Atlanta, Nov 4:Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene, who expressed racist views and support for QAnon conspiracy theories in a series of online videos, has won a US House seat representing northwest Georgia.
Her candidacy was bolstered by President Donald Trump, who has called her a “future Republican Star”.
Greene was heavily favoured in the conservative district even before Democratic challenger Kevin Van Ausdal suddenly dropped out in September, saying he was moving out of state.
Greene is a businesswoman and political newcomer who’s gained large followings on social media in part by posting incendiary videos and comments.
Greene has claimed in online videos that Black and Hispanic men are being held back by “gangs and dealing drugs,” alleged an “Islamic invasion” of government offices and accused Jewish billionaire George Soros of collaborating with Nazis.
She has also embraced QAnon, a far-right US conspiracy theory centred around the debunked belief that Trump is fighting a secret campaign against “deep-state” enemies and a child sex trafficking ring of satanic pedophiles and cannibals.
In more recent videos and posts, she has attacked everything from the Black Lives Matter movement to the use of facemasks to protect against the coronavirus.
After some of her comments came to light, Greene was condemned by some future House colleagues within her own party, but many other Republicans including Trump and Republican US Senator Kelly Loeffler have embraced her.
She had a blunt message for her detractors in a speech after winning a GOP primary runoff in August: “I will not apologise.”
“Congratulations to future Republican Star Marjorie Taylor Greene on a big Congressional primary win in Georgia against a very tough and smart opponent,” Trump tweeted after her primary win.
“Marjorie is strong on everything and never gives up – a real WINNER!” Greene initially started campaigning for a different House seat, challenging Democratic Rep. Lucy McBath in Georgia’s 6th Congressional District, made up of suburbs north of Atlanta. She switched to the more conservative 14th District after Republican Rep. Tom Graves announced that he wasn’t seeking reelection.
Democrats weren’t able to replace Van Ausdal on the ballot because he dropped out too close to the election, leaving Greene essentially unopposed in the race.
The seat has been open since Graves stepped down in October. (Agencies)

Washington, Nov 4: The US formally exited the Paris Climate Agreement on Wednesday amid election uncertainty, three years after President Donald Trump announced his intent to remove the country from participating in the landmark global pact to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
President Trump originally announced his intention to withdraw from the agreement in 2017 and formally notified the United Nations last year.
The US exited the pact after a mandatory year-long waiting period ended on Wednesday.
The historic accord seeks to limit global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius, the value that climate scientists have determined will have disastrous consequences if exceeded.
Trump has repeatedly criticised the agreement as economically detrimental and claimed it could cost the country 2.5 million jobs by 2025.
He also said it gave other major emitters, like China and India, a free pass.
The US is the only country to withdraw from the global pact. It can still attend negotiations and give opinions, but is relegated to “observer status”.
Trump stated that he intended to renegotiate the details of the United States’s membership within the Paris Agreement that can better protect US workers in industries like coal, paper, and steel.
The US is the second leading producer of all carbon dioxide emissions globally, behind China.
But whether the US exit turns out to be brief or lasting depends on the outcome of the presidential contest, The Washington Post said.
A possible second Trump term would make clear that an international effort to slow the Earth’s warming will not include the US government. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, meanwhile, has vowed to rejoin the Paris accord as soon as he is inaugurated and to make the US a global leader on climate action.
“Biden has vowed to re-enter the Paris accord if elected, a move that could take less than six months, ” Varun Sivaram, a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s SIPA Center on Global Energy Policy, told ABC News.
“Over the last four years, the Trump administration has sharply diminished the United States’ standing in the world,” in terms of environmental policy, Sivaram said.
While Biden’s climate plan has been recognised as the most ambitious the US has ever proposed, it still may not hit the mark, according to some critics.
Republicans have criticised Biden’s climate plan as being too expensive, with Vice President Mike Pence describing it as “a USD 2 trillion version of the Green New Deal” during his debate with Democratic rival Senator Kamala Harris last month. (PTI)

Los Angeles, Nov 4: Actor Hilarie Burton is joining her real-life husband Jeffrey Dean Morgan in the cast of long-running series “The Walking Dead”.
The 38-year-old actor will play the role of Lucille, the wife of villainous Negan, portrayed by Morgan in the show.
According to Entertainment Weekly, Burton will have guest-starring role for the newly added bonus episodes of season 10, which will premiere in 2021 on AMC.
Sharing the news, the actor tweeted on Tuesday, “Been pretty hard to keep this a secret. But I love working with @JDMorgan. I love watching him become #Negan and take on that swagger.”
“And I love the @TheWalkingDead family. They’ve been a part of our family for ages and I’m so grateful for their kindness. Xoxo #hereslucille” she added.
In Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead comics, Negan was married to Lucille before the events of the zombie apocalypse. She was diagnosed with cancer, and Negan, whom Lucille was aware had been having an affair, broke off the relationship to spend as much time with his wife in her final days as possible.
Her passing came simultaneously to the zombie virus outbreak, and she reanimated as a walker in her hospital bed. Negan named the infamous barbed-wire baseball bat which he used to protect himself and others after his late wife.
Burton is best known for her role on “One Tree Hill”. The actor recently starred in “Council of Dads” and “Lethal Weapon”. (PTI)

Dubai, Nov 4: Saudi Arabia on Wednesday announced reforms that will abolish some key restrictions tying millions of low-paid and vulnerable migrant workers to their employers in conditions that have been rife with abuse and exploitation.
The Ministry of Human Resource and Social Development said the reforms will allow foreign workers the right to change jobs by transferring their sponsorship from one employer to another, leave and re-enter the country and secure final exit visas without the consent of their employer, which had long been required.
Deputy Minister Abdullah bin Nasser Abuthnain said the new so-called “Labour Relation Initiative” is slated to come into effect in March 2021, affecting potentially around a third of Saudi Arabia’s total population, or approximately 10 million foreign workers in the kingdom.
Human Rights Watch researcher Rothna Begum said the information provided thus far shows Saudi authorities are removing some elements of the “kafala” sponsorship system in place across multiple Gulf Arab states that ties foreign workers’ legal status to their employer.
Qatar, which is preparing to host the next FIFA World Cup in 2022, has recently introduced similar changes to its labor laws.
Begum described the three changes to the Saudi law as “significant steps that could improve migrant workers’ conditions,” but cautioned it does not appear to be a full abolition of the kafala system.
“Migrant workers still need an employer to sponsor them to come to the country and employers may still have control over their residency status,” said Begum, whose work focuses on migrant rights, domestic workers and women’s rights in the Middle East.
Under Saudi Arabia’s restrictive kafala system, workers had little power to escape abuse because their employers controlled their exit from the country and their ability to change jobs.
Begum recently wrote about how many employers exploited this control by taking workers’ passports, forcing them to work excessive hours and denying them wages. This has led to hundreds of thousands of workers fleeing their employers and becoming undocumented.
The reforms are part of a broader plan known as Vision 2030 spearheaded by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to make the kingdom more attractive to foreign investors, expand the private sector and diversify the kingdom’s oil-dependent economy.
Ali Mohamed, a researcher at Migrant Rights, said the kafala system will persist as long as both work and residence visas are tied to an individual, known as a “kafeel” or sponsor.
He also noted that widely-criticised conditions for migrants in Saudi detention centers exist regardless of the kafala system, although “any move towards de-linking migrant workers from the control of a single sponsor will certainly benefit migrant workers and is to be welcomed.”
May Romanos, a researcher on migrant rights in the Gulf with Amnesty International, said “the devil is usually in the details” and that until Saudi Arabia publishes the new reforms and fully enforces them it is very difficult to assess the impact these promises will have on the rights of migrant workers in the country.
It remains to be seen whether these latest changes to the labour law will apply to all migrant workers, including domestic workers like maids and nannies, Begum said.
Additionally, the information released does not specify whether employers can report workers for absconding. Begum said if an employer reports a worker for absconding or is able to cancel a worker’s visa before that person can request a transfer of employment, they can become undocumented in the country and then liable to arrest and deportation.
“This is why a full abolition (of kafala) is necessary. Partial reforms like removing the need for employer consent to change employers and leave the country are significant, but workers can become trapped in other ways when such elements remain,” Begum said. (AGENCIES)

Johannesburg, Nov 4:The traumatised pangolins arrive at a Johannesburg wildlife clinic emaciated and badly injured.
They are the lucky ones. Rescued from poachers, they will survive thanks to a dedicated team of volunteers who tend their wounds, feed them and coax them back to health.
Pangolins are unique creatures; the world’s only mammals with scales. They’re sometimes called scaly anteaters, although they’re not related.
Like armadillos, they can roll up into an armoured ball. Amazingly, their tongues can be longer than their bodies.
Pangolins aren’t well known and yet they are among the most poached and illegally trafficked animals in the world.
While species like the rhinoceros and elephant often headline anti-poaching efforts in Africa, experts warn these little critters, about the size of a domestic cat, are targeted more and nearing extinction because of high demand for their scales in traditional medicines in Asia.
The African Pangolin Working Group in South Africa — a team of veterinarians and wildlife experts — have been rehabilitating pangolins rescued from poachers for nearly a decade.
“When we receive those pangolins they are all compromised, whether they have been with the poachers for a few days or sometimes up to two weeks,” said Nicci Wright, a wildlife rehabilitation expert and executive director of the pangolin group.
“Some are very emaciated. They have got wounds, they have got injuries and it is very pitiful and very difficult to emotionally deal with that kind of suffering and abuse.”
The animals are often caught in crude snares and recently the group received a pangolin cut deeply through its torso by a snare, almost from stomach to back, said Wright, at the Johannesburg Wildlife Veterinary Hospital, where rescued pangolins are cared for.
The animals are treated, put on a drip for rehydration, tube-fed a specially designed recovery diet, and sedated so they sleep for up to 48 hours. Then they are moved to undisclosed locations so the wildlife hospital isn’t targeted by poachers.
“They have been looked at, poked, prodded, shipped around from place to place, opened up and looked at again,” said Wright.
“Rest is the most important thing, next to the physical recovery.”
Pangolins are intriguing creatures. The scales are made of keratin, the same substance in human fingernails, and are incredibly tough.
That extra-long and dexterous tongue is an expert ant-catching tool. When not in use, it rolls back into a special sheath in the pangolin’s chest cavity.
Shy, pangolins will curl up into a tight ball when threatened. It’s a useful defensive mechanism against predators and also protects against swarming ants if dinner time gets out of hand. But it makes them easier to catch and transport by poachers.
The pangolin group’s chairman, Prof. Raymond Jansen, recorded 97 tons of pangolin scales seized from smugglers trying to take them out of Africa last year, equating to about 150,000 poached animals. Jansen estimates it’s only about 20 per cent of the total figure as the rest eludes authorities.
“If this trend continues and this demand is provided, then there is a very likely extinction event for all eight species of the pangolin,” said Jansen, whose day job is working in the Department of Environmental, Water and Earth Sciences at the Tshwane University of Technology in the South African capital, Pretoria.
With that in mind, the pangolin group isn’t just treating pangolins, it’s fighting back.
It works with police to identify and catch poachers and traders, often in undercover operations. Last month, two men were arrested in a basement parking lot in Pretoria trying to sell a pangolin for USD 20,000.
The work brings an element of personal danger for Jansen, who sometimes poses as an illegal buyer and meets poachers before police pounce and arrest them.
The group is also honing its anti-trafficking techniques. The latest program led by Jansen is training dogs to sniff out pangolins being hidden and transported.
A dog named Havoc is the continent’s first pangolin detection dog and recognizes the scents of all four African pangolin species, the group said. A second member of the pangolin K-9 unit is in training. (AGENCIES)

NAIROBI, Nov 4:Ethiopia’s prime minister has ordered the military to confront a regional government after he says it attacked a military base overnight, citing months of “provocation and incitement” and declaring that “the last red line has been crossed.” The statement by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s office Wednesday morning, and the reported attack, immediately raised concerns that one of Africa’s most populous and powerful countries could plunge back into war.
The Tigray People’s Liberation Front had played a major role in Ethiopia’s governing coalition before Abiy took office in 2018 and announced sweeping political reforms.
The TPLF has shown increasing signs of discontent, and in September people voted in the northern Tigray region in a local election, defying the federal government and increasing political tensions. Tigray officials warned at the time that an intervention by the federal government would amount to a “declaration of war.”
Tigray officials have objected to the postponement of Ethiopia’s national election, once set for August, because of the coronavirus pandemic and the extension of Abiy’s time in office.
Abiy’s statement asserts that the TPLF attacked a military base in Tigray in the early hours Wednesday and attempted to take artillery and other equipment. The statement accused the TPLF of arming and organizing irregular militias in the past few weeks.
The attack “ has been premised on TPLF viewing the Ethiopian National Defense Forces as a foreign army,” the statement says.
The prime minister’s statement adds that after months of “extreme patience” by the federal government, “a war however cannot be prevented only on the goodwill and decision of one side. … The last red line has been crossed with this morning’s attacks and the federal government is therefore forced into a military confrontation.” (AGENCIES)