The former US vice-president Joe Biden has accused “demagogues and charlatans” of stirring up voters’ fears just as they did in the 1930s, as the issue of migration convulses politics on both sides of the Atlantic. Biden, seen as a potential Democratic party candidate against Donald Trump in 2020, did not mention the US president by name but linked his anti-immigrant drive and that of European populists and the far right with pre-war fascists who were willing to create scapegoats to retain their grip on power. “In ways that evoke memories of the 30s, frustrated and disaffected voters may turn instead to strongmen,” he told a conference in Copenhagen. “Demagogues and charlatans step up to stoke people’s legitimate fears and push the blame always on the other. There always has to be scapegoats. Now it is immigrants, the outsider, the other.”

On 21 June 2018, energy experts from Barbados, Guyana, Saint Lucia and Trinidad and Tobago came together to discuss their experiences in gathering and analysing energy efficiency (EE) indicators, as well as the challenges and lessons learnt in gathering EE data. These discussions took place in the context of the final training workshop of a project focused on the Development of a Database of Energy Efficiency Indicators (BIEE), which was hosted by the Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLAC) subregional headquarters for the Caribbean.

The training, which was the last in a series of workshops held at intervals over the last 12 months, facilitated a review of the first set of country reports from the four countries. During the series of workshops, participants have been exposed to the BIEE methodology.  The BIEE programme seeks to strengthen the capacity of energy authorities in Latin America and the Caribbean to monitor their energy efficiency, improve data reliability and in turn enhance evidence-based decision-making on energy efficiency. The BIEE tool provides a template to gather national data for assessing and analysing policies and programmes on EE. It also facilitates the regional comparability of the energy sector, and promotes the implementation, monitoring and standardization of EE policies and programmes. The series of workshops are a joint initiative under the project, which was managed by ECLAC Caribbean, with support from the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) and the French Environment and Energy Management Agency (ADEME)…[+]

Canadian border guards have been screening travellers using a huge, secretive US anti-terrorism database that is almost never referred to publicly, new documents reveal. The database, called Tuscan, is provided to every Canadian border guard and immigration officer, and empowers them to detain, interrogate, arrest and deny entry to anyone found on it.Hundreds of pages of documents obtained by the Guardian through Canada’s access to information system reveal the fullest picture yet of a database that, although employed in Canada, is maintained exclusively by the US. It contains the personal information of as many as 680,000 people believed by US authorities to be linked with terrorism, and functions effectively as a second no-fly list that is cloaked in secrecy.

Canada’s official no-fly list is called the Passenger Protect Program, which lists known and suspected terrorists who are forbidden from flying to or from Canada. One estimate concludes it has around 100,000 names, and the government has offered a redress so travellers can apply to have their name removed.(theguardian)…[+]

Only hours after signing an executive order to end the practice of separating migrant families at the US-Mexico border, Donald Trump said the public uproar over his administration’s policy was a distraction by Democrats from a report into the FBI’s Hillary Clinton’s email investigation. Speaking to a packed rally in Duluth, Minnesota, on Wednesday night, Trump tied the issue to the inspector general’s report about the FBI’s handling of its Clinton inquiry during the 2016 elections, which he falsely claimed had proved his innocence in the Russia investigation while covering up Clinton’s guilt. “Right now they are building up immigration, they are building up immigration,” Trump said. “They don’t want to show what’s happening in Congress where this scam has been revealed.”

Trump faced significant backlash in recent days after audio and video emerged of children separated from their families under the “zero tolerance” policy implemented by his administration. It has led to 2,300 children being separated from their parents. Although Trump’s executive order is prospective, it does nothing to reunite children who have already been separated.(theguardian)…[+]

Grenada – The Board of Directors of the Caribbean Development Bank has approved a project that aims to increase the use of technology to build greater climate resilience throughout the Region. Funded through a grant of USD1.5 million and to be executed by the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre (CCCCC) over a three-year period, the project approved on May 28 will support flight-mapping services to collect Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data for almost 10,000 square kilometres of vulnerable Caribbean coastal areas.

The grant provides resources for the preparation of an Intellectual Property Policy (IPP) and the creation of a product development and marketing strategy for the Centre, as well as the training of 38 end-users from the Bank’s Borrowing Member Countries (BMCs) in the applications of LiDAR data.  “Generating quality scientific data and information products, data sharing, and ease of data access and transfer, are important aspects of building climate resilience across the Region because they support an improved understanding of climate risks and impacts,” said Daniel Best, Director, Projects Department, CDB.

“LiDAR-based mapping technology can therefore assist the Region in addressing some of the problems being experienced, due to the absence of geo-spatial data for decision-making, and improve the capacity of stakeholders to make better-informed decisions, for more effective management of natural hazard and climate risks,” he added.(CDB)…[+]

LiDAR is a remote sensing technology used to obtain highly accurate elevation measurements of the earth’s surface. LiDAR technology is capable of simultaneously gathering both topographic and bathymetric data, which are used to provide detailed information of land and ocean floors, and offer economies of scale.

The celebrated Catalan chef Joan Roca has dismissed suggestions that he is taking sides in the bitter battle over Catalonia’s independence by hiring out one of his venues for a prize-giving ceremony attended by King Felipe. Roca, whose three-Michelin starred restaurant, El Celler de Can Roca, has twice been named the best in the world, says he is being unfairly criticised for agreeing to host the Spanish monarch, who angered many Catalans by refusing to denounce the police violence that met last year’s illegal independence referendum.

The Princess of Girona Foundation awards, which promote young people’s professional and personal development, were due to be given out at a ceremony held at Girona’s auditorium on 28 June. But after the city council said the venue was unavailable because of building works, the event was transferred to Roca’s Espai Mas Marroch, a 15th-century country house on the outskirts of Girona.

News that one of Catalonia’s most lauded chefs was hosting the king did not go down well with some pro-independence campaigners. Lluc Salellas, a city councillor for the far-left Popular Unity Candidacy (Cup), published an open letter to Roca and his two brothers, urging them not to host the event. “Rethink allowing Felipe of Bourbon, who justified the violence against thousands of Catalans – including hundreds of people from Girona – into your house, the Mas Marroch, to preach his words in our region,” said the letter.(theguardian)…[+]

The attempt to secure a “meaningful vote” that could have potentially given MPs the power to stop Britain leaving the EU without a deal has been defeated. The final obstacle to the EU withdrawal bill was removed as MPs voted 303 to 319 against an amendment tabled by the former attorney general Dominic Grieve – before he accepted government reassurances about its respect for the power of MPs to hold it to account.
At least six Tory rebels – Ken Clarke, Sarah Wollaston, Anna Soubry, Heidi Allen, Antoinette Sandbach and Philip Lee, who resigned last week to vote against the government – held out against the compromise that Labour MPs dismissed as meaningless. Grieve was accused by one angry Labour backbencher of behaving like the Grand old Duke of York. “You can’t keep marching the troops up the hill and down again and keep your integrity,” George Howarth said.

The bill will return to the Lords later on Wednesday and is expected to be on the statute book within days. After the vote, Grieve said: “We’ve managed to reach a compromise without breaking the government – and I think some people don’t realise we were getting quite close to that. I completely respect the view of my colleagues who disagree, but if we can compromise we can achieve more.” Amid a welter of procedural technicalities about the powers of MPs and the potential role of the judges, Grieve – who had said he woke up in the small hours worrying that his actions would cause the government’s collapse – withdrew his support for his own amendment.(theguardian)…[+]

Hungary’s parliament has passed a series of laws that criminalise any individual or group that offers to help an illegal immigrant claim asylum. The legislation restricts the ability of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to act in asylum cases and was passed in defiance of the European Union and human rights groups. Under the law, officially called “Stop Soros”, individuals or groups that help illegal migrants gain status to stay in Hungary will be liable to prison terms.

Parliament also passed a constitutional amendment stating that an “alien population” cannot be settled in Hungary – a swipe at Brussels over its migrant quota plan. The prime minister Viktor Orbán’s right-wing Fidesz party has a two-thirds majority in the chamber. “The Hungarian people rightfully expects the government to use all means necessary to combat illegal immigration and the activities that aid it,” Interior Minister Sandor Pinter wrote in a justification attached to the draft legislation.

“The STOP Soros package of bills serves that goal, making the organisation of illegal immigration a criminal offence. We want to use the bills to stop Hungary from becoming a country of immigrants,” he said.  Fidesz was re-elected by a landslide in April after a campaign attacking the US billionaire George Soros and the liberal NGOs he supports. Orbán believes Soros has encouraged mass immigration in order to undermine Europe.(theguardian)…[+]

Italy’s far-right interior minister, Matteo Salvini, promised not to back down from his call for a new census of the country’s Roma community on Tuesday, even as critics said that his drive to root out and expel non-Italians was reminiscent of fascist-era race laws. The call for a new “register”, and for all non-Italian Roma to be expelled, has caused the first major rift between Salvini’s League and its Five Star Movement coalition partners, a week after Salvini violated humanitarian law to block a ship carrying more than 600 migrants from docking in Italy, forcing it to divert to Spain.

Luigi Di Maio, the leader of the anti-establishment M5S, called Salvini’s order “unconstitutional”. A similar census pitched by the former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi was blocked by an Italian court. It was also lambasted by Noemi Di Segni, the president of Italy’s union of Jewish communities, who said the proposal recalled the fascist race laws of the late 1920s and 1930s. The former centre-left prime minister Paolo Gentiloni also tweeted his disgust, saying: “Yesterday the refugees, today the Roma, tomorrow guns for all.” At first, Salvini seemed prepared to back down from his new policy – saying he was only seeking to ensure that Roma children were being adequately looked after – but in a tweet on Tuesday afternoon he promised to stand by his call for mass expulsions.(theguardian)…[+]

Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces have captured the airport at Hodeidah and have started preparations for the more complex task of capturing the city and its port nine miles (15km) to the north. The port is critical to the supply of aid to the rest of the famine-struck country.

Confirmation that the airport on the southern outskirts of the city had been seized after three days of fighting came from both TV pictures and eyewitness accounts. At least 40 Houthi fighters who had held the airport were killed, but most retreated into the city, preparing to fight a potentially intense street-by-street campaign that could endanger tens of thousands of civilians.

The military advance came after the UN special envoy for Syria, Martin Griffiths, left the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, after failing to broker a ceasefire that would have seen the port taken under UN control. Griffiths provided a closed-door briefing to the UN security council by satellite link on Monday, but departed Sana’a without speaking to the press. The security council has been divided over whether to demand a ceasefire, and Russia, its current chair, gave a downbeat assessment of the chances for a diplomatic breakthrough after the meeting. Most western states oppose the Iranian-backed Houthi takeover of Yemen, but also assert a military solution to the civil war is not possible.(theguardian)…[+]