STEVE is smearing green 'streaks' across the sky, and nobody knows why


By Brandon Specktor 2 days ago

The green streaks only last for 30 seconds, then vanish. What are they?

A 2017 STEVE event over New Zealand reveals the strange new feature that astronomers are calling "streaks." (Image: © Stephen Voss)


The mysterious, aurora-like phenomenon called STEVE just got a little weirder.

If you don't know STEVE (short for Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement) by name, you may know it from photos. Unlike the infamous Southern and Northern Lights, which blanket the sky in ethereal green swirls near Earth's magnetic poles, STEVE appears as a purplish-white ribbon of light that slashes diagonally toward the horizon, stretching hundreds of miles through the atmosphere. It can appear closer to the equator than a typical aurora, and is often accompanied by a "picket fence" of jagged green points dancing beside it.

Nobody knows what causes STEVE, but scientists agree it's no mere aurora. Auroras appear when charged particles from the sun sail across space and crackle along Earth's magnetic field lines; STEVE, meanwhile, is a river of hot, turbulent gas that shows up independently of that solar weather. Researchers suspect that it may be the result of some native process in the ionosphere — the level of Earth's atmosphere that extends between 50 and 600 miles (80 to 1,000 kilometers) above Earth's surface, just below the planet's magnetic field.

Related: Infographic: Earth's atmosphere, top to bottom

Now, a newfound feature of STEVE that only appears in the lower ionosphere has scientists puzzling over the ethereal lights again. In a study published Oct. 1 in the journal AGU Advances, NASA researchers reviewed hundreds of hours of STEVE footage recorded by citizen scientists to look for a strange new structure they've named "the streaks." These tiny smears of green light are sometimes seen extending horizontally from the bottom of STEVE's green fence pickets, curving backward for about 20 to 30 seconds before vanishing from view.

Four examples of "streaks" in STEVE events from 2017 and 2018. (Image credit: Alexei Chernenkoff (a), Shawn Malone (b), Stephen Voss (c) and Alan Dyer (d))

What are the streaks, exactly? As with all things STEVE, nobody really knows. But the new paper lays down some basic characteristics. For starters, the streaks' long, tube-like appearance may be an optical illusion; according to the researchers, the streaks behave more like tiny points of light, which appear elongated to us due to motion blur.

Each streak appears to share a physical connection with the picket fence structure above it, the team found, and each one moves along the same magnetic field lines. The streaks also seem picky about where they form; according to the team's calculations, streaks appear only low in the ionosphere between 62 and 68 miles (100 to 110 km) above Earth. That makes the streaks "the lowest‐altitude and smallest‐scale optical feature associated with STEVE," the researchers wrote in the study.

One clue about the streaks' origins comes from their green color, which is identical to the color of STEVE’s picket fence. According to the researchers, this particular green wavelength is associated with emissions from atomic oxygen in the atmosphere. It's likely that the turbulent particles within STEVE are colliding with and rapidly heating up ambient oxygen, the team wrote, creating tiny green fires in the sky that trail below the picket fence as they slowly fizzle out.

Or, maybe not. STEVE's streaks are so new to science that this paper is likely just "the tip of the iceberg," study co-author Elizabeth MacDonald, a space scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said in a statement. That depth of uncertainty is par for the course when it comes to STEVE, which was first reported by citizen scientists gazing at the Canadian skies in July 2016. Astronomers continue to rely on observations from civilian photographers and stargazers — whose time and passion may exceed professional scientists' — in order to unpack the mysterious river of light in our atmosphere.

Originally published on Live Science.

Ireland’s first-ever dinosaur fossils confirmed
Geologically speaking, Ireland is not conducive to finding dinosaur fossils.

ANOTHER AMAZING FIND FROM THE MUSEUM STORAGE ROOM

by Alexandru Micu
November 25, 2020

Researchers from the University of Portsmouth, Queen’s University Belfast, and National Museums Northern Ireland (NI) report on a first-ever for the island — the first-ever dinosaur bones to be discovered in Ireland.

Proximal fragment of left femur of Scelidosaurus. Image credits Michael Simms, et al., (2020), Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association.

The two fossils were discovered by Roger Byrne, a late fossil collector and schoolteacher, who donated them (among many other specimens he’s gathered) to Ulster Museum. Researchers were able to confirm that they hail from the early Jurassic, based on where they were discovered — rocks in Islandmagee, on the east coast of Northern Ireland.

Locally-sourced

“This is a hugely significant discovery. The great rarity of such fossils here is because most of Ireland’s rocks are the wrong age for dinosaurs, either too old or too young, making it nearly impossible to confirm dinosaurs existed on these shores,” explains Dr. Simms, National Museums NI, first author of the study. “The two dinosaur fossils that Roger Byrne found were perhaps swept out to sea, alive or dead, sinking to the Jurassic seabed where they were buried and fossilized.”

The only dinosaur bones ever found on the island of Ireland have been formally confirmed for the first time by a team of experts from the University of Portsmouth and Queen’s University Belfast, led by Dr. Mike Simms, a curator and paleontologist at National Museums NI.

Initially, the two fossils were believed to have belonged to the same animal. However, the authors report that they, in fact, belonged to two completely different dinos. One of them, a femur, belonged to a plant-eating species, Scelidosaurus. The other one was a tibia from a theropod, a two-legged predatory dinosaur similar to Sarcosaurus. The team identified their origin starting from high-resolution 3D models of the bone fragments.
.

 Proximal fragment of left tibia of megalosauroid theropod. Image credits Michael Simms, et al., (2020), Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association.

“Analyzing the shape and internal structure of the bones, we realized that they belonged to two very different animals. One is very dense and robust, typical of an armored plant-eater” says co-author Robert Smyth from the University of Portsmouth. “The other is slender, with thin bone walls and characteristics found only in fast-moving two-legged predatory dinosaurs called theropods”.

Although the specimens aren’t in ideal shape — they are, after all, broken into pieces, they still carry a huge paleontological weight. Not only were they discovered in Ireland, filling a gap in our understanding, but they also hail from an important time in the history of the dinosaurs. During the early Jurassic, about 200 million years ago, dinosaurs were poised to take the crown of the dominant terrestrial lineage and start dominating land ecosystems.

Little owl is Swiss bird of the year
 

The little owl is doing better in Switzerland but its habitat still needs to be preserved. Martin Becker/BirdLife

The little owl, almost extinct in Switzerland 20 years ago, has been chosen as BirdLife Switzerland’s “bird of the year” for 2021. 

This content was published on November 27, 2020 -

“This small nocturnal bird of prey symbolises the great successes that conservation projects can achieve,” BirdLife said on Thursday. “It also illustrates the consequences of neglecting biodiversity in public policies related to land use planning and agriculture.”

Once common in the orchards of northern Switzerland, the little owl became rare in the last century. Twenty years ago, only 50 to 60 pairs were still recorded. This trend has now been reversed thanks to conservation projects by BirdLife and others, but the association says the bird’s numbers are still insufficient to ensure its survival.

The little owl, which measures only 20 centimetres, feeds on various small prey, such as rodents, reptiles or insects. The owl breeds preferably in the cavities of old trees.

But over the last few decades, millions of tall-stemmed fruit trees have been felled and orchards have been replaced by buildings, says BirdLife. Over-fertilisation and the widespread use of pesticides have also deprived the little owl of its food supply.


The Swiss Alps are beautiful, but are they biodiverse?

The demands of a growing human population often clash with the needs of nature, a fact that regularly sparks political debate in Switzerland.

BirdLife says it has chosen the little owl, with its “magnificent eyes and mewing call”, as an “ambassador for the quality of cultivated landscapes” and biodiversity.
 

Little owls prefer to breed in trees. / Mathias Schäf

Pakistan's first transgender lawyer goes from begging to fighting in court

Syed Raza Hassan
Thu, November 26, 2020

KARACHI, Pakistan (Reuters) - Lawyer Nisha Rao maneuvers among the throng of black-coated attorneys clustered near Karachi's city courts searching for her client.

But Rao, 28, is not just another lawyer running for a meeting. As Pakistan's first transgender lawyer, she has carved a path from the streets to the courtroom and her example is inspiring other transgender people in the conservative Islamic Republic.


"I am proud to have become Pakistan first transgender lawyer", Rao told Reuters.

Life is hard for transgender persons in Pakistan, where the Supreme Court only allowed them to claim a third gender on their national identity cards in 2009. The parliament just passed a law in 2018 recognising transgender people as equal citizen and protecting them from discrimination and violence.

Treated as outcasts, many transgender persons are victims of sexual assault and resort to working as wedding dancers or begging to make a living.

Rao also ended up begging on the streets after running away from her middle class home in the eastern city of Lahore when she was 18 with two other transgender persons.

Arriving in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, the elder transgender people she sought refuge with advised her to beg or become a sex worker to survive.

Rao stood at traffic lights begging from car to car but was determined to escape that path, eventually using her income to pay for law classes at night.

After several years, she earned a law degree, gaining her law license earlier this year and joining the Karachi Bar Association.

She has contested 50 cases and is working with a non-governmental organisation fighting for transgender rights.

Rao has broadened her clientele to include non-transgender persons

“As my case pertains to harassment, I feel that Rao can represent me best since transgenders are subjected to frequent harassment in our society,” said Jeya Alvi, 34, an office secretary meeting Rao for a consultation.

A 2017 census counted 10,418 transgender people out of 207 million in the country, but rights group Charity Trans Action Pakistan estimates there are at least 500,000.

"Rao used to beg here along with us, today she is better than many. But she still helps us, she even responds at midnight (if we contact her)," said Nayab, a transgender beggar who goes by one name.

Rao has even bigger aspirations than becoming an attorney.

“My goal is to become Pakistan’s first transgender judge,” she said.

(Reporting by Syed Raza Hassan; Editing by Gibran Peshimam and Christian Schmollinger)

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Pakistan's first transgender lawyer goes from begging to fighting in court
Nisha Rao, 28, a transgender woman who became country's first practicing lawyer, listens to one of her clients at office in Karachi,

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Pakistan's first transgender lawyer goes from begging to fighting in court
Nisha Rao, 28, a transgender woman who became country's first practicing lawyer, boards a cab, in Karachi,

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Pakistan's first transgender lawyer goes from begging to fighting in court
Nisha Rao, 28, a transgender woman who became country's first practicing lawyer, works at her office in Karachi,



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Pakistan's first transgender lawyer goes from begging to fighting in court
Nisha Rao, 28, a transgender woman who became country's first practicing lawyer, poses for a selfie along with her colleagues at the district City Court in Karachi

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Pakistan's first transgender lawyer goes from begging to fighting in court
Nisha Rao, 28, a transgender woman who became country's first practicing lawyer, shares a moment with her colleague at the district City Court in Karachi,

A Fight Over Agriculture Secretary Could Decide the Direction of Hunger Policy

Jonathan Martin
Thu, November 26, 2020

House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) speaks with reporters after a hearing of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, in Washington, on Friday, July 31, 2020. (Stefani Reynolds/The New York Times)More

An unlikely fight is breaking out over President-elect Joe Biden’s choice for agriculture secretary, pitting a powerful Black lawmaker who wants to refocus the Agriculture Department on hunger against traditionalists who believe the department should be a voice for rural America.

Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, the highest-ranking Black member of Congress and perhaps Biden’s most important supporter in the Democratic primary, is making an all-out case for Rep. Marcia Fudge of Ohio, an African American Democrat from Ohio.

Clyburn, whose endorsement of Biden before the South Carolina primary helped turn the tide for the former vice president’s nomination, has spoken to him on the phone about Fudge as recently as this week. The lawmaker has also lobbied for her with two of the president-elect’s closest advisers and discussed the matter with Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

“I feel very strongly,” Clyburn said in an interview Wednesday about Fudge, who leads the nutrition and oversight subcommittee on the House Agriculture Committee.

“It’s time for Democrats to treat the Department of Agriculture as the kind of department it purports to be,” he added, noting that much of the budget “deals with consumer issues and nutrition and things that affect people’s day-to-day lives.”

But there are complications. Two of Biden’s farm-state allies are also being discussed for the job: Heidi Heitkamp, a former senator from North Dakota, and Tom Vilsack, the former Iowa governor who served as agriculture secretary for President Barack Obama.

The delicate proxy clash over the post, which is usually not as coveted as more high-profile Cabinet positions, has pitted Democrats eager to emphasize issues like hunger and nutrition against more traditional members of the party who believe the department should represent rural America. The sprawling agency oversees farm policy, the Forest Service, food safety and animal health but also the food stamp program, nutrition services, rural housing and rural development.More broadly, the debate illustrates the challenge Biden faces as he builds his administration. Every appointment he makes interlocks with others, and if he does not select a diverse candidate for one position, it becomes more likely he will for other posts.

The Agriculture job specifically is pinching Biden between two of his central campaign themes, which he repeated in plain terms this month in his victory speech: that he owes a special debt to African American voters and that he wants to be a president for all Americans, including those who didn’t vote for him.

And nowhere did Biden fare worse than in rural America, particularly the most heavily white parts of the farm belt.

“This is a choice that only Joe Biden can make, and he will make it understanding the unique challenges of rural America and what needs to happen in rural America moving forward,” said Heitkamp, a moderate who was defeated in 2018 after serving as attorney general and then senator in one of the most sparsely populated states in the country.

Recalling her campaign efforts on behalf of Biden’s “great rural plan,” Heitkamp predicted the president-elect would “pick the person who can implement that rural plan.”

Clyburn, though, said the Agriculture Department had for too long seemed “to favor big farming interests” over less wealthy people, whether they be “little farmers in Clarendon County, South Carolina, or food stamp recipients in Cleveland, Ohio,” Fudge’s hometown.

Clyburn did not mention Heitkamp, but he bridled at the prospect of Vilsack reclaiming the department he had led for all eight years of the Obama administration.

“I don’t know why we’ve got to be recycling,” Clyburn said, echoing complaints that Biden only represents Obama’s third term. “There’s a strong feeling that Black farmers didn’t get a fair shake” under Vilsack, Clyburn said.

Vilsack did not respond in kind. He said he had “all the respect in the world for Rep. Clyburn” and that he had learned from him.

The former Iowa governor, who with his wife was an early supporter of Biden in his first campaign for president and again this year, said he was not angling for the agriculture job but was careful not to disclaim interest in the position.

“If there’s something I can do to help the country, fine,” Vilsack said. “But the president-elect makes that decision.”

When he does, he will be fully aware of where one of his most prominent supporters stands.

In addition to his conversations with Biden, Clyburn has reached out to Steve Ricchetti, who will serve as a counselor in the White House, and Ted Kaufman, Biden’s longest-serving adviser and former chief of staff.

House Democratic leaders are sensitive to creating vacancies in the chamber, even in safe districts like Fudge’s, given their slender majority. Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio, a Republican, might not schedule a quick special election to replace her. But Clyburn said he was hopeful from his conversation with Pelosi that she “would greenlight” Fudge.

Drew Hammill, a spokesperson for Pelosi, declined to comment on the discussion. But he signaled that the speaker, who appointed Fudge as chair of a subcommittee two years ago to defuse a potential rivalry for the speakership, would not object to her departure.

“The speaker wants the full contribution of House Democrats to the Biden-Harris mandate and to the future represented in the administration,” Hammill said.

Like other positions, the Agriculture Department decision could be settled by finding an alternate post elsewhere in the administration for whoever is passed over.

A spokesperson for Biden’s transition declined to comment on the appointment but said the president-elect was “prioritizing diversity of ideology and background as he builds a team of experts that looks like America to serve in his administration.”

Fudge, though, has other important advocates, including Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, who said he had made the case for her “with four or five top Biden transition people.” Her colleagues on the House Agriculture Committee have also been supportive.

“It is time for a hunger advocate to lead the Department of Agriculture, and nobody could lead the agency better than Marcia Fudge,” said Rep. Filemon Vela, D-Texas.

Most significant, though, are three Black House Democrats who are close to one another and Fudge. The group includes Clyburn, Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi and Rep. Cedric Richmond of Louisiana, who is leaving Congress to become a senior adviser in the White House.

As for Biden, Clyburn said, “he likes Fudge a whole lot.”

Recounting his conversation with the president-elect, the congressman said he wanted to let him make the decision. “I just told him I thought she’d be a very good candidate and help refocus what the department is all about.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

© 2020 The New York Times Company

Former World Bank chief and 'voice for the poor' Wolfensohn dies aged 86

Wed, November 25, 2020

FILE PHOTO: Former World Bank chief James Wolfensohn dies aged 86

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - James Wolfensohn, a former investment banker who pushed through debt relief for the poorest nations during a decade at the helm of the World Bank, has died, the Bank said Wednesday. He was 86.

Wolfensohn, a former Salomon Brothers partner, was appointed as president of the global development bank by then-U.S. President Bill Clinton and led the Bank from June 1995 through May 2005. Born in Australia, he became a U.S. citizen in 1980.

In 1979, he helped orchestrate the rescue of Chrysler Corp from the verge of bankruptcy, together with Chrysler's chief executive Lee Iacocca and Paul Volcker, who was then president of the New York Federal Reserve.

Together with the International Monetary Fund, Wolfensohn in 1996 launched the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative, a program that eventually provided more than $53 billion in debt relief to 27 of the world’s poorest countries.

Current IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva mourned the passing of her friend, mentor and former boss.

"He was a hero to me as he was to so many," she said in a statement. "Jim transformed the world of development and he transformed the World Bank. In the process, he became, quite literally, the voice for the poor people on our planet."

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Stephen Coates)

FRACKING FAILS

U.S. Shale Bankruptcies Accelerate Despite Pandemic Protection

Editor OilPrice.com
Wed, November 25, 2020

The U.S. oil industry is trying to recover from the worst demand shock in the history of oil markets. Some companies launched the long-awaited consolidation in the sector, while many others filed for bankruptcy as unsustainably low oil prices this year weighed on already weakened balance sheets.

The U.S. shale patch had access to some form of government relief during the pandemic, like all businesses in the United States. The oil and gas industry received tax breaks, royalty relief, and forgivable loans under the Paycheck Protection Program to keep employees during the pandemic.

Yet, bankruptcies in the shale patch started to accelerate in the second quarter after oil prices crashed in early March because of the demand collapse and the Saudi-Russian price war. U.S. drillers immediately scaled back capital spending and curtailed more than 2 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil production between April and June in response to the crash in prices.

Thousands of jobs in the industry have been lost over the past six months, and a good portion of those jobs lost may never return.

The U.S. shale patch has been struggling this year and is bracing for more hardship with the incoming Administration of Joe Biden, who has vowed to ban new oil and gas drilling on federal lands and waters.

The federal relief during the pandemic, especially royalty rate reductions on federal land and offshore, has not been very effective because of a lack of uniform decision-making, the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) said last month.

Environmental advocates, of course, point the finger at the mere fact that the federal government dared provide relief for the fossil fuel industry.

Related: Saudi Aramco’s Landmark IPO Is Costing The Kingdom Billions

According to a new analysis by BailoutWatch, Public Citizen, and Friends of the Earth, the fossil fuel industry received between US$10.4 billion and US$15.2 billion in direct economic relief, with more than 26,000 coal, oil, and gas companies benefiting directly. In addition, indirect benefits in the form of bond funds bought by the Fed and billions of newly issued company bonds “pushed government aid to the industry past US$110 billion,” say the activists in their report Bailed Out & Propped Up, which slams government support to the “money-losing dirty energy companies” and shames the firms that made use of federal government programs. The report goes on to recommend that “Congress must explicitly exclude further aid to the fossil fuel industry from any future coronavirus relief packages.”

The Fed wasn’t spared in the report either: “By insisting fossil fuel companies deserve protection and support, the Fed has exacerbated the already dire threat of climate change, prolonging oil and gas companies’ ability to borrow money at lower rates than investors were willing to offer before the pandemic,” the authors say.

Some other analyses have shown that “the dirty energy companies” did not just tap into government money to boost top executive pays and keep dividends to shareholders.

According to a Houston Chronicle analysis from July, the Paycheck Protection Program, with more than US$1 billion in forgivable loans to companies, helped to save more than half of oilfield jobs in Texas. According to the analysis of figures from the Small Business Administration, companies in Texas were able to keep 93,117 jobs or more than half of the 182,500 people employed in the sector in Texas.

Thousands of jobs have been lost since March in the U.S. upstream and oilfield services sectors as the oil industry is becoming leaner in the aftermath of the pandemic.

Related: EIA Sees WTI Crude Averaging $44 In 2021

After a wave of bankruptcies in the third quarter, North American oil producers and oilfield services companies continued to file for protection from creditors at the start of the fourth quarter, law firm Haynes and Boone said in its latest tally to October 31 last week.

Among healthier companies with quality assets, consolidation has been the hottest thing in recent weeks.

There is new-found enthusiasm for M&A deals in the U.S. shale patch, data and analytics company GlobalData said in a new report on Tuesday.

“In all of the recent deals and likely in future mergers, there is a significant acreage in unconventional areas involved, especially in Permian Basin,” said Andrew Folse, Oil and Gas Analyst at GlobalData.

“This basin remains the most attractive acreage in the US Lower 48 and provides very competitive payback periods, measured in months, unlike offshore projects where the payback periods are usually measured in years.”

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

Exxon Bearish On Oil In Private While Dividend Protected At All Costs

GILLIAN RICH
11/25/2020

Exxon Mobil's (XOM) internal forecasts on oil prices reportedly grew bearish recently as the energy giant cuts jobs and capital spending to protect its dividend. Exxon stock fell.


Logo of the Exxon Mobil Corp is seen at the Rio Oil and Gas Expo and Conference in Rio de Janeiro


In September, Exxon lowered its oil price expectations by 11% to 17% for the next seven years, according to a Wall Street Journal report. It now sees Brent oil prices between $50 and $55 per barrel for the next five years before hitting $60 in 2026 and 2027.

Oil prices have remained in $40-to-$49-per-barrel range as Covid-19 lockdowns hit global demand. U.S. oil prices even went negative in April. On Wednesday, U.S. crude futures were around $45 a barrel with Brent at $48, both hitting their highest levels since early March.

Exxon doesn't publish its oil price expectations but has been positive about the long-term outlook for its business in public. During the Q3 earnings call, Exxon officials said the company wasn't canceling any projects that were in execution or in the funding process.

"We remain confident in our long-term strategy and the fundamentals of our business, and are taking the necessary actions to preserve value while protecting the balance sheet and dividend," CEO Darren Woods said in the earnings statement.

To keep investors happy, Exxon is maintaining its quarterly dividend at 87 cents a share. But to protect its payout, the company is cutting spending and jobs. Exxon sees 2021 capital program at $16 billion-$19 billion, down from the 2020 target of $23 billion. And it plans to eliminate about 14,000 positions.

Analysts have questioned the sustainability of the Exxon stock dividend as increased borrowing is necessary to support it.

Exxon to cut up to 300 jobs in Canada

Wed, November 25, 2020

(Reuters) - U.S. oil major Exxon Mobil Corp said on Wednesday it plans to reduce up to 300 positions in Canada as part of an ongoing cost-cut plan due to a coronavirus-driven slump in oil prices.

Reductions will include positions at Imperial Oil Ltd, ExxonMobil Canada Ltd and ExxonMobil Business Centre Canada ULC, the company said.

Oil producers, including Exxon, have been slashing costs due to a collapse in oil demand and ill-timed bets on new projects. The top U.S. oil company had earlier outlined more than $10 billion in budget cuts this year.

Suncor Energy, Canada's second biggest oil company, said last month it would cut its workforce by up to 15% over the next year and a half.

Canadian energy companies have also suffered from scarce capital due to chronic pipeline congestion and high emissions.

(Reporting by Shariq Khan in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koy

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M 

‘Admiral’ Who Bought Storied Canada Firm Is Accused of Fraud

Paula Sambo
Thu, November 26, 2020



(Bloomberg) -- Canadian entrepreneur Gary Ng has been accused by the country’s investment regulator of falsifying documents and creating fake brokerage accounts to secure the money to buy one of Vancouver’s oldest investment firms, PI Financial Corp.

Ng allegedly altered documents to include his name on corporate client accounts and created other fake account balances to use as collateral against C$172 million ($132 million) in loans, according to a statement of allegations filed by the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada.

The actual collateral he owned might have amounted to only C$1.9 million, IIROC said. Ng’s business partner, Donald Metcalfe, assisted in the effort, the regulatory body alleged in the documents. None of the allegations have been proven.

Ng did not reply to requests for comment. Metcalfe couldn’t be reached. Both men are accused of failing to cooperate with investigators, as well as “fraudulent conduct with respect to loan financing,” according to the documents.

Ng and Metcalfe resigned from PI Financial in February after the firm raised concerns with the regulator. Its investigators scheduled interviews with Ng in July and Metcalfe in August, but neither man showed up.

“We identified unusual correspondence during an unrelated document request, immediately alerted our regulators, and have been cooperating with IIROC on its investigation,” Jean-Paul Bachellerie, chief executive officer of PI Financial, said in an email. “None of the alleged misconduct was related to the firm’s capital or client accounts.”

The firm reviewed its internal controls and found they were not, and are not, deficient. Neither its client accounts nor the firm’s own capital were at risk, Bachellerie said. IIROC said it has not found any evidence of client losses.

Fleet of Firms

Ng’s first purchase of a financial firm was a Toronto-based father-and-son shop which he renamed Chippingham Financial Group Ltd., an amalgam of British terms for trading and hamlet. Ng then spent C$100 million in late 2018 to buy PI.

Ng, who called himself the Admiral of the fleet of financial firms he snapped up, financed the PI deal with two loans, one worth C$80 million from a U.S. investment firm and a C$20 million loan from a Canadian asset manager. As collateral, he put up securities he said he held in his personal investment accounts, according to IIROC.

PI was sold this summer to a joint venture controlled by two investment firms, H.I.G. Capital LLC and RCM Capital Management, for an undisclosed amount. H.I.G manages about $41 billion in assets and RCM makes direct debt and equity investments in North American companies.

Ng also borrowed an additional C$40 million in 2019 and 2020 from the asset management firm based in Canada and another C$32 million from a third lender, a private company based in Canada, also based on falsified collateral, according to IIROC.

“Ng and Metcalfe perpetrated a fraudulent scheme by deceiving lenders into providing them with millions of dollars in loans in reliance on falsified and fictitious documentation purportedly evidencing substantial financial assets as security when this was not true,” the regulator said.

Ng deepened his push into Canada’s financial industry with the purchase of an undisclosed stake in private lender Bridging Finance Inc. in 2019. About a year later he sold his stake back to Bridging’s founder David Sharpe, according to Sharpe.

Ng, a self-described “financial entrepreneur,” told Bloomberg in a interview last year that he started working as a coder for Redknee, renamed Optiva Canada, at 16, and became an Internet millionaire during the tech mania of the late 1990s. He said he plowed that into a Chinese glass factory that was eventually sold to Industrial Bank of China, giving him a $150 million windfall.

Ng represented himself to others as someone

A hearing into the allegations is scheduled to begin Jan. 6.

(Updates with additional details of allegations in paragraph four)

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

Norway gas exports could be hit by strike escalation from Friday

 FILE PHOTO: NewGas Import Terminal of Gassco

By Nerijus Adomaitis and Nora Buli
Thu, November 26, 2020

OSLO (Reuters) - The planned escalation of a strike by Norwegian security guards could begin to shut the Nyhamna gas processing plant and two large gas fields from Friday, which would reduce Norway's exports to Europe by a quarter, system operator Gasco said.

Some 2,300 security guards organised by the Norwegian Union of General Workers (NAF) are on strike nationwide over pay, and an additional 85 will go on strike from Saturday unless the dispute is resolved first.


A gradual shutdown would have to start on Friday to prepare for the strike the following day, Gassco's systems operations chief Alfred Hansen said.

"In order to shut down a facility like Nyhamna and to do it in a safe and proper manner, we would have to start a while before," Hansen said. "So we warned our shippers in the transportation system that this potential is now clear and that we are preparing for this scenario tomorrow."

The Norwegian government, which can invoke emergency powers to end workplace conflicts, said it was closely monitoring the situation but declined to say whether it would step in.

Nyhamna processes gas from the Ormen Lange and Aasta Hansteen fields, which would also have to shut because of the strike, Gassco and the Norwegian Oil and Gas Association (NOG) said.

Export capacity from Nyhamna stands at 84 million standard cubic metres (mcm) of gas per day, about a quarter of Norway's expected 330 mcm export volume on Thursday.

The NAF union confirmed that security guards working at Nyhamna were among those who would join the strike, but declined to give numbers.

Security guards are also on strike at heliports from which crews and equipment are flown to and from offshore platforms, and the gradual escalation of the conflict could disrupt supply lines, oil major Equinor said.

While governments can end strikes, they are generally reluctant to do so. In 2012, the government ended a strike after 16 days when employers threatened a lockout of workers that would have shut down all oil and gas output.

"The ongoing dispute is for the parties to solve, but the ministry is following the situation closely," a spokeswoman for the labour ministry said.

(Writing by Terje Solsvik; editing by Alexandra Hudson and Barbara Lewis)