critical condition. The United Nations human rights office (OHCHR) said Russia’s use of air-dropped bombs led to more civilian casualties in Ukraine between March and May. OHCHR found that the Russian offensive in the Kharkiv region from May 10 to 31 killed 78 civilians and injured 305 more. Between March and May, at least 436 civilians were killed and 1,760 injured in Ukraine, according to the agency. Moscow-appointed officials at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine said a Ukrainian drone attack on a nearby electricity substation injured eight workers and left the plant’s dormitory town of Enerhodar without power and water. Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its forces destroyed two Ukrainian sea drones targeting the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk, a key naval base and hub for oil shipments. No casualties or damage were reported. Politics and diplomacy A military court in Moscow jailed three brothers for treason for trying to cross into Ukraine to join a unit of Russians fighting on Kyiv’s side. Ioann Ashcheulov, 24, was sentenced to 17-and-a-half years while his brothers – Alexei, 20, and Timofey, 19 – were handed 17 years, Russian state media reported. A court in Rostov-on-Don found a 19-year-old man guilty of treason for allegedly donating money to Kyiv’s military and sentenced him to 12 years in prison. A court in Saint Petersburg more than doubled the sentence for activist and documentary filmmaker Vsevolod Korolev to seven years after he and the prosecutors appealed his original jail term of three years for criticising the Russian offensive against Ukraine on social media. Korolev has been in pre-trial detention since July 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping discussed Ukraine when they met on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Astana, and agreed that peace talks on Ukraine without Russia’s presence were pointless. Also meeting on the SCO sidelines, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told Putin that Ankara could help end the conflict, but Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Erdogan could not play the role of an intermediary. He did not say why. The Netherlands’ new Prime Minister Dick Schoof assured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a phone call that his country’s support for Ukraine would remain “rock solid”. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said he discussed bilateral cooperation and exchanged views on “a number of regional and global threats posed by Russia, Iran and North Korea” with Israeli counterpart Israel Katz. Weapons The United States announced $150m in new military assistance for Ukraine. The package includes missiles for HAWK air defence systems, ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), 155mm and 105mm artillery rounds, 81mm mortar rounds, TOW (Tube-launched, Optically tracked, Wire-guided) missiles, Javelin and AT-4 antiarmour systems, as well as a range of other small arms ammunition and equipment. NATO allies agreed to fund military aid for Ukraine with 40 billion euros ($43bn) next year, two Western European diplomats told the Reuters news agency, a week before the alliance’s leaders are set to meet in Washington. The Czech Ministry of Defence said that the country had donated equipment from its army storage, including aircraft and ammunition, worth 6.75 billion crowns ($288.42m) to Ukraine as of the end of May. Adblock test (Why?)
Labour ‘99 percent certain’ to beat Blair’s 1997 election landslide: Poll
Barring a major upset in the coming hours, the Keir Starmer-led Labour Party is on course to win Thursday’s general election by a record landslide, a poll suggests. Late on Tuesday, the poll by Survation predicted that the centre-left party is “99 percent certain to win more seats than in 1997” when Tony Blair ended 18 years of Conservative rule. The United Kingdom’s new prime minister is set to inherit a country beset by economic and social woes and a deeply divided political system. The fight among those vying to dominate the opposition is less predictable, with the right-wing Conservatives, in power for the past 14 years, trying to fend off a hard-right threat led by Nigel Farage, the telegenic populist and key architect of Brexit who is hoping his Reform UK party gains traction. “The incoming government will face many serious challenges,” said Toby James, professor of politics and public policy at the University of East Anglia. “Should Labour win a predicted landslide, then parallels to [Tony] Blair’s victory [in] 1997 will be drawn. “However, the situation is much more difficult than that inherited by Blair … The economy was booming in 1997, whereas it has seen sluggish growth at best recently. Prices remain high following record inflation,” James told Al Jazeera. “There is large government debt, which will make spending on cash-strapped public services difficult.” From left, top row: Green Party co-leader Carla Denyer, Labour’s Keir Starmer and Scottish National Party leader John Swinney. From left bottom row: Liberal Democrats leader Ed Davey, Conservative premier Rishi Sunak and Reform’s hard-right leader Nigel Farage [File: AP Photo] But as six weeks of campaigning draws to a close, Labour is taking nothing for granted and urging Britons to vote. Turnout was 67.3 percent at the last election in 2019, down from 68.8 percent in 2017. In 1997, turnout was relatively high at 71.4 percent, although lower than the previous poll – 77.7 percent in 1992 – which was won by Conservative leader John Major. Survation expects Labour will secure 42 percent of the vote, leading to 484 of a total 650 seats, and the Conservatives are “virtually certain to win a lower share of the vote than at any past general election” with 23 percent, it added, citing heavy losses in former Conservative heartlands. Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, in office since October 2022, called the election in May as economic data pointed to a recovery, with inflation at a lower level than in previous months. “Labour could be heading for a large majority, with the Conservatives becoming the main opposition. Eyes will be on how many seats the Reform party can win, given the threat that Nigel Farage poses to the Conservative Party, but also developments in France,” said James, referring to recent electoral successes of Marine Le Pen’s far-right movement. He characterised Sunak’s tenure as “short and extremely difficult”. “He has faced significant challenges with the aftermath of the pandemic, the effects of the Ukraine war on inflation and [the] challenge of holding the Conservative Party together. Few prime ministers have faced so many significant challenges within such a short period. The aim was to stabilise the ship, but there are few significant policy achievements to point to.” ‘Politicians often weaponise migration to score votes’ As well as the economy, party campaigns have focused on immigration. The Conservatives, who led Britain’s exit from the European Union on a promise to lower migration, have failed to achieve that goal. Net migration to the UK dropped 10 percent to 685,000 in 2023, compared with a year earlier, but remained above average historical levels. The majority of people travelled for work or study, with far fewer – 29,437 undocumented migrants and refugees – arriving last year via the perilous journey across the English Channel from France. Former Conservative premiers, such as David Cameron and Theresa May, had pledged to bring net migration down to the tens of thousands. “Politicians often weaponise migration to score votes ahead of an election and too often we see a race to the bottom between parties over who will impose the toughest policies toward asylum seekers,” warned Emilie McDonnell, UK advocacy and communications officer at Human Rights Watch. “The next UK government needs to reset the narrative on migration and push back against the fear-mongering and dehumanising rhetoric that is inevitable post-election,” she told Al Jazeera. Labour has promised to scrap the controversial Rwanda scheme cultivated by the Conservatives, which aims to deport undocumented refugees and migrants to process asylum claims in the African nation. To date, no such flights have taken off due to legal opposition and humanitarian concerns. “Abandoning the Rwanda scheme and resuming asylum processing for people arriving irregularly are essential to restoring refugee protection in the UK,” said McDonnell. “However, much more is needed to create a fair and humane asylum system and to show that the UK will do its fair share to protect the world’s refugees, including by greatly expanding safe pathways, repealing the Illegal Migration Act that bans seeking asylum, and introducing a strict time-limit on detention.” Hundreds of thousands of protesters, including scores at British university campuses, have called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza over the past nine months [Anealla Safdar/Al Jazeera] Observers are also keeping a close eye on British towns and cities that are home to large Muslim communities where Labour is expected to shed some support given its stance on Israel’s war on Gaza. Starmer, like Sunak, supports Israel and regularly talks of its “right to defence” even as almost 38,000 Palestinians have been killed. Pro-Palestine protesters are planning another big march on Saturday in London. According to the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) and its partners, police have not offered march organisers any central London start or end point for the demonstration “in contrast to every other occasion”. PSC leader Ben Jamal said: “Keir Starmer is facing his first test on the willingness of his government to support the right to peaceful protest, including for protest to take place near Westminster.
French researcher admits military secrets charges, claims Russia
Laurent Vinatier, a researcher for a conflict mediation organisation, was arrested for breaching Russia’s ‘foreign agents’ law. A French researcher has admitted to criminal charges related to collecting sensitive military information, Russian investigators have claimed. Laurent Vinatier pleaded guilty during questioning to failing to register as a foreign agent while illegally collecting sensitive military information, the Investigative Committee of Russia said on Wednesday. The French researcher joined a list of Western citizens detained by Moscow when he was arrested by the Federal Security Service (FSB) last month. “The French citizen has pleaded guilty in a criminal case on illegal collection of information in the field of Russian military activities,” the Investigative Committee said in a statement. “During the interrogation, he admitted his guilt in full.” Potentially increasing Western concerns, the FSB then declared in a statement that Vinatier, who had worked long-term in Russia for the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue (HD) NGO, had “collected information of a military and military-technical nature that could be used to the detriment of the security of the Russian Federation”. The accusations against him could result in a sentence of five years in prison, according to reports. ‘Propaganda’ The 47-year-old researcher’s arrest came as tension rose between Moscow and Paris, with French President Emmanuel Macron calling for a hard line regarding the war in Ukraine. Following the arrest, Macron insisted that the employee of the Swiss-based conflict mediation group HD had never worked for the French state and demanded his immediate release, calling the “propaganda” against him “does not match reality”. However, a court last month placed him in pre-trial custody until August 5. Russia has not charged or publicly accused Vinatier of working with any foreign intelligence agency or directly engaging in espionage. However, authorities have previously arrested people for breaching the “foreign agents” law before charging them with more serious offences. Laurent Vinatier, an adviser to the Swiss nonprofit Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, French national Laurent Vinatier, allegedly collected information of a ‘military-technical nature’, Moscow, June 7, 2024 [Maxim Shemetov/Reuters] The Investigative Committee said seven witnesses from whom Vinatier had tried to collect military information had been questioned. “A linguistic forensic examination has been scheduled based on audio recordings of these meetings,” the committee said in its statement. In a statement following Vinatier’s arrest, HD said: “In the course of HD’s activities as an impartial and independent mediation organisation, our people work around the world and routinely meet with a wide range of officials, experts and other parties with the aim of advancing efforts to prevent, mitigate and resolve armed conflict.” ‘Hostage diplomacy’ Under Russian law, people who collect, report, or share information about Russia’s military or security services must register as “foreign agents”. Critics say the legislation has been used to clamp down on dissent. Its use has also risen since the Kremlin launched its war on neighbouring Ukraine in February 2022. US-Russian journalist Alsu Kurmasheva was arrested last year for failing to register as a “foreign agent”. More serious allegations of spreading false information about the armed forces have since been levelled against her. Several other Western citizens have been arrested in Russia since the Ukraine war began, which has put relations at their lowest ebb since the midst of the Cold War. US reporter Evan Gershkovich, who was arrested in March 2023 on espionage charges, went on trial behind closed doors last month. Several other US citizens have been arrested recently. Among the higher profile detainments is that of US security executive Paul Whelan, who was arrested in Moscow for espionage in 2018. US-Russian citizen Ksenia Karelina was put on trial for high treason last month after donating $50 to a Ukrainian charity. Russia has indicated that it is open to the idea of a prisoner exchange involving Gershkovich and others, claiming that contacts with the US have taken place. The US has in turn accused Russia of conducting “hostage diplomacy”. Adblock test (Why?)
Asbestos: The toxic mineral endangering millions in India
Asbestos is deadly, but India continues to be the world’s largest importer of the toxic mineral. 101 East investigates. Once used as an insulating material in buildings around the world, asbestos as been banned in more than 60 countries following the discovery that it causes deadly diseases. But in India, the world’s largest importer of the toxic mineral, millions of citizens continue to be exposed to asbestos. Research estimates more than six million Indians could contract asbestos-related diseases in the coming decades. Activists are demanding the government act now to protect citizens. 101 East investigates India’s Silent Killer. Adblock test (Why?)
‘This is a horrific hurricane’: Beryl becomes Category 5 storm
NewsFeed Hurricane Beryl has become the earliest ever Category 5 storm to hit the Atlantic. It made landfall near the island of Grenada and is currently on track to hit Jamaica. Ralph Gonsalves, prime minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, told Al Jazeera the damage it caused is “horrendous.” Published On 2 Jul 20242 Jul 2024 Adblock test (Why?)
Google blames AI as its emissions grow instead of heading to net zero
Three years ago, Google set an ambitious plan to address climate change by going “net zero”, meaning it would release no more climate-changing gases into the air than it removes, by 2030. But a report from the company on Tuesday showed it is nowhere near meeting that goal. Rather than declining, its emissions grew 13 percent in 2023 over the year before. Compared with its baseline year of 2019, emissions have soared 48 percent. Google cited artificial intelligence and the demand it puts on data centres, which require massive amounts of electricity, for last year’s growth. Making that electricity by burning coal or natural gas emits greenhouse gas emissions, including carbon dioxide and methane, which warm the planet, bringing more extreme weather. The company has made one of industry’s most significant climate commitments and has been seen as a leader. Lisa Sachs, director of the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment, said Google should be doing more to partner with cleaner companies and invest in the electrical grid. “The reality is that we are far behind what we could already be doing now with the technology that we have, with the resources that we have, in terms of advancing the transition,” she said. Google Chief Sustainability Officer Kate Brandt told The Associated Press news agency, “Reaching this net zero goal by 2030, this is an extremely ambitious goal. “We know this is not going to be easy and that our approach will need to continue to evolve,” Brandt added, “and it will require us to navigate a lot of uncertainty, including this uncertainty around the future of AI’s environmental impacts.” AI electricity demand Some experts said the rapidly expanding data centres needed to power AI threaten the entire transition to clean electricity, an important part of addressing climate change. That’s because a new data centre can delay the closure of a power plant that burns fossil fuels or prompt a new one to be built. Data centres are not only energy-intensive, but they also require high-voltage transmission lines and need significant amounts of water to stay cool. They are also noisy. They often are built where electricity is cheapest, not where renewables, such as wind and solar, are a key source of energy. Global data centre and AI electricity demand could double by 2026, according to the International Energy Agency. Other major tech company sustainability plans are also challenged by the proliferation of data centres. They caused Microsoft’s emissions to grow 29 percent above its 2020 baseline, the company said in an environmental sustainability report in May. Tech companies make the case that while AI is contributing to climate change, it’s also helping to address it. In the case of Google, that could mean using data to predict future flooding or making traffic flow more efficiently to save petrol. Amanda Smith, senior scientist at the climate nonprofit Project Drawdown, said those who use AI – both large companies and individuals just making memes – need to do so responsibly, meaning using the energy only when it benefits society. “It’s up to us as humans to watch what we’re doing with it and to question why we’re doing that,” Smith added. “When it’s worth it, we can make sure that those demands are going to be met by clean sources of power.” Google’s emissions grew last year in part because the company used more energy; 25,910 gigawatt hours more, an increase from the year before and more than double the hours of energy consumed just four years earlier. A gigawatt hour is roughly the energy that a power plant serving several hundred thousand households puts out in one hour. On the positive side, as Google’s consumption grows, so has its use of renewable power. The company said in 2020 it would meet its enormous need for electricity using only clean energy every hour of every day by 2030 all over the world. Last year, Google said, it saw an average of 64 percent carbon-free energy for its data centres and offices around the globe. The company said its data centres are on average 1.8 times as energy efficient as others in the industry. Sachs credited Google for its ambition and honesty but said she hopes “that Google would join us in a more rigorous conversation about how to accelerate” clean energy amid the climate crisis, “so that it doesn’t get much worse before it starts getting better”. Adblock test (Why?)
Judge delays Trump’s New York sentencing until closer to US election
Trump became the first former US president convicted of felony charges and was originally set to be sentenced next week. The judge in Donald Trump’s hush money case has granted a request to delay the former United States president’s sentencing until at least September. The decision on Tuesday follows a ruling by the US Supreme Court that ordered broad criminal immunity for presidents in their official acts. Trump’s legal team had cited the top court’s decision in a letter to Judge Juan Merchan requesting the delay in the sentencing, which was originally scheduled on July 11. The lawyers representing Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential candidate, told Merchan they needed time to build their case that Trump’s conviction on 34 felony charges of falsifying business documents to cover up hush money payments made to an adult actress should be overturned in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling. Before Merchan’s decision, prosecutors with the Manhattan district attorney’s office said Trump’s argument was “without merit” but agreed to delay the sentencing. Merchan said the sentencing would be delayed until at least September 18, less than two months before the November 8 elections. Prosecutors had argued that Trump falsified business records to cover up his former lawyer Michael Cohen’s $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels in exchange for her silence on an alleged 2006 sexual encounter with Trump. They directly connected the payments to a wider scheme to influence the 2016 presidential election. In their letter to Merchan, Trump’s lawyers argued that during the trial, prosecutors had presented evidence involving Trump’s official acts as president, including social media posts he made and conversations he had while in the White House. That evidence should have been protected under presidential immunity, the lawyers said, per the Supreme Court’s Monday ruling. The ruling from the majority of six justices on the nine-member bench said presidents have “absolute immunity” from criminal liability for any acts within their “core constitutional powers”. Evidence related to those official acts also may not be presented at a trial, the majority opinion said. However, the ruling, which was assailed by the court’s three liberal justices, said presidents could still be prosecuted for acts outside those powers. The exact delineations remain unclear. In her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor warned the decision opened the door to “nightmare scenarios”, including possible immunity for assassinating a political rival. “In every use of official power, the president is now a king above the law,” she wrote. Political implications The Supreme Court ruling bodes well for Trump, who faces three additional criminal trials. It is expected to be the most bedeviling to the legal argument at the heart of a federal case related to Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results after his loss to President Joe Biden. It could also have implications for a state trial in Georgia related to efforts to pressure officials to change the 2020 vote count as well as a second federal trial related to Trump allegedly hiding and hoarding classified White House documents at his Florida estate. The New York trial, however, was the only trial expected to finish before the election. While the initial guilty verdict did not show a major shift in support for Trump, analysts have argued that a severe sentence could turn off some would-be Trump voters. Merchan’s decision comes five days after Biden delivered a dismal performance in the first presidential debate against Trump, which has sent the Democrat’s campaign into damage control while bringing concerns over the 81-year-old’s age to the fore. On Tuesday, a Reuters/Ipsos poll was released showing one in three Democrats think Biden should end his re-election bid after the debate performance. Still, the poll found no prominent elected Democrat would perform any better than Biden in a hypothetical matchup against Trump. On Wednesday, Biden was reportedly set to meet with Democratic governors in an effort to allay their concerns. White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre also said Biden would give his first post-debate interview to ABC News on Friday and would hold a news conference during a NATO conference next week. She reiterated that Biden has no intention of dropping out of the race. Adblock test (Why?)