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French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian will hold talks with United States’ Secretary of State Antony Blinken on October 5. The two will aim to work on restoring confidence between the two countries, said a statement issued by Le Drian’s office.

Diplomatic relations between the United States and France hit a low point last month, after Australia cancelled a previous $40 billion submarine deal with France to build instead at least eight nuclear-powered submarines with U.S. and British

technology.

In retaliation, France briefly withdrew its ambassador to the United States, although the envoy has since returned to Washington.

U.S. President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron have already held talks since the row over the submarine deal, pledging to begin “in-depth consultations” on bilateral relations.
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Starting Monday, Britain will deploy military tanker drivers to deliver fuel to gas stations, many of which were still dry on Friday after a chaotic week that saw panic-buying, fights at the pumps and drivers hoarding gas in water bottles. 

With an acute shortage of truck drivers straining supply chains to the breaking point, the government said Friday that 200 military tanker personnel, 100 of whom are drivers, will complete their training over the weekend and start deliveries on Monday. 

“While the situation is stabilizing, our armed forces are there to fill in any critical vacancies and help keep the country on the move by supporting the industry to deliver fuel to forecourts,” said Defense Minister Ben Wallace. 

Shortages of workers in several sectors in the wake of Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic have sown disarray through some sectors of the economy, disrupting deliveries of fuel and medicines and stranding more than 100,000 pigs on farms. 

Retailers said more than 2,000 gas stations were dry, and Reuters reporters across London and southern England said dozens of pumps were still closed. 

‘Completely fed up’

Lines of often irate drivers snaked toward those gas stations that were still open in London. 

“I am completely, completely fed up. Why is the country not ready for anything?” said Ata Uriakhil, 47, an Afghanistan-born taxi driver who was first in a line of more than 40 cars outside a closed supermarket petrol station in Richmond. 

“When is it going to end?” Uriakhil said. “The politicians are not capable of doing their jobs properly. The government should have been prepared for this crisis. It is just incompetence.” 

Uriakhil said he had lost about 20% of his normal earnings this week because he has been waiting for fuel rather than picking up customers. 

The Petrol Retailers Association (PRA) said members reported on Friday that 26% of pumps were dry, 27% had just one fuel type in stock and 47% had enough petrol and diesel. 

“Independents, which total 65% of the entire network, are not receiving enough deliveries of fuel compared with other sectors such as supermarkets,” Gordon Balmer, PRA executive director, told Reuters. 

Ministers say the world is facing a global shortage of truck drivers and that they are working to ease the crisis. They deny that the situation is a consequence of an exodus of EU workers following Britain’s departure from the bloc, and have dismissed concerns the country is heading toward a winter of shortages and power cuts. 

Though there are shortages of truck drivers in other countries, EU members have not seen fuel shortages. 

Farms struggling 

The Conservative government this week changed tack on immigrant workers to allow some foreign workers to come in for three months to drive trucks and fill gaps in the poultry sector.

In addition, farmers are warning that a shortage of butchers and abattoir workers could force a cull of tens of thousands of pigs. 

The pig industry implored retailers to continue buying local pork and not cheaper EU products, saying businesses would go bust and livestock would be culled if producers were not given immediate support. 

The weekly slaughter of pigs has dropped by 25% since August after the pandemic and Britain’s post-Brexit immigration rules combined to hit a meat processing industry that was already struggling for workers. 

“As a result of the labor supply issues in pork processing plants, we currently have an estimated 120,000 pigs backed up on U.K. pig farms that should have gone to slaughter,” the National Pig Association said in a letter to retailers. 

“The only option for some will be to cull pigs on farm.” 

The pig association said that despite attempts to persuade the government to ease immigration rules, it appeared to have reached an impasse. 
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“It’s easy to be green,” Boris Johnson said at the United Nations General Assembly last week.

He and other European leaders equally committed to net-zero carbon emissions, however, may discover turning green is not so simple, and there may be a high electoral price to pay, analysts say.

The energy crisis buffeting the continent has placed Johnson and other European leaders in the difficult position of decrying fossil fuels while urgently prioritizing affordable access to them to avoid a political backlash by voters and businesses furious at the spiking costs of heating homes and running factories.

Energy prices have hit a seven-year high and stockpiles of gas and coal are dwindling. Russia has not increased its natural gas exports. Natural gas price jumps are largely due to a surge in Asian demand and low supplies in Europe, which has seen a 250% to 280% rise in wholesale gas prices this year. Electricity prices are also soaring because natural gas is used across the continent to generate a large percentage of electricity.

Spiking prices are coming at a delicate time for governments as they plan to speed a net-zero transition to post-fossil energy generation, which they say will eventually see cheaper prices. Consumers and voters, though, won’t see the benefits of cheaper post-fossil energy for some time — now they are just seeing higher costs caused by the energy squeeze compounded in some cases by carbon and green taxes.

Some advocates fear the energy-price crisis will be seen by voters as a harbinger of things to come and prompt a backlash against net-zero policies.

From Britain to Germany, Europe’s mainstream party leaders have been scrambling to respond to the surge in support for Green parties and carbon-neutral policies as their voters grow increasingly anxious about the impact of climate change. Many governments have announced ambitious carbon-reduction targets to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

In June 2019, Britain, which will host the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, known as COP26, later this year, became the first G7 country to enshrine in law a commitment to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Delivering on radical climate action will be complicated and harder than governments are letting on, though, some analysts and politicians, both advocates for radical climate action and their opponents, warn. The energy-price crisis is due to be discussed by EU national leaders when they meet in Brussels for a summit later this month, say EU officials. Last month, Spain warned the European Commission that emission reduction measures “may not stand a sustained period of abusive electricity prices.”

Even before the energy crunch, some government ministers and think tanks had been warning that it was not clear Europeans are ready to make the sacrifices necessary for a carbon-free future and might become more reluctant as the transition from fossil fuels plays havoc with living standards and lifestyles.

Earlier this year Britain’s Tony Blair Institute for Global Change warned, “Meeting our future targets will have direct impacts on the lives and livelihoods of people across the country.” In its study Polls Apart? Mapping the Politics of Net Zero, the London-based institute founded by Britain’s former prime minister said, “While climate change has moved up the political agenda, and all the major parties are committed to delivering net zero, we are still in the early stages of understanding how the politics of climate change will evolve — and, crucially, how a political coalition can be built and maintained.”

The institute said an examination of British voter attitudes and values suggested “politicians can be confident there is a strong and sustained desire for climate action,” but also cautioned that “the development of a long-term political coalition to support the action needed for net zero is under threat.”

Similar conclusions have been reached by other think tank studies about the likely political struggles ahead to implement the European Commission’s net-zero proposal to cut pollution by at least 55% from 1990 levels by 2030.

In a paper for the London School of Economics, Patrick Bayer, a lecturer in the School of Government and Public Policy at Scotland’s University of Strathclyde, and Federica Genovese, an environmental policy expert at England’s University of Essex, warned of the need to get buy-in from the general public as the proposals “will make it more expensive to run appliances, drive cars, and heat homes.”

They questioned whether proposed EU compensation plans for the most vulnerable and the poorest “will be enough to hedge the economic resentment and social anxiety that tend to spark upheavals across the continent.”

The LSE paper was written before the energy price crisis started to unfold across Europe last month. Some opponents of radical climate action plans have seized on the current crisis. “If consumers come to believe that net zero exposes them to punitive cost or insecurity of supply, they will rightly reject it,” Charles Moore, former editor of The Daily Telegraph, warned last month.

Craig Mackinlay, a British Conservative lawmaker and member of a group in the House of Commons critical of net-zero plans, challenged Johnson in Parliament last month about the costs of implementing the government’s carbon-emission targets and has warned “extravagant plans for a greener country will provide cold comfort for ordinary people.”

Mackinlay has warned that British government projections on how much it will cost to turn Britain green are seriously flawed and underestimate the true costs.

The British government formally accepts the cost projections of a Climate Change Committee, which estimates the country will have to spend over $67 billion a year until 2050 to shift Britain away from fossil fuels. That is around 1% of the country’s gross domestic product. Internal government documents recently showed, however, that Britain’s own Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy suspects the projection is flawed and estimates costs to be 40% higher.

Some independent experts have been even more scornful and have pointed out that New Zealand’s government, which is also thinking about adopting a 2050 net-zero benchmark, believes it could cost advanced economies as much as 16% of their GDPs to rid themselves within three decades of fossil fuels.

The costs to strip out gas boilers, switch from gas and diesel cars to electric or hydrogen-powered vehicles and to move households and businesses to renewable energy sources as industrial processes are reimagined will have to be shared among governments, homeowners, producers and consumers. That will have political and electoral repercussions, according to analysts, who point to how carbon taxes and higher fuel costs roiled France in 2018 and 2019 with the Yellow Vests protests.

Electorates seem hesitant already about embracing climate action — or at least worried about prohibitions and costs. Germany’s Green Party, the strongest in Europe, saw its share of the vote increase in last month’s federal elections but was disappointed not to get a much bigger jump.

“The election result makes one thing clear,” Volker Wissing, general secretary of the pro-business Free Democrats told broadcaster ARD Monday. “People don’t want climate protection at the expense of prosperity, and people also don’t want prosperity at the expense of nature and environment. That’s why we need to bring these things together and work out a solution as to how we can reconcile climate protection and prosperity.”
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A 49-year-old lawyer who favors closer ties with the European Union pledged to unseat Viktor Orban as Hungary’s prime minister, after she won the first round of a contest that will produce his challenger in an election next year.

Klara Dobrev, the leftist Democratic Coalition’s candidate, won the first round of primary vote ahead of another leftist, Budapest mayor Gergely Karacsony, who also campaigned on a pro-European agenda.

In next year’s parliamentary vote Orban will, for the first time since he came to power in 2010, face a united front of opposition parties that also includes the Socialists, the liberals and the formerly far-right – and now center-right – Jobbik.

Opinion polls put Orban’s nationalist Fidesz party and the opposition coalition neck and neck, raising the prospect of the tightest election in more than a decade.

Orban and Fidesz have held office largely due to an election system that favors big parties, though Karacsony, 46, unexpectedly defeated the Fidesz candidate in the 2019 Budapest mayoral election.

Either Dobrev – who preliminary results showed won 34.8% of the votes in the primary – or Karacsony – with 27.3% – could yet win through to face Orban for leadership of the country next year.

Dressed in the blue and yellow colors of the EU, Dobrev told a news conference late on Thursday that, after a fair race, she was ready for the second round.

“We will not stop until we defeat Viktor Orban and his regime,” Dobrev said, a vice president of the European Parliament who has pledged to reduce poverty and work for adoption of the euro.

Karacsony has promised a more just tax system and to heal political divisions.

Conservative Peter Marki-Zay, mayor of a southern Hungarian city, was in third place with 20.4% in the primary, for which opposition voters turned out in higher-than-expected numbers, with more than 633,000 people casting votes nationwide.

There will be a runoff next month among possibly the three top vote-getters.  

While Dobrev leads now, it is not clear whom Marki-Zay would back in the second round if he decided to step down. Dobrev is also the candidate of a party led by her husband, former Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany, a deeply divisive figure who admitted in 2006 in a leaked speech that he lied about the economy to win national elections.

Orban has portrayed the opposition, especially Karacsony and Dobrev, as puppets of Gyurcsany.
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Ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili said Friday he had returned from exile to Georgia, despite the threat of arrest and ahead of local elections in the Caucasus country gripped by a protracted political crisis.

“I risked my life and freedom to be back,” Saakashvili said in a video on Facebook, adding that he was in Georgia’s western city of Batumi on the Black Sea coast.

“I call on everyone to go to the elections and vote for the United National Movement,” he said, referring to Georgia’s main opposition party which he founded.

The 53-year-old flamboyant pro-Western reformer was Georgian president from 2004 to 2013 and swept to power in a wave of street protests.

He called on his supporters to gather on Tbilisi’s main thoroughfare on Sunday.

Earlier on Friday he wrote on Facebook: “Good morning. I am back in Georgia after eight years.”

Georgia’s interior ministry told the independent Formula TV channel that “Saakashvili did not cross Georgia’s state border.”

Saakashvili’s return from Ukraine — where he heads a government agency steering reforms — has raised the stakes ahead of Saturday’s municipal elections, seen as a key test for the increasingly unpopular ruling party.

Saakashvili is wanted by Georgian authorities on abuse of office charges which he says are politically motivated.

He left Georgia in 2013 when his second and last term as president ended.

On Monday, he announced his planned return from Ukraine, saying he would be flying to Georgia’s capital Tbilisi on Saturday evening and posting a copy of his ticket.

Political turmoil

Georgia’s Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili said at the time that “if Saakashvili sets foot on Georgian soil, he will be immediately arrested and brought to prison.”

Western capitals have accused Georgian authorities of a political witch-hunt and Interpol turned down requests from Tbilisi to issue a red notice against Saakashvili.

Georgia plunged into political turmoil last year, when opposition parties denounced elections won narrowly by the ruling Georgian Dream party as rigged.

In May, European Council President Charles Michel mediated an inter-party agreement under which Georgian Dream pledged to call snap parliamentary polls if it garners less than 43% of the vote in Saturday’s local elections.

But in July the ruling party unilaterally withdrew from the agreement, sparking harsh criticism from the European Union and the United States.

In his video address Monday, Saakashvili insisted the EU-brokered deal remained in force, saying the upcoming elections “are a referendum on (Georgian Dream founder Bidzina) Ivanishvili’s removal from power.”

Oligarch Ivanishvili — Georgia’s richest man and a former prime minister — is widely believed to be calling the shots in Georgia but insists he is no longer a political player.

Critics accuse him of using prosecutions to punish political opponents and critical journalists.

With concerns mounting in the West over the ruling party’s democratic credentials, the United States has hinted at possible sanctions against Georgian Dream officials.

In recent years Saakashvili has positioned himself as an enemy of what he says are corrupt oligarchs whose “informal power suffocates what’s left of democracy in Eastern Europe.” 

 
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As Armenia and Azerbaijan mark the one-year anniversary of the start of their campaign in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, Baku is vowing to rebuild the region, and Turkish companies see an economic bonanza. Dorian Jones in Istanbul reports.
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A London Metropolitan Police officer has been sentenced to life in prison without parole after pleading guilty in July to the murder of Sarah Everard, whose disappearance and death in March sparked nationwide grief and outrage.

Wayne Couzens confessed to abducting Everard on the evening of March 3, 2021, during a 50-minute walk home from her friend’s house in south London. Prosecutors said he falsely accused her of violating COVID-19 restrictions to lure her into his car.  

Everard’s body was discovered a week later near Ashford in County Kent, about 90 kilometers southeast of London.  

Following Couzen’s sentencing Thursday, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick told reporters she was “absolutely horrified” Couzens used his position as a police officer to deceive and coerce Everard into his vehicle. She said his actions were “a gross betrayal of everything policing stands for.” 

She said she knows for some, the bond of trust in the police has been damaged, but she pledged the police department’s dedication to the public remains undiminished.  

Sarah Everard’s disappearance caused a nationwide outcry in Britain, with thousands expressing grief and anger regarding the safety of women in London and elsewhere. Women also then began sharing experiences of being threatened or attacked – or simply facing the everyday fear of violence when walking alone.

The incident prompted British opposition Labour Party lawmaker Jess Phillips to pay tribute to the 118 women in Britain who have died at the hands of men over the last 12 months by reading their names aloud in Britain’s House of Commons.

Some information in this report came from the Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
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The wrangling over who will control Germany’s government has begun among the top four finishing parties following parliamentary elections.

The Social Democrats (SPD), led by Olaf Scholz, defeated outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) 25.8% to 24.1%, handing the conservative party its worst ever defeat.  

But since neither party won enough votes to control the Bundestag – the lower house of parliament – they must work with the third-place finishers, the Green party, which received 14.8% of the vote, and fourth place finishers, the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP), which received 11.5%.

The Greens and FDP agreed Tuesday to meet with each other first before discussions with the SPD or CDU. A photo was released to the media showing Green party candidate Annalena Baerbock with FDP leader Christian Lindner.

While the two parties have some common ground, they have traditionally belonged to rival ideological camps and have different approaches to issues including the economy and fighting climate change.

During media briefings with reporters Wednesday, both parties said they have scheduled meetings with the SPD and CDU, as well another meeting with each other.  

But traditionally, the Greens have leaned more toward the SPD’s left-center politics, and the FDP has been more aligned with the more conservative CDU, and their leadership indicated Wednesday that may not have changed.

When asked which coalition his party preferred, FDP General Secretary Volker Wissing said, “Our preference was based on content and since the parties’ content has not changed, the preference of course remains the same.”

At her own news conference, while stressing they were meeting with all parties, the Green party leader Baerbock, said that since SPD was the winner of the election, it was important to meet with them first.  

The Green and FDP leaders said they scheduled talks with the two first-place finishing parties for this Saturday and Sunday, followed by deliberations with their own party membership.

Some information for this report came from the Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
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Kosovo agreed on Thursday to withdraw police units from its northern border with Serbia to end a mounting dispute over vehicle license plates that briefly escalated into violence and prompted NATO to step up its patrols.

The accord negotiated in Brussels calms the latest flare-up in a decades-old standoff between Serbia and Kosovo but does not resolve a bigger issue blocking European Union membership talks: that Serbia and its former province Kosovo should normalize relations following Pristina’s 2008 independence.

“We have a deal,” said Miroslav Lajcek, the EU’s envoy dealing with one of Europe’s toughest territorial disputes. “After two days of intense negotiations, an agreement on de-escalation and the way forward has just been reached,” he said on Twitter, where he posted the details.

U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Gabriel Escobar was in Brussels to show support for E.U.-led talks, which he said showed the potential for more progress in the Balkans.

“I think we can make enormous strides in helping the Balkans get over a very difficult period during the ’90s and hopefully, eventually become more integrated with the European Union,” Escobar said on a briefing call with reporters.

However, Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic played down hopes of any broader breakthrough for now. Serbia does not recognize Kosovo’s independence.

“I think the agreement is fair for the citizens. I would like us to be able to find more lasting solutions. That would not include recognition of Kosovo,” Vucic told a news conference in Serbia, where he was hosting European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

Special stickers

Under the agreement, NATO troops will replace the Kosovar police units on the border, who will withdraw from Saturday. From Monday, both countries will place special stickers on car license plates to remove national symbols and allow the free movement of citizens.

NATO has had some 5,000 troops in Kosovo under a United Nations mandate since June 1999, overseeing a fragile peace following a U.S.-led bombing campaign to end ethnic conflict.

The new agreement ends a ban instigated by Kosovo for all drivers from Serbia to show a temporary, printed registration. Pristina said its move was in retaliation for measures in force in Serbia against drivers from Kosovo since 2008.

Lajcek said he was working on a longer-term solution.

The confrontation was a reminder to the wider world of the larger Kosovo-Serbia dispute that was the EU’s to resolve, diplomats said. One senior diplomat in Brussels said the latest flare-up was, in part, an attempt to get Brussels’s attention as the process towards EU membership has stalled.

Ahead of a Balkan-EU summit on Oct. 6 in Slovenia, Reuters reported on Tuesday that the 27 member states have so far been unable to agree a declaration reaffirming their 18-year-old pledge of future EU membership for the western Balkan states.
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Britain’s business minister said Wednesday the army would begin driving fuel tankers in response to shortages at gas stations around the nation brought on by a dearth of truck drivers.

For about a week now, a shortage of around 100,000 truck drivers in Britain has made it difficult for oil companies to get gasoline from refineries to fueling stations. The British Petrol Retailers Association (PRA) reported Wednesday that more than a third of the nation’s 8,500 gas stations remain without fuel.

The situation has left long lines of motorists trying to buy fuel at stations that did have gasoline.

Business Minister Kwasi Kwarteng told reporters they could expect to see soldiers driving tanker trucks to help get gasoline to the stations in a few days. He added that he felt the situation was stabilizing, noting that the inflow of gasoline matched sales on Tuesday. 

The situation had been exacerbated by panic buying among some motorists, but Kwarteng said people were “behaving quite responsibly” over the last day or so, and he encouraged them to continue buying fuel as they normally would.

The British business minister said Britain was not alone in facing a truck driver shortage. He said Poland is facing a shortage of about 123,000 drivers, and the United States is facing a similar situation. 

In a release on their website, the PRA reported “early signs that the crisis at pumps is ending,” with more of the association’s members reporting they are now receiving deliveries of fuel. 

They expect the percentage of stations without fuel is likely to improve further over the next 24 hours.

The driver shortage, however, is raising fears in Britain’s retail sector that if it continues much longer, it could create problems for the holiday season.

Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press and Reuters. 
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Russia threatened Wednesday to block Alphabet Inc.’s YouTube after Russian state-backed broadcaster RT’s German-language channels were deleted, and said it was considering retaliating against German media.

YouTube said on Tuesday that RT’s channels had breached its COVID-19 misinformation policy, a move Russia’s Foreign Ministry described as “unprecedented information aggression.”

Russian state communications regulator Roskomnadzor said it had written to Google and demanded the restrictions be lifted. It said Russia could seek to partially or fully restrict access to YouTube if it failed to comply.

Google declined to comment Wednesday.

The Kremlin said it may have to force YouTube to comply with Russian law, saying there could be zero tolerance for breaches.

“Of course there are signs that the laws of the Russian Federation have been broken, broken quite blatantly, because of course this involves censorship and obstructing the spread of information by the media,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

The foreign ministry said Russian authorities had been approached with “a proposal to develop and take retaliatory measures against the YouTube hosting service and the German media.”

Christian Mihr, executive director at Reporters Without Borders (RSF) Germany, said the threat of action against German journalists was “completely inappropriate.”

Moscow has increased pressure on foreign tech firms in the past year, fining social media companies for failing to delete content Russia deems illegal and punitively slowing down the speed of Twitter.

That pressure led Google and Apple to remove an anti-government tactical voting app from their stores on the first day of a parliamentary election earlier this month, Kremlin critics said.

Berlin denied an allegation by the Russian foreign ministry that YouTube’s decision had been made with clear and tacit support from the German authorities and local media.

“It is a decision by YouTube, based on rules created by YouTube. It is not a measure [taken by] the German government or other official organizations,” German government spokesperson Steffen Seibert told reporters.
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Weeks before a high-profile climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, Danish officials are talking up an ambitious program to develop the world’s largest offshore wind energy complex, with the potential to provide enough green energy to power not just Denmark, but some of its neighbors as well. 

The complex, to sit on and around an artificial North Sea island about 80 km off Denmark’s coast, would span an area up to the size of 64 soccer fields and support thermal storage facilities, HVDC converters, a heliport, and a research and visitor center.

Energy Island Envisioned by Denmark

“You can have hundreds of wind turbines around this island,” said Dan Jorgensen, Denmark’s climate and energy minister, during a visit to Washington this month. His government calculates that the energy island could yield up to 10 gigawatts of electricity — enough for 10 million households. 

“Since we’re only 5.8 million people in Denmark, that’s far more electricity than we’ll need for ourselves, so we want to find other countries to be part of this,” Jorgensen said, adding that Denmark is in talks with other European countries. 

The 10-gigawatt estimate is at the high end of what might finally be built. Current planning allows for a range of from three to 10 gigawatts, according to Jorgensen. But even at the low end, the energy island would dwarf the largest existing offshore wind farm — Britain’s Walney Extension Offshore Wind Farm in the Irish Sea that has a capacity to generate 0.66 gigawatts and provide power to 600,000 homes. 

The world’s largest wind farm of any kind is a 10-gigawatt complex completed this summer and based in the northwestern Gansu province of China. The next largest of any kind is a 1.6-gigawatt wind farm in Jaisalmer, India. 

“It’s the biggest infrastructure investment in the history of my country, but we foresee it will be a good business model,” Jorgensen told VOA. 

“There will be some initial costs there, but we’re willing to bear them because this will also mean that we will get the project itself, but also the development know-how, the skills, and the expertise that we want.” 

The project is remarkable not just for its size but also for its innovative approach to some of the most difficult obstacles to weaning the world off fossil fuels. These include finding an effective way to store energy generated from wind turbines, and a way to transform the electricity into fuels to power transportation systems. 

Denmark’s plan is to transform the electricity into hydrogen, which can be used directly as an energy source or turned into fuels for use “in ships, planes and trucks,” as Jorgensen put it. 

“This sounds a bit like science fiction, but actually it’s just science; we know how to do it,” he said. 

While talks between the Danish government, industry, scientists and potential investors are still in the early stage, one decision has already been made, Jorgensen said. 

“We want at least 50.1% of the island to be publicly owned,” he said, calling the island “critical infrastructure because it’ll be such a huge part of our energy supply.” He added that the actual wind turbines will be owned by investors. 

“So far we have seen interest from Danish companies and investment funds; we’ve also seen interest from the governments of several European countries. We expect, of course, this will also mean interest from companies from other countries, definitely European, but probably also others.” 

Jacob F. Kirkegaard, a Danish economist based in Brussels, says the ambitious plan is plausible in light of Denmark’s track record in developing green energy. 

“There are already many days in which Denmark gets all its electrical power from wind energy, so rapid electrification is coming as are further rapid expansions of offshore wind farms,” he told VOA in an exchange of emails. 

He said he has “no doubt” that Denmark will achieve full decarbonization by 2050, “probably even considerably before” that date, thanks to broad public support, especially from the young. 

According to the Danish embassy in Washington, more than 50% of Denmark’s electrical grid is already powered by wind and solar energy, and the government projects that renewables will meet 100% of the nation’s electricity needs by 2028. 
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It’s still not clear who will be the next leader of Germany, after Sunday’s election failed to give any party a ruling majority. Talks between rival parties over forming a coalition government are under way. As Henry Ridgwell reports, Olaf Scholz is the narrow favorite to take over from Angela Merkel as chancellor — but the outcome remains uncertain. 

Camera: Henry Ridgwell Produced by: Henry Ridgwell, Marcus Harton 

 
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The pandemic has made Spain’s affordable housing crisis worse and civil organizations are now pressuring the government to pass a housing law that includes making available vacant, foreclosed homes. The push is causing new friction between Spanish political factions and raising concerns among real estate investors. Jonathan Spier narrates this report by Alfonso Beato in Barcelona.

Camera: Alfonso Beato

 
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Police and fire officials in Goteburg, Sweden say an explosion in an apartment building early Tuesday injured at least 20 people, some of them seriously, and investigators have ruled out a natural cause for the blast.

Emergency officials say they were alerted to the blast just before 5 a.m. local time in the Annedal district in central Goteborg, Sweden’s second-largest city. Fires spread to several units, and crews from the local fire department were still fighting the fires as of mid-morning.

Residents reported being awakened by the blast that shook the entire building, which takes up most of one city block. Witnesses say smoke filled the hallways and stairways, making it difficult to exit the building. Police and fire crews rescued many people, and others climbed onto balconies. At least one person was said to have jumped from the building.

News reports say at least 16 people were taken to the hospital for treatment. 

Investigators say the cause of the explosion is not known but a police spokesman told reporters a gas pipeline or other “natural” cause has been ruled out.

An official with the Goteburg rescue service told Swedish government broadcaster SVT the explosion appeared to have originated in the building’s inner courtyard, which had its entry gate blown away.

(Some information for this report comes from the Associated Press and Reuters.)

 
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Concerns are growing over the reach of the national security law that China imposed on Hong Kong as Britain warned several of its citizens that they could face arrest and extradition to the former British colony. 

China passed the national security law in June 2020 in response to months of anti-government protests in Hong Kong. Beijing claimed the law was necessary to restore order to the territory and, in its words, “protect people’s rights.” Critics say the law curtails basic democratic freedoms and is aimed at suppressing political opposition. Over 140 people have been arrested under the legislation since it was introduced, including opposition lawmakers, activists, journalists and media executives.

Among those arrested was opposition activist Andy Li, who was charged with foreign collusion in 2020 after allegedly lobbying foreign governments to impose sanctions on Hong Kong and China.

Several British citizens were named in the court papers relating to Li’s case. Earlier this month, the British government contacted them to warn they could face arrest and extradition to Hong Kong if they traveled to any country that had an extradition agreement with the Chinese territory.

U.S.-born British citizen Bill Browder was among at least five people contacted by the British Foreign Office. He has successfully campaigned in several countries for Magnitsky sanctions against human rights abusers, named after his lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who died in a Russian jail in 2009.

Browder told VOA Monday that his involvement stemmed from that lobbying. “Specifically, my name was mentioned because I was having discussions with various people about Magnitsky sanctions against the Hong Kong officials who were involved in this suppression of democracy,” he said. “After alerting me to my name being in the document, the (British) Foreign Office officials pointed out to me that the Chinese national security law doesn’t just apply domestically to residents of Hong Kong; it applies to anyone, anywhere in the world. And I guess the point of their reach out was to alert me to that fact and to the possibility that I may be subject to some type of persecution myself from the Chinese authorities for being involved in these discussions.”

Browder has already faced several attempts by Russia to have him arrested and extradited on fraud charges through Interpol, the global agency that communicates arrest warrants between police forces. Browder says those charges are clearly politically motivated, but he is, nevertheless, limited as to where he can travel.

“I basically contain my travel to what I describe as ‘rule of law’ countries. So, for example, I won’t travel to South Africa, even though I actually own a home in South Africa, because it’s not really considered to be a rule of law country, whereas I would travel to Germany regardless of what treaties they have because I know that a court will not hand me over to Russians or Chinese on politically motivated cases,” Browder said.

China has not commented on the British government’s warnings. More than a dozen countries have extradition agreements with Hong Kong, including India, South Africa and Portugal. Several countries, however, tore up their extradition treaties with Hong Kong following the introduction of the national security law. These include Britain, the United States, Australia, Germany and France.

British pro-democracy activist Luke de Pulford, who had also been named in the Hong Kong court papers relating to the prosecution of Andy Li, was approached by the British Foreign Office last week. He told VOA that Britain should stand up to Beijing.

“It’s a really sad indictment and reflection on the U.K.’s cowering before China. We’re now in a situation that having failed to honor their promises to the people of Hong Kong, the U.K. is telling people that they can’t go to third countries because they might end up in prison. They might be extradited to China,” de Pulford recently told VOA.

Under the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration signed between Britain and China before the 1997 handover of Hong Kong, Beijing promised to maintain the territory’s autonomy under the so-called Basic Law and the principle of “one country, two systems.”

In a statement, the British government told VOA: “The UK will not look the other way on Hong Kong, and we will not duck our historic responsibilities to its people. As a co-signatory to the Joint Declaration, we will continue to stand up for the people of Hong Kong, to call out the violation of their freedoms, and to hold China to their international obligations.”
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Concern is growing over the reach of China’s so-called national security law that it recently imposed on Hong Kong. Britain warned several of its citizens that they could face arrest and extradition to the former British colony. Henry Ridgwell reports from London. 

Camera: Henry Ridgwell

 
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A magnitude 5.8 earthquake rocked the Greek island of Crete Monday morning, leaving at least one person dead and several injured.

Across the island, people were reportedly seen running out of buildings and homes, while many older buildings suffered damage.

“The earthquake was strong and was long in duration,” Heraklion Mayor Vassilis Lambrinos told private Antenna television.

Greek authorities dispatched civil engineers around the island to assess damage.

“We are urging people who live in damaged older buildings to remain outdoors. One aftershock can cause a collapse,” seismologist Efthimios Lekkas, who heads Greece’s Earthquake Planning and Protection Organization, told The Associated Press. “We are talking about structures built before 1970. Structures built after 1985 are built to a higher standard that can withstand the effect of an earthquake.”

Crete is a popular tourist destination, and according to reports, the quake did not disrupt international flights to Heraklion, nor did it cause serious damage to hotels.

The only known fatality was in the town of Arkalochori, which is about 30 kilometers outside of Heraklion. A man was reportedly working on the renovation of a chapel when the dome caved in.

Some information in this report comes from Reuters and The Associated Press.
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A Canary Islands volcano that has been erupting for over a week fell silent Monday as coastal residents were confined over toxic gas fears when the lava hits the sea.

La Cumbre Vieja, which straddles a southern ridge in La Palma in the Atlantic archipelago, erupted on September 19, spewing out rivers of lava which have slowly crept towards the sea.

But on Monday morning, there was no lava and ash emerging, with the week-long rumble of the eruption fading to silence, an AFP correspondent at the scene said. 

It was not immediately clear whether the eruption had stopped completely or merely paused, as smoke was still emerging from the top. 

“Volcanic activity in La Palma has reduced significantly in the last few hours. We must be very vigilant about how it evolves because the scenario can change quickly,” Madrid’s Institute of Geosciences tweeted. 

“It seems the volcano has entered a phase of decreased activity. We will see how it evolves in the coming hours.”

And the Involcan volcanology institute gave a similar assessment.

“In the last hours, the volcanic tremor has almost disappeared, as well as the… explosive activity,” it tweeted.

Contacted by AFP, Involcan was unable to say whether the eruption had finished or just paused, with a spokesman saying its experts were “evaluating the different scenarios”. 

Overnight, the inhabitants of several coastal areas were ordered to stay at home to avoid harm from the release of toxic gases when the lava finally reaches the sea, a process which has been much slower than initially expected. 

When the molten lava enters the ocean, experts warn it will send clouds of toxic gas into the air, as well as explosions and a fragmentation of the lava, which shoots outwards like bullets. 

The authorities have set up a no-go zone to head off curious onlookers.
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Preliminary results Monday showed Germany’s center-left Social Democrats winning the largest share of the vote in national parliamentary elections as parties battle to see who will succeed outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel. 

The Social Democrats received 25.7% of the vote Sunday, followed by 24.1% for Merkel’s center-right Christian Democratic Union. 

State Governor Armin Laschet of the conservative CDU bloc and outgoing Finance Minister and Vice Chancellor Olaf Scholz of the Social Democrats are vying to become the leader of Europe’s biggest national economy as Merkel steps down after 16 years as chancellor.

Each said they would be reaching out to smaller parties to try to form a governing coalition with a goal of having a new government in place before the end of the year. 

The top targets for support will be the environmentalist Green party, which finished third with 14.8%, and the pro-business Free Democrats who finished fourth with 11.5%. 

Merkel will remain in office on a caretaker basis until her successor is chosen.

Some information for this report came from the Associated Press and Agence France Presse. 

 
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Iceland briefly celebrated electing a female-majority parliament Sunday, before a recount produced a result just short of that landmark for gender parity in the North Atlantic island nation.

The initial vote count had female candidates winning 33 seats in Iceland’s 63-seat parliament, the Althing, in an election that saw centrist parties make the biggest gains.

Hours later, a recount in western Iceland changed the outcome, leaving female candidates with 30 seats, a tally previously reached at Iceland’s second most recent election, in 2016. Still, at almost 48% of the total, that is the highest percentage for women lawmakers in Europe.

Only a handful of countries, none of them in Europe, have a majority of female lawmakers. According to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, Rwanda leads the world with women making up 61% of its Chamber of Deputies, with Cuba, Nicaragua and Mexico at or just over the 50% mark. Worldwide, the organization says just over a quarter of legislators are women.

“The female victory remains the big story of these elections,” politics professor Olafur Hardarson told broadcaster RUV after the recount.

Iceland’s voting system is divided into six regions and the recount in western Iceland was held after questions about the number of ballots cast. The mistakes have not been entirely explained but are thought to be the result of human error.

The three parties in the outgoing coalition government led by Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir won a total of 37 seats in Saturday’s vote, two more than in the last election, and appeared likely to continue in power.

Opinion polls had suggested a victory for left-leaning parties in the unpredictable election, which saw 10 parties competing for seats. But the center-right Independence Party took the largest share of votes, winning 16 seats, seven of them held by women. The centrist Progressive Party celebrated the biggest gain, winning 13 seats, five more than last time.

Before the election, the two parties formed Iceland’s three-party coalition government, together with Jakobsdottir’s Left Green Party. Her party lost several seats, but kept eight, outscoring poll predictions.  

The three ruling parties haven’t announced whether they will work together for another term but given the strong support from voters it appears likely. It will take days, if not weeks, for a new government to be formed and announced.  

Climate change had ranked high on the election agenda in Iceland, a glacier-studded volcanic island nation of about 350,000 people in the North Atlantic. An exceptionally warm summer by Icelandic standards — with 59 days of temperatures above 20 C (68 F) — and shrinking glaciers have helped drive global warming up the political agenda.

But that didn’t appear to have translated into increased support for any of the four left-leaning parties that campaigned to cut carbon emissions by more than Iceland is committed to under the Paris Climate Agreement.
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Switzerland voted by a wide margin to allow same-sex couples to marry in a referendum on Sunday, bringing the Alpine nation into line with many others in western Europe.

Official results showed the measure passed with 64.1% of voters in favor and won a majority in all of Switzerland’s 26 cantons, or states.  

Switzerland’s parliament and the governing Federal Council supported the “Marriage for All” measure. Switzerland has authorized same-sex civil partnerships since 2007.  

Supporters said passage would put same-sex partners on equal legal footing with heterosexual couples by allowing them to adopt children together and facilitating citizenship for same-sex spouses. It would also permit lesbian couples to utilize regulated sperm donation.  

Opponents believe that replacing civil partnerships with full marriage rights would undermine families based on a union between one man and one woman.

At a polling station in Geneva on Sunday, voter Anna Leimgruber said she cast her ballot for the “no” camp because she believed “children would need to have a dad and a mom.”

But Nicolas Dzierlatka, who voted “yes,” said what children need is love.  

“I think what’s important for children is that they are loved and respected — and I think there are children who are not respected or loved in so-called ‘hetero’ couples,” he said.

The campaign has been rife with allegations of unfair tactics, with the opposing sides decrying the ripping down of posters, LGBT hotlines getting flooded with complaints, hostile emails, shouted insults against campaigners and efforts to silence opposing views.  

Switzerland, which has a population of 8.5 million, is traditionally conservative and only extended the right to vote to all its women in 1990.

Most countries in western Europe already recognize same-sex marriage, while most of those in central and eastern Europe don’t allow wedlock involving two men or two women.

Supporters say it could still be months before same-sex couples can get married, mainly because of administrative and legislative procedures.  

Also on Sunday, voters dismissed a proposal spearheaded by left-wing groups to raise taxes on returns from investments and capital such as dividends or income from rental properties in Switzerland as a way to ensure better redistribution and fairer taxation.

Results showed 64.9% voting against it in a country known for its vibrant financial sector and relatively low taxes, and as a haven for many of the world’s richest people. No canton voted in favor.
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The EU and U.S. will this week embark on a tricky effort to deepen ties on tech regulation, but with France resisting the project in the wake of a falling out with Washington over a submarine deal.

High-level talks will begin in the U.S. city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday despite efforts by Paris to delay the meeting in retaliation for a pact among the U.S., Australia and Britain, dubbed AUKUS, that saw Canberra scrap a multibillion-dollar submarine order from France.

The EU-U.S. Trade and Tech Council was set up after a summit in June to look at issues including trying to attune their strategies on regulating internet giants and defend democratic values.  

The council came at the request of the Europeans, who are seeking concrete signs of increased transatlantic cooperation after years of tension under former President Donald Trump, especially over trade.

President Joe Biden’s administration will be represented by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.

On the European side, EU executive vice presidents Margrethe Vestager and Valdis Dombrovskis will lead talks.

Vestager, the EU’s tech policy expert, said the talks would attempt to enhance cooperation “in the areas where there is a shared sense of values being two big, old democracies.”

Unspoken in her comments was the rise of China, with Washington understood to be pressing its EU partners to join forces in isolating Beijing on the global stage.

This is being resisted in Europe, where powerful member states France and Germany are reluctant to blindly follow Washington’s increasing assertiveness.

“European officials want to avoid the TTC simply becoming an unproductive exercise at China-bashing,” said former EU trade boss Cecilia Malmstrom and analyst Chad Bown in a paper for the Peterson Institute in Washington.  

The talks in Pittsburgh, a rust-belt city that has grown into a tech hub, are the first installment of the Trade and Tech Council, with another round expected in the spring, Vestager said.

EU diplomats said France sharply criticized the talks at a meeting on Friday, reminding member states that previous attempts to deepen trade ties with Washington led nowhere.

‘No place in a democracy’

Dombrovskis, who is also the EU’s trade commissioner, cautioned that the new effort was not an attempt to clinch a trade deal, with memories still fresh of the failed attempt to strike an ambitious accord during the Obama administration.

The European Commission, which handles trade policy for the EU’s 27 member states, also failed to finalize a smaller scale deal with former U.S. President Donald Trump, beyond a zero-tariff pact on lobsters.

“It’s not like a free trade agreement,” the former Latvian prime minister told reporters. “It’s more about long-term benefits.”  

Dombrovskis pointed to potential cooperation on banning unwanted foreign investments or tackling supply chain problems, such as with microchips.

The talks will be broken into 10 working groups on a wide range of issues, with Vestager looking to find common ground on how to curb Big Brother, such as in preventing excesses in artificial intelligence.

“We do not find that these practices should have a home in a democracy,” she said. “I have a strong feeling that this is something that is really shared with the Americans.”

The talks will take place while both sides remain at loggerheads over the steel and aluminum tariffs that were imposed by Trump, but which Biden has yet to remove.

On the tariffs, Dombrovskis said, “We are engaging very seriously with the U.S., and we are mindful also (of the) timelines, that by December 1, this issue should be solved.”
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In a first in Europe, women hold more than half of the seats in Iceland’s new parliament, final election results showed Sunday.

Of the 63 seats in the Althing, 33 were won by women, or 52 percent, according to projections based on the final results.

No other European country has had more than 50 percent women lawmakers, with Sweden coming closest at 47 percent, according to data compiled by the World Bank.

Five other countries in the world currently have parliaments where women hold at least half the seats, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union: Rwanda (61 percent), Cuba (53 percent), Nicaragua (51 percent) and Mexico and the United Arab Emirates (50 percent).

Unlike some other countries, Iceland does not have legal quotas on female representation in parliament, though some parties do require a minimum number of candidates be women.

Iceland has long been a pioneer in gender equality and women’s rights, and has topped the World Economic Forum’s ranking of most egalitarian countries for the past 12 years.

It offers the same parental leave to both men and women, and its first law on equal pay for men and women dates back to 1961.

Iceland was the first country to elect a woman as president in 1980, and since 2018 it has had a pioneering gender-equal pay law that puts the onus on employers to prove they are paying the same wages to men and women.

Saturday’s election saw the left-right coalition government widen its majority.

However, Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir’s Left Green Movement emerged weakened while her right-wing partners posted strong scores, casting doubt over her future as prime minister.
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