Time Person of the Year: Climate crisis activist Greta Thunberg - CNN

Thunberg, 16, is the youngest individual to be recognized. She gained international attention for excoriating world leaders for their inaction in the climate crisis in a viral speech she made at the UN Climate Action Summit in September. She criticized world leaders again at the COP25 conference last week.

"Thunberg has become the biggest voice on the biggest issue facing the planet—and the avatar of a broader generational shift in our culture that is playing out everywhere from the campuses of Hong Kong to the halls of Congress in Washington," Time editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal wrote.

Each year, the magazine features the most influential person, group, movement or idea of the previous 12 months. Last year, it was "The Guardians," a group of journalists who have been targeted or assaulted for their work. In 2017, it was "The Silence Breakers," the group of people who came forward to report sexual misconduct. This marks the third year in a row in which Time has named a person who was not a world leader. President Donald Trump was Person of the Year in 2016 and Germany chancellor Angela Merkel was recognized the year before that. Past Persons of the Year include Adolf Hitler, Ayatollah Khomeini and Joseph Stalin.

"We describe it as the person who influenced the years' events most, for better or for worse. But I really think of it as Time is about the people and ideas that shape the world and Person of the Year is about the people who shaped the year," Felsenthal told CNN Business in an interview this week.

On Wednesday, Felsenthal unveiled the Person of the Year on the "Today" show, where he shared more about Thunberg's rise from seemingly nowhere.

"She was a solo protestor with a hand-painted sign 14 months ago. She's now led millions of people around the world, 150 countries, to act on behalf of the planet," Felsenthal said.

The shortlist this year included Donald Trump, Nancy Pelosi, The Whistleblower and the Hong Kong protestors.

Time also announced winners of four new categories. Athlete of the year is the US women's soccer team, entertainer of the year is Lizzo and business person of the year is Disney CEO Bob Iger. After recognizing "The Guardians" last year, Time created a new category to recognize a different group of "Guardians" — those who took to the stand and risked their careers in the defense of the rule of law. The public servants in this category include the whistleblower, Marie Yovanovitch, Ambassador William Taylor, Fiona Hill, Lieut. Colonel Alexander Vindman and Mark Sandy.

Time chose to select category winners instead of recognizing runner-ups in part because the magazine is now independently owned and no longer a part of a conglomerate, Felsenthal told CNN Business. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and his wife Lynne Benioff bought Time Magazine from Meredith Corp last year.

"All the titles at Time Inc. began out of Time and then we were part of a company. That was great, but now being on our own, in this moment, where we can reclaim that heritage. These are all areas we cover, always have covered, but within Time Inc., there were some restrictions on what we could do so we're excited about it," Felsenthal said.

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2019-12-11 13:55:00Z
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U.K. General Election Explained: What to Know as Britain Votes - The New York Times

LONDON — For the second time since Britain voted to withdraw from the European Union, and with the country still deeply divided over the outcome, voters will head to the polls on Thursday for a general election.

With the future of Britain’s status in Europe still undecided after years of haggling, Brexit has inevitably been high on the agenda, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s vow to “get Brexit done” at the core of his Conservative Party’s campaign.

But the opposition Labour Party, led by Jeremy Corbyn, has put health care at the center of its pitch to voters, framing itself as the defender of Britain’s revered National Health Service. Labour pledges to increase spending. It’s also arguing that Mr. Johnson could further privatize the service, or accept a trade deal with the United States that might lead to a steep increase in drug prices, claims that Mr. Johnson disputes.

With very different visions for the future of Britain laid out by the leaders of the country’s two main political parties, and several smaller parties also playing potentially decisive roles, here’s what to know ahead of the election.

How does Thursday’s vote work?

Voters will be choosing a representative for their local district, or constituency, in Parliament. In total, 650 lawmakers — one for each district — will be chosen as members of the House of Commons, which decides the country’s laws and policies.

Any British citizen or citizen of the Commonwealth or Ireland who is 18 or over and lives in Britain could register to vote. (It’s too late now, though: The deadline was Nov. 26.) Elections are typically held every four or five years, but Parliament can vote to hold a new election whenever it wishes, and this will be the third since 2015.

The polls open at 7 a.m. local time and close at 10 p.m., with the results of a usually reliable exit poll announced almost immediately after that. For the official results, all the ballot papers are counted by hand — some districts manage to declare a winner barely an hour after polls close, but most do so overnight.

While the Conservative and Labour parties are Britain’s largest, several smaller parties are running candidates.

If one party wins more than half of the parliamentary seats, it will form the government, and its leader will become the prime minister.

For decades, such majority governments were by far the most common result. But that has happened only once in the past three elections. The other two produced “hung Parliaments,” with no party strong enough to govern on its own.

In that case, the largest party usually has the first chance to assemble a parliamentary majority and form a government.

It can do so by agreeing to a formal coalition with one or more smaller parties and governing on a joint program, as the Conservatives did with the centrist Liberal Democrats after the 2010 election.

Or it can form a minority government, and seek a looser deal for smaller-party support on critical votes — known as a “confidence and supply” arrangement. The Conservatives struck one of these with a Northern Ireland party, the Democratic Unionists, after the 2017 election.

When the results are known — and if a party clearly comes out on top — the head of that party visits Buckingham Palace to ask the queen for permission to form a new government and become the prime minister.

What is the ‘first past the post’ system?

Britons do not vote directly on the prime minister but rather on a politician to represent their district, or constituency. Unlike the proportional systems used in several other European countries, where seats are apportioned according to the share each party receives of the overall vote, British elections are “first past the post”: Each voter has one vote, and the single candidate who gets the most votes in each constituency wins.

That means the winning candidate in any given constituency doesn’t need a majority of the votes, just more than the next person. And votes for a party nationwide don’t necessarily translate into seats: What counts is how many constituencies a party comes first in.

It’s a system both praised and criticized for its ability to turn a plurality of the votes into a single-party government with a majority of parliamentary seats — sometimes, when opposition votes are badly split, a landslide majority.

What happened last time?

When Prime Minister Theresa May called a surprise early general election in 2017, the opinion polls gave her Conservative Party a lead of at least 20 percentage points on the Labour opposition. Mrs. May set out to expand the narrow parliamentary majority her party had won in 2015, to assure a smooth exit from the European Union.

But things didn’t go quite as planned.

Mrs. May suffered a humiliating setback, with her Conservative Party losing its overall majority and instead forced to rely on the 10 votes of the Democratic Unionist Party to retain control in a minority government.

The opposition Labour Party saw its support grow substantially, gaining 32 seats, driven in part by a spike in the youth vote.

What looks likely this time?

The Conservative Party has established a clear but potentially narrowing lead over the Labour Party in national polls, with Labour appearing to consolidate its support as the country headed into the final stage of the campaign.

On Tuesday, a highly regarded prediction model run by the polling company YouGov suggested the Conservatives were on course for a majority of 28.

But analysts, including the ones behind that model, warn that predictions are perilous: 11 seats were decided by less than 100 votes at the last election, and dozens more by a few hundred votes, so a small shift in the right places could change the picture drastically.

A recent study from the U.K. Political Studies Association found experts confident that the Conservatives would remain the largest party, but more skeptical of the polling that suggests they will regain an outright majority.

“This cautious prediction of no majority or a very small majority for the Conservatives by the experts may reflect lessons learnt from 2017, when the hung parliament surprised many,” Joe Greenwood, a fellow at the London School of Economics, wrote of the study. “If the experts are right then 2019 may be a slightly less dramatic, but surprising nonetheless, rerun of 2017, and we are now only a matter of days from finding out.”

What is tactical voting?

Tactical voting sees individuals cast a ballot for a candidate they wouldn’t normally support to block another candidate from winning.

It’s been a major discussion topic in this election campaign because Britain’s first-past-the-post electoral system presents a puzzle for voters who see Brexit as the most important issue.

Those seeking to remain in the European Union are split between several parties. Pro-remain groups have attempted to unite voters behind the most promising pro-European candidate in each constituency — in England, usually from Labour or the Liberal Democrats — amid furious disputes about who has the best chance in certain seats.

Pro-Brexit voters, however, appear to have largely united behind the Conservatives. The more radical Brexit Party decided not to stand candidates in Conservative-held constituencies to avoid splitting voters in favor of leaving the European Union between the two parties.

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2019-12-11 11:32:00Z
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New Zealand has ordered more than 1,290 square feet of skin for volcano victims - CNN

A total of 47 people were on White Island, off the coast of North Island, when the eruption occurred. Six have been confirmed dead, while 25 people are currently hospitalized in critical condition. Search and recovery operations are continuing for those still missing and presumed dead on the island.

The skin is now needed to treat patients severely injured by the volcanic ash and gas. On Tuesday, medical officials said 27 people in hospital had burns to at least 30% of their bodies and many have inhalation burns that require airway support. Every burns unit in the country is at full capacity.

"We currently have (skin) supply, but are urgently sourcing additional supplies to meet the demand for dressing and temporary skin grafts," said Peter Watson of the District Health Boards on Wednesday. "We anticipate that we will require an additional 1.2 million square centimeters (1,292 square feet) of skin for the ongoing needs of the patients."

To put that into context, the average human body has about 11 square feet (1 square meter) to 21 square feet (2 square meters) of skin surface area.

The skin order has been placed and will come from the United States, Watson said. Skin and tissue banks from neighboring Australia, like the Donor Tissue Bank of Victoria, are also providing skin grafts and supplies.

The skin grafts come from donors -- like organ donors, skin donors register to donate their skin after death. When skin is donated, usually only a thin layer is taken, like the skin that peels when you are sunburned, according to the Australian government's donation site. The skin grafts are usually taken from donors' backs or the back of their legs.

The demand for skin is particularly high given the unprecedented number of severe burns to the victims, authorities said Wednesday. The patients' burns are already serious from their close proximity to the volcano during the eruption -- but the injuries were also complicated by gases and chemicals, Watson said.

When White Island erupted, there would have been so much poisonous gas released that people would have been able to taste the chemicals, said Jessica Johnson, a volcanologist at the University of East Anglia in England.

The volcano -- which has an acidic lake in its crater -- would also have thrown out boiling hot steam clouds, she added. The patients' severe burns were probably from these steam blasts, she said.

Apart from the steam, they could also have been injured by "very hot rock debris," said Monash University volcanologist Raymond Cas.

These complications meant the patients needed to be rushed to surgical treatment more urgently that with usual burn cases, Watson said on Wednesday, adding, "This is just the start of a very long process that, for some patients, will take several months."

The patients are from a range of nationalities, meaning some of them will be transferred to their home countries for treatment. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Wednesday that 10 Australian patients would be repatriated in the next 24 hours to receive "specialist medical care."

Meanwhile, the authorities continue to monitor the volcanic island, which remains too dangerous for rescuers to access. They are also working to identify the six confirmed dead, with the help of forensic pathologists and dentists. Names and faces are beginning to emerge -- an Australian teenager and her stepfather, an Australian mother and daughter, and a New Zealand tour guide are among the victims identified so far.

Isaac Yee contributed reporting.

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2019-12-11 11:12:00Z
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New Zealand has ordered more than 1,290 square feet of skin for volcano victims - CNN

A total of 47 people were on White Island, off the coast of North Island, when the eruption occurred. Six have been confirmed dead, while 25 people are currently hospitalized in critical condition. Search and recovery operations are continuing for those still missing and presumed dead on the island.

The skin is now needed to treat patients severely injured by the volcanic ash and gas. On Tuesday, medical officials said 27 people in hospital had burns to at least 30% of their bodies and many have inhalation burns that require airway support. Every burns unit in the country is at full capacity.

"We currently have (skin) supply, but are urgently sourcing additional supplies to meet the demand for dressing and temporary skin grafts," said Peter Watson of the District Health Boards on Wednesday. "We anticipate that we will require an additional 1.2 million square centimeters (1,292 square feet) of skin for the ongoing needs of the patients."

To put that into context, the average human body has about 11 square feet (1 square meter) to 21 square feet (2 square meters) of skin surface area.

The skin order has been placed and will come from the United States, Watson said. Skin and tissue banks from neighboring Australia, like the Donor Tissue Bank of Victoria, are also providing skin grafts and supplies.

The skin grafts come from donors -- like organ donors, skin donors register to donate their skin after death. When skin is donated, usually only a thin layer is taken, like the skin that peels when you are sunburned, according to the Australian government's donation site. The skin grafts are usually taken from donors' backs or the back of their legs.

The demand for skin is particularly high given the unprecedented number of severe burns to the victims, authorities said Wednesday. The patients' burns are already serious from their close proximity to the volcano during the eruption -- but the injuries were also complicated by gases and chemicals, Watson said.

When White Island erupted, there would have been so much poisonous gas released that people would have been able to taste the chemicals, said Jessica Johnson, a volcanologist at the University of East Anglia in England.

The volcano -- which has an acidic lake in its crater -- would also have thrown out boiling hot steam clouds, she added. The patients' severe burns were probably from these steam blasts, she said.

Apart from the steam, they could also have been injured by "very hot rock debris," said Monash University volcanologist Raymond Cas.

These complications meant the patients needed to be rushed to surgical treatment more urgently that with usual burn cases, Watson said on Wednesday, adding, "This is just the start of a very long process that, for some patients, will take several months."

The patients are from a range of nationalities, meaning some of them will be transferred to their home countries for treatment. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Wednesday that 10 Australian patients would be repatriated in the next 24 hours to receive "specialist medical care."

Meanwhile, the authorities continue to monitor the volcanic island, which remains too dangerous for rescuers to access. They are also working to identify the six confirmed dead, with the help of forensic pathologists and dentists. Names and faces are beginning to emerge -- an Australian teenager and her stepfather, an Australian mother and daughter, and a New Zealand tour guide are among the victims identified so far.

Isaac Yee contributed reporting.

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2019-12-11 10:43:00Z
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Andrew McCabe: We've never seen an Oval Office photo like this - CNN

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2019-12-11 08:33:39Z
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New Zealand Volcano Still Too Dangerous for Rescue Crews, Officials Say - The New York Times

WHAKATANE, New Zealand — Rescue workers on Wednesday were again forced to delay attempts to reach White Island to recover the bodies of people believed to have been killed in a volcanic eruption there. The authorities said conditions were still too dangerous and unpredictable to risk the attempt.

A volcanologist, Graham Leonard, said at a news conference that the chance of another eruption on the scale of Monday’s explosion happening within the next 24 hours was between 40 and 60 percent. He added that for anyone traveling to the volcanic island now, even walking and breathing would be a challenge.

Dozens of people were rescued after the eruption Monday, but the authorities later said that eight people were still believed to be on the island and presumed dead. On Wednesday, the New Zealand police released a list of nine people who they said were officially considered missing, seven from Australia and two from New Zealand. The police would not explain the discrepancy.

Deputy Commissioner John Tims of the New Zealand police expressed frustration that recovery efforts had been delayed for a second day, but said the risks — including the hazards that toxic fumes could pose to rescue crews — outweighed the sense of urgency.

“My intent is absolutely to return to that island, those families and friends absolutely deserve closure and I’m going to work really hard to make that happen,” he said.

White Island — also known by its Maori name, Whakaari — erupted on Monday afternoon as 47 people were touring the volcano’s crater. As of Wednesday, six people were confirmed to have been killed.

About 30 victims of the eruption, which covered the island in gray ash, have been sent to seven hospitals around New Zealand, because the nearest hospital’s burns unit was completely overwhelmed. Most of the injured had burns over at least 30 percent of their bodies.

About two dozen of the victims were Australian, and Prime Minister Scott Morrison of Australia said the country was sending three air force planes to bring some of them home. Other victims were from New Zealand, China, Germany, Malaysia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Mr. Leonard, the volcanologist, said tremors on the island were escalating, increasing the chances of another eruption within the next day or so.

“There are two key risks,” he said. “The first is environmental — at times it will be challenging for breathing, walking and seeing on the island — and there are risks for another eruption.”

As of Wednesday afternoon, the GeoNet agency, which monitors geological activity in New Zealand, put White Island at threat level three, out of five. After the eruption on Monday, it was raised to four.

White Island has long been a popular tourist destination, billed as offering the chance to get close to an active volcano. Before this week, the deadliest incident there had been in 1914, when 10 miners were killed after part of a crater wall collapsed.

The island, which is privately owned, became a scenic reserve in 1953, and more than 10,000 people visit each year. Since Monday, victims’ family members and others have asked why tours had been allowed to continue despite warnings that volcanic activity had been on the rise.

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2019-12-11 07:42:00Z
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Aung San Suu Kyi Leads Defense Against Rohingya Genocide Accusations - The New York Times

THE HAGUE — As still as a statue, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi had listened for nearly three hours as human rights lawyers and experts at the world’s highest court in The Hague described some of the horrors inflicted upon the Rohingya Muslims of Myanmar: veils ripped off girls before their rapes, babies thrown to their deaths, hundreds of villages turned into kindling.

The testimony on Tuesday was perhaps the first time that Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s de facto civilian leader, had heard such a full description of the atrocities that have landed her nation at the International Court of Justice to face accusations of genocide.

Now, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi is expected to take the stand on Wednesday to answer those accusations and defend her country in a landmark lawsuit filed by the West African nation of Gambia on behalf of a group of Islamic countries. Gambia’s case relies on voluminous witness and human-rights expert testimony, along with reporting from a United Nations fact-finding mission on Myanmar.

What she will say — or not say — on Day 2 of the proceedings will be keenly watched. Since army-led pogroms against the Rohingya minority intensified in August 2017, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who spent years locked up by Myanmar’s military dictatorship, has declined to criticize the generals with whom she now shares power.

On Wednesday, U Myo Nyunt, the spokesman for Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s political party, the National League for Democracy, described the testimony presented to the court the day before as “he said, she said.”

“We have already prepared to rebut these accusations,” Mr. Myo Nyunt said. “The fact-finding mission report is from respected persons from the international community but their report is not complete because of a lack of evidence.”

Members of Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s office have dismissed as fake news the crimes against the Rohingya that United Nations officials say were committed with genocidal intent. Only two isolated cases have been the subject of legal inquiries within Myanmar.

Diplomats who have tried to bring up the situation in Rakhine State, where the Rohingya are from, say Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi routinely cut them off. In some cases, she refused any further one-on-one meetings, two envoys said.

Bill Richardson, a former American ambassador to the United Nations who was asked by Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi to participate in one of several commissions on Rakhine that she assembled, quit in disgust last year after he said she “exploded” in anger at his criticism. “She might have hit me, she was so furious,” he recalled then.

Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s muted response to the Rohingya’s plight has earned the condemnation of some of her fellow Nobel Peace laureates, eight of whom sent her an open letter this week accusing her of “actively denying that these atrocities even occurred” and urging that she “be held criminally accountable, along with her army commanders, for crimes committed.”

Ms Aung San Suu Kyi is not a defendant at the International Court of Justice, which does not try individuals and instead settles disputes between nations over questions of international law. But her unexpected decision last month to lead Myanmar’s defense, beginning with three days of hearings this week, have placed her in the spotlight.

The great hall of the International Court of Justice, a place of chandeliers and stained glass windows, was packed Tuesday with diplomats, activists, lawyers and reporters vying for a glimpse of Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi. She sat impassively while Justice Minister Abubacarr M. Tambadou of Gambia opened his country’s case by urging the court to tell Myanmar “to stop this genocide of its own people.”

“It is indeed sad for our generation that 75 years after humankind committed itself to the words ‘never again,’ another genocide is unfolding right before our eyes,” he said. “Yet we do nothing to stop it.”

Outside the turreted palace that is home to the court, demonstrators held up Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s portrait with the words “shame on you” and “agent of the military.”

Paul Reichler, an American who is the lead lawyer for Gambia’s legal team, addressed the question of whether Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi bore personal responsibility for the deaths of thousands of Rohingya. Her supporters say she is constrained by the military’s continuing grip on some of the most important levers of power in Myanmar.

But Mr. Reichler showed the court a picture of large billboards that have appeared in Myanmar in recent days, showing her superimposed in front of three smiling generals with the caption: “We stand with you.”

“This shows, in fact it can only have been intended to show, that they are all in it together, and that Myanmar has no intention of holding its emboldened military leadership accountable,” Mr. Reichler said.

Mr. Myo Nyunt, the National League for Democracy spokesman, said that the billboards did not mean Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi and the military were united.

“It just means they are in the same cabinet,” he said. “This case is very delicate and we need to handle the problem gently.”

Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s party is facing elections next year, which many believe was one motivation for her to personally lobby the international court.

“Unfortunately she has totally taken sides, and she is now whipping up nationalism simply to become more popular,” said U Maung Tun Khin, a Rohingya who traveled to The Hague from London to witness the hearings.

Ma Thinzar Shunlei Yi, a youth activist in Myanmar, said the International Court of Justice case had allowed the National League for Democracy to rally support at time when ethnic strife and a struggling economy have dented support for the ruling party.

“We can see that the divided political forces inside Myanmar have united to face a lawsuit from a foreign country that is seen as a common enemy,” Ms. Thinzar Shunlei Yi said.

People in Myanmar, she added, were not willing to “trade the reputation of their leader for the sake of minorities, especially the Rohingya.”

Rohingya Muslims have been persecuted for decades in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, gradually losing rights to education, health care and even citizenship. Half a million Rohingya still live in Rakhine, but they have been herded into internment camps or prevented from leaving their villages, even to farm or collect firewood.

About a million more have fled to neighboring Bangladesh, where they are crowded into the world’s largest refugee camp.

The three days of hearings this week are for Gambia to ask the court to issue a temporary injunction ordering Myanmar to protect those Rohingya who remain in the country. A United Nations rapporteur recently warned that “crimes with genocidal intent” were continuing and intensifying in Rakhine.

Gambia, a small Muslim-majority country, accuses Myanmar of violating the Genocide Convention, which both Gambia and Myanmar have signed. Another case is working its way through another United Nations court, but that effort is hampered by the fact that Myanmar is not party to that court’s convention.

Abdul Malik Mujahid, the American chair of a rights coalition called Burma Task Force U.S.A., traveled to The Hague from Chicago. (Myanmar was formerly known as Burma.) Mr. Mujahid, who is also an imam, said he believed that Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s presence at the court would backfire by giving renewed exposure to the continuing plight of the Rohingya.

“I’m sure she is doing a disservice to her government and her cause by showing up,” he said. “The world will pay attention to her, and also to the facts in a legal case that might otherwise get little attention. She is providing infamous star power to the case.”

Marlise Simons reported from The Hague, and Hannah Beech from Bangkok. Saw Nang contributed reporting from Mandalay, Myanmar.

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2019-12-11 06:19:00Z
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