Monthly Archives: November 2025

Mamdani’s victory is the outcome of historic struggles

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/mamdanis-victory-outcome-historic-struggles

WARNING FROM HISTORY: Communists Robert Thompson and Benjamin Davis leave the Federal Courthouse in New York City during the 1949 ‘Foley Square Trial’ / Pic: CM Stieglitz/World Telegram & Sun/Library of Congress/CC

After Zohran Mamdani’s electoral win, BHABANI SHANKAR NAYAK points to the forgotten role of US communists in New York’s radical politics

AS THE dust of the recently concluded mayoral election settles in New York’s political consciousness, a new dawn begins.

Red babies are once again in the streets of Harlem, and it is now confirmed that 34-year-old Zohran Kwame Mamdani is the mayor-elect of New York City. Mamdani, a self-confessed socialist, is a member of both the Democratic Party and the Democratic Socialists of America.

His victory demonstrates that market-led bourgeois politics can be challenged and defeated by working people united around a clear, progressive political agenda.

New York is one of the richest cities in the world, yet one in four of its residents lives in poverty. The costs of housing, rent, childcare, transport, food and other essentials have become unaffordable for a dignified, basic life.

In this wealthy city, more than 500,000 children go to bed hungry each night. In response to such acute crisis, Mamdani offers politics of hope in the hopeless world of racialised capitalism in US.  

Mamdani’s campaign promised to freeze rents, reduce the cost of childcare, double the minimum wage, provide free public transport and increase corporate tax rates. He also pledged to establish city-owned grocery stores, expand mental health services and promote community safety across New York.

These progressive policies are not radical enough for a total transformation but the policies are a necessary response to the times and essential for the survival and dignity of working people in New York.

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Article continues at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/mamdanis-victory-outcome-historic-struggles

Continue ReadingMamdani’s victory is the outcome of historic struggles

England facing drastic measures due to extreme drought next year

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/nov/08/england-faces-extreme-drought-next-year

Low water levels at Baitings Reservoir in Ripponden in June after dry weather exposed a 14th-century packhorse bridge. Photograph: Adam Vaughan/EPA

Government and water companies are devising emergency plans for worst water shortage in decades

Water companies and the government are drawing up emergency plans for a drought next year more extreme than we have seen in decades.

Executives at one major water company told the Guardian they were extremely concerned about the prospect of a winter with lower than average rainfall, which the Met Office’s long-term forecast says is likely. They said if this happened, the water shortfall would mean taking drastic water use curtailment measures “going beyond hosepipe bans”.

Droughts are usually multi-year events. While much of England went into drought this summer, with hosepipe bans across large swathes of the country, things were not as bad as they could have been because it had been a rainy autumn and winter the year before. This meant reservoirs were full and that groundwater – storage of water under the soil – was charged up.

But months of record dry weather meant a lot of that water was used, and it has not been replaced, despite roughly average September and October rainfall. Average reservoir storage is at 63.3% compared with the average of 76% for this time of year. Ardingly, in West Sussex, and Clatworthy and Wimbleball in Somerset, are below 30%.

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Article continues at https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/nov/08/england-faces-extreme-drought-next-year

Orcas comment on killer apes destroying the planet by continuing to burn fossil fuels.
Orcas comment on killer apes destroying the planet by continuing to burn fossil fuels.
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
Continue ReadingEngland facing drastic measures due to extreme drought next year

Cutting home insulation funding will imperil UK’s climate goals, Reeves told

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/nov/08/cutting-home-insulation-funding-imperil-uk-climate-goals-reeves-told

In a letter to the chancellor, more than 60 groups and companies said slashing funding for energy-efficient homes would be a damaging ‘short-term fix’. Photograph: Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty Images

Energy firms and charities urge chancellor to avoid short-term fix that could also harm low-income households

Rachel Reeves has been told that cutting funding for home insulation at the budget would risk the UK’s climate goals and hurt low-income households in a joint intervention by energy firms, fuel poverty charities and environmental groups.

In a letter to the chancellor, more than 60 groups and companies urged Reeves not to take such a damaging “short-term fix” to slash funding for more energy-efficient homes to pay for a reduction in energy bills.

The Guardian revealed this week that Reeves is finalising a multibillion-pound energy support package that is likely to cut green levies paying for energy efficiency as she looks to save as much as £170 from the average bill.

In particular, the Treasury has been looking at cutting or getting rid of the energy company obligation (ECO), which pays to improve energy efficiency for low-income and vulnerable households.

In their letter, the dozens of organisations – from Age UK and Citizens Advice to Friends of the Earth – called for the Treasury to reconsider cuts to the ECO programme, saying it would “call into question the ability to meet both the UK’s fuel poverty and carbon budget targets”. They also warned that it was putting thousands of jobs at risk in the £20bn energy efficiency industry and supply chain.

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Article continues at https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/nov/08/cutting-home-insulation-funding-imperil-uk-climate-goals-reeves-told

Continue ReadingCutting home insulation funding will imperil UK’s climate goals, Reeves told

Less arguing, more action: will Brazil’s unorthodox approach to Cop30 work?

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/nov/08/brazil-unorthodox-cop30-approach-no-agenda

People meeting during the Cop30 local leaders’ forum at the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro . Photograph: Tita Barros/Reuters

Host uses Indigenous concepts and changes agenda to help delegates agree on ways to meet existing climate goals

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From the very beginning, Brazil poured wide-ranging diplomatic effort into using the event to forge connections and foster climate networks, drawing on the Brazilian concept of the mutirão. Adapted from Indigenous practice, a mutirao “refers to a community coming together to work on a shared task, whether harvesting, building, or supporting one another”, said André Corrêa do Lago, the Cop30 president.

“By sharing this invaluable ancestral wisdom and social technology, the incoming Cop30 presidency invites the international community to join Brazil in a global mutirão against climate change, a global effort of cooperation among peoples for the progress of humanity.” (Writing to participants, he could not resist mentioning another of Brazil’s passions: “As the nation of football, Brazil believes we can win by virada. This means fighting back to turn the game around when defeat seems almost certain.”)

Dozens of senior diplomats, community leaders and statespeople from around the world were recruited to be Cop30 envoys and ambassadors; as were a “circle” of previous Cop presidents, including the UK’s Alok Sharma; a circle of finance ministers; a people’s circle for Indigenous communities; and special envoys for energy, agriculture and business.

“Brazil have put a lot of preparation into this Cop over two years,” says Nicholas Stern, an economics professor at the London School of Economics. “Whatever comes out will be more considered than a rush job would have been. They have taken very important steps [in bringing experts together].”

Some of the circles have already borne fruit; the finance ministers’ meeting facilitated introductions not only among countries, but in some cases between finance and environment ministers within the same government. “Some of them appeared not to have known each other before,” one participant observed.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva wanted social issues high on the agenda, so his environment minister, Marina Silva, set up an initiative called the global ethical stocktake (GES), which will pursue climate justice. Bringing together Indigenous people – who have been promised a much bigger role in this summit than previous ones – and representatives for poor communities, vulnerable people, workers and marginalised groups, the GES aims to ensure fairness and equity are key considerations in any climate policy.

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/nov/08/brazil-unorthodox-cop30-approach-no-agenda

Orcas comment on killer apes destroying the planet by continuing to burn fossil fuels.
Orcas comment on killer apes destroying the planet by continuing to burn fossil fuels.
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
Continue ReadingLess arguing, more action: will Brazil’s unorthodox approach to Cop30 work?

How thousands of fossil fuel lobbyists got access to UN climate talks – and then kept drilling

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North Sea oil rigs in Cromarty Firth, Scotland. Credit: joiseyshowaa (CC BY-SA 2.0)
North Sea oil rigs in Cromarty Firth, Scotland. Credit: joiseyshowaa (CC BY-SA 2.0)

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/nov/07/fossil-fuel-lobbyists-cop-un-climate

Exclusive: Research shows oil, gas and coal firms’ unprecedented access to Cop26-29, blocking urgent climate action

More than 5,000 fossil fuel lobbyists were given access to the UN climate summits over the past four years, a period marked by a rise in catastrophic extreme weather, inadequate climate action and record oil and gas expansion, new research reveals.

Lobbyists representing the interests of the oil, gas and coal industries – which are mostly responsible for climate breakdown – have been allowed to participate in the annual climate negotiations where states are meant to come in good faith and commit to ambitious policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The roughly 5,350 lobbyists mingling with world leaders and climate negotiators in recent years worked for at least 859 fossil fuel organizations including trade groups, foundations and 180 oil, gas and coal companies involved in every part of the supply chain from exploration and production to distribution and equipment, research shared exclusively with the Guardian has found.

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The 30th UN climate summit (Cop30) opens on Monday in Belém, a city in the Brazilian Amazon – the world’s largest rainforest, which is being destroyed by ever-expanding fossil fuel exploitation, industrial agriculture and mining, among other extractive industries.

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Growing anger at the lack of meaningful action by the world’s wealthiest, most polluting countries has been compounded by revelations that the fossil fuel industry appears to be granted greater access to the climate talks than most countries.

Last year, 1,773 registered fossil fuel lobbyists attended the summit in Azerbaijan – 70% more than the total number of delegates from the 10 most climate-vulnerable nations combined (1,033).

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/nov/07/fossil-fuel-lobbyists-cop-un-climate

Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
Continue ReadingHow thousands of fossil fuel lobbyists got access to UN climate talks – and then kept drilling