Friday, November 20, 2020
The story of Palestinian olives
The story of Palestinian olives: Olives trees are a symbol of Palestinian heritage and identity. It's no wonder they make the best olive oil in the world
Pet adoption booming amid pandemic – but workers accuse retailers of abuses
Michael Sainato THE GUARDIAN
Thu, 19 November 2020
Michael Sainato THE GUARDIAN
Thu, 19 November 2020
Photograph: Mark Peterman/AP
As the coronavirus pandemic has led to higher demand for pets and pet supplies, workers at the two largest pet retailers in the US, PetSmart and Petco, say their companies have denied granting hazard pay throughout the pandemic, cut staffing, and increased workloads for remaining employees, while planning decisions to enrich their Wall Street investors.
Demand for pet supplies has increased through the pandemic as Americans working remotely and socially distancing have contributed to a surge in pet adoptions around the US.
In September 2020, Bloomberg reported the owners of Petco, private equity firm CVC Capital Partners and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, are weighing an initial public offering or sale in 2021, with the retail chain’s estimated value at $6bn, including debt.
The private equity firm that owns PetSmart and Chewy announced plans in October 2020 to split the two companies three years after a merger acquisition. Workers say the deal will leave PetSmart with more debt while siphoning $11bn to Wall Street investors by transferring PetSmart’s stake in Chewy to themselves. Chewy saw their stock price more than double over the course of the coronavirus pandemic.
Retail worker TJ Daniels, who has worked at Petco in Dillon, Colorado, for about four years saw his hours and workloads significantly increase when the pandemic hit, as several employees were either furloughed, took medical leave, or had to quarantine. All Petco retail stores remained open throughout the pandemic.
“The lack of employees made it really hard and stressful to work, because you have to do the workload of extra workers while dealing with the extra people in the store because everybody was stockpiling dog food and coming in to buy animals,” said Daniels.
He had a scheduled raise of 50 cents an hour which was revoked, and received only a 30 cent an hour raise recently. “We didn’t receive any hazard pay. They tried giving us small bonuses here and there, one of mine was $24. Managers got 200 bucks and regular store employees received $75. That doesn’t help at all,” he said.
Daniels pushed for better coronavirus safety protections throughout the pandemic, for the store to limit hours and staff an employee to monitor and enforce capacity, and for paid time off for quarantining. He said workers only receive one paid week to quarantine, with the second week forcing employees to use their accrued paid time off or they would be lent paid time off workers would have to pay back to the company.
He was one of several workers with United for Respect who signed a letter to Petco’s owners in response to the announcement of a possible initial public offering or sale, asking Petco to provide workers with hazard pay, healthcare and a voice on the company board of directors.
Kris Blotzer, who works as a Petco warehouse in Greenville, South Carolina, also signed the letter. He explained during the pandemic, workloads significantly increased, while his pay remained at $9 an hour.
“I was making $9 an hour to kill myself,” said Blotzer. “I was picking and packing 100 orders a day alone and most days couldn’t finish them.”
Phil Andrews, who has worked as a dog groomer at Petco for 13 years in Miami, Florida, also detailed tough conditions.
“We don’t have the staff to keep up and enforce mask-wearing and cleaning,” said Andrews. “They’re rolling out new ad campaigns, they want us to sell their pet insurance plans now, but have never talked about hazard pay. They’re asking us to do more and not being strict about safety for us.”
A spokesperson for Petco claimed the company has provided ample personal protective equipment to its 27,000 employees around the US.
“As our business began to rebound, we ended our planned furlough and pay cut period early and returned to strategic hiring to account for continued growth across our business,” the spokesperson said in an email. “We also invested $13m in additional compensation for our field teams, including five cycles of Covid appreciation bonuses; we invested $7m in additional Covid-related Paid Time Off; and we established the Petco Partner Assistance fund with more than $2m in initial funding from the company and its leaders.”
Petco and PetSmart would not provide their starting hourly wage for associates, but according to Payscale, the average pay for retail associates at Petco is $9.86 an hour and $10.06 an hour at PetSmart.
PetSmart, owned by the private equity firm BC Partners, has struggled over the past several years with billions of dollars in debt. During the pandemic, PetSmart initially refused to shut down its dog grooming services in many areas around the US, despite the services being deemed as non-essential in some areas.
A PetSmart employee in San Antonio, Texas, for over three years, Alex Ludwig, said her store’s cashiers were laid off in the beginning of the pandemic, while all remaining employees except managers experienced cuts to their work hours.
“My hours personally dropped 10 to 20 hours per week,” said Ludwig. “It has been insane, far worse than any Black Friday sale we’ve had and the customers aren’t abiding social distancing whatsoever.”
Ludwig was one of dozens of current and former PetSmart workers who signed a letter to the company’s ownership in July 2020 requesting hazard pay for workers, healthcare benefits and adequate personal protective equipment.
She resigned in September 2020 after months of her complaints and concerns being ignored by management.
A spokesperson for PetSmart told the Guardian the company has invested millions of dollars to provide personal protective equipment to associates.
“We have paid more than $20m in additional compensation to our front-line associates since the pandemic began. This includes special thank-you bonuses, payment of healthcare premiums, and other healthcare benefits,” they said in an email. “We also made a $1m contribution to the longstanding PetSmart Associate Assistance Foundation to support frontline workers facing personal or financial hardships, and established a $1m scholarship fund for associates of color in furtherance of our commitment to diversity and inclusion.”
As the coronavirus pandemic has led to higher demand for pets and pet supplies, workers at the two largest pet retailers in the US, PetSmart and Petco, say their companies have denied granting hazard pay throughout the pandemic, cut staffing, and increased workloads for remaining employees, while planning decisions to enrich their Wall Street investors.
Demand for pet supplies has increased through the pandemic as Americans working remotely and socially distancing have contributed to a surge in pet adoptions around the US.
In September 2020, Bloomberg reported the owners of Petco, private equity firm CVC Capital Partners and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, are weighing an initial public offering or sale in 2021, with the retail chain’s estimated value at $6bn, including debt.
The private equity firm that owns PetSmart and Chewy announced plans in October 2020 to split the two companies three years after a merger acquisition. Workers say the deal will leave PetSmart with more debt while siphoning $11bn to Wall Street investors by transferring PetSmart’s stake in Chewy to themselves. Chewy saw their stock price more than double over the course of the coronavirus pandemic.
Retail worker TJ Daniels, who has worked at Petco in Dillon, Colorado, for about four years saw his hours and workloads significantly increase when the pandemic hit, as several employees were either furloughed, took medical leave, or had to quarantine. All Petco retail stores remained open throughout the pandemic.
“The lack of employees made it really hard and stressful to work, because you have to do the workload of extra workers while dealing with the extra people in the store because everybody was stockpiling dog food and coming in to buy animals,” said Daniels.
He had a scheduled raise of 50 cents an hour which was revoked, and received only a 30 cent an hour raise recently. “We didn’t receive any hazard pay. They tried giving us small bonuses here and there, one of mine was $24. Managers got 200 bucks and regular store employees received $75. That doesn’t help at all,” he said.
Daniels pushed for better coronavirus safety protections throughout the pandemic, for the store to limit hours and staff an employee to monitor and enforce capacity, and for paid time off for quarantining. He said workers only receive one paid week to quarantine, with the second week forcing employees to use their accrued paid time off or they would be lent paid time off workers would have to pay back to the company.
He was one of several workers with United for Respect who signed a letter to Petco’s owners in response to the announcement of a possible initial public offering or sale, asking Petco to provide workers with hazard pay, healthcare and a voice on the company board of directors.
Kris Blotzer, who works as a Petco warehouse in Greenville, South Carolina, also signed the letter. He explained during the pandemic, workloads significantly increased, while his pay remained at $9 an hour.
“I was making $9 an hour to kill myself,” said Blotzer. “I was picking and packing 100 orders a day alone and most days couldn’t finish them.”
Phil Andrews, who has worked as a dog groomer at Petco for 13 years in Miami, Florida, also detailed tough conditions.
“We don’t have the staff to keep up and enforce mask-wearing and cleaning,” said Andrews. “They’re rolling out new ad campaigns, they want us to sell their pet insurance plans now, but have never talked about hazard pay. They’re asking us to do more and not being strict about safety for us.”
A spokesperson for Petco claimed the company has provided ample personal protective equipment to its 27,000 employees around the US.
“As our business began to rebound, we ended our planned furlough and pay cut period early and returned to strategic hiring to account for continued growth across our business,” the spokesperson said in an email. “We also invested $13m in additional compensation for our field teams, including five cycles of Covid appreciation bonuses; we invested $7m in additional Covid-related Paid Time Off; and we established the Petco Partner Assistance fund with more than $2m in initial funding from the company and its leaders.”
Petco and PetSmart would not provide their starting hourly wage for associates, but according to Payscale, the average pay for retail associates at Petco is $9.86 an hour and $10.06 an hour at PetSmart.
PetSmart, owned by the private equity firm BC Partners, has struggled over the past several years with billions of dollars in debt. During the pandemic, PetSmart initially refused to shut down its dog grooming services in many areas around the US, despite the services being deemed as non-essential in some areas.
A PetSmart employee in San Antonio, Texas, for over three years, Alex Ludwig, said her store’s cashiers were laid off in the beginning of the pandemic, while all remaining employees except managers experienced cuts to their work hours.
“My hours personally dropped 10 to 20 hours per week,” said Ludwig. “It has been insane, far worse than any Black Friday sale we’ve had and the customers aren’t abiding social distancing whatsoever.”
Ludwig was one of dozens of current and former PetSmart workers who signed a letter to the company’s ownership in July 2020 requesting hazard pay for workers, healthcare benefits and adequate personal protective equipment.
She resigned in September 2020 after months of her complaints and concerns being ignored by management.
A spokesperson for PetSmart told the Guardian the company has invested millions of dollars to provide personal protective equipment to associates.
“We have paid more than $20m in additional compensation to our front-line associates since the pandemic began. This includes special thank-you bonuses, payment of healthcare premiums, and other healthcare benefits,” they said in an email. “We also made a $1m contribution to the longstanding PetSmart Associate Assistance Foundation to support frontline workers facing personal or financial hardships, and established a $1m scholarship fund for associates of color in furtherance of our commitment to diversity and inclusion.”
AMELIORATING CAPITALI$M
Top UK 25 companies for D&I by McKenzie-Delis Packer Review
The McKenzie Delis Packer Review is the first of its kind to provide a holistic review of all ten facets of diversity and inclusion in the UK workplace across Britain's biggest companies.
Yahoo Finance UKThe most comprehensive D&I report into UK companies just launched
Lianna Brinded
·Head of Yahoo Finance UK
Thu, 19 November 2020
Major diversity and inclusion membership organisation DIAL Global and gold standard polling agency Ipsos MORI just released a benchmark report — The McKenzie-Delis Packer Review — that tracks the D&I efforts of Britain’s biggest companies.
The report, supported by the parent company of Yahoo Finance, Verizon Media, unveiled a number of key stats from the survey of 79 companies and institutions, including brands such as Boots, Tesco (TSCO.L), Natwest (NWG.L), KPMG, Diageo (DGE.L), the NHS, and the Football Association.
The full report looks at 10 distinct aspects of diversity and inclusion — ethnicity, gender, age, nationality, mental health, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, disability, religion, and parenthood. These 10 facets are considered by the network to be key areas of attention for organisations dedicated to improving workplace diversity and inclusion.
READ MORE: How to evolve from ‘feel-good’ optics to creating real and measurable change?
Data for the McKenzie-Delis Packer Review was obtained through an online survey sent by Ipsos MORI to UK Employers from the private and public sectors including the FTSE 500, all NHS Foundation Trusts and public sector departments, and other private companies between June and October 2020.
Of the participating organisations: 44 are in the FTSE 500, 23 are NHS Foundation Trusts, two are public sector departments and 11 in other private sector.
WATCH: What is McKenzie Delis Packer Review
Research partners include — The Parker Review, Stonewall, Hampton Alexander Review, upReach, Centre for Ageing Better, Business Disability Forum, Equality and Human Rights Commission, Minds at Work, and Power of the Parent.
“Diversity and inclusion isn’t just about looking at one or two areas, we wanted to go beyond that and look at many different facets so we can properly track how UK companies are performing and identify areas where change is needed,” said Leila McKenzie-Delis, the founder of the review and CEO of DIAL Global.
“We are delighted so many big names stepped forward to be involved and over the coming years we aim to track how thousands of UK companies are performing.”
READ MORE: Black Lives Matter — 'Now is the time for organisations to prove it'
The report, which was chaired by Lord Simon Woolley and Ipsos MORI’s CEO Ben Page, puts a spotlight on areas that companies need to focus on to make their firms more diverse and inclusive:
89% of companies do not track their employees’ socioeconomic backgrounds
Only 22% of companies say they publish their ethnicity pay gap data
“I have worked nearly 30 years fighting, campaigning and lobbying for greater social and racial justice. The McKenzie-Delis Packer Review is a milestone first step when it comes to giving us a better understanding of who we are, and where we are in the diversity and inclusion space,” said Lord Simon Woolley, chairman of the MDP Review.
“The better we understand this the better we are placed to make bold and brave plans and make change happen.”
WATCH: Major British Lord and 'disciple of Martin Luther King' highlights 'ground breaking research' on companies and D&I
UK
As a teacher I need to be able to talk about racism without government meddling
Anonymous
Thu, 19 November 2020,THE GUARDIAN
As a teacher I need to be able to talk about racism without government meddling
Anonymous
Thu, 19 November 2020,THE GUARDIAN
Photograph: MBI//Alamy Stock Photo
In October, the women and equalities minister Kemi Badenoch made a dramatic intervention in the House of Commons during a session commemorating Black History Month. Schools, she said, that teach students about certain ideas from “critical race theory” as “fact” were breaking the law: “We do not want teachers to teach their white pupils about white privilege and inherited racial guilt.”
The minister’s words came not too long after guidance for schools in England was published that said schools “should not use resources produced by organisations that … promote victim narratives that are harmful to British society”. It’s safe to say that these two developments, which seemed designed to have a chilling effect on discussing the uncomfortable truths of racism in Britain, have made fellow teachers and myself worried about what we can and can’t say. And the day after Badenoch’s speech, I was due to take a PSHE (personal, social, health and economic) lesson about racism.
Most of the students in my class are white, so before we even started the lesson, I knew that the racial status of whiteness in a white-majority society was going to come up. I felt unsure as to my role – I hadn’t had time yet to absorb Badenoch’s statement – but the intelligence and inquisitiveness of my students led the way. “Can you be racist towards white people, because I told my friend that you can’t?”, asked one. Others began sharing their experiences. A black student talked about how their family members had been stopped by the police in town. Two non-white students explained how a teacher got them mixed up for a year. There was no point during the lesson when any of the white students shared experiences of racism. Isn’t that discrepancy in their experiences an example of “white privilege” in action?
Schools are complex ecosystems. You might be dealing with more than 1,000 students and several hundred staff members. It became evident to me that there were many members of staff who didn’t know or maybe even care about the issues raised during Black History Month. I know that one member of staff said, “All lives matter” at one point, while another drew a false equivalence between Black Lives Matter and the BNP. This highlights both the importance of educating staff about race, as well as the fact that schools are contested spaces for social issues.
Related: Discrimination at school: is a Black British history lesson repeating itself?
Now we are faced with the dilemma of how to teach vitally important concepts without breaking government guidance. Colleagues often have the same worrying scenario in mind: they try to have a nuanced conversation about “whiteness” or the legacy of white supremacy, and a student goes home and tells their parents that they’re learning about how racism is their fault. The government says it is against teaching certain ideas, as if they were “accepted facts”. But no concept in the social sciences is uncontested and surely Badenoch knows this, so the real consequences of her words is probably going to be a chilling effect. I am also unsure specifically what constitutes “critical race theory” or “victim narratives”, from the government’s point of view, and so feel apprehensive about the content of some lessons in the coming weeks.
I don’t want to be complicit in papering over the realities of racism by avoiding these topics for fear of repercussions from senior staff and the wider community, but I also don’t want to put my job at risk. As teachers, we have a responsibility and duty to our students to provide them with comprehensive support and guidance to give them the best chances when they leave school. Race issues and racism are extremely prevalent in our students’ lives, and children are going to have questions. “But why, Miss?” and “Yeah, but how do you know, Sir?” pop up frequently in all lessons. Am I meant to discourage a conversation about stop and search when the only teenager in the room to have experienced this is black and their white peers want to understand why?
There needs to be more resources and training to equip teachers to deliver good teaching on diversity-based topics – I know I am not the only teacher who feels that. I want to see diversity training made a compulsory part of teacher-training programmes; it should be given a similar priority as safeguarding training. Rather than shutting down these conversations and topics, educators should be better equipped to explore these issues in the classroom without fear or ignorance. Creating a climate in which teachers feel it’s safer to avoid these topics of conversation doesn’t make these questions go away – it will force students to go elsewhere in search of answers.
• The author teaches in a secondary school in England
In October, the women and equalities minister Kemi Badenoch made a dramatic intervention in the House of Commons during a session commemorating Black History Month. Schools, she said, that teach students about certain ideas from “critical race theory” as “fact” were breaking the law: “We do not want teachers to teach their white pupils about white privilege and inherited racial guilt.”
The minister’s words came not too long after guidance for schools in England was published that said schools “should not use resources produced by organisations that … promote victim narratives that are harmful to British society”. It’s safe to say that these two developments, which seemed designed to have a chilling effect on discussing the uncomfortable truths of racism in Britain, have made fellow teachers and myself worried about what we can and can’t say. And the day after Badenoch’s speech, I was due to take a PSHE (personal, social, health and economic) lesson about racism.
Most of the students in my class are white, so before we even started the lesson, I knew that the racial status of whiteness in a white-majority society was going to come up. I felt unsure as to my role – I hadn’t had time yet to absorb Badenoch’s statement – but the intelligence and inquisitiveness of my students led the way. “Can you be racist towards white people, because I told my friend that you can’t?”, asked one. Others began sharing their experiences. A black student talked about how their family members had been stopped by the police in town. Two non-white students explained how a teacher got them mixed up for a year. There was no point during the lesson when any of the white students shared experiences of racism. Isn’t that discrepancy in their experiences an example of “white privilege” in action?
Schools are complex ecosystems. You might be dealing with more than 1,000 students and several hundred staff members. It became evident to me that there were many members of staff who didn’t know or maybe even care about the issues raised during Black History Month. I know that one member of staff said, “All lives matter” at one point, while another drew a false equivalence between Black Lives Matter and the BNP. This highlights both the importance of educating staff about race, as well as the fact that schools are contested spaces for social issues.
Related: Discrimination at school: is a Black British history lesson repeating itself?
Now we are faced with the dilemma of how to teach vitally important concepts without breaking government guidance. Colleagues often have the same worrying scenario in mind: they try to have a nuanced conversation about “whiteness” or the legacy of white supremacy, and a student goes home and tells their parents that they’re learning about how racism is their fault. The government says it is against teaching certain ideas, as if they were “accepted facts”. But no concept in the social sciences is uncontested and surely Badenoch knows this, so the real consequences of her words is probably going to be a chilling effect. I am also unsure specifically what constitutes “critical race theory” or “victim narratives”, from the government’s point of view, and so feel apprehensive about the content of some lessons in the coming weeks.
I don’t want to be complicit in papering over the realities of racism by avoiding these topics for fear of repercussions from senior staff and the wider community, but I also don’t want to put my job at risk. As teachers, we have a responsibility and duty to our students to provide them with comprehensive support and guidance to give them the best chances when they leave school. Race issues and racism are extremely prevalent in our students’ lives, and children are going to have questions. “But why, Miss?” and “Yeah, but how do you know, Sir?” pop up frequently in all lessons. Am I meant to discourage a conversation about stop and search when the only teenager in the room to have experienced this is black and their white peers want to understand why?
There needs to be more resources and training to equip teachers to deliver good teaching on diversity-based topics – I know I am not the only teacher who feels that. I want to see diversity training made a compulsory part of teacher-training programmes; it should be given a similar priority as safeguarding training. Rather than shutting down these conversations and topics, educators should be better equipped to explore these issues in the classroom without fear or ignorance. Creating a climate in which teachers feel it’s safer to avoid these topics of conversation doesn’t make these questions go away – it will force students to go elsewhere in search of answers.
• The author teaches in a secondary school in England
DOWNUNDER
Five people injured in NSW lightning strike
Five people were injured in a lightning strike in the NSW Hunter Valley on Friday.
The New Daily@TheNewDailyAU
Five people have suffered minor injuries after lightning struck the ground near them at Pokolbin in the Hunter Valley on Friday
The ABC in nearby Newcastle is reporting that emergency services were called to the Hunter Valley Resort on Hermitage Road at 12.30pm.
The injured group were four men, aged 59, 38 and 32 and 18, and a 42-year-old woman.
Ambulance sources told the ABC that one of the injured people was taken to hospital. All were conscious and breathing when paramedics arrived.
The other four people were treated at the scene.
A lightning map of the area shows dozens of strikes hitting the wine country region and the storm moving towards Singleton.
The Hunter region has been plagued by storms this week, with more than 1100 lightning strikes on Monday night as high winds and torrential rain brought down power lines and left 20,000 homes without electricity.
More storms, which will bring damaging winds, large hail and heavy rain, were forecast for the area on Friday afternoon.
Australia's Grocon building empire collapses
Grocon is one of Australia's biggest construction companies.
Liz Hobday
The massive Grocon building empire has collapsed.
The construction company, one of Australia’s biggest, called in administrators on Friday.
Grocon was founded in 1954 and has been run by three generations of the Grollo family.
Its chief executive, Daniel Grollo, said he was furious and said government agency Infrastructure NSW’s handling of the Central Barangaroo project is to blame.
“It is unfortunate that INSW is forcing our hand to place the construction business into administration,” he said.
The national construction secretary of the CFMEU, Dave Noonan, said Grocon’s collapse means it was unlikely the company’s many subcontractors would ever get paid.
“People can draw their own conclusions about Daniel Grollo’s leadership,” he said.
“Obviously he takes the view that it’s everyone else’s fault.”
Mr Noonan said the construction industry was sick of big companies “constantly going under, owing millions of dollars to subcontractors”.
Les Williams, from the advocacy group Subcontractors Alliance, agreed thousands of subcontractors might never see the money they’re owed.
“These are small businesses that are just hung out to dry. It’s a disgrace,” he said.
Grocon is one of Australia's biggest construction companies.
Liz HobdayThe massive Grocon building empire has collapsed.
The construction company, one of Australia’s biggest, called in administrators on Friday.
Grocon was founded in 1954 and has been run by three generations of the Grollo family.
Its chief executive, Daniel Grollo, said he was furious and said government agency Infrastructure NSW’s handling of the Central Barangaroo project is to blame.
“It is unfortunate that INSW is forcing our hand to place the construction business into administration,” he said.
The national construction secretary of the CFMEU, Dave Noonan, said Grocon’s collapse means it was unlikely the company’s many subcontractors would ever get paid.
“People can draw their own conclusions about Daniel Grollo’s leadership,” he said.
“Obviously he takes the view that it’s everyone else’s fault.”
Mr Noonan said the construction industry was sick of big companies “constantly going under, owing millions of dollars to subcontractors”.
Les Williams, from the advocacy group Subcontractors Alliance, agreed thousands of subcontractors might never see the money they’re owed.
“These are small businesses that are just hung out to dry. It’s a disgrace,” he said.
The 2013 wall collapse on a Grocon building site in Melbourne killed three people.
But Mr Grollo said he wanted to pay the company’s creditors in full.
“I believe we will ultimately win the case against INSW and when we do so, the creditors will be the first in line to be compensated,” he said.
Grocon has become embroiled in legal disputes across three states.
It’s battling INSW in court over permitted building heights at Barangaroo and was recently ordered to pay $1 million to secure INSW’s legal costs.
But there have also been multimillion-dollar legal cases with commercial property heavyweight Dexus in the Queensland courts and APN Property in Victoria.
Grocon has a long history of disputes with the construction union CFMEU, with blockades shutting down parts of Melbourne’s CBD for months in 2012.
There have been workplace safety problems too.
In 2013, a wall at Grocon’s CUB building site in Melbourne collapsed, killing three pedestrians.
Grocon was found to be responsible and fined $250,000.
The company has built some of the country’s best-known buildings, including the Rialto, Crown Casino, Eureka Tower and AAMI Park stadium in Melbourne, as well as 1 Martin Place in Sydney and Common Ground in Brisbane.
The company recently completed a $75 million clean-up and rebuilding project after Victoria’s bushfires last summer.
As for its current projects, Grocon said the Ribbon development in Sydney and the Northumberland development in inner-city Melbourne would not be part of the administration process.
-AAP
But Mr Grollo said he wanted to pay the company’s creditors in full.
“I believe we will ultimately win the case against INSW and when we do so, the creditors will be the first in line to be compensated,” he said.
Grocon has become embroiled in legal disputes across three states.
It’s battling INSW in court over permitted building heights at Barangaroo and was recently ordered to pay $1 million to secure INSW’s legal costs.
But there have also been multimillion-dollar legal cases with commercial property heavyweight Dexus in the Queensland courts and APN Property in Victoria.
Grocon has a long history of disputes with the construction union CFMEU, with blockades shutting down parts of Melbourne’s CBD for months in 2012.
There have been workplace safety problems too.
In 2013, a wall at Grocon’s CUB building site in Melbourne collapsed, killing three pedestrians.
Grocon was found to be responsible and fined $250,000.
The company has built some of the country’s best-known buildings, including the Rialto, Crown Casino, Eureka Tower and AAMI Park stadium in Melbourne, as well as 1 Martin Place in Sydney and Common Ground in Brisbane.
The company recently completed a $75 million clean-up and rebuilding project after Victoria’s bushfires last summer.
As for its current projects, Grocon said the Ribbon development in Sydney and the Northumberland development in inner-city Melbourne would not be part of the administration process.
-AAP
'Too soon' to let Boeing 737 MAX fly again, say families of Lion Air crash victims
Augustinus Beo Da Costa and Bernadette Christina
Thu, 19 November 2020
Augustinus Beo Da Costa and Bernadette Christina
Thu, 19 November 2020
FILE PHOTO: Boeing 737 Max aircraft are parked in a parking lot at Boeing Field in this aerial photo over Seattle
JAKARTA (Reuters) - Some of the relatives of victims of a fatal Boeing 737 MAX crash in Indonesia have slammed a decision by U.S. aviation authorities to allow the jets to return to the skies, saying the move comes too soon.
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on Wednesday lifted a flight ban on Boeing's 737 MAX imposed after two fatal crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia killed 346 people within five months in 2018 and 2019.
Two years after the plane operated by Indonesia’s Lion Air plunged into the Java Sea, killing all 189 on board, the tragedy is still raw.
"The U.S. authorities shouldn't have lifted the grounding order this quickly," said Aris Sugiono, who lost his sister and brother-in-law in the crash. "They must consider the feelings of the victim’s families."
In the past, global air regulators promptly followed the guidance of the FAA, credited for decades with pioneering aviation safety. But many are now wary of seeming to toe the FAA line after the U.S. agency was faulted for lax oversight.
"It's too soon," agreed Anton Sahadi, who had two young relatives on board the doomed flight. "It wasn’t just the Lion Air flight, but also the victims in Ethiopia... The victims' families haven't 100% recovered yet."
Families of the Ethiopian crash victims said in a statement they felt "sheer disappointment and renewed grief" after the FAA's decision to return the aircraft to service.
"Our family was broken," Naoise Ryan, whose 39-year-old husband died aboard Ethiopian Airlines flight 302, said.
In Indonesia, some of the aggrieved relatives said clearance had been granted faster than compensation.
"Why has the flight permit been granted while the affairs of the victims' family have not been fully resolved?" asked Latief Nurbana, a civil servant who lost his 24-year-old son.
He said compensation payments and arrangements with the Boeing Community Investment Fund (BCIF) were still unsettled.
The BCIF's website said that the distribution of funds to provide philanthropic support to communities affected by the crashes would be completed by Jan. 15, 2021.
A Boeing spokeswoman and spokesman for Lion Air did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In both accidents a stall-prevention system known as MCAS, triggered by faulty data from a single airflow sensor, repeatedly and forcefully shoved down the jet's nose as the pilots struggled to regain control.
Adita Irawati, an Indonesian transportation ministry spokeswoman, said Indonesia would allow the Boeing 737 MAX to fly once the FAA issued airworthiness directives.
On-the-ground and simulator training for pilots would be included in that process, and the timing would be dependent on compliance with the requirements, Irawati said.
Grieving relative Sahadi said profit should not guide an urgency to get back in the air.
“This means they don't prioritize safety, considering there have been fatal mistakes that led to these two airlines having terrible accidents," Sahadi said.
(Additional reporting by Heru Asprihanto; Writing by Kate Lamb; Editing by Ed Davies and Gerry Doyle)
JAKARTA (Reuters) - Some of the relatives of victims of a fatal Boeing 737 MAX crash in Indonesia have slammed a decision by U.S. aviation authorities to allow the jets to return to the skies, saying the move comes too soon.
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on Wednesday lifted a flight ban on Boeing's 737 MAX imposed after two fatal crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia killed 346 people within five months in 2018 and 2019.
Two years after the plane operated by Indonesia’s Lion Air plunged into the Java Sea, killing all 189 on board, the tragedy is still raw.
"The U.S. authorities shouldn't have lifted the grounding order this quickly," said Aris Sugiono, who lost his sister and brother-in-law in the crash. "They must consider the feelings of the victim’s families."
In the past, global air regulators promptly followed the guidance of the FAA, credited for decades with pioneering aviation safety. But many are now wary of seeming to toe the FAA line after the U.S. agency was faulted for lax oversight.
"It's too soon," agreed Anton Sahadi, who had two young relatives on board the doomed flight. "It wasn’t just the Lion Air flight, but also the victims in Ethiopia... The victims' families haven't 100% recovered yet."
Families of the Ethiopian crash victims said in a statement they felt "sheer disappointment and renewed grief" after the FAA's decision to return the aircraft to service.
"Our family was broken," Naoise Ryan, whose 39-year-old husband died aboard Ethiopian Airlines flight 302, said.
In Indonesia, some of the aggrieved relatives said clearance had been granted faster than compensation.
"Why has the flight permit been granted while the affairs of the victims' family have not been fully resolved?" asked Latief Nurbana, a civil servant who lost his 24-year-old son.
He said compensation payments and arrangements with the Boeing Community Investment Fund (BCIF) were still unsettled.
The BCIF's website said that the distribution of funds to provide philanthropic support to communities affected by the crashes would be completed by Jan. 15, 2021.
A Boeing spokeswoman and spokesman for Lion Air did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In both accidents a stall-prevention system known as MCAS, triggered by faulty data from a single airflow sensor, repeatedly and forcefully shoved down the jet's nose as the pilots struggled to regain control.
Adita Irawati, an Indonesian transportation ministry spokeswoman, said Indonesia would allow the Boeing 737 MAX to fly once the FAA issued airworthiness directives.
On-the-ground and simulator training for pilots would be included in that process, and the timing would be dependent on compliance with the requirements, Irawati said.
Grieving relative Sahadi said profit should not guide an urgency to get back in the air.
“This means they don't prioritize safety, considering there have been fatal mistakes that led to these two airlines having terrible accidents," Sahadi said.
(Additional reporting by Heru Asprihanto; Writing by Kate Lamb; Editing by Ed Davies and Gerry Doyle)
16-year-old cosmic mystery solved, revealing stellar missing link
The Blue Ring Nebula, which perplexed scientists for over a decade, appears to be the youngest known example of two stars merged into one.
VIDEO: THE BLUE RING NEBULA CONSISTS OF TWO EXPANDING CONES OF DEBRIS. THE BASE OF ONE CONE IS MOVING TOWARD EARTH. BOTH BASES ARE OUTLINED IN MAGENTA, REVEALING SHOCKWAVES CREATED AS... view more
CREDIT: CREDIT: NASA/JPL-CALTECH/R. HURT
Maunakea, Hawaii - In 2004, scientists with NASA's space-based Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) spotted an object unlike any they'd seen before in our Milky Way galaxy: a large, faint blob of gas with a star at its center. Though it doesn't actually emit light visible to the human eye, GALEX captured the blob in ultraviolet (UV) light and thus appeared blue in the images; subsequent observations also revealed a thick ring structure within it. So the team nicknamed it the Blue Ring Nebula. Over the next 16 years, they studied it with multiple Earth- and space-based telescopes, including W. M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea in Hawaii, but the more they learned, the more mysterious it seemed.
A new study published online on Nov. 18 in the journal Nature may have cracked the case. By applying cutting-edge theoretical models to the slew of data that has been collected on this object, the authors posit the nebula - a cloud of gas in space - is likely composed of debris from two stars that collided and merged into a single star
CAPTION
The Blue Ring Nebula consists of two expanding cones of gas ejected into space by a stellar merger. As the gas cools, it forms hydrogen molecules that collide with particles in interstellar space, causing them to radiate far-ultraviolet light. Invisible to the human eye, it is shown here as blue.
CREDIT
NASA/JPL-Caltech/M. Seibert (Carnegie Institution for Science)/K. Hoadley (Caltech)/GALEX Team
While merged star systems are thought to be fairly common, they are nearly impossible to study immediately after they form because they're obscured by debris kicked up by the collision. Once the debris has cleared - at least hundreds of thousands of years later - they're challenging to identify because they resemble non-merged stars. The Blue Ring Nebula appears to be the missing link: astronomers are seeing the star system only a few thousand years after the merger, when evidence of the union is still plentiful. It appears to be the first known example of a merged star system at this stage.
Operated between 2003 and 2013 and managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, GALEX was designed to help study the history of star formation by observing young star populations in UV light. Most objects seen by GALEX radiated both near-UV (represented as yellow in GALEX images) and far-UV (represented as blue), but the Blue Ring Nebula stood out because it emitted only far-UV light.
The object's size was similar to that of a supernova remnant, which forms when a massive star runs out of fuel and explodes, or a planetary nebula, the puffed-up remains of a star the size of our Sun. But the Blue Ring Nebula had a living star at its center. Furthermore, supernova remnants and planetary nebulas radiate in multiple light wavelengths outside the UV range, whereas the Blue Ring Nebula did not.
PHANTOM PLANET
In 2006, the GALEX team looked at the nebula with the 5.1-meter Hale telescope at the Palomar Observatory in San Diego County, California, and then with the even more powerful 10-meter Keck Observatory telescopes. They found evidence of a shockwave in the nebula using Keck Observatory's Low Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (LRIS), suggesting the gas composing the Blue Ring Nebula had indeed been expelled by some kind of violent event around the central star.
"Keck's LRIS spectra of the shock front was invaluable for nailing down how the Blue Ring Nebula came to be," said Keri Hoadley, an astrophysicist at Caltech and lead author of the study. "Its velocity was moving too fast for a typical planetary nebula yet too slow to be a supernova. This unusual, in-between speed gave us a strong clue that something else must have happened to create the nebula."
Data from Keck Observatory's High-Resolution Echelle Spectrometer (HIRES) also suggested the star was pulling a large amount of material onto its surface. But where was the material coming from?
"The HIRES observations at Keck gave us the first evidence that the system was accreting material," said co-author Mark Seibert, an astrophysicist with the Carnegie Institution for Science and a member of the GALEX team at Caltech, which manages JPL. "For quite a long time we thought that maybe there was a planet several times the mass of Jupiter being torn apart by the star, and that was throwing all that gas out of the system. Though the HIRES data appeared to support this theory, it also told us to be wary of that interpretation, suggesting the accretion may have something to do with motions in the atmosphere of the central star."
To gather more data, in 2012, the GALEX team used NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), a space telescope that studied the sky in infrared light, and identified a disk of dust orbiting closely around the star. Archival data from three other infrared observatories also spotted the disk. The finding didn't rule out the possibility that a planet was also orbiting the star, but eventually the team would show that the disk and the material expelled into space came from something larger than even a giant planet. Then in 2017, the Hobby-Eberly Telescope in Texas confirmed there was no compact object orbiting the star.
More than a decade after discovering the Blue Ring Nebula, the team had gathered data on the system from four space telescopes, four ground-based telescopes, historical observations of the star going back to 1895 (in order to look for changes in its brightness over time), and the help of citizen scientists through the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO). But an explanation for what had created the nebula still eluded them.
CAPTION
The Blue Ring Nebula consists of two hollow, cone-shaped clouds of debris moving in opposite directions away from the central star. The base of one cone is traveling almost directly toward Earth. As a result, astronomers looking at the nebula see two circles that partially overlap.
CREDIT
Mark Seibert
STELLAR SLEUTHING
When Hoadley began working with the GALEX science team in 2017, "the group had kind of hit a wall" with the Blue Ring Nebula, she said. But Hoadley was fascinated by the thus-far unexplainable object and its bizarre features, so she accepted the challenge of trying to solve the mystery. It seemed likely that the solution would not come from more observations of the system, but from cutting-edge theories that could make sense of the existing data. So Chris Martin, principal investigator for GALEX at Caltech, reached out to Brian Metzger of Columbia University for help.
As a theoretical astrophysicist, Metzger makes mathematical and computational models of cosmic phenomena, which can be used to predict how those phenomena will look and behave. He specializes in cosmic mergers - collisions between a variety of objects, whether they be planets and stars or two black holes.
"It wasn't just that Brian could explain the data we were seeing; he was essentially predicting what we had observed before he saw it," said Hoadley. "He'd say, 'If this is a stellar merger, then you should see X,' and it was like, 'Yes! We see that!'"
The team concluded the nebula was the product of a relatively fresh stellar merger that likely occurred between a star similar to our Sun and another only about one tenth that size (or about 100 times the mass of Jupiter). Nearing the end of its life, the Sun-like star began to swell, creeping closer to its companion. Eventually, the smaller star fell into a downward spiral toward its larger companion. Along the way, the larger star tore the smaller star apart, wrapping itself in a ring of debris before swallowing the smaller star entirely.
This was the violent event that led to the formation of the Blue Ring Nebula. The merger launched a cloud of hot debris into space that was sliced in two by the gas disk. This created two cone-shaped debris clouds, their bases moving away from the star in opposite directions and getting wider as they travel outward. The base of one cone is coming almost directly toward Earth and the other almost directly away. They are too faint to see alone, but the area where the cones overlap (as seen from Earth) forms the central blue ring GALEX observed.
Millennia passed, and the expanding debris cloud cooled and formed molecules and dust, including hydrogen molecules that collided with the interstellar medium, the sparse collection of atoms and energetic particles that fill the space between stars. The collisions excited the hydrogen molecules, causing them to radiate in a specific wavelength of far-UV light. Over time, the glow became just bright enough for GALEX to see.
Stellar mergers may occur as often as once every 10 years in our Milky Way galaxy, meaning it's possible that a sizeable population of the stars we see in the sky were once two.
"We see plenty of two-star systems that might merge someday, and we think we've identified stars that merged maybe millions of years ago. But we have almost no data on what happens in between," said Metzger. "We think there are probably plenty of young remnants of stellar mergers in our galaxy, and the Blue Ring Nebula might show us what they look like so we can identify more of them."
Though this is likely the conclusion of a 16-year-old mystery, it may also be the beginning of a new chapter in the study of stellar mergers.
"It's amazing that GALEX was able to find this really faint object that we weren't looking for but that turns out to be something really interesting to astronomers," said Seibert. "It just reiterates that when you look at the universe in a new wavelength or in a new way, you find things you never imagined you would."
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ABOUT HIRES
The High-Resolution Echelle Spectrometer (HIRES) produces spectra of single objects at very high spectral resolution yet covering a wide wavelength range. It does this by separating the light into many "stripes" of spectra stacked across a mosaic of three large CCD detectors. HIRES is famous for finding exoplanets. Astronomers also use HIRES to study important astrophysical phenomena like distant galaxies and quasars and find cosmological clues about the structure of the early universe, just after the Big Bang.
ABOUT LRIS
The Low Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (LRIS) is a very versatile visible-wavelength imaging and spectroscopy instrument commissioned in 1993 and operating at the Cassegrain focus of Keck I. Since it has been commissioned it has seen two major upgrades to further enhance its capabilities: addition of a second, blue arm optimized for shorter wavelengths of light; and the installation of detectors that are much more sensitive at the longest (red)wavelengths. Each arm is optimized for the wavelengths it covers. This large range of wavelength coverage, combined with the instrument's high sensitivity, allows the study of everything from comets (which have interesting features in the ultraviolet part of the spectrum), to the blue light from star formation, to the red light of very distant objects. LRIS also records the spectra of up to 50 objects simultaneously, especially useful for studies of clusters of galaxies in the most distant reaches, and earliest times, of the universe. LRIS was used in observing distant supernovae by astronomers who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in2011 for research determining that the universe was speeding up in its expansion.
ABOUT W. M. KECK OBSERVATORY
The W. M. Keck Observatory telescopes are among the most scientifically productive on Earth. The two 10-meter optical/infrared telescopes near the summit of Maunakea on the Island of Hawaii feature a suite of advanced instruments including imagers, multi-object spectrographs, high-resolution spectrographs, integral-field spectrometers, and world-leading laser guide star adaptive optics systems. Some of the data presented herein were obtained at Keck Observatory, which is a private 501(c) 3 non-profit organization operated as a scientific partnership among the California Institute of Technology, the University of California, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The Observatory was made possible by the generous financial support of the W. M. Keck Foundation. The authors wish to recognize and acknowledge the very significant cultural role and reverence that the summit of Maunakea has always had within the Native Hawaiian community. We are most fortunate to have the opportunity to conduct observations from this mountain. For more information, visit http://www.
We acknowledge with thanks the variable star observations from the AAVSO International Database contributed by observers worldwide and used in this research.
"MISSED IT BY JUST THAT MUCH"
Earth's nearest miss on record as small asteroid zips by closer than ISS
By Michael Irving
November 19, 2020
An artist's rendition of an asteroid swinging past Earth
JohanSwanepoel/Depositphotos
Last week, the Earth had its closest shave with an asteroid ever recorded, when a small space rock skimmed just 370 km (230 miles) above the surface. For comparison, that’s closer than the orbit of the International Space Station.
The asteroid, dubbed 2020 VT4, made its closest approach at 17:20 UTC on Friday, November 13. But it wasn’t actually spotted until 15 hours later, by a survey called the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii.
That’s the closest we’ve ever seen any asteroid swing past the Earth, and the competition isn’t even close (no pun intended). This one is about eight times closer than the previous record holder, a rock named 2020 QG that whizzed by at a distance of 2,950 km (1,830 miles) in August this year.
Of course, the caveat in this record is that it’s the closest asteroid that didn’t become a meteor. Obviously all the rocks that have struck the Earth in the past came closer than 2020 VT4. Some have even been known to skim the planet’s atmosphere like a stone skipping across water, creating a visible fireball before bouncing off back into the ether. But 2020 VT4 is the closest one has come without doing that.
It may sound like we narrowly avoided disaster last weekend, but even if 2020 VT4 had collided with Earth we probably wouldn’t have noticed. Estimates of the rock’s size place it between 5 and 10 m (16.4 and 32.8 ft) wide, so it would have simply burned up before reaching the ground.
Although Earth didn’t notice 2020 VT4, 2020 VT4 sure noticed Earth. The gravitational influence of the planet bent the asteroid’s orbit so much that it changed the category it’s assigned to by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). The object has switched from an Apollo asteroid to an Aten asteroid – in effect, almost halving its yearly trip around the Sun.
This little rock doesn’t pose any danger to the Earth, but the Minor Planet Center will continue to monitor it.
Earth's nearest miss on record as small asteroid zips by closer than ISS
By Michael Irving
November 19, 2020
An artist's rendition of an asteroid swinging past Earth
JohanSwanepoel/Depositphotos
Last week, the Earth had its closest shave with an asteroid ever recorded, when a small space rock skimmed just 370 km (230 miles) above the surface. For comparison, that’s closer than the orbit of the International Space Station.
The asteroid, dubbed 2020 VT4, made its closest approach at 17:20 UTC on Friday, November 13. But it wasn’t actually spotted until 15 hours later, by a survey called the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii.
That’s the closest we’ve ever seen any asteroid swing past the Earth, and the competition isn’t even close (no pun intended). This one is about eight times closer than the previous record holder, a rock named 2020 QG that whizzed by at a distance of 2,950 km (1,830 miles) in August this year.
Of course, the caveat in this record is that it’s the closest asteroid that didn’t become a meteor. Obviously all the rocks that have struck the Earth in the past came closer than 2020 VT4. Some have even been known to skim the planet’s atmosphere like a stone skipping across water, creating a visible fireball before bouncing off back into the ether. But 2020 VT4 is the closest one has come without doing that.
It may sound like we narrowly avoided disaster last weekend, but even if 2020 VT4 had collided with Earth we probably wouldn’t have noticed. Estimates of the rock’s size place it between 5 and 10 m (16.4 and 32.8 ft) wide, so it would have simply burned up before reaching the ground.
Although Earth didn’t notice 2020 VT4, 2020 VT4 sure noticed Earth. The gravitational influence of the planet bent the asteroid’s orbit so much that it changed the category it’s assigned to by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). The object has switched from an Apollo asteroid to an Aten asteroid – in effect, almost halving its yearly trip around the Sun.
This little rock doesn’t pose any danger to the Earth, but the Minor Planet Center will continue to monitor it.
Xenophobia in Germany is declining, but old resentments are paired with new radicalism
Leipzig Authoritarianism Study 2020 published
The study, which also explores people's belief in conspiracy theories, was conducted in cooperation with the Heinrich Böll Foundation and the Otto Brenner Foundation.
"This time we have some good news, but we must also point out that xenophobia and extreme right-wing attitudes are still at a high level - and that authoritarian and anti-democratic attitudes are a constant threat to our open, liberal society. What's more, certain ideologies are becoming entrenched," said Professor Oliver Decker.
According to the study, the percentage of people with "manifestly xenophobic" attitudes has fallen from 23.4 to 16.5 per cent compared to 2018. "What is striking here is the difference in this decline between western and eastern Germany," said Decker. In the west, the share dropped from 21.5 to 13.7 per cent, and in the east only from 30.7 to 27.8 per cent. Overall, 28.4 per cent (two years ago: 36 per cent) of respondents agreed with the statement that "foreigners only come here to take advantage of the welfare state" (east: 43.9 per cent, west: 24.5 per cent). Around 26 per cent of those surveyed consider the Federal Republic of Germany to be "dangerously swamped by foreigners" - a drop of ten percentage points. While the proportion of people with firmly right-wing attitudes continued to fall in western Germany (to 3 per cent), it rose again in eastern Germany. Almost one in ten people questioned there had a narrow, extremely right-wing world view.
The current study also shows that acceptance of traditional anti-Semitism has declined slightly nationwide, as has prejudice against Muslims. "But we must not delude ourselves, we are still seeing an alarmingly high level of agreement on some issues," said Professor Elmar Brähler. More than one in four respondents agreed with the statement that Muslims should be banned from immigrating to Germany. More than half of the people who took part in the study agreed with the statement that Sinti and Roma tend to commit crimes. Some 47 per cent of those surveyed claimed that they sometimes felt like foreigners in their own country because of large numbers of Muslims (2018: 55 per cent). The situation is similar for certain manifestations of anti-Semitism. For example, ten per cent of those surveyed were understanding of the fact that "some people have something against Jews" and 41 per cent believed that "the payment of reparations merely serves a Holocaust industry" (2018: 36 per cent).
Right-wing extremist attitudes and bridges to far-right ideology
The researchers found that 4.3 per cent of respondents had "manifest right-wing extremist attitudes" (9.5 per cent in the east, 3 per cent in the west) - with a slight increase in the east and a slight decrease in the west. In the researchers' view, authoritarianism as a personality trait is one of the main causes of right-wing extremist attitudes. "People with an authoritarian character tend to have rigid ideologies that allow them to simultaneously submit to authority, share in its power, and promote prejudice against others in the name of that system," said Elmar Brähler. "Around a third of Germans display authoritarian-type characteristics."
The tenth round of the study also includes an analysis of how the results have changed over time. "It has become apparent that over the years we have shifted the focus of our authoritarianism studies, away from right-wing extremism and towards a study of anti-modern milieus that are not necessarily manifestly far-right, but are always anti-democratic," said Oliver Decker. "Furthermore, elements of the extreme right-wing world view are shared. And there we see that such shared motifs act like a bridge, even between different cultural and social milieus. These include anti-feminism, anti-Semitism that focuses on Israel, and the belief in conspiracy theories. It is these bridges that constitute the danger to democracy."
Conspiracy theories, including about COVID-19
The topic of conspiracy theories was included in the Leipzig study for the fifth time, and this time also with questions related to the coronavirus pandemic. Levels of agreement with the statement "The coronavirus crisis has been blown out of proportion so that a few people could benefit from it" were 33 per cent ("very strong") and 15.4 per cent ("strong"), while agreement with the statement "The reasons behind the coronavirus pandemic will never come to light" was at 47.8 per cent ("very strong") and 14.6 per cent ("strong"). "Our survey has shown that belief in conspiracy theories has increased among the population since 2018. We would also say that this can act as a kind of gateway drug for an anti-modern world view," said Professor Decker.
About the Leipzig Authoritarianism Study
Since 2002, researchers at Leipzig University have been observing changes in authoritarian and far-right attitudes in Germany. From 2006 until 2012, the so-called "Mitte" Studies were carried out in cooperation with the Friedrich Ebert Foundation. The Leipzig studies are now published in cooperation with the Heinrich Böll Foundation and the Otto Brenner Foundation.
In the tenth wave, 2503 people were surveyed nationwide between 2 May 2020 and 19 June 2020 using a paper-and-pencil method. The respondents filled out a paper questionnaire themselves. The data was thus collected during the phase of the COVID-19 pandemic in which the severe restrictions to protect against infection were gradually relaxed. Social distancing and hygiene rules were observed during the interviews. Participants were selected using stratified sampling. As with the previous surveys in the series, this year's survey was also conducted by the Berlin market research institute USUMA on behalf of Leipzig University. The questionnaire used for the study consisted of two parts. In the first part, respondents were asked to provide socio-demographic information about themselves and their household in accordance with the demographic standards of the Federal Statistical Office. Afterwards, the respondents were given the second, main part of the questionnaire, which they were asked to answer on their own due to the at times highly personal information requested.
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All of the results from this new authoritarianism study have now been published in the book Autoritäre Dynamiken. Alte Ressentiments - neue Radikalität ("Authoritarian dynamics. Old resentments - new radicality"), which is available from the publishing house Psychosozial-Verlag. Detailed information on the methodology is provided in the second chapter (p. 27 ff.).
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