Industry, local mayors say they weren't consulted on B.C. fish farm phase out plan

VANCOUVER — Several Vancouver Island mayors and members of British Columbia's salmon farming industry say a federal decision to phase out fish farming has left them feeling "disposable and discarded."

© Provided by The Canadian Press

In an open letter to Fisheries Minister Bernadette Jordan, they say they weren't consulted before she announced a plan to phase out open-net pen farming in the Discovery Islands over the next 18 months.

Jordan said earlier this month the decision came after hearing unanimous opposition to the farms from local First Nations.

"You made this decision without even speaking to the industry nor locally elected officials who deeply understand B.C.'s salmon farming communities and have a direct interest in your action," the letter says.

"Be advised that we will no longer sit on the sidelines and will be pursuing every possible option to remedy this untenable situation."

The Discovery Islands act as a bottleneck along wild salmon migration routes and eliminating the fish farms was a key recommendation made in 2012 by the Cohen Commission on the decline of Fraser River sockeye.

However, the recommendation was contingent on the Fisheries Department finding the farms posed "more than a minimal risk of serious harm" to the health of migrating sockeye by Sept. 20, 2020.

On Sept. 28, the department said scientific assessments had found nine pathogens from farmed salmon in the islands posed a minimal risk to wild stocks. The risk of the viruses transferring from farmed to wild Fraser River stocks was less than one per cent, it said.

John Paul Fraser, executive director of the BC Salmon Farmers Association, said instead of allowing the farms to continue, the government announced a new consultation process that excluded the industry. He learned about the phase out 15 minutes before the government announced it, he said.

"That's what we're looking at here, a decision that was not well conceived, certainly ill-informed and did not in any way contemplate the consequences not just of the Campbell River economy, but really the whole economy of Vancouver Island," Fraser said.

Workers in the industry were classified as essential under COVID-19 restrictions, only to learn before Christmas that their jobs would be lost without a say, he said.

"Now we just feel discarded, you go from thinking you're doing something important and we can build on it to now being treated like it doesn't matter."

The letter says the move will eliminate about 1,500 jobs and could put the entire $1.6-billion provincial industry at risk.

It is signed by mayors in Campbell River, Port Hardy, Port McNeill and Gold River, as well as 11 industry representatives.

Jordan said in a statement that she plans to meet with industry and community representatives in early 2021 to discuss the transition.

"The decision to phase out fish farms in the Discovery Islands was not an easy one. It was made after many consultations and weighing many factors," she said.

Aquaculture plays an important role in British Columbia's economy, but the farms in the Discovery Islands are a "specific case," she said.

The licences were renewed on an annual basis — unlike others that had been granted longer tenures — "always with the understanding that a decision regarding their permanent status would be made by December 2020," Jordan said.

Under the plan, 19 existing farms in the Discovery Islands had their licences renewed for 18 months. The farms are not allowed to add new fish during that period, and can only grow and harvest the existing stocks until they are empty.

Phasing out net-pen fish farming in B.C. waters by 2025 was a Liberal campaign promise in the federal election.

Dean Dobrinsky, director of human resources and communications for fish farm company Mowi, said the company has about 17 farms in the area, although some straddle boundaries and the department hasn't communicated which farms are at issue.

He said the impact of the decision goes much further than the local farms, as supply chains link them with a fish processing plant in Port Hardy and distribution networks in Surrey and beyond.

The Discovery Island farms comprise about 30 per cent of Mowi's B.C. salmon production and the company will have to assess whether that loss means cutbacks in other areas of the business.

"When you take out that production and you don't have an obvious option to replace it, you start looking at whether our business is viable," he said.

The Discovery Islands are in the traditional territory of the Homalco, Klahoose, K’omoks, Kwaikah, Tla’amin, We Wai Kai and Wei Wai Kum First Nations.

When the phase out was announced, Homalco Chief Darren Blaney said it was a relief to members of the First Nation.

Fish farms are one of several threats facing the salmon, alongside climate change, warming waters and habitat loss, he said.

“It feels like it’s been such a long time, you know, to watch our salmon dwindle and dwindle and our community get less and less food fish each year, it was hard to bear,” he said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 31, 2020.

Rio's new mayor launches probes targeting predecessor

The new mayor of Rio de Janeiro took office Friday launching a raft of investigations into corruption allegations against his predecessor, an Evangelical pastor allied with Brazil's far-right President Jair Bolsonaro

.

© CARL DE SOUZA Rio de Janeiro's new mayor, Eduardo Paes, is seen waving after voting in municipal elections on November 29, 2020

Outgoing mayor Marcelo Crivella had already been arrested on December 22 and suspended from his job over the allegations. But the new mayor, Eduardo Paes, wasted no time piling more pressure on the man he defeated in municipal elections last November.

A veteran centrist who previously led Brazil's second city from 2009 to 2016, Paes used his first day back in office to order four probes into alleged corruption and strongarming in the Crivella administration.

"Never in the history of Rio de Janeiro has a mayor received such a perverse inheritance from his predecessor," Paes said at his swearing-in ceremony.

\\
The probes he ordered will investigate allegations that the Crivella administration forced companies to pay bribes to win public contracts, committed irregularities in the construction of a Covid-19 field hospital, embezzled funds for protective gear and health equipment against the pandemic, and ran an operation called the "Guardians of Crivella" whose mission was to stop journalists from covering the impact of the health crisis.

Crivella, a gospel singer and bishop in the powerful Universal Church of the Kingdom of God -- which was founded by his uncle -- has denied the accusations. He says he is the victim of political persecution.

Bolsonaro, who hails from Rio, supported Crivella's election campaigns. But he has distanced himself from the former mayor since the latter lost his re-election bid in a landslide.

The president said after the elections that he would work well with Paes.

Paes, 51, presided over what many consider a golden period for Rio, when it hosted the 2014 World Cup final and 2016 Olympics.

The city of seven million people has since been beset by political and financial crises.

Paes was one of 5,475 mayors to be sworn in on New Year's Day in Brazil following last year's municipal elections.

The polls largely marked the return of traditional politicians and parties -- especially from the center and center-right -- after an anti-establishment wave swept Bolsonaro to power in 2018.

jhb/dw

Bodycam footage shows Andre Hill received no aid for several minutes

Andre Hill, the unarmed 47-year-old Black man fatally shot by police in Columbus, Ohio, just three days before Christmas received no aid for several minutes after being mortally wounded, new police body camera footage shows.

The footage, released Thursday, was taken in the moments after Hill was shot by now-former Columbus Police Department officer Adam Coy, a 19-year veteran of the force. The footage is from the body cameras of several different officers, including officer Amy Detweiler, who was with Coy at the time of the shooting.

Coy was fired after Columbus Police Chief Thomas Quinlan recommended the officer be terminated for failing to turn his body camera on ahead of the shooting and for failing to give Hill medical assistance after shooting him. Both Coy and Detweiler violated the department's protocol by failing to turn on their body-worn cameras ahead of the shooting, according to a directive published by the Columbus Police Department.

© Provided by NBC News Image: US-RACISM-POLICE-KILLING

 (Stephen Zenner / AFP - Getty Images)

Columbus Public Safety Director Ned Pettus, Jr. agreed with Quinlan's recommendation, citing "indisputable" evidence in his decision following a hearing on Monday.

“The actions of Adam Coy do not live up to the oath of a Columbus Police officer, or the standards we, and the community, demand of our officers,” Pettus said. “The shooting of Andre Hill is a tragedy for all who loved him in addition to the community and our Division of Police.”

Detweiler, who has been on the force since 2011, has been reassigned to administrative duty while an internal investigation of the shooting is conducted, according to NBC4i.

Hill was a guest of the homeowner where the shooting took place and had not committed a crime when Coy and Detweiler arrived at 1:30 a.m. on Dec. 22.

Neither Detweiler nor Coy turned their cameras on ahead of the shooting. However, a "look back" feature on the cameras meant it recorded 60 seconds of video prior to the officers activating them, but this did not capture audio.

Detweiler's camera activates after the shooting has occurred and Hill can be seen sprawled on his back laying in the driveway. Coy tells Detweiler to get him police support, which she then radios for. Shortly after, the footage shows Detweiler getting into her car and then putting up police tape. As more police gather at the scene, an officer can be heard telling Detweiler, "Cuff him up. He's still moving." Two unidentified officers roll Hill onto his stomach while Detweiler steps over Hill and then puts the handcuffs on his wrists.

An officer can be heard reminding the others to make sure their cameras are on.

Detweiler's footage also captures a woman exiting the home where the shooting takes place, saying, “He was bringing me Christmas money. He didn’t do anything.” Detweiler tells the woman to go back inside the house and the woman goes back in.

Later, Detweiler tells another officer, “I didn’t shoot ... I didn’t see what he saw.”

Previously-released footage from Coy's body-worn camera begins by showing Hill inside a garage before he is shot.

In the video, prior to the audio turning on, Hill can be seen holding a phone, with the brightly lit screen facing Coy, as Hill appears to move slowly toward the officer. Hill's other hand is not clearly visible on the video. The camera shakes as Coy backs away from Hill, without audio, it's unclear when exactly Coy fires as well as how many times Coy fires his weapon.

Although it's not captured on the video, Detweiler told NBC News affiliate NBC4i that she heard Coy say "There’s a gun in his other hand! There’s a gun in his other hand!” before he shot Hill. Detweiler said she did not see a weapon and Hill was later determined to be unarmed, NBC4i reported.

Once the audio does turn on, Hill is on the ground, lying near the back of a car parked in the garage. Coy can be heard shouting "Put your f-----g hands out to the side! Hands out to the side! Now! Roll to your stomach, now!" while an unmoving Hill can be seen on the ground.

After several minutes, a police supervisor arrives at the scene and asks if anyone was "doing anything" for Hill and directs an officer to start pumping Hill's chest. At this point, an officer finally begins giving Hill chest compressions. The Associate Press estimates roughly 10 minutes passed before Hill was given medical assistance.

Hill was later pronounced dead at a hospital. Coy has not been charged with a crime but Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O’Brien has appointed Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost as special prosecutor to conduct an investigation of Hill’s case.

After the footage was released, Police Chief Tom Quinlan said his initial reaction to seeing the videos was anger and "deep disappointment."

"One of the core values of the Columbus division of police is compassion, and the body-worn camera video released today shows little of that," Quinlan said in the video.

Ben Crump, the attorney for Hill's family, lambasted the police in a tweet posted on Friday.

"Andre Hill should be alive today and his death is indefensible! The rampant police mentality to shoot first and ask questions later is incontrovertible evidence that Black lives don't matter with too many law enforcement officers," Crump wrote.

Handouts to the wealthy did nothing to boost the pandemic economy. Here's how the US should take a different approach in 2021.

insider@insider.com (Paul Constant) 1/1/2021

Like|
2

© 

Provided by Business Insider A man wearing a mask walks past a closed store. AP Photo/Tony Dejak

Paul Constant is a writer at Civic Ventures, a cofounder of the Seattle Review of Books, and a frequent cohost of the "Pitchfork Economics" podcast with Nick Hanauer and David Goldstein.

This week's column, Constant explains why doling out aid to wealthy corporations through the CARES Act stimulus package didn't achieve its purported 'trickle down' effect.

Handouts to the rich left small businesses and low- and middle-income Americans struggling, and when these groups don't have money to spend, the economy shrinks and more people lose their jobs.

The country's resolution for 2021 should be to put more aid directly into the hands of Americans who need it, Constant says.

In fact in January, if you'd asked me what I thought the top economic story of 2020 would be, I would have confidently replied that the presidential election would far and away command the economic conversation for the year.

I would have been dead wrong, of course. 

The economic downturn accompanying the pandemic was the biggest economic story of 2020, and it wasn't even close.

Even back in April, less than a month after lockdowns rolled out across the country, ordinary Americans could tell that the corporate handouts in the CARES Act stimulus package were designed to benefit the wealthy while everyone else was hung out to dry. That early outrage turned out to be prescient, as the PPP funds that were supposed to keep small businesses afloat during the pandemic were instead funneled through big banks to their wealthiest clients.

While the CARES Act was being hijacked by corporations and the top .01%, the Trump administration promised that the economy would come roaring back in a "V-shaped recovery" once the lockdowns were over.

Firms like Goldman Sachs predicted in March 2020 that the country would see "the fastest recovery in history." That recovery failed to materialize for the obvious reason that unemployment had skyrocketed, and too many Americans were suffering from economic uncertainty. Without robust consumer spending, the economy has continued to sputter, with unemployment rising and falling in fits and starts throughout the year.

As Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate in economics, warned in May, the coronavirus recession is "a textbook example of showing that markets don't work." Private enterprise was simply unequipped to get everyday Americans through this pandemic; it's only through good governance that we could have weathered the storm without losing tens of millions of jobs and millions of American families running low on food.

Read more: Women are leaving the workforce in droves - and companies will suffer. Here are 5 urgent steps employers must take to help women succeed in the workplace.

Gallery: Where Experts Think Congress Should Spend Stimulus Money (GOBankingRates)

If our leaders had a firm understanding of how the economy really works, they'd have sent checks to Americans and subsidized small businesses.

This would have allowed businesses and the working and middle class to hibernate through the pandemic, so the economy could truly leap back to life once the vaccine has been distributed.

Instead, the US Chamber of Commerce now predicts half of all American small businesses could close by the end of the pandemic. It could take years for an equivalent number of new businesses to launch, build out, and hire enough employees to get the economy back to pre-pandemic levels.

Unlike the top-down stimulus benefitting a tiny minority of the wealthiest Americans that President Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have promoted, a middle-out stimulus would be good for everyone. As I wrote in this column:

"...it's time for a stimulus that puts individual Americans first, encouraging growth on Main Street that will buoy the entire economy - including Wall Street. The fantastic thing about a middle-out stimulus is that it's not an either/or proposition; the markets are largely informed by stability and consumer demand, so a stimulus package for low- and middle-income people would naturally help Wall Street stabilize by building economic stability from the ground up."

That's just as true today as it was the day I wrote it in March.

Read more: Experts lay out the criteria for choosing Biden's CTO, who will be faced with using tech to tackle everything from climate change to vaccine distribution
Direct investments in people and small businesses have been proven to work far better than austerity in times of economic stress.

While the pandemic took us all by surprise, none of its economic effects have been surprising. When ordinary Americans don't have money to spend, more Americans lose their jobs and the economy shrinks. When rich people and corporations receive tax breaks and sweetheart deals from the government, that money doesn't trickle back down to the rest of us - it accumulates up at the top.

In fact, you could easily make the argument that the pandemic has only exacerbated the massive flaws that had been built into our economy over the last four decades. If we were to turn back the clock on the economy to January 2020, too many Americans would be on the ragged edge of disaster. The truth is that trickle-down economics has airlifted some $50 trillion dollars out of the paychecks of everyday Americans and forked it over to the top .01% of the economy. 

Our New Year's resolution for the recovery in 2021 shouldn't be to return the economy to what it was. Our goal should be to rebuild the economy to what it was when the American middle class was at its strongest, by growing the median American paycheck by some $45,000 a year. Only then will we be adequately prepared for the next unforeseeable disaster.

The legacy of 2020: Riches for the wealthy and White, financial pain for others

The Covid recession, and the extreme inequality it wrought, will be among 2020's legacies.

Rich, White and college-educated Americans saw jobs recover quickly, and their wealth balloon as the stock market and housing prices reached new highs.

Racial minorities, low earners, women and those without a college degree were more likely to be unemployed and fall into poverty.

The legacy of 2020 will endure in America's collective memory for many reasons: a deadly pandemic, a vicious presidential election.

It also brought the most severe recession in almost a century, which hurtled millions into poverty and joblessness and created burgeoning inequality.

That financial pain has been concentrated among certain groups, like racial minorities, women, low earners, those without college degrees and workers in the service economy, like restaurant and retail jobs that require face-to-face contact. (These categories often overlap.)

© Provided by CNBC

'No pain at all'

To a certain extent, these dynamics play out in all downturns. But the coronavirus-fueled economic shock has been singular in the way rich, White Americans rebounded from the depths of the crisis.

For many of them, the recession ended months ago. They quickly recovered lost jobs. Their wealth has never been higher, as stocks and home prices soared. Their disproportionate ownership of such assets means other groups shared little in their riches.

© Provided by CNBC

The result is a financial chasm between the have and the have-nots that emerged faster than prior downturns, according to economists.

"The most marginalized groups always get hit the hardest," according to Wendy Edelberg, director of the Hamilton Project, an economic policy arm of the Brookings Institution.

"But what is so unusual is, for a lot of other groups, it's not that they're being hit less — it's that they're seeing no pain at all," she said. "And they're doing well."

© Provided by CNBC

Unequal recovery

The diverging experiences of those at the top and bottom have led many economists to identify the recovery as having a "K" shape.

But that unequal financial pain wasn't apparent in the early months of the pandemic recession.

Congress swiftly passed the CARES Act, a $2.2 trillion relief package, propping up household income with extra unemployment benefits and stimulus checks.

Nearly 40% of jobs had evaporated for the lowest earners by the height of the crisis, according to Harvard's Opportunity Insights project. But a $600 weekly boost to jobless benefits more than doubled household income for many of them.

The cash infusion helped lift millions out of poverty.

In June, there were almost 5 million fewer Americans among the ranks of the poor than at the start of the year, before the pandemic, according to data published by researchers at the University of Chicago, University of Notre Dame and Zhejiang University.

But inequality flourished as that aid ran dry.

Nearly 8 million people fell into poverty between June and November, the researchers found. Poverty grew in each successive month over that time, they found, increasing most for Blacks, children and those with a high school education or less.

Food insecurity has grown and more households report being behind on bills like rent, federal data shows.

"This may not have been the most unequal recession, but it was clearly the most unequal recovery," said Olugbenga Ajilore, a senior economist at the Center for American Progress.

The new year may usher in buoyed household finances and reduced inequality. President Donald Trump has signed a $900 billion relief package into law, injecting families with extra jobless benefits until mid-March and $600-per-person stimulus checks.

Unemployment and jobs

Jobs among the lowest earners (those making less than $27,000 a year) were still down almost 20% from pre-pandemic levels by mid-November, according to Opportunity Insights. Extra unemployment aid expired months ago.

The unemployment rate for Blacks remains above 10% and is almost twice that of Whites, at 5.9%. Those without a high-school degree are also unemployed at a rate more than double those with a college degree

.

© Provided by CNBC

The official jobless rate among women is also artificially low — women, more so than men, have left the labor force entirely due to childcare and other responsibilities, said Edelberg, a former chief economist at the Congressional Budget Office.
The rich prosper

Meanwhile, the highest earners (those making more than $60,000 a year) had fully recovered their job losses by the end of August, according to Opportunity Insights. By mid-November, they had about 1% more jobs than they did before the pandemic.

Richer Americans typically take a financial hit via their wealth holdings — stock and home prices, for example — rather than lost job income during recessions, economists said.

© Provided by CNBC

But that wealth has proved resilient in the Covid downturn.

"That's one of the things that makes this recession so unusual," Edelberg said. "For a lot of people, the crisis is over. It's invisible to them."
Stocks, homes

Stock prices (as measured by the S&P 500 index) plunged 34% by the market bottom on March 23 — the quickest decline of its kind in history. But they recovered at their fastest-ever clip, fully erasing losses by Aug. 21, less than five months later.

The S&P 500 has swelled by 67% from the market trough. The index was up more than 15% in 2020.

© Provided by CNBC

Home prices were also up almost 15% in November from the year prior, according to the National Association of Realtors. (The group measures median price, which is the one right in the middle of a range.)

Wealthy Americans are also spending about 5% less money than before the pandemic, while the lowest earners are spending about 3% more, according to Opportunity Insights. That suggests the wealthy may be boosting their savings, while others are unable to do so.

"Low earners] are living paycheck to paycheck, so any money they get they'll spend on bills, food," Ajilore said. "High-income [people] are maybe doing fewer leisure activities, so instead of spending it they're holding that money back."

CAPPLETALI$M
Apple knew a supplier was using child labor but took 3 years to fully cut ties, despite the company's promises to hold itself to the 'highest standards,' report says

Tyler Sonnemaker 1 day ago

© Provided by Business Insider AP Photo/Ng Han Guan

Apple discovered that Suyin Electronics, one of its Chinese-based suppliers, relied on child labor on multiple occasions, but still took three years to fully cut ties, The Information reported on Thursday.

Ten former members of Apple's supplier responsibility team told The Information the company has refused or has been slow to stop doing business with suppliers that repeatedly violate its labor policies when doing so would hurt its profits. 

Apple has faced intense criticism recently amid reports that it relies on forced Uyghur labor and protests over poor working conditions and wage theft by workers that make its products.

Apple is back under the spotlight over labor conditions in its supply chain following an explosive report from The Information on Thursday that revealed new details about the company's reluctance to cut ties with suppliers who violate its ethics policies.

According to the report, Apple learned in 2013 that Suyin Electronics, a China-based company that (at the time) made parts for its MacBooks, was employing underage workers, and despite telling Suyin to address the issue or risk losing business, Apple discovered additional workers as young as 14 years old during an audit just three months later.

But rather than immediately cutting ties with Suyin for violating its supply chain ethics policies - which prohibit child labor and which Apple claims are the "highest standards" - Apple continued to rely on the company for more than three years, according to The Information.

Apple did not respond to a request for comment on this story. Suyin could not be reached for comment.

Ten former members of Apple's supplier responsibility team told The Information that Suyin wasn't an isolated incident, and that Apple had refused or was slow to stop doing business with suppliers that had repeatedly violated labor laws or failed to improve workplace safety when it would have cut into its profits.



Video: Trump signs spending bill, unlocking Covid aid and averting shutdown (MSNBC)



Play Video
Trump signs spending bill, unlocking Covid aid and averting shutdown
Click to expand







Apple similarly refused to cut ties with Biel Crystal, one of its two suppliers of glass iPhone screens - despite a consistently poor workplace safety record, Apple employees' own concerns, and Biel executives explicitly admitting that improving safety wasn't worth it because doing so had actually led to less business from Apple - because cutting ties would have left Apple with less financial leverage over its remaining supplier, Lens Technology, according to The Information.

Biel did not respond to a request for comment.

In an illustration of just how intertwined Apple has become with unethical labor practices, The Washington Post reported earlier this week that Lens Technology itself relies on forced labor from thousands of Uyghurs that the Chinese government has displaced from their homes in Xinjiang.

While US lawmakers have proposed legislation aimed on curbing American companies' ability to use forced Uyghur labor, Apple sought to weaken the bill, The New York Times reported last month. (Apple took issue with that claim, telling The Times that it "did not lobby against" the bill but rather had "constructive discussions" with congressional staffers).

Apple has long been criticized over the labor practices of its suppliers, particularly in China but increasingly in other countries including India, where workers at an iPhone factory rioted after accusing management of withholding their pay.

In November, Apple was also forced to cut ties with its second-largest iPhone manufacturer, Pegatron, after discovering the company had violated labor laws by relying on "student workers" who were in practice doing work that had nothing to do with their degrees.
Read the original article on Business Insider

COVID-19 shook, rattled and rolled the global economy in 2020

By Dan Burns and Mark John

© Reuters/THOMAS PETER FILE PHOTO: Employees wearing face masks work at a factory of the component maker SMC during a government organised tour of its facility following the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Beijing

(Reuters) - When 2020 dawned, the global economy had just notched its 10th straight year of uninterrupted growth, a streak most economists and government finance officials expected to persist for years ahead in a 21st Century version of the "Roaring '20s."

But within two months, a mysterious new virus first detected in China in December 2019 - the novel coronavirus - was spreading rapidly worldwide, shattering those expectations and triggering the steepest global recession in generations. The International Monetary Fund estimates the global economy to have shrunk by 4.4% this year compared with a contraction of just 0.1% in 2009, when the world last faced a financial crisis.

Graphic: The global coronavirus recession https://graphics.reuters.com/GLOBAL-ECONOMY/YEAREND/xklvyjlxkpg/chart.png

Government-mandated shutdowns of businesses and any non-essential activities in much of the world unleashed a wave of joblessness not seen since the Great Depression. Still, unemployment levels varied dramatically across the globe.

In some countries, like China, COVID-19 infection levels were effectively suppressed through strict but relatively brief lockdowns, allowing unemployment rates to remain low. Others, such as Germany, deployed government-backed schemes to keep workers on company payrolls even as work dried up.

Elsewhere, including in Brazil and the United States, the uncontrolled spread of the virus and patch-work government health and economic responses fueled rampant job losses. Some 22 million people in the United States were thrown out of work in March and April alone and the unemployment rate jumped to near 15%.

Most economists expect it to take a year or more for labor markets to return to something resembling the pre-pandemic era.

Graphic: Global unemployment in the pandemic https://graphics.reuters.com/GLOBAL-ECONOMY/YEAREND/azgvoyljgvd/chart.png

The pandemic delivered a body blow to global trade, with export volumes dropping abruptly to their lowest in nearly a decade in March and April.

The recovery since then has been led largely by China, which stands alone among major economies in seeing year-over-year growth in exports.

Graphic: Global exports have cratered almost everywhere https://graphics.reuters.com/GLOBAL-ECONOMY/YEAREND/xegvbbeqyvq/chart.png

Unprecedented levels of government stimulus prevented even larger damage to many economies but also added to a global mountain of sovereign debt amassed by governments, raising questions about whether a financial crunch is the next crisis the world must deal with.

Graphic: Pandemic stimulus adds to the global debt mountain https://graphics.reuters.com/HEALTH-CORONAVIRUS/GLOBAL-ECONOMY/qzjvqdqdlpx/chart.png

However, historically low interest rates hovering around – and sometimes below – zero percent mean that debt servicing costs for the Group of Seven (G7) economies are at their lowest since the 1970s, when the debt burden was only a fraction of what it is now.

"Debt today is sustainable and it will remain so for a few years because as long as economic activity and employment have not recovered momentum, central banks are unlikely to do anything with their interest rates. That allows governments to keep up the fiscal support in the form of retention schemes and support to firms," said Laurence Boone, the OECD's chief economist.

Graphic: The cost of countries' debt burdens has fallen https://graphics.reuters.com/GLOBAL-DEBT/qzjvqorbyvx/chart.png

One offshoot of that largesse has been that consumer spending has held up better than many had expected. While spending on services plunged and remains depressed - at restaurants and for travel and leisure in particular - consumers did lay out for goods, especially big-ticket items such as cars and home improvements that benefited from rock-bottom interest rates.

As a result, retail sales in many economies are up on a year-over-year basis, in some instances by more than they were at the end of 2019.

Graphic: Retail sales have been a mixed bag https://graphics.reuters.com/GLOBAL-ECONOMY/YEAREND/azgpoylzgpd/chart.png

Another direct effect of all that government spending has been a surge in savings among consumers in many parts of the world. Government support payouts in developed economies padded household bank accounts and, with consumers hunkered down in the pandemic's early days in particular, savings rates soared.

They began returning to earth in the latter part of 2020 but remain well above pre-pandemic levels. Some economists see this as the dry tinder to help fuel an economic rebound in 2021 and beyond when COVID-19 vaccines allow a wider recovery to take hold and consumers to begin moving about - and spending - more freely.

Graphic: Personal savings rates soared during the pandemic https://graphics.reuters.com/GLOBAL-ECONOMY/YEAREND/nmovabodbpa/chart.png

(Reporting by Dan Burns in Newtown, Connecticut, and Mark John in London; Additional reporting by Leigh Thomas in Paris; Editing by Paul Simao)

US IMPERIALISM IN SPACE

White House releases planetary protection strategy

by Jeff Foust — December 30, 2020

Plans for Mars sample return, starting with the Mars 2020 rover mission (above), along with growing private sector interest in missions beyond Earth, prompted the creation of a new national strategy to update planetary protection policies. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

WASHINGTON — The White House released a national strategy for planetary protection Dec. 30, outlining new assessments to prevent terrestrial contamination of other worlds and vice versa.

The National Strategy for Planetary Protection, developed by an interagency working group led by the National Space Council and Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), outlines work to be done over the next year to update planetary protection policies, considering both scientific advances as well as growing private capabilities in space exploration.

The strategy is designed to implement a portion of the updated National Space Policy, released Dec. 9, that calls on OSTP, in cooperation with NASA and other agencies, to develop new planetary protection guidelines “working with scientific, commercial, and international partners, for the appropriate protection of planetary bodies and Earth from harmful biological contamination.”

“Current and future missions to Mars and other destinations necessitate a strategy to support a safe, sustainable, and predictable Earth and space environment,” Scott Pace, executive secretary of the National Space Council, said in a statement. “By establishing objectives for the implementation of the 2020 National Space Policy’s direction on planetary protection, this strategy continues American leadership in scientific discovery, human exploration, and private sector space activities.”

The planetary protection strategy has three broad objectives. One is to create a “risk assessment and science-based guidelines” for mitigating what’s known as “forward contamination,” or contamination of other worlds by terrestrial life. It also directs an assessment of the role of planetary protection in the government’s payload review process for private missions.

A second objective seeks to avoid “backward contamination,” or potential contamination of the Earth by any extraterrestrial life. The strategy directs agencies to develop various frameworks for assessing risks of sample return missions and other sources of backward contamination, as well as an approval framework for such missions and procedures for safely handling materials returned from beyond Earth.

A third objective seeks to incorporate private sector views on planetary protection issues given the growing capabilities of, and interest by, companies in flying missions to other worlds, in particular Mars. That objective includes work by the government to develop guidelines for authorization and continuing supervision of private sector missions to destinations with planetary protection implications.

The strategy does not set any new policy, but instead outlines work on various issues to be done over the next year. “Really it’s a work plan,” said an administration official, speaking on background. “It’s a strategy laying out work that’s going to be done over the next nine months to a year.”

Planetary protection has traditionally been an issue primarily for NASA. The agency has been working to update its own planetary protection policies, based on recommendations made by an independent review board last year. In July, NASA announced it was issuing new interim directives to both reclassify most of the moon into a lower category that has no planetary protection requirements, as well as to study how to make planetary protection guidelines compatible with future human missions to Mars.

“We’re very fine with what NASA has done, but the problem is that the NASA rules and interim directives don’t really apply to the private sector,” said the administration official. The strategy follows what the official described as a “light touch” approach for any planetary protection regulations for private missions. “We’re trying to find ways so that people can go forward, but to do so safely.”

The strategy also seeks to leverage the expertise of other agencies. The interagency working group included several Cabinet-level departments, from Agriculture and Health and Human Services to Commerce and State. It also included the Centers for Disease Control, Environmental Protection Agency and the Federal Aviation Administration, among others.

Many of them were brought in to support work on backward contamination. “It’s a great opportunity to bring in departments and agencies who may not have worked together on this issue historically,” said an administration official, “but are very excited to be doing so now.”

“There’s really no reason for the space guys to reinvent the wheel. There’s tons of great expertise out there,” an official added.

The planetary protection strategy is part of a surge of space policy activity by the White House in the final weeks of the Trump administration. In addition to the updated National Space Policy, the White House released a space nuclear strategy Dec. 16, outlining priorities for development of nuclear power and propulsion capabilities and related policy issues.  

#INFRASTRUCTURE

Puerto Rico government supports rebuilding Arecibo

by Jeff Foust — January 1, 2021

A WorldView satellite image of Arecibo Observatory's 305-meter radio telescope after the observing platform fell into the dish Dec. 1.

Credit: Satellite image ©2020 Maxar Technologies


WASHINGTON — The governor of Puerto Rico says she backs rebuilding the Arecibo radio observatory, but a final decision on whether, and how, to reconstruct the giant telescope could take years.

Governor Wanda Vázquez Garced signed an executive order Dec. 28 stating it was the formal policy of the commonwealth to rebuild the 305-meter radio telescope at Arecibo Observatory. The telescope’s 900-ton observing platform fell to the dish below when several cables snapped early Dec. 1, weeks after the National Science Foundation (NSF) said it was unsafe to repair cables at the telescope that previously broke.

“The Government of Puerto Rico states, as a matter of public policy, its conviction to the reconstruction of the Arecibo Radio Telescope and the prompt resumption of world class science and education at the Arecibo Observatory,” the order states.

The order adds that the Puerto Rican government foresees rebuilding a “newly designed” telescope that would have a larger effective aperture and wider field of view. It also calls for a more powerful radar transmitter, which is used for solar system observations such as characterizing near Earth asteroids.

The order states the government is “assigning and allocating” $8 million to start the reconstruction work. Vázquez Garced, in a separate statement, said the funding is from budget surpluses from previous years, but didn’t elaborate further on the source of the funding. The funding, she said, would be used for removing debris from the telescope’s collapse and other environmental remediation work.

The $8 million, though, is only a small down payment on the cost of rebuilding the telescope, with informal estimates in the astronomy community projecting it to cost several hundred million dollars. Vázquez Garced, in her executive order, gave no estimate herself but said it would be funded by “state, federal and private sources (including public-private partnerships and state-federal partnerships).”

The NSF, notably, has not committed to rebuilding Arecibo. At a briefing two days after the telescope’s collapse, agency officials said their focus was on the assessment of the damage and cleanup efforts.

“NSF has a very well-defined process for funding and constructing large-scale infrastructure, including telescopes,” Ralph Gaume, director of NSF’s Division of Astronomical Sciences, said at that briefing. “It’s a multiyear process that involves congressional appropriations and the assessment and needs of the scientific community. So, it’s very early for us to comment on the replacement.”

Congress, which would have to allocate any federal funding for rebuilding Arecibo, did not earmark any money for doing so in the fiscal year 2021 spending bill passed in December. However, the report accompanying the bill directed NSF to prepare a study on the telescope’s collapse and cleanup efforts, as well as “the process for determining whether to establish comparable technology at the site, along with any associated cost estimates.”

That report is due to Congress 60 days after the bill was enacted, which took place Dec. 27. However, it is not uncommon for agencies to deliver such reports weeks, or even months, late.

At the same time, the astrophysics decadal survey, which sets priorities for both space-based and ground-based astronomy for the next 10 years, is completing its study, now scheduled for release in the spring. The NSF said in December that it informed the survey’s steering committee of Arecibo’s collapse but did not make any special requests for it to evaluate the impact of the loss of the telescope.

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station celebrated the New Year with a traditional "ball drop" 

 Jan. 1 (UPI) -- Five of the seven astronauts aboard the International Space Station celebrated the New Year with a traditional "ball drop," but because of weightlessness, it headed upward rather than down.

The astronauts quickly followed the zero-gravity twist, rising toward the top of their cabin as they wished those on Earth good wishes for a happy 2021 as they traveled 15,500 mph some 250 miles above the Earth

The five, from Expedition 64 -- NASA astronauts Kate Rubins, Mike Hopkins, Victor Glover, Shannon Walker and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Soichi Noguchi -- took turns with their greeting to those below.

Glover noted that one of the most famous New Year's Eve traditions is watching the ball drop from Times Square in New York City, which was empty this year because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Hopkins added," As many of us celebrate the New Year from home this year, we've brought this famous tradition to space to share with you."

Noguchi noted that the celebration, because of the zero-gravity environment, would have a "special twist," and Walker told viewers, "We hope thisinspires you to celebrate in your own way."

The crew then counted down, and Rubins released an inflatable globe, which floated upward above their heads as they cheered Happy New Year!" and floated upward, as well