CAPITAL STRIKE THREATENED
Uber and Lyft say they will have to SHUT DOWN for several months in California if a court upholds ruling requiring them to classify their drivers as full-time employees

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi warned on Wednesday that his company may have to shut down service if a California court's ruling is upheld 

Lyft President John Zimmer issued the same warning soon after 

A San Francisco Superior Court judge on Monday ordered Uber and Lyft to reclassify their drivers as employees instead of independent contractors 

Both companies are now in the process of filing appeals to overturn the ruling

'If the court doesn't reconsider, then in California, it's hard to believe we'll be able to switch our model to full-time employment quickly,' Khosrowshahi said

He said switching will result in 'much smaller service [and] much higher prices'

By MEGAN SHEETS FOR DAILYMAIL.COM and WIRES

PUBLISHED: 16:49 EDT, 12 August 2020 | UPDATED: 17:09 EDT, 12 August 2020

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi says the ride-sharing company could be forced to shut down service in California for several months if a state court does not overturn a ruling requiring it to classify its drivers as full-time employees.

'If the court doesn't reconsider, then in California, it's hard to believe we'll be able to switch our model to full-time employment quickly,' Khosrowshahi told MSNBC on Wednesday.

'We will have to shut down until November.'

Uber's rival Lyft issued the same warning about a probable shutdown soon after.

'We may appeal this ruling and request a further stay. If efforts here are not successful, we would be forced to suspend our operations in California,' Lyft co-founder and president John Zimmer said.

Both companies are now in the process of filing appeals to overturn a Monday ruling from San Francisco Superior Court Judge Ethan Schulman, who determined there is an 'overwhelmingly likelihood' that the firms violated a state law by classifying their drivers as contractors instead of as employees.

Schulman gave Uber and Lyft 10 days to reclassify the drivers, which would require the companies to provide benefits and unemployment insurance to all of them.

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi is pictured in an MSNBC interview on Wednesday, where he warned that the ride-sharing company could be forced to shut down service in California for several months if a state court does not overturn a ruling requiring it to classify its drivers as full-time employees


Khosrowshahi warned that restructuring its operations in California would result in 'much smaller service [and] much higher prices', hurting both drivers and customers.

'That's a reality, so it's not a game of chicken one way or another,' he said. 'It's really up to the courts and we're going to comply with the law, and we will look to get going again.'

He said that service would have to pause for a few months, and when it resumed it would be much more limited and concentrated in cities rather than suburbs.

Khosrowshahi penned an op-ed in the New York Times over the weekend calling for states to require all gig economy companies to establish benefit funds for their workers instead of forcing them to classify workers as employees.

Schulman's ruling came down the following day, marking a crushing defeat for Uber and Lyft as they fight a May 5 lawsuit from state Attorney General Xavier Becerra and the cities of Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco - where they are both based.

The suit accused Uber and Lyft of violating Assembly Bill 5 (AB5), which requires companies to classify workers as employees if they controlled how workers did their jobs, or the work was part of their normal business.

Uber and Lyft say their drivers prefer the flexibility of working as freelancers, while labor unions and elected officials argue that the designation deprives drivers of benefits like health insurance, sick leave and overtime.

A judge on Monday ordered Uber and Lyft to classify their drivers as employees instead of contractors after California sued the ride-sharing giants for violating state law (file photo)

In a 34-page decision faulting the money-losing companies' 'prolonged and brazen refusal' to comply with state law, Schulman said the plaintiffs showed an 'overwhelming likelihood' they could prove Uber and Lyft classified drivers illegally.

Labor advocates praised the ruling as a milestone in their fight to apply traditional worker protections to a fast-growing segment of the labor force.

'This is a resounding victory for thousands of Uber and Lyft drivers who are working hard - and, in this pandemic, incurring risk every day - to provide for their families,' Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer said in a statement.

But the companies - whose largest market is in California - criticized the decision, saying it threatens to shut them down during a pandemic-induced economic downturn where many people who have lost their jobs turn to the ride-hailing companies to make money.

'Our elected leaders should be focused on creating work, not trying to shut down an entire industry during an economic depression,' Uber spokesperson Davis White said.

Both Uber and Lyft have pledged to spend more than a hundred million dollars to support a November ballot measure, Proposition 22, that would exempt them from AB5.

'Drivers do not want to be employees,' Lyft said in a statement. 'Ultimately, we believe this issue will be decided by California voters and that they will side with drivers.'
Judge blocks Uber and Lyft from classifying drivers as contractors



Both Uber and Lyft have pledged to spend more than a hundred million dollars to support a November ballot measure, Proposition 22, that would exempt them from AB5. Pictured: Drivers protest the proposition on August 6 in Los Angeles

Several hundred thousand 'gig' workers, including many at ride-hailing companies and app-based food delivery services, are affected by AB5, which took effect on January 1 and had broad support from organized labor.

Lawyers for Uber and Lyft said they are not violating the law because drivers are not fundamental to the business, arguing the companies are 'multi-sided platforms' whose activities encompass much more than transportation.

But Schulman rejected that argument, writing that it 'flies in the face of economic reality and common sense'.

'To state the obvious, drivers are central, not tangential, to Uber and Lyft's entire ride-hailing business,' Schulman wrote.

He also said the public could face substantial harm if drivers were denied employee benefits such as minimum wage, paid sick and family leave, unemployment insurance and workers' compensation insurance.

'These harms are not mere abstractions; they represent real harms to real working people,' Schulman wrote.

The judge said Uber and Lyft had themselves to blame if their resisting state laws contributed to any 'far-reaching' effects an injunction might have.

'Defendants may not evade legislative mandates merely because their businesses are so large that they affect the lives of many thousands of people,' he wrote.

State officials have argued Uber and Lyft's behavior hurts more than just drivers, noting the companies don't pay into the state's unemployment insurance fund that covers benefits for people when they lose their jobs.

The state's fund was quickly depleted following huge job losses because of the pandemic, resulting in the state borrowing billions of dollars from the federal government.

'Our state and workers shouldn't have to foot the bill when big businesses try to skip out on their responsibilities,' Becerra, California's Democratic attorney general, said.

'We're going to keep working to make sure Uber and Lyft play by the rules.'

But ride-hailing companies have been hurt by the pandemic, too. Uber announced last week it lost $1.78billion in the past three months as millions of people stayed home during the pandemic.

Shares in both companies tumbled in early trading on Tuesday following the ruling.

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra (right) and Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer (left) are leading the state's lawsuit against Uber and Lyft. After their injunction was granted on Monday, Feuer said: 'This is a resounding victory for thousands of Uber and Lyft drivers who are working hard - and, in this pandemic, incurring risk every day - to provide for their families'

Hours before the ruling was handed down, Uber outlined proposals for a new type of relationship with gig workers, including its own drivers, that would allow them to keep their independence as freelancers while also receiving benefits.

The ride-hailing giant described 'a new model for independent platform work' in an 18-page document it hopes can be used as blueprint for Uber and similar firms relying on independent workers.

The company seeks 'to deliver certainty for millions of independent contractors who will increasingly rely on independent work to help them face the economic challenges that lie ahead,' Uber said in its document.

'The current health and economic crisis has brought into sharp focus the need for everyone, regardless of their employment status, to be able to find good quality, rewarding work; be able to work in the way they choose; and have access to adequate social protections and benefits.'

Uber proposed that gig economy companies be required to establish 'benefits funds', allowing gig workers to accrue and use the money for benefits or paid leave.

In his Times op-ed, Uber CEO Khosrowshahi said that the current employment system 'is outdated and unfair' and 'forces every worker to choose between being an employee with more benefits but less flexibility, or an independent contractor with more flexibility but almost no safety net'.

'Uber is ready, right now, to pay more to give drivers new benefits and protections,' Khosrowshahi wrote.

'But America needs to change the status quo to protect all workers, not just one type of work.'

Khosrowshahi (pictured) penned an op-ed in the New York Times on Monday calling for all gig economy companies to establish benefit funds for their workers

Khosrowshahi echoed the arguments Uber made in response to the California lawsuit, saying that the requirement to classify drivers as employees would leave fewer jobs and dramatically increase costs.

'Uber would not be as widely available to riders, and drivers would lose the flexibility they have today if they became employees,' Khosrowshahi wrote.

'The vast majority of drivers have said they don't want to be employees because of how much they value flexibility.'

He called the argument over flexibility and benefits a 'false choice', adding: 'As a start, all gig economy companies need to pay for benefits, should be more honest about the reality of the work and must strengthen the rights and voice of workers.'

Khosrowshahi said that if all 50 states required gig economy companies to establish benefits funds, Uber would have paid $655million into theirs last year.

'During this moment of crisis, I fundamentally believe platforms like Uber can fuel an economic recovery by quickly giving people flexible work to get back on their feet,' he wrote.

'But this opportunity will be lost if we ignore the obvious lessons of the pandemic and fail to ensure independent workers have a stronger safety net.

'This is the time for Uber to come together with government to raise the standard of work for all.'

Majority of Scots support independence from UK - YouGov pol

LONDON (Reuters) - A majority of Scots support independence from the United Kingdom, a YouGov poll found on Wednesday, with support for nationalists bolstered by a much more positive view of how they have responded to COVID-19 compared with London.

FILE PHOTO: Demonstrators carry Scottish flags at a march in support of Scottish independence, in Glasgow, Scotland, Britain June 3, 2017. REUTERS/Russell Cheyne

The poll for the Times newspaper found that 53% of people would vote for Scottish independence in a referendum, up 2 percentage points from January and the highest level of support for independence recorded by YouGov.

It is the latest poll to suggest rising support for Scottish independence and could strengthen calls for another vote on the matter, after Scots rejected it in a 2014 referendum by 55%-45%.

The Scottish National Party, who run the devolved administration in the nation, insist they have the right to call another vote. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said the 2014 referendum was decisive and should be respected.

The poll also suggested the SNP were on course for an unprecedented majority in the Scottish Parliament in elections next year, setting up a possible constitutional clash with Westminster.

Much of the increase in support appeared to be linked to diverging views of the leadership in Scotland and the United Kingdom as a whole. Some 72% of respondents agreed Scottish First Minister and SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon was doing very or fairly well, while only 20% said that for Johnson.

The YouGov Poll found 52% of voters believed Scotland was going in the right direction, up 20 percentage points from when the question was last asked a year ago.

Sturgeon’s Scottish Government has responsibility for health policy, and she has been more cautious than Johnson in easing lockdown.

Scotland, which holds about 10% of the UK’s population, has had no deaths from COVID-19 since mid-July. The UK, which uses a broader methodology to count deaths that is being reviewed, as a whole has recorded 1,362 deaths in that time.

YouGov polled 1,142 adults between August 6-10.


Reporting by Alistair Smout; editing by Kate Holton

What are you gonna do? Give me detention? Illinois schools ban pyjamas in online classes

While remote-working adults adhere to 'business in the front, party in the back'

Tue 11 Aug 2020 //  

Richard Currie

As the mercury hits tropical levels in the UK, Vulture Central continues to deliver enterprise tech news in various states of undress.
But spare a thought for kids in the Illinois state capital of Springfield who have been told they cannot wear pyjamas or sit in bed while enrolled in online classes.
The school district's student and family handbook [PDF] has been updated for 2020-21 with various policies addressing the coronavirus issue, and under the "school culture" section are some guidelines for remote learning.
It's specified that students will be "sitting up out of bed preferably at a desk or table" – so there go the dreams of thousands of teens who had hoped to spend the entire day there – and that they "will be dressed according to the dress code."
This, unfortunately, rules out any comfortable clothing like "pajama pants" and "slippers", along with all the usual prohibited items.
Jason Wind, director of school support, was quoted by Fox 5 Atlanta as telling school board members: "The expectation is that the dress code is upheld. We don't need students in pajamas and all those other things while on their Zoom conferences."
The question is how it'll be enforced. The grown-up world of work seems to go by the maxim "business in the front, party in the back", which is to say as long as you don't look too awful on camera, whatever's off camera is fair game.
Or maybe that was mullets.

Parents slapped with dress code after turning school grounds into a fashion crime scene https://www.theregister.com/2019/04/25/texas_high_school_dress_code_for_parents/

READ MORE

Still, as you'll no doubt remember, kids are little shits. Many teachers can be totally ineffectual when physically standing in front of a class of them, and it only takes one remote-learning smartass flouting the dress code to say something like: "What are you going to do? Give me detention? I've been in quarantine for four months!"
Not all parents are on board either. One was quoted as saying: "I made the decision for my kids to be at home and I don't really see how any district can come in and say what my kid can't wear in my house. I don't think they have any right to say what happens in my house. I think they have enough to worry about as opposed to what the kids are wearing. They need to make sure they're getting educated."
Indeed. Even at uni no one cares this much about how the students are dressed. At the turn of the century, Ugg boots – that horrendous crime against fashion – lounge pants, and hoodies were all the rage among academics, who looked like their scheduled lecture had rudely interrupted their morning nap.
On the other hand, at least the US kids don't have to wear uniforms. British pupils look like they will be returning to school in September wearing scratchy shirts, suffocating ties, and irritating Teflon come what may.
I'll spare you what I'm wearing. This is a family tech news site. And it's nearly lunchtime. ®

Firefox maker Mozilla axes a quarter of its workforce, blames coronavirus, vows to 'develop new revenue streams'

250 'true Mozillians' laid off, Taiwan office completely shuttered

Tue 11 Aug 2020  

Katyanna Quach 

Firefox maker Mozilla has axed 250 employees, or a quarter of its workforce, claiming the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic is to blame after hitting it in the wallet. The organization will also "ship new products faster and develop new revenue streams."
“Economic conditions resulting from the global pandemic have significantly impacted our revenue,” Mozilla Corp CEO Mitchell Baker said in a public statement today. “As a result, our pre-COVID plan was no longer workable.”
Mozilla gets the vast, vast majority of its funding from Google, Yandex, and Baidu, who pay to be the default search engine in Firefox in their regions. In 2018, Moz had a $451m cash pile, 95 per cent of which, some $430m, was provided by these web giants. Those deals will expire [PDF, p25] in November 2020 unless renewed or renegotiated.
Seeking alternative funding sources, the open-source browser developer planned to roll out paid-for services to bring in more dosh. According to Baker, "our pre-COVID plan for 2020 included a great deal of change already: building a better internet by creating new kinds of value in Firefox; investing in innovation and creating new products; and adjusting our finances to ensure stability over the long term." These efforts have not done, or are unlikely to do, the trick, apparently.

Mozilla doubles down on anti-tracking tech: It'll be tougher for wily ad-biz cookie monsters to track Firefox   SEE BELOW

In her memo [PDF] to staff, Baker said Mozilla has shut down its operations in Taiwan, some 60 or so employees will be expected to change teams, and 25 per cent of the workforce will be cut.
"The people who are included in the reduction are both true Mozillians, and professionals with high degrees of skill and expertise and commitment," she said. "This action is not in any way – not, not, not – a reflection on personal or professional qualities. Indeed, to the contrary, the contributions of this set of people are valuable and important and are a part of Mozilla that we cherish."
Mozilla has offered to continue paying former staff their full salary until the end of the year as severance. Some people will also receive bonus payments based on their prior work performances.
“In order to refocus the Firefox organization on core browser growth through differentiated user experiences, we are reducing investment in some areas such as developer tools, internal tooling, and platform feature development, and transitioning adjacent security/privacy products to our New Products and Operations team,” the memo stated.
Those products include Moz's app Pocket that allows netizens to compile a list of saved articles to read later, its virtual social meeting rooms Hubs, and its $4.99-a-month VPN subscription service. Mozilla also said it’s creating new teams to focus on design and machine learning.
"We are organizing a new product organization outside of Firefox that will both ship new products faster and develop new revenue streams," Baker said in her memo.
Google Chrome continues to dominate the browser market – desktop and mobile – though there are suggestions that Firefox's extensive use of anti-tracking technology hurts its ranking among usage monitors. Net Marketshare pegged Chrome at 71 per cent and Firefox on seven per cent on the desktop, and Chrome on 63 per cent on mobile, and Firefox less than one per cent.
"Today we announced a significant restructuring of Mozilla Corporation. This will strengthen our ability to build and invest in products and services that will give people alternatives to conventional Big Tech," Baker insisted. ®

Mozilla doubles down on anti-tracking tech: It'll be tougher for wily ad-biz cookie monsters to track Firefox

Apple still leading in anti-cookie diet, Google – predictably – in the rearguard

Tue 4 Aug 2020 // 

Thomas Claburn in San Francisco 

A week after Firefox 79 debuted, Mozilla says that it plans to start rolling out version 2.0 of its Enhanced Tracking Protection (ETP) scheme to prevent redirect tracking on the web.
On the web there's a distinction between first-party cookies – files stored in your browser by a visited web application or site – and third-party cookies that report to other domains that have some affiliation with the visited site.
Last year, Firefox implemented ETP 1.0 to block online tracking schemes by default from using cookies set in a third-party context, while allowing first-party cookies. That's because blocking first-party cookies would break many websites.

"Redirect trackers work by forcing you to make an imperceptible and momentary stopover to their website as part of that journey," said Steven Englehardt, senior privacy engineer at Mozilla in a blog post on Tuesday. "So instead of navigating directly from the review website to the retailer, you end up navigating to the redirect tracker first rather than to the retailer."But ad tech companies have been slow to accept that internet users don't want to be tracked from website to website and have been relying on a technique called redirect tracking, also called bounce tracking, to bypass third-party cookie blocking.
A redirect tracker involves web page code that intercepts the click and takes the user to the tracking domain, so its cookie can be loaded in a first-party context before sending the internet user onward to the intended destination website.
The tracker's code can link the website the user is coming from and the website the user is going to, thereby developing a dataset about the user's movements across the web.

No more

ETP 2.0, which will be activated in Firefox browsers over the next few weeks, addresses redirect tracking by clearing cookies and site data set by known trackers every 24 hours.
This doesn't do much against unknown, covert trackers, but Mozilla chose not to clear all cookies because doing so would inconvenience people by logging them out of all websites. That would mean more authentication challenges and CAPTCHA puzzles would be presented because websites wouldn't recognize return visitors.
Mozilla is not the first to do this. Back in 2018, Apple's WebKit team shipped redirect tracking protection, which they refer to as bounce tracking, in Intelligent Tracking Protection 2.0.
Firefox's implementation differs in a few ways. ITP has its own rules-based domain classification scheme to identify trackers while Firefox relies on its tracking protection list. Also, Firefox won't clear data from a domain if there's been first-party interaction within 45 days, whereas WebKit has a 30-day interaction window, with a slightly different definition of what "interaction" means.
In March, Apple implemented full third-party cookie blocking in Safari and Google has said it aims to phase out third-party cookies in 2020, even as it works on a set of supposedly privacy-respecting alternatives. ®

Metal-Eating Bacteria Discovered By Accident Over A Century After First Predicted
CHIPS OF MANGANESE. KIM CHRISTENSEN

By Jack Dunhill 16 JUL 2020


Bacteria tend to have some pretty unusual tastes in their chosen food. From chowing down on leftover takeaway to sitting on the side of deep oceanic thermal vents, we’re constantly discovering different ways they choose to get their energy.

In a new paper published in Nature, researchers from Caltech have discovered bacteria that can metabolize manganese – one of the most abundant elements on the Earth’s surface – as their main source of energy. Made up of two species, the bacteria could use the metal and produce energy to sustain and grow in the most minimal of environments. Despite scientists predicting it for over a century, this is the first bacteria shown to use manganese in chemosynthesis.

Impressively, Professor Jared Leadbetter, professor of environmental microbiology at the California Insitute for Technology (Caltech), said he made this discovery by accident. After being out-of-office for several months and leaving a jar filled with manganese and tap water from a previous experiment, the professor returned to find the jar coated with a black substance. He believed it could be the result of the fabled bacteria that could metabolize manganese, and his team immediately began testing the contents of the jar.

They discovered two new bacterial species living in the tap water were using the left-over manganese as food, creating a black byproduct later identified as manganese oxide.

Some bacteria are known to oxidize manganese, producing manganese oxide, which is found all along the Earth’s subsurface, but they have never shown to use it in metabolism. Metabolism is essential for growth, and discovering that some species can use metals as food for growth is a long-awaited breakthrough.

"These are the first bacteria found to use manganese as their source of fuel," Professor Leadbetter said in a statement. "A wonderful aspect of microbes in nature is that they can metabolize seemingly unlikely materials, like metals, yielding energy useful to the cell."

Manganese oxide is a problem for water distribution systems, as it accumulates and blocks waterways. Understanding how the oxide deposits build up would help in preventing it, but their origins have eluded scientists until now.

Black residue manganese oxide can clog water systems. 

Ihor Matsiievskyi on Shutterstock

"There is a whole set of environmental engineering literature on drinking-water-distribution systems getting clogged by manganese oxides," said Leadbetter. "But how and for what reason such material is generated there has remained an enigma. Clearly, many scientists have considered that bacteria using manganese for energy might be responsible, but evidence supporting this idea was not available until now."

Despite its pipe-clogging drawbacks, researchers have found manganese oxide to play an important role in reducing pollutants in groundwater. Key bacterial species use it in a process called bioremediation to degrade and remove pollutants, and so the availability of the oxide might have direct links to how successful bioremediation is in water supplies.

Alongside understanding the ecosystem of subsurface water systems, this discovery might go much deeper. For centuries, large metallic nodules have been found along the seabed and have puzzled scientists. Mainly consisting of manganese but also containing concentrated rare metals, these balls have been of interest to biologists and mining companies alike. Through the discovery of manganese-metabolizing bacteria, it’s possible bacteria similar to those isolated in Leadbetter’s lab are responsible. If researchers can understand the nodules' origins, they may be able to help protect the local ecosystems from excessive mining. Postdoctoral scholar Hang Yu, who collaborated with Leadbetter on the study, said: "This underscores the need to better understand marine manganese nodules before they are decimated by mining."

UK pensions group seeks ban on new petrol, diesel and hybrid cars by 2025

FILE PHOTO: Heavy traffic as seen on the M3 motorway heading towards the English coast, near Southampton, Britain, August 7, 2020. REUTERS/Toby Melville/File Photo

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain’s Local Authority Pension Fund Forum, whose members manage more than 300 billion pounds in assets for public workers, has called on the government to ban sales of all new petrol, diesel and hybrid cars by 2025.

In a response to a government consultation over a planned deadline of 2035, LAPFF Chairman Doug McMurdo said on Wednesday it did not come soon enough, particularly as surface transport accounted for a quarter of the UK’s carbon emissions.

“We have seen just how quickly government and companies can respond during the coronavirus pandemic. We know that change does not need to take years. Ending road transport emissions is critical in the move to end climate change,” he said in a statement.

Last year was one of three warmest on record, researchers find

Nina Chestney
FILE PHOTO: A field of potatoes being irrigated during sunset as a heatwave hits France, in Marquion, June 25, 2020. REUTERS/Pascal Rossignol

LONDON (Reuters) - Last year was one of the three warmest on record, with glaciers melting, sea levels rising and a spate of wildfires, heatwaves and droughts, research published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS) showed.

The BAMS annual State of the Climate Report, by 528 climate scientists from 61 countries, said only 2015 and 2016 were hotter than 2019, based on records dating to the mid- to late 1800s.

Each decade since 1980 has been successively warmer than the preceding one, with the most recent (2010-2019) being around 0.2 degrees Celsius warmer globally than the previous (2000–09).

For the 32nd consecutive year, 2019 saw the loss of mass from mountain glaciers, while lake temperatures were above the long-term average and permafrost temperatures continued to rise.

In 2019, global mean sea level set a new record for the eighth year running, reaching 87.6 mm above the 1993 average when satellite measurements began, with an annual average increase of 6.1 mm from 2018, the report said.

Greenhouse gas emissions, which contribute to climate change and pollution, increased. Carbon dioxide emissions rose by 2.5 parts per million (ppm), nitrous oxide by 1 part per billion (ppb) and methane by 9.2 parts per billion, the report said.


“A number of extreme events, such as wildfires, heatwaves and droughts, have at least part of their root linked to the rise in global temperature,” said Robert Dunn from the UK’s Met Office, which contributed to the report.

“The rise in global temperature is linked to another climate indicator: the ongoing rise in emissions of greenhouse gases, notably carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and methane.”

Pressure is building for governments to do more to limit emissions to maximise the chances of capping a rise in average global temperatures at 1.5C, a goal enshrined in the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

'The final blow' - Beirut blast batters struggling hospitals

Ellen Francis

BEIRUT (Reuters) - The St. George Hospital where Soha Khalaf works as a nurse lies less than a mile from Beirut port. She had no time to recover from the enormous explosion that blasted over the city.

A man fixes damages at the Saint George Hospital University Medical Center, after a massive blast in Beirut's port area, Lebanon, August 11, 2020. Picture taken August 11, 2020. REUTERS/Hannah McKay

The ceiling crashed onto her head and tears streamed down her face, but she stuck to her task.

“People ran here yelling, ‘please we need the ER.’ But the ER was gone. And wherever I turned, I saw staff rushing down from other floors screaming,” recalled Khalaf, assistant head nurse at the emergency room of Lebanon’s oldest hospital.

Needles flew across the hall. Blood covered the floor. The lights went off.

Hundreds of people poured in from across the Lebanese capital after the Aug. 4 warehouse blast, which killed more than 170 people and demolished neighbourhoods.

“We just kept working, even as some of us bled, and we cried and cried.”

With her colleagues, Khalaf stitched, intubated and bandaged victims on the pavement outside the ER. They stopped random cars to send patients to other hospitals, and relied on light from mobile phones as it got dark.

Across Beirut, doctors and nurses recounted a night of horror that shook up veteran medical workers in a city no stranger to explosions.

The aftermath of the blast has also raised fears for a healthcare system in tatters, already fighting a coronavirus outbreak which has seen 87 deaths and more than 7,100 cases since February.

Beirut’s hospitals - which long attracted patients from around the region - have also been wrestling with the country’s financial meltdown since late last year.

There are shortages in everything from dialysis equipment to syringes, with the state owing hospitals millions of dollars in arrears.

Now with hospitals turned into trauma centres and coronavirus cases still rising, some healthcare workers are asking: how can the system cope?

“THE KNOCKOUT”

On the night of the blast, hospitals used two months’ worth of supplies, said Rona Halabi, spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The explosion, which injured more than 6,000 people, knocked out three hospitals in Beirut and damaged 12 other facilities. Days later, pressure piled on thanks to hundreds of injuries at protests against Lebanon’s leaders.

“These times are unparalleled to say the least,” Halabi said, warning that the need for mental health care was also rising after scores of people suffered trauma.

“I have seen many explosions and a war. But I’ve never seen what I saw on August 4,” said Khalaf, who has worked at St. George for 28 years.

The blast killed four nurses there. A few floors above, a doctor had delivered a baby as the building shook.

The next day, Khalaf and her friends returned to help clear rubble from the blast, which officials blamed on explosive material stored in unsafe conditions at the port.

When the shockwaves hit Naji Abi Rached’s hospital all 17 elevators crashed. Staff had to carry some patients down eight flights of stairs. They could not evacuate patients in the COVID-19 ward.

Abi Rached, medical director at the nonprofit Lebanese Hospital Geitaoui, said the virus could now spread faster. With nearly a quarter of a million people homeless, the risk has grown. Lebanon recorded on Tuesday 300 new infections and seven deaths.

“This blast dealt the final blow, the knockout,” he said.

Still, a week later, with the help of volunteers, the ER was running again. The dialysis center also opened, although with shattered windows.

For Beatrice Karam, a nephrologist who returned to Beirut after living abroad, the past week killed any hope for stability. Many of her friends felt the same, she said, warning of a looming exodus of doctors.

“It’s like there was a blast inside of me too. And I had no feelings anymore, and I just want to leave.”

Reporting by Ellen Francis; Editing by Angus MacSwan

From carats to peanuts: how a pandemic upended the global diamond industry

Helen Reid, Tanisha Heiberg, Rajendra Jadhav

JOHANNESBURG/MUMBAI - As the coronavirus pandemic upended the global diamond industry, shuttering mines from Lesotho to Canada and disrupting supply chains, Rajen Patel swapped diamond polishing for peanut farming.
FILE PHOTO: Diamonds are seen at the diamond exchange, on the first day of easing of lockdown measures during the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Antwerp, Belgium, May 4, 2020. REUTERS/Johanna Geron/File Photo

Patel, who worked for a decade in India’s Surat where about 80% of the world’s diamonds are polished, joined the exodus of gem workers leaving the city as cases of the virus shot up. After taking up farming in his home village, he has no plans to return in the coming months.

“I won’t earn as much I was earning in Surat, but I won’t starve and there is no fear of getting infected with coronavirus,” he said.

Demand for diamonds has plummeted during the pandemic, freezing sales and squeezing prices. With temporary mine closures at risk of becoming permanent, diamond miners are seeking ways to extract more value from their stones.

The lone bright spot has been steady demand for large, high-quality diamonds from affluent investors, according to financiers and sales data.

“There are a lot more enquiries from people seeking to buy these luxury stones as a hedge,” said Chris Del Gatto, CEO of the DelGatto Diamond Finance Fund, the largest non-bank lender to the diamond, jewellery and watch industries.

Prices for high quality one-carat diamonds are rising steadily and are currently around 12% higher than at the start of the year, in contrast to still-depressed prices for lower-quality stones of the same size, data from trading platform RapNet shows.

For an interactive graphic, click: tmsnrt.rs/2Pqtl74


(GRAPHIC: High-quality diamonds are rallying - here)


“If you are in that top end, the demand is still there because the people who go for these type of goods feel the pressure of the market downturn less,” said Gus Simbanegavi, CEO of Bluerock Diamonds.

But only a few miners are lucky enough to have deposits of large, high-quality diamonds, leaving some producers at risk.
GRIM YEAR

COVID-19 has forced miners to cancel or delay sales, with major diamond shows scrapped due to health and travel restrictions. The few sales that have taken place showed rough diamond prices down between 15% and 27%.

“What has happened in the second quarter, I have never seen in my life,” De Beers Chief Executive Bruce Cleaver told Reuters. “There was no really properly functioning rough market.”

Indian imports of rough diamonds plunged from $1.5 billion in February to just $1 million (766,049 pounds) in April, data from the Gem & Jewellery Export Promotion Council shows.


For an interactive graphic click here: tmsnrt.rs/2XxZuhs

(GRAPHIC: India's rough diamond imports come to a standstill - here)


Antwerp, another diamond hub, saw rough imports drop 20% year-on-year in the first half, according to data from Antwerp World Diamond Centre. The city's exports of polished diamonds fell 46%. tmsnrt.rs/2DEez9P
REAL OPPORTUNITY

In a bid to survive, some miners are trying to change the traditional pricing game by securing a cut of onward polished diamond sales, and miners may eventually have direct tie-ups with luxury jewellery brands, RCC Diamond Consultants managing director Richard Chetwode predicts. Australia’s Lucapa Diamond Co inked a deal with an unnamed “high-end diamantaire” to sell some of its high-value diamonds from the Mothae mine in Lesotho for $505 per carat plus a 50% share of the margin on the future polished diamond sale.

Lucara Diamond Corp,, which mines in Botswana, struck a deal in July with Antwerp manufacturer HB Group under which the miner’s diamonds larger than 10.8 carats are sold for a portion of the estimated polished price.

“There is real opportunity within the diamond business as a whole to modernise the sales system,” said Lucara CEO Eira Thomas. Lucara has also set up an online diamond sales platform.

In the meantime, miners are hoping production cuts will help prices recover. With Rio Tinto’s massive Argyle diamond mine in Australia among those coming offstream soon, global diamond production will likely be reined in until 2025, independent analyst Paul Zimnisky forecasts.


For an interactive graphic, click here: tmsnrt.rs/3icmNFm

(GRAPHIC: Global diamond production to remain suppressed - here)


Several diamond mines shuttered due to the pandemic have also yet to reopen, including Stornoway Diamonds’ Renard mine in Canada, Petra Diamonds’ Williamson mine in Tanzania, and Firestone Diamonds’ Liqhobong mine in Lesotho, which the company said would likely stay closed until April to preserve cash.

Meanwhile, Africa-focused Petra Diamonds is in restructuring talks with creditors, while in Canada’s Northwest Territories, Rio Tinto’s Diavik mine partner has sought creditor protection, saying it cannot afford the miner’s cash calls.

Even De Beers is feeling the pain, saying job cuts are likely, as it remains unclear whether supply will shrink enough to meet plunging demand in the global diamond jewellery market, which Bain estimated was worth $80 billion in 2019.

Industry hopes that the pandemic would boost sales of engagement rings as people reassessed life priorities and more made plans to get married have not borne out.

In retailer Tiffany & Co’s February-April quarter, engagement jewellery was the worst-performing category, with sales almost halving.

Overall, fine jewellery sales are expected to drop 19% this year, compared to a 3% rise last year, according to Euromonitor.

(GRAPHIC: Fine jewellery sales to drop 19% this year - here)

Additional reporting by Zandi Shabalala in London; Jeff Lewis in Toronto, Silvia Aloisi in Milan, Melissa Fares in New York, Polina Devitt in Moscow, Sophie Yu in Beijing; Editing by Amran Abocar and Kirsten Donovan

DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER

 THEME SUSAN BASSEY 

FOSSIL FOOLS
Exclusive: Shell eyes stake in Nayara's $9 billion Indian petchem project - source

Nidhi Verma, Vladimir Soldatkin

NEW DELHI/MOSCOW (Reuters) - Oil major Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L) plans to buy a 50% stake in Indian-based Nayara Energy’s up to $9 billion (6.9 billion pounds) planned petrochemical project, a source familiar with the matter said.
FILE PHOTO: The logo of Royal Dutch Shell is seen at a petrol station in Sint-Pieters-Leeuw, Belgium January 30, 2019. REUTERS/Yves Herman/File Photo

Global oil majors are looking at expanding foothold in the vast Indian market, where local refiners are investing billions of dollars to boost their petrochemical capacities.

They are looking to meet an expected surge in demand for goods ranging from plastics to paints as the country seeks to promote durable, cheaper materials in industries such as farming and food packaging.

Shell and Nayara - which is part-owned by Russian oil major Rosneft (ROSN.MM) - signed a memorandum of understanding in early June, the source said, adding an equal joint venture will be created for building the project.

“The petrochemical joint venture between Nayara and Shell was discussed at board of directors meetings of Nayara in November and December last year,” another source said.


The 1.8 million tonnes a year full steam ethylene cracker and linked downstream units to be build at Vadinar in western Gujarat state would cost $8 billion-$9 billion and would be completed in five years, the first source said.

The project will also have an aromatic complex and capacity to produce 10.75 million tonnes of a variety of petrochemicals, according to Nayara’s proposal to the environment ministry.

Shell declined to comment on the project while Nayara did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Along with the petrochemical complex, Nayara also aims to expand its current 400,000 barrels per day Vadinar refinery to 920,000 bpd. The refinery expansion and petrochemical project are estimated to cost nearly 1.3 trillion Indian rupees (13 billion pounds).

India’s environment ministry would hold a meeting on the expansion project on Aug 29-30, the first source said.

In India, Shell operates a liquefied natural gas import terminal, a port, fuel stations and a plant to turn waste into petrol or diesel. Last year it signed an equity investment deal with an Indian company specialising in biomass aggregation and processing for energy production.