World News

WASHINGTON/SEOUL – The United States on Thursday targeted North Korea with fresh sanctions after its launch of a spy satellite last week, designating foreign-based agents it accused of facilitating sanctions evasion to gather revenue and technology for its weapons of mass destruction program.

The US Treasury Department in a statement said it also applied sanctions to cyber espionage group Kimsuky, accusing it of gathering intelligence to support North Korea‘s strategic and nuclear ambitions.

Thursday’s action, taken in coordination with Australia, Japan and Korea, comes after North Korea last week successfully launched its first reconnaissance satellite, which it has said was designed to monitor US and South Korean military movements.

“Today’s actions by the United States, Australia, Japan, and the Republic of Korea reflect our collective commitment to contesting Pyongyang’s illicit and destabilizing activities,” Treasury’s Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, Brian Nelson, said in the statement.

“We will remain focused on targeting these key nodes in the DPRK’s illicit revenue generation and weapons proliferation,” Mr. Nelson added, calling North Korea by the initials of its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

South Korea‘s foreign ministry said on Friday that it had blacklisted 11 North Koreans for involvement in the country’s satellite and ballistic missile development, banning them from any financial transactions.

The list includes senior officials from the National Aerospace Technology Administration, which oversaw the satellite launch, and the munitions industry department.

North Korea‘s mission to the United Nations in New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday’s sanctions.

Since the launch of the satellite, North Korea said that its leader, Kim Jong Un, has reviewed spy satellite photos of the White House, Pentagon and US aircraft carriers at the naval base of Norfolk. Its state media has also reported that the satellite photographed cities and military bases in South Korea, Guam, and Italy, in addition to Washington.

On Monday, the United Nations ambassadors of the United States and North Korea sparred at the Security Council over the launch and the reasons for growing tensions in a rare, direct, public exchange between the adversaries.

Thursday’s action freezes any US assets of those targeted and generally bars Americans from dealing with them. Those who engage in certain transactions with them also risk being hit with sanctions.

The Treasury said Kimsuky primarily uses spear-phishing to target people employed by the government, research centers, academic institutions and others, including in Europe, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States.

In October 2020, the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA) described the group as “likely tasked by the North Korean regime with a global intelligence gathering mission.”

Security researchers have found the group impersonating reporters to trick targets into downloading malicious software to spy on them. Kimsuky’s hacking operation has been historically focused on South Korea, Japan and the United States.

In June, the US National Security Agency said the hackers, which have been operating since at least 2012, were “subordinate to an element within North Korea‘s Reconnaissance General Bureau (RGB).” The RGB is a North Korean intelligence agency that is involved in cyber warfare activities, according to analysts, and is under US sanctions.

Also targeted on Thursday were Iran and China-based representatives of US and UN-designated Green Pine, which the Treasury said is responsible for half of North Korea‘s arms and related materiel exports.

Two Russia-based representatives of North Korean banks and one China-based representative were also hit with sanctions, among others. – Reuters

A US judge late on Thursday blocked Montana‘s first-of-its kind state ban on the use of short-video sharing app TikTok from taking effect on Jan. 1, saying it violated the free speech rights of users.

US District Judge Donald Molloy issued a preliminary injunction to block the ban on the Chinese-owned app, saying the state ban “violates the Constitution in more ways than one” and “oversteps state power.”

TikTok, owned by China’s ByteDance, sued Montana in May, seeking to block the US state ban on several grounds, arguing that it violates the First Amendment free speech rights of the company and users.

TikTok users in Montana also filed suit to block the ban approved by the state legislature which cited concerns about the personal data of Montana users and potential Chinese spying.

TikTok said it was pleased the judge “rejected this unconstitutional law and hundreds of thousands of Montanans can continue to express themselves, earn a living, and find community on TikTok.”

A spokesperson for Montana state attorney general Austin Knudsen’s office, which defended the ban, noted the ruling was preliminary and said “the analysis could change as the case proceeds.”

Mr. Knudsen’s office added it was considering its next steps and looks “forward to presenting the complete legal argument to defend the law that protects Montanans from the Chinese Communist Party obtaining and using their data.”

TikTok said in earlier court filings it “has not shared, and would not share, US user data with the Chinese government, and has taken substantial measures to protect the privacy and security of TikTok users.“

Mr. Molloy, who was appointed to the bench by Democratic President Bill Clinton, found merit in numerous arguments raised by TikTok and referenced what he termed “the pervasive undertone of anti-Chinese sentiment that permeates” the state‘s legal case and legislation.

Montana could have imposed fines of $10,000 for each violation by TikTok in the state but the now blocked state law did not impose penalties on individual TikTok users.

Mr. Molloy said Montana sought to exercise foreign policy authority held by the federal government and the state‘s action was too sweeping.

TikTok has faced efforts by some in Congress to ban the app or give the Biden administration powers to impose restrictions or bar foreign-owned apps, but those efforts have stalled.

Many states and the US government have barred TikTok on government-owned devices, but only Montana has sought to completely bar the app’s use.

Former President Donald Trump in 2020 sought to bar new downloads of TikTok and Chinese-owned WeChat, but a series of court decisions blocked the effective ban from taking effect. – Reuters

DUBAI/BARCELONA (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – The launch of a long-awaited global fund to deal with growing loss and damage from wilder weather and rising seas, at Thursday’s opening of the COP28 climate summit in Dubai, gave the annual talks a “running start”, U.N. climate chief Simon Stiell said.

But the initial euphoria greeting its birth – met with smiles and a standing ovation by negotiators – got a tempered response from vulnerable nations on the frontlines of global warming and activists who said the work is far from over.

“We cannot rest until this fund is adequately financed and starts to actually alleviate the burden of vulnerable communities,” said 39 countries making up the Alliance of Small Island Nations (AOSIS) in a statement after the approval.

Those countries, which include Mr. Stiell’s native Grenada, are bearing a heavier burden as encroaching oceans eat away low-lying land and fiercer storms wipe out large chunks of their economies.

Some of those living in island nations face having to relocate to higher ground or leaving their homelands entirely, with Australia recently agreeing to allow up to 280 Tuvaluans to migrate there annually under a special visa program in response to climate change.

“Success starts when the international community can properly support the victims of this climate crisis with efficient, direct access to the finance they urgently need,” the AOSIS statement added.

While more pledges are expected to be made to the new fund during the two-week COP28, the opening session garnered enough money to officially put it into operation, with a $100-million contribution from the UAE matched with the same from Germany.

Britain gave just over $50 million, while the United States offered $17.5 million and Japan $10 million.

The European Union and its member states later confirmed a further $145 million, bringing the total to more than $420 million so far.

TRUST RESTORED?

Ani Dasgupta, president of the World Resources Institute, a US think-tank, said the donations represent “a dramatic turn of events compared to just two years ago when it wasn’t certain if developed countries could ever be convinced to back a loss and damage fund“.

“While inadequate to the scale of what is needed, these early contributions will play a critical role in restoring trust between developed and developing countries as the U.N. climate talks get underway,” he added.

The issue of loss and damage has been hotly debated at successive U.N. climate conferences. For many years, wealthy nations rejected demands to pay compensation for the impacts of their high historical share of planet-heating emissions – a stance reiterated by US climate envoy John Kerry on Thursday.

But last year at COP27, after three decades of pushing, developing countries and small island nations won agreement on the new fund that will pay to repair devastated property, relocate threatened communities or preserve cultural heritage before it vanishes.

The details of where the money will come from and go to, and how the fund will be managed, were left to be worked out by the current COP28 conference in Dubai.

After much wrangling over where the fund will be housed, a compromise was reached in early November. Developed countries pushed poorer nations into accepting the World Bank as its host for an initial period of up to four years, although the fund will have an independent board.

Julie-Anne Richards, strategy lead at the Loss and Damage Collaboration, a network of policy experts, researchers and campaigners, said rich nations had “railroaded developing countries to get the World Bank shoe-horned in there” by arguing it would get money flowing more quickly.

Now those wealthy governments have a responsibility to play their part by filling the fund with adequate resources, she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The United States in particular was criticized by climate justice advocates for the small size of its contribution compared to it historically large emissions.

“The initial funding pledges are clearly inadequate and will be a drop in the ocean compared to the scale of the need they are to address,” said Mohamed Adow, director of Power Shift Africa, a Nairobi-based think-tank, in a statement.

“In particular, the amount announced by the US is embarrassing for President Biden and John Kerry.”

NEW OR RECYCLED CASH?

After the fund was launched in Dubai, developing countries from the Democratic Republic of Congo to Iran and Vanuatu echoed the call for more contributions to the fund and demands for easy access to its coffers for vulnerable countries and communities.

Many aid specialists also warned rich nations against taking their contributions to the new fund from budgets that would otherwise be used to pay for emergency relief in disasters or development programs like health or education.

Ian Mitchell, a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development, described Thursday’s loss and damage pledges as “tokenistic”.

“If they’re not additional (to aid), then they may actually be damaging for climate resilience and development,” he told Context.

Other proposals are under discussion for non-government sources of finance that could expand resources for the loss and damage fund, including global taxes on fossil fuels, aviation, shipping and financial trading.

“If there was a new source of revenue for the loss and damage fund then that would be a major breakthrough for climate and development in a way that these incremental amounts are not,” Mr. Mitchell said. – Reuters

Tesla’s long-delayed Cybertruck will be priced starting at $60,990, over 50% more than what CEO Elon Musk had touted in 2019 and a cost analysts have said will draw select, affluent buyers.

The truck, made of shiny stainless steel and shaped into flat planes, is partly inspired by a car-turned-submarine in the 1977 James Bond movie “The Spy Who Loved Me,” Musk has said.

Its new body material and unconventional, futuristic styling has added complexity and costs to production, and threatens to alienate traditional pickup truck buyers who focus on utility, experts say.

But Mr. Musk, who has priced the vehicle’s three variants between $60,990 and $99,990, said on Thursday the Cybertruck has “more utility than a truck” and is “faster than a sports car.”

He drove a Cybertruck onto a stage to cheers from the crowd and later handed over vehicles to about a dozen customers at an event in Austin, Texas.

“Finally, the future will look like the future,” he said about the truck’s design, showing a video of the Cybertruck towing a Porsche 911 and beating another gasoline-powered 911 in a short race.

Tesla shares fell 2% in extended trading after closing off 1.6% at $240.08.

Mr. Musk did not announce the vehicle’s prices at the event, but Tesla’s website listed the prices. Its highest performance variant, the ‘Cyberbeast’ will be available next year, as will the all-wheel drive trim that starts at an estimated $80,000.

The cheapest rear-wheel drive version with an estimated starting price of about $61,000 will be available in 2025.

“This is going to appeal to … definitely a wealthier clientele that can afford the price point and they want something that is unique and quirky,” said Jessica Caldwell, head of insights at auto research firm Edmunds.

“That just isn’t a large segment of the population that can afford that especially where interest rates are.”

After Mr. Musk estimated in 2019 that the Cybertruck would sell for $40,000, the vehicle drew more than a million reservation holders who put down $100 deposits. He had not offered an updated price before Monday, despite rising raw material costs for EVs.

New deposits are $250, Musk said on Thursday.

The price is not a surprise to many, said Paul Waatti, an analyst at consultancy AutoPacific. Waatti told Reuters before the event that the Cybertruck would do well with a smaller audience.

GRANDSTANDING SHOWPIECE

Cybertruck, two years behind schedule, enters a hot pickup truck market to compete with the likes of Ford’s F150 Lightning, Rivian Automotive’s R1T and General Motors’ Hummer EV.

Rivian’s R1T has a starting price of $73,000, while the F-150 Lightning starts at about $50,000. The larger and more powerful Hummer EV pickup costs more than $96,000.

The Cybertruck, Tesla’s first new model in nearly four years, is critical to its reputation as a maker of innovative vehicles. At a time when the company is battling softening electric vehicle (EV) demand and rising competition, Cybertruck is also key for generating sales, though not to the extent of the company’s high-volume Models 3 and Y.

Mr. Musk tempered investor expectations about the product last month citing problems in ramping production and warning that it would take a year to 18 months to make it a significant cash flow contributor.

Ahead of the launch, Musk captured media attention on a different subject, giving a profanity-laced interview to the New York Times on Wednesday. He cursed advertisers who left his social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, because of antisemitic comments.

On Thursday, he said about the truck: “It’s basically an incredibly useful truck. It’s not just some grandstanding showpiece like me.”

UNIMPRESSIVE RANGE

The Cybertruck‘s longest-range version can drive an estimated 340 miles (547 km), and comes with a “range extender” or extra battery pack that extends its range to 470 miles.

In 2019, Mr. Musk had said the truck would be able to travel 500 miles or more on a single charge.

“As a truck, the Ford and Chevy are more useful and certainly easier to see out of,” said Sam Abuelsamid, principal research analyst at Guidehouse Insights.

“Given that Teslas almost always fall short of (range) estimates in real world driving by anywhere from 10%-20%, I wouldn’t expect the longest range version of the Cybertruck to achieve more than 300 miles on the road,” he said, noting that the Chevrolet Silverado EV is capable of exceeding its 450-mile rated range.

Mr. Musk has said Tesla was likely to reach a production rate of roughly 250,000 Cybertrucks a year in 2025. He did not update that on Thursday.

During its 2019 reveal, Tesla’s chief designer Franz von Holzhausen took a metal ball to demonstrate the truck’s unbreakable “armor glass” window, only to shatter it.

Mr. Holzhausen on Thursday lobbed a baseball at the Cybertruck window that bounced off. – Reuters

THE HAGUE/BEIRUT — Illegal chemical weapons attacks killed and injured thousands during Syria’s civil war, many of them children, but more than a decade later the perpetrators go unpunished.

That could change under an initiative to create a new tribunal for such atrocities launched in The Hague on Thursday.

A dozen Syrian rights groups, international legal experts and others have quietly spent two years laying the groundwork for a new treaty-based court which could put on trial alleged users of banned toxic agents worldwide.

“The tribunal for us Syrians is hope,” said Safaa Kamel, 35, a teacher from the Jobar suburb of Syria’s capital Damascus, recalling the Aug. 21, 2013, sarin gas attack in the Ghouta district which killed more than 1,000 people, many in their sleep.

“The symptoms that we had were nausea, vomiting, yellowing of the face, some fainting. Even among the little ones. There was so much fear,” she told Reuters from Afrin, a northwest Syrian town where she sought refuge. “We’ll never be able to erase from our memories how they were all lined up.”

Many diplomatic and expert meetings between states have been held to discuss the proposal, including the political, legal and funding feasibility, documents seen by Reuters showed.

Diplomats from at least 44 countries across all continents have been engaged in the discussions, some of them at ministerial level, said Ibrahim Olabi, a British-Syrian barrister, a key figure behind the initiative.

“While it’s Syrians that are calling for it, for the use of chemical weapons in Syria, if states so wish, it could be far beyond Syria,” Olabi told Reuters.

The Exceptional Chemical Weapons Tribunal proposal was launched on Nov. 30, the day victims of chemical attacks are remembered worldwide. The next step will be for states to agree on the wording of a treaty.

‘SOME KIND OF JUSTICE’
The use of chemical weapons is banned under the Geneva Conventions that codified the laws of war. That ban was strengthened by the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention, a non-proliferation treaty joined by 193 states which is overseen by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

But political division over the Syrian war at the OPCW and the United Nations led to the blocking of efforts to bring accountability for the widespread violations in international law in hundreds of suspected chemical attacks.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government has denied using chemical weapons against its opponents in the civil war, which broke out in March 2011 and has now largely settled into a stalemate. Its information ministry did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Countries including France have opened prosecutions under so-called universal jurisdiction for war crimes, but in those situations where the International Criminal Court is not able to act there is no legal body that can prosecute individual suspects of chemical weapons use globally.

“Having those voices say ‘we need some kind of justice,… I think that’s going to be powerful,” Dapo Akande, a British barrister and member of the United Nations International Law Commission, told Reuters.

There have been international courts for war crimes, from the Balkans to Rwanda and Lebanon, but none that focused on the specific crime of deploying chemical weapons, Akande said.

“It would be trying to fill a gap in the sense that it would essentially be for cases where the International Criminal Court is unable to exercise jurisdiction. And that would, I think, be particularly innovative about it.”

The ICC, the world’s permanent war crimes court in The Hague, has no jurisdiction in Syria.

The OPCW has the power to investigate claims of chemical weapons use and in some cases identify alleged perpetrators, but it has no prosecutorial powers. It said in January that Syrian was responsible for an attack in Douma in 2018 that killed 43 people.

A UN-OPCW Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) found that the Syrian government used the nerve agent sarin in an April 2017 attack and has repeatedly used chlorine as a weapon. It blamed Islamic State militants for mustard gas use.

Syria’s ally Russia has repeatedly vetoed attempts to extend the JIM’s mandate, which expired in November 2017.

TEN YEARS LATE
For Dr. Mohamad Salim Namour, who helped treat hundreds of patients after the 2013 Ghouta attack, the images of the choking and dying still bring him to tears. He recalled one child survivor lying among the bodies asking him: “Am I still alive?”

“We feel bitter that accountability is coming 10 years late…We hope that we don’t have to wait another 10 years,” he told Reuters in The Hague.

“Let international law and justice take its course.”

Only a tiny fraction of about 200 investigations into Syrian war crimes conducted by mostly European countries relate to chemical attacks, the UN body tasked with investigating Syria crimes, the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism (IIIM) told Reuters.

IIIM head Catherine Marchi-Uhel said there are not enough justice opportunities for chemical weapons attacks in Syria and that her agency was ready to work with a new court.

“An international body with dedicated resources and a team that has developed expertise on building cases around chemical weapons incidents might be well placed to deal with these types of cases,” she said. — Reuters

TOKYO — Japan said it has asked the United States (US) to suspend all nonemergency V-22 Osprey flights over its territory after one fell into the sea on Wednesday in western Japan, marking the country’s first fatal US military plane crash in five years.

The US Air Force, which was operating the tilt-rotor aircraft, said the cause of the mishap, which killed at least one person, is unknown. The condition of the other seven people on board was not known. “The occurrence of such an accident causes great anxiety to the people of the region… and we are requesting the US side to conduct flights of Ospreys deployed in Japan after these flights are confirmed to be safe,” Minoru Kihara said in Parliament on Thursday, reversing a decision yesterday to allow such flights to continue. 

The Japan Self-Defense Forces (SDF), which also operates Ospreys, will suspend flights of the transport aircraft until the circumstances of the incident are clarified, another senior defense ministry official said in parliament.

A spokesperson for U S military forces in Japan did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Witnesses said the aircraft’s left engine appeared to be on fire as it approached an airport for an emergency landing in clear weather and light winds, media reported.

Developed by Boeing and Bell Helicopter, the hybrid V-22, which can land and take off like a helicopter and fly like a fixed-wing aircraft, is operated by the U S Air Force, Marines and Navy, and the SDF.

The deployment of the aircraft in Japan has been controversial, with critics of the U S military presence in the southwest islands saying it is prone to accidents. The U S and Japan say it is safe.

Japan hosts the biggest overseas concentration of U S military power, with the country home to the only forward-deployed U S carrier strike group, its Asian airlift hub, fighter squadrons and a U S Marine Corps expeditionary force.

In August, a U S Osprey crashed off the coast of northern Australia while transporting troops during a routine military exercise, killing three U S Marines.

Another crash-landed in the ocean off the southern island of Okinawa in December 2016, the first such incident in Japan, prompting a temporary U S military grounding of the aircraft.

The last fatal U S military aircraft crash in Japan was 2018, when a mid-air collision during a training exercise killed six people, according to the defense ministry. — Reuters

GAZA/JERUSALEM — Israel and Hamas struck a last-minute agreement on Thursday to extend their six-day ceasefire by at least one more day to allow negotiators to keep working on deals to swap hostages held in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners.

The truce has allowed much needed humanitarian aid into Gaza after much of the coastal territory of 2.3 million was reduced to wasteland in response to a deadly rampage by Hamas militants into southern Israel on Oct. 7.

“In light of the mediators’ efforts to continue the process of releasing the hostages and subject to the terms of the framework, the operational pause will continue,” the Israeli military said in a statement, released minutes before the temporary truce was due to expire at 5 a.m. GMT.

Hamas, which freed 16 hostages in exchange for 30 Palestinian prisoners on Wednesday, said in a statement the truce would continue for a seventh day.

The conditions of the ceasefire, including the halt of hostilities and the entry of humanitarian aid, remain the same, according to a foreign ministry spokesperson from Qatar, which has been a key mediator between the warring sides, along with Egypt and the United States.

“A short time ago, Israel was given a list of women and children in accordance with the terms of the agreement, and therefore the truce will continue,” the Israeli prime minister’s office said in a statement.

Hamas earlier said Israel had refused to receive a further seven women and children and the bodies of three other hostages in exchange for extending the truce.

Hamas had said a family of three Israeli hostages, including the youngest hostage, 10-month-old Kfir Bibas, had been killed during Israel’s bombardment of the enclave.

Before the agreement, both Israel and Hamas had said they were ready to resume fighting.

Ninety-seven hostages have been freed since the start of the truce, according to a Reuters tally. The Israeli military says 145 hostages remain in Gaza.

On Wednesday night, two Russian citizens and four Thai citizens were released outside the framework of the agreement while the 10 Israeli citizens freed included five dual nationals, officials said. They were a Dutch dual citizen, who is also a minor, three German dual citizens and one US dual citizen.

DIPLOMATIC PUSH
Israel has sworn to annihilate Hamas, which rules Gaza, in response to the Oct. 7 rampage by the militant group, when Israel says gunmen killed 1,200 people and took 240 hostages.

Before the truce, Israel bombarded the territory for seven weeks and killed more than 15,000 Palestinians, according to health authorities in the coastal strip.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken had arrived in Tel Aviv earlier on Thursday, his third trip to the region since the Oct. 7 attack, to discuss extending the pause in fighting.

US President Joseph R. Biden was determined to secure the release of all hostages held by Hamas after American Liat Beinin was freed on Wednesday, the White House said in a statement.

The US is urging Israel to narrow the zone of combat and clarify where Palestinian civilians can seek safety during any Israeli operation in southern Gaza, US officials said on Wednesday, to prevent a repeat of the massive death toll from Israel’s northern Gaza attacks.

Jordan will host a conference attended by the main UN, regional and international relief agencies on Thursday to coordinate aid to Gaza, official media said.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned on Wednesday the Gaza Strip was in the midst of an “epic humanitarian catastrophe,” and he and others called for a ceasefire to replace the temporary truce.

China called on the Security Council on Thursday to formulate a “concrete” timetable and roadmap for a two-state solution to achieve a “comprehensive, just and lasting” settlement of the Palestinian issue. — Reuters

Nov. 29 — Hundreds of Catholic institutions around the globe have announced plans to divest their finances of oil, gas and coal to help fight climate change since Pope Francis published his landmark encyclical on environmental stewardship in 2015 urging a break with fossil fuels.

But in the United States, the world’s top oil and gas producer and where about a quarter of the population is Catholic, not a single diocese has announced it has let go of its fossil fuel assets.

US dioceses hold millions of dollars of stock in fossil fuel companies through portfolios intended to fund church operations and pay clergy salaries, according to a Reuters review of financial statements. And at least a dozen are also leasing land to drillers, according to land records.

The US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), an assembly of the hierarchy of US Catholic Church that sets policy guidance, told Reuters that its guidance on socially responsible investing was updated in 2021 to account for the pope’s encyclical but confirmed that it does not require divestment from fossil fuels.

Pope Francis had planned to attend the COP28 conference in Dubai this week but canceled on Tuesday due to health concerns. The Vatican said it was weighing options to ensure a presence at the summit and Vatican sources said most likely a senior official would read the pope’s speech for him in Dubai, or the pope would use a video link.

“He’s making another appeal,” said Dan DiLeo, director of the Justice and Peace Studies Program at Creighton University in Nebraska. “This is a call and a plea for fidelity.”

The ongoing investments in the US reflect a long-running rift between US Catholic bishops and the pope on how to address global warming.

The pope’s Laudato Si encyclical urged immediate action against climate change, declaring that “highly polluting fossil fuels need to be progressively replaced without delay.” Since then, the Vatican has repeatedly, and explicitly urged Catholic institutions to divest.

APSA, the department that manages the Vatican’s portfolio, adheres to the policy of not investing in fossil fuels and makes “all possible checks” to ensure funds in which it has shares do not, according to a senior Vatican finance official. The Vatican bank, which is separate from APSA, also does not invest in fossil fuels, a bank official said.

BIG OIL STOCK
Some 354 Catholic institutions across more than 50 countries have divested of fossil fuels since the 2015 encyclical, including scores of dioceses in the UK, Ireland and Germany, according to the Laudato Si Movement, a Catholic environmental advocacy group tracking divestment.

Notably absent are any dioceses in the US

Reuters reviewed the financial reports published by two dozen of the nation’s more than 170 Catholic dioceses, including several of its largest, and found that few provide details on specific investments.

The Archdiocese of Boston held over $6 million in energy stock in its Income Opportunity Fund and Collective Investment Partnership at the end of June, according to its annual reports. None of the reports identified the underlying companies, and a spokesman for the Archdiocese did not answer questions about the investments.

The Boston diocese held around $2 million in gas and electric corporate bonds in another portfolio.

The assets made up a small fraction of the archdiocese’s roughly $240 million in total investments.

Dioceses in Chicago, San Francisco and Erie, Pennsylvania, also listed energy assets, without providing details about the underlying companies. Financial reports of eight other dioceses examined by Reuters contained little or no information about which industries were represented in their investments.

Reuters also examined a database of oil and gas leases in Texas and found a dozen US dioceses — seven based in Texas and five from out of state — were involved in deals with drillers.

The Texas dioceses included San Antonio, Austin, and Fort Worth. Erie and San Francisco dioceses also held leases.

“We engage a third party to review our compliance with the USCCB guidelines, and these guidelines do not prohibit investments in fossil fuels,” said Peter Marlow, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of San Francisco, in response to Reuters questions about its investments and lease deals.

A spokeswoman for the Diocese of Erie confirmed it had “arrangements with two companies in Texas that provide minimal dividends, in the range of $15/year,” and was seeking to have them terminated.

“This effort will continue until we are successful,” spokeswoman Anne-Marie Welsh said.

The Archdiocese of Baltimore declined to comment on its investments but pointed to an open letter from Archbishop William Lori in October supporting the pope’s message of environmentalism and listing initiatives including the archdiocese’s use of solar and a program to plant 1,000 trees.

Archbishop Bernard Hebda of Saint Paul and Minneapolis told Reuters he supports the pope’s environmental leadership, and pointed out that the archdiocese has invested with the  Catholic Community Foundation of Minnesota.

A CCF official said energy and fossil fuels stocks make up between 3.5% and 6% of archdiocese investment funds, and that CCF uses its shareholder status to press for corporate environmental improvements.

CCF also said it screens out high-impact companies like coal miners, and has been increasing investment in renewables.

Officials at other dioceses did not comment.

“As a Church we need to walk the talk of Laudato Si,” said Father Joshtrom Kureethadam, an official in the Vatican’s Integral Human Development department, which formulates environmental policy. He called the enormous financial gains by oil companies “immoral profits.”

The American Petroleum Institute, which represents US oil companies, said the industry was “committed to driving further innovation to accelerate global climate goals while providing the energy consumers around the world need.”

PRACTICAL GUIDANCE
The USCCB investment guidance calls on dioceses to “consider divestment from those companies that consistently fail to initiate policies intended to achieve the Paris Agreement goals.”

The Paris Agreement is an international deal struck in 2015 to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees C above pre-industrial times to avert the worst consequences of climate change.

“The 2021 update endeavored to provide a practical guidance for investments based on the teaching of Pope Francis,” said Chieko Noguchi, a spokeswoman for the USCCB.

Ms. Noguchi declined to answer follow up questions, including whether USCCB had identified any companies for divestment, or whether engaging directly in oil and gas leasing could be reconciled with the pope’s call to shun fossil fuels.

The USCCB’s 2021 recommendations were guided by the Christian Brothers Investment Service (CBIS), a global investment manager serving Catholic investors and institutions, according to a press release issued at the time by the USCCB.

The CBIS, which manages nearly $10 billion, has rejected wholesale fossil fuel divestment, arguing instead for active shareholder engagement to improve companies from within.

The “Catholic Responsible Investment” funds that it offers to US dioceses and other clients include major oil and gas companies like BP, Shell, Saudi Aramco, PetroChina and ONGC India, according to LSEG data.

“CBIS is leading shareholder engagements with the largest players in the oil and gas sector to influence the industry towards a transformation to a low carbon future,” the investment service told Reuters. It added that it had introduced “targeted divestment from a subset of fossil fuel producers and users” that have the highest impact on carbon emissions, including those heavily involved in coal and oil sands.

Sabrina Danielsen, a professor at Creighton University who has studied the engagement of US bishops on the issue of climate change, said the US Catholic hierarchy is rejecting the pope’s calls for divestment in part because of its traditionally conservative leanings.

Fewer than 1% of the more than 12,000 columns by US bishops in official publications since 2014 mentioned climate change, Ms. Danielson found in a 2021 study, and many of those that did downplay the urgency of global warming or described the topic as controversial.

“I think bishops might be very afraid of upsetting politically conservative Catholics in their dioceses, and especially afraid of upsetting wealthy conservative donors,” she said.

The USCCB did not comment on her research. — Reuters

Source:

WASHINGTON – Henry Kissinger, a controversial Nobel Peace Prize winner and diplomatic powerhouse whose service under two presidents left an indelible mark on US foreign policy, died on Wednesday at age 100, according to his geopolitical consulting firm Kissinger Associates Inc.

Mr. Kissinger died at his home in Connecticut, the firm said in a statement. No mention was made of the circumstances. It said he would be interred at a private family service, to be followed at a later date by a public memorial service in New York City.

Mr. Kissinger had been active past his centenary, attending meetings in the White House, publishing a book on leadership styles, and testifying before a Senate committee about the nuclear threat posed by North Korea. In July 2023 he made a surprise visit to Beijing to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping.

In the 1970s, he had a hand in many of the epoch-changing global events of the decade while serving as secretary of state under Republican President Richard Nixon. The German-born Jewish refugee’s efforts led to the diplomatic opening of China, landmark US-Soviet arms control talks, expanded ties between Israel and its Arab neighbors, and the Paris Peace Accords with North Vietnam.

Mr. Kissinger‘s reign as the prime architect of US foreign policy waned with Nixon’s resignation in 1974 amid the Watergate scandal. Still, he continued to be a diplomatic force under Nixon’s successor, President Gerald Ford, and to offer strong opinions throughout the rest of his life.

While many hailed Mr. Kissinger for his brilliance and broad experience, others branded him a war criminal for his support for anti-communist dictatorships, especially in Latin America. In his latter years, his travels were circumscribed by efforts by other nations to arrest or question him about past US foreign policy.

His 1973 Peace Prize – awarded jointly to North Vietnam’s Le Duc Tho, who would decline it – was one of the most controversial ever. Two members of the Nobel committee resigned over the selection and questions arose about the US secret bombing of Cambodia.

Mr. Ford called Mr. Kissinger a “super secretary of state” but also noted his prickliness and self assurance, which critics were more likely to call paranoia and egotism. Even Ford said, “Henry in his mind never made a mistake.”

“He had the thinnest skin of any public figure I ever knew,” Mr. Ford said in an interview shortly before his death in 2006.

With his dour expression and gravelly, German-accented voice, Kissinger was hardly a rock star but had an image as a ladies’ man, squiring starlets around Washington and New York in his bachelor days. Power, he said, was the ultimate aphrodisiac.

Voluble on policy, Kissinger was reticent on personal matters, although he once told a journalist he saw himself as a cowboy hero, riding off alone.

HARVARD FACULTY

Heinz Alfred Kissinger was born in Furth, Germany, on May 27, 1923, and moved to the United States with his family in 1938 before the Nazi campaign to exterminate European Jews.

Anglicizing his name to Henry, Kissinger became a naturalized US citizen in 1943, served in the Army in Europe in World War Two, and went to Harvard University on scholarship, earning a master’s degree in 1952 and a doctorate in 1954. He was on Harvard’s faculty for the next 17 years.

During much of that time, Mr. Kissinger served as a consultant to government agencies, including in 1967 when he acted as an intermediary for the State Department in Vietnam. He used his connections with President Lyndon Johnson’s administration to pass on information about peace negotiations to the Nixon camp.

When Mr. Nixon’s pledge to end the Vietnam War won him the 1968 presidential election, he brought Kissinger to the White House as national security adviser.

But the process of “Vietnamization” – shifting the burden of the war from the half-million US forces to the South Vietnamese – was long and bloody, punctuated by massive US bombing of North Vietnam, the mining of the North’s harbors, and the bombing of Cambodia.

Mr. Kissinger declared in 1972 that “peace is at hand” in Vietnam but the Paris Peace Accords reached in January 1973 were little more than a prelude to the final Communist takeover of the South two years later.

In 1973, in addition to his role as national security adviser, Kissinger was named secretary of state – giving him unchallenged authority in foreign affairs.

An intensifying Arab-Israeli conflict launched Kissinger on his first so-called “shuttle” mission, a brand of highly personal, high-pressure diplomacy for which he became famous.

Thirty-two days spent shuttling between Jerusalem and Damascus helped Kissinger forge a long-lasting disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

In an effort to diminish Soviet influence, Kissinger reached out to its chief communist rival, China, and made two trips there, including a secret one to meet with Premier Zhou Enlai. The result was Nixon’s historic summit in Beijing with Chairman Mao Zedong and the eventual formalization of relations between the two countries.

STRATEGIC ARMS ACCORD

The Watergate scandal that forced Mr. Nixon to resign barely grazed Mr. Kissinger, who was not connected to the cover-up and continued as secretary of state when Ford took office in the summer of 1974. But Mr. Ford did replace him as national security adviser in an effort to hear more voices on foreign policy.

Later that year Mr. Kissinger went with Mr. Ford to Vladivostok in the Soviet Union, where the president met Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and agreed to a basic framework for a strategic arms pact. The agreement capped Kissinger‘s pioneering efforts at detente that led to a relaxing of US-Soviet tensions.

But Mr. Kissinger‘s diplomatic skills had their limits. In 1975, he was faulted for failing to persuade Israel and Egypt to agree to a second-stage disengagement in the Sinai.

And in the India-Pakistan War of 1971, Mr. Nixon and Mr. Kissinger were heavily criticized for tilting toward Pakistan. Mr. Kissinger was heard calling the Indians “bastards” – a remark he later said he regretted.

Like Mr. Nixon, he feared the spread of left-wing ideas in the Western hemisphere, and his actions in response were to cause deep suspicion of Washington from many Latin Americans for years to come.

In 1970 he plotted with the CIA on how best to destabilize and overthrow the Marxist but democratically elected Chilean President Salvador Allende, while he said in a memo in the wake of Argentina’s bloody coup in 1976 that the military dictators should be encouraged.

When Mr. Ford lost to Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, in 1976, Mr. Kissinger‘s days in the suites of government power were largely over. The next Republican in the White House, Ronald Reagan, distanced himself from Mr. Kissinger, who he viewed as out of step with his conservative constituency.

After leaving government, Mr. Kissinger set up a high-priced, high-powered consulting firm in New York, which offered advice to the world’s corporate elite. He served on company boards and various foreign policy and security forums, wrote books, and became a regular media commentator on international affairs.

After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, President George W. Bush picked Mr. Kissinger to head an investigative committee. But outcry from Democrats who saw a conflict of interest with many of his consulting firm’s clients forced Kissinger to step down from the post.

Divorced from his first wife, Ann Fleischer, in 1964, he married Nancy Maginnes, an aide to New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, in 1974. He had two children by his first wife. – Reuters

TEL AVIV – Thai Foreign Minister Parnpree Bahiddha-Nukara held back tears when he met fellow Thais released to Israel by Hamas after seven weeks of captivity and said on Wednesday he hoped for freedom soon for the remaining 13 hostages.

Another two Thai workers were set free on Tuesday, bringing the total released to 23. With their arrival at Shamir Medical Center, the workers embraced one another. “We survived! We survived!” they cheered, and one was seen wiping away tears.

“We are not part of the conflict,” Mr. Parnpree said in a Reuters interview later on Wednesday after an emotional meeting with the workers on Tuesday. He said there were no conditions for their release.

Mr. Parnpree held talks with his counterparts in several Middle Eastern countries with Hamas contacts. He said they remain in contact with him and send him updates about the release of hostages even before the news breaks.

“I went around to speak to various countries who can connect with the Hamas group to explain that the Thai workers are innocent, they are not involved in politics, they are not part of anyone’s conflict, and they probably don’t even know how the situation came to be, who’s fighting with whom. They were there to earn a living,” he said in the interview.

Thailand says Palestinian Hamas gunmen from Gaza killed 39 Thais during an Oct. 7 rampage into Israel where around 30,000 Thai laborers had been working in the agriculture sector, one of Israel’s largest migrant worker groups.

The Thai foreign ministry said three Thais were being treated for wounds in hospital. On Wednesday night, four additional Thai hostages were released. Of the 32 taken hostage, nine remain in captivity. Mr. Parnpree said he had pinned his hopes on winning their release soon.

Without revealing which countries he was in direct contact with, the top Thai diplomat said upon hearing the news of the first group of hostages’ release on Friday, he was wondering why Thais were not among the list.

Shortly afterwards, he received the good news from his sources even before the news broke.

“I get updates sporadically and I get the alerts before anyone else – that 10 (workers) are being released, four have been released, three have been released and then two have been released,” said Mr. Parnpree. “I was able to gauge which country has the most accurate information and that they were really able to connect with Hamas.”

He added that diplomacy played the key role in Thais getting swiftly released from captivity compared to other nationalities who were among the hostages. In his perspective, it also plays a crucial role in places where there are high geopolitical conflicts.

On Monday, a Thai Muslim group that spoke directly with Hamas said its efforts were key to ensuring that Thai hostages were among the first to be released in Gaza during a temporary truce with Israeli forces.

“We were the sole party that spoke to Hamas since the beginning of the war to ask for the release of Thais,” Thai-Iran Alumni Association President Lerpong Syed told Reuters on Monday.

Israel says Hamas killed 1,200 people and took about 240 hostages back to Gaza on Oct. 7. More than 15,000 people have been killed in Israel’s military campaign, say Palestinian health authorities in Hamas-run Gaza. – Reuters