Small Edmonton natural food stores expect short-term supply gaps this week due to B.C. flooding

Two Edmonton natural food stores expect some products will temporarily run out this week as distributors find ways to move their goods around B.C.’s flooded transportation routes.

Lauren Boothby 

© Provided by Edmonton Journal 

Michael Kalmanovitch, owner of Earth's General Store in Edmonton, expects to be out of produce this week due to supply chain issues complicated by landslides and flooding in British Columbia.

Managers for Whyte Avenue businesses Blush Lane Organic Market and Earth’s General Store say their stocks of organic produce, milk and some other goods will be depleted this week. Big companies like Save-On-Foods haven’t reported the same problem.


Unlike larger chains that are regularly stocked from other parts of North America, some small businesses focusing on organic and natural foods are supplied directly from warehouses in the Vancouver area. Scott Bladon, Blush Lane’s director of operations, expects the local natural food industry will struggle for a short period of time until shipment plans are sorted out.

“Conventionally, (big grocery chains) have large warehouses that are local in the city so they should be good to go because they get trucks direct from the U.S. to their warehouses, where we don’t,” he said. “We’re going to see some holes in our shelves. We’re going to replenish them as quick as we can.

“I also want to urge people not to start hoarding food because that’s not going to help anyone.”

Bladon said organic produce will be the first to go as well as some brands of milk.

Earth’s General Store owner Michael Kalmanovitch thinks his supply of some organic fruits and vegetables will also run out temporarily as his B.C. suppliers warned shipments would be delayed .

“If our sales continue right now the way they are, we’re going to start seeing gaps on our shelves probably by (mid-week),” he said. “I’m accepting of it. It’s beyond my control, and I can’t create any more cauliflower than we have on the shelf.”

Both B.C. Premier John Horgan and the B.C. Trucking Association have urged the public to stay calm. Panic buying , not the flooding disaster, is causing much of B.C.’s current shortages according to the Retail Council of Canada.

Jude Groves, chair of the Alberta Motor Transportation Association, says he’s confident the industry will quickly find workarounds and adapt.

“There will absolutely be impact in terms of delays but we are working on options,” he said. “The last 24 months have just reinforced how critical our supply chain is.”

Strained supply

All major routes connecting B.C.’s interior with the Lower Mainland were cut off by extreme flooding and mudslides when an atmospheric river dumped a record-breaking amount of rain in the region. Some pipelines were also turned off .

Repairs to damaged and blocked roads and railways could take weeks or months to fix, and as of Thursday, many trucks had begun to be re-routed from Vancouver through the United States to get around the damage.

Edy Wong, associate dean international for the Alberta School of Business, said Alberta relies on these routes to bring in goods from Asia via the Port of Vancouver, and this situation will strain the supply chain . He expects multiple industries in Alberta will struggle to keep some goods in stock for the holidays.

“This is a sort of like a black swan event, perfect-storm situation for the supply chain,” he said. “Some firms might not get the product in time for the Christmas season and that’s something that’s worrying for some companies.”

Consumer goods and construction materials could be affected and prices may go up, Wong said.

Justin Brattinga, press secretary for Jobs, Economy and Innovation Minister Doug Schweitzer, said in an email Thursday the province’s first priority is helping B.C.

“We expect that there may be some short-term disruptions to the supply chain but we are working with our stakeholders and counterparts across all levels of government to limit any delays.”

No grocery shortages at big chains

Grocery chains and local food distributors contacted by Postmedia do not expect customers will see a noticeable difference on the shelves in Edmonton.

Save-On-Foods expects a minimal impact to deliveries heading to Alberta stores. In an email, the company urged customers to maintain their normal shopping habits: “Overbuying puts a strain on our ability to get our shelves re-stocked as quickly as we would like … we encourage everyone to be patient and to be kind to each other and to our team members.”

Donavan Tong, co-owner of Wan Da Wholesale, said some suppliers are already re-directing shipments through the United States. He said he isn’t concerned, though he might run out of a few brands of noodles temporarily.

“(It’s) just a probably week or two shortage — don’t panic,” Tong said.

Bulk Buy Wholesale also doesn’t expect to be affected as most of its poultry comes from Ontario and Alberta, and its suppliers haven’t issued warnings. Costco Canada declined to comment.

— With files from Matt Scace

lboothby@postmedia.com

@laurby

Prosecutor shortage puts 1,200 court cases at risk, says Alberta Crown Attorneys' Association

Paige Parsons

© Trevor Wilson/CBC 

Alberta Crown Attorneys’ Association president Dallas Sopko says his regional office has lost 80 years of experience due to prosecutors departing over the last year.

About 1,200 provincial court cases involving serious and violent crimes are at risk of being stayed because of a shortage of prosecutors, says the Alberta Crown Attorneys' Association.

"Despite the fact that there is a viable case, we're having to tell victims that we just don't have the time and resources to proceed with their cases," association president Dallas Sopko said in an interview this week.

According to Alberta Justice, 47 out of 378 total prosecutor jobs were unfilled as of Sept. 30.

"The number of vacancies remains fluid due to numerous factors, however, [Alberta Crown Prosecution Service] is aggressively recruiting to fill all vacant positions across the province," Alberta Justice spokesperson Carla Jones said in an email.

The province has committed to hiring 50 new prosecutors, including 20 this year, by the end of 2022-23. The plan began in 2020-21 and is projected to cost about $10 million per year by the time it concludes.

Sopko said creating new positions doesn't help much when existing vacancies are difficult to fill.

Many Alberta prosecutors are leaving for other provinces or to work in the federal service, following opportunities for better pay, smaller workloads and better mental health supports, he said.

Addressing challenges that prosecutors are facing is a top priority for the government, said Alex Puddifant, press secretary to Justice Minister Kaycee Madu.

"We understand the tremendous, tremendous pressure our Crown prosecutors, and we're certainly looking to ensure they're well-supported and receive the resources that they need," Puddifant said.

Cases at risk

The 1,200 serious provincial court cases at risk are on top of many other cases that prosecutors have already dropped as part of a triage policy to prioritize violent crimes, Sopko said.

The association did not have permission to share how many cases in Alberta's Court of Queen's Bench are in danger of being stayed due to delays in getting to trial.

Sopko acknowledged COVID-19 has contributed to court backlogs, but said resources were a problem well before the pandemic.

The former NDP government brought in the triage policy five years ago as a response to the Supreme Court of Canada's Jordan decision, which put a time limit on waits for trials.

  

© Trevor Wilson/CBC 

The Alberta Crown Attorneys’ Association says understaffing and unmanageable workloads have put a number of serious and violent prosecutions at risk of being stayed due to a lack of resources.

During the 2019 provincial election campaign, now-Premier Jason Kenney promised to end the triage system.

Sopko said the situation is becoming particularly critical in rural communities, where prosecutors have had to tell complainants in cases that range from business fraud to assault to repeat property crimes that their day in court is never going to happen.

"People in those communities aren't getting the justice they deserve," he said.

Puddifant said the province has taken a number of steps throughout the pandemic to try to help ease the burden on courts, including the creation of remote and online processes.

He said the province has increased the number of articling students hired by the ministry and has prioritized placing the students in rural communities to help with backlogs.

"We are actively working to relieve the pressure and hire new prosecutors, new staff and bring on as many hands on deck as we can."
'Crushed under the workload'

Sopko works in an office that serves communities surrounding Edmonton. He said that in the last year, his office has lost 80 years of experience, and new hires have no experience.

"While every organization has to bring in new people when you are consistently and chronically over a period of five years, replacing people with 30 years of experience with people with none — eventually, you end up in the critical situation that we're in," he said.

© Trevor Wilson/CBC

 Alberta Crown Attorneys’ Association Edmonton vice-president Breena Smith says morale in Crown prosecution offices is very low as many lawyers are opting to leave the service.

In Edmonton, turnover is high and morale is "really bad," said Breena Smith, the association's Edmonton-vice president.

The Edmonton office currently has about 90 prosecutors. Seventeen of them were hired in the past year, but 13 people have left in the meantime, Smith said. And while the new lawyers are keen and work hard, it puts them in a difficult position.

"You are continually being crushed under the workload that's being expected of you, and often for many of these prosecutors, it's files that are above their experience, their level of knowledge at this point in time in their careers," Smith said.

And with working conditions the way they are, even the newest hires aren't sticking around for long, she said.

"Essentially Alberta's becoming a training ground to then supply other prosecution services," Smith said. "Because after a couple of years of dealing with the situation in Alberta, they see a better situation somewhere else."

Management is so passé — it's co-creation that workers are demanding

It’s time for business, political and organizational leaders to give up on “management.”

© (Pexels) Today's workers are rejecting management hierarchies and want more autonomy and teamwork.

David Weitzner, Assistant professor, Administrative Studies, York University, Canada 

Workers today don’t want to be managed, even benevolently. They want to be partners in co-creation, where all members are empowered to bring their whole selves to the organization regardless of hierarchies.

Consequently, those uncomfortably perched atop organizational hierarchies are faced with a stark choice: Co-create or manage, because you cannot do both.

As businesses start to envision a post-pandemic world, they are faced with unprecedented challenges, like the so-called Great Resignation that involves millions of employees opting to quit their unfulfilling jobs, and political pressures to “build back better.” As I argue in my recent book, Connected Capitalism, we need to move away from an emphasis on “management” and towards a focus on co-creation.

Management is passé. Co-creation will allow us to thrive in meeting the changing demands of key stakeholders like employees, customers and governments.
Employee malaise

Even before the pandemic, there was a crisis of worker dissatisfaction, with millennials — the generation poised to make up the majority of our workforce — viewing business as out of step with their priorities.

Corporations must commit to a broader social purpose or face disconnected and unmotivated workers unlikely to stay in their jobs. Co-creation builds on that rare and valuable sense of connection emerging in the very best type of purpose-driven co-operative partnerships.

The feeling of connection is so important, I believe we will start to normalize viewing friendship as an essential work resource, since we now know that co-operation is not born of deep analytical calculations, but intuition and feelings.

Read more: After a year of Zoom meetings, we’ll need to rebuild trust through eye contact

Often, when management gurus talk about co-operation, what they really mean is managing subordinates into passivity.

Co-operation in this context is contingent on repression. That’s not co-creation.

© (Pexels) Managing employees into passivity is increasingly a thing of the past.

Panicked responses

When I speak to executives, I often get a panicked reaction: “What does this mean for my power to run the business?!?”

Assuredly, decision-making power stays in the C-suites. But an empowered team only increases the effectiveness of leadership. And while corporate behemoths like Google are leading with this new course of action, a 20-year study of more than 300 companies found human-centric approaches that empowered employees improved performance in a wide variety of settings.

And co-creation is not only about loosening the managerial reins on employees. Many businesses have come to realize that they don’t get the best product by closely managing their suppliers with laundry lists of desired specifications.

Instead, optimal outcomes are often attained by supporting suppliers in co-creation, giving up control and letting them lead the way. This exercise in trust and vulnerability showcases the deepest level of relationship — when two organizations surprise one another by understanding each other so deeply that one delivers what the other wants but did not ask for.

Does the ultimate decision-making power still sit with the paying client? Of course. Clients can demand their supplier’s development team stick to product roadmaps and manage the process so requested features get built.

Are there significant efficiency and reputational risks involved when managers take the liberties afforded by co-creation? Absolutely. But the better question to ask is this — does a path to innovation exist that isn’t full of risk and inefficiencies? I don’t know of one.
Generational shift

Consider current indicators that workers are quitting rather than giving up the ability to work from home.

Michael Solomon, co-founder of 10x Management, explained to me that this is an expected feature of the “talent economy.” Everybody, up and down the hierarchy, is both empowered and willing to take responsibility for what they do.

Whether the outcomes are good or bad, those who take risks own the consequences. Are there risks in letting workers set the terms of how they work? Yes. And to some executives, workers making such demands appear to have an unjustifiable sense of entitlement.

But feeling like you are being managed is antithetical to productive work. Solomon explains this as a generational shift, and warns that the old style of management is being phased out fairly quickly.

© (Piqsels) Younger employees in particular want autonomy and to feel empowered at work.

Co-creation doesn’t mean we no longer need CEOs. But it may be more helpful to view leading exclusively as a verb and not a noun.

Business researchers are finally emphasizing the relational and dynamic aspects of power, how a leader’s relationships with stakeholders can be a source of support or resistance and how they must continually adapt to changes in social systems.
Human-centric work future

The shift away from the stifling, controlling and outdated dominance of management in favour of co-creation is an absolute must for those helming organizations — from private sector businesses to governments and health-care organizations — even if the prospect makes some existing leaders uncomfortable.

Read more: To build back better after COVID-19, we must support parents

Using the tools of co-creation where we once used management hierarchies means expanding the rigid boundaries between the social, professional and personal, which we have been clinging to in corporate settings for too long.

Workers are demanding a more human-centric future, with space for trust and vulnerability. There is no going back to the “before world.” Management is over. The era of co-creation is underway.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

David Weitzner receives funding from SSHRC.

Indian farmers hold mass rally, make additional demands to keep pressure on Modi

Farmers celebrate after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that he will repeal the controversial farm laws, at the Singhu border farmers protest site near Delhi-Haryana border, India, on November 19, 2021. (Reuters)

Reuters, Lucknow, India
Published: 22 November ,2021 

Flushed with victory after Prime Minister Narendra Modi caved into demands for agricultural reform laws to be repealed, Indian farmers held a mass rally on Monday to demand minimum support prices be extended to all produce, not just rice and wheat.

The protest movement launched by farmers more than a year ago became the most serious political challenge to the government, and resulted in Modi making a surprise commitment on Friday to roll back the reforms.

Thousands gathered for the latest rally in Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, where Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party will seek to hold onto power in state elections due early next year. They turned their attention to minimum support prices (MSP), which were a side issue in the agricultural reform laws.

“Our battle is only half won,” Joginder Singh Ugrahan, a prominent farmers’ leader, said in an address to about 5,000 farmers waving flags of various farmer and labor organizations.

“Ensuring that the government makes a law MSP is a big issue for all of us,” he said. “Our protests will end once the government passes the law on MSP.”

Currently, the government mainly buys rice and wheat at minimum support prices or guaranteed prices, but the safety net benefits barely 6 percent of India’s millions of farmers.

In a letter addressed to Modi on Sunday, the main farmers’ body said: “Minimum Support Price, based on the comprehensive cost of production, should be made a legal entitlement of all farmers (and) for all agricultural produce . . .”

Farmers also asked in the letter for the federal government to withdraw a draft electricity bill, which they fear would lead to state governments withdrawing their right to free or subsidized power, used mainly for irrigation.

Farmers have also asked the government to drop fines and other penalties for burning their fields after harvesting to remove stalk and chaff. The smoke has become a major source of air pollution in Delhi and satellite towns bordering the crop growing northern states.

Read more: Explainer: Why did PM Modi repeal India farm laws after a year?

 

Kremlin Not Commenting on Alternative Versions of Kursk Submarine Disaster

© AFP 2021 / POOL/STRINGER

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Kremlin is not commenting on alternative versions of the Kursk submarine disaster in 2000, spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday.

Kursk sank during naval drills in the Barents Sea, and all 118 crew members died in the accident. The officially-recognised cause of the tragedy was a torpedo explosion.

"We leave it [the version] absolutely without comment. You know that there was an investigation, the investigation came to a final conclusion, and therefore we do not want to comment on the appearance of any other hypotheses," Peskov told reporters.

Earlier in the day, retired Admiral Vyacheslav Popov who commanded Russia’s Northern Fleet in 1999–2001 said that Kursk actually suffered from a collision with a NATO submarine, adding that he knows its name "with 90% probability."

Russian admiral: Kursk submarine disaster caused by NATO sub


Pontoons (L and R) are brought to the Giant-4 barge with the sunken Kursk nuclear submarine under it at the port of Roslyakovo, near Murmansk, on October 11, 2001. (AFP)

The Associated Press, Moscow
Published: 22 November ,2021: 0

A retired Russian admiral has alleged that the 2000 Kursk submarine disaster was caused by a collision with a NATO sub, an unproven claim that defies the official conclusion that the country’s worst post-Soviet naval catastrophe was triggered by a faulty torpedo.

Adm. Retired Vyacheslav Popov, who was the commander of Russia’s Northern Fleet when the Kursk exploded and sank during naval maneuvers in the Barents Sea, charged in an interview released Monday that the NATO submarine inadvertently bumped into the Kursk while shadowing it at close distance.

Popov told the state RIA Novosti news agency that the Western submarine was also damaged in the powerful explosion and sent a distress signal from the area. He didn’t identify the submarine and acknowledged that he lacks proof to back up his claim.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov refused to comment on Popov’s claim and pointed to the official probe that concluded that the catastrophe was triggered by an explosive propellant that leaked from a faulty torpedo.

Popov, who was blamed for his slow and bungled response to the catastrophe as the Northern Fleet’s chief, has made the collision claim before, but his latest statement was more outspoken and detailed.

Russian media reports have claimed that two U.S. submarines and a British sub were spotted in the area near the Russian naval exercise in the Barents Sea when the Kursk disaster happened.

The Kursk sank on Aug. 12, 2000, after suffering two powerful explosions. Most of the 118 members of the crew were killed instantly, but as the submarine sank to the bottom of the sea, only about 350 feet (108 meters) below the surface, 23 men were able to flee to a rear compartment, where they waited for help.

The disoriented Russian navy command wasted hours before launching a search, and the authorities turned down offers of Western assistance, stubbornly sending Russian mini-submarines to make repeated futile attempts to hook onto the submarine’s escape hatch. After a week, Russia finally invited Norwegian divers and it took them just hours to open the hatch, but by then it was too late to save anyone.

After the catastrophe, some navy officials said the crew members who survived the blast might have been alive for three days, but the investigators eventually concluded that all of them died of carbon monoxide poisoning within eight hours of the blasts — long before any help could arrive.

The government’s bungled handling of the rescue effort shook the nation and dented President Vladimir Putin’s prestige.

The Kursk’s wreckage was lifted in October 2001, allowing the investigators to retrieve 115 bodies and search the mangled hull for clues about the cause.

USING CHILD SOLDIERS

Ethiopia’s Abiy vows to head to war front amid Tigray advance

“Starting tomorrow, I will mobilize to the front to lead the defense forces,” Abiy, winner of the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize, said in a statement posted on Twitter.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed addresses the media in Lamu County, Kenya. 

(File Photo: Reuters)

AFP
Published: 23 November ,2021

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said Monday he would head to the war front to lead soldiers battling rebels as the year-long conflict moves closer to the capital Addis Ababa.

“Starting tomorrow, I will mobilize to the front to lead the defense forces,” Abiy, winner of the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize, said in a statement posted on Twitter.

“Those who want to be among the Ethiopian children who will be hailed by history, rise up for your country today. Let’s meet at the front.”

Abiy’s statement came as the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) rebel group continued to press towards Addis Ababa, claiming control of the town of Shewa Robit, just 220 kilometers northeast of the capital by road.

It also came after the ruling Prosperity Party’s executive committee met Monday to discuss the war, which has dragged on for a year.

After that meeting, Defense Minister Abraham Belay told state-affiliated media that security forces would embark on a “different action,” without providing details.

“We can’t continue like this, that means there will be change,” Belay said.

“What happened and is happening to our people, the abuses being meted out by this destructive, terrorist, robber group, can’t continue.”

Abiy sent troops into Ethiopia’s northernmost Tigray region to topple the TPLF in November 2020, saying the move came in response to TPLF attacks on army camps.

Though he promised a swift victory, by late June the TPLF had regrouped and retaken most of Tigray including its capital Mekele, prompting the federal army to largely withdraw from the region.

Since then the TPLF has pushed into the neighboring Afar and Amhara regions.

It has also formed an alliance with other insurgent groups including the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA), which is active in the Oromia region surrounding Addis Ababa.

Fears of a rebel advance on the capital have prompted several countries including the US and the UK to pull out non-essential diplomatic staff.

These countries are also urging their citizens to leave Ethiopia while commercial flights are still available.

The government says rebel gains, and the threat to Addis Ababa, are overstated.

Officials did not respond to a request for comment on the TPLF’s claim to hold Shewa Robit.

The African Union’s special envoy for the Horn of Africa, Olusegun Obasanjo, is leading a frantic push to broker a ceasefire, but so far there has been little concrete progress.

WAR OF AGGRESSION FAILED

Ethiopia PM says he will lead army ‘from the battlefront’
By CARA ANNA

 People gather behind a placard showing Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed at a rally organized by local authorities to show support for the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF), at Meskel square in downtown Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Sunday, Nov. 7, 2021. Placard in Amharic reads: "We Have Respect For Our Brave National Army". Ethiopia's prime minister says he will lead his country's army "from the battlefront" beginning Tuesday, Nov. 23, 2021, a dramatic new step by the Nobel Peace Prize-winner in a devastating yearlong war. (AP Photo/File)


NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Ethiopia’s Nobel Peace Prize-winning prime minister says he will lead his country’s army “from the battlefront” beginning Tuesday, a dramatic new step in a devastating yearlong war.

“This is a time when leading a country with martyrdom is needed,” Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said in a statement posted on social media Monday night. With rival Tigray forces moving closer to the capital of Addis Ababa, his government declared a state of emergency earlier this month.

An estimated tens of thousands of people have been killed in the war between Ethiopian and allied forces and fighters from the country’s northern Tigray region, who long dominated the national government before Abiy took office. The United States and others have warned that Africa’s second-most populous country could fracture and destabilize the Horn of Africa.

The statement by the prime minister, a former soldier, did not say where exactly he will go Tuesday. His spokeswoman, Billene Seyoum, did not respond to a request for comment.

“Let’s meet at the battlefront,” the 45-year-old prime minister said.

In response, the spokesman for the Tigray forces Getachew Reda tweeted that “our forces won’t relent on their inexorable advance towards bringing (Abiy’s) chokehold on our people to an end.” The Tigray forces say they are pressuring Ethiopia’s government to lift a months-long blockade of the Tigray region of some 6 million people, but they also want Abiy out of power.

The prime minister’s statement also claimed that the West is trying to defeat Ethiopia, the latest pushback against what his government has described as meddling by the international community. Envoys from the African Union and the U.S. have continued diplomatic efforts in pursuit of a ceasefire to the fighting and talks without preconditions on a political solution.

Shortly after Abiy’s announcement, a senior State Department official told reporters the U.S. still believes “a small window of opportunity exists” in the mediation efforts.

In a year’s time, Abiy’s government has gone from describing the Tigray conflict as a “law enforcement operation” to an “existential war.” With Ethiopia’s military reportedly weakened in recent months, and with its retreat from Tigray in June, ethnic-based regional forces have been stepping up and Abiy’s government has called on all able citizens to join the fight.

The prime minister chaired an executive meeting Monday of the ruling Prosperity Party, and Defense Minister Abraham Belay told state media that “all security forces will start taking special measures and tactics as of tomorrow.” He declined to elaborate.

Abiy’s announcement brought shock from the man who nominated him for the Nobel, Awol Allo, a senior lecturer in law at Keele University in Britain. “The announcement is replete with languages of martyrdom and sacrifice,” he said in a tweet. “This is so extraordinary and unprecedented, shows how desperate the situation is.”

The prime minister in his 2019 Nobel acceptance speech spoke passionately about war: “I crawled my way to peace through the dusty trenches of war years ago. ... I witnessed firsthand the ugliness of war in frontline battles. ... War is the epitome of hell for all involved. I know because I have been there and back.”

Abiy was awarded the Nobel for making peace with neighboring Eritrea, on whose border he fought while stationed in the Tigray region.

The terms of that peace deal have never been made public. Critics of the current conflict allege that the deal was instead an agreement for the two countries to wage war on the Tigray leaders, who were unpopular among many Ethiopians for their repressive 27-year rule despite significant development gains.

Eritrean soldiers have been blamed for some of the worst atrocities in the war, even as Abiy denied for months that they were inside Tigray.

Hedge Fund Alden in Hunt for Another Big Newspaper Chain

Hedge fund Alden Global Capital, one of the country’s largest newspaper owners with a reputation for intense cost cuts and layoffs, has offered to buy the local newspaper chain Lee Enterprises for about $141 million.

By Associated Press
Nov. 22, 2021

 In this Nov. 10, 2009 photo, a man walks past a St. Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper box as the Gateway Arch is seen in the background in St. Louis. Hedge fund Alden Global Capital, one of the country's largest newspaper owners with a reputation for intense cost cuts and layoffs, has offered to buy the local newspaper chain Lee Enterprises for about $141 million. In a press release Monday, Nov. 22, 2021 Alden said it sent Lee's board a letter with the offer. It already owns 6% of Lee's stock and is proposing to buy the rest for $24 a share. 

(AP Photo/Jeff Roberson, file) THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

By TALI ARBEL, AP Technology Writer

Hedge fund Alden Global Capital, one of the country's largest newspaper owners with a reputation for intense cost cuts and layoffs, has offered to buy the local newspaper chain Lee Enterprises for about $141 million.

In a news release Monday, Alden said it sent Lee's board a letter with the offer. It already owns 6% of Lee's stock and is proposing to buy the rest for $24 a share. Alden says it does not foresee regulatory issues that could complicate a deal.

Lee stock jumped 22% to $22.59 Monday. The Iowa company's spokesperson did not immediately reply to a request for comment. Lee's papers include the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the Buffalo News, along with dozens of smaller papers in more than two dozen states. The company had more than 5,000 full-time employees as of September 2020.

Alden scooped up the Tribune papers earlier this year in a deal that was bitterly contested by the Tribune company's own journalists and community leaders in Tribune's markets, who sought, ultimately without success, to find local buyers for papers including the Baltimore Sun and Chicago Tribune. Alden also owns the Denver Post, Orange County Register and Boston Herald.

Alden has a reputation for slashing costs, including selling off newspapers' real estate, that go even beyond the newspaper industry’s overall turn in that direction. The newspaper business has been consolidating as it struggles with a digital transition and shrinking revenues, and financial firms like Alden have taken an increasingly prominent role as owners. Newsroom jobs dropped nearly in half from 2004 to 2018, according to Pew Research, and the pandemic has exacerbated those stresses. About one-fourth of the country’s newspapers have closed n the past 15 years, according to research from the University of North Carolina.

Alden said Monday that its offer for Lee is a “reaffirmation of our substantial commitment to the newspaper industry and our desire to support local newspapers over the long term.”

But local-news advocates take a different view of Alden and other financial firms' ownership of local papers. “What we have seen in the past, especially with Alden, is that it has led to cuts in reporting staffs, and worse and worse coverage of communities in many cases," said Steve Waldman, president of Report for America, an organization that places journalists in local newsrooms, including The Associated Press. "We should view this latest as a wake-up call. We just can't keep accepting these mergers as if there’s nothing we can do abt them.”

Waldman called on the Justice Department to examine the deal for its impact on communities.

The Lee company significantly expanded in 2020 when it bought b illionaire Warren Buffett's newspaper chai n from Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway. At the time, Buffett said, “We had zero interest in selling the group to anyone else for one simple reason: We believe that Lee is best positioned to manage through the industry’s challenges."

Buffett did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.

In a series of tweets Monday, the union for the Omaha World-Herald's journalists decried a takeover by Alden, calling the hedge fund “awful” and “mercenaries” that gut newsroom staffs and raise subscription prices in an attempt to wring money out of papers.

“We would hope that Lee Enterprises, being a longtime newspaper company and holding control of print newspapers in Omaha and Lincoln, essentially most of the population of the state of Nebraska...you’d hope they would resist the temptation to investors that wave a lot of money in their face and hold to the idea that solid local newspapers are important to communities,” said Jeremy Lipschultz, a professor at the University of Nebraska-Omaha.

Josh Funk in Omaha, Nebraska contributed to this report.

WW3.0

Chinese Military At or Near Ability to Invade Taiwan, U.S. Agency Concludes

The startling conclusion from the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission comes at a particularly fraught time for security in and around Taiwan.

By Paul D. Shinkman
Nov. 17, 2021

Armored vehicles from Taiwan military forces parades in front of Taiwan presidential palace on the occasion of the nation's 110 birthday, Oct. 10, 2021, in Taipei, Taiwan.© (Alberto Buzzola/LightRocket/Getty Images)

The Chinese military has now or will soon have the ability to invade Taiwan, a U.S. government agency has concluded, documenting also failed attempts by China and the U.S. to better understand one another's intentions.

The People's Liberation Army, China's name for its military, is capable of landing at least 25,000 troops on the island nation to establish an initial beachhead, according to the newly released annual report from the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a congressionally appointed agency designed to provide specific and nonpartisan national security and economic advice to Congress and the president.

"They're giving all the signs this is an option they're considering to be viable," former Republican Sen. Jim Talent of Missouri, now a member of the commission, told reporters Wednesday morning following the release of this year's report.

Further complicating existing U.S. efforts to deter China from seizing control of Taiwan by force are new tactics the PLA has employed that offset some of the U.S. military's potency in the region. The report documents that the Chinese military has trained with barges, ferries and other civilian vessels to transport military troops across the Taiwan Straits or elsewhere – in addition to more conventional military transports.

"Given these deployments, it has become less certain that U.S. conventional military forces alone will continue to deter China's leaders from initiating an attack on Taiwan," the report concludes.

The new assessment comes at a particularly fraught time for Taiwan, a democracy formally recognized only by a shrinking number of minor nations. China, which has used economic and diplomatic pressure to isolate Taipei internationally, considers its government illegitimate and the island nothing more than a rogue territory of the mainland.

Concerns about military action have spiked in recent months following U.S. and Taiwanese assessments that a Chinese bid to retake control of the island by force could take place within years. China has also expressed outrage at growing U.S. willingness to acknowledge the presence of American military trainers in Taiwan.

Though the current U.S. administration policies focus on overtures to Beijing, President Joe Biden fueled Chinese paranoia of U.S. support for formal Taiwanese independence during remarks he made during a high-profile video summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday. Biden later clarified, "We are not encouraging independence" – in keeping with decades-old U.S.-China policy – but not before Chinese state media blasted the original comments as "a dangerous sign."

Indeed, Xi himself warned Biden about Taiwan during their summit, which was otherwise largely seen as a productive step toward a more functional relationship following the bellicose approach of the Trump administration. Any intention of using Taiwan to contain China is "just like playing with fire," Xi said of one of the Chinese Communist Party's most sensitive issues. He added, "whoever plays with fire will get burnt."

A growing chasm in understanding between Washington and Beijing also contributes to rising concern about Taiwan. This shortcoming is particularly troublesome among the Chinese military leaders that would carry out an assault on the island nation or oversee other activities that the U.S. and its partners could misconstrue as such – such as China's recent aerial incursions near Taiwan's airspace.

"Having worked with the Chinese military for many years, it's not a high priority for the Chinese military to engage in de-escalation measures," Roy Kamphausen with the National Bureau of Asian Research, and another member of the commission, also told reporters Monday when asked about the two countries' ability to slow an accidental march to war. "They regard that as a political set of activities and the military avoids those actions unless they are within very tightly bounded parameters."

"In the event of miscalculation," he adds, "there's much less autonomy at the tactical level for the Chinese military leaders to respond in de-escalatory ways."

That shortfall produces a higher likelihood of escalation in the short term, Kamphausen adds, pointing out that China's political leaders would need to intervene.

Yet despite recent bellicose rhetoric toward Taiwan, China's commitment to a forceful reunification of the island remains unclear. Its political leadership ultimately would make a decision to invade, not its military, and it faces substantial constraints on its ability to wield that force, the commission's report concludes.

"These include the inherent uncertainty of a military confrontation with the United States, the extensive damage that would likely result to the Chinese economy, and the risk that an attack on Taiwan could prompt the formation of a coalition of countries determined to constrain any further growth in China's power and influence," it states.

The U.S.-China commission recommended in its latest report that the U.S. enhance its deterrent capabilities in the region, including making it easier for Taiwan to buy military equipment that could contribute to its self defense and to move more U.S. military resources into the region to ensure their survivability in the case of conflict with China.

Copyright 2021 U.S. News & World Report

Neil DeGrasse Tyson Book ‘Starry Messenger’ Coming in 2022

Neil deGrasse Tyson is reaching very high with his next book.

By Associated Press
Nov. 18, 2021


NEW YORK (AP) — Neil deGrasse Tyson has a new publisher and high ambitions for his next book.

Henry Holt and Company announced Thursday that the celebrated commentator and best-selling author will release “Starry Messenger: Cosmic Perspectives on Civilization" next fall. The astrophysicist says that “Starry Messenger,” a call for science, exploration and rational thought as paths to a better life on Earth, may be his “most important.”

“As a scientist I could not sit idly by and watch the irrationalities of the world dismantle civilization, knowing that a dose of sensibility — a cosmic perspective in our collective thinking can save us from ourselves," he said in a statement.

Previous books by Tyson, host of the National Geographic series “StarTalk” and director of New York’s Hayden Planetarium, include “Welcome to the Universe” and “Astrophysics for People in a Hurry.” The upcoming book marks the first time that Tyson, who has released books with W.W. Norton and Company and Princeton University Press among others, has worked with Holt. Next fall, Norton will release an updated paperback edition of the 2004 publication “Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution,” which Tyson co-wrote with Donald Goldsmith.

How Fast Fashion Dumps Into the Global South

The U.S. far outpaces other countries in sending used clothing to Africa and Asia – with adverse environmental consequences.

By Zoya Wazir
Nov. 11, 2021


A man scavenges clothes from debris burnt down by the fire in the early morning at Gikomba market, East Africa's largest second hand clothing market, in Nairobi, Kenya, on Nov. 8, 2021.

(YASUYOSHI CHIBA/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES)


The fast fashion industry has boomed tremendously in recent years – with Western countries leading the world in consumption and secondhand clothing exports, which are clogging developing countries and landfills with used clothing.

Fast fashion aims to provide consumers with cheap, fashionable garments that are produced quickly and up-to-date on high-fashion trends, often at the expense of laborers and the environment. While social media has certainly accelerated the trend cycle and given consumers increased access to low-priced, fleeting clothing, American overconsumption is not a new fad. It's been around for decades, and it's been inching the world closer to irreversible climate damage as Americans donate their clothing and buy more at increasing rates.

A major point of contention at the United Nations Climate Conference – which comes to an end this weekend in Glasgow, Scotland – is the divide between wealthy and developing countries. And just as there is an increasing divide between countries that became rich from fossil fuels powering their economies and poor countries being told those fuels are now too dangerous for the planet, the fast fashion industry is exposing a chasm between wealthy countries exporting used clothing and developing countries becoming textile dumping grounds.

Currently, the U.S. leads the world in secondhand clothing exports. In 2018, the U.S. exported nearly 719 million kilograms (1.58 billion pounds) in secondhand clothing, over 200 million kg higher than its runner up, Germany. These exports end up in secondhand markets around the world, particularly in the Global South, and often at a rate and volume higher than its recipients can handle.

This problem is especially pronounced across Africa, which counts six of the top 20 countries for secondhand clothing imports – Kenya, Angola, Tunisia, Ghana, Tanzania and Uganda – and South Asia, where Pakistan and India receive the highest and second-highest volume of secondhand clothes worldwide.

Specifically in Africa, secondhand clothing from Western countries clogs local markets and landfills. The textiles travel from retail secondhand stores to private third parties and containers and are eventually sold to overseas entities, which upcycle – or revamp – the clothes before reselling them according to Sarah Bibbey, the co-founder and acting director of Make Fashion Clean, a non-profit organization working to make denim consumption more sustainable globally.

In Ghana, these clothes – which are called Obroni Wawu in the Akan language, or "Dead White Man's Clothes" — are purchased in bales by market traders who do not know what is in them for $25 to $500 each before being repaired and revamped as necessary and eventually making their way to Ghanian secondhand markets. However, the increasingly poor quality of fast fashion clothing makes it difficult for upcyclers (people who revamp and recycle used clothing) to give these clothes a new life, forcing them to be discarded at landfills which, in turn, has detrimental impacts on the local environment.

"Our landfills (in the U.S.) are equipped in such a way that they can process chemicals and they can kind of be contained whereas in other countries, including Ghana, it's not the same level of infrastructure around the landfill," Bibbey noted.

In terms of deciding where the clothes go after Americans discard them, power dynamics and colonial histories play a role in where secondhand clothes are diverted to.

"Any country that is [...] a formerly colonized country, or country that's not a global superpower, is going to be more vulnerable to clothing dumping in general," Bibbey said. "So any country that we know of is going to be more vulnerable to that just because the political power that they have in the global arena is not the same as the political power the U.S. has in the global arena – so that's the most important thing, I think."

Secondhand clothes are displayed to sell at Gisozi Market in Kigali, Rwanda, in 2018. (JACQUES NKINZINGABO/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES)

While resistance to Western clothing dumping has taken root in East Africa, the U.S. has leveraged its global influence and financial aid to ensure that it can still export secondhand clothes to African markets.

In 2017, the East African countries of Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, South Sudan and Burundi tried to phase out imports of secondhand clothing and shoes because of the way they undermined domestic efforts to develop their own textile industries. The countries sought to ban these imports entirely by 2019.

However, in March of 2017, the Office of the United States Trade Representative threatened to remove four of these six East African countries from the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act, a preferential trade deal intended to lift trade and economic growth across sub-Saharan Africa. Burundi and South Sudan had already been expelled from the trade deal under accusations of state violence.

A combination of factors make the U.S. a hotbed for fast fashion consumption above consumers in other wealthy countries. While Americans of all income levels contribute to the fast fashion crisis, Charlotte Tate – the Labor Justice Campaigns director for Green America, a U.S.-based nonprofit organization that promotes ethical consumption – points to America's model of capitalism and wage stagnation as some of the factors driving American overconsumption.

"I think one thing that's unique to American capitalism is how much we prioritize working to make more money and then you have more money to spend," she said. "And another factor to consider is fast fashion is much cheaper than higher quality goods. When you look at wages over the past few decades, they've really stagnated. And as Americans have become more productive, the wealth of productivity hasn't been distributed evenly. In that case, you know, it would be really challenging if you're not making enough money to make ends meet to then also buy higher quality clothes."

But consumers that don't have the means to buy higher quality goods are not the only group lining up at fast fashion stores. Americans of all income levels consume fast fashion, and higher priced clothes don't necessarily equate to more sustainably, ethically produced clothes.

Bibbey also highlights the culture around clothing donations as part of what fuels overconsumption and clothing dumping in the U.S., as consumers buy too much with the idea of being able to donate their clothes later.

"People might hear that their clothes ended up somewhere and they might think that that's always 100% a good thing, just because there's that mindset of American saviorism that we have here," Bibbey said. "We get the idea that that's a good thing, even when we see in reality it's putting local artisans and local clothing makers out of business because they're competing in a sense with this influx of secondhand clothes."

But Tate says that American consumers are not the principal blame for the fast fashion dumping crisis.

"I think that corporations know that they're producing cheap clothing that won't last long and that often can't be reused – and they've known it for a while," she said. "So I would say a bulk of the responsibility falls on corporations and our practices, and then also to some extent it would fall on our government that has the power to regulate, that maybe hasn't."

Because of the unique intensity at which Americans consume and dump clothes – with news reports citing a fivefold increase in the amount of clothing Americans have purchased over the past three decades and an average of only seven uses per item – the U.S. requires unique solutions to the global fast fashion crisis.

With the U.N. Climate Conference coming to a close, coming up with solutions to these pressing environmental problems is a top priority, advocates say. And, just as the blame for this crisis cannot fall solely on consumers, environmental activists say solutions need to be sought beyond the consumer level, too.

On a smaller scale, Bibbey points to upcycling both in the U.S. and in developing countries as a way to mitigate the impacts of fast fashion on the environment, highlighting Make Fashion Clean's partnership with the Ghana-based MFI Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to upcycling clothes in partnership with local artisans in Ghana, as an example of this. But they say the more global, overarching solutions still need to be "studied" and "examined."

"Consumers have a lot of power, so while they're not directly responsible for some of the problems facing society today, they do have a lot of power to change market demands and to change their shopping habits," Tate said. "We have found that when consumers speak and reach directly to corporations, they do change their practices. Collective action is very powerful. So, if we all act and change our practices, we do have the power to reform."

TO SEE INFOGRAPHICS  How ‘Dead White Man's Clothing’ is Clogging the Global South | Best Countries | US News