Experts question Alberta budget claims of diversifying away from oil, gas revenues

Bob Weber, The Canadian Press

 EDMONTON -- Canada's oil province may finally be shedding its image as an economic one-trick pony, the Alberta government says in its new budget.

 "We're doing all we can and seeing great results on economic diversification," United Conservative Finance Minister Travis Toews said at a Thursday news conference.

 Budget documents trumpet billions of dollars flowing into provincial sectors that don't necessarily scream Alberta. Tech, aerospace, financial technology, film and television have all seen growth, as well as more traditional mainstays like petrochemicals.

 Venture capital firms pumped $455 million into the province last year, double the 2019 figure. Non-energy exports, at nearly $38 billion, grew 21 per cent between 2020 and 2021.

 Agriculture, Alberta's economic bedrock, saw nearly five per cent growth in value-added sales between 2019 and 2020.

 Those figures are still dwarfed by oil and gas.

 Upstream oil and gas investment grew by 25 per cent last year to reach $23 billion. And Alberta's energy exports were worth $100 billion last year -- a whopping 65 per cent increase.

 But Toews said diversification -- a hopeful buzzword in the province since the late-1980s government of Premier Don Getty -- is well and truly underway.

 "We're seeing investment broadly throughout the economy," he said. "And that will ultimately provide more stability to the revenues of this province."

 Kent Fellows of the University of Calgary's School of Public Policy said the government is focusing on some of the right areas, such as expanding the uses of the province's oil and gas.

 "They are taking seriously the idea of looking at new markets that are non-combustion markets -- what can we do with natural gas other than just burning it?"

 But it's a trend that predates the current government, he said. The previous New Democrat government brought in programs the current one has more or less kept in place.

 "There are a couple of themes that are consistent," Fellows said. "Diversification takes a long time."

 He added it's hard to tease out the effects of government programs from what would have taken place anyway.

 Trevor Tombe, also a University of Calgary economist, said he sees very little diversification in a budget heavily reliant on oil and gas. What progress has been made has little to do with policy, he said.

 "That had almost nothing to do with the changes in the budget that we saw here. The Alberta government is not very sensitive to those broader economic changes."

 Opposition New Democrat leader Rachel Notley said the UCP shouldn't get any credit.

 "Diversification was something that this government abandoned and, in fact, rejected in the first two years of their tenure," she said. "You may recall the finance minister saying that diversification is a long-term luxury that no one can focus on right now."

 Notley said the budget contains similar measures for the tech industry to those brought in during her tenure, only smaller. She said the fact the budget still relies on oil and gas revenues shows Alberta has a long way to go to get off the royalty thrill ride.

 "They're not making investments in long-term, sustainable, mortgage-paying economic diversification and job creation going forward," she said. "They're still riding the roller-coaster."

 Chris Severson-Baker of the Pembina Institute, a clean energy think tank, said the government's budget is missing diversification opportunities.

 He said the TIER fund -- a carbon levy collected from Alberta's heaviest industries -- isn't being used to help existing industry decarbonize and build a low-carbon future. Nor does the budget direct as much of its windfall royalties as it should into cleaning up the tens of thousands of abandoned oil and gas wells across the province.

 "We don't have a clear plan for how we're going to decarbonize the oil and gas sector or what the future economy's going to look like," he said.

Feb 24, 2022

Alberta balances budget for first time since 2014 on oil surge

Robert Tuttle, Bloomberg News

Alberta’s government released its first balanced budget in eight years as surging oil prices brought a windfall of oil and gas royalties. 

The province, which is the world’s fourth largest oil producer and home to Canada’s oil sands, will record a $511 million (US$398 million) surplus in its 2022 fiscal year starting April 1. That compares to a forecast deficit of $3.2 billion in the 2021 fiscal year, according to the budget released Thursday. 

The surplus would be the first since the 2014 budget and marks a huge turnaround from just a year ago, when the finance ministry expected a looming deficit of $18 billion for 2021 as the COVID-19 pandemic suppressed economic activity. At that time, the Alberta government wasn’t expecting a balanced budget before 2024. 

The turnaround has happened amid a surge of tax and royalty revenue driven by oil prices that on Thursday surpassed US$100 a barrel for the first time since 2014, after Russian forces invaded Ukraine. Resource revenue including oil sands royalties is expected to jump to $13.8 billion in fiscal 2022, up from a year earlier when just $2.86 billion in resource revenue was budgeted for the year ahead. 

Tax revenue is projected to rise to $23 billion in fiscal 2022 from a forecast $22.1 billion in 2021, while expenses will fall to $62.1 billion in the 2022 budget year from $64.9 billion the year prior.

Alberta, the biggest foreign supplier of crude to the U.S., is budgeting for West Texas Intermediate crude, the U.S. benchmark, to average US$70 a barrel in the coming fiscal year. So far, U.S. oil has averaged more than US$86 a barrel as tensions between Russia and Ukraine worsened and energy demand surged as pandemic restrictions eased. 

Other budget forecasts include:

• Gross domestic product to grow 5.4 per cent in 2022, down from 5.8 per cent in 2021
• Natural gas will average $3.20 per gigajoule in the 2022-2023 budget period
• Taxpayer-supported outstanding debt will total $97.7 billion at the end of 2021 fiscal year and $94.7 billion at the end of the 2022 budget year
• Debt servicing costs to be $2.7 billion in 2022
• Upstream oil and gas investment this year will increase by more than $6 billion to surpass the pre-pandemic level of 2019

Taxpayers 'on the hook' if Trans Mountain expansion goes wrong

Ian Vandaelle, BNN Bloomberg

Former Canadian energy executives aren’t convinced Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals can stick the landing when it comes to the spiraling cost of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.

The federal government announced Friday that Ottawa would not sink another red cent into the massive expansion project, which would nearly triple daily capacity to 890,000 barrels per day, and outlined plans to rope in third-parties for financing through debt markets or other avenues.

The expansion is now expected to cost $21.4 billion, up from the previous estimate of $12.6 billion, and pushes the completion date out to the third quarter of 2023. Ottawa said it would turn to third-party debt financing or other sources of funds to complete the project.

That approach didn’t sit well with Gwyn Morgan, the former chief executive officer of Encana Corp., which is now Ovintiv Inc. In an email to BNN Bloomberg, Morgan said the risk to taxpayers was too high for the Feds to proceed on their current course.

“In the commercial (real) world, no one’s going to finance a project running vastly over budget, with no firm remaining cost or start-up date,” he said.

”So the only way for the Feds to ‘not spend another penny on it’ would be to provide a full guarantee. Either way, taxpayers are on the hook.”

Morgan also argued the higher capital costs of the pipeline could render it uneconomical for shippers, once the federal government is able to find a buyer for the project it bought for $4.5 billion back in 2018, barring a deal to backstop a buyer.

“It’s doubtful shippers would pay the new owner the hugely increased tolls needed to get a return on their investment,” he said.

Canada’s pipeline problems are nothing new. From the Keystone XL Pipeline debacle to the Mackenzie Valley project of decades past, there’s a rich history of pipelines hitting terminal hurdles during the construction process.

Hal Kvisle, the former chief executive officer of TransCanada, which is now TC Energy Corp.,  has seen his fair share of those setbacks. In an email to BNN Bloomberg, Kvisle said Canada’s regulatory environment was prohibitive to the private sector taking on the kind of risk of something like the Trans Mountain expansion.

“No pipeline company would be prepared to buy the TMX project and build it: the regulatory, social and political hurdles identified by Kinder were pretty obvious to anyone with expertise in pipeline construction,” he said.

“Apart from pipes built wholly within Alberta, it is pretty much impossible to navigate the regulatory, Indigenous, environmental activist and political challenges of building even the most sensible pipes in Canada. Given that, the only way to get a pipeline to the Pacific would be if the federal or provincial governments would take it on.”

Labour minister set to nudge provinces, territories on paid sick leave

Jordan Press, The Canadian Press

Natural Resources Minister Seamus O'Regan responds to a question during Question Period in the House of Commons in Ottawa on February 17, 2020 , THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

OTTAWA -- Labour Minister Seamus O'Regan says he plans to put paid sick leave on the agenda for a meeting with his provincial and territorial counterparts to resolve a patchwork system of policies and workplace culture that may dissuade workers from staying home when ill.

In late December, Parliament gave its approval to create 10 days of paid sick leave for federally regulated workers, who make up less than one-tenth of all workers in Canada.

Work on the actual regulations is set to begin in early March with invites to consultations set to go out Friday, just as O'Regan is scheduled to meet with his provincial and territorial counterparts.

O'Regan is being urged by one of the country's largest labour organizations to push provincial and territorial governments toward replicating the federal policy.

In an interview, O'Regan said he plans to listen to what his counterparts have to say on how such a policy could work in their jurisdiction, but also potential price tags for governments and employers.

But in making a public call for O'Regan and other labour ministers to create more paid sick days for workers who don't already have them as part of their contracts, the Canadian Labour Congress also noted another problem with the nascent federal policy.

The organization's president, Bea Bruske, in a statement said some provincial programs were underused by non-unionized staff, which was chalked up to pressure from employers.

O'Regan said he's looking to get the federal policy enacted as quickly as possible, but noted it may take longer for workers to take the time, and employers to push for it, instead of toughing it out when sick.

"Therein lies the rub," he said on the eve of the meeting. "How do you have certain standards in place and the mechanics in place, but at the same time allow some degree of flexibility?"

Finding that balance is something O'Regan identified in several areas he's been tasked to deal with by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, including a federal policy on what's known as the "right to disconnect."

The concept is one that the government considered even before the pandemic to provide guidelines about how workers can digitally untether themselves from the workplace after hours, rather than always being connected to work emails and messages.

O'Regan's predecessor was warned in the summer of an entrenched split between employer and labour groups who advised the government on the elements of policy.

In the final report released last month, companies pushed a voluntary framework and workers asked for a more mandated approach, a split that O'Regan said wasn't surprising.

While the government sorts out its next steps, O'Regan suggested employers and workers may want to talk about an issue that the minister said has been exacerbated by the pandemic as more Canadians work remotely.

"It's an initial good first step to encourage employers and employees to start talking in the workplace about a right to disconnect that may work for your workplace," he said. "And at some point, the government is going to have to come in, because we said we would, on a policy, but I think we're all suffering this."

That strain on workers is something O'Regan is also expected to discuss during Friday's meeting as the Liberal government looks to add mental health to workplace safety regulations in the federal labour code.

CANADIAN Brookfield Makes $1.5 Billion Bid for Belgium’s Largest REIT

Jack Sidders, Bloomberg News

The evening sun sets above the rooftops of residential and commercial buildings in the Northern Quarter business district of Brussels, Belgium, on Monday, May 22, 2017. European Union ministers finalized their Brexit negotiating position a day after the U.K. threatened to quit talks on its departure unless the bloc drops its demands for a divorce payment as high as 100 billion euros ($112 billion). Photographer: Jasper Juinen/Bloomberg , Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- A fund managed by Brookfield Asset Management Inc. has offered 47.50 euros a share to buy Befimmo SA, Belgium’s largest real estate investment trust.

The offer, which is backed by the company’s management and board of directors, values the company at about 1.3 billion euros ($1.5 billion). 

RE Invest Belgium SA, an entity controlled by one of Brookfield’s real estate private funds, has secured the baking of shareholders with a 15.2% stake in the company, according to a statement Friday. The bid represents a 29.3% premium Befimmo’s share price over the past year but a 21% discount to its net assets at the end of 2021. 

“We believe this transaction represents the best path forward for our company to benefit from the strategic partnership of one of the world’s most experienced real estate investors as we navigate the evolving environment for office real estate,’ said Jean-Philip Vroninks, chief executive officer of Befimmo. 

Any deal will be subject to Brookfield securing more than half of shareholders’ votes, as well as regulatory approval. Closing of the takeover is expected in the third quarter, according to Brookfield

IMPERIALISM THE HIGHEST STAGE OF CAPITALISM

Exxon to Build $400 Million Wyoming Carbon-Capture Project After Delay

Kevin Crowley, Bloomberg 

Signage at an Exxon Mobil gas station in El Cerrito, California, U.S., on Tuesday, July 27, 2021. Exxon Mobil Corp. is expected to release earnings figures on July 30. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg , Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- Exxon Mobil Corp. reached a final investment decision on expanding a carbon capture facility at LaBarge in Wyoming with the $400 million project expected to start up by 2025. 

The project will capture as much as 1.2 million metric tons of carbon dioxide a year, an increase of around 20% over current levels, the Irving, Texas-based company said in a statement. 

Exxon delayed the project when the pandemic hit in 2020, meaning start-up will be about two years behind the previously proposed timeline. The oil giant is feeling the heat from investors to do more to reduce its carbon footprint after losing a quarter of its board to an activist campaign run by Engine No. 1 last year. 

LaBarge has long produced natural gas and helium, but large quantities of carbon dioxide are also pumped out of its wells as a byproduct. Exxon currently captures as much as 7 million tons a year of CO2 at the location, making it one of the biggest carbon capture facilities in the world. Much of that is sold to energy companies operating nearby for enhanced oil recovery, a technique where the CO2 is injected into oil and gas wells to improve production.

The project will help Exxon reduce greenhouse gas emissions from its operated upstream assets by 3%, the company said. 

©2022 Bloomberg L.P.

Thai and Malaysia leaders discuss insurgency, Myanmar crisis

Malaysian Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob, left, escorted by Thailand's Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, before reviews an honor guard during a welcoming ceremony at the government house in Bangkok, Thailand, Friday, Feb. 25, 2022. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)


BANGKOK (AP) — Malaysian Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob met with his Thai counterpart Prayuth Chan-ocha on Friday in the first official visit of a foreign leader to Thailand since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

The two leaders reviewed an honor guard outside Prayuth’s offices in Bangkok before sitting down to discuss bilateral issues, including ways to boost their economies. They also briefly touched on the ongoing crisis in Myanmar.

Thailand’s three southernmost provinces border on Malaysia and have been at the center of a low-level but often deadly Muslim insurgency for many years. Help from Malaysia has long been seen as key to restoring peace.

In a joint statement after their meeting, the two leaders said they reaffirmed their commitment to finding a peaceful solution, with Malaysia acting as a facilitator.

The two leaders exchanged views “on promoting economic development to uplift livelihoods” of residents of Thailand’s southernmost provinces -- among the nation’s poorest and least developed -- and Malaysia’s northern states, they said.

They also said they underlined the need for solidarity among members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in implementing a plan to ease the crisis in Myanmar known as the Five Point Consensus.

The plan was adopted last April by ASEAN members but Myanmar has so far stalled on putting it into effect.

Myanmar’s army seized power in February last year from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, and opposition to its takeover has evolved into armed resistance that some U.N. experts have described as civil war.

Myanmar Diaspora Bankrolling Armed Resistance to Junta Back Home
February 25, 2022 
Zsombor Peter

This photo taken on October 19, 2021 shows members of the Karenni Nationalities Defense Force and Kareni Army at a checkpoint near Demoso, in Myanmar's eastern Kayah state.

BANGKOK —

Ethnic minority communities from Myanmar in the United States and elsewhere are pouring hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of dollars into a growing guerrilla war against the country’s year-old military regime.

Rights groups say the junta has killed hundreds of civilians, arrested thousands and launched deadly attacks on whole villages in a bloody bid to take full control of the country since ousting a democratically elected government in February 2021.

For some of the ill-armed, cash-strapped militias fighting back, friends and family living abroad are proving a wellspring of funds to keep them going.

“Without their support it would be very difficult for us,” Timmy Htut, general secretary of the Chinland Joint Defense Committee, a planning body for armed rebel groups in western Myanmar’s Chin state, told VOA.

Last year’s coup set off weeks of mass protests. When soldiers and police began shooting into the crowds, communities across Myanmar, galvanized by the bloodshed, started taking up arms and forming militias to resist and fight the new regime. Some of them teamed up with established ethnic rebel armies that have been fighting the military for autonomy along the country’s borderlands for decades.

Myanmar

In Chin state, the eponymous homeland of Myanmar’s ethnic Chin, dozens of local militias have fused to form the Chinland Defense Force and allied with the Chin National Front, the area’s main ethnic rebel army. They set up the Chinland Joint Defense Committee to coordinate their operations against the military.

Timmy Htut said the Chin diaspora, spread across the globe by decades of persecution in majority ethnic Burman Myanmar, has been a critical lifeline for their cause.

“Most of the funds that we receive is from the people, our people who are already in the U.S. or [other] Western countries, and they are our ethnic people. They raise funds for us, and that’s most of the money that we receive,” he said.

Most of the foreign funding comes from the United States, he said, adding the Chin communities in Britain, Malaysia and South Korea to the list of top donors.

He would not tell VOA how much they were sending but said the CDF was spending it on the armed resistance “to equip our soldiers and also for the cost of the training.”

Foreign reserves

James Bawi Thang Bik, a community leader among the thousands of Chin who have resettled in Malaysia over many years as refugees, said Chin families there have sent the CDF more than $200,000 since April and were donating on a regular basis.

He said the money goes both to the armed resistance and to helping the thousands of civilians in Chin, as elsewhere, who have been driven from their homes by the fighting.

“We send the money to the CDF, and then of course they spend some for the weapons and they spend for food to support the refugees,” James Bawi Thang Bik said.

He said the militias “formed to defend our land and the life of our people. But this time they don’t get any international support … I mean like from another government.

“So, we decided that it is time for us to support each other and it is the time to recognize them as our own army. Because the Chin, we’ve wanted freedom and independence for many years, so this is going to be one of the best times and one of the best chances to go forward with what we want for our nation.”

A senior officer for of the U.S.-based CDF-Hakha Support Team of North America told VOA that his own group has sent the militia in the northern Chin state town of Hakha “hundreds of thousands” of dollars as well, with more to come.

“For example, if we are trying to support them, a gun in Chin state, like let’s say an M-16, AK-47, it costs about $6,000 [and] ... ammo costs about $10. So, we are trying our best to support them as much as [we] can,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity for the safety of family members back in Myanmar.

Other Chin communities in the United States have set up their own groups to raise funds for militias affiliated with their particular tribes.

FILE - Members of the Karenni Nationalities Defence Force and Kareni Army at a checkpoint near Demoso, in Myanmar's eastern Kayah state, Oct. 19, 2021.


The cost of war

Min Zaw Oo, executive director of the Myanmar Institute for Peace and Security think tank, said militias in some other states where ethnic minorities dominate, including Kayin and Kayah in the east, have been tapping into their own communities abroad for funds.

Myanmar’s so-called National Unity Government, a shadow state forged from lawmakers ousted by the coup and other groups opposed to the junta, has been running international fundraisers for the broader resistance effort as well, he added, and sharing some of the money with the militias it has formed formal alliances with.

Taken together, Min Zaw Oo estimates that militias across Myanmar have raked in millions of dollars from abroad by now, supplementing the donations arriving from inside the country and what some of them earn by taxing local businesses.

That is still only a sliver of the billions of dollars at the disposal of the junta, which, at an estimated 350,000 troops, commands one of the largest armed forces in the region.

Even so, Min Zaw Oo said the foreign funds flowing to the resistance will ease one of the militias’ main handicaps, a dearth of weapons.

“The weapons prices [have] tripled compared to the pre-coup era, and the availability of weapons is also quite restricted because most of the weapons are so far coming from Thailand,” he said. “There are Thai smugglers, but they are not big smugglers … they are not [moving] like thousands of weapons. There are many small smugglers. They try to bring weapons [from] Thailand to sell the opposition in Myanmar.”

Some of the ethnic rebel armies are helping to arm the militias they team up with themselves. Min Zaw Oo said a few are also selling to the militias to cash in on the rocketing prices. He said an M-16 in near-mint condition that cost anywhere from $5,500 to $8,500 just over a year ago on the local black market now goes for upwards of $22,000.

“Because these weapons prices [are] spiking, the international funds are quite important for the groups to survive,” he said.

More money, he added, means “more weapons [and] explosives; a lot of them purchase explosives to set up IEDs,” or improvised explosive devices.

More than money

Some of those resettled abroad are committing more than just money. Timmy Htut, James Bawi Thang Bik and the CDF-Hakha Support Team said some have also gone back to Myanmar to join the fight with the militias. They would not share numbers.

James Bawi Thang Bik said some in Malaysia have approached his fundraising team seeking help with the trip but the team refused. He said he heard from their friends that they left anyway, using the same human smuggling networks that have helped refugees leave Myanmar to get them back in.

Timmy Htut said a Chin refugee who resettled in the United States after defecting from the Myanmar military several years ago was now back in Myanmar passing on his old training to the new militias.

The CDF-Hakha Support Team said some Chin have gone back from the United States as well.

 Myanmar's junta chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing presides over an army parade on Armed Forces Day in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, March 27, 2021.

With the junta still able to draw on a massive budget and military, and an armed resistance growing more organized and ambitious by the month, analysts see no imminent end to Myanmar’s post-coup crisis. The senior officer with the CDF-Hakha Support Team said foreign funds would keep flowing to the militias for as long as it lasts.

“This revolution must be the last one in Burma,” he said, calling Myanmar by its other name. “We believe that this dictatorship must end, so we all are responsible. If we are in unity to fight against the dictatorship, the military regime in Burma, then we will surely overcome, so this fundraising will be until the end of this revolution.”

The junta claims to be fighting a legitimate counterinsurgency campaign and has labeled the militias “terrorists.”

It says elections in 2020, which the military’s proxy party lost decisively, were riddled with fraud and that it ousted the government after its claims were ignored. The junta has provided no evidence to back up the claim. Local and international election observers say the poll largely reflected the people’s will.

Basque Parliament hosts meeting about Kurds

A meeting on the situation of the Kurds was held in the Basque Parliament.


ANF
GASTEIZ/VICTORIA
Friday, 25 Feb 2022,

Eyyüp Doru represented the Kurds at the meeting held at the Basque Parliament Foreign Relations Committee. The meeting, attended by the representatives of the Basque parties, addressed the general situation of the Kurds and in particular the situation in North Kurdistand and Rojava.

Kurdish representative Eyyüp Doru said that the situation of political prisoners and the removal of the PKK from the European Union's list of terrorist organizations were also discussed at the meeting.

Left-wing parties in parliament, Bildu, Izquierda Unida and Podemos, said that the PKK should be removed from the list of terrorist organisations.

Doru said that the parties emphasized the need for other parties to accept and defend the right of self-determination of the Kurdish people and support a peaceful solution to the Kurdish problem.

Doru pointed out that the Basque deputies submitted a proposal to the parliament for the recognition of Rojava and added that this is the third time that they have held such meetings at the Basque Parliament's Foreign Relations Committee.

Greenpeace Suggests Floating Barriers to Mitigate Expected Catastrophe Off Yemen’s Coast

Friday, 25 February, 2022 - 

This satellite image provided by Manar Technologies taken June 17, 2020, 

shows the FSO Safer tanker moored off  Ras Issa port, in Yemen. (AP)

Aden - Mohammed Nasser

An environmental organization has called on the United Nations and the international community to act swiftly to prevent an environmental catastrophe as a result of the possible explosion of the floating storage and offloading unit (FSO) SAFER off the coast of Yemen.

Without a swift resolution, an explosion or leak from the rusting oil tanker could trigger one of the biggest oil spill disasters in history, it warned.

“A rupture of the single-skin hull or an explosion could would seriously exacerbate the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, preventing access to the main ports of Hodeidah and Salif, vital for aid and food supplies, adding an additional burden to a country already devastated by six years of conflict,” it said.

Greenpeace launched a new study explaining that in the absence of a quick solution, the ship could have devastating effects and countries should be prepared for that.

It underlined the need to deploy a floating barrier to contain the oil around the ship as a first step to prevent the expansion of the oil slick in the event of a leak.

However, it stressed that the floating barrier does not provide a solution to prevent the potential short- and long-term humanitarian and environmental impacts in the region, which can only be mitigated by removing oil from the ship.

“With each day that passes, efforts to remove the oil safely become more difficult because of the failing equipment.”

As things stand, the tanker could leak – or even explode – at any time and spill the oil it is carrying, it warned, describing the FSO Safer as a “ticking time bomb.”

It further stressed that the environmental impact on the Red Sea’s fauna, corals and seagrass beds would also be catastrophic in a region, which is a major biodiversity hotspot.

“Given the political context and the ongoing conflict in Yemen, action by the UN and international community is critical to prevent an environmental and humanitarian disaster and ensuring a swift solution to the FSO SAFER time-bomb should be a priority in negotiations,” urged the organization.

It showed that up to 670,000 people’s livelihoods could be impacted by the spill and subsequent cleanup operations, through damage to fisheries, marine resources, and coastal industries, and factory and port closures.

Greenpeace said the amplitude of the potential economic impacts on local communities is “huge.”

According to the study, 50% of fisheries would likely be blocked from fishing by the oil spill, with a cost to the fishing industry of $150 million – $30 million per year for five years.

It warned that the livelihoods of 31,500 fishermen would be at risk, and 235,000 workers in the fishing industry could lose their jobs, while the estimated loss in agricultural production could be $4 million.

The most recent figures, published in May 2021, identified 31,500 fishermen, 235,000 workers in the fishing industry affected and 3.25 million farmers affected by crop loss.

They indicated that the closure of Hodeidah and Salif ports for two to three months would cause food and fuel import shortages and a rise in food and fuel prices.

The Red Sea is semi-enclosed, which makes oil recovery difficult, lengthy and costly, in particular given the ongoing conflict in Yemen, Greenpeace added.

It further warned that coral reefs are locally impacted in the vicinity of urban and industrial centers from land-filling and dredging, along with port activities (damage caused by anchors, oil and waste water discharges), sewage and other pollution (causing localized areas of coral disease, poor recruitment, and excessive algae) and tourism (damage from anchors and recreational scuba divers).

“Of the 15 species of cetaceans known to occur in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden two are listed as threatened, five are dependent upon conservation actions to prevent their listing as threatened, five are insufficiently known to assign a conservation status, and only three are secure.”

The study stressed that the renewal time for the entire water body of the Red Sea is around 200 years.

It stressed that it is never possible to clean up oil once it is spilled in the environment, noting that all that can be done is to contain the oil through the use of booms and remove it with skimmers and suction pumps.

“Even if a major response were possible, an oil spill could still prove extremely difficult to deal with without causing further physical or chemical damage to the local ecosystem,” it stated.

Greenpeace said it is currently working with organizations in Yemen and the region to identify and support a solution to remove the oil and prevent a major environmental and humanitarian catastrophe that could happen anytime, while preparing to respond in case of a major oil spill.

WITH ALLIES LIKE THIS...

Group of arsonists arrested for series of fires in Walmart stores protesting minimum wage

Gino Spocchia

Fri, February 25, 2022,

The FBI first asked for information about the alleged arsonists last year (FBI / Twitter)

A group of arsonists who allegedly set fire to four Walmart stores last year over demands for a higher minimum hourly wage have been arrested.

The group of five, who also allegedly wrote a “Walmart Manifesto” that asked the American retailer to increase its hourly wage and to cap CEO earnings, appeared in court on Thursday for arraignment, as AL News reported.

Jeffery Sikes, 40, aka Kenneth Allen; Sean Bottorff, 37, aka Sean McFarland; Michael Bottorff, 21; Quinton Olson, 21; and Alexander Olson, 23, were identified in an indictment a day earlier on Wednesday.

It detailed how all five individuals referred to themselves as “the Veteran’s Order” in email and phone communications with newspapers last year, as an extremism researcher, Seamus Hughes, found.

Mr Hughes explained in a Twitter thread how the group purchased a “burner phone” to avoid detection after an initial fire was set at a Walmart in Mobile, Alabama, in May last year.

“Using the phone, they created a gmail account and calling themselves the ‘Veterans Order’ sent a manifesto to news organisations protesting Walmart’s business practices,” said Mr Hughes.

The group allegedly went on to set fires at another Walmart in Mobile, as well as in Gulfport and Biloxi in Mississippi – two cities more than 70 miles away.

Wednesday’s indictment said the group issued a “Walmart Manifesto” that was titled “Declaration of War and Demands for the People,” and included demands about the retailer’s “commerce practices”.

That included a warning of more arson if Walmart did not publicly acknowledge the group.

The “manifesto”, which was unveiled on Thursday, contained a list of demands for an increase in Walmart’s hourly minimum wage, changes to parental leave allowances, and a cap on Walmart’s CEO’s earnings – who “makes 983 times more than its lowest paid employee”.

All five members of the “Veterans Order” have now been charged with a conspiracy “to affect interstate and foreign commerce by maliciously setting fires to damage and destroy Walmart stores and the property within them.”

The charge carries a potential sentence of 20 years imprisonment and reports suggest all five have so far declared intent to plead not guilty.

“Specifically, the fires were maliciously set to force Walmart, Inc. to meet demands related to interstate and foreign commerce set forth by the conspirators in their manifesto (identified herein as ‘The Walmart Manifesto.’)”, the indictments added.

In a statement to The Independent on Friday, the retailer said: “We’re thankful arrests have been made in this case. The FBI and local law enforcement have done an outstanding job.”

“We’ve worked closely with the authorities throughout this investigation and will continue assisting them,” a spokesperson added. “Beyond that we’re referring all other questions to law enforcement.”