Southeast Asian environmental activists  – including young counterparts to teenage activist and Time magazine person of the year Greta Thunberg – are concerned they are not getting the attention that the climate emergency deserves, complaining that the region’s authorities are leaving this month’s climate negotiations in Madrid, also known as COP25, without committing to new climate action plans for 2020, as other nations have done.

The negotiations are meant to find a way to carry out the plans, agreed to in Paris in 2015, to cut global greenhouse gas emissions. However they have broken down as negotiators cannot agree on how much rich nations should spend to support poor nations to enact the plans. Many Southeast Asian governments want such supporting funds but their constituents also say the governments need to promise more dramatic emissions decreases.

Disagreement Drags UN Climate Talks Into Second Extra Day

Among main issues still being discussed are rules for international carbon markets and a system for channeling money to help poor countries cope with economic impact of climate change

“The situation is critical: our youth are mobilizing and striking because they know that there are only 10 years left for governments to act for them to have a decent future,” Sarah Elago, a member of the Philippine House of Representatives, said. “Why is it that children are doing more than the governing adults?”  

Like the Philippines, almost every nation in Southeast Asia has islands or long coastlines, making them particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Consequently, the region’s activists are particularly concerned that their governments did not offer forceful action plans at COP25, formally known as the United Nations Climate Change Conference, which was supposed to conclude on December 13 but continues as of press time.

Activists have exerted pressure on regional governments to offer a climate action plan but those governments say they are doing their best, as developing countries that did not create the problem.

Some say there is little point in offering action when there is none from the United States, the biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions until being recently overtaken by China. Developing nations around the Asia Pacific and elsewhere are paying the price because of polluting industrialized nations, according to Basav Sen, climate policy director at the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies.

“Our country, as a matter of policy, prioritizes enriching its oil and gas industry over preserving the ecosystems upon which billions of people rely for their food, water and homes,” he wrote in an op-ed for the newspaper USA Today.

He recommended “responsible world governments could publicly shame the U.S. government for its climate policies.”
Southeast Asia must do more, however, Abel Da Silva, a member East Timor’s National Parliament, said.

“We cannot stay on the sidelines of this catastrophe,” said Da Silva. “Southeast Asia is contributing to climate change through its reliance on coal, its deforestation and haze crisis, and its lack of ambition in its climate action plans.”

The region has to “reverse this shameful historical trend and right our past wrongs on the climate,” he said.

Nations generally submit action plans on how they will decrease greenhouse gas emissions at the annual U.N. climate conference. Although nations do other things to deal with climate change, such as constructing walls against rising water levels, emissions are the main issue.

Laos, which is trying to develop hydropower dams as a main industry, is the only Southeast Asian nation to set a goal of zero net carbon emissions by 2050 – it is also the only nation in the region that is landlocked. 
 

…

A bus carrying Hindu pilgrims drove off a highway and crashed in Nepal on Sunday, killing 14 people and injuring 18, police said.

The pilgrims were returning home after visiting the famed Hindu Kalinchowk Bhagwati temple when the bus veered off the highway about 80 kilometers (50 miles) east of the capital, Kathmandu, police official Prajwal Maharjan said.

Rescuers were able to pull out the injured passengers and take them to nearby hospitals for treatment.

Maharjan said police were investigating the cause of the crash but the roads were slippery because of winter rain. The visibility was also poor due to morning fog..

There was also a possibility of mechanical failure and it appeared the bus was not from the area and the driver might not be familiar with the road conditions.

Bus accidents in Nepal, which is mostly covered by mountains, are generally blamed on poorly maintained vehicles and roads.

…

China has suspended additional tariffs on some U.S. goods that were meant to be implemented on Dec. 15, the State Council’s customs tariff commission said on Sunday, after the world’s two largest economies agreed a “phase one” trade deal on Friday.

The deal, rumours and leaks over which have gyrated world markets for months, reduces some U.S. tariffs in exchange for what U.S. officials said would be a big jump in Chinese purchases of American farm products and other goods.

China’s retaliatory tariffs, which were due to take effect on Dec. 15, were meant to target goods ranging from corn and wheat to U.S. made vehicles and auto parts.

What’s In the US-China Trade Deal?

Broad outlines are similar to deal in principle announced in October that was dominated by increased Chinese purchases of US agricultural goods

Other Chinese tariffs that had already been implemented on U.S. goods would be left in place, the commission said in a statement issued on the websites of government departments including China’s finance ministry.

“China hopes, on the basis of equality and mutual respect, to work with the United States, to properly resolve each other’s core concerns and promote the stable development of U.S.-China economic and trade relations,” it added.

Beijing has agreed to import at least $200 billion in additional U.S. goods and services over the next two years on top of the amount it purchased in 2017, the top U.S. trade negotiator said Friday.

A statement issued by the United States Trade Representative also on Friday said the United States would leave in place 25% tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese goods.

…

Little piggies go to market, but in Germany they also go to court.

In a legal first, animal rights activists have asked Germany’s top court to ban the practice of castrating young male pigs without anesthetic – with the piglets themselves listed as the plaintiffs.

The painful procedure has become increasingly controversial in Europe and has been banned in Sweden, Norway and Switzerland.

Farmers argue that the castration of piglets a few days after birth is necessary to prevent “boar taint”, the occasional occurrence of a foul smell when cooking pork from male pigs past puberty.

The German parliament outlawed castration without pain relief in 2013 but it offered farmers a five-year transition period to help them adapt to the change – a timeline that was extended last year until 2021.

Outraged by the inaction, the PETA campaign group filed a lawsuit with Germany’s Constitutional Court in November on behalf of the baby pigs.

The group wants judges to recognize that pigs have rights similar to human rights and that these are being violated by the “cruel act” of castration without pain relief.

“Non-human entities like companies and associations have legal personhood. So why not animals too?” said lawyer Cornelia Ziehm, who is supporting PETA in representing the piglets in court.

‘Little chance of succeeding’

PETA argues that under German law, animals cannot be harmed without reasonable explanation.

“The castration of piglets – with or without anesthesia – is in clear violation of this, giving Germany’s male piglets only one option: to sue for the enforcement of their rights in court,” the group said in a statement.

The crux of the case is their argument that in Germany “everyone” (jedermann) can file a constitutional complaint if they believe their basic rights have been violated – even a pig.

But Jens Buelte, a law professor at Mannheim university, doubted whether the judges in Karlsruhe would see it the same way.

“Animals do not have their own rights under German law,” he said, giving PETA’s lawsuit “little chance of succeeding”.

Monkey selfie

It is not the first time campaign groups have filed a case on behalf of animals.

PETA made global headlines in 2015 when it asked an American court to grant a macaque the copyright to a selfie it snapped on a wildlife photographer’s camera.

The picture of the broadly grinning monkey went viral but the court eventually ruled that animals cannot bring copyright infringement suits.

PETA condemned the verdict, saying the monkey was “discriminated against simply because he’s a nonhuman animal”.

However, in Argentina in 2016 a judge ordered Cecilia the chimpanzee to be released from Mendoza Zoo after agreeing with activists that she was entitled to basic rights and her solitary confinement was unlawful.

Alternatives

German farmers, who remove testicles from roughly 20 million piglets each year, have long resisted the push to end castration without anesthesia.

They say there is a lack of workable alternatives to tackle boar taint, in an industry already struggling with fierce foreign competition.

Local anesthesia and gene editing are not yet viable or too expensive, they say, and would raise the cost of pork in a country famous for its love of schnitzel and sausage.

The government agreed in late 2018 to give the farmers a final two-year extension before the ban takes effect – a decision decried by the opposition Greens and far-left Die Linke, who argued it put the interests of the meat industry above animal protection.

Some German pork producers are pinning their hopes on a vaccine that requires just two injections to prevent boar taint – already a popular alternative abroad.

A pilot project involving 100,000 German piglets is currently ongoing, though critics say the vaccines are costly too.

A similar debate is raging in France, where agriculture minister Didier Guillaume recently said castration of piglets without pain relief should be banned by the end of 2021.

…

Since the Trump administration began reshaping trade policy in early 2018, U.S. farmers have endured fluctuating prices and uncertain destinations for what they grow and harvest amid increasing tariffs on grain exports.
 
“We want trade, we don’t want aid, but right now the bankers want paid,” Steve Turner recently told hundreds of attendees at the Illinois Farm Bureau’s annual meeting in Chicago.

In Washington, meanwhile, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced Democrats had reached an agreement to support passage of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, delivering a major trade victory to Republican President Donald Trump. Just a few days later, the White House announced a breakthrough in trade negotiations with China.

But as diplomats and lawmakers work to turn trade negotiations into long-term agreements, Steve Turner is among many farmers across the country receiving payments from the U.S. government to compensate for income lost due to trade battles. The Department of Agriculture’s Market Facilitation Program is distributing about $14.5 billion overall to farmers in 2019 on top of an estimated $12 billion in 2018.
 
The MFP is intended to offset the immediate impact of tariffs on U.S. crop exports, helping farmers get through the resulting economic hardship while the Trump administration negotiates with key trading partners.
 
“It made a big difference to our bottom line, absolutely, there’s no question about it,” Megan Dwyer told VOA while gazing out on her soybeans fields situated near Colona, Illinois.
 
“If we’re going to have tariffs, we ask that we be taken care of,” says farmer Jeff Kirwan, who tends land in Mercer County, Illinois.

Trump Pushes Congress to Pass USMCA as AFL-CIO Steps on Brakes

A major US labor leader on Monday said there was more work to do on the US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement

The USDA reports that Illinois, where Dwyer and Kirwan both farm – is the state receiving the most MFP funds in the country. Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, and Minnesota round out the list of top aid-receiving states.
 
But many farmers say they prefer trade agreements over the MFP payments.
 
“No one is looking for a handout,” says Dwyer.
 
Kirwan agrees, and says he supports what President Trump is trying to do in the hopes it makes the U.S. more competitive internationally on trade.
 
“I think it’s important when you talk about trade agreements that we want good, fair trade,” which is also why Kirwan and Dwyer say they are relieved the USMCA is moving forward.  

 The USMCA replaces the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA. A key part of the new agreement is to lower or end tariffs and boost markets for U.S. crops – most notably corn and soybeans – in countries bordering the United States.
 
“One success leads to hopefully more successes,” Kirwan said to VOA on the sidelines of the Illinois Farm Bureau meeting. Kirwan and Dwyer both see passage of the USMCA as a sign of things to come as the Trump administration continues to press for a comprehensive trade agreement with China.
 
“It’s just building some confidence with our other foreign markets,” says Dwyer, “To show that the U.S. can come up with an agreement.”
 
On Friday, the White House announced progress in trade negotiations with China, agreeing to delay tariffs on Chinese-produced electronics and toys while reducing existing tariffs on other goods. In return, China is promising to buy more American agricultural output.

First Phase of US-China Trade Deal Announced

Officials in Beijing and Washington say the agreement will mean both sides will not impose further tariffs on each other

Advocates for U.S. agricultural producers called the news a good first step.
 
“America’s farmers and ranchers are eager to get back to business globally,” American Farm Bureau Federation President Zippy Duvall said in a statement Monday. “China went from the second-largest market for U.S. agricultural products to the fifth-largest since the trade war began. Reopening the door to trade with China and others is key to helping farmers and ranchers get back on their feet. Farmers would much rather farm for the marketplace and not have to rely on government trade aid.”

Similarly, the Illinois Farm Bureau called Friday’s announcement “welcome news,” adding that farmers in the state have “a profound desire to recapture lost export demand due to the prolonged trade war with China.” The group expressed hope for “more good news yet to come.”
 
Illinois farmer Evan Hultine says he is “very excited” about the prospects of the purchase commitment China is making in the current phase of negotiations, but that the “residual stress” of the trade war has him taking a wait-and-see approach. “I don’t think my nerves or trepidation will completely fade until China starts making physical purchases and commodities and money changes hands,” he told VOA.
 
Trade announcements take time to be implemented and even longer to benefit farmers economically. For all the trade headlines emerging in Washington, Turner says many farmers across America continue to struggle.

Trump Touts USMCA in Meeting with Canada PM Trudeau 

Trump says two countries will be ‘significantly expanding’ trade relations once agreement is done

 
“The economic damage to us on prices has still been done out here,” he said.
 
“Let’s say that we have a [final] trade agreement [with China], and things really get moving – we know that the farm income situation has been affected and can’t be turned around overnight,” said Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Stephen Censky during a visit to the Illinois Farm Bureau’s annual meeting.  
 
Censky said he hopes further MFP payments in 2020 won’t be needed if negotiators can reach a full and comprehensive trade agreement with China, which is one of the largest buyers of U.S. soybeans.  

“All of us want to have trade and not aid,” says Censky. “None of us wants to have this level of government payments going to farmers. We want the markets.”

Farmers echo the sentiment but also want to know the U.S. government will continue to support them if further trade progress doesn’t materialize and their list of worries continues to extend beyond omnipresent factors, like the weather.

…

Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam visited Beijing on Saturday for her first trip to the Chinese capital since her government was handed a crushing defeat in local elections last month, prompting speculation about changes to her leadership team.

During a four-day visit, Lam is due to discuss the political and economic situation in China-ruled Hong Kong with Chinese officials. She will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday.

Hong Kong has been convulsed by daily and sometimes violent protests for the last six months as demonstrations against a now-withdrawn extradition bill broadened into demands for greater democratic freedom.

Hundreds of thousands of people marched last Sunday to protest against what is seen as Beijing undermining freedoms guaranteed when the former British colony was handed back to China in 1997. Many young  protesters are also angry at Lam’s government, charging it with failing to address social inequality issues in one of the world’s most expensive cities.

“Our sincerity to have dialogue with citizens has not changed,” Lam said in a Facebook post on Saturday. She said her governing team would continue to pursue “different formats of dialogue to listen to citizens  sincerely.”

This week Lam said a cabinet reshuffle was not an “immediate task” and she would focus her efforts on restoring law and order to Hong Kong. Still there are doubts about how long Beijing is willing to back her, especially after pro-democracy candidates won nearly 90% of the seats in district elections last month.

China has condemned the unrest and blamed foreign interference. It denies that it is meddling in Hong Kong’s affairs. In an editorial this week, the official China Daily newspaper called on Hong Kong’s government to uphold the rule of law.

Separately, three men were arrested on Saturday and charged with testing remote-controlled explosives, police said. Police also found body armor, shields and gas masks, they said.

Police also arrested five teenagers in connection with the murder of a 70-year-old man last month and on rioting charges, the government said. The man had been hit with bricks and later died in hospital, the  government said in a statement.

…

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has rejected a $13.5 billion settlement that Pacific Gas & Electric struck just last week with thousands of people who lost homes, businesses and family members in a series of devastating fires that drove the nation’s largest utility into bankruptcy.

The decision announced Friday in a five-page letter to PG&E CEO William D. Johnson marks a major setback in the utility’s race to meet a June 30 deadline to emerge from bankruptcy protection.

The San Francisco-based company needs to pull a deal off to be able to draw from a special fund created by the Democratic governor and state lawmakers to help insulate utilities if their equipment sparks other catastrophic fires. The risks have escalated during the past few years amid dry, windy conditions that have become more severe in a changing climate.

In his letter, Newsom said the proposed settlement announced last week does not achieve the goal of addressing what he considers its most important elements, providing safe and reliable power to PG&E customers.

“In my judgment, the amended plan and the restructuring transactions do not result in a reorganized company positioned to provide safe, reliable, and affordable service,” he said.

He went on to say that PG&E’s problems are the result of decades of mismanagement that must be addressed before he will sign off on any proposed settlement.

“PG&E’s board of directors and management have a responsibility to immediately develop a feasible plan,” the governor said. “Anything else is irresponsible, a breach of fiduciary duties, and a clear violation of the public trust.”

State Sen. Bill Dodd, who represents much of the fire-ravaged area, praised Newsom’s action.

“We all know that we can’t trust PG&E to do the right thing or even follow the law,” the Napa Democrat said. “Gov. Newsom has been standing up for the interests of ratepayers, victims and communities from day one.”

Newsom played a pivotal role in prodding Pacific Gas & Electric to work out a settlement with the fire victims instead of sticking to its original plan to earmark about $7.5 billion for them.

That $7.5 billion became particularly galling to the governor and other critics after the company agreed to pay $11 billion to resolve a potential $20 billion liability with insurers. Those insurers had already paid their policyholder claims in the fires that killed more than 120 people and destroyed nearly 28,000 homes and other buildings during 2017 and 2018.

The proposed settlement agreed to last week by the utility and attorneys representing fire victims would have paid $6.75 billion to the victims in installments ending in early 2022, and $6.75 billion in company stock that would give them close to a 21% stake in the reorganized PG&E.

The settlement also required significant concessions from the victims. Their lawyers had been contending victims were owed at least $36 billion and were likely to seek even larger amounts had they pursued their claims in a state trial and federal court hearing that had been scheduled for early next year.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Dennis Montali would have to approve a settlement by Dec. 20 for the deal to become part of the utility’s official plan to regain its financial footing. If that happens, bankruptcy experts believe the utility’s preferred reorganization plan will have a clear-cut advantage over a competing proposal from a group of bondholders and a potential bid from a group of cities and counties who have been mulling an attempt to turn the company into a customer-owned cooperative.

One of the attorneys representing thousands of fire victims said Friday night he hopes PG&E can still pull together a revised proposal that will satisfy the governor before that deadline.

“I’m hopeful that adjustments can be made so that all the parties can move forward to obtain compensation for the victims who have suffered so much over two years,” said Rich Bridgford of Bridgford, Gleason & Artinian.

Although he praised the proposed settlement just last week, Bridgford said he understands Newsom’s concerns.

“The governor’s heart is in the right place in seeking to ensure that PG&E emerges from bankruptcy in such a way as to guarantee it can adopt the safety measures necessary to avoid catastrophic wildfires in the future,” Bridgford said. “It’s a delicate balancing act.”

…

 As Delhi chokes on air so dirty that many struggle to breathe or develop niggling coughs or far more serious respiratory problems, some residents are heading to an upscale mall for a brief respite.
 
At the city’s first so-called oxygen bar, they fork out $4 to $7 for a whiff of rejuvenating air.
 
Among those who get a tube (nasal cannula) tied to their nose for a 15-minute lungful of oxygen is travel agent, Nischay Manchanda.

 “Its been quite some time since I have experienced how fresh air feels like, so I saw this place and I thought let’s just try it out,” he told  VOA.

New Delhi Gasps as Air Pollution Hits 3-Year High

Pollution levels in New Delhi hit a three-year high, forcing 37 flights to be diverted from the city’s international airport due to low visibility

Since the onset of winter, when pollution levels frequently breach the severe category, more customers have been walking into the small Oxy Pure bar that opened earlier this year in the world’s most polluted capital city.
 
This week, the air pollution index in India’s capital city touched  400, a level at which people are advised to stay indoors. The index measures the particles that become embedded deep in lungs, causing irreversible damage. Anything above 60 is considered unhealthy, and doctors have sounded dire warnings about the dirty air’s impact on public health, saying it can stunt brain development in children or cause lung cancer.  
 

Researcher: India Air Pollution Death Rate to Outpace China

The increase in people dying in India from air pollution will outpace the rate of such deaths in China, as India drags its heels over environmental rules while opening more coal mines, the head of a U.S.

A spell of rain cleaned up the air somewhat Saturday but experts warned that the city would suffer another episode of toxic smog toward the end of the month and into the new year as temperatures drop and stagnant air traps pollutants low over the city.  

“People are coming with problems like eye itching, throat paining or they can’t breathe properly,” Bonny Irengbam, the manager at Oxy Pure, said.  

There has been a growing public outcry about the toxic air. Worried parents have even called for a “smog break” in schools every year in November when pollution peaks.
 
Despite several measures to tackle the air pollution crisis, authorities have barely scratched the surface of the problem.
 

Doctors Warn of Pollution’s Impact on Health in New Delhi video player.

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Calling living conditions in Delhi “worse than hell,” Supreme Court judges, who have been monitoring plans to tackle pollution, chastised city authorities two weeks ago.

“Why are people being forced to live in gas chambers?” a two-judge bench of Justices Arun Mishra and Deepak Gupta asked.   
 
Steps have been taken, including a switch by public transport to cleaner fuel, a ban on the use of dirty industrial fuel, the shutting of coal-fired power plants in Delhi, and construction of new highways so that polluting trucks using diesel do not enter the city.
 
It has, however, been a case of one step forward and two steps back in a city that has grown at breakneck speed over the last 15 years – 45 million people live in Delhi and surrounding satellite towns. Its fleet of nearly 9 million vehicles continues to grow as the affluent snap up new cars while millions of poor migrants burn polluting fires to stay warm on chilly winter nights. Construction and industrial activity are booming and the number of diesel-powered generators used by factories and offices to make it through power shortfalls, has been growing.
 
Some people leave the city when it is shrouded in smog.

Sahej Walia, an event manager, said he leaves the city for a few weeks in winter but it is not possible to stay away for three months from November to January, now known as the city’s “pollution season.”
 
“I was in Goa and the air there was much cleaner, but yeah, once I am back, I could feel the air was bad and my head was spinning all the time,” he said. He walks into the oxygen bar, which he discovered on social media, hoping “this oxygen therapy could help me out.”
 
Oxy Pure even offers a “pollution special” including five sessions for the price of four.
 
Foreigners are among those pumping up on oxygen, which comes in flavors such as eucalyptus and lavender.

 Inna Ossinkina, a Russian who frequently visits India to study Buddhism, was at the bar not just to escape the pollution but also because breathing the right way ties in with meditation and yoga.

“Ten minutes will not rescue me,” she says,  “I have to then buy a bottle [of oxygen] and go around with a bottle, right?”
 
As travel agent Manchanda’s session draws to an end, he takes a deep breath.

 “It’s a shame we have to buy air, it’s something that should be there automatically,” he sighs bracing to tackle the smog choked skies once again.
 
Life for him has changed – a few years ago he says he visited “hookah” bars, now he has to stop by at an oxygen bar.

…

A court in Sudan convicted former President Omar al-Bashir of money laundering and corruption on Saturday, sentencing him to two years in prison.

That’s the first verdict in a series of legal proceedings against al-Bashir, who is also wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes and genocide linked to the Darfur conflict in the 2000s.

The verdict came a year after Sudanese protesters first began their revolt against al-Bashir’s three-decade authoritarian rule. During that time, Sudan landed on the U.S. list for sponsoring terrorism, and the economy has been battered by years of mismanagement and American sanctions.

Before the verdict was read, supporters of al-Bashir briefly disrupted the proceedings and were pushed out of the courtroom by security forces.

Al-Bashir, 75, has been in custody since April, when Sudan’s military stepped in and removed him from power after months of nationwide protests. The uprising eventually forced the military into a power-sharing agreement with civilians.

The former strongman was charged earlier this year with money laundering, after millions of U.S. dollars, euros and Sudanese pounds were seized in his home shortly after his ouster.

The Sudanese military has said it would not extradite him to the ICC. The country’s military-civilian transitional government has so far not indicated whether they will hand him over to the The Hague.

The corruption trial is separate from charges against al-Bashir regarding the killing of protesters during the uprising.

Anti-government demonstrations initially erupted last December over steep price rises and shortages, but soon shifted to calls for al-Bashir to step down. Security forces responded with a fierce crackdown that killed dozens of protesters in the months prior his ouster.

…

A measles epidemic in the Democratic Republic of Congo has killed 5,000 people this year, according to a report by the World Health Organization.  The agency says there are a quarter million suspected measles cases in the country and all provinces have been affected, making it one of world’s fastest and largest moving epidemics.  As VOA Correspondent Mariama Diallo reports, the WHO and DRC government are carrying out an immunization campaign to combat the crisis.

…

Canada’s opposition Conservative leader said Thursday he will resign as party leader after weeks of infighting and a disappointing performance in parliamentary elections.

Andrew Scheer, 40, called resigning “one of the most difficult decisions I have ever made.” He will stay on until a new leader is elected.

“Serving as the leader of the party that I love so much has been the opportunity and the challenge of a lifetime,” Scheer said on the floor of Parliament.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau won a second term in Canada’s October elections despite losing the majority in Parliament. It was an unexpectedly strong result for Trudeau following a series of scandals that had tarnished his image as a liberal icon.

The vote led several Conservative officials to call for Scheer to step aside.

Even members of his own party said Scheer is bland. They once touted it as a virtue, the antidote to Trudeau’s flash and star power. In the words of Canada’s former Conservative foreign minister, John Baird: “He’s not the sizzle, he’s the steak.”

But Scheer was criticized during the campaign for embellishing his resume by saying he had worked as an insurance broker when, in fact, he was never licensed.

He also took heat for holding dual U.S.-Canadian citizenship — something he and his party had blasted other Canadian political figures for and never mentioned until the Globe and Mail newspaper revealed it during the election campaign.

He stumbled at several points in the campaign. He was widely panned after a debate when Trudeau grilled Scheer about his stance on abortion and the Conservative refused to answer.

In 2005, he gave a speech in Parliament attacking same-sex marriage and his social conservative beliefs hurt him in Eastern Canada.

Following the resignation, Trudeau said in Parliament, “I want to thank him deeply for his service to Canada on behalf of all Canadians.”

Scheer plans to stay on as the member of Parliament for the Saskatchewan district he has represented since he was first elected in 2004 when he was 25. The Conservative caucus chair Tom Kmiec later announced Conservative Party Members of Parliament voted unanimously for Scheer to remain as leader until a new leader is elected.

Political career

He has spent most of his adult life in politics. At age 32, he became the youngest speaker of the House of Commons, a non-partisan role overseeing debate in Parliament.

Scheer became Conservative leader in 2017 after other prominent Conservatives decided not to run because they thought Trudeau could not be beaten in the 2019 election.

Nelson Wiseman, a political science professor at the University of Toronto, said leaders of the Liberal and Conservative parties are now expected to win at the first opportunity.

“If they don’t, the knives are out,” Wiseman said. “Scheer could see the writing on the wall; he would have almost certainly failed to win a majority at his party convention’s scheduled review of his leadership in April.”

Antonia Maioni, McGill University’s dean of arts, said Scheer’s party recognized that he and his social conservative beliefs were not a winning strategy for forming a government in Canada.

Dustin van Vugt, the executive director of the Conservative Party, issued a statement that appeared to dismiss suggestions the resignation could be tied to reports that party funds were used to subsidize private school education for Scheer’s five children.

“Shortly after Mr. Scheer was elected leader, we had a meeting where I made a standard offer to cover costs associated with moving his family from Regina to Ottawa. This includes a differential in schooling costs between Regina and Ottawa. All proper procedures were followed and signed off on by the appropriate people,” van Vugt said.
 

…

Britons woke Friday to an utterly transformed political landscape following an electoral earthquake that has ripped up modern British politics, and whose tremors will be felt for years to come.  

Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s emphatic win in the country’s third general election in four years — giving the Conservatives, also known as Tories, their biggest parliamentary majority in more than a quarter of a century — marks a decisive turn in the country’s fortunes following the instability triggered by the 2016 Brexit referendum, say analysts.

Armed with an 80-seat majority, the biggest at a general election since Margaret Thatcher’s in 1987, Johnson’s government now will be able to end the deadlock in Britain’s Parliament and deliver on the Conservative promise to “get Brexit done” without further delay. Britain will almost certainly exit the European Union by the end of January, triggering a second and likely trickier stage of negotiations with Brussels over the country’s future political and trade relations with the European continent.

Speaking from the steps of No. 10 Downing Street, Johnson said Thursday’s election results show the “irrefutable” decision of the British people is to leave the EU and to end the “miserable threats” of a second Brexit referendum, a rerun plebiscite backed by Britain’s main opposition party, Labor, and the centrist Liberal Democrats.

The huge victory, which saw the country’s main opposition Labor Party record its worst electoral performance since 1935, is a vindication of Johnson’s decision, say analysts, to focus the election campaigning on Brexit and not to be drawn in too much by Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn’s effort to make the poll about the crumbling state of Britain’s public services. Johnson’s strategy was posited on the idea that Britons, even those who would prefer to remain in the EU, have become sick and tired of the long-running Brexit mess and want the saga to end.

‘Red wall’

Johnson also had his fair share of luck, “the biggest piece of which was Jeremy Corbyn,” according to Daniel Finkelstein, a onetime adviser to former Conservative leader David Cameron and now a columnist with The Times. “Corbyn kept more moderate Conservatives voting Tory even when they had doubts about Boris Johnson. He neither united the liberal left and center behind a policy of stopping Brexit nor the traditional Labor vote behind a populist manifesto,” he said.

In the final days of the campaign, Johnson focused on Labor’s so-called “red wall” of constituencies searching for cracks to widen in former mining towns and farming villages crucial to the Conservatives’ hopes of winning Thursday’s election, warning voters they face a “great Brexit betrayal,” if they voted for an increasingly metropolitan and far-left Labor Party.

On Thursday, Johnson managed not just to breach what was once considered an impregnable wall, but he bulldozed through it by persuading traditional working-class voters who favor Brexit in the north of England to ditch their lifetime habit of voting Labor. Constituencies that have been synonymous with Labor for decades fell like dominoes — seats like Workington in the northwest English county of Cumbria, which has been held by Labor for 97 out of the last 100 years.

Johnson’s Landslide Victory Sets Britain On Course for January Brexit video player.

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Existential crisis 

For Labor, the election amounts to an existential crisis — the same for the Liberal Democrats, whose leader Jo Swinson failed even to get re-elected as a lawmaker. Corbyn, widely seen as the most far-left leader Labor has had since the 1930s, has said he won’t lead Labor into another election and will stand down but only after a “period of reflection.”

Labor moderates want him to go immediately, and they fear he wants to oversee the choice of his successor, which his internal party opponents see as a sign that he and the left wing of the party will not easily relinquish control.  

Left-wingers attribute the party’s failure to Brexit and say it has nothing to do with Corbyn or his ideology. Richard Burgon, the shadow justice secretary, tweeted that this had been a “Brexit election.” “Johnson must continue to be fought with radical alternatives, not triangulation, that challenge the Tories head-on,” he added.

But moderate Labor candidates say that on the doorsteps while campaigning, they found the main problem for the party wasn’t Brexit but deep distrust for the Labor leader. They note that while Labor did worse in seats that voted to leave the EU in the 2016 referendum, they also fared badly in constituencies that voted to remain in the EU.

One Labor candidate, Phil Wilson, who failed to keep what had been a safe Labor seat in the north, said it was “mendacious nonsense” for Corbyn loyalists to blame the result on Brexit. “Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership was a bigger problem,” he said. “To say otherwise is delusional.”

Scotland, Northern Ireland

Despite their huge win, the victorious Conservatives will face challenges of their own, say analysts, both when it comes to Brexit and in terms of London’s relations with Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Johnson’s victory may have seen a remaking of the Conservatives, a party now more working-class than it has ever been, but it may have come at the cost of unmaking Great Britain. North of the English border, in Scotland, the pro-EU Scottish Nationalists, or SNP, also pulled off a landslide win, heralding a coming battle over Scottish independence and setting London and Edinburgh on course for a possible constitutional showdown that risks being fraught as the current clash in Spain between Catalan separatists and Madrid.

The nationalists gained a dozen seats as the Tories, Labor and the Liberal Democrats were wiped out north of the border with the SNP winning 48 of Scotland’s 59 seats, up from the 35 it won in 2017. The SNP leader, Nicola Sturgeon, vowed Friday to formally request a second independence referendum before the end of the year, saying that the election results north and south of the border showed “the divergent paths” Scotland and the rest of the UK are on.

“Boris Johnson has a mandate to take England out of the EU, but he must accept that I have a mandate to give Scotland a choice for an alternative future,” Sturgeon told the BBC. Johnson repeatedly has promised to reject any demand for another independence ballot, saying that if there is any formal demand, “we will mark that letter return to sender and be done with it.”

Nationalists enjoyed success, too, in British-run Northern Ireland. For the first time, nationalists, who favor reunification with the Irish Republic, now hold a majority of seats in the province, which voted to remain in the EU in the 2016 referendum.

Brexit debate

On Brexit, Johnson likely will continue to face internal Conservative party disputes, say analysts, with half his Cabinet favoring a so-called soft Brexit, entailing a close trading and political relationship with the EU. Johnson is aiming to conclude a trade deal with the EU by the end of 2020, but EU leaders have warned the timetable is unrealistic and the complicated negotiations will be daunting and take years.  

The new president of the European Council, Charles Michel, warned that Brussels won’t agree to a free trade deal that does excludes Britain agreeing to abide by EU regulatory rules and product standards. “The EU is ready for the next phase,” he said. “We will negotiate a future trade deal, which ensures a true level playing field,” he added.

EU officials formally welcomed Johnson’s victory but added they hope the prime minister will negotiate a “close as possible future relationship.” Some European officials say the Conservatives’ big parliamentary majority should give Johnson political space to maneuver and override the objections of those Tories who want a “clean break” with the EU.

Nigel Farage, the leader of the Brexit Party, which failed to win any parliamentary seats Thursday, says he fears Johnson will pivot now that he has a large majority and will eventually conclude a closer relationship with the EU than hard-line Brexiters would like.
 

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