Category / French President Emmanuel Macron

Africa has been dealing with the impacts of climate change since the 1970s. The most recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) described the African continent as the one that will be most affected.
by Crimson Tazvinzwa

What does Africa need to tackle climate change?

Out of the 10 countries most affected by greenhouse gas emissions, six of them are in Africa, yet the continent only receives 5 percent of dedicated climate funding, writes Abou-Sabaa [Reuters]
Out of the 10 countries most affected by greenhouse gas emissions, six of them are in Africa, yet the continent only receives 5 percent of dedicated climate funding, writes Abou-Sabaa [Reuters]

One Planet Summit showcases Africa’s role against climate change – Maria Macharia

While Africa is responsible for merely 4 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, 65 percent of the continent’s estimated population of 1,3 billion people is considered to be directly impacted by climate change.

It is against the backdrop of this irony that global leaders, entrepreneurs, international organizations, and civil society meet in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, on Thursday next week to help accelerate focus and attention on climate investments in line with the Paris Agreement objectives.

The stakeholders will meet under the auspices of the One Planet Summit (OPS), which also focuses on promoting renewable energies, fostering resilience and adaptation and protecting biodiversity in the continent.

“OPS, which is in its third edition, is the French initiative to engage states and global ministers to implement climate policies,” said Mr Lõhmus. Nairobi will be the first first regional host of the OPS.

One Planet Summit (OPS) is held following the realization that resources and solutions for renewable energy already exist in Africa but there is a need to speed their financing and mainstream their development

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French President, Emmanuel Macron, and his Kenyan counterpart, Uhuru Kenyatta, as well as World Bank Group Interim President Kristalina Georgieva and UN Deputy Secretary General Amina Mohammed, will co-chair the conference, which will be among the highlights will co-chair the conference, which will be among the highlights of the fourth session of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-4) running from March 11-15.

Ado Lohmus, a UNEA special envoy, this week confirmed Macron will be in the East African country next week.

“On the 14th, he (Macron) will open the OPS, which will also be meeting here in Kenya alongside UNEA,” Lohmus said in Nairobi this week.

More than 2000 delegates from around the world have registered to attend UNEA-4 and are to be a key part of OPS proceedings.

OPS is one in a series of some climate events this year leading up to the UN 2019 Climate Summit and to the 25th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 25) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

In December 2018, the World Bank Group announced a major new set of climate targets for 2021-2025, doubling its current 5-year investments to around $200 billion in support for countries to take ambitious climate action.

Africa, from the shores of Lake Chad to the Congo Basin, is being hardest hit by the effects of climate change but it can also be at the forefront of solutions

The new plan significantly boosts support for adaptation and resilience, recognizing mounting climate change impacts on lives and livelihoods, especially in the world’s poorest countries. The plan also represents significantly ramped up ambition from the World Bank Group, sending an important signal to the wider global community to do the same.

Ahead of the OPS, Kenya government officials assured preparations for the OPS were progressing well, with the country having previously held international events of this nature.

Last year, Kenya co-hosted the first-ever global conference on the sustainable blue economy, alongside Canada.

OPS is held following the realization that resources and solutions for renewable energy already exist in Africa but there is a need to speed their financing and mainstream their development.

Judy Wakhungu, Kenya’s Ambassador to France, and French State Minister for Ecological and Inclusive Transition, Brune Poirson, recently held meetings to finalise plans for the OPS and UNEA-4.

Macron has previously spoken of his government’s goal to be a strategic partner to Africa in the field of climate change adaptation.

France is the largest financial contributor to the Africa Renewable Energy Initiative (AREI), alongside Germany and followed by the Council of the European Union.

At the Africa-France Summit held in Mali in 2017, the French president announced that financing for renewable energy in Africa would be increased from €2 billion to €3 billion, implemented by the Agence Française de Développement (French Development Agency) over the 2016-2020 period.

“Africa, from the shores of Lake Chad to the Congo Basin, is being hardest hit by the effects of climate change but it can also be at the forefront of solutions. It can succeed where Europe has not always been able to,” Macron prominently said during a state visit to Burkina Faso in late 2017.

This week, the World Bank, a partner for the OPS, stated cities in Sub-Saharan Africa, particularly Nairobi, could inform global action on climate change.

Nairobi already has a strong private sector presence as the eighth most attractive city in Africa for foreign direct investment, according to the global institution.

“As such, it can share important lessons learned with other cities in the region and around the world. The One Planet Summit provides the perfect space to do just that by actively inviting new partners to collaborate and launch new initiatives,” the World Bank stated.
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by Crimson Tazvinzwa

FRENCH PRESIDENT Emmanuel Macron Tells Egyptiant Counterpart President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi Human Rights And Stability co-exist

FILE PHOTO: French President Emmanuel Macron greets Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi as he leaves the Elysee palace, in Paris, France, October 24, 2017. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer/File Photo

FILE PHOTO: French President Emmanuel Macron greets Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi as he leaves the Elysee palace, in Paris, France, October 24, 2017. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer/File Photo

Macron tells Sisi human rights go together with stability

CRIMSON TAZVINZWA, AIWA! NO!|REUTERS| – French President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday that he told his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah al-Sisi during a visit to Cairo that stability and security cannot be separated from human rights, Trend reports referring to Reuters.

“Stability and durable peace go together with respect for individual dignity and the rule of law, and the search for stability cannot be dissociated from the question of human rights,” Macron said in a joint press conference with Sisi.

After saying in 2017 that he would not lecture Sisi on human rights, Macron has been under pressure from non-governmental organisations to take a firmer stance and had said he would be more outspoken during his three-day visit to Egypt.

“Stability and durable peace go together with respect for individual dignity and the rule of law, and the search for stability cannot be dissociated from the question of human rights,” he said during a joint press conference with Sisi that was dominated by the subject of rights.

“Things haven’t gone in the right direction since 2017 — bloggers, journalists are in prison and because of that Egypt’s image can find itself suffering,” Macron said.

Sisi told reporters that rights should be taken in the context of regional turbulence and the fight against terrorism.

“Egypt does not advance through bloggers. It advances through the work, effort and perseverance of its sons,” he said.


by Crimson Tazvinzwa

FRENCH Yellow Vest protesters overflow, continue to assault journalists

Image result for yellow vests

CJR Editors jallsop@cjr.org via mailchimpapp.net|AIWA! NO!|In late November, as the Gilets Jaunes—or Yellow Vests—protest movement took hold in France, Martin Goillandeau and Makana Eyre wrote for CJR that participants were harassing, and even assaulting, journalists. Since then, the protests have become a weekly occurrence. So, too, have threats against reporters. “The harassment and violence have got worse,” Eyre told me this morning. “I went to the Saturday protests in Paris to shoot photos and see how big it would get. This was the first time that I really felt nervous with my camera… I saw people interfering with broadcasts, shouting at media teams, and getting in their faces. For much of it, I had my camera in my coat.”
 
This past weekend, a group of Yellow Vests in the northern city of Rouen set upon two journalists working for LCI, a French TV news broadcaster; they were spared by two bodyguards, one of whom ended up in hospital with a broken nose. Protesters aggressed another LCI team in Paris. In Toulon, two Agence France-Presse reporters were chased by about 10 people, while in nearby Marseille, photographers were hassled and blocked from taking pictures. In Toulouse, a group of protesters trapped a 31-year-old local journalist in her car and threatened her with rape. “They wanted me to open my window. I told them it wasn’t possible, that I had to go and pick up my son,” she recalled. “A man threatened me that I had two seconds to get out.” Organized groups have hampered newspapers’ core operations, too: overnight on Friday, for example, about 30 Yellow Vests blocked regional newspaper La Voix du Nord’s distribution depot and threatened to burn a truck, stopping 20,000 copies of the paper from being delivered. On Sunday, trash cans were set on fire outside the same paper’s offices. While no motive was immediately established, its director doesn’t think it was an accident.

Hatred of the news media among Yellow Vests derives from a poisonous cocktail of old and new grievances: as the sociologist Jean-Marie Charon told Le Monde, French radicals’ longstanding distrust of the press has been exacerbated of late by perceived negative coverage and anti-corporate rhetoric aimed at the big media companies. Public trust in journalists is critically low. And the media has lacked consistent support from politicians, who, as in the US and elsewhere, have indulged anti-press attacks more frequently in recent years. On Saturday, Noëlle Lenoir, a former government minister and (ironically) president of Radio France’s ethics committee, tweeted that the LCI journalists in Rouen bore responsibility for being attacked.
 
Yellow Vests’ attacks on journalists are complicated by the fact that it’s unclear who, broadly speaking, might reasonably be held accountable for them, or call for them to stop. The Yellow Vests movement is highly diffuse: while some activists have effectively become spokespeople, it lacks leadership and a coherent ideological agenda. An unpopular hike in diesel tax sparked the protests—neon yellow vests only became a symbol because French motorists are obliged to keep them in their cars—but that policy has long since been scrapped, and still tensions continue. Copycat movements have started, albeit on a much smaller scale, in other European countries, including the UK. But again, beyond a general sense of anti-establishment rage, it’s not easy to define what links different “Yellow Vests” movements.
 
For now, politicians and well-intentioned activists—via public platforms and out on the streets—should speak out in support of the press, and look out for the journalists who, by doing their jobs, are putting themselves in harm’s way. And media-watchers in the US should pay attention. In France, the fear of routine physical violence against reporters has become real.
 
Below, more on the Yellow Vests:

  • “We want your skin”: In November, Goillandeau and Eyre recounted shocking early examples of attacks on reporters. In Toulouse, for example, “dozens of Yellow Vests started yelling, ‘We want your skin,’ and ‘You’re less than shit,’ then calling the journalists ‘collaborators,’ a reference to the support the Vichy government gave to the Nazis during World War II.”
     
  • In the ring: While the Yellow Vests movement lacks a coherent structure, some activists have gained a wide following on social media or personal press attention. The Financial Times’s Domitille Alain and Victor Mallet profile eight important figures, including Christophe Dettinger, a former French boxing champion who was filmed punching police officers in Paris last month.
     
  • Talking it out: On Sunday, French President Emmanuel Macron, who the Yellow Vests want to resign, announced a three-month “national debate” he hopes will quell the protests. While he promised to listen, however, he said his economic-reform agenda would continue.
     
  • Empty vests: “Yellow Vests” has become fraught shorthand for reporters; while the symbol has become ubiquitous in France, it’s increasingly meaningless in ideological terms. In the UK, meanwhile, both far-left and far-right protesters have appropriated it. The Guardian’s Ben Quinn and Jon Henley track the fight for ideological ownership. 
Following some of the worst riots seen in Paris in decades, the vast majority of French people still support the goals of the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vests). A survey of 1,016 people conducted by the polling firm Harris has revealed that even after the riots that saw cars and buildings burned on the Champs-Élysées, 72 per cent of respondents said they still support the movement, broadcaster RTL reports. The figures are not dissimilar from polls taken in the aftermath of the first protests on November 17th which saw nowhere near the same levels of violence but did see one death from a car speeding into a crowd of protestors. The polling firm also found that an overwhelming majority of French, 85 per cent, were against the use of violence during the protests with only 15 per cent finding violence justifiable.
by Crimson Tazvinzwa

EUROPE – Significant Majority of French Support Anti-Macron Movement Despite Violent Protests

Demonstrators wearing Yellow Vests (Gilets jaunes) hold banner as they block the traffic during a protest against the rising of the fuel and oil prices on November 17, 2018 in Le Boulou near the border with Spain. - Thousands of drivers blocked roads across France on November 17 in a …

Following some of the worst riots seen in Paris in decades, the vast majority of French people still support the goals of the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vests).//
RAYMOND ROIG/AFP/Getty Images

|AIWA! NO!|BREITBART|Following some of the worst riots seen in Paris in decades, the vast majority of French people still support the goals of the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vests).

A survey of 1,016 people conducted by the polling firm Harris has revealed that even after the riots that saw cars and buildings burned on the Champs-Élysées, 72 per cent of respondents said they still support the movement, broadcaster RTL reports.

The figures are not dissimilar from polls taken in the aftermath of the first protests on November 17th which saw nowhere near the same levels of violence but did see one death from a car speeding into a crowd of protestors.

The polling firm also found that an overwhelming majority of French, 85 per cent, were against the use of violence during the protests with only 15 per cent finding violence justifiable.

The violence over the weekend has largely overshadowed the original purpose of the protests, which were to pressure French President Emmanuel Macron to rethink a tax on fuel as part of his green agenda.

Some, such as populist former MP Marion Maréchal (formerly Marion Le Pen), have claimed that the violence has been due to far-left extremists infiltrating the movement and using it as an excuse to smash property and clash with police.

The theory of Ms Maréchal seemed to gain credibility on Saturday as the Arc de Triomphe was seen to be covered in far-left extremist graffiti including the phrase, “the ultra-right will lose!”

The core of the movement, according to French writer Renaud Camus, is an uprising of regular people who are protesting the globalist elites, who he refers to as the “Davocracy.”

In an interview with Breitbart London, he said the core of the movement was about “lack of respect, general exchangeability, being treated by managerial politics like an object, a simple product. A product, a producer, and a consumer all at once, a thing, a number, not a human being.”

by Crimson Tazvinzwa

FORMER US PRESIDENT H.W. BUSH: Life of Privilege, Political Dynasty & Public Service

The world has been paying tribute to the 41st US President George HW Bush, who died late on Friday aged 94.

The world has been paying tribute to the 41st US President George HW Bush, who died late on Friday aged 94.

|CRIMSON TAZVINZWA, AIWA! NO!|George Bush was an American patrician who brought great talents to the presidency and wrought great achievements, but never quite grasped the pitiless frivolity of US politics. At his zenith, he shone in the international firmament, as the embodiment of US hegemony; at home his grasp was never so sure, and his single term in the White House ended in frustration, controversy and bitter defeat. 

Bush was elected to office in 1988 after eight years as vice president to his fellow Republican, Ronald Reagan. Where Reagan’s great achievement, in foreign affairs, was to perceive the weakness of the Soviet Union, to stand up to the Soviet leadership and eventually to reach agreements with the Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, Bush inherited a world in which Communist regimes were already collapsing, in which the United States found itself, somewhat to its own surprise, as the only superpower.

  • Former US President George H.W. Bush has died at the age of 94
  • The 41st president was a World War Two aviator and Texas oil tycoon before entering politics in 1964
  • His son, former President George W Bush, announced his death
  • President Trump paid tribute to Bush’s “unwavering commitment to faith, family and country”
  • George HW Bush was in office during the final days of the Cold War when the USSR collapsed in 1991


Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has described George HW Bush as “an extraordinary and exemplary public servant, a man dedicated to his country, the values it stands for at its best and to making the world better, more stable and more peaceful”.
“He was a great friend and ally to Britain, a supporter of the Transatlantic Alliance and a huge influence in the development of Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
“My deepest sympathies and condolences go to the Bush family at this time,” Mr Blair said.

BBC NEWS
"My deepest sympathies and condolences go to the Bush family at this time," Mr Blair

“My deepest sympathies and condolences go to the Bush family at this time,” Mr Blair

French President Emmanuel Macron has paid tribute to George H.W. Bush, describing him as a “world leader, who strongly supported the alliance with Europe”.

On behalf of the French people, I convey all my condolences to the American nation for the loss of former President George Bush. He was a world leader, who strongly supported the alliance with Europe. Our sympathy to his family and beloved ones.

BBC NEWS