Ask not what the war cost the US, but who profited from the war
After twenty years and trillions flowing through the Pentagon’s war chest, the real winners were thousands of private military contractors that profited immensely.
The Taliban’s stunning takeover of Afghanistan in the aftermath of a bungling US departure has led many to conclude the war in Afghanistan ended in failure. But it is unlikely to be a view shared by many in the US military.
For them, the twenty-year-long conflict has been a massive success.
When discussing the politics of war, a central premise is often put forward: Cui bono? Who benefits? John Boyd, a former Air Force fighter pilot famously expounded on a theory where there was no contradiction between the military’s stated mission and disregard for combat success:
“People say the Pentagon does not have a strategy,” he said. “They are wrong. The Pentagon does have a strategy. It is ‘Don’t interrupt the money flow, add to it.’”
And add to it they did.
Since the Authorization for Use of Military Force in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks was signed on September 18, 2001 by president George W Bush, the US spent $2.26 trillion on the war in Afghanistan, or $300 million a day. Roughly $800 billion was funneled into direct war-fighting costs and $85 billion to train the now vanquished Afghan army.
The war effort in Afghanistan was effectively a privatised endeavor, with the US military relying on private security contractors to power the logistics of America’s “forever war”. (Many foreign contractors are now stranded in places like Dubai following the rapid US withdrawal.)
It was a profiteering exercise that stretched till the very end. Amid news of the US-announced withdrawal by the end of August, a parting $450 million deal for 37 UH-60 helicopters was shortly struck. UH-60s are manufactured by Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin-owned firm.
As Alexander Cockburn wrote last month, such a deal was yet another “reminder of the war’s real, squalid history, so tragic for so many Afghans, so profitable for some Americans.”
Contractor economy
The world’s largest defence spender by a wide margin, American companies account for almost 60 percent of total arms sales by the world’s 100 largest defence contractors.
Many of them have been cashing in on huge checks from the Pentagon’s war budget for years, with a majority of the near $5 trillion spent on the wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq transferred to military contractors, whose workers outnumbered soldiers in Afghanistan three to one.
In addition to giants like Lockheed Martin, DynCorp, Academi (formerly Blackwater), Black & Veatch – and oil companies like ExxonMobil which shipped the fuel on which the army runs – are just some to have profited immensely from Washington’s lucrative contracts.
To understand the sheer scale of the contractor economy across three theatres where their footprint is most prominent – Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria – the US Department of Defense confirmed using the services of over 27,000 contractors as of the fourth fiscal quarter of 2020.
Furthermore, the Pentagon’s “revolving door” between the security establishment, Congress and Corporate America only perpetuated the war machine, allowing a multitude of parties to feed at the Pentagon’s bloated war chest trough.
An investigation by the watchdog Project on Government Oversight found that between 2008-2018 around 380 high-ranking officials and officers had become government lobbyists, defence contractor consultants, or board members and executives within two years of leaving the military.
In the 2005 documentary Why We Fight, retired Air Force lieutenant colonel Karen Kwiatkowski said: “American people who have a son or a daughter that’s going to be deployed…they look at the cost-benefit, and they go ‘I don’t think that’s good.’ But when politicians who understand contracts, future contracts, when they look at war, they have a different cost-benefit analysis.”
To put this war profiteering into perspective, if one had purchased $10,000 of stocks and evenly divided among those top five defence contractors – Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics – it would now be worth almost $100,000, a greater return than the rest of the S&P over the last two decades.
Source: TRT World
Thursday, December 23, 2021
CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
US military landlord pleads guilty to fraud
One of the US military's largest private landlords has pleaded guilty to a major fraud and agreed to pay over $65 million in fines and restitution.
US military landlord pleads guilty to fraud
One of the US military's largest private landlords has pleaded guilty to a major fraud and agreed to pay over $65 million in fines and restitution.
Balfour Beatty Communities lied about the repairs to pocket millions of dollars in performance bonuses. (Reuters)
The US Justice Department has said it resolved probes into Balfour Beatty Communities, one of the US military's largest private landlords, after it pleaded guilty to one count of major fraud and agreed to pay over $65 million in fines and restitution.
US District Judge Emmet Sullivan accepted the company's guilty plea on Wednesday and sentenced it to pay over $65 million, serve three years of probation, and engage an independent compliance monitor for a period of three years.
Balfour Beatty, which was being investigated for defrauding the US Air Force, Army and Navy, was not immediately available for comment.
The company is a unit of British infrastructure conglomerate Balfour Beatty Plc.
"Instead of promptly repairing housing for US service members as required, Balfour Beatty Communities lied about the repairs to pocket millions of dollars in performance bonuses," said Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco.
"This pervasive fraud was a consequence of Balfour Beatty Communities' broken corporate culture".
Manipulating records
Stacy Cabrera, a former housing manager at Texas’s Lackland Air Force Base who told Reuters she felt pressure to manipulate records to meet the bonus goals, pleaded guilty to major fraud in April.
Rick Cunefare, a former Balfour Beatty regional manager who oversaw bases in Oklahoma, Texas and other states, pleaded guilty earlier this year to major fraud.
In 2019, Reuters reports described how Balfour Beatty employees falsified maintenance documents at Air Force bases to help the company qualify for incentive fee payments, citing five former employees who said they falsified records, company emails and internal Air Force communications.
Service members and their families were exposed to asbestos, vermin, mold and raw sewage.
The reports prompted an investigation by the Air Force Office of Special Investigations and the Inspector General’s Defense Criminal Investigative Service.
The US Justice Department has said it resolved probes into Balfour Beatty Communities, one of the US military's largest private landlords, after it pleaded guilty to one count of major fraud and agreed to pay over $65 million in fines and restitution.
US District Judge Emmet Sullivan accepted the company's guilty plea on Wednesday and sentenced it to pay over $65 million, serve three years of probation, and engage an independent compliance monitor for a period of three years.
Balfour Beatty, which was being investigated for defrauding the US Air Force, Army and Navy, was not immediately available for comment.
The company is a unit of British infrastructure conglomerate Balfour Beatty Plc.
"Instead of promptly repairing housing for US service members as required, Balfour Beatty Communities lied about the repairs to pocket millions of dollars in performance bonuses," said Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco.
"This pervasive fraud was a consequence of Balfour Beatty Communities' broken corporate culture".
Manipulating records
Stacy Cabrera, a former housing manager at Texas’s Lackland Air Force Base who told Reuters she felt pressure to manipulate records to meet the bonus goals, pleaded guilty to major fraud in April.
Rick Cunefare, a former Balfour Beatty regional manager who oversaw bases in Oklahoma, Texas and other states, pleaded guilty earlier this year to major fraud.
In 2019, Reuters reports described how Balfour Beatty employees falsified maintenance documents at Air Force bases to help the company qualify for incentive fee payments, citing five former employees who said they falsified records, company emails and internal Air Force communications.
Service members and their families were exposed to asbestos, vermin, mold and raw sewage.
The reports prompted an investigation by the Air Force Office of Special Investigations and the Inspector General’s Defense Criminal Investigative Service.
Coming Soon: The Internet of Military Things
But it is only in the early stage of development.
The term “Internet of Things” originated before most Americans had ever heard of the Internet. In a speech to the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation 15th Annual Legislative Weekend in Washington, DC in September 1985, Peter Lewis told attendees, “The Internet of Things, or IoT, is the integration of people, processes and technology with connectable devices and sensors to enable remote monitoring, status, manipulation and evaluation of trends of such devices.” Lewis was the co-founder of the first U.S. cellular telephone company, Cellular One.
Today, IoT is largely about making people live and work smarter—from smart home devices to self-driving cars. IoT has also become crucial to the business as it can improve the performance of machinery to help supply chain and logistics operations. It may not just be civilians at home or in the business world that benefit from IoT—it could have innumerable applications for the military.
The Internet of Military Things
There have been countless military innovations that have trickled down to the civilian world—from radar to jet aircraft—but the Internet of Military Things (IoMT) is one where technology developed for civilian applications could, in turn, be militarized.
IoMT is in an early stage of development, however, its ability to speed up and increase the efficiency of the “observe, orient, decide, act” (OODA) loop could make it an invaluable tool in the hands of advanced militaries, suggested researchers at data and analytics company GlobalData.
Soldiers and decisionmakers can now be thousands of miles away, but as modern warfare has become increasingly information-based there needs to be a continual flow of up-to-date information to quickly provide the data to make the best decisions possible.
“Information always has been, and always will be, at the center of warfare and to maintain and increase competitive advantage in war, forces must understand and exploit the vast and constant streams of data collected on an array of connected things. The insights that can be derived from IoMT have the potential to transform warfare and serve as a force multiplier," explained Dr. Lil Read, thematic analyst at GlobalData, via an email.
GlobalData’s new report, the Internet of Military Things–Thematic Research, shows that advanced military forces have invested in command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) systems and infrastructure to collect, analyze, and disseminate data.
The individual elements of C4ISR provide situational awareness, communication and planning, while IoMT can be the tools and devices to bring all that information together into a single ecosystem. IoMT could employ multiple sensors deployed across various domains to acquire full situational awareness and control over diverse conflict zones and battle areas.
“There are multiple barriers and challenges to the widescale adoption of IoMT, even by advanced forces with large budgets,” added Read. “Tradeoffs in successful IoMT implementation will exist between interoperability, seamless information sharing, decision-making, and opening up the cybersecurity threat landscape.”
Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer who has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers and websites. He regularly writes about military small arms, and is the author of several books on military headgear including A Gallery of Military Headdress, which is available on Amazon.com.
Must-read WaPo: “Inside the nonstop pressure campaign by Trump allies to get election officials to revisit the 2020 vote”
WaPo:
More than a year after Donald Trump lost the presidency, election officials across the country are facing a growing barrage of claims that the vote was not secure and demands to investigate or decertify the outcome, efforts that are eating up hundreds of hours of government time and spreading distrust in elections.
The ongoing attack on the vote is being driven in part by well-funded Trump associates, who have gained audiences with top state officials and are pushing to inspect protected machines and urging them to conduct audits or sign on to a lawsuit seeking to overturn the 2020 results. And the campaign is being bolstered by grass-roots energy, as local residents who have absorbed baseless allegations of ballot fraud are now forcing election administrators to address the false claims.
The fallout has spread from the six states where Trump sought to overturn the outcome in 2020 to deep-red places such as Idaho, where officials recently hand-recounted ballots in three counties to refute claims of vote-flipping, and Oklahoma, where state officials commissioned an investigation to counter allegations that voting machines were hacked.
State and local officials said no one has presented actual evidence that rampant fraud tainted the 2020 election, and numerous ballot reviews and legal proceedings have affirmed that the vote was secure. Yet they and their staffs have been forced into a high-stakes game of whack-a-mole, debunking a steady stream of false allegations only to see similar claims emerge again from other groups or in other states.
Among those leading the efforts against the 2020 presidential election are MyPillow founder Mike Lindell — who said in an interview this week that he has spent $25 million promoting claims of election fraud — and one of his associates, Douglas Frank, a longtime math and science teacher in Ohio who claims to have discovered secret algorithms used to rig the 2020 election.
Throughout the year, the two men have been pressing their case with state and local election officials around the country and gaining meetings with many of them, according to people familiar with their activities.
In Ohio, Frank met for more than two hours in May with the senior staff of Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose (R), presenting unsubstantiated claims that voting machines are connected to the Internet and have been hacked, according to a recording of the meeting obtained by The Washington Post. Frank warned that he planned to pursue multiple legal actions around the country and said there could be consequences if LaRose’s office did not cooperate
“I’m warning you that I’ve been going around the country. We’re starting lawsuits everywhere,” Frank said, according to the recording. “And I want you guys to be allies, not opponents. I want to be on your team, and I’m warning you.”
After the meeting, LaRose posted a video on Facebook reiterating that under state law, no voting machines are connected to any network.
The doubts that Lindell, Frank and other Trump allies have whipped up about the vote have taken root across the country….
On social media, Frank recently began calling for prison or “firing squads” for those found guilty of “treason,” stating in one post that “history will not look kindly on state officials who turned a blind eye to the massive election fraud that took place in 2020.” On Saturday, he wrote that Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat who has refused to entertain his claims, should face a jury “capable of dispensing capital punishment.”
In an interview this week, Benson said she views the latest escalation as an assault on democracy. She said she intends to spend next year fighting back, and urging Americans to do the same.
Benson called the pressure on election officials “a political strategy to break down our democracy and put people in charge of our states who are unaccountable and will act in a way that doesn’t reflect the will of the people.”
Asked Tuesday about his comments, Frank said that after he and others who share his view about 2020 “win the war,” election officials such as Benson should face trial — adding that federal law calls for traitors to be subject to capital punishment.
“After the Nuremberg trials, there were hangings and firing squads,” Frank wrote in an email, referring to the military tribunals that tried Nazi leaders after World War II. In an interview, he added that he believes it is critical for officials to investigate elections to restore faith in their outcome: “I firmly believe they are not fair and free. I believe they are being manipulated.”
Trump Thinks He’s Still President: What Is the Evidence?
Donald Trump thinks he’s still president according to no more reliable a source than Rachel Maddow on her February 5th show. This was confirmed in May by Vanity Fair. Right-wing conspiracy theorists echo this analysis as recently as this month. Left-liberals are smugly confident that Kamala Harris’s running mate is in the White House, snoozing in the presidential bedroom. Inquiring minds ask what is the evidence nearly a year into the alleged Biden presidency that there has been a change of guard in Washington?
+The Obama-Biden union card check proposal was not on Mr. Trump’s political horizon, nor is it on that of the current occupant in the White House.
+The current occupant is ramping up Trump’s unhinged Sino-phobic hallucinations, sanctioning 34 Chinese entities for development of “brain-control weaponry.” Not that the Chinese have been angels. In an egregious suppression of freedom of information, the inscrutable Orientals have made it more difficult for US spies to operate in their country.
+The current occupant nominally withdrew US troops from Afghanistan as negotiated by Mr. Trump, presumably reducing overall military costs. Yet, he continues the Trump-trajectory of lavishing billions of dollars more on the military than even the Pentagon requests.
+Given his priority to feed the war machine, the new occupant is having a hard time finding sufficient funds for Biden-promised student debt forgiveness. Ditto for making two years of community college tuition-free.
+ President Trump slashed the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%; candidate Biden vowed to raise it to 28%; the current occupant proposed a further cut to 15%.
Biden, while campaigning in 2019, pledged to wealthy donors that “nothing would fundamentally change” if he’s elected. And nothing has changed despite recent drama in the Senate over Build Back Better. Trump’s $4.5 trillion corporate-investor tax cut still appears secure.
+Raising the federal minimum wage to $15-an-hour from $7.25, where it has languished since 2009, was a big selling point for the Biden campaign. Now it is on hold, while billionaire fortunes balloon, leaving the working class broke but woke under the current administration.
+The Obama-Biden nuclear deal with Iran was gutted by Trump. The current occupant, contrary to Biden’s campaign utterances, has not returned to the conditions of the JCPOA. Rather, he has continued Trump’s “maximum pressure” policy against Iran.
+Candidate Biden, calling for a foreign policy based on diplomacy, criticized Trump’s dangerous and erratic war mongering. Yet only a month after his inauguration, the new president capriciously bombed “Iranian-backed militias” in Syria who were fighting ISIS terrorists and posed no threat to the US.
The new president went on to authorize further “air strikes” on “targets” around the world such as Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Now, the undiscriminating reader might think these are acts of war. But war, according to the “rules-based order” of the new occupant, is best understood as a conflict where US lives are lost rather than those of seemingly more expendable swarthy-skinned foreigners.
+The Obama-Biden normalization of relations with Cuba and easing of restrictions were reversed by Trump. Presidential candidate Biden had signaled a return, but the current occupant has instead intensified the US hybrid war against Cuba.
+Candidate Biden pledged to review Trump’s policy of US sanctions against a third of humanity. The presumptive intention of the review was to ameliorate the human suffering caused by these unilateral coercive measures. Sanctions are a form of collective punishment considered illegal under international law. Following the review, the current occupant has instead tightened the screws, more effectively weaponizing the COVID crisis against countries such as Nicaragua, Cuba, and Venezuela, while adding Ethiopia and Cambodia to the growing list of those sanctioned.
+Among Trump’s most ridiculous foreign policy stunts (and it’s a competitive field) was the recognition of Juan Guaidó as president of Venezuela in 2019. The then 35-year-old US security asset had never run for a nationwide office and was unknown to over 80% of the Venezuelans. Contrary to campaign trail inuendoes that Biden would dialogue with the democratically elected president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, the new guy in the White House has continued the embarrassing Guaidó charade.
+The current White House occupant has also continued and expanded on some of the worse anti-immigrant policies of the xenophobe who preceded him. Asylum seekers from Haiti and Central America – fleeing conditions in large part created by US interventions in their countries – have been sent packing. Within a month of assuming the presidency, migrant detention facilities for children were employed, contradicting statements made by candidate Biden who had deplored locking kids in cages.
+President Trump was a shameless global warming denier. Candidate Biden was a refreshing true believer, boldly calling for a ban on new oil and natural gas leasing on public land and water. But whoever is now in the Oval Office opened more than 80 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico for fossil fuel drilling.
Perhaps the strongest evidence that Trump is practically still in office is the political practice of his left-liberal detractors who solemnly promised to “first dump Trump, then battle Biden.” However, these left-liberals are still obsessing about dumping Trump. Instead of battling Biden, they are fanning the dying embers of the fear of another January 6 insurrection, giving the Democrats a pass.
Of course, the Democrats occupy the executive branch along with holding majorities and both houses of Congress. Yet, despite campaign pledges and spin, the continuity from one administration to the next is overarching as the preceding quick review documented.
The partisan infighting theatrics of the “dysfunctional Congress” is in part a distraction from an underlying bedrock bipartisan consensus. Congress is dysfunctional by design on matters of social welfare for working Americans. It is ruthlessly functional for matters of concern for the ruling elites, such as the military spending, bank bailouts, corporate welfare, and an expansive surveillance state.
The Democrats offer an empty “we are not Trump” alternative. The bankrupt left-liberals no longer stand for substantial improvements to the living conditions of working people, a “peace dividend,” or respite from war without end. Instead, they use the scare tactic that they are the bulwark against a right popular insurgency; an insurgency fueled in the first place by the failure of the two-party system to speak to the material needs of its constituents.
Rights court hits Argentina, Guatemala, Ecuador governments
• ASSOCIATED PRESS • DECEMBER 22, 2021
(Wikipedia)
SAN JOSE, Costa Rica — Two past right-wing governments in Latin America and one from the left have been found guilty by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which on Tuesday said the countries' current governments shouid make reparations.
The military dictatorship that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983 was found guilty in the forced disappearance of a couple and of taking their children. Guatemala's right-wing government of the 1980s was found guilty of a massacre. And the recent left-wing government of Ecuador's Rafael Correa was castigated for violating the rights of journalists.
The court, based in Costa Rica, determined that Argentina's military government systematically took and hid the children of suspected leftists who had been arrested and presumably killed during Operation Condor, which involved several allied right-wing governments in the region.
It said the government should make reparations to the son and daughter of Mario Roger Julien Cáceres and Victoria LucÃa Grisonas Andrijauskaite, saying it had unjustifiably delayed efforts to clarify the couple's disappearance. It said the government should renew efforts to clarify the case and find the bodies.
The Guatemala case involved an army massacre of at least 38 men, women and children in the village of Los Josefinos on April 30, 1982 — a moment when troops were conducting a scorched-earth campaign to wipe out any support for leftist rebels. Other villagers fled, some seeking refuge abroad.
The court said criminal investigations into the massacre didn't start until nearly 14 years after the events.
The court said Guatemala should pay indemnities and court costs and speed up legal proceedings, as well as building a monument in the area where victims were buried in a mass grave and create an audiovisual documentary of the massacre.
The government of former Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa was found guilty of violating the right to free expression and other rights for prosecuting a journalist who had criticized him and executives of the newspaper that employed him.
Journalist Emilio Palacio Urrutia and executives Nicolás Pérez Lapentti, César Enrique Pérez Barriga and Carlos Eduardo Pérez Barriga were convicted of defaming Correa in a 2011 article published by the newspaper El Universo. They were sentenced to prison and fined. Palacios wound up fleeing the country.
The court found that the article was the sort of opinion piece that should enjoy proetection as a part of "democratic debate."
The court said the convictions should be annulled and that the country shoul find non-criminal avenues to protect the honor of officials.
• ASSOCIATED PRESS • DECEMBER 22, 2021
(Wikipedia)
SAN JOSE, Costa Rica — Two past right-wing governments in Latin America and one from the left have been found guilty by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which on Tuesday said the countries' current governments shouid make reparations.
The military dictatorship that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983 was found guilty in the forced disappearance of a couple and of taking their children. Guatemala's right-wing government of the 1980s was found guilty of a massacre. And the recent left-wing government of Ecuador's Rafael Correa was castigated for violating the rights of journalists.
The court, based in Costa Rica, determined that Argentina's military government systematically took and hid the children of suspected leftists who had been arrested and presumably killed during Operation Condor, which involved several allied right-wing governments in the region.
It said the government should make reparations to the son and daughter of Mario Roger Julien Cáceres and Victoria LucÃa Grisonas Andrijauskaite, saying it had unjustifiably delayed efforts to clarify the couple's disappearance. It said the government should renew efforts to clarify the case and find the bodies.
The Guatemala case involved an army massacre of at least 38 men, women and children in the village of Los Josefinos on April 30, 1982 — a moment when troops were conducting a scorched-earth campaign to wipe out any support for leftist rebels. Other villagers fled, some seeking refuge abroad.
The court said criminal investigations into the massacre didn't start until nearly 14 years after the events.
The court said Guatemala should pay indemnities and court costs and speed up legal proceedings, as well as building a monument in the area where victims were buried in a mass grave and create an audiovisual documentary of the massacre.
The government of former Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa was found guilty of violating the right to free expression and other rights for prosecuting a journalist who had criticized him and executives of the newspaper that employed him.
Journalist Emilio Palacio Urrutia and executives Nicolás Pérez Lapentti, César Enrique Pérez Barriga and Carlos Eduardo Pérez Barriga were convicted of defaming Correa in a 2011 article published by the newspaper El Universo. They were sentenced to prison and fined. Palacios wound up fleeing the country.
The court found that the article was the sort of opinion piece that should enjoy proetection as a part of "democratic debate."
The court said the convictions should be annulled and that the country shoul find non-criminal avenues to protect the honor of officials.
NIGERIA
Your Nyama-Nyama, Not Ours: A Brief History Of The Dirty Politics Of Pandemics
Sometime in March 1918, while the first World War ravaged Europe, a US soldier, Albert Gitchell, a company cook at Fort Riley, in Kansas was going about his business when he suffered from flu symptoms.On March 4, or March 11 in some accounts, Gitchell was admitted into the camp’s infirmary complaining of a “bad cold,” a fever, sore throat, headache and muscular pains.
Not long after, Corporal Lee W. Drake reported to the same desk with identical symptoms, including temperatures running at 39.4 degrees Celsius.
Within days, over 500 soldiers had reported the same exact symptoms. And shortly the figure climbed to over a thousand. A new pandemic was born. Some of these patients died, others survived, including Mr Gitchell, who lived to the handsome age of 78.
Some of the recovered soldiers were shipped off to Europe to fight a war, armed with their guns and ammo—and a deadly virus in their system.
That, dear reader, is how what the world would come to know as the Spanish Flu was born. It spread worldwide, killing some 50 million people within a couple of years. It reached Nigeria on September 14th 1918 (according to Public Record Office, London) breaking out amongst dockworkers in Lagos. With the city gripped in the feverish hold of the pandemic, many residents hopped on trains to flee, unwittingly carrying the virus to train stops: Abeokuta, Ibadan, Illorin, Bida, Jebba, Zaria, Kano, and Bauchi. By December that year, it had reached all corners of the newly formed country and by September 1919, the Public Record Office officially put the death toll in Nigeria at 199, 325.
To maintain troop morale, the countries in the war suppressed reports of the pandemic. And with Spain not being in the war, when the virus made its way through France to Madrid where it infected King Alfonso XIII, the Spanish press, unbridled by wartime censorship, reported the pandemic in full.
No longer able to suppress the reports, the rest of the world jumped in and branded the disease “The Spanish Flu.” Ironically, the Spaniards, believing the virus jumped from France to Spain called it the “French Flu.” That name did not stick anywhere outside of Spain.
The dirty politics of pandemics as history has demonstrated has always dictated that the ground zero of most pandemics tends to shift the buck and blame it on others to deflect responsibility.
When COVID-19 broke out in December 2019, former American President Donald Trump tried to replicate the 1918 model of pandemic politics when he tweeted about “The Chinese virus.” That tweet has been credited with the rise of hate crimes against Asians, especially in the US.
Yes, since 2019, COVID-19 Patient Zero has been placed in Wuhan, China. The fact though remains that the origins of the COVID-19 virus remain a mystery and a subject of scientific contention.
Could it have its origins in Europe? Some scientists think so. The Emerging Infectious Disease Journal for instance reports that on December 5, 2019, days before the identified Patient Zero began exhibiting symptoms, an oral swab was taken from a 4-year-old boy outside Milan, Italy. He was suspected of having measles. However, months later, that sample tested positive for coronavirus RNA.
Researchers in France have suggested samples collected from patients in November 2019 tested positive for coronavirus and researchers in Spain said they found traces of the virus in Barcelona sewers earlier in the year.
There is a reason countries don’t like to identify as ground zero of pandemics. Apart from the sense of guilt, the economic and political ostracization these may cause are often costly and damaging. The taint on the nation’s image often takes years to wipe off.
The reason is personified by the tragic and sad story of Mary Mallon, who some American tabloids described as “the most hapless and yet most dangerous woman in America.”
Mary was an Irish-born cook who migrated to the US in 1884. Of the eight families that employed her, seven of them were struck with typhoid fevers, infecting dozens of people and resulting in the death of some. In three months as a cook at Sloane Maternity in Manhattan, she contaminated at least 25 people, doctors, nurses and staff. Two of them died.
It was discovered that Mary was the first “healthy carrier” in the US of Salmonella typhi, which causes typhoid fever. She was branded “Typhoid Mary” and became the subject of jokes, satire and mockery in the papers.
In the end, she was forced into quarantine on two separate occasions on North Brother Island for a total of 26 years where she died in 1938 alone, without family or friends.
Of recent, A good number of African countries, where COVID-19 is a pandemic on paper, have had to suffer the ignominy of being labelled as vehicles of the Omicron strain. How did South Africa end up with the tag of Omicron Ground Zero? Because local scientists working alongside their colleagues in Botswana were one of the first in the world to positively identify the new strain.
Within days of that discovery, for which these scientists should be applauded, several African countries were hit with travel bans. Canada, the UK and Saudi Arabia slapped one on Nigeria before Nigerians could even learn the name of the new strain. The UK has since backtracked and delisted some 13 countries from its “Red List.”
It follows a narrative that is being pushed. On November 2nd, 2021, The Economist published an article, “The Pandemic’s True Death Toll” which used a model to suggest that death tolls in Africa from COVID-19 are around the 800,000 mark as compared to the 200, 000 thousand official figures. Africans did not take that well. The reactions on Twitter by Africans were as intelligent as they were dramatic. Yes, Africa is large but 800,000 deaths on this continent will not go unnoticed. After all, funerals are a big deal here.
From AIDS to Ebola, Africa has been a favourite target. No country wants to be the Typhoid Mary amongst the comity of nations. It is expensive. China, on whom that tag is being forced over the COVID-19 situation saw its economy shrink for the first time since 1992 in the first quarter after the outbreak. Between January and March, its GDP fell 6.8 per cent, reversing a 6 per cent expansion in the fourth quarter of 2019. A lot of this is directly attributed to the pressures of the pandemic. The pressure of being branded with a bad name is unquantifiable.
The weaponization of disease is an old tradition, starting from when in 1763 British colonialists gifted blankets from the smallpox ward to some Indian chiefs, causing a pandemic amongst the native Americans. The weaponization of pandemics for economic reasons may be a more recent development and Africa, without the media machinery of the West, is now at the butt end of this Omicron debacle. Those travel bans imposed on Nigeria rather hastily by some countries have been damaging for Nigeria’s economy and its image. There is no remedy to counter the dirty politics of pandemic that is greater than developing the economic might to survive such ostracization, long or short-term, and the scientific competence to establish that this Omicron nyama-nyama, is not ours but someone else’s. We should not be made to pay for it.
Homeless encampment near Interstate 90 in east Spokane will stay put for now
UPDATED: Wed., Dec. 22, 2021
Campers who had set up tents at Spokane City Hall set up their tents again in an empty lot in east Spokane Thursday after they were warned to leave city hall. The camp had been at Spokane City Hall where participants were protesting the city’s homeless response. (Jesse Tinsley/The Spokesman-Review)
By Adam Shanks
The Washington Department of Transportation won’t immediately clear a homeless encampment from land near Interstate 90, but does plan to eventually disband it.
Despite posting a 72-hour notice for people to move along that expired on Monday, the department said its first priority is to ensure the camp near Second Avenue and Freya Street does not grow.
“It’s our desire and goal, related to homeless camps, to have them removed in a timely and humane way from WSDOT right of way. We are not an organization that deals with social services, nor do we have law enforcement resources,” Ryan Overton, a WSDOT spokesman, said in a statement.
The encampment sprang up last week after the city threatened to clear the property of those who erected tents outside City Hall in protest of the city’s homeless response. Dubbed “Camp Hope 2.0,” the encampment mirrored a similar protest that occurred in 2018.
Jewels Helping Hands, a homeless service provider, has maintained a presence at both the City Hall and I-90 encampments. There were 82 people at the encampment Wednesday morning, according to the organization.
Its founder, Julie Garcia, fears the bitter cold forecast for the Spokane area next week and its potential impact on people experiencing homelessness.
She said her organization is searching for a building in which to operate a shelter or a plot of land for a tent.
Garcia encouraged the city to expand shelter options.
“We’ll help them; if they open up a place, we’ll fill it up for them,” Garcia said.
The city broke up the encampment outside City Hall because it alleged tents were blocking access to City Hall and the site had become a health hazard.
The Department of Transportation hopes to walk the fine line between appeasing the encampment’s neighbors and treating its tenants with dignity. The department will take action if the camp becomes a safety issue, Overton said.
“We are sensitive to both the neighbors and those in the camp and hope that through our collaboration with all parties, that there can be a positive and timely outcome for all,” Overton wrote.
The current forecast for Spokane calls for low temperatures to drop into the single digits overnight on Monday, according to the National Weather Service.
“Next week is very scary,” Garcia said.
Campers in tents at Spokane City Hall given notice to leave by Thursday
The notice to remove property was issued due to growing safety and health concerns within the protest area, a spokesperson for the City of Spokane said.
Something went wrong.
Author: Megan Carroll, Amanda Roley
Published: 3:19 PM PST December 14, 2021
Updated: 5:52 PM PST December 15, 2021
SPOKANE, Wash. — Campers in front of Spokane City Hall protesting what they say is a lack of adequate shelter space in the city have been given notice to leave.
After 48 hours, or by 9:54 a.m. on Thursday, the City of Spokane is asking campers to remove their belongings and informing them that any items left behind could be discarded. Brian Coddington, a spokesperson for the City of Spokane, explained the notice to remove property was issued due to growing safety and health concerns within the tent city protest.
Homeless residents and advocates have been camped out in front of city hall since Thursday in hopes of encouraging the city to take action in increasing new shelters for those enduring the cold winter months.
According to Coddington, the notice to vacate came amid health concerns.
"The communication that's been made with those who are out front is related to growing health and safety concerns, and considerations, both for sanitation and garbage issues, but also for the communicable diseases," Coddington said. "So COVID, but also other communicable diseases."
Code enforcement will throw out any garbage left behind, and anyone leaving personal belongings after the deadline can have code enforcement store their property. Coddington said those with property being held by code enforcement will be able to retrieve it for free.
Coddington said the city has added beds through additional shelter space as well as renting out hotel rooms, but those protesting contend its not enough.
According to Coddington, they can still protest outside City Hall after Thursday morning's deadline, but they won't be able to have their belongings such as tents on the property. They also will have to make plans for where they will be staying.
"I'm moving with Jewels [Helping Hands] to a new location right now and most of them, certain ones are staying behind to finish the protest here and some are going to move to a different location to do another one there," said Shannon Jones, who took part in the protest outside of City Hall.
This comes several years after a similar protest outside city hall in December 2018. Demonstrators set up about two dozen tents in front of city hall in late November before Spokane police and city crews cleared the encampment.
Late homeless activist Alfredo Llamedo was one of those who took part in the protest. He was arrested for obstructing a law enforcement officer during the clean-up process, along with a 20-year-old man.
Organizers have referred to both protests in front of city hall as "Camp Hope."
Coddington said on Monday that low-barrier shelter availability has ranged from 91 to 100 spaces over the past three nights. Low-barrier shelters are facilities that do not require people to be sober or attend chapel. At that time, Coddington said the city had not established a timeline for moving the tents.
According to Coddington, there were 104 total beds available Wednesday, with 92 of those being low-barrier beds and 36 being for young adults. Twenty were available for households or women with children. Thirty-nine were low-barrier beds for men, while there were no low-barrier beds for women without children.
Coddington also says there's more bed space in the works.
"Mayor Woodward proposed a new low-barrier shelter outside of the downtown core. In that budget was funding for that and the council did approve that as part of the budget on Monday. So, that is something that's coming to us in the next year," Coddington said.
However, on Tuesday, Hope House spokesperson Raelynn Barden said the shelter in downtown Spokane has 100 beds for women that have been at full capacity for the last week. On Monday night, staff turned two people away as the shelter was full.
Some homeless residents who are taking part in the protest say they have not sought shelter space, while others say they have been turned away due to barriers at shelters. At a meeting on Monday night, Spokane City Council adopted a resolution to offer 40 hotel rooms when the 24/7 Cannon Street shelter is full.
Related Articles
Spokane Police, city crews clear homeless camp in front of city hall
UPDATED: Wed., Dec. 22, 2021
Campers who had set up tents at Spokane City Hall set up their tents again in an empty lot in east Spokane Thursday after they were warned to leave city hall. The camp had been at Spokane City Hall where participants were protesting the city’s homeless response. (Jesse Tinsley/The Spokesman-Review)
By Adam Shanks
The Washington Department of Transportation won’t immediately clear a homeless encampment from land near Interstate 90, but does plan to eventually disband it.
Despite posting a 72-hour notice for people to move along that expired on Monday, the department said its first priority is to ensure the camp near Second Avenue and Freya Street does not grow.
“It’s our desire and goal, related to homeless camps, to have them removed in a timely and humane way from WSDOT right of way. We are not an organization that deals with social services, nor do we have law enforcement resources,” Ryan Overton, a WSDOT spokesman, said in a statement.
The encampment sprang up last week after the city threatened to clear the property of those who erected tents outside City Hall in protest of the city’s homeless response. Dubbed “Camp Hope 2.0,” the encampment mirrored a similar protest that occurred in 2018.
Jewels Helping Hands, a homeless service provider, has maintained a presence at both the City Hall and I-90 encampments. There were 82 people at the encampment Wednesday morning, according to the organization.
Its founder, Julie Garcia, fears the bitter cold forecast for the Spokane area next week and its potential impact on people experiencing homelessness.
She said her organization is searching for a building in which to operate a shelter or a plot of land for a tent.
Garcia encouraged the city to expand shelter options.
“We’ll help them; if they open up a place, we’ll fill it up for them,” Garcia said.
The city broke up the encampment outside City Hall because it alleged tents were blocking access to City Hall and the site had become a health hazard.
The Department of Transportation hopes to walk the fine line between appeasing the encampment’s neighbors and treating its tenants with dignity. The department will take action if the camp becomes a safety issue, Overton said.
“We are sensitive to both the neighbors and those in the camp and hope that through our collaboration with all parties, that there can be a positive and timely outcome for all,” Overton wrote.
The current forecast for Spokane calls for low temperatures to drop into the single digits overnight on Monday, according to the National Weather Service.
“Next week is very scary,” Garcia said.
Campers in tents at Spokane City Hall given notice to leave by Thursday
The notice to remove property was issued due to growing safety and health concerns within the protest area, a spokesperson for the City of Spokane said.
Something went wrong.
Author: Megan Carroll, Amanda Roley
Published: 3:19 PM PST December 14, 2021
Updated: 5:52 PM PST December 15, 2021
SPOKANE, Wash. — Campers in front of Spokane City Hall protesting what they say is a lack of adequate shelter space in the city have been given notice to leave.
After 48 hours, or by 9:54 a.m. on Thursday, the City of Spokane is asking campers to remove their belongings and informing them that any items left behind could be discarded. Brian Coddington, a spokesperson for the City of Spokane, explained the notice to remove property was issued due to growing safety and health concerns within the tent city protest.
Homeless residents and advocates have been camped out in front of city hall since Thursday in hopes of encouraging the city to take action in increasing new shelters for those enduring the cold winter months.
According to Coddington, the notice to vacate came amid health concerns.
"The communication that's been made with those who are out front is related to growing health and safety concerns, and considerations, both for sanitation and garbage issues, but also for the communicable diseases," Coddington said. "So COVID, but also other communicable diseases."
Code enforcement will throw out any garbage left behind, and anyone leaving personal belongings after the deadline can have code enforcement store their property. Coddington said those with property being held by code enforcement will be able to retrieve it for free.
Coddington said the city has added beds through additional shelter space as well as renting out hotel rooms, but those protesting contend its not enough.
According to Coddington, they can still protest outside City Hall after Thursday morning's deadline, but they won't be able to have their belongings such as tents on the property. They also will have to make plans for where they will be staying.
"I'm moving with Jewels [Helping Hands] to a new location right now and most of them, certain ones are staying behind to finish the protest here and some are going to move to a different location to do another one there," said Shannon Jones, who took part in the protest outside of City Hall.
This comes several years after a similar protest outside city hall in December 2018. Demonstrators set up about two dozen tents in front of city hall in late November before Spokane police and city crews cleared the encampment.
Late homeless activist Alfredo Llamedo was one of those who took part in the protest. He was arrested for obstructing a law enforcement officer during the clean-up process, along with a 20-year-old man.
Organizers have referred to both protests in front of city hall as "Camp Hope."
Coddington said on Monday that low-barrier shelter availability has ranged from 91 to 100 spaces over the past three nights. Low-barrier shelters are facilities that do not require people to be sober or attend chapel. At that time, Coddington said the city had not established a timeline for moving the tents.
According to Coddington, there were 104 total beds available Wednesday, with 92 of those being low-barrier beds and 36 being for young adults. Twenty were available for households or women with children. Thirty-nine were low-barrier beds for men, while there were no low-barrier beds for women without children.
Coddington also says there's more bed space in the works.
"Mayor Woodward proposed a new low-barrier shelter outside of the downtown core. In that budget was funding for that and the council did approve that as part of the budget on Monday. So, that is something that's coming to us in the next year," Coddington said.
However, on Tuesday, Hope House spokesperson Raelynn Barden said the shelter in downtown Spokane has 100 beds for women that have been at full capacity for the last week. On Monday night, staff turned two people away as the shelter was full.
Some homeless residents who are taking part in the protest say they have not sought shelter space, while others say they have been turned away due to barriers at shelters. At a meeting on Monday night, Spokane City Council adopted a resolution to offer 40 hotel rooms when the 24/7 Cannon Street shelter is full.
Related Articles
Spokane Police, city crews clear homeless camp in front of city hall
Wreck of last U.S. slave ship mostly intact off Alabama coast, researchers find
The Clotilda was the last ship known to transport African captives to the American South for enslavement.
The Clotilda was the last ship known to transport African captives to the American South for enslavement.
In this undated image released by SEARCH Inc., maritime archaeologist Kyle Lent examines a wooden plank from the hull of Clotilda, in delta waters north of Mobile Bay, Ala.
Daniel Fiore / SEARCH Inc. via AP
Dec. 22, 2021
By The Associated Press
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Researchers studying the wreckage of the last U.S. slave ship, buried in mud on the Alabama coast since it was scuttled in 1860, have made the surprising discovery that most of the wooden schooner remains intact, including the pen that was used to imprison African captives during the brutal journey across the Atlantic Ocean.
While the upper portion of the two-masted Clotilda is gone, the section below deck where the captured Africans and stockpiles were held is still largely in one piece after being buried for decades in a section of river that hasn’t been dredged, said maritime archaeologist James Delgado of the Florida-based SEARCH Inc.
At least two-thirds of the ship remains, and the existence of the unlit and unventilated slave pen, built during the voyage by the addition of a bulkhead where people were held as cargo below the main deck for weeks, raises questions about whether food and water containers, chains and even human DNA could remain in the hull, said Delgado.
“It’s a stunning revelation,” he said in an interview.
Dec. 22, 2021
By The Associated Press
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Researchers studying the wreckage of the last U.S. slave ship, buried in mud on the Alabama coast since it was scuttled in 1860, have made the surprising discovery that most of the wooden schooner remains intact, including the pen that was used to imprison African captives during the brutal journey across the Atlantic Ocean.
While the upper portion of the two-masted Clotilda is gone, the section below deck where the captured Africans and stockpiles were held is still largely in one piece after being buried for decades in a section of river that hasn’t been dredged, said maritime archaeologist James Delgado of the Florida-based SEARCH Inc.
At least two-thirds of the ship remains, and the existence of the unlit and unventilated slave pen, built during the voyage by the addition of a bulkhead where people were held as cargo below the main deck for weeks, raises questions about whether food and water containers, chains and even human DNA could remain in the hull, said Delgado.
“It’s a stunning revelation,” he said in an interview.
This sonar image created by SEARCH Inc. and released by the Alabama Historical Commission shows the remains of the Clotilda, the last known U.S. ship involved in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Researchers studying the wreckage have made the surprising discovery that most of the wooden schooner remains intact in a river near Mobile, Ala. including the pen that was used to imprison African captives during the brutal journey across the Atlantic Ocean.Alabama Historical Commission via AP
The discovery enhances the research value of the Clotilda’s remains and sets them apart from all other wrecks, Delgado said. The finding was confirmed in a report that was provided to The Associated Press and led to the site becoming part of the National Register of Historic Places in November.
“It’s the most intact (slave ship) wreck ever discovered,” he said. “It’s because it’s sitting in the Mobile-Tensaw Delta with fresh water and in mud that protected it that it’s still there.”
For Joycelyn Davis, a sixth-generation granddaughter of African captive Charlie Lewis and vice president of the Clotilda Descendants Association, the story of what happened more than 160 years ago is best told through the people who were involved, not a sunken ship. But she said she’s excited to learn more about what has been discovered, adding: “I think it’s going to be a surprise for us all.”
The Clotilda was the last ship known to transport African captives to the American South for enslavement. Nearly 90 feet in length, it departed Mobile, Alabama, for an illegal trip to purchase people decades after Congress outlawed such trade in 1808.
The ship had been sent across the ocean on a voyage financed by a wealthy businessman whose descendants remain prominent in Mobile. The Clotilda’s captain transferred its human cargo off the ship once it arrived in Alabama and set fire to the vessel to hide evidence of the journey. But most of the ship didn’t catch fire and remained in the river.
Shown on navigational charts since the 1950s, the wreckage was publicly identified as that of Clotilda in 2019 and has been explored and researched since then, Delgado said.
The state has set aside $1 million for preservation and research, and additional work planned at the site in early 2022 could show what’s inside the hull, Delgado said. But far more work is needed to determine whether the ship could ever be pulled out of the mud and put on display, as some have suggested.
“Generally, raising is a very expensive proposition. My sense is that while it has survived, it is more fragile than people think,” said Delgado. “A recovery could be a very delicate operation and also a very expensive and lengthy process.”
Freed after the South lost the Civil War, some of the enslaved Africans who were transported to America on the Clotilda settled in a community they started called Africatown USA a few miles north of downtown Mobile.
A documentary about the now-impoverished community by Alabama-born filmmaker Margaret Brown titled “Descendant” will premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January, and descendants of the Clotilda captives are planning an annual gathering in February. Work is underway on a new museum that’s meant to be a catalyst for tourism and new development in the area.
The discovery enhances the research value of the Clotilda’s remains and sets them apart from all other wrecks, Delgado said. The finding was confirmed in a report that was provided to The Associated Press and led to the site becoming part of the National Register of Historic Places in November.
“It’s the most intact (slave ship) wreck ever discovered,” he said. “It’s because it’s sitting in the Mobile-Tensaw Delta with fresh water and in mud that protected it that it’s still there.”
For Joycelyn Davis, a sixth-generation granddaughter of African captive Charlie Lewis and vice president of the Clotilda Descendants Association, the story of what happened more than 160 years ago is best told through the people who were involved, not a sunken ship. But she said she’s excited to learn more about what has been discovered, adding: “I think it’s going to be a surprise for us all.”
The Clotilda was the last ship known to transport African captives to the American South for enslavement. Nearly 90 feet in length, it departed Mobile, Alabama, for an illegal trip to purchase people decades after Congress outlawed such trade in 1808.
The ship had been sent across the ocean on a voyage financed by a wealthy businessman whose descendants remain prominent in Mobile. The Clotilda’s captain transferred its human cargo off the ship once it arrived in Alabama and set fire to the vessel to hide evidence of the journey. But most of the ship didn’t catch fire and remained in the river.
Shown on navigational charts since the 1950s, the wreckage was publicly identified as that of Clotilda in 2019 and has been explored and researched since then, Delgado said.
The state has set aside $1 million for preservation and research, and additional work planned at the site in early 2022 could show what’s inside the hull, Delgado said. But far more work is needed to determine whether the ship could ever be pulled out of the mud and put on display, as some have suggested.
“Generally, raising is a very expensive proposition. My sense is that while it has survived, it is more fragile than people think,” said Delgado. “A recovery could be a very delicate operation and also a very expensive and lengthy process.”
Freed after the South lost the Civil War, some of the enslaved Africans who were transported to America on the Clotilda settled in a community they started called Africatown USA a few miles north of downtown Mobile.
A documentary about the now-impoverished community by Alabama-born filmmaker Margaret Brown titled “Descendant” will premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January, and descendants of the Clotilda captives are planning an annual gathering in February. Work is underway on a new museum that’s meant to be a catalyst for tourism and new development in the area.
Norway’s pangolin stance spotlights Chinese pharma
CONTRIBUTOR
Yawen Chen Reuters
PUBLISHED DEC 23, 2021
(The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are their own.)
HONG KONG (Reuters Breakingviews) - Norway's $1.4 trillion sovereign wealth fund has dumped a tiny stake in $19 billion Yunnan Baiyao, one of China’s top pharmaceutical companies specializing in so-called traditional Chinese medicine, or TCM, on grounds that the company uses pangolins, a species devastated by Chinese demand for its scales. Norway’s Council on Ethics, which makes investment recommendations to the pension fund, said it found Yunnan Baiyao’s use of pangolin unacceptable.
The TCM market, worth an estimated $150 billion, exploded during the pandemic as Beijing endorsed its claims of efficacy treating Covid-19. Global fund managers like Vanguard and BlackRock have exposure to the sector; shareholders in Hong Kong-listed China Traditional Chinese Medicine Holdings include the California Public Employees Retirement System and Quebec’s provincial pension fund, per Refinitiv data.
China has been tightening wild animal protection rules, but controversial animal practices persist. Western pressure might not deter ordinary Chinese people from believing rhinoceros horn is an aphrodisiac, or that pangolin scales treat arthritis, despite little scientific evidence. But a concerted global ESG campaign might convince Beijing, at least, to push for more reform. (By Yawen Chen)
CONTRIBUTOR
Yawen Chen Reuters
PUBLISHED DEC 23, 2021
(The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are their own.)
HONG KONG (Reuters Breakingviews) - Norway's $1.4 trillion sovereign wealth fund has dumped a tiny stake in $19 billion Yunnan Baiyao, one of China’s top pharmaceutical companies specializing in so-called traditional Chinese medicine, or TCM, on grounds that the company uses pangolins, a species devastated by Chinese demand for its scales. Norway’s Council on Ethics, which makes investment recommendations to the pension fund, said it found Yunnan Baiyao’s use of pangolin unacceptable.
The TCM market, worth an estimated $150 billion, exploded during the pandemic as Beijing endorsed its claims of efficacy treating Covid-19. Global fund managers like Vanguard and BlackRock have exposure to the sector; shareholders in Hong Kong-listed China Traditional Chinese Medicine Holdings include the California Public Employees Retirement System and Quebec’s provincial pension fund, per Refinitiv data.
China has been tightening wild animal protection rules, but controversial animal practices persist. Western pressure might not deter ordinary Chinese people from believing rhinoceros horn is an aphrodisiac, or that pangolin scales treat arthritis, despite little scientific evidence. But a concerted global ESG campaign might convince Beijing, at least, to push for more reform. (By Yawen Chen)
UK car production sees ‘worst November performance since 1984’
ISOBEL FRODSHAM, PA
ISOBEL FRODSHAM, PA
23 December 2021,
UK car production saw the worst November performance since 1984 last month despite a surge in demand for battery electric vehicles.
The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) said November UK car production was the fifth consecutive month of decline, dropping 28.7% to 75,756 units, the worst figure seen in 37 years, as car makers continue to battle with a worldwide shortage of semiconductors.
It added the figure was also reflective of the closure of a car factory in the summer, which will impact year-on-year comparisons until next July.
Production for domestic vehicles declined 18.8% last month, while the figure for the overseas market fell by 30.4%.
But British production of battery electric, plug-in hybrid and hybrid cars took a record share, accounting for around a third of all cars made in November and more than a quarter over the year to date.
Battery electric vehicle output, in particular, was up in November by 52.9% to 10,359 units, hitting a new high of 13.7% of all production, more than double the level a year ago.
In the year to date, UK car plants have produced 797,261 units, some 432,794 fewer compared to 2019 and 667,441 off the five-year pre-Covid average.
Mike Hawes, SMMT chief executive, said, “These are incredibly worrying figures, underscoring the severity of the situation facing the automotive industry.
“Covid is impacting supply chains massively, causing global shortages – especially of semiconductors – which is likely to affect the sector throughout next year.
“With an increasingly negative economic backdrop, rising inflation and Covid resurgence home and abroad, the circumstances are the toughest in decades.
“With output massively down for the past five months and likely to continue, maintaining cashflow, especially in the supply chain, is of vital importance. We have to look to the Government to provide support measures in the same way it is recognising other Covid-impacted sectors.
“The industry is as well prepared as it can be for the implementation of full customs controls at UK borders from January 1 but any delays arising from ill-prepared freight or systems will place further stress on businesses that operate ‘just in time’. Should any problems arise, contingency measures must be implemented immediately to keep cross-border trade flowing smoothly.”
UK car production saw the worst November performance since 1984 last month despite a surge in demand for battery electric vehicles.
The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) said November UK car production was the fifth consecutive month of decline, dropping 28.7% to 75,756 units, the worst figure seen in 37 years, as car makers continue to battle with a worldwide shortage of semiconductors.
It added the figure was also reflective of the closure of a car factory in the summer, which will impact year-on-year comparisons until next July.
Production for domestic vehicles declined 18.8% last month, while the figure for the overseas market fell by 30.4%.
But British production of battery electric, plug-in hybrid and hybrid cars took a record share, accounting for around a third of all cars made in November and more than a quarter over the year to date.
Battery electric vehicle output, in particular, was up in November by 52.9% to 10,359 units, hitting a new high of 13.7% of all production, more than double the level a year ago.
In the year to date, UK car plants have produced 797,261 units, some 432,794 fewer compared to 2019 and 667,441 off the five-year pre-Covid average.
Mike Hawes, SMMT chief executive, said, “These are incredibly worrying figures, underscoring the severity of the situation facing the automotive industry.
“Covid is impacting supply chains massively, causing global shortages – especially of semiconductors – which is likely to affect the sector throughout next year.
“With an increasingly negative economic backdrop, rising inflation and Covid resurgence home and abroad, the circumstances are the toughest in decades.
“With output massively down for the past five months and likely to continue, maintaining cashflow, especially in the supply chain, is of vital importance. We have to look to the Government to provide support measures in the same way it is recognising other Covid-impacted sectors.
“The industry is as well prepared as it can be for the implementation of full customs controls at UK borders from January 1 but any delays arising from ill-prepared freight or systems will place further stress on businesses that operate ‘just in time’. Should any problems arise, contingency measures must be implemented immediately to keep cross-border trade flowing smoothly.”
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