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MAPUTO - This year, the European Union (EU) contributed nearly 4 million in humanitarian funding to the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) in Mozambique, supporting people affected by Cyclones Idai and Kenneth as well as providing logistics support to the humanitarian community operating in the country.

In the immediate aftermath of Cyclone Idai, the EU contributed 1 million in support of logistics operations that supported the emergency response coordinated by Mozambiques National Disasters Management Institute. WFP was able to deploy three transport helicopters and a cargo aircraft to Beira to transport food, water, medicines, tents, other essential relief items, as well as humanitarian responders. This was crucial in the delivery of life-saving assistance to the most affected and isolated communities.

We are very grateful to the European Union for their continuous support throughout this extremely challenging year, said Karin Manente, WFP Representative in Mozambique. Although the worst is over, humanitarian needs persist and many communities still struggle to meet their basic food needs.

The EUs funding for the post-cyclone response enabled WFP to provide emergency food assistance to the central and northern provinces of Sofala, Manica, Zambezia, Tete, Cabo Delgado and Nampula, which were severely hit by the cyclones. The assistance was mainly distributed through food vouchers, allowing families to buy foods of their choice while boosting markets in cyclone-affected areas. WFP also delivered emergency food items to parts of Cabo Delgado province, where vouchers were not possible.

In the areas devastated by Cyclone Kenneth, WFP worked in close collaboration with partners such as the International Organization for Migration (IOM) to ensure a coherent and efficient response. Thanks to EU support, WFP and IOM provided integrated food and shelter assistance to the most vulnerable communities in Cabo Delgado province.

During the peak of the Mozambique emergency, from March to August 2019, WFP supported 2.3 million people with food assistance - funded by the EU and other donors. Following the immediate life-saving phase of the response, from August to October, WFP continued to provide food assistance to 625,000 of the most vulnerable people.

WFP aims to double its support, reaching 1.2 million people per month until March 2020 to address high levels of food insecurity in disaster-affected areas of the country. According to the latest assessments, 1.9 million people are at risk of hunger from November 2019 to March 2020, if adequate food assistance is not provided in a timely manner.

The European Union is a long-standing partner of WFP in Mozambique. The 2019 funding brings its total contribution to WFPs operations in the country to almost 30 million over the past ten years.

The United Nations World Food Programme - saving lives in emergencies and changing lives for millions through sustainable development. WFP works in more than 80 countries around the world, feeding people caught in conflict and disasters, and laying the foundations for a better future.

Follow us on Twitter: @wfp_mozambique; @WFP_Africa

Contact

For more information please contact (email address: firstname.lastname@wfp.org):

Milton Machel, WFP MaputoTel. + 258 823196150

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Post-cyclone support from the European Union helps WFP deliver effective emergency response and fight hunger in Mozambique - Mozambique - ReliefWeb

Britains Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his Conservative Party have won a big victory in general elections.

Results show the Conservatives won a clear majority of the 650 seats in Parliament. Johnson is now likely to act on his promise to lead Britain out of the European Union (EU).

The country is set to withdraw from the EU by January 31, the latest time limit set by the two sides. However, British negotiators will have much work to do to reach a trade deal with Europe before that date.

Johnson has stated that Britain will withdraw from the EU, a move known as Brexit, with or without a deal in place.

It has been more than three years since Britons decided in a special referendum to separate from the EU. Political observers say it is likely that voters on Thursday, even those who wanted to stay with the EU, had grown tired of the issue and political indecision.

Get Brexit Done

Before the vote, Johnson had a simple message: Get Brexit Done. The message was designed to win votes. During the election campaign, the prime minister tried to avoid answering reporters questions. His actions led to criticism in the media, but clearly did not hurt him and other Conservative candidates.

The Associated Press notes that the Labour Party, led by Jeremy Corbyn, struggled to find a message to appeal to voters. Corbyn was seen as unsure about whether he supported Brexit or not. He was criticized for failing to take steps to deal with reports of anti-Semitism in his party. He also failed to gain support for costly socialist reforms.

Corbyn has said he will not lead the Labour Party into another election, but has not offered to step down immediately.

In addition to the Conservatives, the National Party of Scotland was another big winner in the elections. The party won 48 seats in Parliament, 13 more than it had before.

Nicola Sturgeon, Scotlands first minister, said the election gave her a renewed mandate to push for another vote on Scottish independence. A vote on independence failed in 2014. Johnson has said he opposes another referendum on Scotland.

In Northern Ireland, the pro-Britain Democratic Unionist Party lost two of its 10 seats in the election. The partys leader, Arlene Foster, blamed Irish nationalist parties for the defeat.

The vote showed strong support for Brexit, but the Brexit Party of Nigel Farage did not win any seats. The party decided against nominating candidates for 317 Conservative-held seats to avoid splitting the pro-Brexit vote.

Farage said he would rather his party not win seats than have a second referendum on Brexit.

Johnsons success did not seem possible only a few weeks ago. His first three months in office were marked by defeats in Parliament and in the courts.

This summer, after the prime minister sought to have Parliament suspended in order to push through Brexit, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom ruled the move illegal. He was then forced to ask the EU for more time beyond October 31 to work toward a Brexit agreement.

Johnson then took a chance by supporting calls for general elections in an effort to gain public support and allies to pass Brexit legislation.

Im Caty Weaver.

Mario Ritter Jr. adapted this AP story for VOA Learning English. George Grow was the editor.

_________________________________________________

referendum n. a vote in a county, state or country in which the public votes on a single issue

mandate n. the power to act that voters give their elected leaders

rather adv. with better reason; more willing

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Britain Officially Starts Withdrawal From the European Union - VOA Learning English

(Reuters) - British Prime Minister Boris Johnson won a thumping election victory last week on a campaign to get Brexit done, but not before some wealthy donors to his Conservative Party quietly took steps to stay inside the European Union.

FILE PHOTO: Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaks during a final general election campaign event in London, Britain, December 11, 2019. REUTERS/Hannah McKay/File Photo

Cyprus government documents seen by Reuters show that Conservative Party donors have sought citizenship of the island, an EU member state, since Britain voted to leave the bloc in 2016.

They include billionaire Alan Howard, one of Britains best-known hedge fund managers, and Jeremy Isaacs, the former head of Lehman Brothers for Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Cyprus interior ministry recommended that both mens applications be approved, the government documents show.

The Conservative Party won another term in office last week after an election campaign that was dominated by Brexit. Johnson called the election to try to gain a majority in Parliament to push through his plan to take Britain out of the EU early next year.

That some Brits who made a career out of assessing risk have applied for second passports may suggest sagging confidence in Britains economy after it leaves the EU. A broker who makes his living handling such passports says hes seen a surge of enquiries from Brits looking for ways to keep their European Union citizenship.

Brexit is the only factor driving this, says Paul Williams, chief executive of passport brokerage La Vida Golden Visas. The right to live, work, study or set up business anywhere in Europe, says Williams, that all changes with Brexit.

According to Britains Electoral Commission, Howard donated at least 129,000 to the Conservative Party personally and through his company between 2005 and 2009. Isaacs made personal and corporate donations of at least 626,500 to the party, 50,000 of it earmarked for The In Campaign, a group lobbying to remain in the EU.

The Cyprus government documents show that Howard, and Isaacs and his wife all sought Cypriot citizenship in 2018. A spokesperson for Howard declined to comment. Isaacs did not respond to requests for comment. His assistant said he was travelling and unavailable. The Conservative Party didnt respond to requests for comment.

Britain voted narrowly to leave the European Union in 2016 but the details of the countrys future relationship with the bloc are still unclear. Economists have said Britain will be economically poorer under every form of Brexit, compared with staying in the EU.

Cypriot citizenship costs a minimum of 2 million euros of which at least 500,000 euros must be permanently invested. At no point in the application process is the applicant compelled to live in or even visit Cyprus.Cyprus is popular with people seeking a second passport because the entire investment can be in real estate, and it has low taxes.

The Cyprus government documents reviewed by Reuters also list a man named David John Rowland as having sought citizenship. The documents that name Rowland contain scant details, showing only that he applied for a Cypriot passport as part of an investor group.Separate Cypriot company records list a UK national David John Rowland as a director of a company called Abledge Ltd, which was registered on Dec. 31, 2015. These records show Rowlands home address to be on the British tax haven island of Guernsey - the home of the David John Rowland who is aConservative Party donor, former Party treasurer, property developer and financial adviser to Prince Andrew. Reuters couldnt determine Abledge Ltds line of business or any other information about the firm.

A spokesperson for a bank owned by Rowland, Banque Havilland, declined to comment. Repeated requests through another of Rowlands businesses and his personal email address went unanswered. A spokesperson for the palace declined to comment. The Cypriot government declined to comment about any of the individuals named in this story or on the status of a government review of its passports-for-sale scheme, citing EU privacy rules.

Electoral Commission records show that Rowland has donated at least 6.5 million to the Conservatives since 2001, 854,500 of it since the Brexit vote. Prime Minister David Cameron named him Tory treasurer and chief Conservative fundraiser after the millions of pounds he donated to the 2010 general election campaign - to protect Britains liberty and economic future, Rowland told media at the time. He quit before officially taking up the post.

Isaacs was once seen as a successor to Dick Fuld, but ended up leaving Lehman shortly before the global financial crisis. In 2015, he became a Commander of the Order of the British Empire at the Queens birthday honours.

Howard made billions on the 2008 financial crisis by predicting interest rate and currency moves, and profited again on the Brexit vote by accurately tracking voter sentiment, media reported.

When an emergency UK budget raised taxes on the wealthy in 2010, Howard moved to Switzerland. He has since returned to Britain. But last year the master of hedging hedged his bets against holding only British citizenship.

Another British financier who sought Cypriot citizenship is James Brocklebank, a managing partner at private equity firm Advent International. In 2016, he said that even if Brexit were ultimately a good thing, it would create significant challenges and cause the UK to lose out on investment. He applied for Cypriot citizenship in 2018.A spokesperson for Brocklebank declined to comment.

Additional reporting by Tom Bergin and Andrew R.C. Marshall; editing by Janet McBride

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Exclusive: The Brits who won't Brexit - Reuters

Almost a decade ago, the European Union proposed a novel strategy to cap greenhouse-gas emissions from the airline sector. Foreign airlines using the EUs airports would be forced to either cut emissions or buy carbon credits. It didnt work. The proposal raised the fury of the US and China, who feared billions in charges. Facing angry trading partners, the EU backed down. Today, aviation is one of the worlds fastest-growing sources of emissions.

Last week, the EU announced its intention to bend the trajectory of the worlds emissions down yet again. That wasnt the headline: It was the EUs Green Deal, a slate of 50 or so proposed policies to make the bloc net carbon-neutral by 2050. But deep inside the measures was something called a carbon border adjustment mechanism,according to leaked European Commission documents. Proposed for the steel, cement, and aluminum sectors in 2021, the de facto border tax (pdf) would force importers to buy allowances of CO2 emissions in the EU (now priced around 25 per tonne).

Its designed to put domestic producers of goods on the same playing field as foreign manufacturers. A steel maker in Europe, for example, must pay for credits to emit carbon dioxide from the EU Emission Trading System after it has surpassed its allotted emission credits. Foreign firms do not. The carbon adjustment cost reflects the carbon price had the goods been made domestically. Analysts estimate such credit costs could account for about 5% to 10% of the gross cost of steel and more for cement.

If the EU succeeds at imposing what is effectively a carbon border tax, it will have achieved something significant: A global incentive for firms to cut emissions without ever signing a climate deal. In theory, companies in targeted sectors that wish to sell into the 28-nation bloc, the worlds largest economy by some measures, will have to meet the EUs own standards or pay up. It may even expand to shipping and, yes, aviation.

Why would a carbon border tax succeed today when a very similar strategy failed with airlines in 2014? The geopolitics are different, says Michael Mehling, a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technologys Energy Initiative. The question is whether the EU will be more resolute, and smarter about the process, Mehling told Quartz.

The EU had a few things working against it before: Free trade was ascendant, the US was a diplomatic powerhouse, and America led climate talks. None of that is true today. The Trump administration has escalated global trade wars. American diplomacy has been hollowed out by an exodus of career diplomats from Foggy Bottom and abroad. The White House, which has promised to yank the US out of the Paris climate accords as soon as possible, sent no high-ranking officials to the climate talks in Madrid this month. Without its trading partners unified against it, the EU may find it easier to implement its latest program.

The mood has shifted as well. A decade ago, when carbon border adjustments were formally floated, the benefits werent as clear, and political costs were real. Obama signaled his disapproval of a 2009 climate bill over free-trade worries.

Things have evolved a fair amount since then, says Carolyn Fischer, a senior fellow with Resources for the Future. The topic is much less controversial. Legal scholars feel the EU ison solid footing to comply with World Trade Organization rules. The EU carbon price has climbed five-fold since 2017. Theres also a flood of new data: About 50 different efforts around the world (paywall) now price carbon in schemes that account for about 15% of annual global greenhouse-gas emissions.

But the devil is in the details. In a 2019 paper Fischer co-authored, she called a carbon border tax one of the most efficient unilateral actions to curb global emissionsbut also one of the most challenging to get right. Designed well, says Fischer, it should not have a problem.

Even if a carbon border tax levels the playing fieldfor nowEurope cant get there alone. Eventually, the world will need to strike a deal to realize the net-zero decarbonization targets recommended by scientists by 2050. Without it, carbon-intensive export industries may concentrate in a few unaccountable countries, while the rest of the world claims cuts.

This is already happening. Switzerland and Sweden, for example, already import more greenhouse-gas emissions in the form of goods than they produce domestically, says Mehling. In the future, you can get a handful of countries left in the world emitting while everyone else says, Were clean, were clean,' he says. It will become more and more of an issue if we are not able to get all countries moving in this direction.

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A border tax in the EU Green Deal might force global carbon cuts - Quartz

The European Parliament could block Boris Johnson's Brexit deal over the UK's treatment of EU citizens, its Brexit coordinator said this morning. Guy Verhofstadt called for the "remaining problems" with citizens' rights to be solved before consent could be given by the parliament, which is yet to vote on the deal. MEPs are worried that problems with the UK's settlement scheme for EU nationals could leave some citizens with no immigration status.

He said: "Everyone presumes the European Parliament will give automatically its consent to the Withdrawal Agreement. Not if the remaining problems with the citizens' rights are not solved first.

"Citizens can never become the victims of Brexit."

Mr Verhofstadt's speech comes almost a week after Mr Johnson won a thumping majority in the general election a result which undeniably gives him a "stonking mandate" to deliver on the result of the 2016 referendum.

Unlike the former Belgium Prime Minister, who strongly campaigned for the Liberal Democrats during the election campaign, the majority of EU leaders welcomed Mr Johnson's win.

Mr Verhofstadt's opposition, though, should not come as a surprise, as he was reportedly not too pleased when Theresa May called for a general election in 2017, either.

In 2019 book 'Blind Man's Brexit', documentary maker Lode Desmet and BBC broadcaster Edward Stourton provide the first in-depth fly-on-the-wall view of "how the negotiations slipped out of Britains hands" and recall how the European Parliament's Brexit Coordinator reacted to Theresa May's call for a 2017 general election.

The authors wrote: "Verhofstadt was scathing about Mrs Mays decision to call for a snap election.

"In an opinion piece in The Guardian, he wrote or rather co-wrote with his British spokesperson Nick Petre As a Belgian, I have a long standing appreciation of surrealism.

JUST IN:How John Bercow insisted: 'I am STILL right about Brexit'

"Having informed European leaders that Britain is leaving the European Union, and, after laying out the UKs negotiating position in a detailed notification letter, the Prime Minister is now asking the British people how they would like their full English Brexit served.

"In Brussels, we now wonder who will be joining us at the breakfast table after all.'"

Mr Desmet and Mr Stourton added that Mr Verhostadt had voiced the fear, widely shared within the EU, that the former Prime Minister was giving party management priority over national interest.

They quoted Mr Verhofstadt as saying in his Guardian piece: "With the referendum, which many European leaders saw as a Tory cat fight that got out of control, I have little doubt many on the continent see this election as again motivated by the internal machinations of the Tory party.

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EU contempt laid bare: Verhofstadt's 'scathing' reaction to general election revealed - Express