Peru expects lower economic growth on impact of mine protests

Fri, June 17, 2022

Protest against the suspension of the Las Bambas mine, in Lima

LIMA (Reuters) - Peru's economic growth will likely be slightly lower this year, according to a new central bank forecast on Friday following disruptions to major mining projects in the Andean nation, the world's second biggest copper producer.

Soaring consumer prices and creeping borrowing costs have clipped growth expectations across Latin America, with developing economies especially vulnerable to the economic volatility.

Peru's central bank lowered its 2022 growth projection to 3.1% from 3.4% previously, while maintaining its estimate for 3.2% growth next year, bank president Julio Velarde said in a presentation.

Velarde cited persistent mining conflicts, in addition to the impact of the Russia-Ukraine war, as driving the downwardly revised growth projection.

Protests by indigenous people have disrupted Peru's mining sector in recent months, including a 51-day shutdown at China-based MMG Ltd's Las Bambas copper mine, a top global producer of the red metal.

"Other sectors are behaving better than we expected in March. What is falling is mining," said Velarde.

The central bank slashed its 2022 growth expectation for the mining sector from 5.9% to 2.9%.

Velarde said he sees mining investment falling by nearly 5% this year, and a much steeper fall potentially in 2023.

"If no new projects appear next year ... there will be a contraction in mining investment next year of almost 16%."

The bank's projections also include a lower fiscal deficit this year of 1.9% of gross domestic product compared to 2.5% previously projected in March, principally due to higher revenue, Velarde said.

The bank expects annual inflation of 6.4% for 2022 and 2.5% for 2023. In March, the bank said it expected 3.6% inflation this year.

Annual inflation in May reached 8.09%, its highest level in two dozen years, leading the bank to raise its benchmark interest rate to 5.5% earlier this month.

(Reporting by Marco Aquino and Brendan O'Boyle; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Grant McCool)

'Free Speech Absolutist' Fires SpaceX Employees For Writing Open Letter

Ryan Grenoble

Fri, June 17, 2022, 

SpaceX, a private rocket company owned by a man who professes to be a “free speech absolutist,” has fired the employees it says authored an open letter criticizing its owner’s antics on Twitter.

The owner in question is, of course, Elon Musk, whose public escapades have escalated sharply since he rushed into an ill-advised deal to purchase Twitter in April.

A circulating draft of the letter, first reported by The Verge earlier this week, resulted in the terminations of an unknown number of staffers Thursday afternoon.

Authors of the letter urged SpaceX executives to “swiftly and explicitly” separate the company “from Elon’s personal brand,” and argued that the billionaire’s recent “behavior in the public sphere” is a “frequent source of distraction and embarrassment” for the company.

“As our CEO and most prominent spokesperson, Elon is seen as the face of SpaceX ― every Tweet that Elon sends is a de facto public statement by the company,” the letter read. “It is critical to make clear to our teams and to our potential talent pool that his messaging does not reflect our work, our mission, or our values.”

Musk has also long promoted an official “no asshole” workplace policy at SpaceX along with a “zero tolerance” policy on sexual harassment, both of which the authors asked management to clarify and enforce consistently.

“SpaceX must establish safe avenues for reporting and uphold clear repercussions for all unacceptable behavior, whether from the CEO or an employee starting their first day,” they wrote.

SpaceX and Musk himself are both facing separate sexual harassment allegations.

Numerous former employees told The Verge last year that SpaceX’s HR department hasn’t taken harassment complaints seriously. That includes Ashley Kosak, a former mission integration engineer, who described a work environment in which she “couldn’t stop getting sexually harassed” in a blog after she quit.

Musk is also facing fallout from a high-profile allegation of sexual harassment involving a former flight attendant, which he called “utterly untrue.”

SpaceX president and COO Gwynne Shotwell emailed employees Thursday after the terminations and criticized the letter as a form of “overreaching activism.”

“The letter, solicitations and general process made employees feel uncomfortable, intimidated and bullied, and/or angry because the letter pressured them to sign onto something that did not reflect their views,” Shotwell wrote in the email, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times. “We have too much critical work to accomplish and no need for this kind of overreaching activism.”

Bot Discovers Why Some Autistic Adults Can’t Detect Emotion

Tony Ho Tran

 Fri, June 17, 2022, 

Witthaya Prasongsin via Getty

One common symptom that people with autism struggle with is the inability to interpret facial expressions. This can lead to difficulty in reading social cues in their personal lives, school, workplace, and even media like movies and TV shows. However, researchers at MIT have created an AI that helped shed light on why exactly this is.

A paper published on Wednesday in The Journal of Neuroscience unveiled research that found that neurotypical adults (those not displaying autistic characteristics) and adults with autism might have key differences in a region of their brain called the IT cortex. These differences could determine whether or not they can detect emotions via facial expressions.

“For visual behaviors, the study suggests that [the IT cortex] plays a strong role,” Kohitij Kar, a neuroscientist at MIT and author of the study, told The Daily Beast. “But it might not be the only region. Other regions like amygdala have been implicated strongly as well. But these studies illustrate how having good [AI models] of the brain will be key to identifying those regions as well.”

Kar’s neural network actually draws on a previous experiment conducted by other researchers. In that study, AI-generated pictures of faces that displayed different emotions ranging from fearful to happy were shown to autistic adults and neurotypical adults. The volunteers judged whether the faces were happy—with the autistic adults requiring a much clearer indication of happiness, e.g., bigger smiles, to report them as such when compared to the neurotypical participants.

AI Reveals How the Brain’s Anatomy Changes With Autism

Kar then fed the data from that experiment into an AI developed to approximately mimic the layers of the human brain’s visual processing system. At first, he found that the neural network was able to recognize the facial emotions about as well as the neurotypical participants. Then he stripped away the layers and retested them until he got to the last layer, which past research suggests roughly mimics the IT cortex. That’s when he found that the AI struggled to match the neurotypical adults, and more closely mimicked the autistic ones.

This suggests that this part of the brain, which sits near the end of the visual processing pipeline, could be responsible for facial recognition. This study could lay the groundwork for a better way to diagnose autism. Kar adds that it might help in the development of engaging media and educational tools for autistic children as well.

“Autistic kids sometimes rely heavily on visual cues for learning and instructions,” Kar explained. “Having an accurate model where you can feed in images, and the models tell you, ‘This will work best, and this won’t’ can be very useful for that purpose. Any visual content like movies, cartoons, and educational content can be optimized using such models to maximally communicate with, benefit, and nurture autistic individuals.”

RIP

Mark Shields, Genteel Political Analyst for ‘PBS NewsHour,’ CNN’s ‘Capital Gang,’ Dies at 85


Cynthia Littleton
Sat, June 18, 2022,


Mark Shields, the longtime Washington Post political columnist who was a fixture of “PBS NewsHour” and a co-host of CNN’s “Capital Gang,” died Saturday morning of kidney failure in Chevy Chase, Md. He was 85.

Shields’ death was confirmed through a message shared by “PBS NewsHour” anchor Judy Woodruff on Twitter. Woofruff praised her colleague “who for decades wowed us with his encyclopedic knowledge of American politics” as well as “his sense of humor and mainly his big heart,” she wrote.

Shields was known on-air for his tact and wit in delivering incisive analysis and commentary about U.S. politics and policy battles in Washington. He predated the shouting-heads era of cable news that came in the mid-1990s with the advent of Fox News Channel and MSNBC.

On CNN’s “Capital Gang,” Shields and fellow host Robert Novak joined panelists and fellow columnists from the Beltway set such as the Wall Street Journal’s Al Hunt, Time’s Margaret Carlson and the National Review’s Kate O’Beirne. The conversations were lively but never reached the level of vitriol that has become common in cable news. “Capital Gang” went through several incarnations until it ended in 2005.

Shields’ signed off of his regular Friday night segment of “PBS NewsHour” in December 2020 after more than 30 years with the show. His tenure began during the 1988 presidential election when the broadcast was known as “The MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour.”

Mark Shields, Judy Woodruff and David Brooks in the studio for “PBS NewsHour” - Credit: Courtesy of PBS NewsHour

A native of Weymouth, Mass., Shields graduated from the University of Notre Dame. He served in the Marines before coming to Washington, D.C. Shields started out working in politics for Wisconsin Sen. William Proxmire. He also worked on Robert F. Kennedy’s ill-fated presidential campaign in 1968. Shields worked on three other presidential campaign efforts and he helped manage various political campaigns in 38 states over his 11 years as an operative.

Shields began writing a column for the Washington Post in 1979.

Shields’ survivors include his wife of many years, Anne Hudson Shields; their daughter, Amy Shields Doyle; their son-in-law Christo Doyle; and grandchildren, Jack and Frances Doyle.

Entertainers on a locked-down cruise ship had to become cleaners after COVID-19 struck, according to a new book

Kate Duffy

Fri, June 17, 2022

The Zaandam cruise ship pulls into Port Everglades.Getty Images

• Cruise ship entertainers had to become cleaners when COVID-19 hit, according to a new book.

• Two dancers carried disinfectant tanks and sprayed corridors daily, Bloomberg reported per the book.

• The excerpt said the cruise ship was understaffed because workers were ill with the virus.

Entertainers onboard a cruise ship had to take on cleaning jobs when the vessel went into lockdown because of COVID-19, according to a new book.

Cabin Fever, by Michael Smith and Jonathan Franklin, details what happened in March 2020 when the virus spread on Holland America's MS Zaandam cruise ship, according to an excerpt of the book reported by Bloomberg.

The virus had infected many crew members, leaving the ship understaffed, per the excerpt. As a result, entertainers onboard Zaandam were forced to help with disinfecting the interior of the ship.

Some of the jobs involved wiping down surfaces, door handles, handrails, and buttons in elevators with antibacterial handwipes, while others were in charge of filling up dozens of hand sanitizer dispensers, according to Bloomberg's report of the book.

Two dancers had to spray disinfect in corridors on a daily basis from tanks carried on their backs, the book said.

The dancers joked about the job being called the "Covid Buster," a reference to the film "Ghostbusters."

One housekeeper on the ship worked 14-hour shifts to deliver meals to the 716 cabins, the excerpt said, reported by Bloomberg.

A volunteer worker who came from another cruise ship, MS Rotterdam, said there were only 15 staff well enough to take food to guests' cabins, according to the book.

Only 11 workers were available to clean the kitchen, take out trash, and operate the dishwashers, rather than the usual 24 workers, Bloomberg's report said.

Four passengers died on board the Zaandam and dozens more had COVID symptoms on a cruise that began in Argentina and was due to end in Punta Arenas, Chile.

Due to the outbreak nobody was allowed to leave the ship in Chile and passengers without symptoms of the virus were transferred to another cruise liner after a fortnight, Reuters reported at the time. The Zaandam had to travel to Fort Lauderdale to dock.

Holland America didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

The cruise industry had to rapidly when the pandemic struck. Insider has reported how some crew had to cope with loneliness, a lack of shore leave, and mandatory quarantines.

Some passengers and staff even had to eat rotten food and didn't have enough water, The Washington Post reported.

Others told Mail Online they "felt like lepers" after being forced to isolate in their cabins during COVID-19 outbreaks.

CAPITALI$M IS CRISIS

Sudan wheat harvest waits to rot as hunger crisis looms


Abdelmoneim Abu Idris Ali
Sat, June 18, 2022


Looking at the sacks of wheat stacked in Imad Abdullah's small home, no one would guess that Sudan's food security is hanging by a thread after an October coup and Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

But the wheat farmer fears that the grain will soon rot, after his country's cash-strapped government backed out of promises to purchase it at incentivising prices.

"It has been two months since I harvested the wheat and I can't store it in the house anymore," said Abdullah, pointing to the large sacks filled with ripened wheat crammed into his small house in Al-Laota, in Gezira state, south of Sudan's capital.

He is one of thousands of farmers who have cultivated the grain as part of Sudan's largest agricultural scheme, named Al-Gezira.

When Abdullah harvested in March, he was promised 43,000 Sudanese pounds ($75) per sack –- a price set by the government to encourage farmers to cultivate the grain.

"We used to sell the government our entire harvest. We never had to bring it home. We don't even have adequate storage places."

Sudanese officials have however declared in recent weeks that they will not be able to buy this season's entire harvest due to lack of funds.

Impoverished Sudan has for years been grappling with a grinding economic crisis, which deepened after last year's military coup prompted Western governments to cut crucial aid.

The October coup derailed a fragile transition put in place following the 2019 ouster of president Omar al-Bashir.

Over 18 million people, nearly half the Sudanese population, are expected to be pushed into extreme hunger by September, according to United Nations estimates.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine, both key grain suppliers, threatens to compound Sudan's existing food security troubles.

Wheat imports from both nations make up between 70 and 80 percent of Sudan's local market needs, according to a 2021 UN report.

- Empty coffers -

Last month, dozens of wheat farmers from Sudan's Northern State staged a protest outside the agricultural bank after it refused to take their harvest.

"I grew 16 acres of wheat this season, filling some 120 sacks amounting to a total of 12 tonnes," farmer Modawi Ahmed told AFP.

He said the bank only agreed to buy less than half of his harvest, and he now fears the rest will spoil.

Farmers working the fields as part of the Al-Gezira scheme have over the years contributed only a small portion of Sudan's annual wheat needs of 2.2 million tonnes.

This year, local wheat production was forecast to cover only a quarter of the country's needs, according to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

The finance ministry earlier this month said it was committed to building a strategic wheat reserve of up to 300,000 tonnes.

But the government "does not have the money to buy the harvest", said an official with Sudan's agricultural bank, which procures the wheat from farmers.

"We have asked the finance ministry and the central bank for funds but we got no response," the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

An official with Sudan's finance ministry, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed the lack of funds.

Properly stored wheat can last up to a year and a half in silos with controlled temperature and humidity levels, according to agricultural expert Abdulkarim Omar.


But it "could spoil within as little as three months" in inadequate storage, he said.

Traders have offered to buy the farmers' wheat, but at far lower prices that barely cover the cost of production, according to Omar Marzouk, the governor of the Al-Gezira scheme.

As a result, he predicted that "farmers will opt against cultivating the grain next season".

- Risk to food security -

Now, as the new growing season starts, many frustrated farmers are leaving their lands untilled and unprepared.


Kamal Sari, leader of the farmers' association, fears that reluctance to prepare for the new season could affect "food provision for the Sudanese people".

Last week, two children in Sudan's Darfur region died "due to hunger-related causes", UK-based aid group Save the Children said, warning it was "an ominous sign of what is to come".

Sudanese households have come under increasing pressure in recent months due to spiralling fuel and electricity prices.

Prices of staple food items have also skyrocketed, with inflation recently surpassing 200 percent.

Rising bread prices due to slashed wheat subsidies sparked the political turmoil and mass rallies that led to the ouster of Bashir in 2019.

Given the economic crisis and the ongoing war in Ukraine, economist Mohamed al-Nayer said "the government should buy the wheat from farmers at any price".

Otherwise, he warned, "it complicates the situation in Sudan far more than it already is."

ab-mz/bha/jsa/lg

PAID FOR BY THE WORKING CLASS

The US government is set to collect a record-high $2.6 trillion in income taxes — and a third of that is because people got raises


Juliana Kaplan
Fri, June 17, 2022

The federal government is anticipating $2.6 trillion in income taxes — making the 2022 estimates the highest amount recorded since the 16th Amendment gave the government the right to have a federal income tax in 1913.Likoper/Getty

A report from the Congressional Budget Office estimates the tax revenue the government will get.

It estimates that, in 2022, income tax receipts will reach $2.6 trillion — the highest since the tax was enacted.

A third of that comes from increased wages, and another third from pandemic measures.

Americans are getting paid more — and those bigger paychecks are taking in more taxes.

A report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates how tax revenue coming into the federal government's coffers will change over the next few years. According to the report, individual income taxes will see a big boost in 2022, jumping 28% from 2021. That means that they're anticipating $2.6 trillion in income taxes — making the 2022 estimates the highest amount recorded since the 16th Amendment gave the government the right to have a federal income tax in 1913.

So why is the government getting so much revenue from taxes in 2022? Some of it can be attributed to pandemic-era economic conditions.

A third of the increase comes from the expanding economy and wages, according to the report. CBO estimates that wages will rise 10% in 2022 — and so far they're on an upward trend, according to the monthly jobs reports that the Bureau of Labor Statistics puts out. However, even as many workers are getting a raise or reshuffling into a higher paying role, those wage gains are getting eaten up by inflation — but they're still getting taxed on beefed-up paychecks.

Another third comes from pandemic policy, like provisions that let employers defer paying their payroll taxes. Now half of those taxes are coming in, according to CBO, in addition to the "end of other temporary provisions." For instance, $10,400 worth of unemployment benefits were tax free, after millions of Americans found themselves relying on enhanced unemployment benefits amidst the pandemic economic turmoil. That's no longer the case.

And where is the last third of all of the income tax revenue coming from? That is a bit of a tax mystery, and "cannot yet be explained," according to the report. They have to wait until the returns come in to figure out, why, exactly they're getting that money.

As Politico's Brian Faler reports, those estimates come as Democrats continue to push for higher taxes on high earners and corporations.

"Revenue has been up sharply," Sen. Mike Crapo, a Republican from Idaho who sits on the Senate Finance Committee, told Politico. "Nonetheless, Democrats appear to want to raise taxes more."

Democrats have been circling big corporations in their stalled social spending proposals. Even key centrist Kyrsten Sinema got on board with a minimum corporate tax rate, which would impose a 15% minimum on large firms that utilize loopholes to currently pay nothing.

The disappearance of a top livestreamer shows the risk of doing business in China


By Jane Li
Published June 17, 2022

In the span of less than two weeks, Li Jiaqi went from being China’s top e-commerce influencer to semi-taboo topic.

Li, who has more than 43 million followers on Chinese social media platforms, abruptly ended a livestream session citing technical issues on June 3rd. Since then, he’s been absent from his daily livestreams, during which tens of millions of people would watch him promote products ranging from face masks to hand sanitizers.

Li disappeared after he displayed a tank-shaped layered ice cream. Tanks are often used as a symbol for the 1989 June 4th Tiananmen protests, during which the Chinese military cracked down on students. Chinese authorities have forbidden any discussion or commemoration of the massacre, and those who violate that unspoken rule are punished.

Although for now Li’s accounts and name can still be found on Chinese social media, no mainland Chinese media covered the possible cause of Li’s suspension. Meanwhile, both Li’s agency and Taobao, the e-commerce platform that hosted Li’s livestream under Chinese tech giant Alibaba, have been mum on the incident. This has prompted speculation about whether Li is banned by Beijing because of what seems to be an inadvertent mistake rather a calculated political statement. “He disappeared just because of a tank shaped dessert? They are too sensitive and stupid. Originally not many youngsters knew about that history, now many are being encouraged to learn about it after this incident,” said a user on Weibo.

Li’s sudden disappearance showcases the high level of uncertainty of doing business in China. Despite signals from Beijing indicating its willingness to relax scrutiny of the tech sector recently, the fact that the country’s most influential live e-commerce figure could vanish overnight lays bare the growing risks companies face in China, where political red lines are quickly expanding to include even mundane moves like Li’s ice cream display.

Another layer of risk facing companies, especially those engaged with content business, comes from the young generation’s lack of awareness of many historical events, including the Tiananmen protests, due to years of Beijing’s censorship of those events. This means youngsters who grew up under China’s tight internet control, including Li who was born in 1992, struggle to navigate taboos when creating or moderating content—a situation now named by internet users as “Li Jiaqi Paradox.”
Brands set to suffer loss from Li’s absence

One immediate consequence of Li’s disappearance could be a short-term blow to the many brands that have contracts with him to promote their products, including Dior and La Mer, according to Nikkei Asia, a financial magazine. The brands will now have to find new channels for the goods days before the 618 shopping festival, one of China’s two annual shopping extravaganzas.

The stakes could be high. Li sold a whopping $1.7 billion worth of goods during a 12-hour-or-so livestream last year, once again proving his clout in the live commerce industry. This year, Li’s first-day pre-618 sale is estimated to have exceeded 4.1 billion yuan ($611 million), surpassing the same period last year, Tracy Dai, director of operations at marketing and research firm China Skinny, told Quartz. (Platforms’ pre-sale periods before shopping festivals usually start at least half a month ahead of the event.)

The impact could be even bigger for Taobao, which lost Viya, another top livestreaming influencer, late last year after she was fined for tax evasion by authorities. She has since disappeared from the industry. With Li’s suspension, it’s unlikely another key opinion leader can step up to fill the void, said Dai.
The transformation of the livestreaming industry

Meanwhile, analysts say Li’s disappearance could in turn transform the livestream e-commerce industry, which reached around $171 billion in value in 2020 according to McKinsey.

“The trend of pursuing top livestreamers has probably passed…Live e-commerce is developing towards the direction of becoming more diversified,” said Tang Xiaotang, an independent consumption analyst based in China.

The industry used to reply heavily on top influencers’ personal charm, with brands often having to pay them handsome commissions and granting exclusive discounts to land a spot livestreamers’ sessions. Now, many lesser-known, cheaper influencers are finding creative ways of attracting audience.

One such example is Chinese private education giant New Oriental, which was hit hard by Beijing’s crackdown on the after-school tutoring market last year. The company’s shares have jumped recently after some of its former tutors became popular influencers by using English during their livestreams, including to sell rice for the company’s newly founded e-commerce platform.

“Product type will also be diversified, with companies like New Oriental targeting the middle class in big cities to offer pricier goods,” said Tang.

 GOP Candidate Says Drag Queens a Danger to Kids. But This Drag Queen Says She ‘Had Her Kid in Front’ of One

Alan Halaly   Sat, June 18, 2022, 

via Facebook

Trump-endorsed Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake is the latest in a long line of GOP politicians to claim drag shows are a danger for children. But one of Phoenix’s most famous drag queens just publicly called her out for taking part in the drag scene herself—and allegedly letting her own daughter join in the fun.

Rick Stevens, better known to Phoenix’s queer scene as established drag queen Barbra Seville, brought all the receipts in posts on Twitter and Facebook on Friday night, sharing photos of himself and Lake together, apparently at drag events, before he says Lake “turned to the right.”

Lake, who former President Donald Trump praised as someone who will fight to end “woke” curriculum in schools, recently took to social media to weigh in on the conservative fight to prevent children from attending drag shows.

“They kicked God out of schools and welcomed the Drag Queens,” Lake wrote on Friday, on Instagram and Twitter. “They took down our Flag and replaced it with a rainbow. They seek to disarm Americans and militarize our Enemies. Let’s bring back the basics: God, Guns & Glory.”

But Stevens said this stance is a far cry from the Lake he’s known since her ‘90s Fox10 news days, when he said she frequented a club he performed at.

Stevens wrote that he’s performed for Lake's birthday, in her home (with young children in attendance), and at “some of the seediest bars in Phoenix.”

Kari Lake, dressed as Elvis, poses with drag queen Barbra Seville.

via Facebook

In an interview with Arizona Central, Stevens said Lake’s comments were shocking. He also recalled a time when he said she allowed her young daughter to watch Seville perform.

“She’s friends with drag queens,” he said. “She’s had her kid in front of a drag queen. I’ve done drag in her home for her friends and family. She’s not threatened by them. She would come to shows constantly. To make me be the bogeyman for political gain, it was just too much.”

“Kari was a friend of mine, and I stood by her when she turned to the right,” Stevens wrote.

Lake seemed to be a supporter of the LGBTQ+ community in screenshots of private messages Stevens posted that date back to 2012.

via Instagram

The Republican candidate’s campaign was quick to hit back on Stevens’ claims, however.

“Richard’s accusations were full of lies,” Lake’s campaign wrote in a statement. “The event in question was at a party at someone else’s house, and the performer was there as a Marilyn Monroe impersonator. It wasn’t a drag show, and the issue we’re talking about isn’t adults attending drag shows, either. The issue is activists sexualizing young children, and that’s got to stop.”

Above all, Stevens told Arizona Central he feels betrayed by Lake, who he considers to be a hypocrite.

“If I can do anything to expose the hypocrisy, and if I can do anything to keep someone like that, a few votes away, from power, I’m happy to do that,” Stevens said.

'We're going to fight': Assange's wife on extradition decision

  

"We're going to fight this. We're going to use every appeal avenue," she told reporters. "I'm going to spend every waking hour fighting for Julian until he is free, until justice is served."