By Elizabeth Pineau and Ingrid Melander

PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday appointed Michel Barnier, the European Union’s former Brexit negotiator, as his new prime minister after weeks of drawn-out talks following an inconclusive snap election.

Barnier, aged 73, led the EU’s talks with Britain over its exit from the bloc from 2016-2021. Prior to that, the conservative politician held roles in various French governments and was also EU commissioner.

Macron had considered a string of potential prime ministers in recent weeks, none of which mustered enough support to guarantee a stable government, and there is no guarantee Barnier’s government will manage to get reforms adopted by a hung parliament.

But at least the far-right National Rally (RN), whose party is one of the biggest in parliament after the early July election, signalled earlier on Thursday it would not immediately reject Barnier, if he met certain conditions.

Barnier is a staunch pro-European and a moderate career politician, but he toughened his discourse considerably during his failed 2021 bid to get his conservative party’s ticket for the presidential election, saying immigration was out of control – a view shared by the RN.

Macron’s gamble to call the snap parliamentary election in June backfired, with his centrist coalition losing dozens of seats and no party winning an absolute majority.

The left’s New Popular Front alliance came first but Macron ruled out asking them to form a government after other parties said they would immediately vote it down.

Instead, he waited weeks to make his choice.

Even if the political paralysis were to continue despite the appointment of a new government, Macron could not call a new snap election until July next year.

RN lawmaker Sebastien Chenu told BFM TV that the far-right party would wait to see what Barnier has to say on immigration, and on changing France’s voting system.

Lawmaker Laurent Jacobelli, also from the RN, said a condition was that parliament be dissolved as soon as possible – which would be early July.

“The RN wants a prime minister who is committed to dissolving as soon as possible and establishing proportional representation (for parliamentary elections),” Jacobelli told TF1.

Still, the RN was not particularly enthusiastic about Barnier.

“They are taking out of mothballs those who have governed France for 40 years,” Jacobelli said. – Reuters

By Jason Lange and Bo Erickson

WASHINGTON — Democrat Kamala Harris leads Republican Donald Trump 45% to 41% in a Reuters/Ipsos poll published on Thursday that showed the vice president sparking new enthusiasm among voters and shaking up the race ahead of the Nov. 5 election.

The 4-percentage point advantage among registered voters was wider than a 1-point lead Harris held over the former president in a late July Reuters/Ipsos poll. The new poll, which was conducted in the eight days ended Wednesday and had a 2-percentage point margin of error, showed Harris picking up support among women and Hispanics.

Harris led Trump by 49% to 36% – or 13 percentage points – among both women voters and Hispanic voters. Across four Reuters/Ipsos polls conducted in July, Harris had a 9-point lead among women and a 6-point lead among Hispanics.

Trump led among white voters and men, both by similar margins as in July, though his lead among voters without a college degree narrowed to 7 points in the latest survey, down from 14 points in July.

The findings illustrate how the U.S. presidential race has been shaken up over the summer. President Joe Biden, 81, folded his flailing campaign on July 21 after a disastrous debate performance against Trump sparked widespread calls from his fellow Democrats to abandon his re-election bid.

Since then, Harris has gained ground against Trump in national polls and those in critical swing states. While national surveys including Reuters/Ipsos’ give important signals on the views of the electorate, the state-by-state results of the Electoral College determine the winner, with a handful of battleground states likely to be decisive.

In the seven states where the 2020 election was closest – Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, North Carolina, Michigan and Nevada – Trump had a 45% to 43% lead over Harris among registered voters in the poll.

“It’s obvious that running against Harris is more challenging for Trump given the shift in these numbers, but it’s certainly not insurmountable,” said Matt Wolking, a Republican campaign strategist who worked on Trump’s 2020 campaign. He said Trump needs to stay as focused as possible in his campaign “so he’s not scaring” away voters who were leaning his way because they didn’t like Biden.

Since formally accepting the Democratic nomination last week, Harris has embarked on a tour of battleground states including Georgia, where Biden had been hemorrhaging support before he ended his campaign.

RISING ENTHUSIASM

Some 73% of Democratic registered voters in the poll said they were more excited about voting in November after Harris entered the race. And while a March Reuters/Ipsos poll found that 61% respondents who intended to vote for Biden were doing so mainly to stop Trump, 52% of Harris voters in the August poll were voting to support her as a candidate rather than primarily to oppose Trump.

“We see it in this poll that people are more motivated about the future than the past,” said Aimee Allison, founder of She the People, a liberal group that aims to grow the numbers of women of color in elected office. “They see Kamala Harris as the future, and Republicans see this election as just about Trump. Voters are more likely to be engaged when given the option of ‘more than’ beating Trump.”

But Trump voters also voiced enthusiasm about their candidate, with 64% saying their choice was more motivated by backing Trump than opposing Harris.

Voters picked Trump as having a better approach to managing the U.S. economy, 45% to 36%, a wider margin than Trump had in another Reuters/Ipsos poll this week.

Harris, by contrast, had a 47% to 31% advantage on abortion policy. The issue is salient for Democrats after the conservative U.S. Supreme Court in 2022 struck down women’s national right to abortion. Trump nominated three conservative justices to the court during his 2017-2021 presidency. Some 41% of voters in the poll – and 70% of Democrats – said they were worried the next president might sign a national ban on abortions.

The latest poll’s survey period partially overlapped with the Aug. 19-22 Democratic National Convention in Chicago where Harris formally accepted her party’s nomination, and it remains to be seen whether the same level of enthusiasm for Harris will continue.

The poll was conducted nationally and gathered responses from 4,253 U.S. adults, including 3,562 registered voters.

Independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who suspended his campaign on Aug. 23 while the poll was still being conducted, had the support of 6% of voters in the survey. – Reuters

By Alexander Villegas

PUCON, Chile — Nearly 1,500 academics, researchers and scientists specializing in Antarctica gathered in southern Chile for the 11th Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research conference this week to share the most cutting-edge research from the vast white continent.

Nearly every aspect of science, from geology to biology and glaciology to arts, was covered but a major undercurrent ran through the conference. Antarctica is changing, faster than expected.

Extreme weather events in the ice-covered continent were no longer hypothetical presentations, but first-hand accounts from researchers about heavy rainfall, intense heat waves and sudden Foehn (strong dry winds) events at research stations that led to mass melting, giant glacier break-offs and dangerous weather conditions with global implications.

With detailed weather station and satellite data dating back only about 40 years, scientists wondered whether these events meant Antarctica had reached a tipping point, or a point of accelerated and irreversible sea ice loss from the West Antarctic ice sheet.

“There’s uncertainty about whether the current observations indicate a temporary dip or a downward plunge (of sea ice),” said Liz Keller, a paleoclimate specialist from the Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand that led a session about predicting and detecting tipping points in Antarctica.

NASA estimates show the Antarctic ice sheet has enough ice to raise the global mean sea level by up to 58 meters. Studies have shown that about a third of the world’s population lives below 100 vertical meters of sea level.

While it’s tough to determine whether we’ve hit a “point of no return,” Keller says that it’s clear the rate of change is unprecedented.

“You might see the same rise in CO2 over thousands of years, and now it’s happened in 100 years,” Keller said.

Mike Weber, a paleo oceanographer from Germany’s University of Bonn, who specializes in Antarctic ice sheet stability, says sediment records dating back 21,000 years show similar periods of accelerated ice melt.

The ice sheet has experienced similar accelerated ice mass loss at least eight times, Weber said, with acceleration beginning over a few decades that kick off a phase of ice loss that can last centuries, leading to dramatically higher sea levels around the world.

Weber says ice loss has picked up over the last decade, and the question is whether it’s already kicked off a centuries-long phase or not.

“Maybe we’re entering such a phase right now,” Weber said. “If we are, at least for now, there will be no stopping it.”

KEEPING EMISSIONS LOW

While some say the climate changes are already locked in, scientists agreed that the worst case scenarios can still be avoided by dramatically reducing fossil fuel emissions.

Weber says the earth’s crust rebounds in response to retreating glaciers and their diminishing weight could balance out sea level rise, and new research published weeks ago shows that a balance is still possible if the rate of change is slow enough.

“If we keep emissions low, we can stop this eventually,” said Weber. “If we keep them high, we have a runaway situation and we cannot do anything.”

Mathieu Casado, a paleoclimate and polar meteorologist at France’s Climate and Environment Sciences Laboratory, specializes in studying water isotopes to reconstruct historical temperatures.

Casado said data from dozens of ice cores collected throughout the ice sheet has allowed him to reconstruct temperature patterns in Antarctica dating back 800,000 years.

Casado’s research showed that the current temperature rise in the last fifty years was clearly outside natural variability, highlighting the role of industry in producing carbon emissions that drive climate change.

He added that the last time the Earth was this warm was 125,000 years ago and sea levels were 6 to 9 meters higher “with quite a bit of contribution for West Antarctica.”

Temperature and carbon dioxide were historically at equilibrium and balanced each other out, Casado said, but we currently have much higher levels of CO2 and are far from equilibrium.

Casado and other scientists noted the speed and quantity at which carbon is being pumped into the atmosphere is unprecedented.

Gino Casassa, a glaciologist and head of Chilean Antarctic Institute, said that current estimates show sea levels rising by 4 meters by 2100 and more if emissions continue to grow.

“What happens in Antarctica doesn’t stay in Antarctica,” said Casassa, adding that global atmospheric, ocean and weather patterns are linked to the continent.

“Antarctica isn’t just an ice refrigerator isolated from the rest of the planet that has no impact.” – Reuters

By Leika Kihara

HAKODATE, Japan- The Bank of Japan’s influential deputy governor said on Wednesday the central bank won’t hike interest rates when markets are unstable, playing down the chance of a near-term hike in borrowing costs.

The remarks by Shinichi Uchida, which contrasted with Governor Kazuo Ueda’s hawkish comments made last week when the BOJ unexpectedly raised interest rates, boosted Japan’s Nikkei share average and sent the yen sharply lower.

Uchida said the intense market volatility in the past week could “obviously” change the BOJ’s rate hike path if it affects the central bank’s economic and price projections and the likelihood of Japan durably achieving its 2 percent inflation target.

“As we’re seeing sharp volatility in domestic and overseas financial markets, it’s necessary to maintain current levels of monetary easing for the time being,” Uchida said in a speech to business leaders in the northern Japanese city of Hakodate.

The recent strengthening of the yen would affect the BOJ’s policy decision-making because it reduces upward pressure on import prices, and therefore overall inflation, Uchida said.

Stock market volatility would also influence its decisions by affecting corporate activity and consumption, he added.

“Unlike US and European central banks, we’re not in a situation where we would end up being behind the curve unless we hike interest rates at a set pace,” Uchida said.

“We won’t raise interest rates when financial markets are unstable,” Uchida said.

The dollar surged to a session high of 147.50 yen and was last up 1.6 percent at 146.59 after Uchida’s remarks. The Nikkei average climbed 3 percent , while the benchmark 10-year Japanese government bond (JGB) yield fell 1 basis point to 0.875 percent .

“The BOJ hiked interest rates because it didn’t like the weak yen. Now, it appears to be suggesting a pause in rate hikes because it doesn’t like stocks falling,” said Takuya Kanda, an analyst at Gaitame.com Research Institute.

“If the BOJ is watching markets so much in setting policy, there’s a chance it won’t be able to raise rates that much.”

Last week, the BOJ raised interest rates to levels unseen in 15 years and unveiled a detailed plan to slow its massive bond buying, taking another step towards phasing out a decade of huge stimulus.

Governor Ueda said the BOJ will keep raising rates if the economy and prices move in line with its projection, signaling the chance of steady hikes in coming years.

The hawkish remarks, as well as weak US labor data that stoked fears of recession in the world’s largest economy, helped contribute to a global market rout that sent the yen soaring and Japan’s Nikkei average plunging on Monday.