REIFICATION

Hong Kong property tycoons, brokers snap up virtual land in metaverse as valuations soar

14/12/2021


The term “metaverse” is suddenly everywhere, a buzzword constantly on the lips of tech gurus and cryptocurrency enthusiasts.

But the latest group taking an interest in what many believe to be the next iteration of the internet is made up of property tycoons and real estate professionals keen to buy up land in the digital world.

Virtual land sales have become one of the hottest new trends in a tech world increasingly fascinated with the metaverse, a shared, immersive 3D space where people can interact.

Valuations for virtual land at times exceed those in the real world.

A plot of land on popular metaverse platform The Sandbox, controlled by Hong Kong video games unicorn Animoca Brands, sold for about US$4.3 million last month to Republic Realm, a New York-based firm that develops real estate in the metaverse.

In Hong Kong, where housing is scarce and property is deemed the most critical of investments, the interest around virtual land sales is reaching a fever pitch. If the next iteration of the internet involves three dimensions, many believe virtual land upon which the likes of digital shopping malls and mansions can be built will inevitably become a highly sought-after asset.

Consequently, not only are big conglomerates rushing to get in on the action, individuals including former property brokers and asset managers are also busy scooping up land.

This week Adrian Cheng Chi-kong, the third-generation scion of Hong Kong’s New World Development, announced he has purchased one of the biggest plots in The Sandbox. The 42-year-old billionaire said he will form a “GBA Pavilion” in which start-ups from the Greater Bay Area can sell their products virtually.

Away from the limelight, individuals in the industry are also taking notice. Andrew Man, a Hong Kong-based investment professional at a public property investment company, said he has also started buying up land in The Sandbox.

The amount of interest from buyers is nothing short of astonishing, he said.

“Last Saturday, a new area opened up and the land was sold out in about a second. They made about 100 new plots of land available at the time,” the 29-year-old said. “I was in a WeChat group with a number of other landowners and we all failed to buy one. It’s literally a race for finger speed.”

Man currently owns three plots, one of which has nearly quadrupled in value in the space of a few short weeks. “When I bought it, it was about 1.8 ethers (US$7,241). Now it’s nearing 7 ethers,” he said. Ether is the world’s second largest cryptocurrency.

Virtual land is typically sold in the form of a non-fungible token (NFT) which is a blockchain-verified tradeable voucher that guarantees the authenticity of a digital asset. NFTs are then often traded via cryptocurrencies.

The escalating frenzy around virtual land sales has triggered concerns in Beijing reflected in mainland Chinese state media recently.

The Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily newspaper issued a fresh warning last week saying speculators risk “getting burnt” as they try to turn a quick buck buying virtual land. The report said property sales in the metaverse were akin to “product financialisation” and carry the risk of volatility, fraud, illegal fundraising and money laundering.

Man said the conventional wisdom that applies to property investment very much applies in the virtual world as well. The biggest factor that determines the value of a plot of land is unequivocally “location, location, location,” he said.

In turn, there are two factors which determine the value of the location itself: distance from the centre of the metaverse and the callibre of neighbours.

“Someone just paid US$450,000 for a tiny plot of land to become Snoop Dogg’s neighbour in The Sandbox,” he said, “One of my plots is next to a huge unsold plot. I’m just hoping it will eventually be taken up by Disney or something later on.”

Jason Au, director of the Nasdaq-listed investment firm Troops Inc, is also an avid buyer of digital land. Formerly an owner of a property brokerage firm in the Mid-Levels district of Hong Kong, Au joined some NFT enthusiast friends in buying a handful of big plots in Decentraland, another popular metaverse platform similar to The Sandbox, in August. One plot, he believes, is worth nearly HK$10 million (US$1.28 million).

Last month, a parcel in Decentraland was sold for a record US$2.43 million.

“The way I see it, the world of NFTs and cryptocurrencies is kind of like going back to the beginning of the internet when people are registering domain names, etc. It’s like history repeating itself and it is an opportunity for us,” the 41-year-old said.

Au believes owners of virtual land should in the future be allowed to rent it out or treat it as they would physical land.

In an interview with the Post in June, Yat Siu, co-founder and executive chairman of Animoca Brands, said real estate investments are highly relatable to the residents of Hong Kong, making digital land more attractive and understandable than perhaps some other forms of NFT.

“Unlike buying art or other things which can be hard to evaluate their worth, Hongkongers all understand the value of land,” he said.

Letters | In debate on democracy, no denying US electoral system is too friendly to big business

Reader discuss the drawbacks of the first-past-the-post electoral system in the US and Canada

Published: 15 Dec, 2021
SCMP

The US Capitol in Washington is seen on December 13. Governments elected in a low-representation, first-past-the-post system – in which a relatively small portion of the population is electorally represented – are the easiest for lobbyists to manipulate or “buy”. Photo: Bloomberg

I refer to the article “As Joe Biden’s ‘Summit for Democracy’ convenes, questions arise about how ‘democracy’ is defined” (December 8).

In Canada and the US, our first-past-the-post electoral system – which I find barely qualifies as democratic rule within the spectrum of democracy – seems to serve corporate interests better than those of the general public. It’s basically why those powerful interests resist attempts to change the system to one of proportional representation, as that would dilute lobbyist influence.

Among the electoral systems that are friendly to big business, and thus are favoured by it, governments elected in a low-representation, first-past-the-post system – in which a relatively small portion of the population is electorally represented – are the easiest for lobbyists to manipulate or “buy”.

Proportional representation creates a greater challenge for lobbyists. The elected government, which better represents the electorate as a whole, should be considerably harder for big business to steer, if at all.
In our part of the world, big, powerful corporations actually write bills for our governing representatives to vote for and implement, supposedly to save elected officials time. I believe the practice has become so endemic that those who are aware of it (a group that likely includes the mainstream media) don’t bother publicly discussing it.

Frank Sterle Jnr, British Columbia

Covid, conflict and climate worsening hunger in Africa: report

The report urged the international community to provide aid in the short term to countries in need, but also invest in agriculture and other related sectors (AFP/Jekesai NJIKIZANA)

Tue, December 14, 2021

Hunger in Africa has worsened significantly with an almost 50 percent rise in those considered undernourished compared to 2014, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and other agencies said on Tuesday.

A new report says the number going hungry across Africa reached nearly 282 million in 2020 -- more than one-fifth of the population -- an increase of 89 million compared to just six years earlier.

Most of that deterioration occurred between 2019 and 2020, with economic downturns caused by the coronavirus pandemic blamed for exacerbating the chief causes of hunger.

"After a long period of improvement between 2000 and 2013, hunger has worsened substantially" across the continent, said a new report on food security and nutrition released by the FAO, the African Union and the UN Economic Commission for Africa.

The report looked at trends between 2014 to 2020 but the picture was expected to prove bleaker in 2021 "with no easing of hunger's main drivers".

The prevalence of undernourishment -- defined as when somebody cannot get enough food to meet their needs and maintain a normal and healthy life -- was worst in eastern, western and central parts of the continent.

Africa accounted for 55 percent of the global rise in the number of undernourished people over the reporting period, with the world set to miss the UN's target of eradicating hunger by 2030.

Conflict and climate change were identified as the other two major drivers for the increase in hunger, with the unaffordability of healthy diets and underlying problems such as poverty and inequality also playing a part.

But the onset of economic hardship from the Covid-19 pandemic "added to the already existing challenges, further undermining efforts to reduce hunger and malnutrition in the region".

The report urged the international community to provide aid in the short term to countries in need, but also invest in agriculture and other related sectors to build resilience against climate extremes in the future.

np-sva/txw/pbr

USA

As West Withers, Corporations Consolidate Land And Water Rights

With farms, ranches and rural communities facing historic drought, a worrying trend leads to a critical question: Who owns the water?

By Eli Francovich / Columbia Insight

December 14, 2021

Ghost cattle—200,000 made-up heifers. A massive fraud rocking eastern Washington’s arid ranching communities, leading to criminal charges and bankruptcy. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a Bill Gates-owned company duking it out at the auction block, each willing to spend more than $200 million to buy 22,500 acres of ranch land and its associated water rights.

These were just some of the headlines from this past summer when Cody Easterday of Mesa, Wash., plead guilty to defrauding Tyson Foods and another unnamed company of more than $244 million. He did so, according to court documents, by billing for the care of those imaginary animals.

After he pleaded guilty, the bidding war on his land started. In June, the Church’s agricultural holding company beat out Gates’ 100C LLC, cementing the Latter-day Saints as one of the largest commercial agricultural landowners in the western United States.

That’s raised troubling questions about land consolidation, a decades-long trend fueled by the demise of the family farm. But there’s a more complicated, and potentially troubling consequence to that purchase.

The water.

As western lands are consolidated, so too are the rights to use the water that flows under and over those lands. As the Pacific Northwest gets warmer and drier, water is becoming a hot commodity that’s attracting investors—whether it’s the Latter-day Saints, large agricultural interests or New York investors.

And while state laws across the region regulate how, when and why water rights are sold, some worry it won’t be enough to hold back the tide.

“I think we are ripe for the picking in terms of speculation and people coming in and trying to get their hands on these water rights,” says Rachael Osborn, a longtime water lawyer in Washington State and cofounder of the Washington Water Trust. “A lot of people are now thinking they are sitting on pots of gold, and they have every intention of trying to sell their water rights when they no longer need them. It’s really unfortunate that we’ve gotten to this point, where people think they can make a lot of money off water.”


Washington’s first water banks were created to offset the impact of new residential developments on in-stream flows in the Yakima River. (BLM photo)

Fewer owners

While dramatic, the Easterday land consolidation—and its possible impact on water rights ownership in the rural West—is hardly an isolated example.

Just this year a Wall Street-affiliated company attempted to acquire private water rights throughout the Columbia River watershed in Washington.

The broad proposal would have allowed the company to bank and then sell or lease that water.

Crown Columbia Water Resources LLC, which is connected to a Wall Street-backed investment firm, filed the application with the Washington State Department of Ecology.

After substantial public blowback that effort was suspended earlier this year.

In 2019, that same company was in the news for purchasing water rights throughout the state and attempting to sell and lease them, prompting an ongoing legislative review of water marketing.

A 2018 deal showed the tremendous speculative value of land/water deals in the Columbia River Basin. That’s when Gates’ 100C paid $171 million for 14,500 acres of land (10,500 acres of it irrigated farmland) from the Boston-based John Hancock Life Insurance Company, which had paid $75 million for the parcel in 2010.

It’s not only land acquisitions. Northwest Natural Holding Company—formed in 2018 as the parent company of longtime Portland-based NW Natural Gas Company—has recently expanded into public water utility ownership.

In 2021, the gas company’s NW Natural Water concern announced it had added to its portfolio by acquiring five water companies in Washington, Idaho and Texas, cumulatively investing more than $110 million in the water sector.

Elsewhere in the West, Harvard University has snapped up California vineyards and a Canadian teachers pension plan bought more than 6,000 acres of Washington orchards and its attendant water.
‘World of scarcity’

The summer 2021 drought that strangled parts of the Pacific Northwest has inserted the issue of water rights into nearly every environmental discussion in the region and has raised concerns about speculation and price gouging.

If climate change forecasts prove accurate, the summer of 2021 was a dress rehearsal for the future.

This summer in Oregon the federal government shut off access to water in the Klamath River due to a historic drought, prompting some farmers and activists to threaten to take the water by force.

In Washington, wheat production hit all-time lows reflecting drought-depressed yields.

“You look back to this drought, that was the worst drought we had in 100 years, and it put a fine point on who got water first,” says Jamie Short, a water resources program manager for the Washington State Department of Ecology.

Concerns about water speculation and scarcity aren’t new. And while climate change and drought reinvigorate those worries, experts such as Short caution against oversimplification.

Because if water law is anything, it’s complex.

“Consolidation and water rights, (it) isn’t one plus two equals three. It’s really case dependent,” she says. “I don’t think climate change is going to make anything any easier for us. But in a way, it’s a world we already know. A world of scarcity.”
Following the opportunity

According to water laws across western states, water can’t be owned, although the right to use that water can be sold, bought and transferred.

In Washington—and elsewhere—there are rules governing the sale of water. For example, water rights must be used, or they are relinquished. Water must be used for a “beneficial” purpose and a water transaction can’t harm senior water right holders.

The regulation requiring that water be used would seem to discourage speculative behavior.

However, Washington and other states have programs that allow users to bank their rights with the state and not relinquish ownership. This has allowed water right holders the ability to effectively sell, trade and buy water.

This is known as water banking.

Banking serves several purposes. Farmers use water banks to sell water rights they no longer need to other farmers. Conservation groups use them to increase in-stream flows to help native fish. Developers use them to secure water for housing and commercial projects.

But this system also gives speculators a place to park their assets and wait until the price has risen, says Osborn.

Osborn, who is semi-retired, teaches water law at the University of Washington. The water-banking program has been particularly helpful for stream and river conservation projects, she says. But as developers and investors shell out more money for water, conservation groups are struggling to compete, as the Seattle Times has reported, “because everybody wants to get their hands on water.”
Shrinking farms

The desire to acquire water has helped fuel the ongoing consolidation of western lands.

Consider that in 1987 more than half of all U.S. cropland was operated by midsize farms that had between 100 and 999 acres of cropland, while 15% was operated by large farms with at least 2,000 acres, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture 2018 report.

Over the next 25 years, those numbers shifted dramatically. By 2012, farms with 100-999 acres held 36% of cropland, the same share as that held by large farms.

It’s a similar story in the Columbia River Basin.

The number of farms in Washington decreased by 7% between 2010 and 2019, according to a 2020 USDA report. At the same time the average size of farms increased from 382 to 410 acres.

Many of those properties come with valuable water rights, rights that are increasingly controlled by fewer and fewer people.

Some experts affiliated both with the state and private water-consulting firms, caution that the ways land consolidation will impact water or rights isn’t yet clear.

“To a pretty large extent land consolidation means water consolidation,” says Jonathan Yoder, director of the State of Washington Water Research Center and a professor of economics at Washington State University. “But it’s not at all clear if that is good or bad, or the ways in which that is good or bad.”

Is paranoia justified?

One indication that it may be a bad thing, or at least an issue of concern, came on Nov. 17 when Washington’s Ecology department announced a pilot grant program aimed at funding local water banks, helping upstream communities compete with wealthier downstream agricultural interests.

“The pilot grants are intended to furnish rural communities in headwater basins throughout the state with funds to compete with deep-pocketed water investors,” states a news release announcing the grant.

The grant program is the latest in a series of efforts Ecology has taken to try and understand how, and if, speculation is impacting Washington water.

In 2019, following concern about out-of-state investors, the state Legislature asked the department to examine whether water banking is leading to speculative or monopolistic behavior, says Dave Christensen, the policy and program manager for the Department of Ecology Water Resources Program.

“The Legislature has been concerned and Ecology has been concerned because we’ve been hearing it from our stakeholders,” he says.

On Nov. 19, Christensen updated the Legislature with the department’s findings.

In short? So far there’s little evidence of water speculation in Washington, he says. Between 1997 and 2019, there were 54 out-of-basin transfers in Washington State, representing less than 0.3% of the total volume of water used, according to a University of Washington study commissioned by the Department of Ecology and published in 2021.

“The 54 transfers represent 1.5% of the total records that indicate a change of place of use in the Ecology database, implying that the majority of water right transfers in Washington State occur within-basin,” states the study.

The Department of Ecology will continue to examine the issue and present the Legislature with a final report, and policy recommendations, in 2022.

Other experts interviewed for this story also downplayed the risk of consolidation and speculation, noting that water is a difficult substance to transport and pointing to regulations in the West and Washington State in particular.

Daniel Haller, a water resource engineer with Aspect Consulting, which has offices around the Pacific Northwest, says that roughly 90% of all water rights in Washington are held by public entities—whether that’s municipalities, the state or the federal government.

“I think the window for concern is small,” Haller says. “Just because the number of rights is small. There is a subset of water rights that someone could try to speculate on. I just haven’t seen it yet. I think the risk in the future is pretty small.”
Political drivers

However, that optimism isn’t universally held and Osborn, the longtime water lawyer, is skeptical of Ecology’s review process.

“Ecology convened this group to assess water banking and make recommendations to the Legislature and their recommendations to the Legislature has nothing to do with controlling price or making sure the benefit comes back to the public,” she says. “Remember these people got these water rights for nothing. Maybe a $10 application fee.”

Osborn believes the state should take 10% or more of the water bought or sold as a sort of “transaction fee.”

While private speculation and out-of-basin transfers are a concern, there are also worries about cities and towns holding onto water rights, says John DeVoe, the executive director of the Oregon-based WaterWatch.

In Oregon, some cities and towns hold onto water rights, not because they need the water but because they hope to sell it to other municipalities.

“A lot of these cities are not using this water for municipal purposes. they are selling it,” he says. “That’s kind of the hallmark of speculation.”

As for state oversight, DeVoe isn’t confident in western states’ regulatory muscle.

“I think state oversight is politically driven,” he says. “And those with the money get to determine how the rules are drawn up and whether they are enforced or not.”

This story first appeared at Columbia Insight. Eli Francovich is a journalist covering conservation and recreation. Based in eastern Washington he’s writing a book about the return of wolves to the western United States. This piece is part of a collaboration that includes the Institute for Nonprofit News (INN), California Health Report, Center for Collaborative Investigative Journalism, Circle of Blue, Colorado Public Radio, Columbia Insight, The Counter, High Country News, New Mexico In Depth and SJV Water. The project was made possible by a grant from the Water Foundation with additional support from INN.

Homepage - InvestigateWest (invw.org)

Kentucky workplace safety agency to review tornado deaths at candle factory

By Alejandra O'Connell-Domenech | Dec. 14, 2021
(AP/ Timothy D. Easley)

Story at a glance

The Kentucky Division of Occupational Safety and Health Compliance will investigate the incident at the candle factory where eight people died during recent tornadoes.

Gov. Andy Beshear told reporters Tuesday that the severe weather killed 74 people and that number is expected to increase.

Kentucky was one of six states impacted by a string of devastating tornadoes.

Kentucky’s workplace safety agency will be investigating safety protocols at the candle factory in Mayfield where eight people were killed after tornados hit the state late last week, Gov. Andy Beshear (D-Ky.) told reporters Tuesday.

At least 74 Kentuckians were killed after powerful tornadoes ripped through six midwestern states, according to Beshear.

More than 100 employees of the Mayfield Consumer Products candle factory were in the facility as the twisters devastated the town. Factory owners believe they have located all employees and volunteer cadaver dogs have not found any additional bodies among the candle factory debris, Beshear said.

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“We hope that is true, the level of debris could be impacting the canines but we certainly hope that a miracle or prayers were answered and it’s eight that were ultimately lost there,” Beshear said during a press conference.

The Kentucky Division of Occupational Safety and Health Compliance will undertake a “monthslong review of the deaths,” the governor said, adding that reviews of this nature are typically done when workers are killed on the job, according to The Associated Press.

“So it shouldn’t suggest that there was any wrongdoing. But what it should give people confidence in, is that we’ll get to the bottom of what happened,’ Beshear said.

The governor said state police are still attempting to see and speak to every employee and that officers are requesting all workers to stop by the “His House Ministries” church in Mayfield.

The town is home to 10,000 residents and suffered some of the worst damage from the tornadoes.

Six women workers sue Tesla over sexual harassment allegations


Tesla faces a series of lawsuits from women alleging sexual harassment at the firm's US facilities (AFP/Patrick Pleul)

Joshua MELVIN
Tue, December 14, 2021, 

Six women on Tuesday sued Tesla, alleging a culture of sexual harassment at the electric carmaker's California plant and other facilities that included unwanted touching, catcalls and retaliation for those who complained.

The harassment suits -- filed almost a month after two others -- add to the controversies centered on the Fremont factory in the San Francisco Bay area and which include a Black ex-employee being awarded $137 million in a racism case.

"Tesla's factory floor more resembles a crude, archaic construction site or frat house than a cutting-edge company in the heart of the progressive San Francisco Bay Area," one of the suits claims.

Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the suits, which in at least one instance argued CEO Elon Musk's explicit or provocative tweets influenced the tone at the workplace.

The six separate new suits filed Tuesday in a California court alleged that co-workers or supervisors made sexual propositions to the women, graphically commented about their bodies and, in some cases, inappropriately touched them.

Five of the women in the new cases work or worked in the Fremont factory facilities, while one was employed in service centers in southern California.

- Musk tweets -

Michala Curran was 18 when she started her job at the Fremont plant and within weeks, her supervisor and co-workers were making explicit comments to her face about her body.

One male co-worker sexually propositioned her, saying plant employees often had sex in the parking lot. She quit after two months.

"Curran saw other women experiencing the same environment and witnesses will testify that they observed the rampant sexual harassment at Tesla," her suit alleges.

The other cases were filed by Jessica Brooks, Samira Sheppard, Eden Mederos, Alize Brown and Alisa Blickman, who alleged in her lawsuit that she faced retaliation for reporting the misconduct.

"She was denied certain privileges and benefits that were afforded to women who did not object to supervisors' sexual advances and flirtations," Blickman's complaint says.

Mederos, who worked in southern California Tesla service centers, said Musk tweets that reference sex or drugs inspired laughter and jokes among her co-workers.

"When Tesla launched the Model Y, Elon repeatedly pointed out that when one reads the Tesla Models S, 3, X and Y together, it spells 'SEXY,'" her suit said. "Some of Ms. Mederos' co-workers latched onto this, calling everything 'sexy.'"

This new suit comes after a California jury ruled in October that Tesla should pay a Black ex-employee $137 million in damages for turning a blind eye to racism the man encountered at the Fremont plant.

Last year, Musk feuded with authorities over the re-opening of the factory amid coronavirus restriction and threatened to move his headquarters out of state.

Subsequently, Musk told investors in October that the leading electric vehicle maker is relocating its headquarters to Texas, where it is building a plant.

jm/sw

Chess-Carlsen may not defend world title due to lack of motivation
By Syndicated Content
Dec 14, 2021 | 

(Reuters) – Norway’s Magnus Carlsen said on Tuesday he no longer felt motivated to defend his world chess championship title but wanted to continue playing the game.

The 31-year-old Carlsen claimed his fifth world chess crown nL1N2SV1HH in Dubai on Friday with a crushing 7.5-3.5 victory against Russia’s Ian Nepomniachtchi.

“It’s been clear to me for most of the year that this world championship should be the last,” Carlsen was quoted as saying by The Guardian in a podcast. “It doesn’t mean as much anymore as it once did.

“For those who expect me to play the world championship next time, the chance that they will be disappointed is very great.

“It is important for me to say that I do intend to play chess. I will continue to play chess, it gives me a lot of joy. But the world championship has not been so pleasurable.”

Top-ranked Carlsen said he would be ready to let go of his world title unless his next opponent was 18-year-old Iranian-French player Alireza Firouzja, who is the world number two.

Firouzja needs to qualify from an eight-player candidates tournament to earn the right to play Carlsen.

(Reporting by Manasi Pathak in Bengaluru; Editing by Ken Ferris)

Nearly 100 Conservative MPs revolt against UK’s Johnson over new Covid-19 restrictions

Almost 100 Conservative lawmakers voted on Tuesday against new coronavirus restrictions, dealing a major blow to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s authority and raising questions about his leadership.

© Pool, Reuters/File

After a day of frenzied failed lobbying, Johnson was handed the biggest rebellion against his government so far by his party over measures he said were necessary to curb the spread of the new Omicron variant.

The new rules, which included ordering people to wear masks in public places and use COVID-19 passes for some venues, passed thanks largely to the main opposition Labour Party.

But the revolt piles pressure on Johnson, already under fire over scandals such as reported parties in his Downing Street office last year – when Britain was in a COVID-19 lockdown – and a pricey refurbishment of his apartment.

Rebelling lawmakers said the vote was a warning shot that he needed to change how the government was operating, or he would face a leadership challenge.

Some 99 Conservatives opposed plans for the COVID passes, a much higher number of rebels than was expected. Originally the official figure was put at 98, but the number was later revised upward.

Among those voting against the government was lawmaker Louie French who was only elected as a Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) at the start of the month, while media reported that former Prime Minister Theresa May was among 17 others who abstained.

Many Conservatives say some of the new measures are draconian, with several questioning the introduction of a certificate of vaccination or proof of a negative COVID-19 test to enter some venues, such as nightclubs.

Others used the votes as an opportunity to vent their anger at Johnson, believing the man who helped the Conservatives win a large majority at a 2019 election is squandering the party’s successes by self-inflicted missteps and gaffes.

But despite the rumblings of discontent, Conservative Party insiders say there is not enough of a groundswell against Johnson to dislodge him now, although they hope the vote will be a “wake-up call” for the prime minister to reset his agenda.

“He’s got to now be in some danger,” Conservative lawmaker Geoffrey Clifton-Brown told Sky News. “And he’s got to realise that because if he doesn’t realise that, then he will be in much bigger danger ... I’m still backing him. But he’s got to change.”

‘Huge spike’

Britain reported 59,610 new COVID-19 infections on Tuesday, the highest figure since early January and the fifth highest recorded since the outbreak of the pandemic in March last year.

More than 5,300 cases of Omicron have been recorded, with 10 people hospitalised. One person has died after contracting the variant, which is set to become the dominant strain in the capital London.

Before the vote, the government had mounted a campaign to keep lawmakers in check, with Johnson warning his ministers there was a “huge spike” in Omicron cases heading Britain’s way, and that the measures were needed to protect people.

Ministers tried to win over the Conservative rebels, noting that people who have not had two vaccinations can instead offer proof of a negative lateral flow test to gain access to indoor venues of more than 500 people.

Health minister Sajid Javid told lawmakers he firmly believed in “individual liberty” but that “the responsible decision to take is...to move to plan B in England”.

But their arguments fell on deaf ears. In addition to the 99 Conservatives who voted against the passes, 40 voted against expanding the requirement for mask wearing.

“I am sure that the prime minister will understand the strength of feeling within the party about the constraint of liberties,” Conservative former minister David Jones told Reuters. “He is a libertarian himself and I have no doubt that he will listen to the message from his party.”

(REUTERS)

Trump's social media venture partners with Canada's Rumble Inc.

The company will deliver video and streaming for TRUTH Social, the proposed social media app from the former U.S. president.

Author of the article:

Publishing date:

 

Reuters Dec 14, 2021  •

U.S. President Donald Trump uses a mobile phone during a roundtable discussion on the reopening of small businesses in the State Dining Room at the White House in Washington, D.C., June 18, 2020. PHOTO BY LEAH MILLIS /REUTERS / Files

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Former U.S. President Donald Trump’s social media venture said on Tuesday it has entered into a technology and cloud-services agreement with Canadian video platform Rumble Inc.

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As part of the agreement, Rumble will deliver video and streaming for TRUTH Social, the proposed social media app from Trump.

Rumble was launched in 2013 by tech entrepreneur Chris Pavlovski as an alternative YouTube-style site, and is popular among U.S. conservatives seeking an alternative to Big Tech. Its top trending videos include those from conservative commentators Dan Bongino and Dinesh D’Souza, as well as former Trump White House strategist Steve Bannon. It is backed by venture capitalist Peter Thiel and author-turned-U.S. Senate candidate J.D. Vance through Narya Capital.

On Dec. 1 Rumble said it would go public by merging with blank-check firm CF Acquisition Corp VI at an initial enterprise value of $2.1 billion. The combined company will be called Rumble and is expected to list on the Nasdaq.

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Former Trump administration lawyer Michael Ellis joined Rumble in November as its first-ever general counsel and corporate secretary.

The announcement from Trump Media and Technology Group came hours after Rumble said it had severed business ties with Tremor International and Unruly Group, companies which Rumble said had attempted to censor conservative personality Dan Bongino.

TMTG has provided few details for how it plans to create a social media platform, streaming service, news division and alternative cloud provider to compete against entrenched players in those categories.

The company said on Dec. 6 that U.S. Representative Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, will leave Congress to become chief executive officer of the new venture, and will assume the role in January.

Nunes has been an ardent Trump supporter, voting against certifying Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory following Trump’s false claims of election fraud.

The West is engineering a neo-colonial starvation of Afghanistan, for women's sake

December 14, 2021 

Food aid to families in need in Kabul, Afghanistan on 7 December 2021

 [Sayed Khodaiberdi Sadat/Anadolu Agency]


Muhammad Hussein
alhussein1001
December 14, 2021 at 4:41 pm

Barely eight decades ago, while it was fighting the Nazis' fascism, the British government under Winston Churchill was simultaneously orchestrating and engineering one of the worst famines in human history. As a result of Britain's imperial policies, and with the excuse of wartime in 1943, around 3 million natives in the Bengal region of eastern India died from starvation and social unrest.

Almost eight decades later, the West's policy – which can be interpreted as neo-imperialist – is threatening to wreak similar havoc in Afghanistan.

Since the Taliban's victory in Afghanistan and, months later, the formal establishment of its government and the Islamic Emirate, much of the world still has not come to terms with the new reality.

While Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan – all countries which the West criticises as abusers of human rights, and which are not known to be bastions of freedom – have moved closer to recognition of the new Afghan government, Western nations have decided to punish the Taliban.

And what better way to punish a group than by punishing the people it governs? Lack of recognition, threatening condemnation, even a furthering of sanctions were all not harsh enough of a punishment. Instead, the entire country had to suffer, with the Afghan money and $10 billion in funds and assets abroad being frozen by the United States and European nations.

In the Economist's recent magazine issue for the beginning of December, it alleged that the Taliban's "policy of making it hard for women to work makes the country poorer. Stopping girls from going to school will, in the long-run, have an even worse economic effect."

The mass poverty suffered by at least half of the country, the starvation and lack of resources and this year's harsh winter which the UN's World Food Program (WFP) has predicted will impact the food security of 22.8 million Afghans are, according to the magazine, all due to the allegedly insufficient amount of women working and studying in the country.

READ: What can the Taliban offer the women of Afghanistan?

Apart from the fact that the group's administration has not banned women from working and has allowed the resumption of girls' education in the country – albeit, with some discouragement with regards to higher education and some limitations – the magazine's view reflects much of the mainstream media's broader focus on the Taliban's actions and policies themselves, rather than Afghanistan's plight being due to the freezing of its assets.

Outlets neglect to focus on the responsibility of the international community, nor do they acknowledge the fact that the previous Afghan government siphoned billions of dollars off from international aid. Theft, corruption, poor governance and divisive policies under that government never resulted in such actions by the West and the international community.

There is also the fact that the progression of women's' rights in Afghanistan throughout the previous 20 years largely existed only on paper, with official statistics showing that 63 per cent of Afghan women were illiterate and girls made up 85 per cent of those not in education. The primary reason was most commonly claimed to be "endemic corruption."

Forcing marriage onto women was also not banned under the previous government, but was only ruled as illegal under the Taliban earlier this month. While the group and its administration still has much to improve and work on, the situation of women under the toppled former Afghan government was far from perfect.

On Saturday 11 December, months after the money was frozen and the economic siege was implemented, the World Bank finally decided – out of its great kindness – to release some of the money. With $280 million having been released, though, that accounts for only a fraction of the frozen assets at 2.8 per cent.

Some nations have also shown some sympathy by sending millions in aid to Afghanistan in order to avoid the collapse of its medical and healthcare sector. But even those who do not support the Taliban or are not affiliated with it have admitted that such meagre sums in comparison to the frozen assets are barely enough to sustain less than a few million Afghans.

READ: 'Children are going to die', UN agency warns as Afghanistan verges on collapse

By refusing to release the foreign assets and funds, the West, and the "international community" under its influence, are holding Afghanistan hostage and blackmailing its new government by swinging the rod of supposed moral superiority.

While women's' rights should always be a concern, especially within the broader concept of human rights and freedoms, the West is using it as a weapon against the Taliban and sending it a message: the Afghan population can be directly targeted and starved into submission or civil unrest, and the new government will have no true fiscal control, freedom or influence under the global economic system.

It is a message that the likes of Syria, Iran, Venezuela and others have gotten used to. The difference is, though, that the new Afghan government had hardly even gotten a chance to prove that it is deserving of such treatment. If it has, then the starvation of the country's population is still far from just.

Policymakers and human rights activists, if they truly do prioritise women's' rights, also seem to not realise that restricting Afghanistan's assets and blockading its economy directly and instantaneously impacts the women of the country.

As many employers have been rendered unable to even pay their employees, that will only result in less economic freedom for women and their decreased likelihood of receiving wages and payments – whether from work or from the breadwinners of their households.

By expecting the Taliban to achieve in months what the former Afghan government could not achieve in 20 years in power, the West is intentionally setting unrealistic expectations and goals. As a result, the West seems to happily let average Afghans starve in order to pursue vague political gains and to hold the new Afghan government hostage.

If Afghanistan's funds continue to be frozen and are not released, it is estimated that more people would die from the winter and famine than died in the entirety of the two-decades-long war. If that happens, the West and the "international community" would be engineering and orchestrating a new famine reminiscent of a colonial past.

READ: Feminists have scored an own goal over Afghanistan's 'Me Too' moment

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.