New wave of protests and strikes shake Iran

Government cuts mean price rises for basic foods. Now people are back on the streets in a protest that threatens the regime of Ebrahim Raisi

Ebrahim Raisi supporters campaigning in Tehran for 2017 presidential election.
A new wave of protests in Iran is shaking his regime. 

Picture: Tasnim News Agency/Wikipedia

Thousands of people have protested and struck in towns, cities and villages across Iran after the government hiked basic food prices. Iranian security forces attacked some protests with teargas and live ammunition—reportedly killing six people.

Protests began after Iran’s government announced last month that it would cut and end subsidies for wheat and flower, calling it “necessary economic surgery.” The move caused prices to rise by up to 300 percent for some flour based food staples such as bread and pasta, in a country where half of the 85 million population lives in poverty.

The government blamed the global wheat crisis sparked by the war in Ukraine. It’s the latest blow against ordinary people in Iran’s long-running economic crisis caused by US-imposed economic sanctions, and free market policies imposed by successive governments.

Ahmed Reza, a taxi driver who works ten hour days, told the Middle East Eye website, “This is not an economic surgery—it is called choking people. What kind of surgery is this that people can’t even have cheap food? Surgery usually makes people survive and feel great again. But the government’s economic surgery is killing us.”

And Soroush, a delivery worker, said he had begun cutting out certain foods four years ago, after then-US president Donald Trump imposed sanctions. “I have to eat lunch outside at noon because of my job. Until four years ago I was able to buy chicken or kebabs,” he said. But the sanctions “made me ignore chicken or kebab and purchase pasta or even cookies instead. “Right now I can’t even have these as both pasta and cookie prices have skyrocketed. I don’t know what the hell I should do.”

Thousands of people have taken part in protests for more than two weeks, in mostly western and central provinces. Protesters aimed their anger at the government led by conservative “hardliner” Ebrahim Raisi. They chanted, “Raisi should be ashamed and leave the country alone,” and “Down with rising food prices.”

Bus drivers also struck in the capital Tehran for several days from 15 May, demanding a 57 percent increase in salaries. They also demanded the city’s mayor resign. There have been a number of protest movements and strikes in Iran over poverty and the rising cost of living since 2018. Then, huge protests took on the government over poverty, unemployment and government corruption.

Now the government is worried there could be yet another major wave of resistance.

An unnamed Iranian sociologist told Middle East Eye, “People have no way except to rise up because they do not have enough income or savings. These protests are driven by economic hardship rather than political opposition. The protesters are hungry.

“If we don’t listen to the loud voice of the people now, and think that we can end these protests by imprisoning and detaining a few people, I must say it will be the fire under the ashes, and it will be ignited in another place and another situation. When a society reaches the phase of explosion, no one will be able to control it.

SOCIALIST WORKER 

A Free Market at All Costs? The renaissance of economic security and its application in Japan


May 24, 2022
Red Watch reports, Reports

The economic dimension of national security is not a new concept, yet it was generally neglected in the West for a long time, especially in the post-Cold War era, a unipolar moment in the international order, when the United States held the uncontested lead and it seemed as if neoliberalism had triumphed. Since the 2000s, new geopolitical tensions have brought economic security back to the fore. As authoritarian and dictatorial regimes began extensively reaching for methods of hybrid and economic warfare, an urgent need for a protective policy response emerged on the other side.

The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the evolution of the concept of economic security and to review recent relevant initiatives adopted in Japan by the new Kishida government, which might serve as an inspiration for policy development in Europe and elsewhere.

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The solvable health issue that kills more than malaria, AIDS and TB

BY DESMOND JUMBAM

MAY 24, 2022

In most African countries, quality surgery is only for the rich.

Doctors perform obstetric fistula surgery in Eldoret, Kenya. Credit: Heidi Breeze-Harris/One By One.

For decades, global health donors have understandably prioritised infectious diseases like malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS in their efforts to save lives and improve health. However, new evidence suggests that about 30% of the global disease burden (death and disability from major diseases and injuries) could be addressed surgically – including in Africa. This includes conditions such as obstructed labour, trauma from road traffic accidents, cataracts, cancers, and congenital anomalies.

In fact, surprising new data shows that poor quality surgical care or lack of access to such care now accounts for more annual global deaths than HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined.

Globally, about two-thirds of the world’s population (five billion people) lack access to safe, timely, and affordable surgery. In sub-Saharan Africa, 93% of people lack access to surgical care, compared to 3.6% in high income countries. The solution is not just more surgery but higher quality of surgery.

In Africa, the impact of poor access to quality surgical care is particularly dismal. Take maternity services. African governments and global decision makers have committed to reducing maternal mortality and ensuring that no woman dies in pregnancy or childbirth. Yet African mothers are 50 times more likely to die after giving birth by caesarean section than women in high-income countries. The drivers of this shockingly high statistic are heavy bleeding after giving birth (peripartum haemorrhage) and anaesthesia complications, both of which can be addressed by improved patient assessments and training.

Unlike high-income countries where surgical patients tend to be older, surgical patients in Africa are generally younger and have fewer health conditions that might complicate their care. Yet they are still more likely to develop infections after surgery than patients in higher income settings.

Sadly, I know this from personal experience. One year ago, I broke my thigh bone in a terrible car accident on the busiest highway in Cameroon. After thoroughly researching the safest and most skilled place to have a bone fracture reduction, I decided on a private clinic in the capital Yaoundé. I paid thousands of dollars for the surgical care I received. Unfortunately, almost three months later, I discovered that I had developed a bone infection, most likely because of poor sterilisation during the surgery. The operation had to be redone, followed by months of gruelling and expensive antibiotic treatment and physiotherapy.

I thought to myself: if this is the best quality care that I, a relatively privileged young man, can receive in Yaoundé, what is the situation for the majority who live below the poverty line? And with road accident rates rising across Africa, the demand for trauma surgery is only going to increase.

Safe, timely and affordable surgical services are an essential element of any system that professes to provide universal health care, according to Tedros Ghebreyesus, Director General of the World Health Organisation. However, in most African countries, quality surgery is, in reality, only for the rich.

We all know that when top government officials and business elites in Africa need surgery, they fly to Dubai, the US, or Europe. The majority of the population that doesn’t have the luxury of being airlifted to fancy foreign hospitals are left to suffer substandard care, if they have access to treatment at all. Children born with congenital conditions like cleft lip and palates either die of malnutrition or are stigmatised and hidden. Thousands of men and women perish from cancers that are easily treated with surgery elsewhere. Millions are further impoverished as they are forced to borrow or sacrifice their livelihoods to pay for surgical care for their loved ones.

Action, not idle plans

Some governments and donors have begun to recognise the need to improve access to quality surgical care, especially c-sections for pregnant women. Ministries of Health in Tanzania, Zambia, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Nigeria, and Madagascar have all developed national surgical, obstetrics and anaesthesia plans with the support of foreign consultants and academic institutions. Yet these plans have failed to achieve their goals, primarily because governments and donors have not allocated resources needed to implement them. The plans just sit on a shelf.

Despite the 2001 Abuja Declaration that saw African heads of state commit to spending at least 15% of government budgets on health, many governments fall far short of this target. Health care priorities also continue to be heavily influenced by foreign donors, who remain the major source of healthcare spending in most African countries.

If we are to prevent women dying from obstructed labour and African youth being decimated by road injuries, we need more than commitments, resolutions, and plans. We need action. African elites must put themselves in the shoes of ordinary citizens. Governments that have signed national surgical, obstetric and anaesthesia plans need to finance those plans and implement them – ideally from the national tax base but also by urging foreign donors to invest in their priorities.

Safe surgery is not a luxury. It is a critical part of the right to health for all.

Hungarian writer known for antisemitic remarks addresses CPAC conference

Conservative CPAC conference features Hungarian journalist the Holocaust Memorial Museum condemned for comments on Hungarian Jews.

Ron Kampeas, JTA
24.05.22 

Zsolt BayerScreenshot


Zsolt Bayer, a Hungarian journalist condemned by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum for calling Jewish critics of Hungary “excrement,” spoke to an influential American conservative conference that also was addressed by former President Donald Trump.

Bayer, Trump and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban all appeared this weekend at the annual Conservative Political Action Committee conference, held this year in Budapest. CPAC, a leading U.S. conservative attraction, where potential Republican presidential candidates often appear to assess their chances, chose Hungary for a rare conference abroad in part because Orban is seen as a bulwark against the progressive left.

As Bayer’s presence made headlines, CPAC, which is run by the American Conservative Union, in a statement on its website condemned the “left-wing media” and “globalists” for “a coordinated smear campaign on conservative leaders on both sides of the Atlantic.”

Its director, Matt Schlapp, on Twitter said criticism of Bayer’s presence was “delusional.” “We had a Rabbi open up @CPAC Hungary in prayer w[ith] Christian leaders,” Schlapp said. ” We have representatives here from Israel.”

In 2011, furious at criticism of Orban’s newly imposed restrictions on media, Bayer singled out three Jewish critics — Andras Schiff, the noted Hungarian pianist, Nick Cohen, a British journalist, and Daniel Cohn-Bendit, a French politician — as “stinking excrement” and suggested it was “unfortunate” that more Jews were not killed in a 1919 massacre of Hungarian communists.

That broadside was the basis in part for the Holocaust Museum’s rebuke of Hungary’s government in 2016 when Bayer, who co-founded Orban’s Fidesz party, was awarded Hungary’s Order of Merit.

“Bayer has a long record of racist speech and has written highly provocative antisemitic and anti-Roma articles in the Hungarian media,” the museum said at the time. Bayer, who is close to Orban, has said Roma are “not fit to live among human beings.”

A number of figures who had received the Order of Merit returned it, including a Hungarian Jewish leader. Bayer’s broadsides continued unabated; last year he attacked Antony Blinken, the U.S. Jewish secretary of state, as “rootless,” an antisemitic euphemism for Jews.

Orban at the conference embraced his role as the vanguard of the international right wing and called for conservatives to “take back” institutions in Washington and Brussels. Orban’s government has been cited by the Anti-Defamation League and other groups as trafficking in antisemitic tropes.

Bayer, the Guardian reported, appeared at a session in which he unfavorably compared the physical appearance of a black model to a white model. Bayer has in the past also used pejoratives to describe blacks.

Trump in a video address to the conference praised Orban. “He is a great leader, a great gentleman, and he just had a very big election result,” he said, referring to Orban’s recent fourth consecutive elections victory.

Also speaking were Mark Meadows — Trump’s final chief of staff as president — and Tucker Carlson, a Fox News host.

Federal Court Halts Illegal Logging in 

Endangered Grizzly Habitat in NW Montana

BY MIKE GARRITYFacebook

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Photo: Glen Phillips.

On May 25, a federal district court in Montana halted a large-scale industrial logging project in endangered grizzly bear habitat in northwestern Montana.  The Alliance for the Wild Rockies requested the preliminary injunction to protect the small, isolated, and imperiled Cabinet-Yaak grizzly bear population from further harm.

The Ripley logging project authorized almost 17 square miles of commercial logging (10,854 acres) on publicly-owned National Forest lands, including roughly five square miles of clearcuts (3,223 acres).  The project also authorized the construction of 30 miles of new logging roads, as well as reconstruction of 93 miles of logging roads.  By the U.S. Forest Service’s own estimate, the project would cost federal taxpayers $643,000 to implement because the receipts from the commercial timber sales do not cover the cost of the ecological remediation necessary after the project.

The federal court found that the project is most likely illegal because the government did not analyze the cumulative impacts on grizzly bears from logging on public lands, state lands, and private lands all at the same time.  Roads pose the biggest threat to grizzly bears, followed by logging and habitat removal.  And the Cabinet-Yaak grizzly population in particular is in bad shape.  The most recent actual count of grizzlies (published in 2021 for the 2020 monitoring year) for this population is 45 bears.  The prior year counted 50 bears, and the year before that counted 54 bears.  However, the government’s own Grizzly Bear Recovery Plan requires 100 bears for the minimum viable population.

The Cabinet-Yaak grizzly population is also failing every recovery target and goal: it is failing the target for females with cubs; it is failing the target for distribution of females with cubs; it is failing the female mortality limit (which is 0 mortalities until a minimum of 100 bears is reached); and it is failing the mortality limit for all bears (also 0 mortalities until a minimum of 100 bears is reached).

A 2016 peer-reviewed, published scientific research paper, Kendall et al. (2016), analyzed the Cabinet-Yaak grizzly population in detail based on extensive and systematic DNA collection in the region and found: “In the small Cabinet and Yaak populations, the difference between growth and decline is 1 or 2 adult females being killed annually or not.”  Humans killed two female Cabinet-Yaak grizzly bears in 2020.

Kendall et al. 2016 further found: “the small size, isolation, and inbreeding documented by this study demonstrate the need for comprehensive management designed to support [Cabinet-Yaak Ecosystem] population growth and increased connectivity and gene flow with other populations.”

Consistent with these serious concerns about the potential extirpation of the Cabinet-Yaak grizzly, the court held: “the [Cabinet-Yaak Ecosystem] population of grizzly bears is especially vulnerable.”  The court further explained that the government had relied on “knowingly false assumptions,” had “grossly misstate[d] the applicable law,” and had engaged in “evidentiary sandbagging” in the case.

The court ultimately held:  “Plaintiff is likely to succeed in proving that [the government’s] decision to not attempt to obtain and disclose data concerning reasonably certain State and private activities, and the agencies’ decision to rely on a factual assumption they know to be incorrect in assessing the Project’s cumulative effects on the grizzly bear, violated the ESA and were arbitrary and capricious.”

This win is a great victory for the Cabinet-Yaak grizzlies.  But this case is not over.  It will take a lot of hard work and money to protect this victory.  Please consider donating to support our decades-long commitment to saving the Cabinet-Yaak grizzly bear.

Mike Garrity is the executive director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies.

Cattle Grazing = Death Traps for Yellowstone

 Grizzly Bears

BY MIKE GARRITYFacebookTwitter

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Scientists estimate 46,500 -72,200 grizzly bears ranged over a million square miles of the West when European settlers showed up more than two centuries ago. Today about 1550 grizzly bears occupy only 3% of their former range in five demographically isolated populations in the Northern Rockies that face threats of inbreeding.

Grizzly bears were listed as “threatened” in the lower 48 states under the Endangered Species Act in 1975 – nearly a half century ago. The Endangered Species Act exists for one reason: to protect and recover threatened and endangered species until they are no longer vulnerable to current and foreseeable threats.

One of the major hurdles for grizzly bear recovery is to have one connected, genetically sound population – not five isolated inbred populations.  Due to the physical disconnect from other populations, the Yellowstone grizzlies remain vulnerable to inbreeding and continue to require the legal protections of the Endangered Species Act.

As the range of grizzlies expands, the most promising corridor for reconnecting Yellowstone’s bears with other populations is the area including and surrounding the Beartooth-Absaroka Wilderness Area on Yellowstone National Park’s northern border.

And that’s where the problem comes in – and why the Alliance for the Wild Rockies and seven other conservation groups recently sent a 60-day Notice of Intent to Sue the Forest Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over the decision to renew and expand the East Paradise cattle grazing allotments.  Simply put, sticking cattle in grizzly habitat has one predictable result – a death sentence for the grizzlies.

The East Paradise decision also moves up the cattle grazing season from July 1 to June 1, virtually ensuring the cows and new calves will run into grizzly bears that are hungry after hibernating all winter.  Traditionally, grizzlies stalk early season elk and deer calves for an easy meal.  But now, thanks to this reckless public lands grazing decision, hungry grizzlies will also find cattle calves as another easy meal.

Calves account for almost all grizzly bear depredation and the younger the calf, the greater the odds of falling victim to these predators—with peak vulnerability up to 5 months old.  Depredation is virtually guaranteed if cattle are left unattended for weeks on end as they are in the East Paradise and many other grazing allotments.

It is not like we have a shortage of threatened or endangered cows!  Montana has an estimated 2.6 million cows – 1,733 cows for every one of the estimated 1500 grizzlies scattered over the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and the rest of Montana.  As historic foods such as highly nutritious whitebark pine nuts and Yellowstone cutthroat trout decline due to climate change and the planting of non-native fish, grizzly bears are expanding their range and eating more meat – and are now at greater risk of being killed as they conflict with humans and livestock in a desperate search for food.

Although most human-caused grizzly mortalities occur near roads through poaching, mis-identification by black bear hunters, and collisions, when bears hassle cattle, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services is called in to kill them. In the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, Fish and Wildlife reports that from 1980 to 2001 of the 191 total grizzly mortalities, 82% or 156 were human caused mortalities.  Of these 156 killed grizzlies, nine bears were killed to protect livestock interests.

From 2002 to 2020, however, the numbers jumped significantly.  Of the 563 grizzlies that died 86% or 483 were killed by humans.  Of these 483 grizzlies killed by people, 122 bears were killed to protect livestock – more than one in four!  In Wyoming’s Upper Green River grazing allotments on the south side of Yellowstone the Fish and Wildlife Services recently authorized killing 72 grizzly bears over 10 years to protect cattle.

We’re giving the Forest Service 60 days to reconsider their grazing decision and do the right thing for America’s grizzly bear recovery efforts.  The agency should simply retire these grazing allotments that are enticing grizzly bears into death traps with an easy meal and restore the native vegetation that’s been battered by livestock to provide healthy, secure habitat so grizzly bears can safely move between Yellowstone and other ecosystems.

But if the Forest Service decides to go ahead with their ill-advised grazing leases, we will take them to federal court. We’d greatly appreciate your help in doing everything possible to attain safe travel corridors and the highest level of security for bears by retiring grazing allotment death traps for grizzly bears.

Mike Garrity is the executive director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies.

How unions are backing BDS


Olivia Katbi The Electronic Intifada 25 May 2022
Recent divestment resolutions in Oregon could lay the groundwork for bolder BDS campaigning within the labor movement. Gabriele Holtermann-GordenSIPA

Major unions and labor federations in Oregon recently passed unprecedented resolutions calling for divestment from an Israeli company over its human rights abuses.

In March, both the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), collectively representing more than 300,000 workers in the state, passed a resolution calling for the state of Oregon to divest from the fund that owns Israeli spyware firm NSO.

The resolution also calls on the state to implement a human rights screening for all future investments.

And just weeks ago, the Oregon Education Association, representing more than 40,000 teachers, passed a similar resolution at its convention.

The passing of these resolutions comes after multiple investigations revealed a shocking record of human rights abuses committed by governments around the world using NSO’s controversial Pegasus spyware.

Following these investigations, the NSO Group was blacklisted by the Biden administration’s commerce department.

The state of Oregon’s public pension fund is one of the largest investors in Novalpina Capital, the private equity firm which acquired NSO in 2019 – a move that the Guardian recently revealed was tacitly approved by Oregon state officials.

This isn’t the first time that Oregon’s state pension fund, valued at $100 billion earlier this year, has come under pressure. Local activists have been pushing for divestment from fossil fuels and private prisons.

But state treasury officials have repeatedly claimed that they are unable to divest because it would “put political or social goals first.”

However, those claims seem to be optional and based on perceived “enemies” of the US.

In March, state treasurer Tobias Read said that he would look into divesting from Russian holdings because “we support the people of Ukraine.”

This implies that companies such as NSO, which was recently deemed “valueless” to private equity backers, are otherwise financially sound investments for the state.
Increasing solidarity

But as state lawmakers try to hinder human rights and climate divestment actions, labor is pushing ahead.

And their divestment resolutions reflect workers’ increasing solidarity with Palestinians.

In 2021, teachers’ unions in San Francisco, Seattle and Portland passed resolutions in support of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign for the first time in the US.

The NSO divestment resolution moved by the Oregon Education Association was written by a teacher from the Parkrose Faculty Association – the Portland union which unanimously endorsed BDS last year.

Parkrose teachers held educational sessions for students and staff on BDS and Palestine during Israel’s attacks on Gaza in May 2021, and carried out the vote on BDS a few weeks later.

As an athletics coach at Parkrose, I spoke at an educational session and helped craft the language for the resolution, much of which was adopted from the San Francisco teachers’ successful resolution.

The passage of the Oregon Education Association’s NSO resolution was the logical next step for the Parkrose teachers to put their solidarity into action.

And the major labor unions followed suit.

The language of the AFL-CIO/AFSCME resolution calls on the unions to urge the state treasurer and the Oregon investment council to divest from “all funds managed or formerly managed by Novalpina Capital,” including the NSO fund managed by Novalpina’s owner, the consulting firm Berkeley Research Group.

Meanwhile, the unions’ calls for the implementation of an investment screening for all state investments – and annual transparency on those investments – are significant for future BDS campaigning.

Even while NSO may be losing business, other Israeli and global surveillance companies are already taking its place.

The Israeli software firm Cognyte, and its parent company Verint, have supplied surveillance technology to repressive governments.

And Israel’s Cellebrite, for example, has boasted of its cyberwarfare software being used by governments, law enforcement agencies and military intelligence in more than 60 countries.
Expanding BDS through labor

Oregon’s resolution lays the groundwork for much bigger, bolder BDS campaigning within the labor movement.

A Portland-based coalition, Demilitarize Portland to Palestine, was formed in 2020 and has been campaigning for divestment from NSO since the news of its blacklisting broke.

The coalition – which includes Jewish Voice for Peace, Hurriyah Collective, Portland Democratic Socialists of America, Hindus for Human Rights, Critical Resistance Portland and others – works locally in Portland on a range of issues that includes Palestine solidarity, and many union members belong to these groups and have helped forge these connections.

Coalition members worked with union activists to share information about NSO and draft language for the resolutions calling for divestment.

After its passing, the Oregon resolution was sent to the National AFL-CIO leadership body.

The national union currently manages $3.6 billion in member investments.

This kind of partnership can be a template for the work that human rights activists should engage in with labor unions across the country.

Using broad human rights-based language to screen investments would make it possible for union members to make sure their funds aren’t invested in any companies that commit human rights abuses against Palestinians.

Labor activists could screen for a wide variety of corporate complicity in Israel’s crimes against Palestinians, drawing from the 112 companies listed on the ​​United Nations Human Rights Council’s 2020 database.

Union organizing in the US is making gains not seen in decades, most recently with workers at Starbucks and Amazon achieving historic victories.

These kinds of campaigns are being led and supported by young workers and activists, including in Portland.

Our local chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America helped lead and support Portland’s first unionized Starbucks.

The Portland DSA also has a strong track record of BDS campaigning.

It’s not a coincidence that the labor movement and the Palestine movement are coalescing – these causes have long been bound together.

This divestment resolution lays the groundwork for a new generation of labor rank and file to continue mainstreaming support for Palestine, and to move that support into concrete action.

After all, solidarity with Palestine is a three-letter word – BDS.

Olivia Katbi is the North America coordinator for the BDS Movement. She is also a member of the Portland Democratic Socialists of America and is based in Portland, Oregon.

Global automakers face electric shock in China

By Norihiko Shirouzu - 5h ago

BEIJING (Reuters) - If global automakers think they can extend their dominance in China into the electric era, they may be in for a shock.

Kings of the combustion age such as General Motors and Volkswagen are falling behind local players in the booming electric vehicle (EV) market in China, a country that's key to funding and developing their electric and autonomous ambitions.

For Beijing office worker Tianna Cheng, the main dilemma when she was buying a 180,000-yuan ($27,000) Xpeng electric crossover was whether she should go for a BYD car instead, or a Nio; she did not seriously consider overseas marques.

"If I was buying a gasoline car, I may have considered foreign brands," the 29-year-old said as she drove home from work. "But I wanted an EV, and other than Tesla, I saw few foreign brands applying advanced smart technology properly."


© Reuters/ALY SONGFILE PHOTO: Auto Shanghai show in Shanghai

Buoyed by demand from consumers like Cheng, electric car sales are rocketing in China's roughly $500 billion auto market, the world's biggest.

In the first four months of 2022, the number of new energy passenger cars - pure EVs and plug-in hybrids - more than doubled from a year earlier to 1.49 million cars, according to data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.

The cleaner technologies accounted for 23% of China's passenger car market, where overall vehicle sales fell 12%, reflecting a steep decline in demand for gasoline cars.

There are no foreign brands among the top 10 automakers in the new energy vehicle (NEV) segment this year, with the notable exception of U.S. electric pioneer Tesla in third place, according to China Passenger Car Association data.

All the rest are Chinese brands, from BYD and Wuling to Chery and Xpeng. China leader BYD has sold about 390,000 EVs in the country this year, more than three times as many as global leader Tesla sold there. The top-ranked traditional carmaker is Volkswagen's venture with FAW Group, in 15th place for EV sales.


© Reuters/SUN YILEIFILE PHOTO: People check a Volkswagen ID.4 X electric vehicle inside an ID. Store X showroom of SAIC Volkswagen in Chengdu

Cheng said that overseas marques, whether the Buick Velite 7 or Volkswagen's ID. series, failed to provide what she was looking for: an EV capable of giving her the "comfort" of having a smartphone-like experience in her vehicle.


© Reuters/Aly SongFILE PHOTO: A Volkswagen ID.6 X is displayed ahead of the Shanghai Auto Show, in Shanghai

"Foreign brands are so far from my life and lifestyle," said Cheng, whose digital assistant handles connections to apps like Alipay and Taobao and "does everything for me from opening the windows to turning on music", while her car software provides over-the-air updates.

It's quite a reversal. Global brands have dominated in China since the 1990s, typically winning a collective 60-70% share of passenger car sales in recent years. In the first four months of 2022 they captured 52%, with their April monthly share at 43%.

Signalling the scale of the challenge facing traditional automakers, Nissan CEO Makoto Uchida told Reuters that some brands "could disappear in three to five years" in China.

"Local brands are becoming stronger," said Uchida, who was formerly Nissan's China chief, adding that the quality of EVs from Chinese makers had improved rapidly, with advances being made in the space of months.

"There will be a lot of transformation in China and we need to carefully watch the situation," said the CEO, adding that carmakers had to be nimble in the design, development and launch of new models.


© Reuters/Brendan McDermidFILE PHOTO: VW logo at 2022 New York International Auto Show

"In those aspects, if we were slow, we would be left behind."

'HI-TECH NATIVES'

Bill Russo, a former Chrysler executive who now heads Shanghai-based consultancy Automobility, said global brands need to turn the situation around quickly because they controlled less than 20% of China's only growth auto market.

"Chinese brands are wining the race to EV," said Russo, adding that consumers' shift to cars that are essentially smartphones on four wheels appeared irreversible and that traditional carmakers were having trouble keeping up.

"I think it's a secular shift toward hi-tech," he said of the consumer demand for a "user-centric digital services experience" with a focus on interface, connectivity and apps.

"Traditional companies are not hi-tech natives."

Volkswagen Group brands, including Volkswagen, Audi, Bentley, Lamborghini, Porsche and Skoda, have led the market for much of the past two decades, alongside General Motors marques such as Buick, Chevrolet and Cadillac.

The two global groups had overall auto market shares of almost 13% and 12% respectively in China last year, according to LMC Automotive. Detroit giant GM also has a 44% stake in the locally controlled SAIC-GM-Wuling Auto (SGMW) venture, and includes its sales in group numbers, though SGMW does not make American brands, only Wuling and Baojun cars.


© Reuters/Rebecca CookFILE PHOTO: Logo of GM atop the company headquarters

GM is now focused on winning over younger buyers in big cities that have hitherto largely snubbed its models according to two people familiar with the automaker's business in China.

The group has announced electrification plans to spend more than $35 billion globally by 2025, including more than 30 new EVs, over 20 of them in China, starting this year with the launch of the all-electric Cadillac Lyriq crossover SUV.

The two sources said the Lyriq launch would be followed by an electric Buick SUV and a smaller, sportier electric crossover, both also planned for as early as this year.

Sales of Buicks have declined 32% over the last five years to 828,600 vehicles in 2021, while Chevrolet has shrunk more than half to 269,000 vehicles, according to LMC Automotive.

GM told Reuters it was aiming to install capacity to produce 1 million EVs a year by 2025 in China, adding that demand for the Buick Velite NEV family and Chevrolet Menlo EV "both grew significantly" in 2021 and the first three months of this year.

It said it was deploying smart technologies including hands-free driver assistance on highways, "aviation-grade" cyber security and over-the-air software updates.

AUTOBAHN SPEED?

Volkswagen, which is spending around $55 billion globally on EVs by 2026, launched its new-generation of ID. series in China early last year but missed its goal of selling 80,000 to 100,000 cars last year. It aims to sell 160,000 to 200,000 ID. cars this year, though it has sold only 33,300 through April.

A key concern for foreign brands, according to one of the people close to GM plus a Volkswagen insider, is that their new EVs are being designed more for American and European markets in mind, with a heavier focus on performance and durability.

"Autobahn speeds? In most big cities in China traffic is so congested people can't even drive above 60 km/h on most days," said the source close to GM, who is familiar with the automaker's product plans and product-development processes.

Volkswagen said NEV demand in China was strongly linked to the "smart car" theme, adding that it was investing in local R&D, especially in software.

"Our strategy will enable us to achieve our ambitious targets in China. By 2030, we also want to be the market leader in e-vehicles and thus ensure that Volkswagen remains the number one in China in the future," it added.

The challenge for global brands is to find the formula to win over consumers in big cities with disposable incomes, like Cheng in Beijing and Li Huayuan, a civil engineer from Shanghai.

Li only half-heartedly considered Japanese and German brands when he bought his BYD electric sedan last year for 290,000 yuan including insurance.

"Seems to me only Tesla stands out when it comes to American brands," he said from his parked BYD car in the Sichuan provincial city of Mianyang where he's working on a project. "The other brands don't even look competitive to me."

($1 = 6.6499 Chinese yuan renminbi)

(Reporting by Norihiko Shirouzu; Additional reporting by Zoey Zhang in Shanghai, Kevin Krolicki in Singapore and David Dolan in Tokyo; Editing by Pravin Char)

Housekeepers struggle as US hotels ditch daily room cleaning



HONOLULU (AP) — After guests checked out of a corner room at the Hilton Hawaiian Village resort on Waikiki beach, housekeeper Luz Espejo collected enough trash, some strewn under beds, to stuff seven large garbage bags.

She stripped the linens from the beds, wiped built-up dust off furniture and scrubbed away layers of grime on the toilet and bathtub. She even got on her hands and knees to pick confetti from the carpet that a heavy-duty vacuum failed to swallow up.

Like many other hotels across the United States, the Hilton Hawaiian Village has done away with daily housekeeping service, making what was already one of the toughest jobs in the hospitality industry even more grueling.

Industry insiders say the move away from daily cleaning, which gained traction during the pandemic, is driven by customer preferences. But others say it has more to do with profit and has allowed hotels to cut the number of housekeepers at a time when many of the mostly immigrant women who take those jobs are still reeling from lost work during coronavirus shutdowns.

Many housekeepers still employed say their hours have been cut and they are being asked to do far more work in that time.

“It's a big change for us,” said Espejo, a 60-year-old originally from the Philippines who has cleaned rooms at the world's largest Hilton for 18 years, minus about a year she was laid off during the pandemic. “We are so busy at work now. We cannot finish cleaning our rooms.”

Before the pandemic there were 670 housekeepers working at Espejo’s resort. More than two years later, 150 of them haven’t been hired back or are on-call status, spending each day from 5:30 a.m. to 10 a.m. waiting for a phone call saying there’s work for them. The number not hired back or on call stood at 300 just a few weeks ago.

“This is all about more money in the owners’ pocket by putting a greater workload on the frontline workers and eliminating jobs," said D. Taylor, president of UNITE HERE, a union representing hotel workers.

While some hotels started experimenting with less frequent cleaning in the name of sustainability, it became far more widespread early in the pandemic, when to promote social distancing and other safety protocols, many hotels switched to offering room cleaning only if a guest requested, and sometimes only after staying a certain number of days. Guests were instructed to leave trash outside their door and call the front desk for clean towels.

But even as safety restrictions fade and demand picks up as the country enters peak travel season, many hotels are keeping their new cleaning policies in place.

A spokesperson for the Hilton Hawaiian Village said no Hilton representative was available for an interview about such policies at any Hilton property. Representatives for several major hotel chains, including Marriott and Caesars Entertainment, either declined to be interviewed or didn't respond to Associated Press requests for comment.

Chip Rogers, president and CEO of the American Hotel & Lodging Association, a trade group whose members include hotel brands, owners and management companies, said it was the demands of guests — not hotel profits — that guided decisions about pandemic housekeeper services.

“A lot of guests, to this day, don't want people coming into their room during their stay," he said. “To force something onto a guest that they don't want is the antithesis of what it means to work in the hospitality industry.”

The pandemic changed the standard of most hotel guests wanting daily cleaning, he said, adding it's not yet clear if that will result in a permanent shift.

Housekeeping policies vary based on the type of hotel, Rogers said, with luxury hotels tending to provide daily housekeeping unless guests opt out.

Ben McLeod, of Bend, Oregon, and his family didn’t request housekeeping during a four-night stay at the Westin Hapuna Beach Resort on Hawaii’s Big Island in March.

“My wife and I just have never really understood why there would be daily housekeeping ... when that’s not the case at home and it’s wasteful,” he said.

He said he expects his kids to tidy up after themselves.

“I’m a Type-A, so I get out of bed and I make my bed, so I don’t need someone else to make my bed,” he said.

Unionized hotel workers are trying get the message out that turning down daily room cleaning is hurting housekeepers and threatening jobs.

Martha Bonilla, who has spent 10 years working at the Caesars Atlantic City Hotel & Casino in New Jersey, said she wants guests to ask for daily cleaning, noting it makes her job less difficult. Even though hotels in New Jersey are required by law to offer daily cleaning, some guests still turn it down.

“When I come home from work now, the only thing I want to do is go to bed,” said Bonilla, originally from the Dominican Republic and a single mother of a 6-year-old daughter. “I am physically exhausted.”

It's not just partying guests like the ones who threw confetti around in Hawaii that leave behind filthy rooms, housekeepers say. Even with typical use, rooms left uncleaned for days become much harder to restore to the gleaming, pristine rooms guests expect when they check in.

Elvia Angulo, a housekeeper at the Oakland Marriott City Center for 17 years, is the main breadwinner in her family.

For the first year of the pandemic, she worked a day or two a month. She has regained her 40 hours a week, but with rooms no longer cleaned daily the number of people working each shift has been cut in half, from 25 to 12.

“Thank God I have seniority here so I now have my five days again, and my salary is the same," said Angulo, 54, who is from Mexico. “But the work really is now harder. If you don’t clean a room for five days you have five days of scum in the bathrooms. It’s scum over scum.”

Many housekeepers still aren’t getting enough hours to qualify for benefits.

Sonia Guevara, who has worked at a Seattle Hilton for seven years, used to really enjoy the benefits at her job. But since returning to work after being laid off for 18 months, she hasn't qualified for health insurance.

“At first I was thinking to get a new job, but I feel like I want to wait,” she said. “I want to see if my hours change at the hotel.”

She said there are few other job options with hours conducive for having two children in school.

Now politicians are picking up on the issue, including Hawaii state Rep. Sonny Ganaden, who represents Kalihi, a Honolulu neighborhood where many hotel workers live.

“Almost every time I talk to people at their doors, I meet someone who works in a hotel and then we talk about how they are overworked and what is happening and working conditions,” he said. “You've got a lot of first- and second-generation immigrant folks that are kind of left high and dry by these non-daily room cleaning requirements."

Ganaden is among the lawmakers who introduced a resolution requesting Hawaii hotels “immediately rehire or recall employees who were laid off or placed on leave” because of the pandemic.

If that's not enough, Ganaden said he would be open to more forceful measures like some other places have taken.

Washington, D.C.’s city council in April passed emergency legislation requiring hotels in the district to service rooms daily unless guests opt-out.

Amal Hligue, an immigrant from Morocco, hopes the rules mean more hours at the Washington Hilton where she has worked for 22 years. She needs them so her husband can get health insurance.

“I hope he has this month because I worked last month," she said.

At 57 years old, she doesn't want to find a new job. “I'm not young, you know,” she said. “I have to stay.”

___

Snow reported from Phoenix.

Jennifer Sinco Kelleher And Anita Snow, The Associated Press

Inuit afraid to show Baffinland support: former councillor

Yesterday

There are Inuit who support Baffinland Iron Mines Corp.’s proposed mine expansion, but they might not say so out loud, says a former Pond Inlet hamlet councillor.

Joanna Innualuk-Kunnuk said people have always been wary of supporting the mine publicly.

“Most of the people who support phase two won’t say anything,” Innualuk-Kunnuk said in an interview.

“When you’re poor and hungry, you have no say. And the people who are more wealthy have a better say, because they show themselves as a successful person and you’re not.”

On May 13, the Nunavut Impact Review Board recommended federal Northern Affairs Minister Daniel Vandal reject Baffinland Iron Mines Corp.’s Mary River plan to build a 110-kilometre railroad and double its shipping output from six to 12 million tonnes of iron ore per year.

Vandal’s decision is expected later this summer.

The board’s recommendation concluded a four-year public hearing that heard from community members, Inuit organizations, Baffinland, hamlets and hunters and trappers organizations in communities that may be affected by the expansion.

Baffinland stated throughout the hearing that it may temporarily close down the mine if Vandal doesn’t issue the company a project certificate.

If the proposal is approved, the company expects expansion to bring 127 jobs to the community.

Innualuk-Kunnuk said she wants to see the expansion happen slowly and carefully, so it doesn’t come at the expense of the land and animals.

“I want [the mine] to grow, but I don’t want it to grow so fast that it ruins us and our community and the land and the animals,” Innualuk-Kunnuk said.

She wants young people in the community to be able to get jobs and afford equipment to hunt. She’s proud of the ones who are already working at the mine and can afford snowmobiles.

In April, she had to resign from council and leave Pond Inlet to receive cancer treatment in Ottawa.

“I still need my grandkids and my great-grandkids to have land and hunting and teach them about our ways,” she said.

“[But] in order to keep our traditions alive, we need economic development to grow in our communities so we can buy stuff to take us out on land … so it’s mixed feelings.”

A lack of trust between some Inuit and the company began around December 2012, when Baffinland received a project certificate to ship 18 million tonnes of iron ore through Steensby Inlet and build a 149-kilometre railway connecting that port to the mine, she said.

Just over a month later, the company said it couldn’t afford that project and instead needed to make money by trucking 3.5 million tonnes of iron ore to Milne Inlet.

“We shouldn’t have said yes to the money-making proposal at first,” Innualuk-Kunnuk said.

“The elders and all the people in Pond said, ‘Yes, go ahead, go ahead’ [with the Steensby Inlet plan]. Then [the company] changed and Baffinland kind of tricked us.”

The company said in November it still plans to fulfill that project certificate and eventually have 30 million tonnes of iron ore being shipped per year — 12 million out of Milne Inlet and 18 from Steensby Inlet.

Baffinland spokesperson Peter Akman confirmed that is still the plan, but said the company will have to re-evaluate its future if the expansion is not approved by Vandal.

Kaujak Komangapik, an elder, mother and board member of the Mittimatalik Hunters and Trappers Organization, said she wants to see Baffinland revert back to its Steensby Inlet proposal, because Milne Inlet shouldn’t be open to mining.

“I don’t want Milne Inlet to be serving ships, because narwhals usually migrate over there,” she said, adding she is happy with the review board’s recommendation because the company is “damaging the land already.”

Baffinland has implemented monitoring systems that are run partially by Inuit for environmental impacts, such as the marine and terrestrial working groups. They identify and then address any effects the mine might have on the environment, Akman said.

In terms of narwhal, the company has produced three consecutive years of aerial surveys the federal government typically does every seven years, and plans to implement a tagging program in 2022, Akman said.

“Our environmental monitoring programs continue to confirm the effects of the project are within what was predicted,” he said. “This does not mean the effects the communities are experiencing are not also happening, but in all cases the project is not driving them.”

Aaron Pitseolak, a hunter and office administrator for the Nunavut government, attributes the lack of narwhals around Milne Inlet to the ship noise and said some of the water near the project is discoloured, translucent and dusty.

“For me, no mining would be good, but they’re not going to go away. It’s best [to] try to work with them and see what can work better always and gear towards that,” Pitseolak said.

Baffinland has moved closer to where some Inuit want to see it, but he believes it can do better, he said.

“Bringing jobs — I’m really happy for that. But at what cost, right?” he said. “The land and animals are going to suffer and, in turn, us.”

Asked if Baffinland agrees there are impacts caused by dust from the mine, Akman said it hasn’t caused any “unanticipated impacts” to air, water, fish, freshwater or vegetation, and that there are other natural causes of dust spread.

“The visibility of dust on snow or in drinking water affects Inuit perceptions regarding the esthetics and quality of the environment,” he said, adding Baffinland will commit to improving its dust management.

The company has proposed to crush ore indoors, spray the tote road with material to contain the dust, and postpone shiploading when there are high winds if phase two is approved, Akman said.

David Venn, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Nunatsiaq News

Alberta government creates more EMS positions, but union says it’s not enough



Alberta's push to hire more paramedics is not enough to solve the crisis in the province's emergency response system, according to the Health Sciences Association of Alberta (HSAA).


© Erika Tucker / Global News

Alberta's push to hire more paramedics is not enough to solve the crisis in the province's emergency response system, according to the Health Sciences Association of Alberta (HSAA).

Paula Tran - GLOBAL NEWS

In a press release on Wednesday morning, Alberta's health ministry announced it is creating 100 new EMS positions and extending 70 temporary positions in a bid to ease the province's paramedic shortage.

These new EMS positions include:

40 new primary care paramedic positions, 20 each in Calgary and Edmonton

16 new emergency medical responders for inter-facility transfers, eight each in Calgary and Edmonton

Two new advanced care paramedics and two new primary care paramedics for suburban-rural coverage in Calgary

40 new temporary rover positions (staff who may fill in at various stations in a zone) in Calgary and Edmonton. The north, central and south zones will each have 10 positions extended until March 2023.

The province also announced it has secured nine new ambulances: five will be deployed in Edmonton and four will be deployed in Calgary by the end of June. Ten more will be added to the fleet by the end of September, with five allocated in each city.

Read more:

‘We’re on our knees’: Alberta EMS union says system on the verge of collapse

"Unfortunately in this province, we are running them so hard ... It's taking its toll on the crews," HSAA president Michael Parker said at a Wednesday afternoon news conference.

"The problem is we don't have any people to hire. We've got none left. (The positions) have been open for a while, so good luck finding them."

Death of Alberta paramedic reignites discussion over state of EMS in the province

The announcement comes after new Alberta Health Services Emergency Services quarterly data showed ambulance response times in urban areas progressively worsened in the past year.

The HSAA previously said the situation is so dire that red alerts are becoming more common and more intense.

Typically, red alerts are issued when there are no ambulances within a jurisdiction able to respond to emergency calls or for incidents that can potentially overwhelm local hospitals.

Read more:

Urgent care needed for Alberta emergency departments: doctors

Health Minister Jason Copping said the new positions are part of the $587 million operating budget for EMS in Budget 2022, which included funding for an additional 20 ambulances in Edmonton and Calgary. Copping disagrees that the province has trouble hiring paramedics, however.

"We're actually having success filling the positions, which is fantastic. This is all part of building our capacity for our health-care system," Copping told reporters on Wednesday.

"These are fully funded (positions) and they've been fully funded for a long time."

Read more:

Calgarians waiting longer in hospital emergency rooms: AHS data

Alberta NDP health critic David Shepherd criticized the press release, claiming the Alberta government is re-announcing past initiatives and funding that was put forward by the United Conservative Party.

He also urged the UCP to hire more permanent EMS staff, a demand the HSAA has also previously made.

"There is nothing normal about the crisis we are experiencing.

"We should be offering every paramedic permanent full-time positions with benefits, and we need to ramp up services and resources to address a worsening drug poisoning crisis," Shepherd said.