PARIS (RT) – France faces a greater risk of running short on electricity in January because the availability of the country’s nuclear plants will probably be lower than previously forecast, national grid operator RTE has warned. RTE, which has been issuing updates of the situation on a monthly basis, also noted that a decrease in the demand for power is making a shortage next month less likely than previously expected. “The situation appears less risky in December and from the end of February, but the month of January now concentrates more risks than in the previous analysis,” said RTE. Grid operator Electricite de France (EDF) earlier warned that repairs and maintenance on almost half of the nation’s nuclear plants may turn France, which has traditionally been a power exporter, into an importer this year. France generates roughly 70% of its electricity from 56 nuclear reactors. However, it had just 31 of them online on Friday morning. EDF has plans to restart 15 units by the end of the year, with another ten in the first two months of 2023. Some other reactors will also have to be stopped for scheduled maintenance. The French government has called on businesses and households to conserve energy to avoid blackouts. In the event of a possible electricity shortage, RTE will launch an “Ecowatt” red alert three days in advance demanding reduced consumption.

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QUITO (Al Jazeera) – Ten inmates have been killed in a riot at a prison in Ecuador’s capital Quito, which authorities said took place as a result of the government’s decision to relocate three crime bosses to a high-security facility. The prison riot and killings are the latest challenge for the country’s prison system, in which some 400 inmates have been killed in gang-related violence since last year, the prison authority said. The latest unrest broke out at El Inca prison shortly after the government said it was moving inmates it suspected of being the masterminds behind previous prison disturbances to a maximum security prison. One of the prisoners whose relocation sparked the violence, Los Lobos gang leader Jonathan Bermudez, had been responsible for previous killings at El Inca, according to a statement from the president’s office. The prison authority said that “members of this criminal organization (Los Lobos) undertook violent reprisals” for the relocation of Bermudez to another prison.

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LONDON (The Guardian) – The British people “just got a lot poorer” after a series of “economic own goals” that have made a recovery much harder than it might have been, a leading think-tank says. In his verdict on the chancellor’s autumn statement, Paul Johnson, the director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), said the government was “reaping the costs of a long-term failure to grow the economy”, along with an ageing population and high levels of historic borrowing. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s statement on Thursday revealed that the UK was already in a recession that is expected to last more than a year and knock 2% off economic output. “The truth is we just got a lot poorer. We are in for a long, hard, unpleasant journey; a journey that has been made more arduous than it might have been by a series of economic own goals,” Johnson said. “Mr Hunt appears to have recognized this. After years of cakeism, his colleagues, the opposition and we the voters need to take that fact onboard, too,” he said. Asked to lay out what he meant by “own goals”, Johnson said these included “reducing investment spending”, a decision made by a series of governments, and cutting spending on vocational and further education. “Very clearly Brexit was an economic own goal,” Johnson said, adding, “Economically speaking that has been very bad news indeed.”

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LOS ANGELES (Xinhua) – Moderate to severe drought has extended from the U.S. West Coast to the Rocky Mountains with large areas of extreme and pockets of exceptional drought, the latest monthly drought report from the National Centers for Environmental Information said, while many residents in the West got much more nervous than those cold words. The Ute Mountain Ute Tribe is one of three federally recognized tribes of the Nuche, or Ute people. Their tribal lands comprise 2,500 square kilometers in southwestern Colorado, northwestern New Mexico, and small, isolated sections of Utah. According to U.S. Drought Monitor statistics, the area of the U.S. West experiencing moderate to exceptional drought was 73.5 percent at the end of October and the so-called Four Corners states, a region consisting of the southwestern corner of Colorado, southeastern corner of Utah, northeastern corner of Arizona, and northwestern corner of New Mexico, was suffering from the disaster the worst.

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WASHINGTON (Dispatches) – U.S. megadonors have left former president Donald Trump high and dry following his official announcement of candidacy for the 2024 presidential election. The Hill reported on Saturday that billionaire Republican donors were abandoning Trump’s side after the far below expectations of last week’s midterm elections, dealing a serious blow to his fundraising prospects. Trump could face a surprising problem as he mounts his 2024 campaign: a cash crunch as wealthy megadonors gravitate toward Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and other potential contenders, The Hill pointed out. Hedge fund manager Ken Griffin, the second-most prolific GOP donor of the midterm elections, said on Tuesday that he would support DeSantis over Trump who he described as a “three-time loser”. “I’d like to think that the Republican Party is ready to move on from somebody who has been for this party a three-time loser,” Griffin said at Bloomberg’s New Economy Forum in Singapore, referring to the last three election cycles. Stephen Schwarzman, CEO of private equity giant Blackstone and a top Republican donor, also announced that he would support a challenger to Trump in 2024.

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BRUSSELS (Anadolu) – Thousands of children who lost their parents while migrating to Europe fall prey to human traffickers or the organ mafia in the countries they visit, according to reports. Although international non-governmental organizations have documented the use of missing children in illegal activities such as prostitution and human trafficking on numerous occasions, it has not yet been determined how many children have disappeared, how many are alive, and where they are located until now. On the occasion of World Children’s Day on November 20, Zehra Hopyar, a researcher at Sakarya University’s Diaspora Research Center, made an assessment of the refugee children who went missing in Europe. Hopyar told Anadolu Agency the cases of missing migrant children in Europe began with the refugee crisis in 2015, and the number of unaccompanied children in Europe has increased significantly in recent years, and these disadvantaged children live a life devoid of basic rights such as education, food and health.