Gaza’s Main Hospital Goes Dark Amid Intense Fighting

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Israel’s prime minister pushed back Saturday against calls from Western allies to do more to protect Palestinian civilians, as troops encircled Gaza’s largest hospital where doctors said five patients died, including a premature baby, after the last generator ran out of fuel.

Israel has portrayed Al-Shifa Hospital as Hamas’ main command post, saying militants were using civilians as human shields there and had set up elaborate bunkers underneath it – claims Hamas and Shifa staff deny. In recent days, fighting near Shifa and other hospitals in the combat zone of northern Gaza has intensified and supplies have run out.

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“There is no electricity. Medical devices stopped. Patients, especially those in intensive care, started to die,” said Mohammed Abu Selmia, the director of Shifa, speaking by phone over the sound of gunfire and explosions.

Abu Selmia said Israeli troops were “shooting at anyone outside or inside the hospital,” and prevented movement between the buildings in the compound.

The claim that Israeli troops were the sole source of fire could not be verified independently.

Asked about reports of troops firing into the Shifa courtyard, the Israeli military would only say that troops are engaged with fighting Hamas in the vicinity and take all feasible measures to prevent harm to civilians. It said soldiers have encountered hundreds of Hamas fighters in underground facilities, schools, mosques and clinics during fighting in Gaza.

At Shifa, five patients died after the generator shut down, including a premature baby, said Medhat Abbas, a spokesman for the Health Ministry.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the responsibility for any harm to civilians lies with Hamas, repeating long-standing allegations that the militant group uses civilians in Gaza as human shields. He said that while Israel has urged civilians to leave combat zones, “Hamas is doing everything it can to prevent them from leaving.”

His statement came after French President Emmanuel Macron pushed for a cease-fire and urged other leaders to join his call, telling the BBC there was “no justification” for Israel’s ongoing bombing.

Following Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel, in which at least 1,200 people were killed, Israel’s allies have defended the country’s right to protect itself. But now into the second month of war, there are growing differences in how many feel Israel should conduct its fight.

The U.S. has been pushing for temporary pauses that would allow for wider distribution of badly needed aid to civilians in the besieged territory where conditions are increasingly dire. However, Israel has so far only agreed to brief daily periods during which civilians are able to flee the area of ground combat in northern Gaza and head south on foot along the territory’s main north-south artery.

Since these evacuation windows were first announced a week ago, more than 150,000 civilians have fled the north, according to U.N. monitors. On Saturday, the military announced a new evacuation window, saying civilians could use the central road and a coastal road.

On the main road, a steady stream of people could be seen fleeing southward, clutching children and bags of belongings, many on foot and some on donkey-drawn carts. One man pushed two children in a wheelbarrow.

Tens of thousands more remain in northern Gaza, many sheltering at hospitals and overcrowded U.N. facilities.

Palestinian civilians and rights advocates have pushed back against Israel’s portrayal of the southern evacuation zones as “relatively safe,” noting that Israeli bombardment has continued across Gaza, including airstrikes in the south that Israel says target Hamas leaders, but that have also killed women and children.

The U.S. and Israel also have diverging views on what a post-war Gaza should look like. Netanyahu and military leaders have said this needs to be dictated solely by Israel’s security needs, such as ensuring no threats emerge from the territory. Israel has said a key goal of the war is to crush Hamas, a militant group that has ruled Gaza for 16 years.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking to reporters Friday during a tour of Asia, laid out what he said were fundamental principles for a post-war Gaza, some of which seemed to run counter to Israel’s narrow approach.

Blinken said these principles include “no forcible displacement of Palestinians from Gaza, no use of Gaza as a platform for launching terrorism or other attacks against Israel, no diminution in the territory of Gaza, and a commitment to Palestinian-led governance for Gaza and for the West Bank, and in a unified way.”

Saudi Arabia hosted Muslim and Arab leaders in Riyadh on Saturday with the aim of devising their own cohesive strategy on Gaza. Initially intended to be two separate gatherings, the country decided to merge them into one to expedite the process in response to the escalating violence, according to the Saudi Foreign Ministry.FIGHTING AROUND HOSPITALS

Concern has grown in recent days as fighting through the dense neighborhoods of Gaza City has come closer to hospitals, which Israel claims are being used by Hamas fighters.

Thousands of civilians had been sheltering in the Shifa compound in recent weeks, but many fled Friday after several nearby strikes in which one person was killed and several were wounded.

Abbas, the Health Ministry spokesman, told the satellite television channel Al Jazeera that there are still 1,500 patients at Shifa, along with 1,500 medical personnel and between 15,000 and 20,000 people seeking shelter.

“The complex now lacks food, water and electricity,” he said. “Intensive care units have stopped working.”

Thousands have fled Shifa and other hospitals that have come under attack, but physicians said it’s impossible for everyone to get out.

“We cannot evacuate ourselves and (leave) these people inside,” a Doctors Without Borders surgeon at Shifa, Mohammed Obeid, was quoted as saying by the organization.

“As a doctor, I swear to help the people who need help.”

The organization said other doctors reported that some staff had fled to to save themselves and their families, and urged all hospitals be protected.

More than 11,070 Palestinians, two-thirds of them women and minors, have been killed since the war began, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza, which does not differentiate between civilian and militant deaths. About 2,700 people have been reported missing and are thought to be possibly trapped or dead under the rubble.

The Hamas-run Interior Ministry said six people were killed early Saturday in a strike on the Nuseirat refugee camp that hit a house. The camp is located in the southern evacuation zone.

At least 1,200 people have been killed in Israel, mainly in the initial Hamas attack, and 41 Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the ground offensive began, Israeli officials say.

Nearly 240 people abducted by Hamas from Israel remain captive.

About 250,000 Israelis have been forced to evacuate from communities near Gaza and along the northern border with Lebanon, where Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants have traded fire repeatedly.

source https://time.com/6334030/gaza-hospital-electricity-outage-israel-hamas/

Somber Bells Mark Armistice Day Around the Globe as Wars Drown Out Peace Messages

YPRES, Belgium — With somber bugles and bells from Australia to western Europe’s battlefields of World War I, people around the globe on Saturday remembered the slaughter and losses just over a century ago that was supposed to be “the war to end all wars.”

Yet the rumble of tanks and the screeching of incoming fire from Ukraine to Gaza pierced the solemnity of the occasion and the notion that humankind could somehow circumvent violence to settle its worst differences.

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“This time last year, our thoughts were focused on Ukraine. Today, our minds are full with the terrible images emerging from Israel and Gaza. These are just two of the more than 100 armed conflicts in the world today,” said Benoit Mottrie, the head of the Last Post Association in western Belgium’s Ypres, where some of the fiercest and deadliest World War I battles were fought.

During a ceremony with Prime Minister Alexander De Croo and dozens of dignitaries, Mottrie expressed the sense of powerlessness that so many feel that the lessons of the past cannot automatically be translated into peace today.

“It would be naive to think that our presence here in Ypres will have any direct impact on any of the 100 conflicts. The emotions of those involved are too raw for us to understand, and for them to see the light of what we regard as reason,” Mottrie said.

At the same time as French President Emmanuel Macron was saluting French troops in Paris and honoring the eternal flame to commemorate those who died unidentified, war and destruction was raging Gaza. In Ukraine, troops have been fighting Russian invaders along a front line that has barely moved over the past months, much like in Western Europe during most of World War I.

Still Armistice Day largely stuck to the primary purpose of the occasion — to remember and pay respect to those who died for their country.

“’Lest we forget,’ — It should not be forgotten,” said Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, reflecting on the carnage of the 1914-1918 war that killed almost 10 million soldiers, sometimes tens of thousands on a single day in a war that pitted the armies of France, the British empire, Russia and the U.S. against a German-led coalition that included the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires.

Generally the most peaceful of occasions, the ceremony in London was held under strict police and security surveillance for fears that a massive pro-Palestinian protest could run out of hand and clash with the remembrance ceremonies.

“Remembrance weekend is sacred for us all and should be a moment of unity, of our shared British values and of solemn reflection,” said British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

source https://time.com/6334014/armistice-day-global-remembrance/

‘They Are Behaving in a Fascist Way:’ An Israeli-Arab Lawmaker on the Stifling of Anti-War Voices

As Israel continues its war to eliminate Hamas in Gaza, its government is waging a simultaneous battle to root out dissent at home. On Thursday, Israeli authorities detained several high-profile Israeli Arab leaders—among them former parliamentarian Mohammad Barakeh, the chairman of the High Follow-Up Committee, the national representative body of Palestinian citizens of Israel—for organizing a protest vigil against the ongoing war in Gaza.

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Earlier this week, Israel’s high court rejected a petition by Arab Israeli political parties and human rights advocates challenging a police ban on demonstrations against the war in two Palestinian towns. Israeli lawmakers also passed an amendment to the country’s counterterrorism law that introduced a new criminal offense for consuming “terrorist materials,” which the human-rights organization Adalah—The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel warned would criminalize “even passive social media use.” Indeed, dozens of Palestinian citizens of Israel are estimated to have been arrested for speech-related offenses, including one woman who was reportedly charged with inciting terrorism over her WhatsApp status, which read, “may God grant them victory and protect them.”

The crackdowns amount to “an attack on the entire Arab population,” says Aida Touma-Sliman, an Arab Israeli lawmaker representing the left-wing Democratic Front for Peace and Equality (known as al-Jabha or Hadash in Arabic and Hebrew, respectively) in the Knesset, the Israeli legislature.

Read More: As War Rages in Gaza, Violence Surges in the West Bank

Speaking with TIME by phone from Jaffa, Touma-Sliman discussed the arrests of her colleagues, the wider crackdown on anti-war expression in Israel, and what it means for the country’s minority Arab population.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

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TIME: What has the situation in Israel been like for Palestinian citizens since Oct. 7?

Aida Touma-Sliman: Since the beginning of this, we were very cautious. We were very clear in our position and feeling really shocked by what happened on the 7th of October.

Meanwhile, the minister of national security [Itamar Ben-Gvir] was distributing weapons all over the cities. The police chief [Kobi Shabtai] said very clearly that we will never allow any demonstration against the war and whoever wants to send sympathy to Gaza will be sent there. On top of that, we knew that on the public level, there are groups of very right-wing people who are doing a kind of incitement against the Arab population. They are tracking people who are working in Jewish institutions, students, doctors. They are tracking their Facebook and their social media. And if there is a small sign—even in the past—about your Palestinian side, they will report directly to the Minister of the National Security and people will be persecuted. We had hundreds of people either investigated or arrested.

Can you talk about the circumstances that led to your colleagues’ arrest?

We understood that the threat to our population was really serious. Our main concern was not to bring our community to be attacked, so we considered very carefully how we were going to protest. The first attempt was when the High Follow-Up Community decided to have two big meetings indoors: one was with Jewish democratic forces to start talking about the situation and the position against the war, and second was the massive popular meeting for the Arab community—but again, indoors, because we were not sure that if we do it outdoors that it’s not going to be dangerous for the participants. The police called the different halls, the premises we were supposed to have the meetings in, and threatened that they are not allowed to have these meetings and, if they do it, they will suffer economically. We were not able to find a place that can be rented and the police published a declaration that we are not allowed to have those meetings. So instead, we did a virtual Zoom meeting where more than 450 people, two thirds of them Israeli Jews, participated and it was a really powerful and good meeting. They stand clearly against the war.

And then we decided that there is no way not to demonstrate or to say anything about what is happening in Gaza. So we decided that only between 20 and 30—only the Arab leadership, members of the High Follow-Up Committee, including the MKs and party leaders—will have a protest. Only standing, in Nazareth, with one slogan: Stop the War. We told the police that we are going to have this protest, that it’s going to be only leadership, that it’s not going to be a massive demonstration or something like this. The next day, when Barakeh was heading to Nazareth, they arrested him.

How do you interpret these crackdowns? Is this an attempt by the Israeli government to effectively criminalize expressions of Palestinian identity and solidarity?

Not only the Palestinian identity. I think that whatever they couldn’t pass through the judicial overhaul, they are passing now under the cover of the war. When nobody is paying attention, they are eliminating the freedom of speech. They are not allowing any real opposition. Yesterday night, there were two protests in Tel Aviv and in Jerusalem led by our Jewish comrades against silencing the Palestinian community. And they were cracked down brutally.

Because the Palestinians are the main power against the policy of occupation, of destruction, of war, it looks like it’s only criminalizing the Palestinians. But it is also criminalizing the anti-war voices. They are behaving in a fascist way. They are establishing a fascist regime under the pretext of the war because the war has political goals relating to conquering Gaza and annexing a large part of the West Bank. They need to prepare the legislation to protect them later on and they need to silence any opposition for that.

Is there any meaningful political opposition to the government right now?

There is political opposition to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by Yesh Atid, opposition leader Yair Lapid’s party, which is in opposition to him because he is not doing enough, in their opinion, and they want to replace him. But they are not against the war policy.

We—meaning Hadash and Ahmed Tibi’s Ta’al Party—are the only ones who are voting against. There is no real opposition. All of them are supporting what the government is doing. 

What does this all mean for Palestinian citizens of Israel today?

You have to understand that many of our workers and employees who are working in Jewish areas are not going to work or asking to work from their homes because they are feeling insecure. We have seen what happened to our students in Netanya, where they were in their dormitories and they were attacked. Instead of arresting those who were calling “Death for Arabs” and trying to attack these students, they evacuated the students. And they are not allowed to go back to their dormitories. People feel that they are under constant danger.

Are you concerned that the policies of this crackdown might outlast the war?

It will stay. None of [Israel’s leaders] will dare even to try to change it. The atmosphere is really bad. I don’t think that any government that will come will challenge these—at least not immediately. It’s going to take years.

How do you see this ending?

There are signs that they are starting to go for a ceasefire. I don’t think it’s going to end, really. Netanyahu understands very clearly that the day the war ends, his career is also going to end. There is a lot of criticism and the voices are more and more clear about him—that he should resign, that he should leave his position, that he is responsible for what happened. So he understands that very clearly and I’m afraid that he will look badly for a victory photo or a victory moment that can convince people to keep him. 

Is there anything else you’d like to add?

I think a message should be clear to the Biden administration that they are as much responsible for what is happening in Gaza. The massacres of people, children who are killed there—Biden is as responsible as Netanyahu for the unconditioned support and the financial and weapons that are sent to Israel.

And I’m tired. That’s it.

source https://time.com/6333939/israeli-arab-lawmaker-aida-touma-sliman-anti-war-gaza/

Hollywood Actors Union Board Approves Strike-Ending Deal as Leaders Tout Gains

Board members from Hollywood’s actors union voted Friday to approve the deal with studios that ended their strike after nearly four months, with the union’s leadership touting the gains made in weeks of methodical negotiations.

Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists’ executive director and chief negotiator, announced at an afternoon news conference that the tentative agreement was approved with 86% of the vote.

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The three-year contract agreement next goes to a vote from the union’s members, who are now learning what they earned through spending the summer and early fall on picket lines instead of film and television sets. That vote begins Tuesday and continues into December.

Crabtree-Ireland said the deal “will keep the motion picture industry sustainable as a profession for working class performers.”

SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher said the studios believed they could outlast actors by waiting more than two months before initiating talks.

“What were they doing? Were they trying to smoke us out?” she said. “Well honey, I quit smoking a long time ago.”

Crabtree-Ireland and Drescher would not give specifics on who disapproved of the deal, and why. The board vote was weighted, so it’s not immediately clear how many people voted against approval.

Overall, the happy scene at SAG-AFTRA’s Los Angeles headquarters was as different as can be from the defiant, angry tone of a news conference in the same room in July, when guild leaders announced that actors would join writers in a historic strike that shook the industry.

The successful vote from the board, whose members include actors Billy Porter, Jennifer Beals, Sean Astin and Sharon Stone, was expected, as many of the same people were on the committee that negotiated the deal. And it was in some ways drained of its drama by union leaders declaring the strike over as soon as the tentative deal was reached with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers on Wednesday, rather than waiting for the approval.

But it was still an essential step in returning to business as usual in Hollywood, if there is any such thing. Actors need not wait for the ratification to start acting again — “in fact some of them already have,” Crabtree-Ireland said.

Contract provisions surrounding the control of artificial intelligence were among the last sticking points in the agreement.

“AI was a dealbreaker,” Drescher said. “If we didn’t get that package, then what are we doing to protect our members?”

Here’s a look at those and some of the other contract gains that union leaders outlined Friday. A more detailed look the terms will come next week, they said.ON ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Productions must get the informed consent of actors whose digital replicas are used. That means there will be a reasonably specific description of how an actor’s image will just be used — a vague, boilerplate sentence will not suffice. This includes the consent of background actors used for crowd scenes and similar simulations.

When artificial intelligence is used for a movie or show an actor is already working on, they will be compensated the same as if they’d actually performed what their digital likeness does, the guild said. Companies will need to negotiate new permission to use a likeness in a new project.

“The caveat to the consent is that it’s only for the one job,” Drescher told The Associated Press in an interview. “They have to come back if they want to use it for something else. That’s kind of huge.”

When it’s a licensed image on a show where an actor, living or dead, is not otherwise performing, the license holders have a right to negotiate a rate.

In a hard-won provision that SAG-AFTRA said came on the final day of negotiations, when generative AI is used to create a synthetic character from the images of several different performers — be it Denzel Washington’s eyes or Margot Robbie’s hair — consent must be obtained from every person used, and the union must be able to negotiate pay for each.ON COMPENSATION

The contract includes a creation of a new fund to pay performers for future viewings of their work on streaming services, in addition to traditional residuals paid for the showing of movies or series. The issue derailed talks for more than a week last month before studios returned to the table.

“They leaned pretty far because they were willing to accept that a new stream of revenue had to be established,” Drescher told the AP.

A 7% general wage increase is effective immediately, with another 4% hike in July, and another 3.5% a year after that.

An 11% increase for background actors is effective immediately, with the same 4% and 3.5% increases in the coming years.

There will also be more money for the relocation of actors who have to move to appear in TV series.OTHER FIRST-TIME GAINS

Productions will be required to hire intimacy coordinators for any scenes involving nudity or simulated sex. While this has become an increasingly common practice in recent years, it had not been mandatory.

Dancers asked to sing or singers asked to dance will be fully compensated for both skills, rather than productions getting a two-for-one when performers do double duty.

Sets must have proper hair and makeup artists for all performers who need them, and those artists must be able to properly serve the particular ethnicities and appearances of the performers.

The agreement also includes more protections and funding for the self-taping of auditions.

source https://time.com/6334007/hollywood-actors-union-approves-deal-strike-ends/

The Biggest Snubs and Surprises of the 2024 Grammy Nominations

The 2024 Grammy nominations were announced Friday morning and SZA took the lead, with nine nods for the singer, followed closely by Victoria Monét and Phoebe Bridgers, who each took home seven. Eight musicians are tied in third with six nominations each, including Jack Antonoff, Taylor Swift, Boygenius, Jon Batiste, Miley Cyrus, Olivia Rodrigo, Billie Eilish, and Brandy Clark.

Several artists joined the Recording Academy on Friday to announce the 2024 nominees, including Kim Petras, St. Vincent, Jon Bon Jovi, Muni Long, and more. SZA and Swift were expected to be the most nominated artists, for their 2022 albums Midnights and SOS. With six nominations this year, Swift broke the record for the most times being nominated in the Song of the Year category, accumulating seven, although she has never won in this category.

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The Grammy Awards will take place at the Crypto.com arena in Los Angeles on Feb. 4. Here are the biggest snubs and surprises from the nominations. 

Surprise: Victoria Monét triumphs

Earlier this year, Victoria Monét did not get to perform at the MTV Video Music Awards, taking to X to explain that her team said it was “too early in [her] story’ for that opportunity.” They are most likely regretting those words because the singer was nominated for her first Grammy today and six other nominations, including one for Record of the Year. The other categories she grabbed nods in include Best R&B Performance and Best R&B Album.

Surprise: Pop Dance Category is an Australian wonderland

Two Aussies have means for celebration today and their songs will provide the perfect soundtrack. Kylie Minogue’s “Padam Padam” was an inescapable earworm that found its legs in the thumping walls of queer spaces across the country and online. The critically acclaimed song received a nomination today, and it was a welcome surprise. This marks Minogue’s sixth nomination and if she wins, her second Grammy. And speaking of queer anthems, Troye Sivan got his first ever nod for the single, “Rush,” a beloved internet phenomenon. The 28-year-old has been making music for over a decade, and the Recording Academy is finally recognizing his artistry.

Snub: Peso Pluma overlooked in a Best New Artist category

Peso Pluma had a big year with his feature on the breakout hit, “Ella Baila Sola,” and a quick ascent to fame working with the likes of KAROL G, Becky G, El Alfa, and more. The 24-year-old released his album, GÉNESIS, in April, and it spawned the hit “LADY GAGA.” He has become a marker for pushing the boundaries of corridos tumbados, and should not have been overlooked in this category. 

Surprise: Barbie racks up four nods in one category

Barbie was the moment—the closest we got in 2023 to the days of monoculture. The soundtrack was a moment in and of itself, featuring all of the most popular artists of the time. It may not be a huge surprise that it received so much attention from the Recording Academy, but it did dominate one category, receiving four nominations for the Best Song Written for Visual Media. The Ice Spice and Nicki Minaj collab, “Barbie World,” Dua Lipa’s “Dance The Night,” What Was I Made For” by Billie Eilish, and the Ryan Gosling rock-ballad “I’m Just Ken” all received a nomination.

Surprise: Rihanna’s Black Panther song gets Grammy love

When the song “Lift Me Up” was released, the public heralded it as Rihanna’s return to music because she hadn’t released an album in seven years. It’s still unclear when she plans to make a full-length project again. But if this Grammy nomination for her song on Black Panther: Wakanda Forever soundtrack says anything, it’s that the Recording Academy and her fans are waiting with bated breath.

Snub: Foo Fighters do not receive an Album of the Year nod

The Foo Fighters’ longtime drummer Taylor Hawkins died in 2022, prompting the band to step away from the spotlight. At the end of last year, the Foo Fighters announced their return to music with a new album but stated they would be “a different band going forward.” Publications like Rolling Stone predicted that the Foo Fighters would nab another nomination for their new album, But Here We Are which “turned such a terrible tragedy into an artistic triumph.” But the album did not end up getting nominated.

source https://time.com/6333788/grammy-nominations-2024-sza-taylor-swift/

Why Renewables Are Key to COP28 Success

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From the outset, the planners of the coming United Nations climate conference in Dubai, known as COP28, have worked to put the private sector at its center. The United Arab Emirates has become a wealthy country and global player not only because of its oil wealth but also through a focus on deal making and attracting private sector investment—and all of those elements have featured in how it approaches this year’s conference.

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Much of the public attention around how the private sector will engage at COP has focused on the deeply controversial role of the oil and gas industry at the conference—and understandably so. Sultan Al Jaber, the COP president, is the CEO of the U.A.E.’s state-owned oil company and has made a point of engaging oil and gas companies ahead of the summit. In this column, I want to focus on a less-noticed but arguably just as important sector that has become a focal point ahead of the conference opening later this month: the renewable energy industry.

As is often the case, pre-conference negotiations have been fractious. A bright spot has been the widespread support for the tripling in the deployment of renewable energy capacity by 2030. The diplomatic effort, led by the European Union, the U.S., and the U.A.E., has gained support from dozens of countries.

The logic is two-fold. Most obviously, rapidly deploying renewable energy is necessary to combat climate change. (A United Nations “stocktake” report outlining the state of play for climate action ahead of COP28 described scaling up renewables as “indispensable.”) “This is significant,” Maroš Šefčovič, an executive vice-president of the European Commission who oversees E.U. climate policy, told me in September. “By tripling the output of renewables, you can dramatically reduce CO2 emissions.”

And there’s a political reason for enthusiasm, too: it’s much easier to back building a new clean energy industry than finding ways to wind down an old one.

Read more: John Kerry on Corporate Climate Finance: Money Always Behaves the Same Way

At a COP preparatory meeting I attended in Abu Dhabi last week, conference organizers were keen to tout a collaboration between governments and industry to chart a path forward for renewables and keep the Paris Agreement target alive. Behind closed doors, the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), an intergovernmental membership organization representing more than 160 countries, and the Global Renewables Alliance, an industry group representing thousands of companies, presented the roadmap they cooked up in partnership with the COP presidency.

The message was fundamentally optimistic, but the coalition underscored that a lot of work remains. Countries need to reorganize their electricity sectors, clean technology supply chains need to be strengthened, and workers need to be trained. All of that comes on top of a need to invest an average of $1.3 trillion across the globe annually by 2030, including and especially in riskier emerging markets. Making the money flow requires the tall order of reforming international finance. “The task is monumental, but it’s feasible,” Francesco La Camera, the head of IRENA, told me in Abu Dhabi.

Read more: The World Already Has Its Climate Solutions. Now Is the Time to Deploy Them

Much public support for renewables—particularly in the U.S.—has come in the form of subsidies. And, while the coalition calls for diverting subsidies from fossil fuels to renewables, that isn’t the primary demand it’s making of governments. Instead, the coalition focuses on wonky but important technical fixes. Governments can, for example, reform the way that electricity is bought and sold to accommodate more renewable energy. And revised permitting measures can get renewable energy projects off the ground faster.

If you’re a clean energy wonk, these recommendations may be old news. But what is new is who is making them, and where. The COP process is at its core a negotiation between governments—or at least it has been. While the private sector has shown up to recent COPs in increased numbers, the urgent need for companies to get projects off the ground has made the private sector even more central, and the conference’s organizers are keen to push that agenda.

“It’s really refreshing to see that we’re now involved,” Bruce Douglas, who heads the Global Renewables Alliance, told me right before heading into a meeting with COP officials and others. “At the end of the day, it’s going to be us that will be investing, risk taking, and delivering and deploying and operating all this renewable capacity.”

source https://time.com/6333831/renewables-are-key-to-cop28-success/

The Marvels Post-Credits Scene, Explained

At the end of The Marvels, the audience sees Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) closing the wormhole opened by Dar-Benn (Zawe Ashton) that poses a risk to the fabric of space and time, causing a rift in the space-time continuum. Toward the end of the movie, Monica explains to Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) and Ms. Marvel (Iman Vellani) that the only way to close it is from the inside. She uses the powers that her teammates charged her with to close it, but she is stuck on the other side of the wormhole—a different dimension that is not immediately explained to the audience. The post-credits scene of the movie shows us where exactly she went.

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In the post-credits scene, Monia wakes up in a sterile laboratory bed and sees her mother, Maria Rambeau (Lashana Lynch), who is believed to be dead. As we saw in episode four of Wandvison, the audience sees Monica return from the Blip (Thanos’ snap that wiped out half of the Earth’s population). She wakes up in an empty hospital room and finds out that her mother passed away from cancer and didn’t have the chance to say goodbye to her.

She cries and tells her mom she’s missed her, but Maria doesn’t recognize her daughter. After they talk, Beast (a popular character from the X-Men) explains to her that she is in a different reality. Her mother gets up from the chair she was sitting in and is donning a red-and-white superhero costume, which she’s never worn before.

To those who are not Marvel connoisseurs, it may be hard to pinpoint who this dimension’s Maria Rambeau is supposed to be. Her costume looks similar to the character, Binary, who is a Carol Danvers variant from Earth-616, according to Marvel Fandom. It’s still unclear exactly what her role will be in the future of the MCU, but Marvel head Kevin Feige has stated in the past that the X-Men will be coming to the MCU, and it was hinted at when it was revealed that Kamala Khan is a mutant. Beast’s appearance in the post-credits scene is the latest hint of the X-Men in the MCU after we were given Patrick Stewart’s Professor Xavier in Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness.

source https://time.com/6333631/the-marvels-post-credits-explained/