Security was tight in the northern district of Tai Po, close to the border with mainland China, where the fire engulfed seven towers

International News via Reuters:

Hong Kong’s citizens were voting on Sunday in an election where the focus is on turnout, with residents grieving and traumatised after the city’s worst fire in nearly 80 years and the authorities scrambling to avoid a broader public backlash.

Security was tight in the northern district of Tai Po, close to the border with mainland China, where the fire engulfed seven towers. The city is holding elections for the Legislative Council, in which only candidates vetted as “patriots” by the China-backed Hong Kong government may run.

Residents are angry over the blaze that killed at least 159 people and took nearly two days to extinguish after it broke out on November 26. The authorities say substandard building materials used in renovating a high-rise housing estate were responsible for fuelling the fire.

Eager to contain the public dismay, authorities have launched criminal and corruption investigations into the blaze, and roughly 100 police patrolled the area around Wang Fuk Court, the site of the fire, early on Sunday.

‘NOT A HEALTHY SYSTEM NOW’

A resident in his late 70s named Cheng, who lives near the charred buildings, said he would not vote.

“I’m very upset by the great fire,” he said during a morning walk. “This is a result of a flawed government … There is not a healthy system now and I won’t vote to support those pro-establishment politicians who failed us.”

Cheng declined to give his full name, saying he feared authorities would target those who criticise the government.

At a memorial site near the burned-out residential development, a sign said authorities plan to clear the area after the election concludes close to midnight, suggesting government anxiety over public anger.

Beijing’s national security office in Hong Kong has said it would crack down on any “anti-China” protest in the wake of the fire and warned against using the disaster to “disrupt Hong Kong”.

China’s national security office in Hong Kong warned senior editors with a number of foreign media outlets at a meeting in the city on Saturday not to spread “false information” or “smear” government efforts to deal with the fire.

The blaze is a major test of Beijing’s grip on the former British colony, which it has transformed under a national security law after mass pro-democracy protests in 2019.

An election overhaul in 2021 also mandated that only pro-Beijing “patriots” could run for the global financial hub’s 90-seat legislature and, analysts say, further reduced the space for meaningful democratic participation.

‘ABSOLUTELY NEED ALL VOTERS TO COME OUT’

Publicly inciting a vote boycott was criminalised as part of the sweeping changes that effectively squeezed out pro-democracy voices in Hong Kong. Pro-democracy voters, who traditionally made up about 60% of Hong Kong’s electorate, have since shunned elections.

The number of registered voters for Sunday’s polls – 4.13 million – has dropped for the fourth consecutive year since 2021, when a peak of 4.47 million people were registered.

Seven people had been arrested as of Thursday for inciting others not to vote, the city’s anti-corruption body said.

Hong Kong and Chinese officials have stepped up calls for people to vote.

“We absolutely need all voters to come out and vote today, because every vote represents our push for reform, our protection of the victims of (fire) disaster, and a representation of our will to unite and move forward together,” Hong Kong leader John Lee said after casting his vote.

Hong Kong’s national security office urged residents on Thursday to “actively participate in voting”, saying it was critical in supporting reconstruction efforts by the government after the fire.

“Every voter is a stakeholder in the homeland of Hong Kong,” the office said in a statement. “If you truly love Hong Kong, you will vote sincerely.”

The last Legislative Council elections in 2021 recorded the lowest voter turnout – 30.2% – since Britain returned Hong Kong to Chinese rule in 1997.

Additional reporting by Artorn Pookasook and Angie Teo; Writing by Anne Marie Roantree; Editing by William Mallard and Deepa Babington

Gouvea’s arrest came as the Trump administration pressed Harvard to reach a deal to resolve a litany of allegations it has made against the Ivy League institution

International News via Reuters:

U.S. immigration authorities arrested a visiting professor at Harvard Law School this week after he was charged with discharging a pellet gun outside a Massachusetts synagogue the day before Yom Kippur, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said on Thursday.

Carlos Portugal Gouvea, a Brazilian citizen, was arrested on Wednesday by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement after his temporary nonimmigrant visa was revoked by the U.S. State Department following what President Donald Trump’s administration labeled an “anti-Semitic shooting incident” — a description at odds with how local authorities have described the case.

Gouvea, an associate professor at the University of Sao Paulo Law School who had taught at Harvard during the fall semester, has agreed to leave the country, the Homeland Security Department said.

Gouvea’s press representatives in Brazil issued a statement saying that after ICE took him for questioning, it gave him the option of leaving the country voluntarily, allowing him to return to Brazil as of Thursday.

Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Harvard declined to comment.

Gouvea’s arrest came as the Trump administration pressed Harvard to reach a deal to resolve a litany of allegations it has made against the Ivy League institution, including that Harvard had not done enough to combat antisemitism and protect Jewish students on campus.

Harvard has sued over some of the actions the administration has taken against it, leading a judge to rule in September that the administration unlawfully terminated more than $2 billion in research grants awarded to the university.

Police in Brookline, Massachusetts, arrested Gouvea on October 1 after responding to a report of a person with a gun near the Temple Beth Zion on the eve of the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur. Gouvea said he was using a pellet gun to hunt rats nearby, according to a police report.

He reached a deal last month to resolve a charge that he illegally discharged a pellet gun under which he would serve six months of pretrial probation and pay $386.59 in restitution. Other charges he faced for disturbing the peace, disorderly conduct, and vandalism were dismissed as part of the deal.

Despite the Trump administration’s claims, the Temple Beth Zion has previously told its community members that the incident did not appear to have been fueled by antisemitism, a view shared by the Brookline Police Department, which investigated the matter.

The temple has said that police informed it that Gouvea was “unaware that he lived next to, and was shooting his BB gun next to, a synagogue or that it was a religious holiday.”

Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Kate Mayberry and David Gregorio

The European Commission is set to present a package of measures to support European automakers, such as an easing of the effective ban on internal combustion engines from 2035

International News via Reuters:

Six European Union countries have on Friday asked the European Commission to water down an effective ban on the sale of internal combustion engine cars slated for 2035 ahead of the release of a new auto package next week.

The countries have asked the EU Commission to allow the sale of hybrid cars or vehicles powered by other, existing or future, technologies “that could contribute to the goal of reducing emissions” beyond 2035, a joint letter seen by Reuters showed on Friday.

The letter was signed by the prime ministers of Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy, Poland and Slovakia.

They also asked for low-carbon and renewable fuels to be included in the plan to reduce the carbon emissions from transportation.

The European Commission is set to present a package of measures to support European automakers, such as an easing of the effective ban on internal combustion engines from 2035. The package is due to be published on Dec. 10, but could be delayed.

Since they adopted a regulation that all new vehicles from 2035 should have zero emissions in March 2023, EU countries are now having second thoughts. Back then, the outlook for battery electric vehicles was positive, but carmakers’ efforts have later collided with the reality of lower-than-expected demand and fierce competition from China.

“We can and we must pursue our climate goal in an effective way, while not killing our competitiveness in the meanwhile since there is nothing green in an industrial desert,” the prime ministers said in their letter.

Reporting by Inti Landauro, writing by Louise Rasmussen, editing by Philip Blenkinsop and Louise Heavens

Euro zone manufacturing activity slipped into contraction territory in November

International News via Reuters:

The European Union should drop a looming carbon border tax that risks pushing its aluminium sector into long-term decline by inflating costs and benefiting more polluting overseas suppliers, the CEO of aluminium products maker Constellium said on Friday.

The EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, which will impose a levy on imports of a handful of commodities starting in January, is intended to shield European producers against cheaper rivals in countries with looser climate laws.

But industry representatives see it as deeply flawed and hope the EU’s final adjustments to the mechanism, due to be released this month, will address their concerns.

“The first thing to do about CBAM is just to eradicate it, get rid of it,” said Jean-Marc Germain, the chief executive officer of Paris-based Constellium, one of the world’s largest suppliers of aluminium products for aviation, car making and packaging.

“The core of the issue is the competitiveness of Europe. We are shooting ourselves in the foot knowingly,” he told Reuters.

Euro zone manufacturing activity slipped into contraction territory in November.

Constellium mostly buys European aluminium, which is not subject to a CBAM charge, for processing at its factories in the region. But the upcoming tax – coupled with concerns over supply from smelters in Iceland and Mozambique – has nonetheless pushed up European premiums for physical metal to a 10-month high.

The premium will rise to the cost of the last ton of aluminium needed to satisfy demand, meaning all metal will become more expensive regardless of its origin, Germain said, warning that the cost inflation would be “death by a thousand cuts” for Constellium’s industrial customers in Europe.

Loopholes in the scheme mean overseas suppliers could avoid CBAM by shipping in scrap, or could send low-carbon aluminium to Europe and keep producing high-carbon metal for other regions. “It doesn’t do anything for the planet,” Germain said.

CBAM’s impact will not be immediate but could eventually see companies invest elsewhere and shut European capacity, he said. “It’s not one of those things where all of a sudden you turn the lights off. It’s going to be a gradual decline.”

Reporting by Gus Trompiz and Tom Daly; Editing by Paul Simao