Shell plans to cut up to 9,000 jobs as oil demand slumps

by The Associated Press POSTED SEP 30, 2020 

In this Monday, April 7, 2014 file photo, a flag bearing the company logo of Royal Dutch Shell, flies outside the head office in The Hague, Netherlands. Global oil giant Royal Dutch Shell is urging Canada's largest oil and gas organization to get off the fence and support both the Paris climate accord and the pricing of carbon to encourage greenhouse gas emission reduction. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP/Peter Dejong, File

LONDON — Royal Dutch Shell said Wednesday it’s planning to cut between 7,000 and 9,000 jobs worldwide by the end of 2022 following a collapse in demand for oil and a subsequent slide in oil prices during the coronavirus pandemic.

The oil company said around 1,500 employees have already agreed to take voluntary redundancy this year and that it’s looking at a raft of other areas where it can cut costs, such as travel, its use of contractors and virtual working. Overall, it said it expects the cost-cutting measures to secure annual cost savings of between $2 billion and $2.5 billion by 2022.

“We have to be a simpler, more streamlined, more competitive organization that is more nimble and able to respond to customers,” Ben van Beurden, the company’s chief executive, said. “To be more nimble, we have to remove a certain amount of organizational complexity.”

In June, rival BP said it was cutting around 10,000 jobs from its workforce to cope with the impact of the virus.

Shell also said that it expects third-quarter production to be between 2.15 million and 2.25 million barrels of oil equivalent a day, and that daily production levels have been impacted by between 60,000 and 70,000 barrels because of hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Associated Press

Natural gas producers frustrated by Ottawa's delay to TC Energy's biggest pipeline expansion

KENNEY'S BOONDOGGLE
Geoffrey Morgan
 

© Provided by Financial Post TC Energy’s plan to put the last piece of the Nova Gas Transmission Ltd. expansion into service at a cost of $2.4 billion has been delayed for a full year.

CALGARY — A delayed natural gas pipeline project in Alberta will impact close to $4 billion in planned capital spending this year, delay drilling plans and potentially lead to commodity price volatility next year, according to gas producers.

“We were all very disappointed that while we’re still drilling wells and keeping the lights on, the Canadian government couldn’t get an approval done. That’s pretty frustrating and it put this project back,” said Darren Gee, president and CEO of Peyto Exploration and Development Corp., of what is now expected to be a yearlong delay to a $2.4-billion gas pipeline expansion by TC Energy Corp.

Calgary-based pipeline giant TC Energy has spent $9 billion expanding its largest asset and Canada’s largest natural gas pipeline network, called Nova Gas Transmission Ltd. or NGTL, in recent years. The goal of the massive, multi-year expansion was to alleviate pinch points in critical parts of the system and allow more gas from northwestern Alberta to flow to trading and storage hubs in southern Alberta.

The Canada Energy Regulator recommended the federal government approve the project on Feb. 19, triggering a 90-day timeline for Ottawa to make a decision. But on May 19, the government opted to take another 150 days to review the project and consult with affected Indigenous communities.

Now, even as a decision is expected on Oct. 19, TC Energy’s plan to put the last piece of that expansion into service at a cost of $2.4 billion has been delayed for a full year and Canadian natural gas producers are concerned the bottlenecks on the NGTL system will lead to unpredictable swings in Canadian gas prices.

“This was the last of the $9 billion of capital they were going to invest in the Nova system,” said Gee, adding companies in the industry are now unsure how much to drill this winter because they don’t want to overwhelm the system’s bottlenecks next summer.

“What are producers to do? I guess we shouldn’t go drill,” he said.

The NGTL additions were planned to arrive just in time for Canadian natural gas producers, which have been struggling with low prices for years. Following the pandemic, however, competing natural gas production in the U.S. is projected to decline sharply and is setting up a better commodity price outlook for gas. The producers are concerned the opportunity is now in jeopardy.

Multiple natural gas executives have compared the NGTL system to a puzzle with missing pieces, and those missing pieces make it difficult for traders and producers to determine how much gas to drill, buy and sell next summer.

“There’s a reason they needed the entire system to expand and they really needed to complete that in order to prevent disarray in the market,” said Tristan Goodman, president of the Explorers and Producers Association of Canada, which is an industry group representing small- and mid-sized oil and gas companies.

“We’re missing pieces, basically,” he said of the delay to the last piece of TC Energy’s NGTL expansion.

TC Energy had planned to begin construction on a 1.45 billion cubic feet expansion to the NGTL system between Grande Prairie and Rocky Mountain House, Alta., this summer in order to have the expansion up and running in April 2021, but the federal government delayed final approvals for the project on May 19.

In an email to the Financial Post, the pipeline giant said it has now lost the summer construction season and the new in-service date for the expansion is April 2022, which has frustrated Canadian natural gas producers concerned the bottlenecks on the system will lead to the kind of gas price volatility experienced in the summer of 2017, 2018 and much of 2019, when the AECO benchmark would frequently trade in negative territory.

© Jim Wells/Postmedia files TC Energy CEO Russ Girling at a Keystone XL pipeline announcement.

The industry is still waiting on federal government approval for the project, which is now expected on Oct. 19.

EPAC’s Goodman said the industry is frustrated by the delay but understands that Ottawa needs to ensure it properly consults with affected Indigenous communities along the route. “Yes, we are disappointed but in the same sense we can appreciate why the Crown and the federal government did delay that,” he said.

Ottawa delayed a decision on the project because of the coronavirus pandemic at the request of Indigenous communities along the route, according to Ian Cameron, spokesperson for Natural Resources Minister Seamus O’Regan.

“It is a core responsibility of the federal government to help get our natural resources to new markets and create good jobs. This is only possible when we meet our constitutional duty to meaningfully consult with potentially impacted Indigenous communities,” Cameron said in an email.

Executives at Calgary-based natural gas companies said the delay is particularly frustrating as Alberta struggles with a deep recession and thousands of job losses as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and related plunge in oil prices.

The 2021 NGTL Expansion project would have put 5,500 people to work, TC Energy said in an emailed statement.  

© The Montreal Gazette files The 2021 NGTL Expansion project would have put 5,500 people to work, TC Energy said.

“We remain committed to the project and continue to engage with the government to advocate the criticality of a timely approval to enable us to construct to provide the essential capacity require to serve incremental transportation contracts and meet the growing demand for natural gas,” TC Energy said in an email to the Financial Post.

Altogether, the expected hit to capital spending in Alberta this year will be closer to $3.9 billion because the $2.4 billion in spending on the pipeline expansion will be delayed, and that will in turn delay $1.3 billion to $1.5 billion in upstream capital spending, said Cameron Gingrich, managing partner and strategy at Calgary-based consultancy Incorrys Inc.

“Between the $2.4-billion project and additional $1.5 billion in upstream spending, you’re basically deferring that in the economy by a year or so, which in a COVID world is a really tough thing to take,” Gingrich said. “Certainly there’s a multiplier to the $2.4 billion and the $1.5 billion, which includes hotels and restaurants and fuel stations along the way.”

The delay has also led to a renewed fight between TC Energy and gas producers over how the NGTL system should operate in order to minimize the effect of the pinch points along the system, which producers say have in the past prevented them from accessing storage facilities.

The provincial government stepped in to help negotiate the service protocol between a divided set of producers and TC Energy in 2019. Simply put, the temporary protocol allowed producers with interruptible service contracts on the NGTL system to send their gas to storage even when TC Energy needs to interrupt service on the pipelines for maintenance.

EPAC has asked the Canada Energy Regulatory to extend that temporary protocol, which had been scheduled to expire this year, through 2021. TC Energy has opposed this extension and now the Alberta government is getting involved again.

“With regards to the temporary storage protocol, our government will always be supportive of any initiative that sees the natural gas sector working together for the collective success of the industry,” Alberta’s Associate Minister of Natural Gas Dale Nally said in an email.

In a province reeling from the oil price crash, grounded flights and zero international tourism, growth in the natural gas business would have provided a small buoy in a deep recession.

“Natural gas has been the one bright light for the global energy market since the pandemic hit, and throughout the oil price crash,” Nally said.

Financial Post

TC Energy's Girling Retires as Keystone Pipeline Battle Goes On

Bloomberg News
Robert Tuttle
Publishing date: Sep 21, 2020 • 


(Bloomberg) — Russ Girling, the man who spent a decade battling to build the controversial Keystone XL crude oil pipeline, is stepping down as TC Energy Corp.’s chief executive officer with the project still uncompleted.

Chief Operating Officer Francois Poirier will take the top job at TC Energy on Dec. 31, the Calgary-based company said Monday in a statement. Girling. 58, will stay on through Feb. 28 to assist with the transition before taking retirement.

Keystone XL became the central drama of Girling’s time at the helm of TC Energy, formerly known as TransCanada Corp. The proposed 830,000-barrel-a-day pipeline line connecting Alberta with Nebraska became symbolic of the battle between environmentalists concerned about climate change and the Canadian oil sands industry. The project was rejected by former U.S. President Barack Obama in 2015 and approved just over a year later by newly elected President Donald Trump, but since then it has been mired in court battles, even as construction started on the Canadian portion of the line.

The most recent setback for Keystone XL came in July when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to allow construction to begin in the U.S., leaving in place a federal court order that blocks use of a key federal permit. TC Energy said later that month it was looking for a way to gain permitting for the project.

The timing of Girling’s plan to retire may surprise the market, according to CIBC World Markets Inc. and Stifel Canada. CIBC analyst Robert Catellier said in a note he doesn’t see a material change in the company’s strategy. TC Energy’s shares dropped 2.4% to C$59.03 at 1:10 p.m. in Toronto amid a broad sell-off in commodities and stocks.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

KENNEY'S BOONDOGGLE

TC Energy lays off staff in Canadian gas operations and projects division

FORMERLY TRANS CANADA PIPELINES

BUILDERS OF THE KXL PIPELINE

@CTVRyanWhite Wednesday, September 30, 2020

TC Energy confirmed Tuesday that 'staffing changes' have been made in its Canada Gas Operations & Projects team (file)

CALGARY -- Restructuring at Calgary-based TC Energy Corporation has resulted in the loss of jobs.

The move comes after the company, formerly known as TransCanada Corporation, signed a memorandum of understanding with Natural Law Energy which represents four First Nations in Alberta and one in Saskatchewan.

The deal, which is expected to be finalized later this year, will see Natural Law Energy purchase an equity stake in the Keystone XL pipeline.

"Our Canada Gas Operations & Projects team is implementing a new structure to ensure the optimal skill sets to navigate the next tranche of our expansion and operations," said TC Energy in a statement released Tuesday afternoon. "TC Energy continually reviews our organizational structure and processes to ensure we continue to deliver safe and reliable services while meeting the needs of our customers. As ordinary course of operating our business, staffing changes are made as required to remain competitive and optimize our operations."

TC Energy has not disclosed how many positions were cut as a result of the staffing changes.

Alberta's opposition NDP says the layoffs are a direct result of missteps by the provincial government and are calling on the UCP to release how many TC Energy employees lost their jobs.

“Jason Kenney and the UCP gave TC Energy $7.5 billion dollars [sic] with no strings attached," said NDP MLAs Irfan Sabir and Deron Bilous in a statement released Tuesday afternoon. "The layoffs today are a devastating example of Jason Kenney’s failure to create jobs and spur economic growth. Jason Kenney and the UCP lost 50,000 jobs before the pandemic. Now even more people are wondering how they’re going to pay their bills, put food on their table, and support their families." 

 

The NDP are calling on Premier Jason Kenney to release the undisclosed details of the deal the Government of Alberta made with TC Energy earlier this year.

"Albertans deserve to know where their $7.5 billions [sic] went, what will happen if this project fails completely, and how many more jobs will be lost while rich shareholders and profitable corporations fill their pockets at the expense of Albertans,” said Irfan.

According to the NDP, the cuts at TC Energy included layoffs in management.

TC Energy implementing staffing changes, doesn't confirm how many employees being laid off


by Jeff Slack

POSTED SEP 30, 2020 

CALGARY (660 NEWS) — Calgary-based TC Energy, working on the Keystone XL pipeline, says staffing changes are being made to remain a competitor in the market.

In an email statement to 660 NEWS, the pipeline firm said its “Canada Gas Operations and Projects team is implementing a new structure to ensure the optimal skill sets to navigate the next tranche of our expansion and operations”

“TC Energy continually reviews our organizational structure and processes to ensure we continue to deliver safe and reliable services while meeting the needs of our customers.”

“As ordinary course of operating our business, staffing changes are made as required to remain competitive and optimize our operations,” the statement finishes.

TC Energy did not confirm how many people were being let go from the company.

Opposition Energy Critic Irfan Sabir accused the UCP government of giving billions of dollars to the company without limitations.

“This was supposed to be jobs and get products to market,” he said.

“Instead, the Keystone XL project is embroiled in legal and political uncertainty and political uncertainty and the company itself is laying off people right here in Calgary.”

“We don’t know how many people are laid off and that’s not okay. Jason Kenney needs to immediately instruct his Labour Minister, Jason copping to release the number of people laid off.”

TC Energy signed a memorandum of understanding with Canadian Indigenous communities on Tuesday, that will allow them to pursue an ownership interest in the Keystone XL pipeline project.

The final agreement between TC Energy and Natural Law is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2020, formalizing its participation in Keystone XL.

In March, the company approved construction of the US$8-billion project to transport up to 830,000 barrels per day of oil from Alberta to Nebraska after the Alberta government agreed to invest about US$1.1 billion as equity and guarantee a US$4.2-billion project loan.

– With files from the Canadian Press

TC Energy layoffs add to oil patch woes amid low demand


 
EMMA GRANEY ENERGY REPORTER
GLOBE & MAIL
PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 29, 202


Pipes intended for construction of the Keystone XL pipeline are shown in Gascoyne, N.D. in 2015. ALEX PANETTA/THE CANADIAN PRESS

Calgary-based TC Energy Corp. has laid off line workers and managers in its natural gas division as the industry continues to shed jobs in the face of low demand and declining revenues as a result of the pandemic.

TC Energy would not provide the number of employees affected, but said in an e-mail its Canadian gas operations and projects team is being restructured. The move is the latest in a series of job and capital expenditure cuts in the energy sector as companies try to protect their bottom lines.

The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers says more than 28,000 production jobs have been lost across the country in 2020. In the oil field service sector, the Canadian Association of Oilwell Drilling Contractors estimates its members have slashed their work forces by between 20 per cent and 50 per cent this year.

Some of the companies that have reduced their work forces this year include Ovintiv Inc. – formerly Canadian energy giant Encana – which laid off workers across its North American operations over the summer. Total Energy Services Inc. and STEP Energy Services Ltd. cut jobs in the spring.

Energy companies were already facing pressures before the pandemic, largely because of depressed oil prices. Husky Energy Inc., for example, laid off hundreds of employees late last year, followed a few weeks later by Perpetual Energy Inc., which slashed its work force by 25 per cent.

This week’s job cuts at TC Energy are restricted to the company’s natural gas operations. That includes a 93,300-kilometre network of natural gas pipeline, which supplies more than 25 per cent of natural gas consumed daily across North America to heat homes, fuel industries and generate power.

In Canada, the company is pursuing a pipeline expansion in northwest Alberta that will run southeast toward Rocky Mountain House. The expansion would add around 350 kilometres of new pipeline to its existing natural gas system. Work planned for the project this year has been delayed as the company awaits federal government approvals.

TC Energy said in September it remained committed to the project and would refine the construction schedule and advance construction planning in anticipation of an approval.

The overhaul at TC Energy comes days after the company’s long-time president and chief executive officer Russ Girling announced his retirement, surprising the market.

Mr. Girling led TC Energy through a period of unprecedented growth, including the development of its liquids-pipeline business, expansion of its power-generation portfolio and its US$13-billion acquisition of Columbia Pipeline Group in 2016.

For a decade he also led the charge to get the Keystone pipeline expansion built, despite reams of legal challenges and regulatory hurdles along the way.

The pipeline received a boost in March when the Alberta government agreed to contribute US$1.1-billion to gain an ownership stake that it plans to sell back to the company after commercial operations begin. It will also guarantee US$4.2-billion of debt related to the 1,947-kilometre pipeline.

Kavi Bal, spokesperson for Alberta’s Energy Minister Sonya Savage, said Tuesday the changes made by TC Energy are not related to the Keystone XL project. While the province now has a direct financial interest, it does not decide the day-to-day operations or management of TC Energy, he said.

Also on Tuesday, Natural Law Energy – comprising the Maskwacis Nations, Saddle Lake Cree Nation and Nekaneet First Nation – signed a memorandum of understanding with TC Energy to pursue an equity interest in Keystone XL “and other potential related midstream and power projects.”

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 Calgary

TC Energy inks deal for Indigenous ownership stake in Keystone XL pipeline

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Agreement with five First Nations is expected to be completed later this year

The Canadian Press · Posted: Sep 29, 2020 

Pipe waiting to be used in construction of the Keystone XL pipeline in Alberta in September 2020. (Kyle Bakx/CBC)

Indigenous communities are being given a chance to pursue an ownership interest in the Keystone XL pipeline project, builder TC Energy Corp. announced on Tuesday.

The Calgary-based company says a memorandum of understanding has been signed with Natural Law Energy, which represents four First Nations in Alberta and one in Saskatchewan.

"Today's announcement is a testament to what we can accomplish when industry and Indigenous groups work together," said Nekaneet First Nation Chief Alvin Francis, president of Natural Law.

'Historic agreement'

"This historic agreement is an important step for our peoples and future generations to share in the energy wealth coming from our lands and traditional territories."

TC Energy says a final agreement with Natural Law is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2020, formalizing its participation in Keystone XL. It added it could participate in other potential related midstream and power projects.

"This MOU, which is one of the first of its kind for TC Energy with Indigenous communities, is a reflection of our commitment to working together to ensure Indigenous groups share the benefits of the Keystone XL Pipeline over the long-term as a valuable partner," said Keystone XL president Richard Prior.

In an interview, Prior wouldn't give specifics but said the deal will be for a minority interest in the pipeline and TC won't directly provide the funding.

In March, the company approved construction of the US$8-billion project to transport up to 830,000 barrels per day of oil from Alberta to Nebraska after the Alberta government agreed to invest about US$1.1 billion (C$1.5 billion) as equity and guarantee a US$4.2-billion project loan.

Biden would cancel pipeline's U.S. permit, if elected

Its future is still in doubt, however, as Democratic candidate Joe Biden has said he would cancel its vital presidential permit if he is elected president in November.

"This MOU affirms the shared importance Indigenous people and Alberta's government place on projects such as Keystone XL, which will bring the jobs and steady economic benefits to lift more people onto solid financial ground — now and for years to come," said Premier Jason Kenney in a statement.

"The full participation of Indigenous people in our entire economy is central to reconciliation. Likewise, Alberta's recovery depends on Indigenous communities participating in economic prosperity."

The five First Nations include the Nekaneet First Nation in Saskatchewan and the Ermineskin Cree Nation, Montana First Nation, Louis Bull Tribe and Saddle Lake Cree Nation in Alberta.

• TC Energy net Q2 profits increase to $1.3B despite lower sales

The news comes alongside layoffs at TC Energy this week. The company would not confirm how many jobs had been cut, but said the organizational changes were being made to remain competitive and optimize operations. 

With files from CBC Calgary

Francis 'loses patience' in Vatican corruption fight

AFP

© Tiziana FABI Last week, the 83-year-old pontiff forced the resignation of Italian Cardinal Angelo Becciu, a prominent member of the church hierarchy and close adviser to the prelate.

Pope Francis once likened sorting out the Vatican's tangled accounts to "cleaning the Sphinx of Egypt with a toothbrush".


By dismissing a close aide linked to a murky London property deal in a move described as "the most significant firing of his papacy", analysts say Francis has deployed a pressure washer to alleged in-house financial impropriety.

Last week, the 83-year-old pontiff forced the resignation of Italian Cardinal Angelo Becciu, a prominent member of the church hierarchy and close adviser to the prelate.

The former No 2 at the Vatican's Secretariat of State, which manages the church's vast donations, has been accused of syphoning off funds destined for the poor to family members -- a charge he denies.

Becciu has been linked in particular to a controversial luxury property investment deal in London, with at least some of the money used reportedly coming from the annual Peter's Pence collection for the poor

.

© ANDREAS SOLARO The Holy See announced the resignation of Cardinal Angelo Becciu in a terse statement

It is not the only financial scandal to have dogged the Vatican in recent years: in 2017, the ex-head of a Vatican-run hospital was convicted of funnelling a fortune from a foundation to renovate a cardinal's apartment.

And the Vatican bank, known as the IOR, was for decades embroiled in numerous controversies, with one of its former presidents ordered to stand trial on charges of embezzlement and money laundering in 2018.

But Francis has upped the speed of his reforms recently, suggesting he is "losing patience" with moral persuasion and "is more inclined to make heads roll," said John Allen, Vatican expert for the Cruxnow.com religious news site.

"'Accountability,' in the full American sense of the word, is finally crossing the Tiber in the Pope Francis era," he said, describing it as "by far the most significant firing" of the pontiff's era.

The surprise decision to also strip Becciu of the rights associated with being a cardinal -- a very rare punishment -- was a clear signal ahead of an inspection Wednesday by Moneyval, the Council of Europe's anti-money-laundering monitoring body.

© Andreas SOLARO Pope Francis is seeking to streamline and make more transparent the finances of the Vatican

- Painstaking work -

Vatican expert Marco Politi described the pope's action on Becciu as "a Napoleonic gesture".

"With his iron fist, Francis wanted to show that sanctuaries do not exist, that no fiefdom is safe," he told AFP.

Soon after being elected leader of the world's 1.3 billion Catholics in 2013, Jorge Bergoglio vowed to continue efforts to fight corruption begun by his predecessor, Benedict XVI.

Around 5,000 suspect accounts were closed at the Vatican bank under Francis.

And in a bid to streamline the Holy See's administration, its finances are to be condensed into a single organisation, the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (APSA), which currently manages thousands of Vatican properties.

The Italian bishop at the head of APSA, Nunzio Galantino, said that in future all operations must be "transparent" and "traceable".

"If the pope asks me 'Have we got the money to pay the salaries?', I must be able to give him a precise answer," Galantino told Corriere della Sera on Tuesday.

Each entity -- including the Secretariat of State -- will make a budget request, which will be decided by a Spanish Jesuit priest who took over the Secretariat for Economy in January and will oversee the funds centralised by APSA.

Exerting more centralised control has angered some rivals, said Honduran Cardinal Oscar Maradiaga, coordinator of a group of six cardinals advising the pope on his economic reforms.

The biggest obstacles have been "internal enemies," he told La Stampa daily.

"Because when you delve into the funds and the department administrations you find things that aren't right, and this provokes very severe reactions," Maradiaga said.

- A lonely pope -

Various Vatican factions have remained silent as the pope has striven to shake up financial oversight, according to Vatican writer and journalist Politi.

Those include conservatives "happy that there are scandals" brought to light through Francis' actions, and therefore which damage his papacy, in their view.

But even the reformist front has not defended Francis' shakeup.

"In this earthquake you can see the loneliness of Francis," Politi said.

One message of support came from Australian Cardinal George Pell, who was due to arrive in Rome for the first time in three years after being acquitted in April in Australia of child sexual abuse charges.

"I hope that the cleaning of the stables will continue in the Vatican," Pell said.

Pell in 2015 hired external auditors to oversee the Vatican books, but his efforts were thwarted by Becciu, who cancelled the $3-million contract with PricewaterhouseCoopers.

A Vatican source told AFP the Vatican judiciary will bring charges soon against Becciu, and six other Vatican employees.

cm-ams/ide/adp/txw

Opinion: The BREATHE Act is the policy change America needs


Opinion by Derrick Johnson and Gina Clayton-Johnson

© Provided by CNN gun violence black community police brutality 

The grand jury's decision to not charge the officers who killed Breonna Taylor was heartbreaking in its familiarity. From Eric Garner to Michael Brown to Sandra Bland and now Breonna Taylor, the murder of Black people by law enforcement in this country often seems not to be considered a crime. The grand jury in Kentucky played into this painful feedback loop, charging one officer out of three for wanton endangerment, but not for taking Breonna's life.


"Black Lives Matter" is not just a phrase for us. As organizers, civil rights advocates, and Black people, it is an affirmation of our humanity, and a rallying cry for policy change.

The BREATHE Act is that policy. Created by the Movement for Black Lives amidst this national reckoning on race, the BREATHE Act seeks to divest federal funds from the main programs and agencies that have been fueling mass incarceration at state and local levels. It would then invest these funds to build a new model of public safety that doesn't rely on jails, prisons, and punishment.

For decades, the United States has defunded real public safety infrastructure (such as access to housing, mental and physical health care, education, and living-wage jobs) in ways that have created dangerous conditions for Black lives. A report from the New York Times earlier this summer found that in Boston, Los Angeles and Milwaukee, about one in $10 dollars of local government spending goes to the police.

Programs that enable this approach, including the Department of Defense 1033 program, which distributes weapons of war like assault rifles, grenade launchers, and night-vision sniper scopes to local police departments, are largely funded by the federal government.

Our organizations, the NAACP and the Movement for Black Lives, see a future for
Black people in which access to health care, education, clean air, water, and housing is available for all. In the last months, we have agitated in the streets, built community-based infrastructure, made our case to elected officials, and crafted policy solutions -- and we've done it together. We are now moving to advance policy that is the surest and straightest path to the safety and well-being of Black communities.

The promise of the BREATHE Act is that it scales back what isn't working and lets us build something new. Today, police have become the one-stop shop for everything from social problems to annoyances. Despite a fervent mythology of "fighting crime," police departments in cities surveyed by the New York Times only spend 4% of their time responding to violent incidents. With large budgets and staffs, many police departments must justify their payrolls, and thus have strong incentives to make arrests.

In Los Angeles, for example, the most common type of police work is LAPD-initiated stops of drivers and pedestrians for perceived violations -- and Black drivers are stopped at five times their share of the city's population, according to a Los Angeles Times investigation. Across the country, the massive amount of taxpayer money spent in the name of public safety is creating an environment of harassment, surveillance, and danger for Black people.

We are disproportionately victimized by police and interpersonal violence. Black women in particular are killed at a rate of 4.4 per 100,000 people, about double the rate of women of any other race, and there is an epidemic of fatal violence against Black transgender people. Overly aggressive policing and mass incarceration have only contributed to this devastating reality.

Instead of this punishment paradigm, the BREATHE Act creates a new Community Public Safety Agency which will use grants to replace the harmful criminal legal systems locally with evidence-based public safety infrastructure. Importantly, the act moves the function of public safety out of the Department of Justice and into the Department of Health and Human Services -- signaling a dramatic shift in how our society would approach achieving community well-being.

The "defund the police" movement is about safety, not about punishing cops. It is about making a long overdue intervention in the racist project of criminalization.

An early model of today's exorbitant investment in law enforcement, the 1970s War on Drugs, was explicitly racist. According to John Ehrlichman, a former Richard Nixon administration presidential adviser and architect of the program: "We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the (Vietnam) war or Black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and Blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities."

Widespread criminalization today works toward those same ends: to harm Black communities and undermine the progressive agenda. More than six million people are not allowed to vote today due to a felony conviction, something the BREATHE Act would immediately change if passed.

For generations, Black people have struggled to find safety despite the white supremacist orientation of every facet of our public safety institutions. The defund approach is rooted in the knowledge that de-escalation of violence and peacekeeping are best achieved through trained first responders without weapons.

The kinds of investments that the BREATHE Act outlines in education, healthcare, the environment, wealth generation for working class families, and housing, create public safety by supporting communities.

Our criminal legal system's failure to deliver justice is not new. Sixty-five years before the Louisville grand jury announced its decision, the men who brutally murdered Emmett Till were acquitted by their Mississippi peers. We can no longer afford to allow racist policies and animus to block out the call for change coming from every corner of this country. The BREATHE Act has the potential to make it possible for Black people and all communities to be safe and free. That can only happen if we choose it.

Plan to solve Florida's non-existent protest problem is pure 'mini-Trump'


Richard Luscombe in Miami THE GUARDIAN 

© Provided by The Guardian Photograph: Evan Vucci/AP

For many who heard Ron DeSantis outline his proposed “Combatting Violence, Disorder and Looting Act” it was a head-scratcher.

Why would Florida’s Republican governor suddenly be pushing severe penalties on protesters in a state that escaped the disorder of summer Black Lives Matter gatherings elsewhere? Why threaten to withhold state money from municipalities that defund police even as Florida cities including Miami and Tampa were actually increasing law enforcement spending?

Related: 'It’s a constant barrage of hate': how Trump sparks heated clashes in Florida's retirement resort

To Democrats, civil rights advocates, voters’ groups and others who have studied the behavior of a politician they see as a mini-Donald Trump, the governor’s solving of problems that appear not to exist was no mystery.

A strong law-and-order pitch to voters in the key swing state just weeks before a presidential election deflected attention from a botched response to the coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 14,000 in Florida, they say. And it echoed the fearmongering tactics employed on a national scale that Trump believes will win him a second term in the White House.

“He doesn’t want us to address his terrible track record so he’s using law and order as an election stunt to distract and scare voters,” said Anna Eskamani, a Democratic state representative for Orlando.

“It’s a complete act [and] Governor DeSantis is taking a page from Trump’s playbook.”

Eskamani and her colleagues see the DeSantis proposals, which the governor said he wants passed by the state legislature as early as November, as “fear-based legislation” and an assault on first amendment rights.

They include a six-month prison sentence for anybody striking or throwing objects at law enforcement officers and designate gatherings of seven or more people resulting in injury or property damage as unlawful. Additionally, any driver who injures or kills a person during such a gathering will not be held liable – raising the prospect of almost legalizing vehicular attacks on protests.

“We already have laws on the books against violent acts. And calls for racial justice in Florida have been overwhelmingly peaceful,” Eskamani said. “I know, I have marched in protest alongside others. Anyone who dares to hit someone or break property, they are arrested.”

The controversy came in a busy week for the election in Florida during which mail-in voting began and polls showed Trump virtually tied with his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, after trailing all year.

DeSantis drew criticism for announcing on Friday that he was removing most remaining coronavirus restrictions even though the state is still a hotspot. Also capturing attention was an escalating spat between DeSantis’s administration and Michael Bloomberg, the Democratic former presidential candidate who provided $16m to pay off court fees and fines of convicted felons so they could vote.© Photograph: Evan Vucci/AP Governor Ron DeSantis is ‘taking a page from Trump’s playbook’, Democrats allege.

“Timing is everything in politics and they must have seen the same polling showing up in ABC that law and order was number three issue in this election after the economy and Covid,” said Susan MacManus, professor emeritus of political science at the University of South Florida.

“Older people don’t like unsettling times, the riots and the violence. On top of some of the other things that are happening, it could be just unsettling enough to cause some of those who were going to vote for Biden to come back home and vote for Trump,” she added.

© Provided by The Guardian Black Lives Matter protests in Florida this summer, such as this one in Fort Lauderdale in June, have been overwhelmingly peaceful. Photograph: JLN Photography/REX/Shutterstock

DeSantis himself acknowledged his manifesto was not built on anything that had taken place in the state.

“We have seen attacks on law enforcement, we’ve seen disorder and tumult in many cities. I will not allow this kind of violence to occur here in Florida,” he said during a press conference in Winter Haven, at which he was flanked by senior state Republicans and law enforcement officials.

Equality advocates are particularly outraged at the loosely defined clause removing criminal liability from drivers “fleeing for safety from a mob”.

“[It] would protect individuals who injure protesters with their vehicles just three years after Heather Heyer, an anti-racism activist, was murdered when a white supremacist drove his vehicle into a crowd of protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia,” said Andrea Mercado, executive director of the political organising group New Florida Majority.

Some local government officials, meanwhile, decry the governor’s threat to hold back state money from municipalities perceived to have “defunded” police.

“It seeks to bully local governments from reallocating law enforcement budgets and seeking reforms like we’re trying to do,” said Sabrina Javellana, vice-mayor of Hallandale Beach.

“Sanctions only hurt the people he is purporting to help. Many crimes are committed out of poverty. If we can reduce poverty we can reduce crime.”

Shevrin Jones, a Democratic state senator-elect, said DeSantis was guilty of “blatant overreach” by seeking to criminalize protests.

“I am confident that all Floridians, white, black, brown, will see this for what it is, a desperate violation of our constitutional rights just ahead of a critical election in which every single vote counts,” he said.

“We’re going to fight this tooth and nail. You’ve just declared war on our civil rights. We’re prepared to strap up our boots and in the spirit of John Lewis get in some good trouble.”

Russia jails historian; who uncovered Stalin mass graves, for 13 years

© Olga Maltseva/AFP via Getty Images In this file photo taken on April 05, 2018 Russian historian Yury Dmitriyev, who heads rights group Memorial's branch in Karelia, arrives for the verdict in his child pornography trial at a court in the city of Petrozavodsk in northwestern Russia.

A Russian court has sentenced a historian who helped uncover Stalin-era mass graves to 13 years in prison, abruptly increasing his sentence by 10 years, in a highly unusual step that rights groups said was revenge for his work and part of a broader campaign to whitewash the dark chapters of Russia’s Soviet history.


The case of Yury Dmitriyev attracted international criticism when he was sentenced to three and a half years in prison earlier this year on charges condemned by human rights organizations as fabricated.

He had, however, been due to be released within weeks because of time-served in pre-trial detention.

But on Tuesday, a higher court in the northern city of Petrozavodsk abruptly overturned the original ruling and sentenced Dmitriyev to 13 years in a prison colony.

Dmitriyev, 64, is a member of Memorial, a group that commemorates the victims of Soviet repression. He has faced criminal prosecution since 2016 based on shifting charges based around allegations he had taken pornographic photos of his young adopted daughter and abused her.

His supporters though say his imprisonment, in reality, is linked to his role in uncovering mass graves tied to the Soviet gulag prison system and say the charges are an attempt to smear a figure who has played a leading role in commemorating the mass murder conducted under Joseph Stalin.

Memorial on Tuesday condemned the ruling saying it was clearly “politically motivated.”

“Today’s sentence is the revenge of the system which is heir to the Soviet system and would like to consign to oblivion the names that Yury Dmitry has returned, having besmirched him himself, his work and his life,” it said in a statement.Russia convicts historian Yuri Dmitriyev who uncovered Stalin's mass graves

Human Rights Watch has previously called the charges against Dmitriyev “bogus.” The United States embassy in Moscow condemned the new sentence as “outrageous.”

The embassy’s spokeswoman Rebecca Ross wrote on Twitter it “is another step backwards for #humanrights and historical truths in #Russia.”

In the 1990s, Dmitriyev and others found a grave in his home region of Karelia in northern Russia in a place known as Sandarmokh close to the border with Finland. The site is believed to hold the bodies of at least 6,000 prisoners executed by Soviet secret police during what’s known as Stalin’s ‘Great Terror’ between 1937 and 1938.

But in recent years though, a state-backed nationalist conservative group has sought to alter the narrative around the grave.

Russian historian Yury Dmitriyev, who heads rights group Memorial's branch in Karelia, arrives for the verdict in his child pornography trial at a court in the city of Petrozavodsk in northwestern Russia.

The Military-Historical Society, whose membership includes many senior Russian government officials, has promoted a theory that the grave also holds Soviet soldiers killed by Finnish troops during World War II. The group has conducted digging at the grave and, in 2018, it exhumed 16 corpses that it said were Red Army soldiers in order to support the theory that not only the Soviets were killed at the site .

Critics have said it is part of a broader effort to downplay Soviet crimes under president Vladimir Putin. Putin does not deny the mass repression under Stalin, but has sought to shift the emphasis onto the dictator’s role in modernizing Russia and defeating Nazi Germany.

The case against Dmitriyev has shown repeated problems. He was acquitted on the charges of taking pornographic photos by a court in April 2018, but a higher court overturned the ruling and ordered further investigation. Police then brought the case once again and added a new charge alleging that Dmitriyev had violently sexually abused his daughter.

In July this year, a court convicted Dmitriyev of that charge and gave him the three and a half year sentence. Rights groups a condemned that as a travesty of justice but also celebrated it as a victory because the shorter sentence meant that because of his lengthy time spent in pre-trial detention Dmitriyev would be freed in November. The court also acquitted him of the original pornography charge.Russia jails 2nd ex-Marine Trevor Reed for 9 years in trial condemned by the U.S.

His supporters at the time said the verdict essentially amounted to an “acquittal” and his lawyers appealed to have the guilty verdict fully overturned.

Prosecutors, however, appealed the decision and the court on Tuesday satisfied their request to jail Dmitriyev for 13 years. It also overturned his acquittal on the pornography charge and sent it back for investigation.

Dmitriyev’s trial was held entirely behind closed doors and, at the hearing on Tuesday, his lawyer was not present because he was quarantining due to a suspected coronavirus infection. The court rejected a request to delay until his lawyer could attend and overruled his objection to be represented by a court appointed lawyer.

Memorial has faced frequent harassment in recent years, including a series of dubious criminal cases. The organization also campaigns against present day abuses and its offices have been raided and its members sometimes physically attacked.

Poorest countries face tough choice over G20 debt relief plan

By Marc Jones

© Reuters/MARCOS BRINDICCI FILE PHOTO: A man stands next to a board with the G20 Meeting of Finance Ministers logo in Buenos Aires

By Marc Jones

LONDON (Reuters) - The world's poorest countries could soon be facing a tough decision -- double up on debt relief from the G20 with the caveat they must default on private creditors, or quit the programme to try to keep financial markets on side.

Rich countries on Friday backed an extension of the G20's Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI), approved in April to help developing nations survive the coronavirus pandemic and which has seen 43 of a potential 73 eligible countries https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/debt/brief/covid-19-debt-service-suspension-initiative defer $5 billion in 'official sector' debt payments.

The European Network on Debt and Development (Eurodad), comprising 50 non-governmental organisations, estimates that extending that temporary freeze by six months would provide a further $6.4 billion of relief, rising to $11.4 billion if the extension runs to the end of 2021.

That would be just over a quarter of next year's combined debt payments for countries already signed up to the DSSI, and worth up to 4.3% of GDP for nations like Angola, according to Fitch Ratings.

But a significant string may be attached.

Amid warnings the pandemic could push 100 million people into extreme poverty, World Bank President David Malpass is calling for banks and investment funds that have lent to DSSI countries to be involved too.

"The relief so far is too shallow to provide light at the end of the debt tunnel," Malpass told the United Nations on Tuesday. "Commercial creditors are not participating in the moratorium, draining the financing provided by multilateral institutions."

Kevin Daly of Aberdeen Standard Investments, who is part of a joint-private sector response to the DSSI proposals, thinks views like Malpass's mean private sector involvement (PSI) -- writedowns for bondholders -- could become "mandatory" under the expected extension.

Such a change could be flagged at next month's IMF meetings.

Eurodad calculates DSSI countries are due to pay private sector bondholders $6.4 billion and other private lenders $7.1 billion next year -- a combined $13.5 billion that exceeds what the signed-up countries owe to G20 governments.

"We have already heard there is a strong possibility that this (PSI) can be the case," said Angola's secretary of state for budget and investment, Aia-Eza Silva, while adding that Angola's main focus remains bilateral creditors like China.

(Graphic: How much debt relief will DSSI provide countries - https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/mkt/xklpyqjbwpg/Pasted%20image%201601420726673.png)

LOSING ACCESS

Charity groups estimate that 121 low- and middle-income governments spent more last year servicing external debt than on public health systems that are now at breaking point, making a powerful moral case for relief.

There are other complicating factors, however.

Credit rating agencies S&P Global, Moody's and Fitch have warned that if countries do suspend or defer debt payments to the private sector it would almost certainly be classed as restructuring and default under their criteria.

Restructurings are complex and typically take far longer than stricken countries now have. It would also mean poorer nations that have battled to gain international market access over the last decade lose it just as they face huge challenges.

Moody's reckons they face a combined $40 billion funding gap this year. The Institute of International Finance estimates that external debt of DSSI countries has more than doubled since 2010 to over $750 billion and now averages nearly 50% of GDP -- high for their stage of development.

A total of 23 DSSI-eligible countries have sold Eurobonds, but only a few, like Honduras and Mongolia, have done so since the programme's launch in April. Pakistan wants to sell $1.5 billion of bonds but creditors would baulk if PSI was looming.

"It is hugely unlikely that any country that has been part of it (DSSI) this year would put their market access at risk," said Aberdeen's Kevin Daly. "I wouldn't think any of them would want to take part."

(Graphic: DSSI debt country bonds - https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/mkt/xklpyqlkrpg/Pasted%20image%201601460240507.png)

Poverty action groups say the private sector is overstating the issue, pointing to the speed with which Argentina sold a 100-year bond after one of its restructurings.

A potential 'carrot' for countries and their creditors could be Brady bond-style debt swaps, where investors write off some loans in return for new credit-enhanced bonds with full or part guarantees from the G20 or multilateral development banks.

J.P. Morgan's bond index arm fanned talk of such a plan when it announced this month that credit-enhanced debt would be eligible for its top emerging markets benchmark from mid-October, just after key IMF and G20 DSSI meetings.

Eurodad's Iolanda Fresnillo said debt swaps could be a solution for many countries although the hardest-hit nations would need more extreme measures.

"This is not just a liquidity crisis, we need to tackle debt sustainability and go for debt cancellation," Fresnillo said.

"By just postponing the payments you are not solving the problems these countries are facing."

(Additional reporting by Andrea Shalal in Washington and Karin Strohecker in London; Editing by Catherine Evans)