It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
A boy in a stroller reacts to Boston Dynamics' four-legged robot Spot during its demonstration at Tokyo Robot Collection, Japan September 18, 2020.
HONG KONG (Reuters Breakingviews) - Hyundai Motor Group has gained a new high-tech best friend. The South Korean conglomerate and its chairman will take control of Boston Dynamics, the venture famed for Spot the robotic dog and other eerily lifelike designs. The technology complements Hyundai’s diversification drive, and seller SoftBank will keep a stake. That endorses Chairman Euisun Chung’s ambitious vision to transform his staid autos-to-steel conglomerate.
Friday’s deal will value the robotics pioneer, which Google’s parent Alphabet offloaded to Masayoshi Son’s acquisitive group just three years ago, at $1.1 billion. Financial terms were not disclosed, but SoftBank freely admits that animatronic canines going for $74,500 each aren’t a cash cow yet. Filings show the unit, which is loss-making overall, made just 50 billion yen ($481 million) in pre-tax profit on over 5 trillion yen of sales in the 12 months to March, implying a razor-thin 1% margin. To compare, Japanese-listed peer Fanuc, known for giant robotic arms used in factories, reported a pre-tax profit margin of nearly 20% over the same period.
SoftBank will hang on to a one-fifth stake, suggesting Son sees potential in the new owners. Spot, made available for commercial sales in June, can be equipped with accessories such as sensors for surveillance and logistics in dangerous environments. The likes of BP, Merck and Ford Motor have already put the biopeds to use. A partnership with Hyundai will offer new opportunities. The automaker, better known for its Hyundai and Kia family cars, has already developed wearable robotics to support manual labourers and the physically disabled, and is working on flying cars too. More know-how could improve existing designs and add new facets.
Hyundai scion Chung will need to navigate carefully. Commercial applications for robotics are still developing, and will require high upfront investments. Regulations are uncertain too, especially concerning technology that has military applications – as Boston Dynamics designs do.
Even so, Chung is moving in the right direction. He has promised to cut the conglomerate’s reliance on traditional car-making, and wants robotics and air mobility to account for half of its total top line in the future. Spot the dog could prove the right companion down the line.
John le Carre, author of 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy', dies aged 89
LONDON (Reuters) - “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” author John le Carre, who cast flawed spies on to the bleak chessboard of Cold War rivalry, has died aged 89.
FILE PHOTO: Author David Cornwell, also known by the pen name John Le Carre, receives Olof Palme Prize at a ceremony in the Grunewaldsalen concert hall in Stockholm, Sweden January 30, 2020. Claudio Bresciani/TT News Agency/via REUTERS
David Cornwell, known to the world as John le Carre, died after a short illness in Cornwall, southwestern England, on Saturday evening, said Jonny Geller, CEO of The Curtis Brown Group.
Le Carre is survived by his wife, Jane, and four sons. The family said in a brief statement he died of pneumonia.
“This terrible year has claimed a literary giant and a humanitarian spirit,” author Stephen King said of his death.
By exploring treachery at the heart of British intelligence in spy novels, le Carre challenged Western assumptions about the Cold War by defining for millions the moral ambiguities of the battle between the Soviet Union and the West.
Unlike the glamour of Ian Fleming’s unquestioning James Bond, le Carre’s heroes were trapped in the wilderness of mirrors inside British intelligence which was reeling from the betrayal of Kim Philby who fled to Moscow in 1963.
“It’s not a shooting war anymore, George. That’s the trouble,” Connie Sachs, British intelligence’s resident alcoholic expert on Soviet spies, tells spy catcher George Smiley in the 1979 novel “Smiley’s People”.
“It’s grey. Half angels fighting half devils. No one knows where the lines are,” Sachs says in the final novel of Le Carre’s Karla trilogy.
Such a bleak portrayal of the Cold War shaped popular Western perceptions of the rivalry between the Soviet Union and the United States that dominated the second half of the 20th century until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
The Cold War, for le Carre, was “A Looking Glass War” (the name of his 1965 novel) with no heroes and where morals were up for sale - or betrayal - by spy masters in Moscow, Berlin, Washington and London.
Betrayal of family, lovers, ideology and country run through le Carre’s novels which use the deceit of spies as a way to tell the story of nations, particularly Britain’s sentimental failure to see its own post-imperial decline.
Such was his influence that le Carre was credited by the Oxford English Dictionary with introducing espionage terms such as “mole”, “honey pot” and “pavement artist” to popular English usage.
British spies were angry that le Carre portrayed the MI6 Secret Intelligence Service as incompetent, ruthless and corrupt. But they still read his novels.
Other fans included Cold War warriors such as former U.S. President George H. W. Bush and former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
SOLDIER, SPY
David John Moore Cornwell was born on Oct. 19, 1931 in Dorset, England, to Ronnie and Olive, though his mother, despairing at the infidelities and financial impropriety of her husband, abandoned the family when he was five years old.
Mother and son would meet again decades later though the boy who became le Carre said he endured “16 hugless years” in the charge of his father, a flamboyant businessman who served time in jail.
At the age of 17, Cornwell left Sherborne School in 1948 to study German in Bern, Switzerland, where he came to the attention of British spies.
After a spell in the British Army, he studied German at Oxford, where he informed on left-wing students for Britain’s MI5 domestic intelligence service.
Le Carre was awarded a first-class degree before teaching languages at Eton College, Britain’s most exclusive school. He also worked at MI5 in London before moving in 1960 to the Secret Intelligence Service, known as MI6.
Posted to Bonn, then capital of West Germany, Cornwell fought on one of the toughest fronts of Cold War espionage: 1960s Berlin.
As the Berlin Wall went up, le Carre wrote “The Spy Who Came in from the Cold,” where a British spy is sacrificed for an ex-Nazi turned Communist who is a British mole.
“What the hell do you think spies are?,” asks Alex Leamas, the British spy who is finally shot on the Berlin Wall.
“They’re just a bunch of seedy, squalid bastards like me: little men, drunkards, queers, hen-pecked husbands, civil servants playing cowboys and Indians to brighten their rotten little lives.”
By casting British spies as every bit as ruthless as their Communist foes, le Carre defined the dislocation of the Cold War that left broken humans in the wake of distant superpowers.
‘MOSCOW RULES’
Now rich, but with a failing marriage and far too famous to be a spy, le Carre devoted himself to writing and the greatest betrayal in British intelligence history gave him material for a masterpiece.
The discovery, which began in the 1950s with the defection of Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean, that the Soviets had run spies recruited at Cambridge to penetrate British intelligence hammered confidence in the once legendary services.
Le Carre wove the story of betrayal into the Karla trilogy, beginning with the 1974 novel “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” and ending with “Smiley’s People” (1979).
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George Smiley seeks to track down a Soviet mole at the top of Britain’s secret service and battles with Soviet spy master Karla, ultimate master of the mole who is sleeping with Smiley’s wife.
Smiley, betrayed in love by his aristocratic wife Ann (also the name of Cornwell’s first wife), traps the traitor. Karla, compromised by an attempt to save his schizophrenic daughter, defects to the West in the last book. ABSOLUTE FRIENDS?
After the Soviet Union collapsed, leaving Russia’s once mighty spies impoverished, le Carre turned his focus to what he perceived as the corruption of the U.S.-dominated world order.
From corrupt pharmaceutical companies, Palestinian fighters and Russian oligarchs to lying U.S. agents and, of course, perfidious British spies, le Carre painted a depressing - and at times polemical - view of the chaos of the post-Cold War world.
“The new American realism, which is nothing other than gross corporate power cloaked in demagogy, means one thing only: that America will put America first in everything,” he wrote in the foreword to “The Tailor of Panama”.
He opposed the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and his anger at the United States was evident in his later novels, which sold well and were turned into popular films but did not match the mastery of his Cold War bestsellers.
But in a life of espionage how much was true?
“I am a liar,” le Carre was quoted as saying by his biographer Adam Sisman. “Born to lying, bred to it, trained to it by an industry that lies for a living, practised in it as a novelist.”
Additional reporting by Kanishka Singh in Bengalur
Tanzania farmers distrust fertilizer quality, are less willing to pay for it
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURAL, CONSUMER AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
IMAGE: UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS RESEARCHERS EXAMINED FERTILIZER USE IN TANZANIA. view more
CREDIT: ANNA FAIRBAIRN.
URBANA, Ill. - Smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa use fertilizer well below recommended rates, contributing to consistently low agricultural productivity. Farmers in Tanzania and Kenya, for example, apply just 13 kilograms of fertilizer per hectare, compared with 165 to 175 kilograms in India and Brazil. Low use directly affects cereal yields, which average 1.2 to 1.7 metric tons per hectare, compared to 4 to 4.5 metric tons in South America and Asia.
A new study from the University of Illinois finds farmers have misconceptions about fertilizer quality and suggests those misconceptions are a major reason for low application rates.
"Farmers were not using much fertilizer; that's well established in the region of Tanzania where we were working. In discussions with farmers we heard again and again the explanation was they thought the fertilizer was fake or bad, and they didn't want to buy it," says Hope Michelson, associate professor in the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics (ACE) at U of I.
"I'd heard this in other, similar locations where I'd worked with farmers," Michelson says. "We decided to focus on this question of quality: Is the fertilizer bad?"
Michelson and her colleagues conducted a case study in Tanzania to gain more insight into fertilizer quality and farmers' beliefs and willingness to buy it.
Anna Fairbairn, then-graduate student in ACE and co-author on the study, spent a year collecting data throughout Tanzania's Morogoro Region.
Fairbairn first conducted a census to identify all shops in the region selling fertilizer. She drove with her team along primary and secondary roads for weeks, stopping at any shop that looked like it might sell fertilizer. They interviewed all dealers about their practices and prices. Then, "mystery shoppers" posing as farmers purchased more than 600 fertilizer samples from 225 dealers, recording prices and other details about the transactions. The samples went to laboratories in Kenya and the U.S. for analysis.
The researchers included three types of fertilizer that are important for ag production in Tanzania - urea, calcium ammonium nitrate (CAN), and diammonium phosphate (DAP). The lab results showed just a small percentage of samples were marginally out of compliance with industry standards. They did not indicate widespread evidence of the fraud and quality problems that farmers worried about. These results are consistent with findings from numerous academic studies and from international organizations like the International Fertilizer Development Center conducted in recent years.
"It makes sense that the quality is good. Urea fertilizer is difficult to adulterate, and it is one of the cheapest fertilizers. You would have to dilute it with something even cheaper, and there are not very many options. So it is not likely to happen," Michelson notes.
After the quality analysis, Fairbairn and her assistants interviewed 165 farmers in 12 villages across the region. They set up a "store," where they showed farmers samples of urea - the most prevalent fertilizer for small farmers - and asked how much they would be willing to pay for them.
"We found evidence that farmers worry about the quality of the fertilizer in the marketplace, and that impacts their willingness to pay for it. This can affect the amount of fertilizer they're buying, and whether or not they purchase fertilizer at all," Michelson states.
After the farmers' initial responses, the researcher would tell them that the fertilizer had been lab tested and shown to have adequate nutrition content. This information increased the farmers' willingness to pay by about 50%.
Michelson says there may be several explanations for the farmers' distrust in fertilizer quality.
"These farmers are operating in contexts with weak regulatory systems and may be broadly suspicious. It is interesting and significant to find evidence that farmers' beliefs are not converging to the truth - of good quality fertilizer in the marketplace - over time," she states.
Michelson says farmer distrust could be exacerbated by the difficulty in observing the effect of fertilizer on crop yields.
"You could be applying at the wrong time, or not applying enough. Weather is also a factor driving crop yields. You can't always tell if the fertilizer is doing anything because of the rainfall variability factor. Farmers could blame these things on the fertilizer not being good quality," she says.
An important factor that may influence the beliefs the researchers identified is the appearance of the fertilizer. "We find evidence there is an enormous problem with fertilizer in the marketplace that looks bad. It may be dirty or have clumps, sticks, and small amounts of impurities in it," Michelson notes. "More than 30% of the samples we purchased had this sort of problem."
Wholesalers import urea through the port of Dar es Salaam, where it gets bagged and transported into the country. Inadequate storage facilities and transportation resources can result in a compromised appearance that has no bearing on quality and effectiveness.
The research confirmed that farmers were willing to pay less for fertilizer with this poor physical appearance.
For smallholder farmers, purchasing fertilizer is a substantial expense, amounting to about 10% of annual per capita income in the household. It's a non-trivial investment that comes with a measure of risk. And they are not willing to make that investment if they do not believe it will be worth the cost, Michelson notes.
The researchers conclude misconceptions about fertilizer quality could severely hamper crop productivity in developing countries, and additional research can help further explore those correlations and the persistence of these misconceptions in the marketplace.
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The Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics is in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois.
Authors include Hope Michelson, Anna Fairbairn, Brenna Ellison, Annemie Maertens, and Victor Manyong.
Funding for the research was provided by University of Illinois Office of International Programs, University of Illinois Campus Research Board Research Support Program, University of Illinois Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics, University of Illinois College of ACES AYRE Research and Learning Graduate Fellowship, a Private Enterprise Development in Low-Income Countries (PEDL) grant, and a United States Borlaug Graduate Research Grant.
Research reveals unexpected insights into early dinosaur's brain, eating habits and agility
IMAGE: BRAINCASE AND ENDOCAST OF THECODONTOSAURUS ANTIQUUS. FROM CT SCANS OF THE BRAINCASE FOSSIL, 3-D MODELS OF THE BRAINCASE AND THE ENDOCAST WERE GENERATED AND STUDIED. view more
CREDIT: CREATED BY ANTONIO BALLELL WITH BIORENDER.COM, THECODONTOSAURUS SILHOUETTE FROM PHYLOPIC.ORG.
A pioneering reconstruction of the brain belonging to one of the earliest dinosaurs to roam the Earth has shed new light on its possible diet and ability to move fast.
Research, led by the University of Bristol, used advanced imaging and 3-D modelling techniques to digitally rebuild the brain of Thecodontosaurus, better known as the Bristol dinosaur due to its origins in the UK city. The palaeontologists found Thecodontosaurus may have eaten meat, unlike its giant long-necked later relatives including Diplodocus and Brontosaurus, which only fed on plants.
Antonio Ballell, lead author of the study published today in Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, said: "Our analysis of Thecodontosaurus' brain uncovered many fascinating features, some of which were quite surprising. Whereas its later relatives moved around ponderously on all fours, our findings suggest this species may have walked on two legs and been occasionally carnivorous."
Thecodontosaurus lived in the late Triassic age some 205 million years ago and was the size of a large dog. Although its fossils were discovered in the 1800s, many of which are carefully preserved at the University of Bristol, scientists have only very recently been able to deploy imaging software to extract new information without destroying them. 3-D models were generated from CT scans by digitally extracting the bone from the rock, identifying anatomical details about its brain and inner ear previously unseen in the fossil.
"Even though the actual brain is long gone, the software allows us to recreate brain and inner ear shape via the dimensions of the cavities left behind. The braincase of Thecodontosaurus is beautifully preserved so we compared it to other dinosaurs, identifying common features and some that are specific to Thecodontosaurus," Antonio said. "Its brain cast even showed the detail of the floccular lobes, located at the back of the brain, which are important for balance. Their large size indicate it was bipedal. This structure is also associated with the control of balance and eye and neck movements, suggesting Thecodontosaurus was relatively agile and could keep a stable gaze while moving fast."
Although Thecodontosaurus is known for being relatively small and agile, its diet has been debated.
Antonio, a PhD student at the University of Bristol's School of Earth Sciences, said: "Our analysis showed parts of the brain associated with keeping the head stable and eyes and gaze steady during movement were well-developed. This could also mean Thecodontosaurus could occasionally catch prey, although its tooth morphology suggests plants were the main component of its diet. It's possible it adopted omnivorous habits."
The researchers were also able to reconstruct the inner ears, allowing them estimate how well it could hear compared to other dinosaurs. Its hearing frequency was relatively high, pointing towards some sort of social complexity - an ability to recognise varied squeaks and honks from different animals.
Professor Mike Benton, study co-author, said: "It's great to see how new technologies are allowing us to find out even more about how this little dinosaur lived more than 200 million years ago.
"We began working on Thecodontosaurus in 1990, and it is the emblem of the Bristol Dinosaur Project, an educational outreach scheme where students go to speak about science in local schools. We're very fortunate to have so many well-preserved fossils of such an important dinosaur here in Bristol. This has helped us understand many aspects of the biology of Thecodontosaurus, but there are still many questions about this species yet to be explored."
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This research was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), the Leverhulme Trust and the Royal Society.
Researchers rank various mask protection, modifications against COVID-19
Scientists tested consumer-grade masks and improvised face coverings to show how effective they can be at protecting individuals from airborne particles of similar size to those carrying SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19
IMAGE: MEDICAL PROCEDURE MASK AND MODIFICATIONS DESIGNED TO ENHANCE MASK FIT OR COMFORT FOR THE WEARER. A MASK W/EAR LOOPS (A) MODIFIED BY TYING THE EAR LOOPS AND TUCKING IN THE... view more
CREDIT: UNC SCHOOL OF MEDICINE
CHAPEL HILL, NC - It's been shown that when two people wearing masks interact, the chance of COVID-19 transmission is drastically reduced. This is why public health officials have pleaded for all people to wear masks: they not only protect the wearer from expelling particles that might carry SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19), but masks also protect the wearer from inhaling particles that carry the virus. Some people, though, still refuse to wear a mask. So UNC School of Medicine scientists, in collaboration with the Environmental Protection Agency, researched the protectiveness of various kinds of consumer-grade and modified masks, assuming the mask wearer was exposed to the virus, like when we interact with an unmasked infected person.
Published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, the research shows that some masks were as much as 79 percent effective at blocking particles that could carry the virus. These were masks made of two layers of woven nylon and fit snug against the wearer's face. Unmodified medical procedure masks with ear loops - also known as surgical masks - offered 38.5 percent filtration efficacy, but when the ear loops were tied in a specific way to tighten the fit, the efficacy improved to 60.3 percent. And when a layer of nylon was added, these masks offered 80 percent effectiveness.
"While modifications to surgical masks can enhance the filtering capabilities and reduce inhalation of airborne particles by improving the fit of the mask, we demonstrated that the fitted filtration efficiencies of many consumer-grade masks were nearly equivalent to or better than surgical masks," said co-first author Phillip Clapp, PhD, an inhalation toxicologist and assistant professor of pediatrics at the UNC School of Medicine.
Co-first author Emily Sickbert-Bennett, PhD, director of infection prevention at the UNC Medical Center, added, "Limiting the amount of virus is important because the more viral particles we're exposed to, the more likely it is we will get sick and potentially severely ill."
As the adoption of face coverings during the COVID-19 pandemic became commonplace, there was a rapid expansion in the public use of commercial, home-made, and improvised masks which vary considerably in design, material, and construction. There have been a number of innovative "hacks," devices, and mask enhancements that claim to improve the performance characteristics of conventional masks - typically surgical or procedure masks. Despite their widespread dissemination and use during the pandemic, there have been few evaluations of the efficiency of these face coverings or mask enhancements at filtering airborne particles.
In this study, the researchers used a recently described methodological approach based on the OSHA Fit Test to determine the fitted filtration efficiency (FFE) of a variety of consumer-grade and improvised facemasks, as well as several popular modifications of medical procedure masks. Seven consumer-grade masks and five medical procedure mask modifications were fitted on an adult male, and FFE measurements were collected during a series of repeated movements of the torso, head, and facial muscles as outlined by the OSHA Quantitative Fit Testing Protocol.
Here are the different mask types with filtration efficacy. Bolded below is the top-of-the-line N-95 mask, which proved to be 98 percent effective.
CAPTION
Mask with ear loops (54% recycled nylon, 43% nylon, 3% spandex), tested with and without an optional aluminum nose bridge and non-woven filter insert in place (A), a cotton bandana folded diagonally once "bandit" style (B), a cotton bandana folded in a multi-layer rectangle (C), a single-layer woven polyester/nylon mask (80% polyester, 17% nylon, 3% Lycra®) with ties (D), a non-woven polypropylene mask with fixed ear loops (E), a single-layer woven gaiter/neck cover balaclava bandana (92% polyester and 8% spandex) (F), and a three-layer woven cotton mask (100% cotton) with ear loops (G).
3M 9210 NIOSH-approved N95 Respirator: 98% Surgical mask with ties: 71.4% Procedure mask with ear loops: 38.5% Procedure mask with ear loops + "loops tied and corners tucked in": 60.3% Procedure mask with ear loops + "Ear Guard": 61.7% Procedure mask with ear loops + "23mm claw hair clip": 64.8% Procedure mask with ear loops + "Fix-the Mask (3 rubber bands)": 78.2% Procedure mask with ear loops + "nylon hosiery sleeve": 80.2%
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Other authors are James M. Samet, PhD, MPH, Jon Berntsen, PhD, Kirby L. Zeman, PhD, Devrick J. Anderson, MD, MPH, David J. Weber, MD, MPH, and William D. Bennett, PhD.
This study was supported by the Duke-UNC Prevention Epicenter Program for Prevention of Healthcare-Associated Infections and a cooperative agreement between the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
#GETYOURGREENS The Garment Worker Crisis In Bangladesh Proves A ‘Buy Less, Buy Better’ Approach Is The Only Way Forward BY DANA THOMAS
The coronavirus lockdown has decimated the retail business – but it is even more disastrous for workers further down the supply chain in garment-producing countries with no social safety net. It doesn’t have to be this way, says Dana Thomas.
In ‘Get Your Greens’, an ongoing series in line with the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, British Vogue explores how the industry is advancing towards a greener future.
During a stroll down a busy street in London earlier this year, I clocked, next to the entrance of a fashion emporium, stacks of plastic pull-carts, like those you see in grocery stores. Inside, scores of shoppers were dropping the brand’s trendy, cheap clothes into those carts, with nary a thought about the impact those purchases might have on humanity or the planet.
Each year, the fashion industry produces 100 billion garments, and we buy roughly 80 billion. The remaining 20 billion are burned, shredded, or buried – the detritus of “economies of scale”. As a whole, the fashion industry is valued more than $3 trillion (£2.3 trillion) annually. According to a 2015 study by the charity Barnardo’s, the average item of clothing is worn seven times before being tossed; in China, the rental platform Y Closet reports it’s just three. Our landfills are heaving with clothes.
But what happens if we swing the other direction, and stop buying clothes, cold turkey, as we have with the onset of Covid-19 and the practice of self-isolation? A social and economic disaster, that’s what.
Zara, with more than £16 billion a year in turnover, reported a 24.1 per cent drop in sales during the first two weeks of March. In response to those tumbling revenues, as well as government decrees to stay home, Inditex, the group that owns Zara, Massimo Dutti, Pull & Bear, shut nearly 4,000 shops in 39 countries. Zara’s top competitor, the Swedish brand H&M, closed more than 3,000 outlets throughout the world, including all of its US and UK outposts.
To get an idea of how many people such closures directly affect, Gap Inc, which includes Old Navy, Banana Republic and Athleta, employs 80,000 in its US stores alone – all of whom were let go when the company closed its stores last month. Some brands guaranteed pay and medical benefits to furloughed workers for the 14-day quarantine period. After that, who knows. But the long-term impact will surely be profound. According to the National Retail Federation in Washington DC, retail is America’s largest private sector employer, supporting one in four jobs – for a total of 52 million – and contributes nearly $4 trillion (£3.25 trillion) to the country’s GDP. The NRF projects that more than two million retail jobs in the US will be “imperilled” in May, and four million jobs within the next year. Earlier this month, True Religion jeans filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Neiman Marcus and JC Penney are expected to follow.
In the UK, £10 billion of apparel inventory is sitting in distribution warehouses. The high-street retailer Debenhams has gone into administration, resulting in hundreds of redundancies. Arcadia Group, which owns Topshop and Miss Selfridge – already expected to permanently close 22 stores in a reorganisation plan devised last year – will likely shutter hundreds more. The retail chain Next went offline for two weeks in mid-March, in response to warehouse staff complaints that their safety had been compromised. When it reopened its online operations briefly, on April 14, it could only cope for a couple of hours before closing again, in the face of an overwhelming number of orders. At the time of writing, Oasis group had collapsed into administration, with 200 employees already laid off, and another 1,800 furloughed.
Overall, 20,620 stores in the UK will close permanently this year, the Centre for Retail Research reports. It added that between store closures and workforce reductions, 235,704 jobs will be lost – a 61.5 per cent jump over the 2019 figure. If stores remain closed until June, the loss due to unsaleable stock will exceed more than £20 billion. In all, analysts predict the fashion industry could lose £800 million in revenue.
If you think that sounds ominous, consider how the global shutdown is affecting folks further down the supply chain. Typically, a fashion item today is made in a succession of locales: fabric is woven and dyed in one, cut in another, sewed in a third, with zippers and buttons attached in a fourth. Finishing touches, like denim distressing and embroidery, are executed in yet another land. Most apparel manufacturing is situated in the world’s poorest countries, where workers are paid pennies per garment. Production is contracted or subcontracted; few fashion companies own their factories. For brands, cancelling orders is easy. Risk free, even.
Bangladeshi garment workers staged a protest to demand payment of due wages in Dhaka, 15 April 2020.
But for manufacturers and workers, the impact is devastating. Last month, fashion brands reportedly nixed or put on hold $2.8 billion (£2.2 billion) worth of apparel production in Bangladesh, endangering nearly 2 million garment worker jobs. Bangladesh is the world’s second largest supplier of ready-made garments, after China, and fashion accounts for 84 per cent of the country’s export earnings, equaling $40.5 billion (£33 billion). The government has imposed a country-wide lockdown – including garment factories – until 25 April.
According to a report by Pennsylvania State University’s Center for Global Workers’ Rights, 70 per cent of furloughed workers – most of whom are women – have been sent home without pay; minimum wage for garment workers is $95 (£77) a month, far below a living wage. At least 10,000 have lost their jobs outright. “Garment workers live hand to mouth,” said Kalpona Akter, executive director of the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity (BCWS). When furloughed or laid off, they receive nothing; there are no unemployment benefits. “In garment-producing countries like Bangladesh, there is a weak social safety net,” said Liana Foxvog, director of campaigns for the Washington, DC-based International Labor Rights Forum. “As people lose jobs, this means malnutrition, and other financial hardships. The death toll could rise from the fallout of the economic crisis caused by coronavirus.” Last week, thousands of workers took to the street to protest the situation. “If we stay at home, we may save ourselves from the virus,” garment worker Sajedul Islam told AFP. “But who will save us from starvation?”
It doesn’t have to be this way. Other, better business practices do exist. Take “slow fashion”: the concept of small companies producing locally, often to order, with zero waste. Or rightshoring: the return to manufacturing in regions that were gutted by the 1990s offshoring exodus, with new, state-of-the-art factories run by workers via computers in clean rooms, allowing manufacturers to adjust volume demands to the ebbs and flows of the economy without causing a tsunami of layoffs.
Consumers play a part, too. We can buy less, buy better – an approach many may need to embrace in these financially difficult times, post-lockdown. While higher-quality clothes have a steeper price tag, over time, the investment does pay off. They look smarter, last longer, and your carbon footprint is much smaller. And buying better will ripple all the way down the supply chain: workers won’t be pushed to meet impossible quotas at half a living wage, or forced to do unpaid overtime. Instead, they’ll develop more sophisticated sewing skills – their work will be based on quality, not quantity – which would mean an increase in wages. That is, if brands are willing to pay more for such talent.
As for what we already own? We can repair and rewear, rather than tossing and replacing; we should cherish our wardrobes. And we can hold companies accountable for bad behaviour. Boycott, protest, call them out on social media. The power of the purse is mightier than you think.
We’ve all been running too fast, consuming too much, our purchasing habits hurting too many fellow citizens in too-faraway places for far too long. People are not disposable. We should not treat the result of their hard-fought efforts as disposable either. It’s time to leave the grocery cart at the grocery store, and buy – and wear – clothes with intention.
Dana Thomas is the author of ‘Fashionopolis: The Price of Fast Fashion and the Future of Clothes’, available to purchase here.
British Vogue
Meet Hassan Akkad, The Refugee Turned Hospital Cleaner In Vogue’s Key Worker Portfolio
The Syrian refugee and BAFTA-winning filmmaker signed up as an NHS hospital cleaner before taking on the government over migrants’ rights. As he appears in the July issue, photographed by Jamie Hawkesworth, Giles Hattersley meets the man who became a lightning rod for change.
“My friends are calling me the Greta Thunberg of Covid-19,” says Hassan Akkad wryly, followed by a warm and self-effacing laugh. It is mid-afternoon in early June, and the filmmaker-turned-hospital cleaner is having a quick break in the car park at Whipps Cross Hospital in east London during a 10-hour shift. Breaks are welcome. The work is tough and the PPE hard to wear, especially now it’s getting warmer. All this is before you factor in the reality of working on a coronavirus ward for the past two months in a borough that has been hit hard.
His friends may have been teasing him about the Thunberg thing, but like every decent gag, there’s more than a dash of truth (though, to be honest, Akkad’s life has been far more dramatic than the young environmentalist’s). His mind-boggling backstory has taken him from life as a teacher and TV production professional in Damascus, to being arrested, tortured and eventually having to flee, embarking on a 3,000-mile, 87-day odyssey across the Middle East and Europe to seek asylum in the UK. Having documented his trip to BAFTA and Emmy award-winning effect, when the pandemic hit he answered the NHS’s call for support staff by signing up as a cleaner for his local hospital trust – and became an accidental lightning rod for change.
First came an arresting Twitter post, an impactful mirror selfie showing the 32 year old in the extreme protective gear required for his new job. Then, on 20 May, a sucker punch video, in which he directly addressed the prime minister over the revelation that NHS cleaners, porters and social care workers not born in the UK would not be entitled to have their families remain here should they become infected with, and die from, coronavirus.
“I genuinely felt as if I got some bad news from my family,” he says of reading the news reports on his way to work that day. “I was so hurt. I spend every day with these guys,” he explains of his fellow cleaners. “Ninety-nine per cent are not UK or European born. They’re all migrants and are bottom of the pyramid when it comes to payment. Some of my colleagues had picked up on the news and everyone was hurt. Imagine working on a Covid-19 ward and discovering the government has excluded you from protection?"
“I was livid,” he continues. “I put my PPE and my uniform on and was cleaning, but the whole time I was so distracted by it. Eventually I was like, ‘You know what: fuck it’’’, he says, a non-characteristic tone of fury entering his voice. “I went on break, went to my car, switched the camera on and started recording.” He says it took him two goes to get it right, his voice breaking as he uttered the words, “stabbed in the back.” After signing off with a simple, “I hope to hear back from you”, he posted the video and went back to work. “It was all I could do,” he says.
Then something extraordinary happened. Within hours of the “Hi Boris…” video going live to Akkad’s 9,000 Twitter followers (he has 35,000 now), more than five million people had viewed his plea for justice thanks to multiple retweets. Within four hours of it going live, the government performed a dramatic U-turn. Having caught the mood of the country, Akkad was dubbed a hero. He was splashed across front pages and even went for an “emotional chat” (as described in the Metro) with Piers Morgan on Good Morning Britain. “When you have the Guardian and the Daily Mail both writing a good article about you, it means you hit the right nerve,” he says, the wry smile returning.
He is quick, though, to brush off praise. “I have a privilege. My privilege is that I have a Twitter account and I speak English. I have to use my privilege to speak out.” In fact, he found his victory a more complicated experience that the result would suggest. “There was a mix of emotions. I felt so happy that I had looked after my colleagues, that I platformed their voices and opinions. But also I was upset because…” He pauses. “What if I didn’t do it? Shouldn’t the government be considerate enough to do this without me speaking out?” He lets the thought hang in the air.
Akkad features in the July issue of Vogue, photographed by Jamie Hawkesworth in the hazy sun of an April afternoon spent outside the hospital. He joins a 20-page portfolio spotlighting essential workers across many professions who have brought hope and fortitude to a crisis. On top of his advocacy – to say nothing of his cleaning – he has been documenting his colleagues at Whipps Cross, too, taking captivating portraits which he hopes to exhibit some day. There is also talk of a memoir (Covid will only warrant a chapter of it) and there will be more film projects once the pandemic eases.
For now, he is committed to Whipps Cross, at least until the death rate fully ebbs. He has no illusions about when that might be. It is the first day of eased
FORCES FOR CHANGE Former UN Climate Chief Christiana Figueres On The Women Fighting Global Warming
After helping orchestrate the landmark Paris Agreement five years ago, Christiana Figueres explains how women are disproportionately affected by the climate crisis, and why we need to be better represented at the tables where decisions are being made.
When Christiana Figueres took up her role as the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 2010, many considered achieving a global agreement on climate change a near-impossible task. But the Costa Rican diplomat managed to succeed where others had failed, with the historic Paris Agreement — a commitment to keep global warming well below 2C and pursue efforts to keep temperature rises below 1.5C — signed by 197 countries on 12 December 2015.
Since leaving the UN, Figueres has continued to be one of the leading female voices of the climate movement, co-founding Global Optimism, an organisation working to inspire action on the environmental crisis. She also co-wrote The Future We Choose (Manilla Press, 2020), a book that presents a hopeful vision of the world we must create in order to survive the climate crisis.
Here, Figueres explains why women are crucial to the climate movement and how we can all play our part.
“We know that women in developing countries are disproportionately affected by climate change because women in those countries are traditionally entrusted with growing the food their families need, gathering firewood and getting water. The availability of food and water are directly impacted because of climate change, which is causing increasing numbers and severity of droughts. On a practical level, this means women are having to walk further to get water as well as firewood, making their days longer, and leaving their children and homes to do so. The traditional roles that women have in developing countries are getting increasingly difficult because of climate change.
“That’s why it’s so important that female voices are at the decision tables when it comes to the climate crisis. Currently, there are just not enough women in decision-making positions, thinking about the different ways that climate change is gender-specific, and making more inclusive decisions.
“When I took over as executive secretary of the UNFCCC in 2010, I made it a point to work with women such as [former global senior gender advisor of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature] Lorena Aguilar, [former president of Ireland] Mary Robinson and many others to get more recognition of the disproportionate impacts of the climate crisis on women, as well as the role that women play in both decision-making and solution-bringing. The importance of promoting gender equality was eventually included in the Paris Agreement as well — I'm truly grateful to all those women who worked to bring that about.
“At the UN, we also had specific initiatives to improve representation, for example requesting that governments include women in their negotiating teams. In my six years as head of the UNFCCC, I saw an increase in female representation, which was very healthy. It’s still far from 50/50, but certainly better. I’ve also noticed that there are a lot of women dedicating themselves to sustainability, including in areas such as biodiversity, conservation and food production.
“It’s delightful to be able to work with women who are tackling the climate crisis from different perspectives — some of them as artists, authors, political leaders, engineers, negotiators. It’s great to see women spread through all the different parts of the climate movement. Having different points of view, collective wisdom and leadership are absolutely fundamental to addressing climate change. This has to be about radical collaboration.
“It’s often women who determine what is purchased, how much is purchased and what people eat in their families, so there is a lot of behaviour that is being influenced by women. If women are more aware of the climate implications, they can make wiser decisions and avoid those products that cause high greenhouse-gas emissions. For example, beginning to diminish the amount of red meat we eat and moving over to plant-based protein is important. There are 16 steps identified by a new initiative called Count Us In that can help people take steps that matter to cut their personal carbon footprints.
“It’s about recognising that everyone can contribute. Each one of us will not win this battle individually — it will require all of us playing our role wherever we can.”
As told to Emily Chan.
The Future We Choose (Manilla Press, 2020), by Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac, is out now
Subsidy cuts in Lebanon harm low-income citizens Security forces intervene in protesters with tear gas in Beirut, Lebanon on September 1, 2020 [Houssam Shbaro/Anadolu Agency]
December 12, 2020
Following the Central Bank of Lebanon's decision to start implementing subsidy cuts for basic goods including flour, fuel, and medicines, widespread protests have erupted across the country, news agencies reported.
Xinhua News Agency reported United Nations (UN) officials expressing their fear on Tuesday that the subsidy cuts would cause havoc in the country if no alternative plan, such as creating a safety net, is made before the removal of the subsidy.
The central bank has been providing foreign currency to importers of essential goods at a favourable rate, as the value of the Lebanese lira continues to decline due to a prolonged economic crisis.
Attempting to restrain the protests, the Lebanese authorities proposed on Tuesday issuing special cards with limited deposits to help around 600,000 families in need deal with the new conditions.
However, the General Confederation of Lebanese Workers called on Tuesday for protests across the country to demonstrate against ending the subsidy. The protests will take place next week.
As reported by Anadolu Agency, researcher Mohammad Shamsuddin warned that cutting the subsidy for fuel would raise the price of 20-litre containers from 16,000 liras ($11) to 65,000 liras ($43), stressing that this would lead to a crisis among the low-income citizens who will be unable to warm their homes during winter.
Fouad Ballouk, head of Baalbek's municipality, told Anadolu Agency that 95 per cent of the residents of his city, in addition to thousands of Syrian refugees, depend on subsidised fuel during winter, adding that a humanitarian crisis would be "inevitable" during the cold season between September and March. Several other Lebanese cities are facing the same fates.
Representative of fuel distributors in Lebanon Fadi Abu Shakra called for not ending the subsidy, pointing to the low rate of wages in the country.
The minimum rate of wages is 675,000 liras ($445) he remarked, highlighting that a fuel container could not be priced more than 16,000 liras ($11) amidst these conditions.
Economist Mounir Younes told Xinhua News Agency that the money used to finance cards aimed for the low-income families comes from the state's budget or the central bank, which will print more money and lead to a further increase in inflation.
"Special cards are only beneficial if the government adopts a mechanism to control prices in the country, which is impossible in Lebanon due to the absence of a proper team who can achieve this," according to Younes.
"We need a more comprehensive and long-term solution to secure not only food, medicines, and fuel, but also education for people in private schools, otherwise we will witness a social explosion," he concluded.
Life a 'waking nightmare' for 12 million children in Yemen, UNICEF Chief says
A Yemeni woman mourns in a hospital after Houthis carried out artillery attack in Taiz, Yemen on November 30, 2020 [Abdulnasser Alseddik/Anadolu Agency]
December 12, 2020
UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore announced on Thursday that Yemen is the most dangerous place on earth for children, stressing that: "Yemen is teetering on the edge of complete collapse."
During her virtual participation in the "Averting famine in Yemen: What can we do now and in 2021?" event, she said: "Over 80 per cent of people require urgent humanitarian assistance and protection. Including 12 million children, whose lives are a waking nightmare."
Fore added: "It is perhaps the most dangerous place on earth to be a child. One child dies every ten minutes from a preventable disease. Two million are out of school. And thousands have been killed, maimed, or recruited since 2015. Just last week, 11 were reportedly killed, including a one-month-old baby."
Fore stressed: "The situation on the ground is a tangle of crises – any one of which would bring a country to its knees. Conflicts across 49 frontlines – up from 36 in just one year. An economy in tatters – families can no longer cope."
"Support systems and infrastructure – from hospitals and schools to water and sanitation systems – on the brink of collapse. A COVID-19 pandemic sweeping across the country. Through all of this, our humanitarian teams are facing fighting, blockades, and bureaucratic hurdles to reach the millions who need our help."
She continued: "And now, despite repeated warnings, the country is facing a nutrition crisis. 2.1 million children are acutely malnourished – and almost 358,000 severely malnourished. We believe famine-like conditions have already begun for some children."
The UNICEF official reiterated: "These are not just numbers on a page. These are millions of individual tragedies. Millions of blighted futures. And millions of parents making the gut-wrenching choice between food and medical care for their children."
Giving an example, she indicated: "Last Friday, from an ICU bed in Hodeida, an eight-year-old girl named Zahra begged UNICEF and her medical team to let her go home. She explained that her father couldn't afford both food and medical expenses. A choice no parent should have to make."
Fore explained: "Our teams are doing all we can, but the needs are growing faster than we can respond," emphasising the need for urgent political action.
Concluding her speech at the event, Fore expressed: "2020 will be remembered not only for COVID-19 – but as a year in which we failed the children of Yemen once again. We must not make the same mistake in 2021."
![Deaths in Yemen Conflict - Cartoon [Sarwar Ahmed/MiddleEastMonitor]](https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/20160331_SA-Deaths-in-Yemen-Conflict.png)