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)
Thursday, December 31, 2020
Planned increase in CPP premiums on Jan. 1 to hit some workers more due to pandemic
ITS NOT A TAX ITS A SAVINGS ACCOUNT
FOR YOUR FUTURE
OTTAWA — Come Jan. 1, Canada Pension Plan contributions are going up again, although higher than originally planned. The reason is largely because of the pandemic's effect on the labour market, which has some groups noting the impact will be felt by some workers more than others.
Here's a rundown of what's happening, and how long the effect might last.
Why premiums are going up
The planned increase on Jan. 1 is part of a multi-year plan approved by provinces and the federal government four years ago to boost retirement benefits through the public plan by increasing contributions over time.
The first premium bump was in 2019, another was earlier this year and the next is due at the beginning of 2021.
A KPMG note in November said the maximum employer and employee contributions will hit $3,166 each in 2021, an increase from the $2,898 this year.
$268 ANNUALLY, OR $10.31 PER PAYCHEQUE
For self-employed contributions, the maximum amount will be $6,332, up from $5,796.
$536 BECAUSE THEY PAY BOTH EMPLOYER EMPLOYEE SHARE
WHICH IS WHY GOVT LIKES CONTRACTING OUT
Why next year is different
The plan requires contributions to go up alongside the upper limit on earnings that are subject to those premiums. For next year, the earnings ceiling, known as the yearly maximum pensionable earnings or YMPE, was supposed to be $60,200, an increase of $1,500 from the 2020 limit. But the actual amount is going to be higher at $61,600.
The reason is due to the pandemic's effects on the labour market and how the YMPE is calculated.
The formula to calculate the earnings limit relies on increases in the average weekly earnings recorded over the year ending June 30, compared to the same figure during the preceding 12-month period.
Over the course of the pandemic, average weekly earnings have increased, but not because people are earning more.
More lower-income workers lost their jobs between March and June than higher-wage workers meaning there were fewer low-wage workers as part of the calculation. The federal chief actuary's office says that's why the overall increase is larger than originally projected
The reaction
Dan Kelly, president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, estimates that anyone around the maximum earnings limit will effectively see a 9.3 per cent increase in premiums, beyond the just over five-per-cent bump baked into law.
"That's going to be hundreds of dollars of new CPP premiums out of paycheques of middle-income Canadians not because they got a raise, but because the formula has not had a COVID adjustment," Kelly says.
"We think this is deeply unfair." FOR EMPLOYERS WHO PAY
Provincial finance ministers had asked the government to put a pause on increases for next year, pointing to the economic fallout from COVID-19, but that was easier said than done.
Any changes to contribution rates or the earnings ceiling at which point contributions top-out would need the approval of Parliament and seven provinces representing at least two-thirds of the national population — a higher bar than what's required to amend the Constitution.
Bottom line
Contributions are going up next year. So too will the maximum earnings limit, beyond what was planned.
But federal officials expect the effect from the higher earnings limit to dissipate over time as jobs continue to come back after steep losses earlier in 2020.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 30, 2020.
Suncor Energy facility is seen in Sherwood Park, Alberta
CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) - Canada published the draft Clean Fuel Standard this month, which is central to the ruling Liberal Party's commitment to cut greenhouse gas emissions 30% below 2005 levels by 2030. The proposed regulation is also a key part of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's pledge that Canada will hit net-zero emissions by 2050.
WHAT WILL IT DO?
The Clean Fuel Standard (CFS) requires suppliers of liquid fuels, such as gasoline, diesel and kerosene, to gradually cut the amount of carbon in their product.
There will be carbon-intensity reduction targets set for each fuel, starting in 2022 and increasing annually until 2030. Carbon intensity is measured on a full lifecycle basis, from crude oil extraction, to refining, to a fuel's end use by consumers.
The CFS is intended to cut carbon emissions, spur investment in clean-energy technology and create a credit trading scheme, where fuel suppliers that are not meeting carbon-intensity reduction requirements can buy credits generated by other companies producing cleaner fuel.
The federal government says the CFS will cut annual emissions by more than 20 megatons by 2030, which would be around 10% of the reductions needed to meet Canada's climate commitments. Canada currently produces around 730 megatons of greenhouse gas emissions annually and has pledged to cut that to 511 megatons by 2030. It is the tenth largest greenhouse gas emitter globally.
WHO HAS TO COMPLY?
A fuel supplier is any company that produces or imports liquid fuels in Canada. That includes integrated oil companies like Suncor Energy and Imperial Oil that produce and refine crude, and refiners like Irving Oil.
HOW CAN CARBON-INTENSITY OF FUEL BE CUT?
There are numerous options available. For example, companies could blend biofuels into their product, cut emissions associated with oil production, improve the energy efficiency of refineries, and invest in carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies. They could also invest in low-carbon energy sources like hydrogen or renewables.
If they fail to meet carbon-reduction obligations suppliers can purchase credits in the CFS market. Credits are expected to start out relatively cheap and become more expensive as carbon-intensity reduction targets get tougher.
Companies providing alternatives to petroleum-based fuels, such as renewable energy or hydrogen, or those involved in charging electric vehicles, will generate CFS credits. WHAT WILL IT COST? Canada estimates the CFS will cut greenhouse gas emissions by 221 megatonnes between 2021 and 2040, at a net cost of C$94 per tonne. In total, there will be a net cost to society of C$20.6 billion.
A government analysis said poorer families will be hit hardest as fuel suppliers pass on their increased costs. The government originally planned to regulate gaseous and solid fuels as well but narrowed its scope to just liquids. The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers welcomed that move, but refiners have previously warned the CFS risks increasing their costs.
WHEN DOES IT START? The draft regulation is in a 75-day comment period and if adopted next year will come into force at the end of 2022.
HOW DOES CANADA'S PLAN COMPARE GLOBALLY? California, British Columbia and the European Union all have clean fuel regulations. Canada's CFS goes further in that it applies to any type of liquid fuels, not just those used in transportation.
(Reporting by Nia Williams; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
William Watson: Hindsight 1920 — maybe we shouldn't be so obsessed with time present
On page 24 of its issue of Friday, December 20, 1918, just above an ad for “the new Arrow form-fit collar: 25 cents each” and another for “pure silk sox” for 55 cents a pair, a two-inch news story carried the headline: “6,000,000 Died of Influenza. Regarded as the World’s Greatest Plague Since the Black Death.”
It began: “London, Dec. 19: The (London) Times’s medical correspondent says that it seems reasonable to believe that throughout the world about 6,000,000 persons perished from influenza and pneumonia during the last three months,” a killing rate five times more deadly than the war. “Never since the Black Death has such a plague swept over the world…” End of story.
Elsewhere on the page, readers could find another short piece on jobs for returned soldiers and a much longer piece on when the Post Office would be returning operation of Western Union and other telegraph companies to their owners. Also: the “Lost and Found,” with no “found” entries but 26 “lost,” including a certificate for one share of Canadian Pacific Railway stock.
The Times obviously did cover the Spanish flu. There were four other references to influenza in that issue of December 20, including two mentions in obituaries and a five-line note on page 2 about how the deposed emperor of Austria-Hungary and his four children were sick with it. The first front-page story about flu had appeared June 21. Over the years 1918, 1919 and 1920 the Times mentioned “influenza” 1,464 times, including in many obituaries. By contrast, a search of this year’s Times finds 3,312 hits for “COVID-19” — a disease that so far has killed a quarter as many people.
I started looking back at these old newspapers because I thought it would be fun to compare the Hindsight 2020 series we’ve been running over the past few days with how editorialists looked back on 1920, the year Spanish flu petered out in North America. Simple answer: They didn’t.
On December 31, 1920, the Times’ lead editorial was a glowing farewell to New York Governor Al Smith, who had been defeated in the November elections, with a lengthy review of his achievements — but no mention of influenza. The second editorial was an argument that farm conditions were not as bad as farm lobbyists made out: “Farmers are not such poor creatures as to be driven to despair by one bad year…” Then came pieces on: post-war Greece; the difficulty of making economies in Congress; an Italian-Yugoslav border dispute; General Pershing’s recent speech favouring reductions in armaments spending; and a meditation on news that the star Betelguese “would fill our entire solar system … out almost to the orbit of Mars.” The word “influenza” did not appear in the entire issue. This was not for lack of news reach: top of p. 1 was a note about how, earlier than normal, the St Lawrence had frozen over at Three Rivers.
I did that searching using my Times digital subscription, which most larger libraries also offer. The forebear of this newspaper, the Financial Post, you can get free through Google News archive search. We were a weekly then but there was a paper on December 31, 1920. Word search by issue seems unavailable but a reasonably close reading finds no mention of influenza or Spanish flu. “Unemployment in Canada less than in 1913-14” was the lead story. “Many merchants are still holding out for prices above the market,” was the Page 1 feature. Businesses’ search for above-market prices never ends, does it?
Our lead editorial was about how credit-tightening by the banks since the spring was helping cool post-war inflation. That was followed by a piece about the Ontario government’s deal with a U.S. pulp maker that had threatened, according to the Globe, not to sell in Canada. (We told the Globe to chill.) Then a lament that people not paying their property taxes was discouragingly common. And finally a denunciation of Bolshevism, which was on the move in the form of Russia’s Red Army though “…advocates of bloody revolution and destruction will no doubt have their following in every community — and there are many here in Canada — and for this reason should be vigorously suppressed.” Hear, hear!
Editorial notes held that: “Public funds should be expended with great discretion in works being pushed ahead primarily to give employment.” Today’s spending numbers are immensely larger but our sentiment is unchanged. And then a piece about how in 1918 the U.S. government taxed away fully $89 million of the $137.5 million earned by Americans with over $1 million in income, while all those with income less than $3,000 paid only a little over $60 million. Our view? “This seems to come pretty close to socialism.” The feature story on the ed page was “Free trade would undermine Canada’s industrial prosperity” — so times do change. This was a report on cross-country hearings of the federal Tariff Commission. Through the rest of the decade federal Liberal governments mainly slashed taxes, tariffs included. Yes, federal Liberal governments.
Courtesy 2020 technology, all this history is available in the comfort of home, or, this year, in home exile. I don’t know what someone in 1920 did who wanted to read newspapers from 1820. No doubt the world’s largest libraries had paper copies. Most probably didn’t.
Of course, the same digital technology that gives us access to more of the past than any previous generation has had also makes possible the fixation on our own problems that has been so evident this year. Hindsight 1920 tells me maybe we shouldn’t be quite so obsessed with time present.
Anti-Palestinian sentiment in Germany is by design
The country's parliament has equated the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement to anti-Semitism, but the resolution says more about Germany than it does about BDS.
Earlier this month, representatives of several German public cultural and academic institutions criticised the consequences of the Federal parliament’s anti-Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement resolution.
They issued an open letter, expressing their commitment to Germany’s Basic Law which guarantees the freedom of arts and sciences. The fragility of these norms has been in full display since the German parliament passed a resolution in May 2019, condemning the BDS movement as “antisemitic” and even relating the boycott of Israel to German Nazi fascism.
Anti-Palestinian sentiment has long become entrenched in German nationalism.
Germany remains among Israel’s most reliable supporters. In fact, German politicians throughout the political spectrum define Israel’s so-called “security” as Germany’s own “raison d’etre.” This is oftentimes presented as a consequence of Germany’s persecution of Jews that resulted in the horror of the Holocaust and the extermination of Jewish life in Germany.
Since Israel’s existence in its current, racist form necessitates the ongoing oppression of Palestinians. The stubborn support for Israel’s subjugation of Palestinians has translated into a situation where Israel’s military occupation, apartheid, and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians are rarely publicly confronted in Germany.
In fact, in can be better described as an anti-Palestinian climate. The dispossession of Palestinians becomes a necessity under the guise of fighting antisemitism and/or protecting Israel’s security. All Orientalist, colonialist, and Islamophobic rhetoric can easily be uttered against Palestinians.
As a consequence, the global BDS movement poses a significant threat to mainstream German discourse on Palestine/Israel.
The BDS movement emerged from within Palestinian civil society in 2005. BDS merely calls for the implementation of human rights and international law in all of Israel/Palestine.
As a non-violent strategy of boycott by an indigenous population against a heavily-armed, oppressive settler-colonial regime, BDS seeks to politically and economically pressure Israel into ending its military occupation and dispossession of Palestinians.
Historically, boycotts have been a powerful tool to pressure oppressive systems. A successful case was Apartheid South Africa, which, similarly like Israel - and itself once a major ally of Israel - had only been able to uphold its racist segregation due to Western support, including assistance from Germany.
Although BDS remains marginal in Germany, it has early on been identified as a threat by the political establishment.
The 2019 resolution did not come as a surprise, given that politicians of all major parties had previously openly expressed anti-Palestinian rhetoric. In May 2019, the German parliament passed a resolution that smeared BDS as antisemitic and reminiscent of Germany’s Nazi past. While this can be seen as an appropriation of history, there was no considerable backlash.
The vague wording of the non-binding bill does not essentially differentiate between Israel’s racist system and the Jewish people, and thus views contestations of Israel’s “right to exist” as antisemitic. It gained support from the government and most of the opposition, including the far-right and liberals.
The party called “The Left'' voted against it, but only because it itself had proposed another anti-BDS bill. The extreme-right “AfD'' had previously introduced a similar bill and continued to argue for a complete ban.
In response, 240 Jewish and Israeli scholars signed a statement, rejecting this motion. "Shocked that demands for equality and compliance with international law are considered anti-Semitic," the signatories urged the German government to protect freedom of speech.
Free speech on Palestine/Israel was, of course, widely scrutinised before the resolution. Public events in support of Palestine had been canceled and occasionally authorities prevented activists from speaking, apparently seeking to silence them.
The marginalisation of Palestinians and pro-Palestinian voices intensified after the resolution. Although non-binding, the document was cited as a reason for the cancelation of events, withdrawal of venues, and disinvitation of individuals from cultural or academic events.
Palestine increasingly became a litmus test, as cultural organisers would police people’s opinions on Israel. An example is the withdrawal of an award for Pakistani-British author Kamila Shamsie in 2019.
The one instance that caught significant mainstream attention in Germany were the public attacks against the prominent intellectual Achille Mbembe. Himself from Cameroon, a country formerly colonised by Germany, Mbembe became the victim of a smear campaign simply because he pointed out the similarities between aprtheid in Israel and Apartheid South Africa in a publication.
Whether it is the fear of being associated with anti-Semitism, a lack of understanding of what antisemitism constitutes, or mere racism towards Palestinians, anti-Palestinianism has become established within Germany’s bureaucratic violence. In fact, Zionism is being enforced as a political and cultural default.
The new open letter is unprecedented, as it stems not from activists, but was penned by people from within the middle of society.
Importantly, the statement demanded that “Germany’s historical responsibility should not lead to a general delegitimization of other historical experiences of violence and oppression, neither morally nor politically.”
It also outlined the responsibilities of conveying “particularities of the German past – which is characterized by the singular genocide of European Jews, on the one hand, and, by a late and relatively hesitant confrontation with Germany’s colonial history, on the other[.]”
A broader engagement would be necessary to confront the actual structural connection between the Holocaust, Germany’s long, violent history of anti-Semitism long before Nazi fascism, Germany’s genocides in Africa and the country’s shameful colonial history - which remains marginally known within Germany until today.
However, the resolution’s wording shows just how colonised the discourse on Palestine in Germany still is. While the signatories condemn the anti-BDS measures, they also reject BDS, since they “consider cultural and scientific exchange to be essential.” Similar rhetoric had been used during colonialism and South African apartheid.
But, Israeli cultural and scientific institutions are deeply complicit in the continuous dispossession of Palestinians.
Yet, the statement’s aim is not to proclaim solidarity with Palestinians.
The text is about German democracy. The anti-BDS resolution has shown not only that democratic freedom can easily be restricted but also how quickly it can happen without considerable resistance.
The latest statement might be a marginal intervention into the stubborn Zionist dynamics in today’s Germany. It might be a first step, but remains far from a significant shift in the discourse. After all, the debate around BDS in Germany is less about Palestinian human rights and rather focused on Germany’s self-image as well as Berlin’s difficulties to comprehensively confront its past.
But Germany’s crimes have never been in the past. They continue today, in and beyond Palestine.
The discourse currently focuses on the limits of free speech in Germany. It should, however, eventually be about how the German state is actively encouraging the ongoing ethnic cleansing in Palestine. Disclaimer: The viewpoints expressed by the authors do not necessarily reflect the opinions, viewpoints and editorial policies of TRT World.
We welcome all pitches and submissions to TRT World Opinion – please send them via email, to opinion.editorial@trtworld.com
AUTHOR Denijal Jegic is a writer and researcher. He holds a PhD in American studies.
. Handout satellite image of tanker ready to transfer crude oil in Straits of Malacca
NEW YORK (Reuters) - In June, the United States imposed sanctions on half a dozen oil tankers managed by established shipping firms. It was a major escalation of American attempts to choke off Venezuela’s oil trade.
Within weeks, a little-known company based in the United Arab Emirates took over management of several tankers that had been shipping Venezuelan oil. The vessels got new names. And then they resumed transporting Venezuelan crude.
The company, Muhit Maritime FZE, is one of three UAE-based entities identified by Reuters that have shipped Venezuelan crude and fuel during the second half of this year. Their role emerges from an examination of internal shipping documents from Venezuela’s state oil company as well as third-party shipping and vessel tracking data. Tankers managed by the firms have transported millions of barrels of oil produced by state-run Petroleos de Venezuela SA, or PDVSA, since June, according to the internal documents and a publicly available shipping database.
The activity shows how the UAE, one of Washington’s closest allies in the Middle East, is a hub for companies helping Venezuela skirt American sanctions. Washington hopes to topple socialist President Nicolas Maduro by cutting off the oil-rich nation’s crude exports.
The three companies - Muhit Maritime, Issa Shipping FZE and Asia Charm Ltd - did not respond to letters sent to their listed addresses, or to emails sent to their registered email addresses. Reuters was unable to determine the ultimate owners of the three. Their ownership and management details aren’t listed in the UAE’s publicly-available corporate registry.
The role of the three companies in transporting Venezuelan oil underscores how a raft of little-known entities has filled the void as Washington has sought to deter established buyers and shipping companies from facilitating the South American country’s crude exports.
Hitherto unknown companies surfaced this year as major buyers of Venezuelan crude, Reuters reported in November. Most of those buyers were registered this year by a Moscow-based trading firm. Russia is one of Venezuela’s closest allies.
Now, a similar pattern is emerging with companies involved in transporting the oil. The three UAE entities identified by Reuters have built their fleets since early 2019 with vessels that have since made mainly Venezuela-related journeys, according to Refinitiv Eikon vessel tracking data and Equasis, the shipping database. New York-based Refinitiv is part-owned by Reuters’ parent company, Thomson Reuters.
The three companies’ shipments of Venezuelan crude and fuel represented about 3.9% of the South American country’s total oil exports in 2020 through Dec. 18. That oil was worth around $208.5 million at market prices for the country’s flagship crude grade, known as Merey. Crude sales provide much-needed support to Maduro’s government, though Reuters could not determine how much was added to state coffers. PDVSA often sells its crude at steep discounts, and some of the proceeds go to pay down debt rather than generate cash.
“We are closely tracking these kinds of creative efforts by companies to evade sanctions,” a U.S. State Department spokesman said in response to questions about the UAE-registered firms. “Those behind shell companies would not be wise to consider themselves shielded from sanctions.”
The spokesman declined to comment on possible future sanctions, but added: “U.S. friends and adversaries alike should know that their companies, front companies, and tankers remain vulnerable to sanctions if they are complicit in activities that facilitate PDVSA’s exports abroad and the Maduro regime’s efforts to evade sanctions.”
The UAE government said in a statement that “a thorough and comprehensive investigation is fully underway into” Muhit Maritime, Issa Shipping and Asia Charm. That includes using recent legislative changes “designed to improve corporate transparency through a framework for reporting and registering beneficial ownership,” it said.
“The UAE takes its role in protecting the integrity of the global financial system extremely seriously. This means actively administering and enforcing economic and trade sanctions,” the government added.
A representative of the Fujairah Free Zone, where Issa Shipping and Asia Charm are based, said he was not aware of the two companies’ involvement in transporting Venezuelan oil. He said the authority is not responsible for policing the activities of companies registered there.
The authority responsible for the Jebel Ali Free Zone, where Muhit Maritime is based, did not respond to requests for comment.
Venezuela’s Information Ministry didn’t respond to a request for comment. The country’s oil ministry, its embassy in the UAE and state oil company PDVSA also didn’t respond.
Washington has accused another country under heavy sanctions, Iran, of using Emirati companies to facilitate crude exports. The U.S. Treasury has sanctioned more than half a dozen UAE-based entities this year, alleging they were involved in purchasing or brokering the sale of Iranian oil and petrochemical products in violation of its sanctions, and in some instances falsifying documents to conceal the origin.
Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment.
EXPANDING SANCTIONS
The United States significantly expanded Venezuelan sanctions in the aftermath of Maduro’s 2018 re-election, which was described by the United States and many other Western nations as fraudulent.
In January 2019, Washington imposed trade sanctions on PDVSA, the state-owned oil company. U.S. refineries, which had been the top purchasers of Venezuela crude, could no longer do business with PDVSA.
In early 2020, the United States blacklisted two units of Russia's state oil company Rosneft that had become key intermediaries for PDVSA. The units stopped lifting Venezuelan crude in March.
Then, in June, Washington sanctioned the vessels that it accused of transporting Venezuelan oil and their registered owners.
Determining who’s behind a tanker can be difficult. Oil tankers often are run by a management firm that is in charge of the crew and can administer freight contracts. The management company can be a separate entity from the registered owner, which is typically a special purpose vehicle that owns just that vessel. But it is also common for the manager to own the special purpose vehicle.
For most in the industry, the main point in using special purpose vehicles is to insulate owners and managers from liability, not avoiding law enforcement. Still, changes to a ship’s ownership and management registrations can blur who’s in control, especially if the vessel is registered in jurisdictions with loose disclosure requirements.
Until recently, companies based in Emirati free zones often weren’t required to disclose beneficial ownership, according to Lakshmi Kumar, policy director at Global Financial Integrity, a Washington-based think tank. Since October, new UAE rules require most types of Emirati companies to disclose beneficial owners to authorities. But the new rules don't require public disclosure, according to accounting firm PwC.
Among the vessels the U.S. Treasury sanctioned in June was an oil tanker called Euroforce, then managed by Greece-based ship operator Eurotankers Inc. The Treasury later lifted the sanctions on the vessels.
Between July and August, Muhit Maritime took over management of three other Eurotankers-operated vessels, according to Equasis, a database maintained by a group of national maritime administrations.
All three tankers had transported Venezuelan oil prior to the change in management, according to the internal PDVSA documents reviewed by Reuters.
A Eurotankers representative told Reuters the firm sold two of the tankers in the summer to Muhit Maritime. “We don’t have any kind of equity connection with the buyer,” he said. He didn’t say what Eurotankers did with the third ship; Equasis records show it too came under Muhit Maritime’s management.
The registered owners of the three ships also changed in July and August, Equasis shows. Two of the vessels’ registered owners list their addresses only as “Care of Muhit Maritime.” The third lists an entity in Monrovia, Liberia. None of the owners could be reached for comment.
ASIA BOUND
The three tankers also got new names this summer, according to Equasis -- the Alsatayir, Almada and Alasfal.
A shipping document shows that on July 31, the newly rebranded Almada set sail carrying some 650,000 barrels of Venezuelan Boscan crude after a ship-to-ship transfer from the Alasfal off Venezuela’s coast.
Three weeks later, on Aug. 21, the Alsatayir loaded 650,000 barrels of Boscan crude in a similar ship-to-ship transfer. Together, those shipments were worth around $40 million based on market prices for Venezuelan oil at the time.
The Alsatayir and Almada proceeded to waters off Malaysia, where they transferred their cargoes onto other tankers at sea in mid-October, according to Refinitiv Eikon data.
The Alsatayir’s cargo was received by a tanker named the Afra Royal, according to the data and Emma Li, a Singapore-based analyst at Refinitiv. The Afra Royal proceeded to China's Qingdao port, where it offloaded 644,715 barrels on Nov. 5, Refinitiv Eikon data show. The ship’s listed owners and managers didn’t respond to requests for comment.
The vessel tracking data doesn’t make clear the ultimate destination of the Almada’s cargo. The Almada in October again changed its name as well as its registered owner and shipping manager, according to Equasis. Reuters was unable to identify who’s behind the new entities.
Reuters reported in June that 19.7 million barrels of oil arrived in China by way of ship-to-ship transfers in 2019, a process that disguised the true origin of the crude. China is a close ally of Venezuela.
A representative of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that Beijing was “not aware” of Venezuelan crude continuing to arrive in China. Nonetheless, China pledged to keep cooperating with Caracas and criticized Washington’s “unilateral” sanctions and attempted use of “long-arm jurisdiction.”
“WE CANNOT DO POLICING”
Muhit Maritime’s tanker transactions resemble earlier ones by the two other Emirati companies, Issa Shipping and Asia Charm.
Issa took over management of three very large crude carriers from Greece-based Altomare SA between January and May of this year, according to Equasis. Altomare didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The three ships are the only vessels in Issa Shipping’s fleet, the database shows. Issa Shipping was established in the second half of 2019, according to the Fujairah Free Zone Authority.
The three supertankers - the Kelly, Marbella and Rene - each transported nearly 2 million barrels of Venezuelan crude and fuel in the first half of 2020 after coming under Issa’s management, a batch of internal PDVSA shipping documents show.
Those PDVSA documents list destinations for the ships: The Rene was bound for China, the Kelly for Asia and the Marbella for Fujairah in the UAE. Reuters was unable to locate where the oil ended up.
Asia Charm, meanwhile, took over management of a tanker from Finland's Lundqvist Rederierna AB in July 2019, according to Equasis.
Dick Borman, quality and safety management advisor at Lundqvist Rederierna, said selling the tanker “was simply a business decision” because it no longer fit the fleet’s age profile.
The paper trail shows some connections between the fleets of Issa and Asia Charm.
One tanker Asia Charm took over management of is now called the Yoselin. In recent months, the Yoselin has carried Venezuelan crude and fuel to other tankers off the country’s coast that then proceeded to export it. Among the ships that took on Yoselin’s oil are the Marbella, Kelly and Rene, now run by Issa. Yoselin is one of 15 vessels in Asia Charm’s fleet, Equasis shows. All 15 have exclusively made Venezuela-related voyages, Refinitiv Eikon vessel tracking data show.
Another thing Asia Charm and Issa Shipping share in common: Both are registered to an address in the same office block in Fujairah, according to Equasis. The Yoselin’s registered owner did not respond to a request for comment sent via an email address for Asia Charm.
The Fujairah Free Zone Authority’s director general, Sharief Al Awadhi, said the authority is aware of the identities of the beneficial owners of all companies registered there, including Issa Shipping and Asia Charm, but that it does not publicly disclose that information. He said Issa Shipping is owned by an individual on his own behalf; he declined to identify him. Al Awadhi said that Asia Charm’s parent company was a Liberian firm of the same name.
Al Awadhi said Fujairah provides information about listed companies to law enforcement agencies if requested. He added that if there was any indication of rule-breaking, the authority would stop it.
"We're not here to be incubators for anybody who wants to play with international systems and law," he said. But the authority isn’t responsible for monitoring the activities of companies registered in its jurisdiction, he said. "We cannot do policing.”
CARIBBEAN RETURN
Washington hasn’t succeeded in ousting Maduro, but the U.S. sanctions have crushed Venezuela’s oil sector. Exports plummeted by a third in 2019 to around 1 million barrels a day. By this October, they hit a decades-low level of 359,000 barrels a day.But Caracas keeps trying to move the crude. In November, daily exports nearly doubled, thanks to the emergence of new, little-known customers.
The rebound also followed a wave of changes of control in tanker fleets.
Thirty-eight of the 75 tankers that transported Venezuelan crude or fuel between July and November got new owners, managers or both in 2020, according to internal PDVSA documents and Equasis.
Many of the new owners or managers were little-known companies such as Muhit Maritime. Before this year’s shipping sanctions, the bulk of tankers handling Venezuelan crude were owned by established shipping companies.
The 38 vessels hauled what amounts to just over half of Venezuela’s total exports from July to November, according to PDVSA documents. That oil was worth just over $1 billion based on the estimated price of Venezuela's flagship crude grade, Merey, at the time of the exports.
Ships managed by the three Emirati-based companies are now in the Caribbean.
The Marbella, managed by Issa Shipping, journeyed to Venezuela and loaded nearly 2 million barrels in early December. The Kelly was scheduled to transport the same amount between late December and early January, PDVSA documents show.
Muhit Maritime’s fleet is back in the neighborhood, too, Refinitiv Eikon data shows. As of mid-December, its Alsatayir was 48 km (30 miles) off Venezuela's north coast.
And anchored off the Paraguana Peninsula is the Nabiin. Muhit Maritime took over that vessel in November, according to the Equasis database. It used to go by another name, the Euroforce - one of the tankers Washington sanctioned in June.
(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York and Marianna Parraga in Mexico City; Additional reporting by Rania El Gamal, Lisa Barrington and Aziz El Yaakoubi in Dubai, Matt Spetalnick in Washington, DC, Michelle Nichols in New York, Chris Scicluna in Malta, Muyu Xu in Beijing, Lefteris Papadimas in Athens, Mircely Guanipa in Maracay, Venezuela and Jonathan Saul in London.)
A report says that the UAE has become a hub for companies helping Venezuela avoid US oil sanctions. #UAE #Venezuela #sanctions
A drone demonstrates delivery capabilities from the top of a UPS truck during testing in Lithia, Florida
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Small drones will be allowed to fly over people and at night in the United States, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said on Monday, a significant step toward their use for widespread commercial deliveries.
The FAA said its long-awaited rules for the drones, also known as unmanned aerial vehicles, will address security concerns by requiring remote identification technology in most cases to enable their identification from the ground.
Previously, small drone operations over people were limited to operations over people who were directly participating in the operation, located under a covered structure, or inside a stationary vehicle - unless operators had obtained a waiver from the FAA.
The rules will take effect 60 days after publication in the federal register in January. Drone manufacturers will have 18 months to begin producing drones with Remote ID, and operators will have an additional year to provide Remote ID.
There are other, more complicated rules that allow for operations at night and over people for larger drones in some cases.
"The new rules make way for the further integration of drones into our airspace by addressing safety and security concerns," FAA Administrator Steve Dickson said. "They get us closer to the day when we will more routinely see drone operations such as the delivery of packages."
Companies have been racing to create drone fleets to speed deliveries. The United States has over 1.7 million drone registrations and 203,000 FAA-certificated remote pilots.
For at-night operations, the FAA said drones must be equipped with anti-collision lights. The final rules allow operations over moving vehicles in some circumstances.
Remote ID is required for all drones weighing 0.55 lb (0.25 kg) or more, but is required for smaller drones under certain circumstances like flights over open-air assemblies.
The new rules eliminate requirements that drones be connected to the internet to transmit location data but do that they broadcast remote ID messages via radio frequency broadcast. Without the change, drone use could have been barred from use in areas without internet access.
The Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International said Remote ID will function as "a digital license plate for drones ... that will enable more complex operations" while operations at night and over people "are important steps towards enabling integration of drones into our national airspace."
One change, since the rules were first proposed in 2019, requires that small drones not have any exposed rotating parts that would lacerate human skin.
United Parcel Service Inc said in October 2019 that it won the government's first full approval to operate a drone airline.
Last year, Alphabet's Wing, a sister unit of search engine Google, was the first company to get U.S. air carrier certification for a single-pilot drone operation.
In August, Amazon.com Inc’s drone service received federal approval allowing the retailer to begin testing commercial deliveries through its drone fleet.
Walmart Inc said in September it would run a pilot project for delivery of grocery and household products through automated drones but acknowledged "it will be some time before we see millions of packages delivered via drone."
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Nick Zieminski and Howard Goller)
U.S. EPA finalizing first-ever airplane emissions rules
An airplane flies over Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Atlanta
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Monday said it was finalizing the first-ever proposed standards regulating greenhouse gas emissions from airplanes.
The EPA said its new requirements for airplanes used in commercial aviation and for large business jets would align the United States with international standards.
In 2016, the U.N. International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) agreed on global airplane emissions standards aimed at makers of small and large planes, including Airbus SE and Boeing Co, which both have backed the standards.
The final rule "is vital for protecting the environment and supporting the sustainable growth of commercial aviation and the United States economy," Boeing said on Monday in a statement.
Critics say the agency should have required tougher emissions rules.
Environmental Defense Fund international counsel Annie Petsonk said in a statement the EPA's "do-nothing rule is totally inadequate in light of the climate crisis. It’s incumbent on the incoming Biden-Harris administration to move swiftly to tighten this standard."
The EPA said in July the proposed requirements would apply to new-type designs as of January 2020 and to in-production airplanes or those with amended type certificates starting in 2028.
The EPA said Monday it anticipates nearly all affected airplanes to be compliant by the effective dates. The EPA said it expects "airplanes that are non-compliant will either be modified and re-certificated as compliant, will likely go out of production before the production compliance date of January 1, 2028, or will seek exemptions."
As a result "EPA is not projecting emission reductions associated with these GHG (greenhouse gas) regulations." It also does not project the rule "will cause manufacturers to make technical improvements to their airplanes that would not have occurred" otherwise.
In October, a group of 11 states led by California and the District of Columbia urged the EPA to strengthen the first-ever standards.
The 11 states and the District of Columbia said the EPA proposal would "lag existing technology by more than 10 years and would result in no GHG reductions at all compared to business-as-usual."
The airplanes covered by the proposed rule accounted for 10% of all U.S. transportation greenhouse gas emissions and 3% of total U.S. emissions. They have been the largest source of transportation greenhouse gas emissions not subject to rules. The new rules do not apply to military airplanes and take effect when formally published in the coming days.
EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said in July the proposal was based on "where the technology is today ... You can't really set the standard that can't be met."
The Federal Aviation Administration said Monday it expects to publish a proposed rule next year incorporating the EPA's emissions standard, including testing requirements and exemption procedures it will apply when certifying new airplanes.
BMW aims for 20% of its vehicles to be electric by 2023 -paper
FRANKFURT (Reuters) - German luxury carmaker BMW is planning to step up its production of electric vehicles, Chief Executive Oliver Zipse told German daily Augsburger Allgemeine.
"We are significantly increasing the number of electric vehicles. Between 2021 and 2023, we will build a quarter of a million more electric cars than originally planned", Zipse told the newspaper's Monday edition according to a pre-released version.
BMW wants roughly every fifth car it sells to be powered by an electric engine by 2023, Zipse said, compared to about 8% this year.
The manager also reiterated his call to speed up the expansion of charging infrastructure.
"15,000 private and about 1,300 public charging points would have to be put into operation every week as of today. Unfortunately, we are a long way from that", he told the paper.
(Reporting by Arno Schuetze; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)
Actress Dawn Wells, the former beauty queen who became America’s sweetheart by playing the girl-next-door castaway Mary Ann on the TV series “Gilligan’s Island,” has died. She was 82.
Wells died Wednesday of complications from COVID-19, her publicist Harlan Boll said in a statement to The Times. She had been in an assisted-living facility in Los Angeles.
“America’s favorite castaway, Dawn Wells, passed peacefully this morning, in no pain as a result of complications due to Covid,” Boll said.
The Reno native, who competed as Miss Nevada in the 1959 Miss America pageant, became synonymous with the castaway during the CBS sitcom’s run between 1964 and 1967. She also appeared in “77 Sunset Strip,” “Maverick,” “Bonanza,” “The Joey Bishop Show” and “Hawaiian Eye.”
Mary Ann was modeled after Dorothy from “The Wizard of Oz,” a Kansas farm girl with pigtails and gingham dresses. Wells reportedly beat out 350 prospective actress, including Raquel Welch, for the role. CBS paid her $700 a week when she started.
Playing the bright, fair-minded and reasonable castaway, she was often the foil to the harebrained antics of the show’s other characters.
“It’s amazing to see what the 45-year-old man who is now raising children is saying to me,” Wells told The Times in 2014. “‘You were my fantasy. You were the girl I would take to the prom. You were the girl who understood my problems.’”
Despite her popularity — and the infamous rivalry with “the movie star” castaway, Ginger (played by Tina Louise, the show’s last surviving cast member) — her character, and the coconut-loving Professor, weren’t mentioned in the series’ catchy theme song until costar Bob Denver (Gilligan) insisted on it.
“Dawn would say that Mary Ann fits today just as she fit three generations ago, because she is timeless,” Boll said. “In a world where the industry and society has been celebrating their ‘Bad girls,’ Mary Ann continues to be, for many, the breathe [sic] of fresh air as the ‘Good Girl.’”
Wells’ gingham dress and famous belly button-covering shorts from the series are currently on display in the lobby of the Hollywood Museum, Boll said.
Born in Reno, Nev., on Oct. 18, 1938, Wells told The Times that her mother raised her with “Mary Ann values” amid the gambling and prostitution rampant in the Silver State. Wells’ parents divorced when she was young, and they shared custody of her with “no conflict.” Her father, who was married four times, lived in Las Vegas. Wells attended the all-girls Stephens College in Missouri and the University of Washington in Seattle, where she earned her degree in theater arts.
She came to Los Angeles and began working in theater, TV and in such films as 1963’s “Palm Springs Weekend.” She would go on to star in more than 150 TV shows and seven films. Often typecast as Mary Ann, Wells worked primarily in theater after “Gilligan’s Island” went off the air. She appeared in more than 60 theatrical productions, including the 1981 staging of “They’re Playing Our Song” on Broadway.
“The first thing I did [after ‘Gilligan’] was ‘The Owl and the Pussycat,’ where I played a hooker,” she told The Times. “But it took me two years to get cast in ‘The Vagina Monologues.’ I think they think of you as a film actor who doesn’t do stage, so they don’t know your range.”
Wells at her Valley Village home, left, and as a member of the “Gilligan’s Island” cast. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times; CBS-TV)
More recently, Wells played Annie Hughes in the web series “Life Interrupted” and the web series shorts “She’s Still on That Freaking Island” with Terry Ray. She voiced Gumbalina Toothington in the animated series “The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants.”
She also racked up credits as a producer, author, journalist, motivational speaker and humanitarian. She chaired the Terry Lee Wells Foundation, which focuses on women and children in northern Nevada, and ran her Film Actors Boot Camp for seven years in Idaho.
Reflecting on her career, she told KTLA in 2019 that she would have liked to appear in more movies and play against type.
“I haven’t done as much film as I’d like. I’d like to play a real nasty person, ’cause you always love Mary Ann, and I’d like to play the opposite of what I do most of the time,” she said. “But I hope I’m working until I drop dead.”
No services are scheduled at this time, and in lieu of flowers, donations are requested to the Elephant Sanctuary in Hohenwald, Tenn., the Terry Lee Wells Nevada Discovery Museum or the Shambala Preserve.
Actors William Shatner, Jane Lynch and Jon Cryer were among the celebrities mourning the star Wednesday. Here are some of their reactions:
