Australia's climate policy is being dictated by a former accountant in a cowboy hat

Analysis by Ben Westcott, CNN
Updated Fri October 1, 2021


Barnaby Joyce leads Australia's National Party, which traditionally represents rural voters.

(CNN)Australia's Prime Minister has all but confirmed he won't join global leaders at crucial climate talks in Glasgow.
Two more weeks of Covid-19 quarantine would be too much, Scott Morrison said on Friday, claiming that while there are "a lot of international interests," the most important audience for his yet-to-be-unveiled climate plan remains at home.
"My first and most important group that I need to talk to about our plan is not overseas. It's right here in Australia," he said. "It's talking to people in regional Australia, how the deputy prime minister and I believe our plan will help them in their communities, how our plan will help them realize their future."
With that remark, Morrison made it clear his loyalty lies with Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce, a cowboy hat-wearing, former accountant who leads the National Party, the Liberal government's coalition partner -- and not with international allies who are urging Australia to take greater action to cut emissions.




Australian Prime Minister says Australia will reach net zero "as soon as possible".
Joyce says he wants to see the numbers before he agrees to any new climate targets, as he struggles to unite a party riven with differences over Australia's future relationship with coal.
Morrison's refusal to commit to a target of net zero emissions by 2050 hasn't just isolated him on the international stage. Even within Australia's own borders -- aside from staunch pro-coal Nationals -- Morrison is looking more and more like he's being left behind.

On Friday, even the Minerals Council of Australia, the country's mining advocacy group, announced it supported net zero emissions by 2050. The country's largest states have already announced large emission reduction targets, and surveys also show most Australian people support tougher climate action.
Will Stefan, emeritus professor at the Australian National University's Fenner School of Environment and Society, said public opinion appeared to contradict the interests of Morrison's political allies and big business, who invest heavily in fossil fuels.
"I think there's a growing gulf between what the Australian public wants and how our Prime Minister is behaving," he said.
And that's a dangerous position for a Prime Minister to be in just months before a federal election.


Photovoltaic modules at a solar farm on the outskirts of Gunnedah, New South Wales, Australia.

Selling Kodak cameras
Part of the reason for Morrison's reluctance to take actions lies in the fact that he leads a coalition made up of the center-right, pro-business Liberal Party and the National Party, who traditionally advocate for regional workers and agricultural communities.
The National Party has long opposed any action on climate change, claiming it will hurt rural communities. Joyce wants assurances the party's traditional supporters won't lose out in any broader transition to renewable energy.
"It's the little old bush accountant saying that lots of clients have ideas, but (you need) to sit down with them and say, 'Okay, that's your idea, let's prudently go about this,'" Joyce told told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). He said whole towns rely on Australia's coal industry, and they shouldn't be forgotten.
"It's not just those farms, not just the mines, it is the towns that are attached to the commerce of those industries," he said. "It is the hairdressers, the tire business. These people also rely on the Nationals to make sure that we don't pull the economic rug out from underneath them."


Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce during Question Time in the House of Representatives at Parliament House on June 23 in Canberra, Australia.
While some Nationals support a move to net zero, others seem unlikely to budge, much to the frustration of some of Morrison's Liberal Party colleagues who want greater climate action.
On Sunday, a coal-loving Nationals senator took to Twitter to say he was "deadset against net zero." A Liberal minister hit back, accusing him of "selling Kodak cameras ... when the iPhone is coming."
The divisions are making life difficult for Morrison, who said he's working on a plan to bring his government "together on this issue."
It's not clear when that plan will be released, but he has said it'll be ready before other leaders descend on Glasgow for the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as COP26 as it is the 26th UN conference on climate change.
Despite being one of the largest per capita emitters of carbon in the world, according to the World Bank, the Australian government has dragged its feet on climate change action for decades.


The steelworks and coal loading facility in Port Kembla in Wollongong, Australia.
Australia's pledge to reduce its carbon emissions by 26% to 28% from 2005 levels by 2030 is far below commitments from similar developed nations, including the United States. And Morrison has steadfastly refused to commit to net zero by 2050, saying only the country will reach the goal "as soon as possible."
Morrison's government has insisted that Australia is meeting its climate targets -- and even beating them -- but Stefan said the emission reduction target was "very weak."
Experts have previously said Australia would need to cut its emissions by twice the current commitment, up to 50% by 2050, to keep warming below 2 degrees Celsius worldwide. And even greater cuts are needed to keep warming below the international target of 1.5 degrees Celsius.
"They're talking about new technologies and so on, but they're avoiding, completely avoiding the way we can get our emissions down, rapidly at cost and with side benefits. And that's to go renewable," said Stefan.
Part of the trouble is Australia is heavily reliant on mining for its economic prosperity. The country is one of the world's biggest coal exporters, bringing in around 50 billion Australian dollars ($36 billion) and employing more than 50,000 people, according to the government.


Australia is one of the world's biggest coal exporters.
With coal prices surging, some Nationals see no reason to cut off a lucrative source of revenue.
But the rival argument is that Australia has an opportunity to generate masses of renewable energy and industries to replace jobs lost in fossil fuels.
On Wednesday, as he announced plans to halve the state's emissions by 2030, New South Wales Environment Minister Matt Kean said Australia should "lead the world" on climate change, describing it as the "biggest economic opportunity of our lifetime."
"The reality is that the world is changing rapidly ... We would be absolutely mad to miss it," he said.

What the Australian people want
Some politicians have pitched Australia's climate divide as a city versus country debate that will see the latter lose out.
In an opinion piece published Monday, Nationals Sen. Bridget McKenzie accused her Liberal Party colleagues of forgetting about rural Australians and miners whose jobs would be lost by tough action on climate change.
At a press conference with the Liberal Party's deputy leader, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, on a separate issue Wednesday, the two traded jabs over the government's climate policies.
When Frydenberg said "climate change has no postcode," McKenzie responded by saying some Liberal Party politicians were trying to be "cool" by pushing for climate action. "Josh isn't one of them," she added.
While politicians argue over the best way forward, rural Australians are getting on with it. They say they have no choice.


Ellen Litchfield, a third-generation farmer, said rural and urban communities have more in common than some politicians seem to think.

With her family, third-generation farmer Ellen Litchfield operates Wilpoorinna, a sheep and cattle station 650 kilometers (400 miles) north of Adelaide in the Australian Outback, making her acutely aware of the threat of droughts to her and farmers like her.
She said the idea that there was a divide between rural and urban voters was mostly cooked up by politicians, capitalizing on a nostalgia for rural Australia, to argue for the status quo.
"I think that there's a lot more in common with the regional voter and the urban voter than they want us to believe," she said.
Litchfield, who advocates for Farmers for Climate Action, said many regional workers see "the benefits of changing."
"Mind the pun, but we're at the coalface of climate change every day. We're working out in the environment, we're seeing how things change," she said.
"And feeling supported and like we are all working together, all the industries are working together to secure the future, would be a huge benefit for us."
It isn't just Litchfield who supports climate change action in Australia.


Protesters take part in the School Strike 4 Climate rally on May 21 in Melbourne, Australia.
A poll by Essential Polling released on August 17 found more than 60% of respondents supported providing greater funding for solar power, introducing a carbon levy on polluters and putting in place a net zero carbon emissions target by 2030.
ANU professor Stefan said government efforts to reduce emissions in some jurisdictions, such as his home in the nation's capital, Canberra, had been popular with the electorate.
"This is a global problem, and we're all expected to do our fair share," he said.
Whether Morrison can come up with a plan to balance the competing forces in his coalition remains to be seen.
But whatever compromise he can offer will be pored over at length by the international community -- and by all Australians with votes to cast the next election.

CNN's Hilary Whiteman contributed to this report.

CRIMINAL CAPITAL$M

Petrofac considers refinancing as faces possible $240 million bribery fine


Sat, 2 October 2021

LONDON (Reuters) -British oil services group Petrofac said it is looking at refinancing options including debt and fresh equity as it faces a possible $240 million fine from a London court.

Petrofac decided to plead guilty to seven charges after a four-year Serious Fraud Office (SFO) investigation into allegations it had failed to prevent bribery in Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the UAE between 2012 and 2015.

"The Joint Submission to the Court by the Company and the SFO details a potential penalty of $240 million prior to the application of any adjustment to the level of fine," Petrofac said in a statement released late on Friday.

"The Company has made a submission to the Court for a substantial reduction based on alternative approaches to sentencing and its ability to pay," it added.

Petrofac’s lawyer has argued a fine of between $90 million and $100 million was more proportionate, a spokesperson said.

Sentencing in the case was postponed to Monday, a court spokesperson said in an email on Friday.

Petrofac said it was reviewing options for creating a sustainable capital structure, including new revolving credit facilities with its lending banks, accessing public debt capital markets and additional equity capital.

With the investigation hanging over its past contracts, Petrofac has struggled to secure key contracts in the Middle East and has seen its shares battered.

(Reporting by Shadia Nasralla; Editing by Alexander Smith and David Holmes)

BepiColombo mission snaps images of Mercury on its first flyby

By Georgina Torbet

October 2, 2021 

The European and Japanese mission BepiColombo has made its first flyby of Mercury, capturing images of the planet it will eventually be exploring in more depth. In order to get close to the planet, the spacecraft makes use of the planet’s gravity to make increasingly close approaches. It has already made one flyby of Earth and two of Venus, and this was the first of six flybys of Mercury.

As the craft passed by, it snapped images of Mercury using the Monitoring Camera 3 on its Mercury Transfer Module, which captures images in black and white with a resolution of 1024 x 1024 pixels. In the image below, you can see the spacecraft’s antennae and magnetometer boom.

The joint European-Japanese BepiColombo mission captured this view of Mercury on 1 October 2021 as the spacecraft flew past the planet for a gravity assist maneuver.ESA/BepiColombo/MTM, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

The closest image was taken from around 620 miles from the planet, which is close enough to see impact craters on its surface.

“It was an incredible feeling seeing these almost-live pictures of Mercury,” said Valentina Galluzzi, co-investigator of BepiColombo’s SIMBIO-SYS imaging system that will be used once in Mercury orbit. “It really made me happy meeting the planet I have been studying since the very first years of my research career, and I am eager to work on new Mercury images in the future.”

The joint European-Japanese BepiColombo mission captured this view of Mercury on 1 October 2021 as the spacecraft flew past the planet for a gravity assist maneuver. The image was taken at 23:40:27 UTC by the Mercury Transfer Module’s Monitoring Camera 3 when the spacecraft was 1183 km from Mercury.ESA/BepiColombo/MTM, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

The flyby was also a chance to check that the cameras and other instruments were working as expected and that everything is healthy with the spacecraft.

“In addition to the images we obtained from the monitoring cameras we also operated several science instruments on the Mercury Planetary Orbiter and Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter,” said Johannes Benkhoff, ESA’s BepiColombo project scientist. “I’m really looking forward to seeing these results. It was a fantastic night shift with fabulous teamwork, and with many happy faces.”

BepiColombo will now continue making flybys of Mercury, with its next set to occur in June] 2022 and its main science mission beginning in 2026.

“The flyby was flawless from the spacecraft point of view, and it’s incredible to finally see our target planet,” said Elsa Montagnon, Spacecraft Operations Manager for the mission.

Mercury Mission Flies by Closest Planet to the Sun for the First Time

SCIENCE & TECHWire Service Oct 2, 2021

An artist’s illustration of BepiColombo over Mercury. 

(ESA/ATG medialab/NASA/JPL)

The smallest planet in our solar system was getting photographed Friday by a European-Japanese space probe making its closest trip past the sphere on its seven-year mission.

The BepiColombo mission made its first flyby of Mercury around 7:34 p.m. ET on Friday, passing within 124 miles (200 kilometers) of the planet’s surface.

“BepiColombo is now as close to Mercury as it will get in this first of six Mercury flybys,” the European Space Agency (ESA) said on Twitter.

During the flyby, BepiColombo is collecting science data and images, and sending them back to Earth.

The mission, jointly managed by the ESA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, launched in October 2018. It will ultimately make six total flybys of Mercury before entering orbit around the planet in December 2025.

The mission will actually place two probes in orbit around Mercury: the ESA-led Mercury Planetary Orbiter and the JAXA-led Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter, Mio. The orbiters will remain stacked in their current configuration with the Mercury Transfer Module until deployment in 2025.

Once the Bepicolombo spacecraft approaches Mercury to begin orbit, the Mercury Transfer Module part of the spacecraft will separate and the two orbiters will begin circling the planet.

Both probes will spend a year collecting data to help scientists better understand the small, mysterious planet, such as determining more about the processes that unfold on its surface and its magnetic field. This information could reveal the origin and evolution of the closest planet to the sun.

During Friday’s flyby, the spacecraft’s main camera was being shielded and unable to capture high-resolution images. But two of the spacecraft’s three monitoring cameras will take photos of the planet’s northern and southern hemispheres just after the close approach from about 621 miles (1,000 kilometers).

BepiColombo will fly by the planet’s night side, so images during the closest approach wouldn’t be able to show much detail.

The mission team anticipates the images will show large impact craters that are scattered across Mercury’s surface, much like our moon. The researchers can use the images to map Mercury’s surface and learn more about the planet’s composition.

Some of the instruments on both orbiters will be turned on during the flyby so they can get a first whiff of Mercury’s magnetic field, plasma and particles.

The flyby has a timely occurrence on the 101st anniversary of Giuseppe “Bepi” Colombo’s birthday, the Italian scientist and engineer who is the namesake of the mission. Colombo’s work helped explain Mercury’s rotation as it orbits the sun and enabled NASA’s Mariner 10 spacecraft to perform three Mercury flybys rather than just one by using a gravity assist from Venus. He determined that the point where spacecraft fly by planets could actually help make future passes possible.

Mariner 10 was the first spacecraft sent to study Mercury, and it successfully completed its three flybys in 1974 and 1975. Next, NASA sent its Messenger spacecraft to perform three flybys of Mercury in 2008 and 2009, and it orbited the planet from 2011 to 2015.

Now, BepiColombo will take up the task of providing scientists with the best information to unlock the planet’s mysteries as the second mission to orbit Mercury and the most complex one to date.

“We’re really looking forward to seeing the first results from measurements taken so close to Mercury’s surface,” said Johannes Benkhoff, ESA’s BepiColombo project scientist, in a statement. “When I started working as project scientist on BepiColombo in January 2008, NASA’s Messenger mission had its first flyby at Mercury. Now it’s our turn. It’s a fantastic feeling!”

Why Mercury?

Little is known about the history, surface or atmosphere of Mercury, which is notoriously difficult to study because of its proximity to the sun. It’s the least explored of the four rocky planets of the inner solar system, including Venus, Earth and Mars. The sun’s brightness behind Mercury makes the little planet hard to observe from Earth, too.

BepiColombo will have to fire xenon gas constantly from two of four specially designed engines in order to permanently brake against the sun’s enormous gravitational pull. Its distance from Earth also makes it difficult to reach—more energy is required to allow BepiColombo to “fall” toward the planet than is needed when sending missions to Pluto.

A heat shield and titanium insulation have also been applied to the spacecraft to protect it from intense heat of up to 662 degrees Fahrenheit (350 degrees Celsius).

The instruments on the two orbiters will investigate ice within the planet’s polar craters, why it has a magnetic field, and the nature of the “hollows” on the planet’s surface.

Mercury is full of mysteries for such a small planet, just slightly larger than our moon. What scientists do know is that during the day, temperatures can reach highs of 800 degrees Fahrenheit (430 degrees Celsius), but the planet’s thin atmosphere means that it can dip to negative 290 degrees Fahrenheit (negative 180 degrees Celsius) at night.

Even though Mercury is the closest planet to the sun at about 36 million miles (58 million kilometers) from our star on average, the hottest planet in our solar system is actually Venus because it has a dense atmosphere. But Mercury is definitely the fastest of the planets, completing one orbit around the sun every 88 days—which is why it was named for the quick, wing-footed messenger of the Roman gods.

If we could stand on the surface of Mercury, the sun would appear three times larger than it does on Earth and the sunlight would be blinding because it’s seven times brighter.

Mercury’s unusual rotation and oval-shaped orbit around the sun means our star seems to quickly rise, set and rise again on some parts of the planet, and a similar phenomenon occurs at sunset.

The CNN Wire contributed to this report

50 years ago, the first CT scan let doctors see inside a living skull – thanks to an eccentric engineer at the Beatles' record company


Edmund S. Higgins, Affiliate Associate Professor of Psychiatry & Family Medicine, Medical University of South Carolina
Thu, September 30, 2021,

Godfrey Hounsfield stands beside the EMI-Scanner in 1972. 

PA Images via Getty Images

The possibility of precious objects hidden in secret chambers can really ignite the imagination. In the mid-1960s, British engineer Godfrey Hounsfield pondered whether one could detect hidden areas in Egyptian pyramids by capturing cosmic rays that passed through unseen voids.

He held onto this idea over the years, which can be paraphrased as “looking inside a box without opening it.” Ultimately he did figure how to use high-energy rays to reveal what’s invisible to the naked eye. He invented a way to see inside the hard skull and get a picture of the soft brain inside.

The first computed tomography image – a CT scan – of the human brain was made 50 years ago, on Oct. 1, 1971. Hounsfield never made it to Egypt, but his invention did take him to Stockholm and Buckingham Palace.

An engineer’s innovation

Godfrey Hounsfield’s early life did not suggest that he would accomplish much at all. He was not a particularly good student. As a young boy his teachers described him as “thick.”

He joined the British Royal Air Force at the start of the Second World War, but he wasn’t much of a soldier. He was, however, a wizard with electrical machinery – especially the newly invented radar that he would jury-rig to help pilots better find their way home on dark, cloudy nights.

After the war, Hounsfield followed his commander’s advice and got a degree in engineering. He practiced his trade at EMI – the company would become better known for selling Beatles albums, but started out as Electric and Music Industries, with a focus on electronics and electrical engineering.

Hounsfield’s natural talents propelled him to lead the team building the most advanced mainframe computer available in Britain. But by the ‘60s, EMI wanted out of the competitive computer market and wasn’t sure what to do with the brilliant, eccentric engineer.

While on a forced holiday to ponder his future and what he might do for the company, Hounsfield met a physician who complained about the poor quality of X-rays of the brain. Plain X-rays show marvelous details of bones, but the brain is an amorphous blob of tissue – on an X-ray it all looks like fog. This got Hounsfield thinking about his old idea of finding hidden structures without opening the box.
A new approach reveals the previously unseen

Hounsfield formulated a new way to approach the problem of imaging what’s inside the skull.

schematic of three X-ray beams through one 'slice' of brain

First, he would conceptually divide the brain into consecutive slices – like a loaf of bread. Then he planned to beam a series of X-rays through each layer, repeating this for each degree of a half-circle. The strength of each beam would be captured on the opposite side of the brain – with stronger beams indicating they’d traveled through less dense material.

simplified illustration of more X-rays making it through softer material

Finally, in possibly his most ingenious invention, Hounsfield created an algorithm to reconstruct an image of the brain based on all these layers. By working backward and using one of the era’s fastest new computers, he could calculate the value for each little box of each brain layer. Eureka!

But there was a problem: EMI wasn’t involved in the medical market and had no desire to jump in. The company allowed Hounsfield to work on his product, but with scant funding. He was forced to scrounge through the scrap bin of the research facilities and cobbled together a primitive scanning machine - small enough to rest atop a dining table.

Even with successful scans of inanimate objects and, later, kosher cow brains, the powers that be at EMI remained underwhelmed. Hounsfield needed to find outside funding if he wanted to proceed with a human scanner.

line drawing of CT scanner

Hounsfield was a brilliant, intuitive inventor, but not an effective communicator. Luckily he had a sympathetic boss, Bill Ingham, who saw the value in Hounsfield’s proposal and struggled with EMI to keep the project afloat.

He knew there were no grants they could obtain quickly, but reasoned the U.K. Department of Health and Social Security could purchase equipment for hospitals. Miraculously, Ingham sold them four scanners before they were even built. So, Hounsfield organized a team, and they raced to build a safe and effective human scanner.

Meanwhile, Hounsfield needed patients to try out his machine on. He found a somewhat reluctant neurologist who agreed to help. The team installed a full-sized scanner at the Atkinson Morley Hospital in London, and on Oct. 1, 1971, they scanned their first patient: a middle-aged woman who showed signs of a brain tumor.

It was not a fast process – 30 minutes for the scan, a drive across town with the magnetic tapes, 2.5 hours processing the data on an EMI mainframe computer and capturing the image with a Polaroid camera before racing back to the hospital.

pixelated image of a brain

And there it was – in her left frontal lobe – a cystic mass about the size of a plum. With that, every other method of imaging the brain was obsolete.
Millions of CT scans every year

EMI, with no experience in the medical market, suddenly held a monopoly for a machine in high demand. It jumped into production and was initially very successful at selling the scanners. But within five years, bigger, more experienced companies with more research capacity such as GE and Siemens were producing better scanners and gobbling up sales. EMI eventually exited the medical market – and became a case study in why it can be better to partner with one of the big guys instead of trying to go it alone.

Hounsfield in tuxedo shaking hands with King facing away from camera

Hounsfield’s innovation transformed medicine. He shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1979 and was knighted by the Queen in 1981. He continued to putter around with inventions until his final days in 2004, when he died at 84.

In 1973, American Robert Ledley developed a whole-body scanner that could image other organs, blood vessels and, of course, bones. Modern scanners are faster, provide better resolution, and most important, do it with less radiation exposure. There are even mobile scanners.

By 2020, technicians were performing more than 80 million scans annually in the U.S.. Some physicians argue that number is excessive and maybe a third are unnecessary. While that may be true, the CT scan has benefited the health of many patients around the world, helping identify tumors and determine if surgery is needed. They’re particularly useful for a quick search for internal injuries after accidents in the ER.

And remember Hounsfield’s idea about the pyramids? In 1970 scientists placed cosmic ray detectors in the lowest chamber in the Pyramid of Khafre. They concluded that no hidden chamber was present within the pyramid. In 2017, another team placed cosmic ray detectors in the Great Pyramid of Giza and found a hidden, but inaccessible, chamber. It’s unlikely it will be explored anytime soon.

This article has been updated to correct the spelling of the name of Hounsfield’s boss at EMI, Bill Ingham.


This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Edmund S. Higgins, Medical University of South Carolina.

Read more:

How seeing problems in the brain makes stigma disappear

Brain-imaging modern people making Stone Age tools hints at evolution of human intelligence

Edmund S. Higgins does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

The workers who fuel the global supply chain warned of a possible 'systems collapse' if solutions aren't found

Grace Kay
Thu, September 30, 2021

A container cargo ship in Rotterdam Harbour on April 4, 2021 in the Netherlands. Rotterdam is the largest shipping port outside of Asia.

 Niels Wenstedt/BSR Agency/Getty Images


Several industry groups representing 65 million transport workers warned the situation is getting dire.


The groups called for world leaders to give transport workers more mobility and access to the COVID-19 vaccine.


The letter comes as global supply chains face multiple snarls, delaying goods and hiking prices.


Workers from across the supply chain warned world leaders on Wednesday that global trade is facing a possible "system collapse" if solutions aren't quickly reached.

In an open letter to heads of state at the United Nations General Assembly, four industry groups, including the International Chamber of Shipping, called for governments to put an end to travel restrictions for transport workers and give the workers priority access to COVID-19 vaccines that have been approved by the World Health Organization (WHO).

"Global supply chains are beginning to buckle as two years' worth of strain on transport workers take their toll," the letter said. "Their continued mistreatment is adding pressure on an already crumbling global supply chain."

The workers groups - which represent over 65 million seafarers, truck drivers, and airline workers across the globe - pointed to limits that had been placed on their movement due to the pandemic, including travel bans and additional requirements at borders.

At the onset of the pandemic about 400,000 seafarers were forced to stay aboard their ships for as long as 18 months - well over their contract periods. The workers' groups said the poor treatment of workers in the transportation sector has exacerbated a worker shortage that will only get worse if the industry is not prioritized.

"It is of great concern that we are also seeing shortages of workers and expect more to leave our industries as a result of the poor treatment they have faced during the pandemic, putting the supply chain under greater threat," the letter said. The group went on to add that they request an audience with the WHO and the International Labour Organization "to identify solutions before global transport systems collapse."

The letter comes at a time when global supply chains are facing historic disruptions. In the US, ports in Southern California have taken the center stage as over 60 hulking cargo ships wait weeks to dock and unload, setting multiple all-time records. In key export markets like China, ports have faced numerous shutdowns due to the country's zero tolerance policy for COVID-19 outbreaks.

The delays have rippled throughout the supply chain, as trucking companies face massive shortages of drivers, and warehouses run out of space for goods. Experts say the delays are only set to worsen in the coming months and will likely continue into 2023, as consumer demand booms ahead of the holiday season while companies work to restore inventory.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
BP Trader Dealings With Nigerian Middleman ‘Didn’t Smell Right’



Jonathan Browning and William Clowes
Fri, October 1, 2021

A BP Plc executive told internal investigators he was concerned about the energy giant’s dealings with a Nigerian middleman and payments being discussed to secure lucrative contracts.

The suspicions didn’t make it into the investigators’ final report, which emphasized that the 2017 deal never went through. But notes from their interviews show a senior executive at the company’s London headquarters was worried that proposed payments to an agent in the West African country would be used for bribes.

When an agent demanded a payment of $5 million to help facilitate what was set to be the biggest deal BP’s traders had ever done in Nigeria, the head of origination for the region, Chris Schemers, told investigators that he said to his team the agent wants the money “so he could pay someone off.”

The documents have come to light in a mammoth employment suit that is running yards from BP’s trading floor in London’s Canary Wharf and highlights the level of internal nervousness surrounding the role of agents in oil trading.

“And he wants upfront, didn’t smell right to me,” Schemers said, according to the documents prepared for the London employment tribunal that’s poring over allegations of bribery and trading losses in BP’s crude trading team.

The team “needed to be super careful” and he had a “bad feeling” about the middleman, Schemers said.

Those notes from Schemers’ interview didn’t make the final report, codenamed Project Topaz, when it was circulated some six months later in the summer of 2019.

Schemers, who left BP in March 2019, told investigators that there was no “smoking gun” to prove corruption, but he’d worried that the agent was just a “one man band.”

He didn’t respond to a message requesting comment on LinkedIn.

Jonathan Zarembok, who worked on BP’s West Africa trading desk, sued BP in the U.K. saying he was deemed a troublemaker for raising concerns about transactions in the run up to Nigeria’s most recent elections in 2019. He’s seeking to have his multi million pound bonuses that were slashed in half and then cut to zero restored.

BP never did make the payments to the agent -- with other executives suggesting that the agent was demanding too high a fee that threatened the economics of the deal. The company has argued in the legal suit that Zarembok never raised corruption concerns at the time. The report concluded there was a “disconnect” between what had really happened and the allegations made by the trader.

In Nigeria, local rules required oil firms to work with Nigerian firms if they wanted to acquire crude oil cargoes marketed by Nigerian National Petroleum Corp., the country’s state oil producer.

“It is widely known in the oil trading community that the Nigerian political parties use NNPC as a means to funnel money into political campaigns,” Zarembok said in his witness statement prepared for the six-week trial.

“BP is defending in full and denies all allegations made by the claimant,” the firm said in a statement. It declined further comment, including on Schemers.

BP separately made payments totaling $900,000 to another agent to participate in a state oil tender.

Zarembok was ultimately dismissed in April 2020 because the working relationship within the team had irretrievably broken down, BP has said.

North Dakota drought exposes 130-year-old shipwreck


Sophie Reardon
Fri, October 1, 2021

The Abner O'Neal sank while traveling down the Missouri River in 1892. Nearly 130 years later, the shipwreck still sits on the bottom of the North Dakota portion of the river and recently became visible to visitors, according to CBS Bismarck affiliate KXMB-TV.

North Dakota is currently experiencing a statewide drought, and, as a result, the Garrison Dam on the Missouri River has been releasing less water. Archaeologists said receding water levels revealed the ship's remains, KXMB-TV reported.

Built back in 1884, the steamship carried grain between Washburn and Bismarck-Mandan. Eight years later, the Abner O'Neal was transporting 9,000 bushels of buckwheat when it struck a snag or a rock and began to sink between Washburn and Mandan. The cargo on board and the boat itself were a total loss, according to the State Historical Society of North Dakota's website.

The ship, which has largely remained intact since it sank, was also seen during the 2011 Missouri River flood.

Local resident Nyk Edinger went to see the shipwreck himself. He said he appreciates the little piece of history.

"A lot of our history has been torn down because weather is extreme, so to have something as old as the Abner O'Neal and still being able to see the actual iron and wood that went into that ship with our own eyes is an incredible experience," he told KXMB-TV. "Something as historic as that, something as old as that, something that came long before me and will be here long after I'm gone, was an important thing for me."

Officials are asking the public not to disturb the wreckage.

"It is public property and a protected historic site so when visiting it, it is important to only take pictures and be respectful," said Andrew Clark, the state's chief archeologist.

Abner O'Neal shipwreck in the Missouri River in North Dakota. / Credit: State Historical Society of North Dakota

VIDEO State Historical Society of North Dakota - Wreck of the steamboat Abner O’Neal | Facebook

Fossil of Peacock-Like Dinosaur May Have Preserved DNA Remnants


Matthew Hart
Fri, October 1, 2021

Although dreams of an IRL Jurassic Park are still just that, nearly every dinosaur finding still tantalizes with possibility. In a new fantasy fueling discovery, scientists in China say they’ve found evidence of “remnants” of original dinosaur DNA. Which may or not actually be there depending on how future experiments shake out.

An illustration of the Jehol Biota in China with a well-preserved specimen of Caudipteryx in the foreground.
ZHENG Qiuyang

Gizmodo reported on the discovery of the evidence, which a team of scientists from the Shandong Tianyu Museum of Nature outlined in a new paper in the journal Communications Biology. In the paper, the scientists describe how they isolated “exquisitely preserved” cartilage cells from a 125-million-year-old dinosaur from Northeast China. One that apparently looked a little like a peacock. The specimen, from the genus of small feathered theropod dinosaurs, Caudipteryx, was approximately the size of the modern day, fanciful bird. And it even had a long, feathered tail.

To look for evidence of dino DNA, the scientists took a piece of fossilized cartilage from the specimen’s right femur and decalcified it. They then used different chemical and microscopy methods to analyze it; in part by staining it with hematoxylin and eosin, chemicals that react with the nucleus and cytoplasm of extant cells. (The stains are immediately below. The Caudipteryx cells are on the left, those of the chicken, on the right.)

Close-up images of (potential) dinosaur cells and chicken cells stained with a purple chemical.
ZHENG Qiuyang

When the scientists stained both the Caudipteryx cartilage and that of a chicken, they found the two specimens reacted identically. The scientists even say that one of the dinosaur’s cartilage cells revealed a nucleus with fossilized threads of chromatin. That’s the material that makes up the chromosomes of organisms other than bacteria.

“[W]e are obviously interested in fossilized cell nuclei because this is where most of the DNA should be if DNA was preserved,” Alida Bailleul, corresponding author of the study, said in a press release. The scientists have “very exciting data,” but are “are just starting to understand cellular biochemistry in very old fossils,” she added.

A slab of rock containing the fossilized outline of a peacock-like dinosaur from China.
ZHENG Qiuyang

Indeed, as Gizmodo‘s report highlights, many experts believe that these researchers have not actually found evidence of dinosaur DNA. They told the news outlet, for example, that—even under the best circumstances—DNA couldn’t last more than three million years. Let alone more than 100 million. And that the chemicals may have been staining inorganic matter that only looks cellular in nature.

As of now, the most ancient DNA that scientists have been able to sequence was that of a million-year-old woolly mammoth. And the youngest dinosaurs are at least 65 million years old. But if future experiments do confirm this evidence as real, then that really changes things. At least in our fantasies, where reanimated dinosaurs and Ian Malcolms abound.

The post Fossil of Peacock-Like Dinosaur May Have Preserved DNA Remnants appeared first on Nerdist.

Wells Fargo's Mike Mayo expects automation to kill off 100,000 banking jobs: 'It's really a swap to bots from bankers'

Stephen Jones

Fri, October 1, 2021, 

100,000 banking jobs could be lost over the next 5 years, say Wells Fargo. Spencer Platt/Getty Images

• 100,000 banking jobs could be lost to automation, a Wells Fargo report said.

• MD Mike Mayo told Bloomberg that "it's really a swap to bots from bankers."

• Back office and low-paying roles are more likely to be affected, the report said, per Bloomberg.

• See more stories on Insider's business page.

Wells Fargo predicts automation could cut as many as a 100,000 banking jobs over the next five years.

Clients of the bank were sent a 110-page report late on Monday detailing the potential impact of digitization on Wall Street and it's workers, Bloomberg reported. On Thursday, Mike Mayo, Wells Fargo's managing director, appeared on Bloomberg TV to discuss the report's findings.

"It's really a swap to bots from bankers," Mayo told Bloomberg's Emily Chang. "Developers are the new bankers. The chief technology officers at banks are now some of the most important people at banks."

Mayo predicted that two-thirds of the cuts would be in back-office jobs. A third would hit front-office roles, which typically are more client facing, he said.

The client report suggested lower-paying roles were more likely to be affected, per Bloomberg.

Mayo said that tech would also create new roles, partially offsetting some of the losses, but didn't say how many.

Tech will help banks become more efficient than they have been before, Mayo said, by allowing them to modernize call centres, back offices, and branches. Swapping to cloud and other third-party storage would also help, he said.

Banks need to automate in order to keep up with fintech, big tech, retail, and others, Mayo said. This would benefit customers, who increasingly favor online or digital-only banking, he said.

Mayo admitted that the industry was struggling to compete with tech companies in the war for talent. "The competition for tech talent has never been more fierce and banks are bearing some of the brunt of that," he said.

In a note sent in May, Mayo and other Wells Fargo analysts predicted that as many as 200,000 jobs could be shed within a decade as a result of tech adoption, according to Bloomberg.

Top dog: Greek leader's pet interrupts news conference


Slovakia's Prime Minister Eduard Heger pats Peanut the dog of his Greek counterpart Kyriakos Mitsotakis as they leave Maximos Mansion in Athens, Thursday, Sept. 30, 2021

 (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)

Thu, September 30, 2021, 


ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Peanut has met several visiting European leaders since becoming Greece’s top dog back in April.

On Thursday, the golden-haired former stray decided to give himself a louder introduction -- briefly interrupting a news conference being held by the prime ministers of Greece and Slovakia.

Greek Premier Kyriakos Mistotakis expressed support for the country’s Balkan neighbors efforts to join the European Union, and froze momentarily as Peanut could be heard barking loudly a few meters away at the prime minister’s official residence.

“That is the dog we recently adopted who is often quite lively,” Mitsotakis said, turning to Slovakia’s Eduard Heger, who laughed as he listened through an interpreter.

“This is the first time he has intervened during a press conference. Usually, he just greets guests at the door and is more polite,” Mitsotakis said.

He adopted Peanut after visiting animal welfare volunteers on World Stray Animals Day in April. The dog, who typically wears a blue bandana over his collar, has been spotted roaming the rooms of the official residence, known as Maximos Mansion.

Mitsotakis’ government has led efforts to crack down on animal cruelty.

Parliament last year voted to make serious animal abuse punishable by up to 10 years in prison. Last week, lawmakers approved plans to create a national pet registry with DNA samples of cats and dogs that have not been sterilized.

Last year, Greek President Katerina Sakellaropoulou, a former senior judge, adopted Calypso, a stray cat rescued on the island of Karpathos.

The two have been photographed together for social media posts.