Hear

Four residents of Pari, a low-lying Indonesian island, filed the complaint in January 2023.

A Swiss court has agreed to hear a legal complaint against cement giant Holcim, accusing the company of failing to do enough to cut carbon emissions.

NGO Swiss Church Aid (HEKS/EPER), which is supporting the complainants, said on Monday that the court had decided to admit the legal complaint. Holcim confirmed the decision and said it plans to appeal.

The complaint was filed in January 2023 by four residents of Pari, a low-lying Indonesian island that has suffered repeated flooding as rising global temperatures drive up sea levels. The case was submitted to a court in Zug, Switzerland, where Holcim has its headquarters.

According to HEKS, this is the first time a Swiss court has admitted climate litigation brought against a big corporation.

If successful, it would also be the first case seeking to hold a Swiss company legally responsible for its contribution to global warming, the group has previously said.

The lawsuit is also among the first climate cases brought by people in the Global South directly affected by climate change and forms part of a growing push for compensation for “loss and damage”, campaigners backing the case said.

The nongovernmental organisation supporting the plaintiffs said Holcim was selected because it is one of the world’s largest carbon dioxide emitters and the biggest so-called “carbon major” based in Switzerland.

A study commissioned by HEKS and conducted by the United States-based Climate Accountability Institute found that Holcim emitted more than 7 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide between 1950 and 2021 – about 0.42 percent of total global industrial emissions over the period.

Holcim has said it is committed to reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 and is following a science-based pathway to meet that goal. The company says it has cut direct CO2 emissions from its operations by more than 50 percent since 2015.

The plaintiffs are seeking compensation for climate-related damage, financial contributions to flood protection measures on Pari Island, and a rapid reduction in Holcim’s carbon emissions.

Cement production accounts for about 7 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions, according to the Global Cement and Concrete Association.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Navy admiral who is retiring early from command of the campaign to destroy vessels allegedly carrying drugs near Venezuela spoke to key lawmakers Tuesday as Congress seeks more answers on President Trump’s mission, which, in one instance, killed two survivors clinging to the wreckage of an initial strike.

The classified video call between Adm. Alvin Holsey, who will be retiring from U.S. South Command in the coming days, and the GOP chairs and ranking Democrats of the Senate Armed Services Committee represented another determined step by lawmakers to demand an accounting from the Department of Defense on the threats against Venezuela and the strikes, especially after a report that two survivors were killed during one operation in September.

Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the Republican chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, declined to discuss the specifics of the call but described Holsey as a “great public servant.”

Congress is also demanding that the Pentagon turn over unedited video of the strikes, as well as the orders authorizing the attacks, as part of its annual defense authorization bill. Wicker said that the Pentagon is weighing whether the video had “classified sections.”

The demands were evidence of the intense scrutiny being placed on the Sept. 2 strike, which legal experts say may have violated the laws governing how the U.S. military uses deadly force. Congressional leaders will also receive a wider foreign policy and national security briefing from Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Tuesday afternoon.

“They are using expensive, exquisite American military capabilities to kill people who are the equivalent of corner dealers and not making progress interdicting the trafficking by the cartels,” said Sen. Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat.

Congress presses for more information

What lawmakers learn from Holsey could shed new light on the purpose and parameters of Trump’s campaign, which has struck 22 boats and killed at least 87 people since it started in September. Trump has also been making threats against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, sending a fleet of warships near the South American country, including the largest U.S. aircraft carrier.

Holsey became the leader of U.S. Southern Command just over one year ago, but in October, Hegseth announced that Holsey would be retiring early from his post. As commander of U.S. forces in the region, Holsey oversaw a command structure that has in recent years been mostly focused on building stability and cooperation across much of Latin America.

Trump’s drug boat campaign, however, has added a new, deadly dynamic to its mission. Rather than trying to interdict drug vessels, as forces such as the U.S. Coast Guard have traditionally done, the Trump administration asserts that the drugs and drug smugglers are posing a direct threat to American lives. Officials say they are applying the same rules as the global war on terrorism to kill drug smugglers.

Lawmakers are also questioning what intelligence the military is using to determine whether the boats’ cargo is headed for the U.S. As they have looked closer at the Sept. 2 strike, lawmakers learned that the destroyed boat was heading south at the time of the attack and that military intelligence showed it was headed toward another vessel that was bound for Suriname.

Still, it remains to be seen whether the Republican-controlled Congress will push back on the Trump administration’s campaign.

“I want a full set of data to draw my conclusions from,” said Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican who had demanded accountability after it was revealed that two survivors had been killed.

Trump this week justified the strike by claiming that the two suspected drug smugglers were trying to right part of the boat after it had capsized in the initial attack. However, Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley, the special operations commander who ordered the second strike, told lawmakers in a closed-door briefing last week that he ordered the second strike to ensure that the cocaine in the boat could not be picked up later by cartel members.

Groves and Mascaro write for the Associated Press.

Dec. 9 (UPI) — The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments Tuesday in a case questioning whether limits on how much political parties can spend in support of candidates violate the First Amendment of the Constitution.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee brought the case against the Federal Election Commission, saying the spending limits restrict the parties’ abilities to reach and influence voters, The New York Times reported.

The FEC has set limits on coordinated spending according to each state’s voting-age population and number of members in Congress.

Attorneys for Public Citizen, a voter advocacy group, filed a brief to the Supreme Court in support of maintaining the limits.

“If those contributions, which dwarf the base limits on [individual] contributions to candidates, are effectively placed at a candidate’s disposal through coordinated spending, they become potent sources of actual or apparent corruption,” the brief said.

The effort to free up coordinated spending is one of many in recent years by Republicans that have sought to loosen campaign purse strings across the board, including the 2010 Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United vs. FEC.

The Democratic National Committee, meanwhile, is expected to argue in favor of preserving coordinated spending limits, first enshrined in 1974 as a way to prevent bribery.

“This has been held constitutional at least twice before by the Supreme Court and more times by lower courts,” Democratic attorney Marc Elias said, according to ABC News.