Wednesday, April 14, 2021

Hundreds of British Gas engineers to lose jobs in ‘fire and rehire’ scheme

Workers have refused to sign up to tougher employment terms imposed by UK’s biggest energy company

British Gas workers picket Centrica offices in Windsor — British Gas handed dismissal notices to close to 1,000 of its engineers as part of its ‘fire and rehire’ scheme. Photograph: Guy Smallman/Getty Images

Wed 14 Apr 2021 07.00 BST

Hundreds of British Gas engineers will lose their jobs by midday on Wednesday after refusing to sign up to tougher employment terms imposed by the company’s controversial “fire and rehire” scheme.

On 1 April Britain’s biggest energy supplier handed dismissal notices to close to 1,000 of its engineers, who install and repair boilers and heating systems for the company’snine million service customers.

The engineers were granted a grace period of two weeks in which to change their minds and sign up to contracts that call for longer hours together with shifts over weekends and bank holidays – or lose their jobs.

In the last two weeks hundreds of engineers are understood to have signed up to the contracts, leaving 500 having refused to sign by the end of Tuesday. The company expects a final wave of 11th-hour contract signings on Wednesday morning, to leave between 300 and 400 engineers without a job.

The end of the grace period is expected to draw a line on the bitter nine-month battle between British Gas executives and trade union representatives at GMB, which has accused the supplier of “bullying” its employees.

The fire and rehire scheme is legal, but it has provoked fury among employees and the GMB. British Gas set out the plans last summer as part of a formal consultation process with trade unions to streamline its employment contracts and increase productivity to help rescue the business from the risk of financial ruin.

Under the new contracts, full-time engineers would be required to work an extra three hours a week, or 40 hours a week in total, and would not be paid a higher rate to work when required on weekends and public holidays.

The terms were accepted by most trade unions, and employees, but the GMB has staged more than 40 days of strike action in recent months in protest against the “mass sacking” of its members.

Andy Prendergast, GMB acting national secretary, said that although many of its 8,000 engineers have agreed to the new terms “under duress”, the company’s “appalling” treatment of its staff had damaged morale across the workforce.

British Gas said the company was changing the way it worked “to give our customers the service they want and protect the future of our company and 20,000 UK jobs”.

The owner of British Gas, Centrica, has lost more than three-quarters of its market value in the last five years and the supplier reported its weakest earnings on record earlier this year.

“While change is difficult, reversing our decline, – which has seen us lose over three million customers, cut over 15,000 jobs and seen profits halved over the last 10 years –is necessary,” the spokesman said.

NSA alerts Microsoft to "critical vulnerabilities" in email app

Olivia Gazis

4/13/2021

The National Security Agency (NSA) said Tuesday that it had alerted Microsoft to "a series of critical vulnerabilities" in the Microsoft Exchange email application, prompting the company to issue a new patch.

© Omar Marques / SOPA Images/Sipa USA via AP Images ap21051160570564.jpg

In a blog post, Microsoft said it had "not seen" the vulnerabilities used against its customers, but urged users to install timely updates.

"[G]iven recent adversary focus on Exchange, we recommend customers install the updates as soon as possible to ensure they remain protected from these and other threats," the company said, in a reference to an earlier disclosure, made in March, that suspected Chinese hackers had exploited different Exchange server flaws to spy on thousands of U.S. organizations.

Deputy national security adviser for Cyber and Emerging Technology Anne Neuberger, who has been leading the U.S. government's response to both the prior Exchange hack and the SolarWinds cyber espionage campaign attributed to Russia, said in a statement that all federal agencies were being required to "immediately patch" their Exchange servers.

"Should these vulnerabilities evolve into a major incident, we will manage the incident in partnership with the private sector, building on the Unified Coordination Group processes" that were established to deal with the earlier Exchange hack, Neuberger said.

Lawmakers and private cybersecurity experts have been urging the administration to take swifter action to shore up the country's cyber infrastructure and defenses. On Monday the Biden administration named two senior-level cyber officials – both NSA veterans – to new posts.

Former NSA Deputy Director Chris Inglis was nominated to serve as the country's first national cyber director and Jen Easterly, a former intelligence officer at the NSA, to head the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which is housed in the Department of Homeland Security.

Disclosing software flaws is a relatively new practice for the NSA, which in the past would collect and keep secret vulnerabilities for its own use in intelligence gathering. But in January 2020, the agency identified a critical vulnerability in Microsoft Windows 10; it said at the time that its disclosure was an effort to "build trust" with its partners and the public.

"NSA values partnership in the cybersecurity community," an NSA spokesperson said Tuesday. "We are continuing the partnership by urging application of the patches immediately."

Rob Joyce, who recently replaced Neuberger as the director of the NSA's Cybersecurity Directorate, likewise urged entities using the Exchange application to patch as soon as possible.

"Cybersecurity is national security," Joyce said. "Network defenders now have the knowledge needed to act, but so do adversaries and malicious cyber actors."

"Don't give them the opportunity to exploit this vulnerability on your system," he said

Government agencies must update Microsoft Exchange as feds warn of 'unacceptable' security risk

Jordan Novet
CNBC

4/13/2021

Microsoft on Tuesday issued new patches for the 2013, 2016 and 2019 versions of Exchange.

CISA ordered all federal agencies to deploy the patches by Friday, saying the vulnerabilities pose an "unacceptable" risk.

Unlike patches issued in March, which fixed gaps that had been exploited by Chinese hackers, Microsoft said it is not aware of exploits of these new vulnerabilities.

© Provided by CNBC

Microsoft on Tuesday released patches for three versions of its Exchange Server email and calendar software that companies use in on-premises data centers, and the federal government has ordered all agencies to install them, warning that the vulnerabilities being patched "pose an unacceptable risk to the Federal enterprise and require an immediate and emergency action."

The updates come a month after Microsoft took action to respond to attacks on other flaws in Exchange Server, which the company said had been exploited by Chinese hackers. But unlike last time, Microsoft said in a blog post it has not yet observed exploits of the newly discovered holes.

Nonetheless, the widespread usage of Exchange, and the importance of email in general, has spurred the federal government to sound the alarm.

In a Tuesday directive, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency noted that these vulnerabilities are "different from the ones disclosed and fixed in March 2021" and ordered all government agencies to deploy the patches before Friday.

"Given the powerful privileges that Exchange manages by default and the amount of potentially sensitive information that is stored in Exchange servers operated and hosted by (or on behalf of) federal agencies, Exchange servers are a primary target for adversary activity," CISA wrote. "This determination is based on the likelihood of the vulnerabilities being weaponized, combined with the widespread use of the affected software across the Executive Branch and high potential for a compromise of integrity and confidentiality of agency information."

The new patches apply to the 2013, 2016 and 2019 versions of Exchange Server.

The company said organizations using the cloud-based Exchange Online service included in Microsoft 365 subscription bundles is already protected.

Microsoft gave credit to the U.S. National Security Agency for reporting the new vulnerabilities.

UK’s native woodlands reaching crisis point, report warns

Drive to plant more trees will count for little if existing woods are lost, says Woodland Trust

TREES ARE NOT ECOLOGY

Trees cut down at a woodland in the UK.Just 7% of the

country’s native woodland is in a good condition.

Photograph: Woodland Trust/PA Media

Damian Carrington

Environment editor
THE GUARDIAN

Wed 14 Apr 2021

The UK’s native woodlands are reaching a crisis point, with just 7% in good condition, according to the first comprehensive assessment of their health.

The Woodland Trust’s report found the woods facing a barrage of threats, including destruction by development, imported pests and diseases, the impacts of the climate crisis and pollution. Woodland specialist birds and butterflies have declined by almost half since 1970, it said.

The report said the high-profile drive to create new woodlands is important, but would count for little if existing woods are lost. In any case, the report said, rates of tree planting are nowhere near what is needed and less than half of the new trees are native species.

Trees should play an important role in helping the UK tackle the climate emergency and restore wildlife in one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world. They can also provide services such as reduced flooding and shade, as well as being important for many people’s wellbeing.

Woodland cover has nearly tripled since 1900 and makes up 13% of the UK, but half of this is forestry plantations that support relatively little biodiversity. In December, the UK’s Climate Change Committee said 2bn new trees would be needed by 2050, increasing the coverage to 18% of the country, and requiring a tripling of the growth rate.

Restore UK woodland by letting trees plant themselves, says report

Abi Bunker, the director of conservation at the Woodland Trust, said: “It’s reaching crisis point. The warning signs are loud and clear. If we don’t tackle the threats facing our woods and trees, we will severely damage the UK’s ability to address the climate and nature crises. Green spaces that are rich in wildlife, bird song and blossom are also intrinsically linked to our own health and wellbeing.”

The broadcaster Clive Anderson, who is the Woodland Trust’s president, said: “We remain one of the least wooded countries in Europe. Fragmentation of woods, loss of trees and the wildlife dependent on them has been brutal.”

The poor condition of 93% native woodlands was particularly striking, said Chris Reid, at the Woodland Trust, citing the assessment made in 2020 by the Forestry Commission’s research agency: “I was surprised it was quite so bad – it is pretty shocking.” Overgrazing and invasive species are among the causes.

The report said species including dead wood beetles, lily of the valley and the willow tit were in steep decline, with the latter down 94% since 1970. “New woodland is only going to fill up with wildlife if you have existing woodland that’s in good condition and is connected,” said Reid.

Bluebells in a UK woodland during spring. Photograph: Woodland Trust/PA Media

The climate crisis is changing the timing of seasonal events, with trees coming into leaf earlier, the report said. This means birds such as the blue tit are struggling to adjust their breeding times to feed on caterpillars.

Centuries-old and wildlife-rich ancient forests cover 2.5% of the UK, but at least 1,225 of these woodlands are under threat of destruction by new building development, according to the Woodland Trust.

Individual trees in fields make up 20% of all trees, the report said, and can provide important staging posts for wildlife between woodlands. But research by the trust in Norfolk and Suffolk found 85% have been lost over last 150 years.

A single oak tree can play home to more than 2,000 different species, said Bunker, but there is little data on field trees: “The fact is no one really knows and no one’s checking – a lot of the time, they are forgotten trees.”

'It's good for the soul': the mini rewilders restoring UK woodland

The report also said 19 new damaging tree pests and diseases have become established in UK since 1990, compared with four in the previous 40 years. It said the 10-fold increase in live plant imports since 1990 was the likely cause. Ash dieback disease could kill 120m trees, the report said, meaning a cost of £50 for every £1 earned from importing saplings.

Nitrogen pollution from farming is another problem, causing clean air lichens to disappear from tree branches and nitrogen-tolerant grasses and plants to wipe out woodland flowers such as violets, bugle, heather and bilberry. “If you imagine every single tree branch covered in lichens, that’s a lot of carbon in itself,” said Hazel Jackson, at the Woodland Trust. “But they also slow the flow of water and are amazing habitat for lots of different insects.”

Protecting and enhancing woodlands, and founding new ones, is happening at smaller scales, said Bunker, but needs to be happening nationwide. She said the government’s environment bill must make the restoration of nature a legal requirement, as the 2050 net zero emissions goal is for climate change.

A spokeswoman for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: “We have committed to increase woodland creation across the UK to 30,000 hectares per year by 2025, as well as protecting existing woodlands.”

“We have already announced the Nature for Climate Fund and will shortly publish our action plan for trees and woodland, which will help us meet this target by ensuring we plant new high-quality, well-managed woodlands and improve the condition and resilience of existing ones,” she said.

Down to Business: Days are numbered for fossil-fuel cars. Is Canada ready?
Gabriel Friedman 28 mins ago

When the pandemic hit, Canada’s auto industry rapidly pivoted from making cars to making masks, gloves, ventilators, et cetera, but there was a cost: 2020 was the worst year in decades for auto manufacturers.

© Provided by Financial Post

The challenge Canada faces to get 100% EVs by 2040 is huge.

This week, on Down to Business, Brian Kingston, president and chief executive of the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers Association, and Benjamin Sharpe, a senior researcher and Canada Regional Lead at the International Council on Clean Transportation, based in California, spoke about what lies ahead for the auto industry.

The auto sector represents Canada’s second largest export; and it won’t show up in any quantitative analysis, but the sector also provided the expertise that proved invaluable when the pandemic struck and Canada needed to quickly begin producing personal protective equipment.

The auto sector has declined globally in the past two decades, but a new era of electric vehicles is dawning, and there’s a new opportunity to gain back ground.

Listen on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , Stitcher and Google Play

U.S. oil comprised 77 per cent of Canada's foreign oil imports last year: regulator

THAT MEANS THEY BOUGHT US PRICED & REFINED ALBERTA OIL FOR ONTARIO AND QUEBEC

WASHINGTON — Canada is growing ever more reliant on imported American oil, a new report from the country's energy regulator suggests, putting a counter-intuitive spin on the fierce debate about cross-border pipelines and energy independence.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The United States provided nearly four out of every five barrels of imported crude in 2020, a year when global demand for fossil fuels was badly dented by the COVID-19 pandemic, the latest data from the Canada Energy Regulator shows.

Some 77 per cent of Canadian imports came from the U.S., up from 72 per cent in 2019 and a paltry six per cent in 2010, before a dramatic spike in domestic American oil and gas production over the last decade.

"We do often think of the pipeline relationship between the two countries as being one of, 'Canada produces and exports to the U.S.,'" said Darren Christie, the regulator's chief economist.

"This is specifically showing that there is another side to that coin, which is that we also import production from the U.S."

Close observers of Canada-U.S. trade flows, particularly those in the energy sector, might not be overly surprised by how much American crude oil has been travelling north in recent years.

The U.S. absorbed a whopping 96 per cent of Canadian oil exports last year, the bulk of it heavy crude, more than half of it to the U.S. Midwest, which has been ground zero for pipeline disputes for much of the last 15 years.

But a massive surge in U.S. oil and gas production, fuelled in part by new extraction technology like fracking and horizontal drilling, has made it a convenient source of feedstock for refineries in both countries, Christie said.

"Their crude oil production has more than doubled in the last 10 years, which is quite a remarkable increase," he said.

"That creates a massive supply push out of the U.S. And if we are just north and had previously been importing some crudes from around the world, it's a natural market for a lot of that increased production out of the U.S."

While foreign oil has long been a part of the Canadian energy mix, the latest numbers — along with the proportion of imports from the U.S. — casts the ongoing controversy over pipeline links between the two countries in a surprising new light.

On his first day in the Oval Office, President Joe Biden cancelled the Keystone XL pipeline expansion, which would have ferried an additional 800,000 barrels a day of Alberta oilsands bitumen to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Michigan is currently in court with Enbridge Inc. over Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's efforts to shut down Line 5, a vital cross-border energy link that crosses the Great Lakes beneath the ecologically sensitive Straits of Mackinac.

The pipeline is widely billed by its defenders as a critical piece of infrastructure that feeds key refineries in Sarnia, Ont., and provides more than half of the propane needed to heat homes in Michigan alone, to say nothing of neighbouring states.

Canada has vowed to strenuously defend Line 5, with Natural Resources Minister Seamus O'Regan insisting last month that its operation is "non-negotiable." Ottawa has yet to say if it will take part in the ongoing court case.

Protesters in Minnesota are also doing their best to disrupt Enbridge's ongoing $10-billion upgrade of Line 3, another key link in the cross-border chain that connects to Line 5 at a facility in Superior, Wisc.

The dependence on U.S. oil is especially high in Atlantic Canada, a region of the country where pipelines are often not an option. Imports to refineries there have increased tenfold over the last decade.

While Canada's energy exports to the U.S. are more than six times what moves in the other direction, the interdependence between the two countries is dramatic, both from the standpoint of energy supply and economic impact, the American Petroleum Institute said in a report last week.

Over the past 10 years, the value of petroleum liquids traded between the two has measured as high as 20 per cent of all Canada-U.S. trade. Up to 90 per cent of oil refined in Eastern Canada travelled either through or from the U.S., the API said.

"Trade volumes in both directions are dominated by crude oil," it said.

"Crude oil trade growth has been primarily driven by heavy crude oil shipped from Western Canada to the U.S. Midwest and Gulf Coast by pipeline and rail, and light crude oil from North Dakota and Texas shipped to Eastern Canada by pipeline and marine vessel."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 14, 2021.

James McCarten, The Canadian Press

8,000 pages of Declassified Canadian UFO Documents

Misc. Canadian UFO reports

Wonders In The Sky - Unexplained Aerial Objects From Antiquity To Modern Times - Jacques Vallee, Chris Aubeck

The Mammoth Encyclopedia Of Extraterrestrial Encounters :

FLYING SAUCERS ON THE ATTACK

Harold Wilkins 1954

the real criminal and dangerous nature of the UFO before Jacques Vallee and John Keel .... A great work of the 50's

and.... funniest fake early "UFOs" caught on camera, why not

HOW WE GOT HERE

Jacques Vallee The Network Revolution

Topics computers, history, internet, SRI, arpanet, Jacques Vallee, NSA

Language English

The Network Revolution

Confessions of a Computer Scientist

Berkeley: And/Or Press 1982
published in both hardcover and paperback
Illustrated, 213 pages, bibliography.

HOW WILL THE GROWTH OF COMPUTER NETWORKS CHANGE THE WAY YOU LIVE AND LOVE AND WORK AND PLAY?

WHAT DO THE COMPUTER TECHNOLOGISTS REALLY KNOW ABOUT THE IMPACT OF THEIR CREATIONS ON SOCIETY?

HOW WILL COMPUTER POWER AFFECT YOUR PERSONAL POWER AT THIS CRUCIAL MOMENT IN HUMAN HISTORY- TODAY, AS THE COMPUTERS LINK UP?

The Network Revolution, the personal view of an erudite, compassionate insider who helped shape this technology, penetrates behind the scenes to reveal the human side of computer science as it has never been shown before.

Jacques Vallee writes in nontechnical language. He takes the mystery out of the technology and shows how computer science has suddenly put humanity at a major crossroads. The choices which will shape our future are being made right now. This book and its readers will influence those decisions

The Heart of the Internet

by Jacques Vallee

Topics Jacques Vallee, internet, arpanet, SRI, Stanford Research Institute

Collection opensource

http://www.jacquesvallee.net/heart_of_the_internet.html

The Heart of the Internet

by Jacques Vallee, Ph.D.

An Insider's View of the Origin and

Promise of the On-Line Revolution

Jacques Vallee was among the engineers and visionaries who set up the Internet, hoping to connect people--not control them--through information. For a few years, it seemed that this dream was being realized. But after the dot com crash of 2001, much of the Web's information flowed into the media giants and corporate conglomerates, leaving millions of Net denizens without true freedom of choice. And then there is the threat of government snooping. . . .

All is not lost, but it is time for public and private actions to rebuild the dream and win back our freedom. In The Heart of the Internet, Vallee:

* reconstructs the history of computer technology and destroys a few myths...

* uses first-person recollections and notes to describe the series of breakthroughs that transformed computers from calculating machines to universal platforms for new media;

* describes the internet in today's marketplace, pressured on the one hand by commercial interests seeking to influence not merely our purchases but our thoughts, and on the other by governmental obsession to harness the whole system to its own narrow definitions of security--sacrificing our privacy and possibly our freedom in the process;

* states a set of principles for network citizens and suggests how we can create new standards for Internet usage.