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Why OBR forecast is being held back until Kwarteng’s next fiscal plan
Office for Budget Responsibility
Analysis
Why OBR forecast is being held back until
Kwarteng’s next fiscal plan
Richard
Partington
Huge policy changes are needed to get UK back on track
– so early publication would give an incomplete picture
Fri 30 Sep
2022 19.03 BST
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/sep/30/why-obr-forecast-held-back-kwarteng-fiscal-plan
Given the
fallout in financial markets after the not-so-mini-budget, Truss and her
chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, laid on a heavily stage-managed meeting on Friday
with officials from the Office for Budget Responsibility, the Treasury’s
independent economic forecaster, to try to smooth over the mess.
A week ago
the watchdog, responsible for crunching the numbers on the government’s tax and
spending plans, had been sidelined as Kwarteng set out £45bn of unfunded tax
giveaways. Now the OBR’s chair, Richard Hughes, was the guest of honour in an
oak-panelled Downing Street meeting room.
Meetings
between the Treasury and the OBR are normal. But holding one directly with the
prime minister and chancellor, and with a press photographer and public
statement in tow, is unheard of.
The
Treasury said it would publish the watchdog’s forecasts for the UK economy and
public finances on 23 November, when Kwarteng plans to outline a medium-term
fiscal plan. It also said the prime minister and chancellor “reaffirmed their
commitment to the independent OBR and made clear that they value its scrutiny”.
Headlines
in friendly newspapers had suggested Truss was “not for turning” back on her
economic plan. But here was an embarrassing, partial retreat in the war on the
woke-ish Whitehall blob. Treasury orthodoxy is dead, long live Treasury
orthodoxy!
City
investors say there are two big reasons financial markets fell out of bed in
the past week, alongside the global factors hitting the pound and government
bonds.
First, and
most importantly, the shock scale of Kwarteng’s unfunded tax cuts. Second, the
government’s open disregard for institutions – such as the OBR, Treasury
advisers, and the Bank of England – which are intended to steer the UK clear of
major economic policy errors.
Speculation
had swirled that Truss holding the meeting could help her to put pressure on
the OBR to publish a more favourable verdict. However, the body denied this,
saying its forecasts “will, as always, be based on our independent judgment”.
There was also
a clamour for forecasts to be published at the earliest possible moment. After
all, preparatory work had been under way since the summer and the OBR had been
ready to publish at the time of the mini-budget. Given the deterioration in the
economy since spring, and the scale of the tax cuts, it would have made for
grim reading.
With the
OBR back round the government table, it said the first iteration of its
forecasts would be handed to Kwarteng by Friday next week, six weeks ahead of
the chancellor’s next fiscal statement. This detail has inevitably stoked
criticism of a delay and demands for the forecasts to be made public.
However,
such lengthy timescales are common. Before budgets, the OBR provides multiple
private forecasts to the Treasury over a period of several weeks. Each time,
they are updated to reflect government policy decisions, before a final version
is published. Before the then chancellor Rishi Sunak’s last budget on 23 March,
the first economy forecast was handed to the Treasury two months earlier, on 21
January.
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However,
rebellious Tory MPs are likely to push for earlier clarity. Giving that clarity
earlier would hand more information to the Bank of England before a key
decision on interest rates early next month.
After the
meltdown in sterling caused by the mini-budget, City investors expect a sharp
rate rise, of 1 percentage point, to 3.25%. At a time when homeowners are being
quoted eye-watering mortgage deals, that will only add to pressure on families.
An early
publication would, however, offer an incomplete picture without the
government’s updated economic plans. And herein lies the biggest challenge for
restoring economic credibility and calming markets.
Any
forecast showing the economy and public finances on a sustainable path will
require either a U-turn on tax cuts, or sweeping cuts to public spending of the
kind unseen since George Osborne’s austerity budget of 2010.
To choose
the first would admit total failure of everything Truss stood for on the
campaign trail, far beyond any mea culpa over Treasury orthodoxy. The
latter would undoubtedly mean electoral annihilation.
Nomad Century: How to Survive the Climate Upheaval Relié by Gaia Vince
An urgent investigation of the most underreported, seismic consequence of climate change: how it will force us to change where - and how - we live
We are facing a species emergency. With every
degree of temperature rise, a billion people will be displaced from the zone in
which humans have lived for thousands of years. While we must do everything we
can to mitigate the impact of climate change, the brutal truth is that huge
swathes of the world are becoming uninhabitable. From Bangladesh to Sudan to
the western United States, and in cities from Cardiff to New Orleans to
Shanghai, the quadruple threat of drought, heat, wildfires and flooding will
utterly reshape Earth's human geography in the coming decades.
In this rousing call to arms, Royal Society
Science Prize-winning author Gaia Vince demonstrates how we can plan for and
manage this unavoidable climate migration. The vital message of this book is
that migration is not the problem-it's the solution. Rich countries in the
north are facing demographic crises and labour shortages. Drawing on a wealth
of eye-opening data and original reporting, Vince shows how migration brings
benefits not only to migrants themselves, but to host countries, who benefit
economically as well as culturally. A borderless world is not something to
fear: in fact, studies suggest that it would double global GDP. As Vince
describes, we will need to move northwards as a species, into the habitable
fringes of Europe and Asia, into Canada and the greening Arctic circle. Nowhere
will be spared the devastating impacts of climate disruption, but some places,
Vince identifies, will also see some benefits from rising temperatures and growing
populations.
While the climate catastrophe is finally getting
the attention it deserves, the inevitability of mass migration has been largely
ignored. In Nomad Century, Vince provides, for the first time, an examination
of the most pressing question facing humanity.
An urgent investigation of the most
underreported, seismic consequence of climate change: how it will force us to
change where - and how - we live
We are facing a species emergency. With every
degree of temperature rise, a billion people will be displaced from the zone in
which humans have lived for thousands of years. While we must do everything we
can to mitigate the impact of climate change, the brutal truth is that huge
swathes of the world are becoming uninhabitable. From Bangladesh to Sudan to
the western United States, and in cities from Cardiff to New Orleans to
Shanghai, the quadruple threat of drought, heat, wildfires and flooding will
utterly reshape Earth's human geography in the coming decades.
In this rousing call to arms, Royal Society
Science Prize-winning author Gaia Vince demonstrates how we can plan for and
manage this unavoidable climate migration. The vital message of this book is
that migration is not the problem-it's the solution. Rich countries in the
north are facing demographic crises and labour shortages. Drawing on a wealth
of eye-opening data and original reporting, Vince shows how migration brings
benefits not only to migrants themselves, but to host countries, who benefit
economically as well as culturally. A borderless world is not something to
fear: in fact, studies suggest that it would double global GDP. As Vince
describes, we will need to move northwards as a species, into the habitable
fringes of Europe and Asia, into Canada and the greening Arctic circle. Nowhere
will be spared the devastating impacts of climate disruption, but some places,
Vince identifies, will also see some benefits from rising temperatures and growing
populations.
While the climate catastrophe is finally getting
the attention it deserves, the inevitability of mass migration has been largely
ignored. In Nomad Century, Vince provides, for the first time, an examination
of the most pressing question facing humanity.
Revealed: 5,000 empty ‘ghost flights’ in UK since 2019, data shows
Revealed: 5,000 empty ‘ghost flights’ in UK since
2019, data shows
Exclusive: A further 35,000 flights have operated
almost empty, with climate campaigners calling the revelations ‘shocking’
Why ghost flights operate remains unclear.
Damian
Carrington and Pamela Duncan
Wed 28 Sep
2022 13.10 BST
More than
5,000 completely empty passenger flights have flown to or from UK airports
since 2019, the Guardian can reveal.
A further
35,000 commercial flights have operated almost empty since 2019, with fewer than
10% of seats filled, according to analysis of data from the Civil Aviation
Authority (CAA). This makes a total of about 40,000 “ghost flights”.
In one
quarter, for example, 62 empty planes left Luton airport for Poland, while in
another, Heathrow saw 663 almost empty flights going to and from the US. Both
quarters were during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Air travel
results in more carbon emissions an hour than any other consumer activity and
is dominated by a minority of frequent flyers, making it a focus of climate
campaigners. They called the ghost flight revelations “shocking” and said a jet
fuel tax was needed and airport expansion plans should be questioned. The UK
government describes ghost flights as “environmentally damaging”.
Why ghost
flights operate remains unclear. Only airlines know the reasons but they do not
publish data that explains the practice. Ghost flights may run to fulfil
“use-it-or-lose-it” airport slot rules, though these were suspended during the
height of the pandemic. Other reasons cited by airlines include Covid
repatriation flights or the repositioning of aircraft. But these cannot be
verified and campaigners said more transparency was needed.
The new
data gives the fullest picture to date of the number of UK ghost flights, as
previous data only counted international departures. It now includes
international arrivals and flights within the UK. The CAA will now publish this
data quarterly, as a result of a series of FoI requests by the Guardian.
“Publication
of this data is a step in the right direction, but we need more transparency to
understand why these inefficient, polluting practices continue, and to hold the
main airline culprits to account,” said Tim Johnson at the Aviation Environment
Federation. “Given the climate emergency, the revelation that so many near
empty planes have been burning fossil fuels and adding to the CO2 building up
in the atmosphere is pretty shocking.”
A
spokesperson for the Department for Transport said it would work with the CAA
to monitor aircraft occupancy and seek greater transparency on the issue of
ghost flights.
The data
shows an average of 130 completely empty flights a month since 2019. The number
of empty flights remained at a similar level before, during and after pandemic
travel restrictions, with the second highest level in the second quarter of
2022. This suggests the reason the airlines chose to fly empty planes was not
related to the impact of Covid on aviation.
Half of the
empty flights were within the UK and the top seven airports accounted for
two-thirds of the total, led by Birmingham with 1,455, Luton (1,307) and
Bristol (758). The number of empty flights did not correlate with the total
number of flights at each airport, suggesting they may reflect issues on
specific routes.
There have
been an average of 1,200 almost empty ghost flights a month since the start of
2020, when numbers jumped at the start of the Covid pandemic. Most of these –
about 80% – were to or from foreign destinations.
Eight
airports, among the busiest in the UK, accounted for about two-thirds of the
almost empty flights since 2019, led by Heathrow (10,467), Manchester (3,309),
Gatwick (2,766) and Stansted (2,197). Edinburgh and Glasgow both had more than
1,500 almost empty flights.
Alethea
Warrington, at the climate charity Possible, said: “This shocking new data on
ghost flights is yet another example of how the aviation industry cannot be
trusted to get its emissions on track to tackle the climate crisis.”
“Following
a summer of record-breaking, runway-melting heat, this wanton waste of carbon
by airlines flies in the face of those feeling the full brunt of our warming
world,” she said. “To end this for good, it’s time to start taxing kerosene to
discourage unnecessary emissions.”
A
spokesperson for Airlines UK said: “Millions of flights arrived and departed
the UK between 2019 and 2022, with only a tiny fraction operating without or
with few passengers and for a variety of operational reasons driven by the
pandemic.”
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Airlines
have denied operating ghost flights to retain slots. The normal 80:20 rule,
meaning 80% of flights on a route must operate to retain the valuable slots,
only applies to the busiest airports and was suspended from the end of March
2020 because of the pandemic. It was reintroduced as a 50:50 rule in October
2021 and rose to 70:30 from the end of March 2022.
Some
airlines have said that some ghost flights took place during the pandemic to
fly in Covid-related supplies on passenger planes. However, the CAA data
records fewer than 300 flights since the start of 2020 carrying cargo but no
passengers.
A
spokesperson for Birmingham airport said: “Flight occupancy fell during the
pandemic due to travel restrictions. During this time flights into Birmingham
included British nationals returning from ‘red list’ countries, PPE and Afghan
refugees.”
A Luton
airport spokesperson said the reasons for the high number of ghost flights
included Covid travel restrictions and regulatory requirements regarding
aircraft airworthiness and pilot licensing. “Following the removal of all
travel restrictions, average passenger loads per flight have returned to 88%
this summer,” he said. Repositioning of aircraft and maintenance was among the
reasons given by Bristol airport for its ghost flights.
Heathrow is
the UK’s busiest airport and had the highest number of almost empty flights. A
Heathrow spokesperson said: “At a time [during the pandemic] when the industry
was losing billions, no operator would have been flying a plane without it
being commercially viable or without an operational need. As borders closed to passengers,
airlines switched to cargo operations, delivering vital medical supplies for
the country.”
Anna
Hughes, at the Flight Free UK campaign group, said: “Putting tens of thousands
of empty or near-empty planes in the air during a climate crisis is a vast
waste of money and a needless source of emissions. It makes a mockery of
people’s efforts to reduce their own emissions. If it makes business sense for
the airlines to do this, there’s something badly wrong with the business
model.”
The
spokesperson for Airlines UK said: “UK airlines are fully committed to
achieving net zero emissions by 2050. Alongside filling our flights as much as
possible, we are making ‘jet zero’ a reality by modernising our airspace to
further reduce inefficiencies, using at least 10% sustainable aviation fuel by
2030 and driving the development of zero emission commercial aircraft.”
Johnson
said: “Several reasons have been put forward for near empty flights during the
pandemic, but the provision of 2019 data – a record year for airport passengers
in the UK – highlights a wider problem. The data also shows that 50,000
aircraft arrived or departed from Heathrow and Gatwick alone in 2019 less than
half full. This must cast doubt both on these airports’ claims that they are
effectively full and need to expand and on their claims to be responding to the
urgency of the climate challenge.”
All the
flights in the CAA data are commercial passenger flights and air crew training
flights are not included. There were thousands of ghost flights to oil rigs but
these were not included in the Guardian analysis. The CAA data also lists
Bournemouth airport as having 933 empty flights, but the airport said the vast
majority of these were non-commercial flights run by a company that is a tenant
at the airport.
Cavaco Silva avalia seis meses do Governo de Costa: “Desorientado” e “sem vontade reformista”
PRESIDENTE DA
REPÚBLICA
Cavaco Silva avalia seis meses do Governo de Costa:
“Desorientado” e “sem vontade reformista”
Esta é a terceira vez que Aníbal Cavaco Silva se
pronuncia sobre o desempenho do actual executivo de António Costa. Faz balanço
dos primeiros seis meses e a nota é, sem surpresas, negativa. O ex-Presidente
da República diz que o Governo está “desorientado”, a “navegar à vista” e a
desperdiçar oportunidades de reforma.
Liliana Borges
30 de Setembro de
2022, 0:01
O prazo tinha
sido traçado por Aníbal Cavaco Silva: precisava de seis meses do Governo de
maioria absoluta do PS para ter “informação objectiva” que permitisse uma
avaliação da “coragem política” de António Costa para fazer “reformas
decisivas”. Esta sexta-feira, num artigo de opinião no PÚBLICO, o antigo
Presidente da República dá nota negativa ao executivo e aponta para “um conjunto
desarticulado e desorientado de ministros desgastados, sem rumo, sem ambição e
vontade reformista”. “Um governo à deriva navegando à vista”, resume.
No terceiro
artigo de opinião em seis meses (o primeiro foi em Abril), Cavaco Silva diz que
sente falta de “reformas decisivas” que coloquem Portugal numa “trajectória de
crescimento sustentável”. E traça objectivos. Fala em aumentar salários,
aumentar pensões de reforma e em melhorar a qualidade da saúde e da educação.
Cavaco, que
liderou as únicas maiorias absolutas do PSD, afirma ainda que era expectável
que um Governo com apoio maioritário no Parlamento “adoptasse como uma das suas
primeiras prioridades o desenvolvimento de uma estratégia reformista de médio e
longo prazo”. E desafia António Costa a liderar “uma mudança de atitude do
Governo”, o que deve ser feito com “urgência”.
No debate sobre
política geral desta quinta-feira, no Parlamento, o primeiro-ministro
desviou-se das críticas ao seu executivo para vincar que o seu compromisso é
garantir respostas “aos problemas das pessoas” e não distrair-se com a “espuma
dos dias” que marca “a agenda mediática”.
No seu artigo de
opinião, o antigo Presidente da República mostra-se ainda preocupado com a
“credibilidade” do executivo devido aos “comportamentos politicamente
reprováveis de alguns membros do Governo”. E destaca dois casos: a “afronta
política” do ministro das Infra-estruturas, Pedro Nuno Santos, e a reacção da
ministra da Agricultura às críticas da Confederação dos Agricultores de
Portugal (CAP) sobre a falta de apoios públicos para o sector.
Para Cavaco,
António Costa “não podia deixar de demitir o ministro”. “Ao não fazê-lo,
evidenciou falta de força política”, considera o também ex-primeiro-ministro.
“A razão é ainda uma incógnita”, completa, com esperança que Costa venha ainda
a revelar o que o levou a desculpar Pedro Nuno Santos. Ao agarrar o seu
ministro, Costa “pôs em causa a sua autoridade” e “a credibilidade” do restante
executivo. Mas houve um vencedor nesta história: Pedro Nuno Santos, que “saiu
inequivocamente reforçado como candidato à sucessão do primeiro-ministro como
líder do PS”, considera o antigo Presidente da República.
Quanto à ministra
da Agricultura, Cavaco diz que a gravidade da declaração ultrapassa a
governante. E lança a sua maior acusação do texto, dizendo reflectir “uma
convicção enraizada” de que os apoios financeiros “devem ser orientados
prioritariamente para os apoiantes do PS e para aqueles que se abstêm de
criticar o executivo”. Uma convicção, prossegue, que “só pode resultar da
cultura política por ela apreendida nas reuniões do Conselho de Ministros”,
insinua. Umas linhas abaixo, Cavaco lamenta também “a prática do PS de vetar a
chamada de ministros às comissões parlamentares”.
Numa nova ronda
de desafios – desta vez não ao Governo – Cavaco pede à oposição, sociedade
civil e comunicação social que ajudem António Costa e a sua equipa a saírem “da
situação de imobilismo e encontrem um rumo”. O antigo líder social-democrata
traça um objectivo concreto: colocar Portugal como o 15.º país mais
desenvolvido entre os 27 países da União Europeia.
Judge Overrules Special Master’s Demands to Trump in Document Review
Judge Overrules Special Master’s Demands to Trump in Document Review
The dueling moves by Judge Aileen M. Cannon and a
special master she appointed reflected a larger struggle over who should
control the rules of the review — and whom those rules would favor.
By Charlie
Savage and Alan Feuer
Sept. 29,
2022
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/29/us/trump-special-master-documents.html
WASHINGTON
— A federal judge on Thursday set aside a measure imposed by a special master
asking former President Donald J. Trump to certify the accuracy of the F.B.I.’s
inventory of the property it had seized from his Florida estate last month,
overruling an arbiter she had appointed herself.
The
decision, included in a six-page order issued by Judge Aileen M. Cannon, was
among several to ease demands by the special master, Judge Raymond J. Dearie.
Under requirements he put in place in recent days, Mr. Trump’s lawyers would
have been forced to test excuses they have made in connection with the trove of
documents taken from his estate, Mar-a-Lago.
Judge
Cannon also rejected a swift timetable Judge Dearie had set to resolve the
review of the documents, slowing the matter down.
Judge
Dearie’s request that Mr. Trump’s lawyers certify by Friday the accuracy of the
F.B.I.’s inventory — and indicate whether there was anything in it that agents
had not taken from Mar-a-Lago — had put Mr. Trump and his lawyers in a bind. If
they acknowledged that the bureau had found sensitive documents, the admission
could be used as evidence against Mr. Trump.
Moreover,
in public statements, Mr. Trump has repeatedly accused F.B.I. agents of
planting evidence during their search. The certification that Judge Dearie
requested would have required Mr. Trump’s lawyers to either disavow those
claims or repeat them in court, where they could face professional consequences
for lying.
In her
ruling on Thursday, Judge Cannon, a Trump appointee, sided with the former
president, eliminating the stipulation about the inventory. Her initial order,
she said, “did not contemplate that obligation.”
“There
shall be no separate requirement on plaintiff at this stage, prior to the
review of any of the seized materials,” she wrote.
As the
judge who appointed the special master, Judge Cannon has the authority to
overrule Judge Dearie. But she herself has partly been overruled as well: A
federal appeals court in Atlanta exempted documents with classification
markings from the special master’s review and allowed the Justice Department to
continue using them in its investigation, blocking part of her original order.
Judge
Dearie had also directed Mr. Trump’s legal team to sort any documents over
which he intended to assert executive privilege into two categories: privilege
that would shield White House information from disclosure to people outside the
executive branch, like Congress, and privilege that would purportedly shield
such information from review within the executive branch.
By asking
Mr. Trump’s lawyers to do so, Judge Dearie was forcing them to confront the
weakness many legal experts say lies at the heart of their contention that
executive privilege is relevant in this context: namely, that the Justice
Department is itself part of the executive branch.
Mr. Trump’s
legal team also objected to that requirement, saying Judge Cannon had not given
the special master permission to make them engage in such a distinction. On
Thursday, Judge Cannon appeared to side with Mr. Trump on that issue, too.
Mr. Trump’s
lawyers need only say whether something was subject to executive privilege —
and, if so, to include a statement with “a sufficient description of the
rationale and scope of the assertion from which to evaluate the merits of the
assertion,” she said.
Judge
Dearie had set a brisk schedule for the review. He gave Mr. Trump’s team
deadlines in October to finish categorizing the materials in tranches, and he
apparently envisioned writing interim reports for Judge Cannon about them.
But Mr.
Trump’s lawyers have complained that the review was too fast; Judge Cannon on
Thursday slowed down the process, giving Mr. Trump’s lawyers significantly more
time to assess the documents.
Under Judge
Dearie’s proposal, he could have analyzed the central issue raised by Mr.
Trump’s claims of executive privilege as soon as late October. But Judge
Cannon’s order could delay his submission of a report and recommendations to
her until December.
The
decision by Judge Cannon to side with the former president in installing a
special master surprised legal experts, who broadly condemned her legal
reasoning.
The ruling
by the appeals court freeing the Justice Department to resume its criminal
investigation into Mr. Trump’s hoarding of sensitive government documents has
raised the question of whether a special master’s review, now relegated to
assessing unclassified records, has any significant upside for the former
president.
Judge
Dearie’s requirements had imposed significant disadvantages for Mr. Trump by
threatening to swiftly puncture Mr. Trump’s defenses. But Judge Cannon’s
intervention on Thursday eased that threat.
Charlie
Savage is a Washington-based national security and legal policy correspondent.
A recipient of the Pulitzer Prize, he previously worked at The Boston Globe and
The Miami Herald. His most recent book is “Power Wars: The Relentless Rise of
Presidential Authority and Secrecy.” @charlie_savage • Facebook
Alan Feuer covers extremism and political violence. He joined The Times in 1999. @alanfe
Ginni Thomas Denies Discussing Election Subversion Efforts With Her Husband
Ginni Thomas Denies Discussing Election
Subversion Efforts With Her Husband
In a closed-door interview with the House committee
investigating the Jan. 6 attack, Ms. Thomas reiterated her false assertion that
the 2020 election was stolen from President Donald J. Trump.
Luke
BroadwaterStephanie Lai
By Luke
Broadwater and Stephanie Lai
Sept. 29,
2022
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/29/us/politics/ginni-thomas-jan-6-committee.html
WASHINGTON
— Virginia Thomas, the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas and a conservative
activist who pushed to overturn the 2020 election, told the House committee
investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol that she never discussed those
efforts with her husband, during a closed-door interview in which she continued
to perpetuate the false claim that the election was stolen.
Leaving the
interview, which took place at an office building near the Capitol and lasted
about four hours, Ms. Thomas smiled in response to reporters’ questions, but
declined to answer any publicly.
She did,
however, answer questions behind closed doors, said Representative Bennie
Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the chairman of the committee, who added
that her testimony could be included in an upcoming hearing.
“If there’s
something of merit, it will be,” he said.
During her
interview, Ms. Thomas, who goes by Ginni, repeated her assertion that the 2020
election was stolen from President Donald J. Trump, Mr. Thompson said, a belief
she insisted upon in late 2020 as she pressured state legislators and the White
House chief of staff to do more to try to invalidate the results.
In a
statement she read at the beginning of her testimony, Ms. Thomas denied having
discussed her postelection activities with her husband.
In her
statement, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times, Ms. Thomas
called it “an ironclad rule” that she and Justice Thomas never speak about
cases pending before the Supreme Court. “It is laughable for anyone who knows
my husband to think I could influence his jurisprudence — the man is
independent and stubborn, with strong character traits of independence and
integrity,” she added.
The
interview ended months of negotiations between the committee and Ms. Thomas
over her testimony. The committee’s investigators had grown particularly
interested in her communications with John Eastman, the conservative lawyer who
was in close contact with Mr. Trump and wrote a memo that Democrats and
anti-Trump Republicans have likened to a blueprint for a coup.
“At this
point, we’re glad she came,” Mr. Thompson said.
After Ms.
Thomas’s appearance on Thursday, her lawyer Mark Paoletta said she had been
“happy to cooperate with the committee to clear up the misconceptions about her
activities surrounding the 2020 elections.”
“She
answered all the committee’s questions,” Mr. Paoletta said in a statement. “As
she has said from the outset, Mrs. Thomas had significant concerns about fraud
and irregularities in the 2020 election. And, as she told the committee, her
minimal and mainstream activity focused on ensuring that reports of fraud and
irregularities were investigated. Beyond that, she played no role in any events
after the 2020 election results. As she wrote in a text to Mark Meadows at the
time, she also condemned the violence on Jan. 6, as she abhors violence on any
side of the aisle.”
Ms. Thomas
exchanged text messages with Mr. Meadows, the White House chief of staff, in
which she urged him to challenge Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory in the 2020
election, which she called a “heist,” and indicated that she had reached out to
Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, about Mr. Trump’s efforts to use the
courts to keep himself in power. She even suggested the lawyer who should be
put in charge of that effort.
Ms. Thomas
also pressed lawmakers in several states to fight the results of the election.
But it was
Ms. Thomas’s interactions with Mr. Eastman, a conservative lawyer who pushed
Vice President Mike Pence to block or delay the certification of Electoral
College votes on Jan. 6, 2021, that have most interested investigators.
“She’s a
witness,” Mr. Thompson said Thursday. “We didn’t accuse her of anything.”
The panel
obtained at least one email between Ms. Thomas and Mr. Eastman after a federal
judge ordered Mr. Eastman to turn over documents to the panel from the period
after the November 2020 election when he was meeting with conservative groups
to discuss fighting the election results.
That same
judge has said it is “more likely than not” that Mr. Trump and Mr. Eastman
committed two felonies as part of the effort, including conspiracy to defraud
the American people.
Mr.
Paoletta has argued that the communications between Ms. Thomas and Mr. Eastman
contain little of value to the panel’s investigation.
Ms.
Thomas’s cooperation comes as the Jan. 6 committee is entering its final months
of work after a summer of high-profile hearings and preparing an extensive
report, which is expected to include recommendations for how to confront the
threats to democracy highlighted by the riot and Mr. Trump’s drive to overturn
the election.
The
interview came just days after the panel abruptly postponed a hearing scheduled
for Wednesday, citing the hurricane bearing down on Florida. The hearing has
yet to be rescheduled.
Representative
Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland and a member of the committee, said Ms.
Thomas’s interview showed that “people continue to cooperate with the committee
and understand the importance of our investigation.”
The panel
has interviewed more than 1,000 witnesses and has received hundreds of
thousands of documents and more than 10,000 submissions to its tip line since
June.
“There’s a
lot more information coming in all the time,” Mr. Raskin said.
He said the
committee members have viewed thousands of hours’ worth of video images and
tape but want to be “disciplined” about how they present them in the next hearing.
“There are
certain people who are going to denounce whatever we do, no matter what,” he
said. “We just want to be able to complete the narrative and then deliver our
recommendations about what needs to be done in order to insulate American
democracy against coups, insurrection, political violence and electoral
sabotage in the future.”
Maggie
Haberman and Catie Edmondson contributed reporting.
Luke
Broadwater covers Congress. He was the lead reporter on a series of
investigative articles at The Baltimore Sun that won a Pulitzer Prize and a
George Polk Award in 2020. @lukebroadwater
Stephanie
Lai is a reporter in the Washington bureau. She reports on Congress.
@stephaniealai
After Putin: 12 people ready to ruin Russia next
After Putin: 12 people ready to ruin Russia next
How the autocrat in the Kremlin could go — and who
might seek to replace him.
Douglas Busvine
https://www.politico.eu/article/after-putin-12-people-ready-ruin-russia-next/
Vladimir
Putin’s disastrous military adventure in Ukraine has raised the prospect that
his 22-year rule could be nearing its end. But will he go, or will he have to
be pushed?
Seven
months into the Russian president’s war of aggression, his troops have suffered
massive losses of men and equipment and are in headlong retreat in eastern
Ukraine. Putin’s order last week to mobilize hundreds of thousands of men has
descended into chaos, drawing rebukes even from his own propagandists and
political allies.
The
69-year-old autocrat rose to power in 2000, succeeding an ailing Boris Yeltsin
after championing Russia’s second war in Chechnya. The chances of his leaving
anytime soon are still remote, but it’s clear that the escalating fallout from
his military gamble is already loosening his viselike grip on power.
Read on to
explore the scenarios in which Putin’s reign could come to an end — and the
pretenders in line to replace him.(…)
8 things to know about the environmental impact of ‘unprecedented’ Nord Stream leaks
8 things to know about the environmental impact
of ‘unprecedented’ Nord Stream leaks
Suspected sabotage will release large amounts of
methane, but it’s a ‘wee bubble’ compared with what’s emitted globally every
day.
BY KARL
MATHIESEN AND ZIA WEISE
SEPTEMBER
28, 2022 8:25 PM
https://www.politico.eu/article/8-thing-know-environmental-impact-unprecedented-nord-stream-leak/
The apparent
sabotage of both Nord Stream gas pipelines may be one of the worst industrial
methane accidents in history, scientists said Wednesday, but it's not a major
climate disaster.
Methane — a
greenhouse gas up to 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide — is escaping
into the atmosphere from three boiling patches on the surface of the Baltic
Sea, the largest of which the Danish military said was a kilometer across.
On Tuesday
evening, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen condemned the “sabotage”
and “deliberate disruption of active European energy infrastructure.”
Here are eight key questions on the impact of the
leaks.
1. How much methane was in the pipelines?
No
government agency in Europe could say for sure how much gas was in the pipes.
“I cannot
tell you clearly as the pipelines are owned by Nord Stream AG and the gas comes
from Gazprom,” said a spokesperson for the German climate and economy ministry.
The two
Nord Stream 1 pipelines were in operation, although Moscow stopped delivering
gas a month ago, and both were hit. “It can be assumed that it’s a large
amount” of gas in those lines, the German official said. Only one of the Nord
Stream 2 lines was struck. It was not in operation but was filled with 177
million cubic meters of gas last year.
Estimates
of the total gas in the pipelines that are leaking range from 150 million cubic
meters to 500 million cubic meters.
2. How much is being released?
Kristoffer
Böttzauw, the director of the Danish Energy Agency, told reporters on Wednesday
that the leaks would equate to about 14 million tons of CO2, about 32 percent
of Denmark's annual emissions.
Germany's
Federal Environment Agency estimated the leaks will lead to emissions of around
7.5 million tons of CO2 equivalent — about 1 percent of Germany's annual
emissions. The agency also noted there are no "sealing mechanisms"
along the pipelines, "so in all likelihood the entire contents of the
pipes will escape."
Because at
least one of the leaks is in Danish waters, Denmark will have to add these
emissions to its climate balance sheet, the agency said.
But it is
not clear whether all of the gas in the lines would actually be released into
the atmosphere. Methane is also consumed by ocean bacteria as it heads through
the water column.
3. How does that compare to previous leaks?
The largest
leak ever recorded in the U.S. was the 2015 Aliso Canyon leak of roughly 90,000
tons of methane over months. With the upper estimates of what might be released
in the Baltic more than twice that, this week's disaster may be
"unprecedented," said David McCabe, a senior scientist with the Clean
Air Task Force.
Jeffrey
Kargel, a senior scientist at the Planetary Research Institute in Tucson,
Arizona, said the leak was "really disturbing. It is a real travesty, an
environmental crime if it was deliberate."
4. Will this have a meaningful effect on global
temperatures?
"The
amount of gas lost from the pipeline obviously is large," Kargel said. But
"it is not the climate disaster one might think."
Annual
global carbon emissions are around 32 billion tons, so this represents a tiny
fraction of the pollution driving climate change. It even pales in comparison
to the accumulation of thousands of industrial and agricultural sources of
methane that are warming the planet.
“This is a
wee bubble in the ocean compared to the huge amounts of so-called fugitive
methane that are emitted every day around the world due to things like
fracking, coal mining and oil extraction,” said Dave Reay, executive director of
the Edinburgh Climate Change Institute.
Lauri
Myllyvirta, lead analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air,
said it was roughly comparable to the amount of methane leaked from across
Russia’s oil and gas infrastructure on any given working week.
5. Is the local environment affected?
While the
gas is still leaking, the immediate vicinity is an extremely dangerous place.
Air that contains more than 5 percent methane can be flammable, said Rehder, so
the risk of an explosion is real. Methane is not a toxic gas, but high
concentrations can reduce the amount of available oxygen.
Shipping
has been restricted from a 5 nautical mile radius around the leaks. This is
because the methane in the water can affect buoyancy and rupture a vessel’s
hull.
Marine
animals near the escaping gas may be caught up and killed — especially poor
swimmers such as jellyfish, said Rehder. But long-term effects on the local
environment are not anticipated.
“It's an
unprecedented case,” he said. “But from our current understanding, I would
think that the local effects on marine life in the area is rather small.”
6. What can be done?
Some have
suggested that the remaining gas should be pumped out, but a German economy and
climate ministry spokesperson on Wednesday said this wasn't possible.
Once the
pipeline has emptied, "it will fill up with water," the spokesperson
added. "At the moment, no one can go underwater — the danger is too great
due to the escaping methane."
Any repair
would be the responsibility of pipeline owner Nord Stream AG, the Germans said.
7. Should they set it on fire?
Not only
would it look impressive, setting the gas on fire would hugely slash the global
warming impact of the leak. Methane is made of carbon and hydrogen, when burned
it creates carbon dioxide, which is between 30 and 80 times less planet-warming
per ton than methane. Flaring, as it is known, is a common method for reducing
the impact of escaping methane.
From a pure
climate perspective, setting the escaping methane on fire makes sense. “Yes,
definitely — it will help,” said Piers Forster, director of the Priestley
International Centre for Climate at the University of Leeds.
But there
would be safety issues and potential environmental concerns, including air
pollution from the combustion. "With land — in particular the inhabited
and touristic island of Bornholm — nearby, you would not venture into
this," said Rehder.
No
government has yet indicated that this is under consideration.
8. How long
will it last and what next?
“We expect
that gas will flow out of the pipes until the end of the week. After that,
first of all, from the Danish side, we will try to get out and investigate what
the cause is, and approach the pipes, so that we can have it investigated
properly. We can do that when the gas leak has stopped,” Danish Energy Agency
director Böttzauw told local media.
Summary UCRAINE / RUSSIA WAR
.jpg)
3h ago
05.51 BST
Summary
It’s now
7.50am in Ukraine. Here are the latest developments:
- Vladimir Putin is expected to preside over a ceremony to formally annexe swathes of Ukraine today. The Russian president is expected to sign into law the annexations of four Ukrainian regions – Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk. Russia has held fake referendums over the past week in order to claim a mandate for the territories.
- The UN secretary general has warned Russia that annexing Ukrainian regions would mark a “dangerous escalation” that would jeopardise the prospects for peace in the region. António Guterres said any decision to proceed with the annexation of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions “would have no legal value and deserves to be condemned”.
- The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, warned of a “very harsh” response by Ukraine if Russia went ahead with the annexations.
- There are indications that Russia might limit the movement of Ukrainians living in the occupied territories after it announces their annexation. Ukrainians have been told that from Saturday they will need to apply for a pass from the occupying authorities. This comes as the exiled Luhansk regional governor, Serhiy Haidai, said Russia had prevented about 1,000 Ukrainians from crossing the border into Latvia.
- Russian forces may face “imminent defeat” in the key north-eastern city of Lyman as Ukrainian soldiers continue their counteroffensive in the east of the country, according to a US thinktank. The Institute for the Study of War, citing Russian reports, said the defeat would allow Ukrainian troops to “threaten Russian positions along the western Luhansk” region. Alexander Petrikin, the pro-Russian head of the city administration, admitted the situation had grown “difficult” for Russian forces trying to hold the territory.
- Ukrainian forces have secured all of Kupiansk and driven Russian troops from their remaining positions on the east bank of the river that divides the north-eastern Ukrainian city. Most of Kupiansk, a strategic railway junction, was recaptured earlier this month as part of a counteroffensive by Ukrainian troops. AFP reported that those Russian troops who held out on the east bank of the Oskil river have been driven out.
- Finland is closing its border to Russian tourists after Putin’s partial mobilisation order prompted large numbers of people to flee the country. From midnight Thursday Finnish time (9pm GMT), Russian tourists holding an EU Schengen visa will be turned away unless they have a family tie or a compelling reason to travel.
- More than half of Russians felt fearful or anxious after Putin’s mobilisation announcement, according to a new poll. The poll by the independent Levada Centre showed 47% of respondents said they had felt anxiety, fear or dread after hearing that hundreds of thousands of soldiers would be drafted to fight in Ukraine.
- Nato vowed a “determined response” to what it described as “deliberate, reckless and irresponsible acts of sabotage” after leaks were discovered in the two Nord Stream pipelines. Swedish authorities have reported a fourth leak on one of the pipelines. The two leaks in Swedish waters were close to each other.
- Gas is likely to stop leaking from the damaged Nord Stream 1 pipeline on Monday, according to the pipeline’s operator. A spokesperson for Nord Stream AG said it was not possible to provide any forecasts for the pipeline’s future operation until the damage had been assessed.
- The Kremlin has said incidents on the Nord Stream pipelines look like an “act of terrorism”. The Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said a foreign state was probably responsible. Russia’s foreign ministry claimed the “incident on the Nord Stream occurred in a zone controlled by American intelligence”.
- The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, announced an eighth package of sanctions – including a draft sanctions law seen by the Guardian – designed to “make the Kremlin pay” for the escalation of the war against Ukraine. Hungary “cannot and will not support” energy sanctions in the package, said Gergely Gulyas, chief of staff to the prime minister, Viktor Orbán. An EU official said an agreement on the next sanctions package was expected before next week’s EU summit, or at least major parts of the package.
- Russia is escalating its use of Iranian-supplied “kamikaze” drones in southern Ukraine, including against the southern port of Odesa and the nearby city of Mykolaiv.
- Oleg Deripaska, one of Russia’s most powerful
oligarchs, has been indicted by the US Department of Justice for criminal
sanctions violations. Deripaska previously had deep links to British establishment figures.
DeSantis, Once a ‘No’ on Storm Aid, Petitions a President He’s Bashed
DeSantis, Once a ‘No’ on Storm Aid, Petitions a
President He’s Bashed
The Florida governor, who as a congressman opposed aid
to victims of Hurricane Sandy, is seeking relief from the Biden administration
as Hurricane Ian ravages his own state.
Matt
Flegenheimer
By Matt
Flegenheimer
Sept. 29,
2022
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/29/us/politics/desantis-biden-hurricane-ian-aid.html
As a
freshman congressman in 2013, Ron DeSantis was unambiguous: A federal bailout
for the New York region after Hurricane Sandy was an irresponsible boondoggle,
a symbol of the “put it on the credit card mentality” he had come to Washington
to oppose.
“I
sympathize with the victims,” he said. But his answer was no.
Nearly a
decade later, as his state confronts the devastation and costly destruction
wrought by Hurricane Ian, Mr. DeSantis is appealing to the nation’s better
angels — and betting on its short memory.
“As you
say, Tucker, we live in a very politicized time,” Mr. DeSantis, now Florida’s
governor, told Tucker Carlson on Wednesday night, outlining his request for
full federal reimbursement up front for 60 days and urging the Biden
administration to do the right thing. “But you know, when people are fighting
for their lives, when their whole livelihood is at stake, when they’ve lost
everything — if you can’t put politics aside for that, then you’re just not
going to be able to.”
The tonal
whiplash for Mr. DeSantis reflects a different job and a different moment — a
Tea Party-era House Republican now steering a perennially storm-battered state
dependent once more on federal assistance to rebuild. Yet even in the context
of his term as governor, the hurricane has required Mr. DeSantis to test
another gear.
He has, to
date, often used his executive platform to elevate himself to Republican
rock-stardom, positioning himself as a possible 2024 presidential contender
with a series of policy gambits that can feel precision-engineered to maximize
liberal outrage.
His most
recent stunt — flying undocumented Venezuelan immigrants from Texas to Martha’s
Vineyard — reinforced that he is more than willing to turn the machinery of
state against specific political targets. He has suggested that the next plane
of immigrants might land near President Biden’s weekend home in Delaware.
The present
circumstances have inspired a less swaggering posture toward a leader whom Mr.
DeSantis has long called “Brandon” as a recurring troll, aimed at the man he
might like to succeed. “Dear Mr. President,” the governor’s request for a major
disaster declaration and federal assistance began on Wednesday.
“Ironically,”
said David Jolly, a former Republican congressman from Florida, “there’s nobody
in America that Ron DeSantis needs more than Joe Biden.”
More than
that, Mr. Jolly said, a governor who self-identifies as unswerving in his
principles now finds himself with little choice but to push for storm relief
actions “antithetical to his professed ideology.”
“He held
those convictions strong in the House,” said Mr. Jolly, who has been sharply
critical of the party in the Trump years. “I doubt he will hold them as
strongly in the governor’s mansion.”
In 2013,
Mr. DeSantis and Representative Ted Yoho, another hard-line conservative, were
the only House members from Florida to oppose the Sandy package. For Mr.
DeSantis, who represented a coastal district in eastern Florida, the vote at
once established him as an eager combatant from the party’s ascendant right
wing — he was a founding member of the Freedom Caucus — while at times placing
him on the defensive back home.
In a local
interview that year, Mr. DeSantis said the bill contained “extraneous stuff”
that could not be classified as emergency spending. “I never made the point of
saying we shouldn’t do anything,” he said, adding that he could have supported
a leaner package focused on immediate relief. Asked then if he would vote
against a relief package that affected his own district, Mr. DeSantis was
noncommittal, suggesting he would support a responsible plan.
Through the
years, critics in both parties have accused Mr. DeSantis of applying this
standard selectively. In 2017, as he was poised to run for governor, Mr.
DeSantis supported an aid package after Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria as
places like Florida, Texas and Puerto Rico strained to recover.
His 2018
primary opponent, Adam Putnam, made an issue of Mr. DeSantis’s voting record
during the campaign. Storm-weary voters, a Putnam spokeswoman warned then,
should protect themselves against “further destruction at the hands of
Hurricane Ron.” Mr. DeSantis’s congressional office denied any inconsistency at
the time, rejecting a comparison between the two disaster packages and saying
he had supported emergency spending “when immediate and necessary.”
Asked about
the governor’s past positions on Thursday, a DeSantis spokesman said the
administration was “completely focused on hurricane response.” “As the governor
said earlier,” the spokesman, Jeremy T. Redfern, said, “we have no time for
politics or pettiness.”
Some
Northeastern lawmakers, including Republicans, have not forgotten how Mr.
DeSantis and some of his peers responded when the New York area was under
duress. “Year after year, we had given them billions of dollars,” said Peter
King, a former Republican congressman from Long Island, alluding to aid
packages for Southern states and calling the resistance to Sandy relief his
angriest moment in office. “Every one of them comes to New York to raise money.
They either go to the Hamptons or they go to Manhattan. And both areas were
devastated by Sandy.”
This week,
Mr. DeSantis said he was “thankful” for the Biden administration’s efforts so
far, moving to place himself in the tradition of above-the-fray leadership from
past Florida governors who negotiated catastrophic weather events on their
watch.
President
Biden on Thursday at the headquarters of the Federal Emergency Management
Agency in Washington. He has emphasized that he and Mr. DeSantis are working
together.Credit...Kenny Holston for The New York Times
The
president and the governor have each made a point of saying publicly that they
and their teams are in touch. “He complimented me. He thanked me for the
immediate response we had,” Mr. Biden said on Thursday, suggesting that any
political conflicts with Mr. DeSantis were irrelevant in these times. “This is
about saving people’s lives, homes and businesses.” (In February, Mr. DeSantis
baselessly said Mr. Biden “stiffs” storm victims for political reasons,
insisting that the president “hates Florida.”)
Haley
Barbour, a Republican former governor of Mississippi who presided over the
state’s response to Hurricane Katrina, said there was nothing inherently
inconsistent about a conservative governor seeking federal storm money. “People
think this is a role for the federal government — that some disasters are too
big for the community to bear the cost to get back to where you need to be,” he
said.
Besides, he
suggested, Mr. DeSantis and the White House suddenly had something in common.
“Biden likes to say, ‘Build back better,’” Mr. Barbour said. “Well, that’s what
Florida wants to do.”
Matt
Flegenheimer is a reporter covering national politics. He started at The Times
in 2011 on the Metro desk covering transit, City Hall and campaigns. @mattfleg
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