The 10 costliest climate disasters in 2024 racked up damage totalling more than 200 billion US dollars, Christian Aid has warned. A report from the charity on hurricanes, floods, typhoons and storms influenced by climate change warns that the top 10 disasters each cost more than 4 billion US dollars in damage (£3.2 billion). The figures are based mostly on insured losses, so the true costs are likely to be even higher, Christian Aid said, as it called for action to cut greenhouse gas emissions and finance for poor countries to cope with climate change. Politicians who “downplay the urgency of the climate crisis only serve to harm their own people and cause untold suffering around the world”, climate expert Joanna Haigh said. While developed countries feature heavily in the list of costliest weather extremes, as they have higher property values and can afford insurance, the charity also highlighted another 10 disasters which did not rack up such costs but were just as devastating, often hitting poorer countries. Most extreme weather events show “clear fingerprints” of climate change, which is driving more extreme weather events, making them more intense and frequent, experts said. The single most costly event in 2024 was Hurricane Milton, which scientists say was made windier, wetter and more destructive by global warming, and which caused 60 billion US dollars (£48 billion) of damage when it hit the US in October. That is closely followed by Hurricane Helene, which cost 55 billion US dollars (£44 billion) when it hit the US, Mexico and Cuba just two weeks before Milton in late September. The US was hit by so many costly storms throughout the year that even when hurricanes are removed, other storms cost more than 60 billion US dollars in damage, the report said. Three of the costliest 10 climate extremes hit Europe, including the floods from Storm Boris which devastated central European countries in September and deadly flooding in Valencia in October which killed 226 people. In other parts of the world, floods in June and July in China killed 315 people and racked up costs of 15.6 billion US dollars (£12.4 billion), while Typhoon Yagi, which hit south-west Asia in September, killed more than 800 people and cost 12.6 billion dollars (£10 billion). Events which were not among the most costly in financial terms but which have still been devastating include Cyclone Chido which hit Mayotte in December and may have killed more than 1,000 people, Christian Aid said. Meanwhile, heatwaves affected 33 million people in Bangladesh and worsened the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, flooding affected 6.6 million people in West Africa and the worst drought in living memory affected more than 14 million in Zambia, Malawi, Namibia and Zimbabwe, the charity said. Christian Aid chief executive Patrick Watt said: “There is nothing natural about the growing severity and frequency of droughts, floods and storms. “Disasters are being supercharged by decisions to keep burning fossil fuels, and to allow emissions to rise. “And they’re being made worse by the consistent failure to deliver on financial commitments to the poorest and most climate-vulnerable countries. “In 2025 we need to see governments leading, and taking action to accelerate the green transition, reduce emissions, and fund their promises.” Dr Mariam Zachariah, World Weather Attribution researcher who analyses extreme events in near-real time to discern the role of climate change, at Imperial College London, said: “This report is just a snapshot of climate devastation in 2024. “There are many more droughts, heatwaves, wildfires and floods not included that are becoming more frequent and intense. “Most of these disasters show clear fingerprints of climate change. “Extreme weather is clearly causing incredible suffering in all corners of the world. Behind the billion-dollar figures are lost lives and livelihoods.” And Prof Haigh, emeritus professor of atmospheric physics at Imperial College London, said: “The economic impact of these extreme weather events should be a wake-up call. “The good news is that ever-worsening crises doesn’t have to be our long-term future. “The technologies of a clean energy economy exist, but we need leaders to invest in them and roll them out at scale.” The 10 costliest climate disasters of 2024 were: US storms, December to January, more than 60 billion US dollars; Hurricane Milton in the US, October 9-13, 60 billion US dollars (£48 billion); Hurricane Helene in the US, Mexico, Cuba, 55 billion US dollars (£44 billion); China floods, June 9-July 14, 15.6 billion US dollars (£12.4 billion); Typhoon Yagi, which hit south-west Asia from September 1 to 9, 12.6 billion US dollars (£10 billion); Hurricane Beryl, in the US, Mexico and Caribbean islands from July 1-11, 6.7 billion US dollars (£5.3 billion); Storm Boris in central Europe, September 12-16, 5.2 billion US dollars (£4.1 billion); Rio Grande do Sul floods in Brazil, April 28-May 3, 5 billion US dollars (£4 billion); Bavaria floods, Germany, June 1-7, 4.45 billion US dollars (£3.5 billion); Valencia floods, Spain, on October 29, 4.22 billion US dollars (£3.4 billion).MINNEAPOLIS — It hung there like it would never come down, like gravity had left the building, like someone had injected the football with helium. Isn’t that the way this entire Vikings season has felt — inexplicably buoyant? Facing third-and-2 with 1:49 remaining in a showdown with the Packers on Sunday, Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell, for the third time in four plays, called for a pass. Not content to run the ball and force the Packers to call timeouts — that old-timey “safe” strategy that usually isn’t — he wanted a first down that would end the game. This one did. When Sam Darnold’s flip pass finally landed, running back Cam Akers, he of the two recoveries from Achilles injuries, dived and cradled that belatedly earthbound ball, and the Vikings had won 27-25 . Then Darnold stayed on the field to talk to Fox announcer Tom Brady, maybe to give him a few tips on quarterbacking in the NFL, as Darnold’s teammates waited and schemed in the home locker room at U.S. Bank Stadium. When Darnold finally burst through the door, his teammates showered him with water and lifted him. To return the favor. “A lot of water bottles, a lot of water,” Darnold said. “I think I blacked out when Aaron Jones grabbed and lifted me up, I didn’t know what to do with my hands in that situation. Ricky Bobby style.” Ricky Bobby is the Will Ferrell character in “Talladega Nights.” Not many athletes compare themselves to Ricky Bobby. We’ve reached the point in this season where defenders can do dances from “White Chicks” on the field and Darnold can cite Ricky Bobby and it all seems to make sense. With Darnold compiling one of the best quarterback seasons in Vikings history, this team is 14-2 and headed for a showdown in Detroit for the division title and top seed in the NFC. Darnold, like Ricky Bobby, is driving the success. He has thrown 35 touchdown passes this season, four shy of Daunte Culpepper’s team record and tied with Kirk Cousins for second. He has thrown for 4,153 yards, and on Sunday he completed 33 of 43 passes for 377 yards, three touchdowns and one interception. Darnold faced plenty of pressure but took only one sack, managing the pocket skillfully. He has thrown 18 touchdown passes and two interceptions in his last seven games, and on Sunday he outdueled Packers quarterback Jordan Love, who struggled to complete passes downfield until Green Bay became desperate in the fourth quarter. Befitting the nature of this rivalry, the Packers made it a game in the fourth quarter, leaving O’Connell with difficult decisions. Run the ball, burn the Packers’ timeouts, and hope they couldn’t mount one last drive for a winning field goal? Or throw the ball, earn first downs to run out the clock, while risking incompletions that could ease the Packers’ plight? If O’Connell had any doubts about Darnold’s nerves, he would have run the ball. Instead, three of the four plays the Vikings ran on their final drive — not counting kneeldowns — O’Connell called for passes. The first was a bootleg left, leading to a short pass to fullback C.J. Ham, good for 13 yards. After Akers lost a yard against the Packers’ stacked front, O’Connell called for Darnold to roll right. He did, and gunned a pass to a well-covered Justin Jefferson. Jefferson caught it for nine yards, setting up a third-and-2 with 1:49 remaining. The Packers had one timeout left. Darnold again rolled right, this time with Akers leaking out of the backfield into the flat. A pass-rusher in his face, Darnold flipped what looked like an alley-oop in Akers’ general direction. Akers caught, cradled and cuddled it, and Darnold was on his way to three kneeldowns, a chat with Brady and a waterlogged Ricky Bobby moment. “I don’t take stuff like that for granted,” Darnold said. “Ever. It’s special.” He’s been defying gravity all season. (Jim Souhan is a columnist for the Star Tribune of Minneapolis.) ©2024 StarTribune. Visit at startribune.com . Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Renowned for his economic reforms and steadfast commitment to secularism, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has passed away at the age of 92. His death was confirmed by the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi, on Thursday night. Singh's contribution to India was recognized on social media by several political parties. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) expressed their sorrow, highlighting Singh's dedication to democracy and the pluralist ethos of India. They extended condolences to Singh's family, noting his influential role in shaping the country's political landscape. Recalling Singh's words, Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya remarked on Singh's enduring belief in his leadership, despite criticism. As India reflects on his legacy, many acknowledge his assertion that 'history will be kinder than contemporary media.' (With inputs from agencies.)UBS starts coverage on gov service providers stock amid spending uncertainty
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Adam Clark scores 18 to help Merrimack knock off Niagara 80-62LANDOVER, Md. – Jimmy Carter was honored with a moment of silence before the Atlanta Falcons’ game at the Washington Commanders on Sunday night, hours after the 39th president of the United States died at the age of 100 in Plains, Georgia. Beyond being a Georgia native who led the country from the White House less than 8 miles (12 kilometers) away during his time in office from 1977-81, Carter was the first president to host the NFL's Super Bowl champions there when he welcomed the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1980. Recommended Videos Falcons owner Arthur Blank in a statement released by the team before kickoff said he was deeply saddened by the loss of his dear friend and mentor, calling Carter “a great American, a proud Georgian and an inspirational global humanitarian.” “He lived his life with great civic responsibility and took it upon himself to be the change he wished to see amongst other,” Blank said, recalling meeting Carter at The Home Depot. “President Carter’s kind and uniting spirit touched so many lives. He was a man of deep faith, and did everything with principal and grace, doing things the right way for the right reasons." ___ AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl
In latest blow to Hubbard County, auditor-treasurer abruptly resignsLast December, doctors at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children saved two-year-old Mikayla Kassam’s life. On Monday, Mikayla’s grateful parents – Anson Funds founder Moez Kassam and his wife, Marissa, a former banker – donated $15-million to fund SickKids research aimed at helping children around the world get the same health care that saved their daughter. Mikayla Kassam had a relatively common ailment, pneumonia, that turned deadly serious. At one stage, with her parents at her bedside, her heart stopped beating. Doctors put her into a medically induced coma and kept her on a ventilator for several weeks. Emerging from the ordeal with a healthy child who has only fond memories of her time in hospital prompted the Kassams to establish two pediatric research positions and fund a new position at SickKids: a nurse responsible for following up with families after their children leave the intensive-care unit. “Our gift is meant to support research that improves outcomes for kids everywhere, including the hospital that did so much for our daughter,” Ms. Kassam said in an interview. “We were inspired by conversations with our doctors on what they would change to deliver health care better.” The family’s initial donation tripled in size and scope as SickKids Foundation chair Walied Soliman, the chair of law firm Norton Rose Fulbright, discussed the gift with Mr. Kassam. On Monday, SickKids announced the Kassam Family Chair and Fellowship in Neurocritical Care, which is meant to bring top talent from around the world to the hospital, and the Kassam Family Critical Care Award in Innovation, which is meant to fund early-stage research in pediatric medicine. “We hope this investment will help give other families the same hope and comfort we received during Mikayla’s time here,” Mr. Kassam said. The hospital also named its pediatric intensive-care unit – the largest in the country – the Kassam Family PICU. “It is an incredible experience when visionary philanthropists like the Kassams share our appreciation for the level of expertise at SickKids after a first-hand experience,” said Jennifer Bernard, the chief executive officer of SickKids Foundation. SickKids draws doctors and staff from around the world, and three physicians the Kassams credit with saving their daughter – the third of their four children – all trained outside Canada before coming to the Toronto hospital. Nicole McKinnon, a critical-care physician, returned to Canada in 2018 after earning her medical degree in New York. Barney Scholefield is a British critical-care physician who joined SickKids in 2023. And Briseida Mema received her medical training in Albania before arriving at SickKids in 2005. The Kassam family’s gift means “SickKids will be able to attract and retain top tier faculty and trainees and advance the field of pediatric critical care medicine,” said Steven Schwartz, the chief of SickKids’ department of critical care medicine, in a news release. After she went into cardiac arrest, doctors at SickKids operated on Mikayla in the cardiac critical-care unit, the first facility in the country dedicated to treating young people with heart disease. The unit sees more than 800 patients a year from around the world and performs 60 per cent of Canada’s heart transplants for children and 89 per cent of Ontario’s complex heart surgeries for infants. Mr. Kassam founded Toronto-based Anson in 2007, and over the past 17 years its flagship fund is up 1,140 per cent. The firm oversees more than $1-billion of investments for its clients. The gift to SickKids came from the Moez & Marissa Kassam Equity Fund, which currently has approximately $80-million in assets. It focuses on what the family calls “strategic philanthropy,” with data-driven research leading to results-oriented commitments to causes that can create systemic change. The couple branded it a fund rather than a foundation to demonstrate their goal of “maximizing return on investment – not just financially, but in terms of social progress and human potential.” Last week, the fund donated $5-million to Toronto Metropolitan University’s new medical school to help recruit deserving students by offering scholarships worth as much as $30,000 a year. Mr. Kassam and real estate executive Adrian Rocca, the founder of rental property developer Fitzrovia, teamed up to create a data-driven fundraiser for athletes with Olympic aspirations called Great to Gold. The program supported competitors who had shown they were in the top tier of low-profile sports and gave money to Canadian athletes who went on to win medals at last summer’s Paris Games in events such as the hammer throw, fencing and canoeing.
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By ROB MAADDI No one wants to see any player take a vicious hit like the one that knocked Trevor Lawrence out of the game. It’s easy to agree on that point. Eliminating violent shots is the hard part. The NFL has instituted several rules to protect quarterbacks but football is a physical sport and players have to react instantly and make split-second decisions going at high speeds so injuries keep occurring. Lawrence was carted off the field in the first half of Jacksonville’s 23-20 loss to Houston on Dec. 1 after Azeez Al-Shaair leveled the defenseless quarterback with a forearm to the facemask. The late hit put Lawrence in the fencing position — both fists clenched — and he stayed on the ground for several minutes, while a brawl ensued. Lawrence didn’t require hospitalization for his concussion but it’s unknown when he’ll return. “Thank you to everyone who has reached out/been praying for me,” Lawrence wrote on X. “I’m home and feeling better. Means a lot, thank you all.” Al-Shaair was ejected from the game and faces a fine and potential suspension after his latest unsportsmanlike penalty. The Texans’ linebacker was flagged and later fined $11,255 for a late hit out of bounds on Titans running back Tony Pollard last week. He was fined earlier this year after he punched Bears running back Roschon Johnson on the sideline in Week 2. That occurred during a scuffle that started after his hard shot on quarterback Caleb Williams near the sideline that wasn’t flagged. Al-Shaair once got away with grabbing Tom Brady by the throat on a pass rush in a game between the 49ers and Buccaneers. Outraged Jaguars players called Al-Shaair’s hit “dirty” and Texans coach DeMeco Ryans made it known he didn’t condone it. “It’s not what we’re coaching,” Ryans said. “Want to be smart in everything we do and not hurt the team, get a penalty there. Have to be smarter when the quarterback is going down. Unfortunate play. Not representative of who Azeez is. He’s a smart player, really great leader for us. We felt his presence not being there. His loss really affected us on the defensive side. Just not what we’re coaching. Didn’t want to see the melee and all the aftermath. That’s not what we’re about. Not representative of us. I’ll talk to Azeez, address him personally, and we’ll move forward from it.” Fox Sports color analyst Daryl Johnston, a former fullback for the Dallas Cowboys, didn’t hold back his criticism, calling it a “cheap shot.” “It’s everything you’re not supposed to do,” Johnston said. “Everything. You’ll see this in slow motion and Azeez Al-Shaair does everything you’re trying to prevent in this situation. It’s reckless. It’s disrespectful. There’s an honor that you give to your opponent on the football field and you respect him. And there’s opportunities to be physical and give big hits and play this game in that manner. And there’s other times when there’s a respect that you grant to your opponent.” Some former NFL quarterbacks blasted Al-Shaair on social media. “There is no place in the game of football for dirty hits like this one,” Robert Griffin III wrote on X. Chase Daniel called it “one of the dirtiest hits” he’s ever seen on a quarterback. Even defensive players struggled to defend Al-Shaair. “That was uncalled for,” Hall of Fame defensive lineman Michael Strahan said on Fox’s studio show while fellow Hall of Famer Howie Long agreed. But the play also sparked debate about the quarterback slide. Lawrence slid feet first, which signals that he’s giving himself up on the play. The NFL rulebook states: “A defender must pull up when a runner begins a feet-first slide.” But defensive players aren’t automatically penalized if they make contact with a sliding quarterback if they already committed and the contact is unavoidable. The rules state it’s a foul when “the defender makes forcible contact into the head or neck area of the runner with the helmet, shoulder, or forearm, or commits some other act that is unnecessary roughness.” Al-Shaair did that so he was penalized and will face other repercussions. Still, given the hard-hitting nature of the sport, it won’t be the last time this happens.The whiplash-inducing, “Hunger Games”-style race to become Donald Trump’s Treasury secretary made it easy for the media to ignore what has been going on with Janet Yellen — and the absolute mess she’s leaving for her successor. Yellen — who, it was revealed Friday, will be replaced as Treasury secretary in January by hedge fund mogul Scott Bessent — was Joe Biden’s pick to run the office that is essentially the country’s CFO. Indeed, it could be the most important cabinet position in the White House given the importance of the US economy. Americans put Trump in office largely over his handling of the economy during his first term — job growth and wages that kept place with a low inflation rate. Despite her gold-plated résumé, Ivy League degrees, and time served as Fed chair, Yellen gave the country just the opposite. Her boss paid the price politically as the American people paid the price economically. And according to my sources, the American people aren’t done paying the price for Yellen’s mismanagement even if most of the financial media is overlooking the fiscal time bomb she devised — one that could blow up once Trump takes office. Specifically, my sources who follow the bond market say Yellen has been setting a trap for the incoming Trump administration through the way she financed the massive $1.8 trillion federal budget deficit that exploded during the Biden years with the accumulation of $36 trillion in debt. Yellen has been moving away from long-term debt to finance the shortfalls to shorter-dated securities, essentially rolling over deficits with more and more Treasury bills instead of the normal way of debt issuance through 10- and 30-year debt. That’s according to an analysis by Robbert van Batenburg of the influential Bear Traps Report, who estimates that around 30% of all debt is the short-term variety — aka 2-year and shorter notes — compared to 15% in 2023. Didn’t lock in low rates In an era of low interest rates, Yellen & Co. could have locked in relatively cheap interest payments for years by issuing more 10- and 30-year debt. So why go there? Politics, according to Yellen’s Wall Street critics. Because the Biden administration has taken spending to new and some say unsustainable levels, Yellen needed to engage in a bit of financial chicanery to keep interest rates low and not spook the stock market during an election year, her critics say. If she had financed deficits with 10- and 30-year bonds, that would have caused a rise in interest rates that impact consumers, i.e. mortgages and credit cards. Yields on the 10-year bond have remained under 5%, a key level that has coincided with a run-up in stocks. If rates move to 5% and above, it would also probably cause a decline in the stock market because stocks would be competing with higher-yielding super-safe treasuries for investors’ money. She was playing with additional fire because rates on short-dated debt, while low, began to spike in recent years when the Fed raised its base rate to fight inflation. As van Batenburg puts it: “The Treasury now faces a substantial volume of short-term debt maturing annually, which must be refinanced at significantly higher interest rates. Current market rates for short-term debt, while slightly lower than recent peaks, remain elevated compared to historical levels. This mismatch between low-cost historical debt and high-cost replacement debt is driving a substantial increase in the government’s interest expense.” Scary stuff. Average Americans got screwed by inflation and then higher rates that made homeownership less affordable. Rich people luxuriated in gains from higher financial-asset prices. But yields on the 10-year have been inching up to that danger zone of 5%. It could set the stage for a stock market collapse or even worse if the bond market starts to factor in not just higher deficits given Biden’s spending spree, but also the need to issue more long-dated debt because short-term borrowing is more expensive. Thanks, Janet. Gensler’s SEC land mines Speaking of cleaning up messes, SEC Chairman Gary Gensler announced last week he doesn’t plan to stick around until his term ends in 2026. His replacement is still in question as this column goes to press, though sources say long-time securities lawyer and ex-SEC commissioner Paul Atkins has the inside track. While Wall Street’s top cop won’t face the same existential worries being faced by the new Treasury secretary, it won’t be a cakewalk, either. “Cleaning up after Gensler is like avoiding land mines left behind by the retreating Japanese soldiers,” an SEC insider told me. Gensler, during his three-plus years as Biden’s SEC chair, basically defied the agency’s congressional mandate. He turned what’s essentially an investor-protection agency into a climate-activist arm of the Biden administration by trying to impose costly and absurd disclosures on public companies about their carbon footprint, nearly impossible to accurately gauge. His enforcement arm became a de facto regulator of the $3.5 trillion crypto business; instead of setting clear rules for the industry, he brought cases, stifling innovation of all-important blockchain technology in the US and pushing it overseas. Staff morale is at an all-time low due to Gensler’s brusque management style. I can go on, but I don’t want to scare whoever’s taking Gary’s place. Originally published as US economy: Secretary of Treasury Janet Yellen departs from office - as she leaves a trail of mess for her successorMinister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, has sharply criticized a former Rivers State governor, Dr. Peter Odili, accusing him of self-interest. Wike also asked between himself and Odili, who has turned Rivers State into his personal estate? Speaking at a thanksgiving service organised by the factional Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly, Hon. Martin Chike Amaewhule, at the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion), Oro-Igwe/Eliogbolo Archdeaconry Church of the Holy Spirit, Eliozu Parish, Port Harcourt, on Sunday, Wike, through a statement by his media aide Lere Olayinka, lamented Odili’s alleged habit of prioritizing personal gain over statesmanship. Olayinka quoted Wike as saying that it was unfortunate that somebody who is supposed to be seen as an elder statesman and called a father can reduce himself to a sycophant and a trader. He asked; “Must you be a trader all the time? As governor for eight years, what else are you looking for?” The Minister said; “You know, I didn’t want to say anything. But somebody called me last night and told me what someone said on social media. I said until I read it myself. This morning, I read in the newspapers what our former governor, Sir Dr Peter Odili, said.“What did he say? He said that the present governor has been able to stop one man who wanted to convert Rivers State to his personal estate. Wike pointed to several appointments allegedly dominated by Odili’s family members and questioned his past contributions as governor. He said, “Between him and myself, who has turned Rivers State to his personal estate? His wife is a chairman of Governing Council, his daughter is a Commissioner, his other daughter is a Judge, and he is the general overseer. Who has now turned Rivers State to his private estate? I am sure if care is not taken, if there is a chance, he can even arrange a marriage for the governor. “It was his nephew, his late senior brother’s son that was recommended for Commissioner. He took the slot and gave it to his own daughter. Someone who didn’t remember to stand for the son of his late elder brother, is that an elder statesman? He added, “All of you here remember when I was governor, this same Odili praised me to high heaven. In fact, he said then that all past governors in Rivers State combined did not do better than me. “In 2007, after he left office, he couldn’t come near power in the State because Amaechi was the governor then. He was gone! “Like somebody said that God will use someone to lift up someone. When I came in as governor in 2015, I won’t use the word resurrected, but I brought him back to life. “All of us know about Pamo University. But for us, there wouldn’t have been anything called Pamo University. Rivers State was sponsoring 100 students per session and for every semester, each of the students was paying nothing less than N5m. Then, Rivers people were attacking me up and down. “I personally called Julius Berger to build a mansion for him to live. He was calling everyone to the house then, telling them, come and see what Wike has done for me. Wike has shown me love. He was taking them round the house. Related News You gave me encouragement, Fubara tells Rivers residents I have done more for Rivers, Wike slams Secondus, Omehia Firms award scholarships to 611 Rivers students “Now, because you have organised a Christmas Carol for the governor, I didn’t say you should not do your Christmas Carol. But why reduce yourself to such a laughing stock? People will still see it on television how he was telling the whole world then how God used me to bring him back to life politically. “Why not do your Christmas Carol, collect what you can collect and leave me alone? Wike also expressed disappointment in Odili’s recent comments praising the current Rivers State governor while undermining Wike’s achievements. “The governor that all of us made has not spent one year in office and the same Odili was already saying that the governor has beaten the records of all the past governors of Rivers State. “When I was there, he said I had surpassed the records of all the past governors, including himself. What can he even show that he did in his eight years as governor? But a governor has not spent one year, you are saying he has done more than all the past governors. “You spent eight years as governor and someone who hasn’t spent one year has surpassed your records, what manner of elder talk like that? Is that what an elder statesman should be known for? “When I was governor, my pictures were everywhere in his house. Sitting room, bedroom, kitchen, even in the toilet, my picture was everywhere. But today, all the pictures have been removed. Asking what can be learned from such an elder statesman, Wike said; “What can I learn from this kind of elder? What kind of advice can one get from him? This moment you are saying something, the next moment you are saying something else. “You see, if your children begin to ask you, is this not the same man you were praising before? What would you tell them?” On the state’s governorship issue, the Minister asked; “When I was plotting who will be governor after me, was he (Odili) there? Then, he was complaining about this governor, saying that he couldn’t stand before the public to talk. But today, he is organising Christmas Carol for the same governor he was against then. “He has forgotten all that he said in the past. I named this after you, I named that after your wife. What have I not done? “You said we should not be part of the government, we have left. We are managing, you have taken assembly money, they are not dying of hunger and they will not die of hunger. We are okay. I’m focusing on my job in Abuja and all this sycophancy won’t take him to the level I have attained. “This is a man who wanted to run for president then, he didn’t have the balls, he chickened out. Simply because Obasanjo said no, he would not contest, he ran away. Because of him, I never invited Obasanjo to Rivers State to commission projects. I felt it would humiliate him.” Click the link below to watch the video: https://x.com/MobilePunch/status/1873482169102028823?t=FkZAEo721HmMp1mbzeEjXg&s=19
Jimmy Carter, a peanut farmer and little-known Georgia governor who became the 39th president of the United States, promising “honest and decent” government to Watergate-weary Americans, and later returned to the world stage as an influential human rights advocate and Nobel Peace Prize winner, has died. He was 100. When his turbulent presidency ended after a stinging reelection loss in 1980, Carter retreated to Plains, his political career over. Over the four decades that followed, though, he forged a legacy of public service, building homes for the needy, monitoring elections around the globe and emerging as a fearless and sometimes controversial critic of governments that mistreated their citizens. He lived longer than any U.S. president in history and was still regularly teaching Bible classes at his hometown Maranatha Baptist Church well into his 90s. During his post-presidency, he also wrote more than 30 books, including fiction, poetry, deeply personal reflections on his faith, and commentaries on Middle East strife. Though slowed by battles with brain and liver cancer and a series of falls and hip replacement in recent years, he returned again and again to his charity work and continued to offer occasional political commentary, including in support of mail-in voting ahead of the 2020 presidential election. Carter was in his first term as Georgia governor when he launched his campaign to unseat President Gerald Ford in the 1976 election. At the time, the nation was still shaken by President Richard Nixon’s resignation in the Watergate scandal and by the messy end of the Vietnam War. As a moderate Southern Democrat, a standard-bearer of what was then regarded as a more racially tolerant “new South,” Carter promised a government “as good and honest and decent and competent and compassionate and as filled with love as are the American people.” But some of the traits that had helped get Carter elected — his willingness to take on the Washington establishment and his preference for practicality over ideology — didn’t serve him as well in the White House. He showed a deep understanding of policy, and a refreshing modesty and disregard for the ceremonial trappings of the office, but he was unable to make the legislative deals expected of a president. Even though his Democratic Party had a majority in Congress throughout his presidency, he was impatient with the legislative give-and-take and struggled to mobilize party leaders behind his policy initiatives. His presidency also was buffeted by domestic crises — rampant inflation and high unemployment, as well as interminable lines at gas stations triggered by a decline in the global oil supply exacerbated by Iran’s Islamic Revolution. “Looking back, I am struck by how many unpopular objectives we pursued,” Carter acknowledged in his 2010 book, “White House Diary.” “I was sometimes accused of ‘micromanaging’ the affairs of government and being excessively autocratic,” he continued, “and I must admit that my critics probably had a valid point.” Carter’s signature achievements as president were primarily on the international front, and included personally brokering the Camp David peace accords between Egypt and Israel, which have endured for more than 40 years. But it was another international crisis — the storming of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran by Iranian revolutionaries and the government’s inability to win the release of 52 Americans taken hostage — that would cast a long shadow on his presidency and his bid for reelection. Carter authorized a secret military mission to rescue the hostages in April 1980, but it was aborted at the desert staging area; during the withdrawal, eight servicemen were killed when a helicopter crashed into a transport aircraft. The hostages were held for 444 days, a period that spanned Carter’s final 15 months in the White House. They were finally freed the day his successor, Ronald Reagan, took the oath of office. Near the end of Carter’s presidency, one poll put his job approval rating at 21% — lower than Nixon’s when he resigned in disgrace and among the lowest of any White House occupant since World War II. In a rarity for an incumbent president, Carter faced a formidable primary challenge in 1980 from Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, a favorite of the Democratic Party’s liberal wing. Although Carter prevailed, his nomination was in doubt until the party’s August convention. The enmity between Carter and Kennedy, two of the most important Democratic political figures of their generation, continued throughout their lives. In Kennedy’s memoir, published shortly after his death in 2009, he called Carter petty and guilty of “a failure to listen.” While promoting the publication of “White House Diary,” Carter said Kennedy had “deliberately” blocked Carter’s comprehensive healthcare proposals in the late 1970s in hopes of defeating the president in the primary. In the 1980 general election, Carter faced Reagan, then 69, who campaigned on a promise to increase military spending and rescue the economy by cutting taxes and decreasing regulation. Carter lost in a 51% to 41% thumping — he won just six states and the District of Columbia — that devastated the man known for his toothy smile and sent him back to his hometown, an ex-president at 56. A year later, he and Rosalynn founded the Carter Center, which pressed for peaceful solutions to world conflicts, promoted human rights and worked to eradicate disease in the poorest nations. The center, based in Atlanta, launched a new phase of Carter’s public life, one that would move the same historians who called Carter a weak president to label him one of America’s greatest former leaders. His post-presidential years were both “historic and polarizing,” as Princeton University historian Julian E. Zelizer put it in a 2010 biography of Carter. Zelizer said Carter “refused to be constrained politically when pursuing his international agenda” as an ex-president, and became “an enormously powerful figure on the international stage.” When Carter appeared on “The Colbert Report” in 2014, host Stephen Colbert asked him, “You invented the idea of the post-presidency. What inspired you to do that?” “I didn’t have anything else to do,” Carter replied. He traveled widely to mediate conflicts and monitor elections around the world, joined Habitat for Humanity to promote “sweat equity” for low-income homeownership, and became a blunt critic of human rights abuses. He angered conservatives and some liberals by advocating negotiations with autocrats — and his criticism of Israeli leaders and support for Palestinian self-determination angered many Jews. A prolific author, Carter covered a range of topics, including the Middle East crisis and the virtues of aging and religion. He penned a memoir on growing up in the rural South as well as a book of poems, and he was the first president to write a novel — “The Hornet’s Nest,” about the South during the Revolutionary War. He won three Grammy Awards as well for best spoken-word album, most recently in 2019 for “Faith: A Journey For All.” As with many former presidents, Carter’s popularity rose in the years after he left office. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for “decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts” and to advance democracy and human rights. By then, two-thirds of Americans said they approved of his presidency. “Jimmy Carter may never be rated a great president,” wrote Charles O. Jones, a University of Wisconsin political scientist, in his chronicle of the Carter presidency. “Yet it will be difficult in the long run to sustain censure of a president motivated to do what is right.” :::: The journey for James Earl Carter Jr. began on Oct. 1, 1924, in the tiny Sumter County, Georgia, town of Plains, home to fewer than 600 people in 2020. He was the first president born in a hospital, but he lived in a house without electricity or indoor plumbing until he was a teenager. His ancestors had been in Georgia for more than two centuries, and he was the fifth generation to own and farm the same land. His father, James Earl Carter Sr., known as Mr. Earl, was a strict disciplinarian and a conservative businessman of some means. His mother, known as Miss Lillian, had more liberal views — she was known for her charity work and for taking in transients and treating Black residents with kindness. (At the age of 70, she joined the Peace Corps, working in India.) Inspired by an uncle who was in the Navy, Carter decided as a first-grader that he wanted to go to the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md. He became the first member of his family to finish high school, then attended Georgia Tech before heading for the academy, where he studied engineering and graduated in 1946, 59th in a class of 820. Before his last year in Annapolis, while home for the summer, he met Eleanor Rosalynn Smith, a friend of his sister Ruth’s. He and a friend invited the two young women to the movies, and when he returned home that night, he told his mother he had met “the girl I want to marry.” He proposed that Christmas, but Rosalynn declined because she felt she was too young (she was 18 and a sophomore in college). Several weeks later, while she was visiting Carter at the academy, he asked again. This time she said yes. Carter applied to America’s new nuclear-powered submarine program under the command of the icy and demanding Capt. (later Adm.) Hyman Rickover. During Carter’s interview, Rickover asked whether he had done his best at Annapolis. “I started to say, ‘Yes, sir,’ but ... I recalled several of the many times at the Academy when I could have learned more about our allies, our enemies, weapons, strategy and so forth,” Carter wrote in his autobiography. “... I finally gulped and said, ‘No, sir, I didn’t always do my best.’” To which Rickover replied: “Why not?” Carter got the job, and would later make “Why not the best?” his campaign slogan. The Carters had three sons, who all go by nicknames — John William “Jack,” James Earl “Chip” and Donnel Jeffrey “Jeff.” Carter and Rosalynn had wanted to have more children, but an obstetrician said that surgery Rosalynn had to remove a tumor on her uterus would make that impossible. Fifteen years after Jeffrey was born, the Carters had a daughter, Amy, who “made us young again,” Carter would later write. While in the Navy, Carter took graduate courses in nuclear physics and served as a submariner on the USS Pomfret. But his military career was cut short when his father died, and he moved back to Georgia in 1953 to help run the family business, which was in disarray. In his first year back on the farm, Carter turned a profit of less than $200, the equivalent of about $2,200 today. But with Rosalynn’s help, he expanded the business. In addition to farming 3,100 acres, the family soon operated a seed and fertilizer business, warehouses, a peanut-shelling plant and a cotton gin. By the time he began his campaign for the White House 20 years later, Carter had a net worth of about $800,000, and the revenue from his enterprises was more than $2 million a year. Carter entered electoral politics in 1962, and asked voters to call him “Jimmy.” He ran for a seat in the Georgia Senate against an incumbent backed by a local political boss who stuffed the ballot box. Trailing by 139 votes after the primary, Carter waged a furious legal battle, which he described years later in his book “Turning Point.” Carter got a recount, the primary result was reversed, and he went on to win the general election. The victory was a defining moment for Carter, the outsider committed to fairness and honesty who had successfully battled establishment politicians corrupted by their ties to special interests. In two terms in the Georgia Senate, Carter established a legislative record that was socially progressive and fiscally conservative. He first ran for governor in 1966, but finished third in the primary. Over the next four years, he made 1,800 speeches and shook hands with an estimated 600,000 people — a style of campaigning that paid off in the 1970 gubernatorial election and later in his bid for the White House. In his inaugural address as governor in 1971, Carter made national news by declaring that “the time for racial discrimination is over.” He had a portrait of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. hung in a hall at the Capitol in Atlanta. But when Carter launched his official campaign for the White House in December 1974, he was still so little-known outside Georgia that a celebrity panel on the TV show “What’s My Line?” couldn’t identify him. In the beginning, many scoffed at the temerity of a peanut farmer and one-term governor running for the highest office in the land. After Carter met with House Speaker Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill Jr., the speaker was asked whom he had been talking to. “Some fellow named Jimmy Carter from Georgia. Says he’s running for president,” O’Neill replied. In a meeting with editors of the Los Angeles Times in 1975, Carter said he planned to gain the presidency by building a network of supporters and by giving his candidacy an early boost by winning the Iowa caucuses. Until then, Iowa had been a bit player in the nominating process, mostly ignored by strategists. But Carter’s victory there vaulted him to front-runner status — and Iowa into a major role in presidential nominations. His emergence from the pack of Democratic hopefuls was helped by the release of his well-reviewed autobiography “Why Not the Best?” in which he described his upbringing on the farm and his traditional moral values. On the campaign trail, Carter came across as refreshingly candid and even innocent — an antidote to the atmosphere of scandal that had eroded confidence in public officials since the events leading to Nixon’s resignation on Aug. 9, 1974. A Baptist Sunday school teacher, Carter was among the first presidential candidates to embrace the label of born-again Christian. That was underscored when, in an interview with Playboy magazine, he made headlines by admitting, “I’ve looked on many women with lust. I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times. God knows I will do this and forgives me.” Carter had emerged from the Democratic National Convention in July with a wide lead over Ford, Nixon’s vice president and successor, but by the time of the Playboy interview in September, his numbers were tumbling. By election day, the contest was a dead heat. Carter, running on a ticket with Walter F. Mondale for his vice president, eked out a victory with one of the narrower margins in U.S. presidential history, winning 50.1% to 48% of the popular vote and 297 electoral votes, 27 more than needed. Many of Carter’s supporters hoped he would usher in a new era of liberal policies. But he saw his role as more of a problem-solver than a politician, and as an outsider who promised to shake things up in Washington, he often acted unilaterally. A few weeks into his term, Carter announced that he was cutting off federal funding to 18 water projects around the country to save money and protect the environment. Lawmakers, surprised by the assault on their pet projects, were livid. He ultimately backed down on some of the cuts. But his relationship with Congress never fully healed. Members often complained that they couldn’t get in to see him, and that when they did he was in a rush to show them the door. His relationship with the media, as he acknowledged later in life, was similarly fraught. Carter’s image as a reformer also took a hit early in his presidency after he appointed Bert Lance, a longtime confidant, to head the Office of Management and Budget. Within months of the appointment, questions were raised about Lance’s personal financial affairs as a Georgia banker. Adamant that Lance had done nothing wrong, Carter dug in his heels and publicly told his friend, “Bert, I’m proud of you.” Still, Lance resigned under pressure, and although he was later acquitted of criminal charges, the damage to Carter had been done. As Mondale later put it: “It made people realize that we were no different than anybody else.” When Carter did score legislative victories, the cost was high. In 1978, he pushed the Senate to ratify the Panama Canal treaties to eventually hand control of the canal over to Panama. But conservatives criticized the move as a diminution of U.S. strength, and even the Democratic National Committee declined to endorse it. Carter’s most significant foreign policy accomplishment was the 1978 Camp David agreement, a peace pact between Israel and Egypt. But he followed that with several unpopular moves, including his decree that the United States would not participate in the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, as a protest against the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan. It was the only time in Olympic history that the United States had boycotted an Olympics; the Soviets responded by boycotting the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles. Carter had taken a series of largely symbolic steps to dispel the imperial image of the presidency. After he took the oath of office on a wintry day, he and the new first lady emerged from their motorcade and walked part of the way from the Capitol to the White House. He ended chauffeur-driven cars for top staff members, sold the presidential yacht, went to the White House mess hall for lunch with the staff and conducted town meetings around the country. He suspended the playing of “Hail to the Chief” whenever he arrived at an event, though he later allowed the practice to resume. On the domestic front, he was saddled with a country in crisis. Inflation galloped at rates up to 14%, and global gasoline shortages closed service stations and created high prices and long lines. Interest rates for home mortgages soared above 14%. In his first televised fireside chat, he wore a cardigan sweater and encouraged Americans to conserve energy during the winter by keeping their thermostats at 65 degrees in the daytime and 55 degrees at night. He also proposed a string of legislative initiatives to deal with the crisis, but many were blocked by Congress. In what would become a seminal moment in his presidency, Carter addressed the nation — and a television audience of more than 60 million — on a Sunday evening in 1979, saying the country had been seized by a “crisis of confidence ... that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will.” He outlined a series of proposals to develop new sources of energy. The address, widely known as the “malaise speech” even though Carter never used that word, was generally well-received at the time, though some bristled at the implication that Americans were to blame for the country’s problems. Any positive glow disappeared two days later, when Carter fired five of his top officials, including the Energy, Treasury and Transportation secretaries and his attorney general. The value of the dollar sank and the stock market tumbled. Sensing that Carter was politically vulnerable, Kennedy moved to present himself as an alternative for the 1980 Democratic nomination, publicly criticizing the president’s agenda. But Kennedy damaged his own candidacy in a prime-time interview with CBS’ Roger Mudd: Asked why he was running for president, Kennedy fumbled his answer, and critics cited it as evidence that the senator didn’t want the job so much as he felt obligated to seek it. A few months after the malaise speech, in late 1979, revolutionaries loyal to Iran’s spiritual leader, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, taking 52 Americans hostage. Weeks stretched into months, with Iran refusing all efforts to negotiate a hostage release. In April 1980, Carter approved Operation Eagle Claw, a secret Delta Force rescue mission. But it ended in disaster — mechanical trouble sidelined three helicopters and, after the mission was aborted, one of the remaining helicopters collided with a transport plane on the ground, killing eight soldiers. Secretary of State Cyrus R. Vance resigned before the mission, believing the plan too risky. Negotiations to free the hostages resumed, and Carter desperately tried to win their release before the November election. But the Iranians prolonged the talks and the hostages weren’t released until Jan. 20, 1981, moments after Carter watched Reagan being sworn in. The journey home for Carter was painful. Of those who voted for Reagan in 1980, nearly 1 in 4 said they were primarily motivated by their dissatisfaction with Carter. :::: Carter faced “an altogether new, unwanted and potentially empty life,” as he later put it. He sold the family farm-supply business, which had been placed in a blind trust during his presidency and was by then deeply in debt. Then, as Rosalynn later recalled, Carter awoke one night with an idea to build not just a presidential library but a place to resolve global conflicts. Together, they founded the nonprofit, nonpartisan Carter Center. His skill as a mediator made Carter a ready choice for future presidents seeking envoys to navigate crises. Republican President George H.W. Bush sent him on peace missions to Ethiopia and Sudan, and President Bill Clinton, a fellow Democrat, dispatched him to North Korea, Haiti and what then was Yugoslavia. Carter described his relationship with President Barack Obama as chilly, however, in part because he had openly criticized the administration’s policies toward Israel. He felt Obama did not strongly enough support a separate Palestinian state. “Every president has been a very powerful factor here in advocating this two-state solution,” Carter told the New York Times in 2012. “That is now not apparent.” As an election observer, he called them as he saw them. After monitoring presidential voting in Panama in 1989, he declared that Manuel Noriega had rigged the election. He also began building houses worldwide for Habitat for Humanity, and he wrote prodigiously. The Nobel committee awarded Carter the Peace Prize in 2002, more than two decades after he left the White House, praising him for standing by “the principles that conflicts must as far as possible be resolved through mediation and international cooperation.” During his 70s, 80s and even into his 90s, the former president showed an energy that never failed to impress those around him. In his 1998 book “The Virtues of Aging,” he urged retirees to remain active and engaged, and he followed his own advice, continuing to jog, play tennis and go fly-fishing well into his 80s. When his “White House Diary” was published in 2010, he embarked on a nationwide book tour at 85, as he did in 2015 with the publication of “A Full Life: Reflections at 90.” When he told America he had cancer that had spread to his liver and brain, it was vintage Carter. Wearing a coat and tie and a pair of blue jeans, he stared into the television cameras and was unflinchingly blunt about his prognosis. “Hope for the best; accept what comes,” he said. “I think I have been as blessed as any human being in the world.” Former Times staff writers Jack Nelson, Robert Shogan and Johanna Neuman contributed to this report. ©2024 Los Angeles Times. Visit at latimes.com . Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Dhaka: A review committee formed by Bangladesh’s interim government on Sunday recommended engaging an investigation agency to examine power agreements signed by deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s regime with different business groups, including one with India’s Adani Group. “The National Review Committee on Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources has recommended the appointment of a reputed legal and investigation agency to review the major power production agreements signed during the autocratic regime of Sheikh Hasina from 2009 to 2024,” an official statement said. The statement, issued by Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus’s office, said the committee was currently reviewing seven major energy and power projects, including the Adani (Godda) BIFPCL 1234.4 MW coal-fired plant, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Adani Power Limited. The six other agreements include one with a Chinese company that built a 1320 MW coal-fired power plant, while the rest are with Bangladeshi business groups said to be close to the past regime. According to the statement, the committee gathered “enormous proof” warranting the agreements be “scrapped or reconsidered” in line with international arbitration laws and procedures. It said the committee needed additional time to further analyse other solicited and unsolicited contracts. “In doing so, we recommend immediate appointment of one or more top-level international legal and investigation agency or agencies to assist the committee,” the statement said quoting a letter of the committee, headed by retired High Court judge Moyeenul Islam Chowdhury. India’s External Affairs Ministry had earlier said that cooperation in the power and energy sector has become one of the crucial pillars of India-Bangladesh relations. The Adani Group, however, recently sent a letter to the Bangladesh government over its unpaid USD 800 million power supply bill while Bangladesh’s state-run Power Development Board said they had already paid USD 150 million despite its dollar crisis and was expecting to pay the full amount. Adani’s Godda thermal plant was set up exclusively to supply power to Bangladesh but India recently changed a law allowing the Indian company to sell the Godda power in the domestic market sparking speculation if Bangladesh would get dedicated power supply from the plant. The interim government had earlier formed a committee to examine contracts made under the Quick Enhancement of Electricity and Energy Supply (Special Provisions) Act, 2010 (Amended 2021). The committee was tasked to investigate any allegations of corruption related to the country’s electricity and energy production and supply agencies.LEWISTON, N.Y. (AP) — Adam Clark had 18 points in Merrimack's 80-62 victory over Niagara on Sunday. Clark added nine assists for the Warriors (4-6, 2-0 Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference). Devon Savage scored 18 points, finishing 6 of 10 from 3-point range. Sean Trumper went 6 of 7 from the field (3 for 3 from 3-point range) to finish with 16 points. Jhaylon Martinez led the way for the Purple Eagles (4-6, 1-1) with 14 points and six rebounds. Zion Russell added 13 points and six rebounds. Jaeden Marshall had 11 points. The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar .