World

French President Emmanuel Macron faced accusations Tuesday of making a major foreign policy reversal after an apparently cordial encounter with his Venezuelan counterpart Nicolas Maduro on the sidelines of the COP27 climate summit in Egypt.

The one-and-a-half-minute handshake and chat on the sidelines of the summit in Sharm el-Sheikh on Monday may have been brief, but they were a stark contrast to previous comments by Macron, who in 2019 had described Maduro as “illegitimate.”

“I would be happy if we could talk to each other for longer to engage in useful bilateral work for the region,” Macron told Maduro, according to a video recording of the encounter.

Addressing Maduro as “president,” he added that “I will call you.”

France, the US and several European allies never recognised Maduro’s re-election to a second term in 2018 elections and instead recognised his rival Juan Guaido as acting president.

But Guaido’s influence has ebbed after Maduro clung onto power, and Western countries are also keenly aware of Venezuela’s status as a key OPEC oil producer at a time of global energy crisis.

In 2019, Macron had recognised Guaido as acting president, describing Maduro’s election as “illegitimate” and calling for “a restoration of democracy” in the country.

“Excellent handshake with the President of France Emmanuel Macron,” Maduro tweeted after the meeting. “The doors of Venezuela are open for the French people.”

“Macron’s Big U-turn on Maduro’s Venezuela,” commented France’s left-wing daily Liberation.

The leader of France’s ultra-left wing France Unbowed party (LFI) Jean-Luc Melenchon, a longtime admirer of Venezuela under Maduro and his predecessor Hugo Chavez, tweeted that the “need for oil makes people polite.” 

He said that Macron had “finally” recognised the election of Maduro.

The encounter also came as Macron prepares this week to host Colombia’s first left-wing President Gustavo Petro, who has renewed diplomatic relations with its neighbour Venezuela and wants to normalise ties after a three-year rupture.

Venezuela is also sending a senior official to attend the Paris Peace Forum, a major annual conference backed by Macron that starts on Friday.

During the discussion between the two presidents, Maduro said that “France should play a positive role” in Latin America.

The occasionally surreal exchange between the two men — where the presidents rigidly stare at each other — also saw Maduro declare that “we have very good friends in common” and ask Macron “when do you visit us?”

Asked if the encounter represented a change of policy by France, the French foreign ministry said all questions should be addressed to the Elysee.

A group of small island nations joined calls on Tuesday for a windfall tax on oil companies to compensate developing countries for the damage caused by climate change-induced natural disasters.

Developing nations have pressed their case at the UN’s COP27 climate summit in Egypt for the creation of a “loss and damage” fund, arguing that rich nations are to blame for the biggest share of greenhouse gas emissions.

Oil companies have scored tens of billions of dollars in profits this year as crude prices have soared in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“It is about time that these companies are made to pay a global COP carbon tax on these profits as a source of funding for loss and damage,” the prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, Gaston Browne, told fellow leaders at the summit in the seaside resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

“While they are profiting, the planet is burning,” said Browne, who was speaking on behalf of the 39-nation Alliance of Small Island States, many of whose very existence is threatened by rising sea levels and increasingly intense tropical storms.

Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley called Monday for a 10 percent tax on oil companies to fund loss and damage.

The contentious issue of loss and damage was added to the COP27 agenda after intense negotiations.

The United States and European Union have dragged their feet on the issue in the past, fearful of creating an open-ended reparations regime.

– ‘Fossil fuel non-proliferation’ –

Browne acknowledged that the adoption of the agenda was “just one step” in the process, which gives a two-year space to negotiate.

“We look forward to the establishment and officialisation of the fund by 2024,” he said.

Browne also said a group of four island nations had registered a commission with the UN to “explore the responsibility of states for injuries arising from their climate actions and breaches in the obligations”.

“As small countries this is a new dynamic pathway of justice where the polluter pays,” he said.

Browne said small island states “will fight unrelentingly this climate crisis, and this includes fighting in the international courts and under international law”.

Another island nation, Tuvalu, announced it was joining calls for a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty, an initiative that seeks to stop new investments in coal, oil and gas globally and phase out production.

“The warming seas are starting to swallow our lands –- inch by inch,” Tuvalu’s Prime Minister Kausea Natano said in a statement.

“But the world’s addiction to oil, gas and coal can’t sink our dreams under the waves,” he said.

A Pacific neighbour, Vanuatu, was the first nation to join the treaty in September.

“Vanuatu and Tuvalu are the first countries to call for a new treaty as a companion to the Paris Agreement to align oil, gas and coal production with a global carbon budget,” said Tzeporah Berman, chair of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty initiative.

“We will look back on this in history as the moment of reckoning, with overproduction that is locking in further emissions and holding us back from bending the curve,” Berman said.

Nearly 90 migrants were allowed to disembark Tuesday from a charity ship in a southern Italian port even as hundreds of others aboard three other vessels awaited safe harbour.

The ship Rise Above, operated by German humanitarian group Mission Lifeline, docked early Tuesday in Reggio Calabria at the toe of Italy, the nonprofit said. 

“We were able to disembark all 89 survivors”, the charity said — all migrants rescued in the Mediterranean after setting off from North Africa on overcrowded boats bound for Europe.

But around 250 other migrants still languished aboard two other rescue ships about 100 kilometres away in Sicily, after being refused permission to leave by Italian authorities.

Italy’s new government, led by far-right leader Giorgia Meloni, has vowed to stop the tens of thousands of migrants who land on its shores every year.

At the weekend, some 500 migrants were allowed to come to shore at Sicily’s eastern port of Catania from the Geo Barents and Humanity 1 charity ships, but about half that number were refused.

They remain in a state of limbo, with rights groups challenging an Italian decree that permitted the Humanity 1 to dock only for the time it took to help emergency cases, calling it illegal.

As NGOs warned the remaining migrants were under severe psychological strain, two Syrians who on Monday jumped from the Geo Barents slept overnight at the dock.

“From the time they dove into the sea to protest the decision of the Italian authorities, they spent the entire night in the open on the pier refusing water and food this morning,” said Doctors Without Borders (MSF), operator of the Geo Barents. 

Members of the Red Cross performed a medical exam on the men Tuesday and one was subsequently taken away in an ambulance with a high fever, the group said. 

MSF’s chief of mission, Juan Matias Gil, said the worst for the migrants was the uncertainty, not knowing what will happen next. 

“No one can deal with this, at any level,” Gil said. “They can really feel it and their anxiety grows every day.”

– Exhaustion and worse –

Migrants allowed to disembark from the Rise Above on Tuesday were suffering from seasickness and exhaustion, Mission Lifeline said, while six people had been evacuated earlier after being deemed medical emergencies. 

Meanwhile, a fourth charity rescue ship, the Ocean Viking, remains off the coast of Sicily, waiting for permission to dock.

Some 234 migrants are aboard that vessel, run by European charity SOS Mediterranee under a Norwegian flag.

Ships chartered by non-government organisations regularly pick up migrants from overcrowded boats seeking to cross from North Africa to Europe.

However, their passengers accounted for only 14 percent of the more than 87,000 people who have landed in Italy so far this year, according to the interior ministry.

Italian Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi said Monday the government is acting “with humanity but firmly based on our principles.”

Piantedosi said he was working at a national and European Union level to reduce the burden on Italy after years of complaints from Rome that the European Union was not doing enough.

Norway’s Princess Martha Louise on Tuesday relinquished her royal duties in order to focus on her alternative medicine business with her fiance, a self-proclaimed shaman.

The 51-year-old princess’ relationship with Durek Verrett, a popular Hollywood spiritual guru, caused waves in Norway after the African-American “sixth-generation shaman” suggested in his book “Spirit Hacking” that cancer was a choice.

He also sells a $222 medallion on his website dubbed a “Spirit Optimizer”, which he claims helped him overcome Covid-19.

A poll in September found 17 percent of Norwegians now have a lower opinion of the generally popular royal family, nearly all citing the princess and the shaman as the reason.

In a video posted to Instagram on Tuesday, the princess said she was stepping down “in order to bring calm to the Royal House”.

The palace said the princess was “relinquishing the role as royal patron… and will not be representing the royal house at the present time”.

However, “in accordance with the king’s wishes, the princess will keep her title”.

King Harald, speaking to the press later with Queen Sonja by his side, said he was “sorry” the princess would no longer represent the royal family.

“She’s very good at it,” he said.

– ‘Agreed to disagree’ –

Martha Louise, who claims to be able to speak with angels, lost her honorific “Her Royal Highness” title in 2002 when she chose to work as a clairvoyant.

In 2019, the divorced mother of three agreed not to use her title as princess in her commercial endeavours.

But since becoming engaged to Verrett in June, the couple’s belief in alternative therapies, often featured on their social media channels, has raised eyebrows in no-nonsense Norway.

Several groups of healthcare professionals had already dropped the princess as a patron because of her fiance’s penchant for alternative medicine. 

“He’s an imposter, a charlatan and a quack,” columnist and humourist Dagfinn Nordbo has said.

According to the agreement announced Tuesday, the couple will refrain from any association with the royal family in their social media channels, media productions and commercial activities.

“This is intended to draw a dividing line that more clearly separates commercial activity from the Royal House of Norway”, the palace said.

Speaking of Verrett, the king told reporters that following discussions between all parties, “both we and he have a greater understanding of what this is all about, and we’ve agreed to disagree”.

“We can live with our differences”, he added.

– ‘Spirituality important’ –

The royal family said it had “great confidence in the Norwegian health service and the Norwegian health authorities”, stressing the importance of “established medical knowledge and scientific research”.

Martha Louise said she was “aware of the importance of research-based knowledge”.

“I also believe, however, that there are components of a good life and sound physical and mental health that may not be so easy to sum up in a research report.”

She said “spirituality, intimacy with other people and animals, yoga and meditation” could be important supplements, as could “a warm hand, an acupuncture needle, a crystal”.

It was key “to distinguish between myself as a private person on the one hand and as a member of the royal family on the other”, she said.

She hoped her personal views would be treated as her own “without others having to answer for them”.

The king said he thought Verrett — whom he described as “a great guy and very funny” — also now had a better understanding of the role of the monarchy in Norway.

“Americans don’t understand the meaning of it. They don’t,” he said with a laugh.

The palace said that once the princess and Verrett were wed, her new husband would become a member of the royal family but would not hold a title or represent the monarchy.

French prosecutors said Tuesday that they had opened an inquiry into child abuse by a cardinal after he confessed publicly to “reprehensible” acts with a 14-year-old girl in the 1980s.

Jean-Pierre Ricard, a retired bishop made a cardinal by Pope Francis in 2016, was named among 11 senior clergymen who face sexual abuse allegations in an announcement by the French Catholic Church on Monday. 

In a message read out at a conference of bishops, Ricard admitted that “35 years ago, when I was a priest, I behaved in a reprehensible way towards a girl of 14. There is no doubt that my behaviour caused serious and long-lasting consequences for that person.”

The most serious sexual offences in France such as rape usually have a statute of limitations of 30 years, but the period to bring charges can be extended if the victim was a minor at the time of the offence.

The maximum period for charges for sexual abuse of a minor is usually 20 years from the date at which the victim turns 18. 

“A preliminary enquiry has been started to verify the facts of this revelation,” prosecutor Dominique Laurens told AFP in the southern city of Marseille, where Ricard said the abuse took place. 

Judicial sources in Marseille said the bishop of Nice had alerted prosecutors on October 24, after Ricard told him that he had “kissed” a teenage girl.

The confession by the 78-year-old was received “like a shock” by fellow church leaders, the head of the Bishops’ Conference of France, Eric de Moulins-Beaufort, told reporters on Monday at a meeting in the southwestern town of Lourdes.

Ricard served as a bishop in Coutances, Montpellier and most recently in the western city of Bordeaux from 2001 to 2019, when he retired.

“It’s a good thing that he confessed and acknowledged it,” a 70-year-old parishioner in Bordeaux, Martine, told AFP when asked for reaction. 

She said it “was a shame that in the Catholic religion we don’t allow priests, archbishops and other people to get married.” 

– Other cases –

Another 10 bishops, either retired or still serving, face sexual abuse allegations, de Moulins-Beaufort said on Monday in the latest revelations of sexual abuse in the upper reaches of the French church.

French Catholics were rocked last year by the findings of an inquiry that confirmed widespread abuse of minors by priests, deacons and lay members of the Church dating from the 1950s.

It found that 216,000 minors had been abused by clergy over the past seven decades — a number that climbed to 330,000 when claims against lay members of the Church are included, such as teachers at Catholic schools.

That led French bishops to jointly kneel in repentance in November last year during a meeting in Lourdes, the spiritual home of French Catholics.

“It’s more than an earthquake,” Christine Pedotti, the head of the Temoignage Chretien magazine, told AFP. “How can we believe people who were on their knees in Lourdes a year ago?”

She said she feared another exodus of church members, which would deepen the steadily declining influence of the Catholic church in France.

Other senior French clergy have become embroiled in sexual abuse scandals that have undermined the Catholic church in countries from Ireland to Australia to the United States over the last decade. 

Retired French bishop Michel Santier was sanctioned by the Vatican last October for “spiritual abuse having led to voyeurism involving two adult men.”

Another French cardinal, Philippe Barbarin, was accused of covering up for a priest who had assaulted dozens of scouts between 1986 and 1991.

He was convicted in 2019 for not reporting the abuse, but had the guilty sentence overturned a year later. 

In 2020, he resigned from his role as a cardinal, a position which is usually held for life.

Ricard is expected to tender his resignation to the pope.

Americans headed to the polls on Tuesday in midterm elections in which Republicans are chasing a congressional majority that would paralyze President Joe Biden’s agenda and serve as a springboard for another White House run by Donald Trump.

Biden’s Democrats are facing a gargantuan struggle to hang on to Congress, after a race the president has cast as a “defining” moment for US democracy — while Trump’s Republicans campaigned hard on kitchen-table issues like inflation and crime.

“It’s Election Day, America,” the 79-year-old Biden tweeted as polling stations opened on the East Coast. “Make your voice heard today. Vote.”

At stake are all 435 seats in the House of Representatives, one-third of the Senate and a slew of state and local positions. Five states are holding referendums on abortion — California, Vermont, Kentucky, Montana and Michigan.

First results will begin trickling in after 7:00 pm (0000 GMT) but with razor-thin margins in some key congressional races a full picture may not be available for days or even weeks, setting the stage for likely acrimonious challenges.

The bitter political divide in the country was on the minds of many voters as they cast their ballots.

“I hope that we’ll get a better mix of candidates and that both sides can actually work together to solve our issues instead of fighting against one another,” said Sarah Hunt, a 41-year-old teacher as she cast her ballot in New York.

“There’s so much polarization and misinformation that I’d like to make sure that my voice is heard,” said Robin Girdhar, a 61-year-old doctor at a polling station in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Trump — who has all but announced he will seek the White House again in 2024 — grabbed the election eve spotlight to flag “a big announcement” on November 15, while Biden made a final appeal to Democrats to turn out en masse.

“The power’s in your hands,” Biden told a rally near the capital. “We know in our bones that our democracy is at risk and we know that this is your moment to defend it.”

Polls show Republicans in line to seize the House, which would allow them to snarl the rest of Biden’s first term in aggressive investigations and opposition to spending plans.

– ‘Giant red wave’ –

Returning to the White House Monday night, Biden told reporters he believed Democrats would hold on to the Senate but it would be “tough” to retain the House and his life in Washington may become “more difficult.”

If both the House and Senate flip, Biden would be left as little more than a lame duck and his legislative agenda would be frozen. 

That would raise questions over everything from climate crisis policies, which the president will be laying out at the COP27 conference in Egypt this week, to Ukraine, where Republicans are reluctant to maintain the current rate of US financial and military support.

An influx of far-right Trump backers in Congress would also accelerate the shift that has been taking place inside the Republican Party since the former real estate tycoon stunned the world by defeating Hillary Clinton for the presidency in 2016.

Despite facing criminal probes over taking top secret documents from the White House and trying to overturn the 2020 election, Trump has been using the midterms to cement his status as the de facto Republican leader and presumptive presidential nominee.

In a typically dark, rambling speech to supporters in Dayton, Ohio, the 76-year-old Trump said, “if you support the decline and fall of America, then you must, you absolutely must vote for the radical left, crazy people.”

“If you want to stop the destruction of our country, then tomorrow you must vote Republican in a giant red wave,” he said — before teasing his 2024 announcement.

Across the country voters called on their fellow citizens to cast their ballot in the midterms, which historically have low turnout.

“Vote, vote, vote,” Luke Osuagwu, a 24-year-old student, told AFP in Atlanta, Georgia.

“Abortion is probably the biggest issue for me,” said Alexandra Ashley, a 30-year-old lawyer as she cast her vote in Pittsburgh. “I want to make sure it’s available for everybody and safe.”

– 44 million early votes –

More than 44 million ballots were cast through early voting options, meaning the outcome had already begun to take shape before election day.

Senate races in Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, New Hampshire and Ohio are expected to be close and any one of them could swing the balance of power in the chamber.

Trump has already claimed — baselessly — that swing state Pennsylvania “rigged” the midterms — reprising his playbook from the 2020 election which he falsely asserted was stolen by Biden.

Citing growing support for voter conspiracy theories among Trump and his Republicans, as well as their push to curb abortion access, Biden has warned that democracy and basic rights are at stake on Tuesday.

Republicans have countered that a vote for Democrats means more soaring inflation and rising violent crime, seeking to make the midterms a referendum on the president.

The outcome will likely determine whether Biden, who turns 80 this month and is the oldest president ever, will seek a second term in 2024 — or step aside.