ad

Authorities in North Macedonia are getting ahead with the green agenda to transition out of coal, the main energy resource of the country.

With one of the country’s main coal-fired thermal power plants, the state-owned power company Elektrani na Severna Makedonija (ESM), providing two-thirds of North Macedonia’s electricity needs, many of North Macedonia’s cities are listed among the ten most polluted in Europe, particularly during the winter.

Converting the two thermal facilities in Bitola and Negotino from coal and fuel oil is part of the country’s strategy to phase out coal and other fossil fuels.

Following the obligations undertaken under the green agenda of the European integration process, work has now commenced to transform one of the thermal power plants and adapt it to renewable energy sources by 2032.

“We have already invested in photovoltaic power plants in this region and in other regions of the country. But this is not enough to provide the energy that is now provided by this thermal plant” says Dragan Vidanovski, a consultant on energy efficiency.

“That is why the construction of several mini nuclear power plants is planned. That is our perspective”, explains Vidanovski.

Last week, North Macedonia signed an agreement with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which will provide it with 26.4 million euros that should support the energy transition according to the Green Agenda.

Within these funds, the creation of an educational centre is planned, which will help the state provide the human resources necessary for the management of the new energy systems.

“There should be energy scientists, physicists, and nuclear physicists, as well as IT engineers because the whole system will be managed through computers. I hope that this centre will provide that personnel,” Dragan Vidanovski, a consultant on energy efficiency, says.

Parallel to the transformation of the energy infrastructural capacities, North Macedonia will have to invest in opening up new green jobs that would neutralise the shock from the eventual closure of the ESM thermal power plant, which currently provides 2500 jobs.

In December, the government said it would prepare an investment plan for a coal phaseout by 2032, grid strengthening, new capacities, and the transition of its two coal regions.

PHOENIX (AP) — Former President Donald Trump’s campaign attorney Jenna Ellis, who worked closely with Rudy Giuliani, will cooperate with Arizona prosecutors in exchange for charges being dropped against her in a fake electors case, the state attorney general’s office announced Monday.

Ellis has previously pleaded not guilty to fraud, forgery and conspiracy charges in the Arizona case. Seventeen other people charged in the case have pleaded not guilty to the felony charges — including Giuliani, Trump presidential chief of staff Mark Meadows and 11 Republicans who submitted a document to Congress falsely declaring Trump had won Arizona.

“Her insights are invaluable and will greatly aid the State in proving its case in court,” Attorney General Kris Mayes said in a statement. “As I stated when the initial charges were announced, I will not allow American democracy to be undermined — it is far too important. Today’s announcement is a win for the rule of law.”

Last year, Ellis was charged in Georgia after she appeared with Giuliani at a December 2020 hearing hosted by state Republican lawmakers at the Georgia Capitol during which false allegations of election fraud were made. She had pleaded guilty in October to one felony count of aiding and abetting false statements and writings.

While not a fake elector in Arizona, prosecutors say Ellis made false claims of widespread election fraud in the state and six others, encouraged the Arizona Legislature to change the outcome of the election and encouraged then-Vice President Mike Pence to accept Arizona’s fake elector votes.

The indictment said Ellis, Giuliani and other associates were at a meeting at the Arizona Legislature on Dec. 1, 2020, with then-House Speaker Rusty Bowers and other Republicans when Giuliani and his team asked the speaker to hold a committee hearing on the election.

When Bowers asked for proof of election fraud, Giuliani said he had proof but Ellis had advised that it was left back at a hotel room, the indictment said. No proof was provided to Bowers.

Ellis also is barred from practicing law in Colorado for three years after her guilty plea in Georgia.

Prosecutors in Michigan, Nevada, Georgia and Wisconsin have also filed criminal charges related to the fake electors scheme.

Arizona authorities unveiled the felony charges in late April. Overall, charges were brought against 11 Republicans who submitted a document to Congress falsely declaring Trump had won Arizona, five lawyers connected to the former president and two former Trump aides. President Joe Biden won Arizona by 10,457 votes.

Trump himself was not charged in the Arizona case but was referred to as an unindicted co-conspirator in the indictment.

The 11 people who claimed to be Arizona’s Republican electors met in Phoenix on Dec. 14, 2020, to sign a certificate saying they were “duly elected and qualified” electors and asserting that Trump carried the state. A one-minute video of the signing ceremony was posted on social media by the Arizona Republican Party at the time. The document was later sent to Congress and the National Archives, where it was ignored.