Colombia’s History of Violence Divides Families at Election

Matthew Bristow
Fri, June 17, 2022





(Bloomberg) -- Colombia’s presidential election this weekend is more than just a choice between political models -- it’s a contest that’s dividing the generations like no other.

Gustavo Petro, 62, a former guerrilla fighter who says he wants to end an economic model based on oil and coal, has a wide lead among younger voters who grew up during during the relative peace of the last decade.

But many of their parents, who remember the civil conflict of the 1980s and 1990s, are appalled by the idea of electing someone who was in a group that committed acts of terrorism. The result is likely to hinge on how many of them are sufficiently outraged to back Rodolfo Hernandez, Petro’s similarly controversial rival for the presidency, and how many abstain.

Unlike all other major Latin American nations, Colombia has only ever been governed by conservatives and liberals, never by a leftist like Petro. With polls suggesting a tight race, Sunday’s outcome will also depend on how many younger voters turn out to cast their ballot.

“There’s a generational conflict, with a youth that wants change,” Petro said in an interview last month. “They reject human rights violations, and they reject an economy that ransacks nature.”

Across Colombia, parents and their children are at odds over the election.

Sara Poveda, an 18-year-old sociology student who’s voting for the first time, says she’s backing Petro, among other reasons because she likes his plans for a transition away from fossil fuels, which account for about half of the nation’s exports.

But her father, a retired member of the air force, believes Petro to be a danger who could turn Colombia into an impoverished authoritarian state like neighboring Venezuela. He’s backing Hernandez, 77.

“Whenever we get onto politics in our house, there’s a huge argument,” Sara Poveda said. “We prefer not to talk about these topics at the dinner table, because it ruins the moment for us.”

The armed conflict has left more than 260,000 dead since 1958, according to the National Center of Historical Memory in Bogota. Sara’s father Ricardo said that his first-hand knowledge of the worst era of violence and kidnappings by Marxist guerrillas gives him a different perspective.

“I didn’t hear about it, or read about it -- I experienced it,” he said. “The young people haven’t had that experience, even though they’re very intelligent and they’re right about a lot of things.”

Class and Gender

In this election, age appears to be a stronger predictor of how a Colombian will vote than social class or gender, said Carlos Lemoine, founder of the polling company National Consulting Center, or CNC.

“Petro’s success is practically based on the youth vote,” Lemoine said. The generational divide always exists, he added, but is “particularly notable on this occasion.”

Distinct demographic groups tend to vote differently everywhere. In the US, support for Joe Biden at the 2020 election among those at age 18-29 was 59% to 35% for Donald Trump.

In Colombia, polls show an even starker divide, with Petro enjoying almost a 40 percentage-point lead over Hernandez among 18-24 year olds. That flips to an advantage of some 26 points for Hernandez among over 55s.

Read more: Foul-Mouthed Tycoon Taps Colombian Voter Rage Over Corruption

Hernandez, a construction magnate and engineer, has focused his campaign on slamming a political establishment he says is wasteful and corrupt, and uses TikTok videos to reach the youth. He wants to cut taxes, but much of his economic vision remains unclear. His main selling point for many voters is simply that he isn’t Petro.

Anti-Government Protests

Investors favor Hernandez, but seem unsettled at the prospect of either candidate taking the reins.

Colombia is the strongest ally of the US in the region, and is the only major country in Latin America that hasn’t defaulted on its debt since the 1930s. The economy will expand 4.8% this year, according to analysts surveyed by Bloomberg, faster than regional peers Brazil, Mexico, Chile and Peru.

The Colombian peso rallied after Hernandez defied projections to make it into the second round, and won the backing of the defeated main conservative candidate. But investor concern has seeped in since, with the peso erasing those gains amid a turbulent global outlook.

For young Colombians, the desire for political change and a focus on issues such as the climate and minority rights set in last year during weeks of anti-government protests that probably radicalized some, according to Andres Mejia, a political consultant who teaches at the business school of Bogota’s Andes University.

Petro supported the often violent demonstrations against a range of grievances, including corruption and inequality, and criticized the heavy-handed police response that left dozens dead.

Alejandro Guerrero, a 48-year-old actor who used to be in the army, said he fell out with his Petro-supporting son, who stopped talking to him during the period.

Inflammatory Memes

Many Colombian families have WhatsApp chats, where disputes flare up when someone posts a political comment or an inflammatory meme. Mario Hernandez, a businessman who founded a chain of luxury leather goods stores and who is no relation of Rodolfo, got 13,000 likes for a Twitter post saying that if your children back Petro, you’ve failed as a parent.

Read more: Colombian Leftist Front-Runner Says Assassination Risk Very High

Petro renounced violence and embraced democratic politics decades ago. And Colombia’s 2016 peace accord with the FARC Marxist guerrilla group removed some of the stigma of voting for a candidate like him. The formal talks started in 2012, and younger voters grew up during the negotiations.

“They just don’t understand what has happened in this country in the past 50 years, what we went through,” said Alvaro Tito Jimenez, 60, an ICU doctor in Bogota, speaking about his Petro-supporting children. “People we knew were taken hostage and some were killed. How can you trust someone who was a guerrilla?”

AUTHORITARIAN MANAGEMENT CULTURE

Oil Brokerage Denies ‘Toxic’ Claim, Accuses Ex-Traders of Breach

2/3 OF THE EMPLOYEES WALKED OUT!
Geoffrey Morgan, Robert Tuttle and Sheela Tobben
Fri, June 17, 2022



(Bloomberg) -- Oil brokerage NE2 Group is hitting back at allegations that Chief Executive Officer Tim Gunn created a toxic workplace, filing an C$11 million ($8.4 million) countersuit against eight former employees who left the firm earlier this year.


In court documents, NE2, a trading house for Canadian crude oil including the flagship Western Canada Select blend, says it was defamed as a result of allegations in a wrongful dismissal suit brought by Marc Bennett, its former head of North American energy. NE2 added the other departed employees to the counterclaim it filed this week, saying they tried to steal business from the firm.

The former employees’ actions “have irreparably harmed NE2’s reputation, goodwill and market share within the crude oil trading industry in North America,” Calgary-based NE2 says in its suit, which names Bennett and seven other people as defendants.

It’s all part of litigation that was started in April by Bennett, who alleged that he and others were verbally harassed by Gunn and that others were physically or sexually harassed by Gunn. He’s seeking millions of dollars from his former firm.

All three filings -- Bennett’s initial lawsuit and NE2’s defense and counterclaim -- depict a company torn apart by workplace tension. NE2’s court filings say that Gunn, who also owns the firm, was attempting to implement cost controls to rein in “bloated incomes” and “exorbitant expense accounts,” including nixing plans for a golf simulator in the office.

The firm denies harassment in its statement of defense and counterclaim. It alleges that Bennett and another former executive, Mandy Burgess, and six oil brokers took part in an “unlawful conspiracy to harm the reputation of Mr. Gunn and NE2,” causing NE2 to suffer “substantial damages.”

Bennett responded to NE2’s claims in a written statement to Bloomberg News: “I deny the allegations made against me as they are false, sensationalized and misleading which will be proven in the litigation process.” He confirmed that he had seen NE2’s filing and said he remained unemployed.

NE2’s counterclaim says Bennett and Burgess left the company in early February. Two months later, after bonuses were paid, six brokers -- Charles Douglas, Dario Vigna, Jack Widmer, Christy See, Ryan Beckwermert and James Cook -- all resigned.

Widmer declined to comment. Douglas and See said they weren’t currently employed and declined to comment further. Contact information for Beckwermert wasn’t available, and Burgess and the remaining former employees named in the lawsuit didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The turmoil at NE2 has caused oil traders to exit a key contract used to hedge Canadian heavy crude. Open interest on the contract on CME Group Inc. hasn’t recovered since the brokers quit over the Easter weekend in April.

NE2 said in the court filings that the former employees “exaggerated and fabricated” instances of harassment in a “smear campaign” and planned to hurt the company and take its clients to a new or competing firm. It also accused the ex-employees of violating their employment agreements by soliciting business from NE2 clients.

Gunn, through a spokesman, declined to comment on the legal battle.

Charges of Violence, Bullying Follow Mass Exodus at Calgary Oil Brokerage

Robert Tuttle, Sheela Tobben and Geoffrey Morgan, Bloomberg News

May 19, 2022

BC-Charges-of-Violence-Bullying-Follow-Mass-Exodus-at-Calgary-Oil-Brokerage , Robert Tuttle, Sheela Tobben and Geoffrey Morgan

(Bloomberg) -- When two-thirds of the brokers at a prominent Calgary oil firm quit without explanation around the Easter weekend, the exodus chilled Canada’s oil market.

Now, a lawsuit filed against the firm, NE2 Group, purports to offer a window into life there during the years and months leading up to the walkout. Filed days after the resignations took place, the suit paints a picture of a toxic environment more reminiscent of oil trading’s mythic early days than the corporate culture of modern Calgary. It alleges that NE2’s president and owner, Timothy Gunn, physically and verbally abused both employees and clients in incidents spanning five years and accuses him of three incidents of sexual harassment. It also alleges he routinely referred to staff as “useless,” “replaceable” and “idiots,” in addition to a variety of profanity-laden expressions. 

Weeks after the walkouts, the resignations continue to weigh on Canada’s oil market. The firm has historically played an important role in price-setting, its brokers handling enough volume to determine the benchmark prices of several Canadian crude grades. Those prices, in turn, underpin a key futures contract. In the days after the exodus, traders said they began to worry the firm didn’t have the manpower to ensure accurate prices and exited at least one CME contract used to hedge heavy crude. Open interest on that contract still hasn’t recovered.

NE2, which has not yet submitted a statement of defence to the court, “takes these claims very seriously and expects behavior that is consistent with its workplace policy,” the firm said in a statement. “As we explore the allegations made in this claim, we expect additional facts will be revealed. NE2 will openly and transparently address these allegations through the Court process.” The firm didn’t immediately respond to questions about the market effects of the resignations.

Gunn couldn’t be reached for comment through NE2’s Calgary office and didn’t respond to messages sent by email and on LinkedIn.

The suit was brought by Mark Bennett, NE2's former vice-president of North American energy, who alleges he was wrongfully dismissed in February after raising concerns about workplace harassment, “unilateral changes to employee compensation” and “the ongoing toxic work environment,” according to the suit. Bennett, who had worked for the firm since 2013 and is seeking millions in compensation, declined to comment.

Two months after Bennett’s dismissal, six brokers submitted resignation letters, according to people familiar with the situation who requested anonymity because they aren’t authorized to speak publicly. That equates to two-thirds of the brokerage desk in Calgary. The reasons for the exodus broadly align with the details laid out in Bennet’s suit and were not coordinated, the people said. The resignations, all on or around the Easter holiday weekend, coincided with the payout of annual bonuses following an exceptionally profitable year for the firm, said the people. 

©2022 Bloomberg L.P.

Canada's competition agency maintains its opposition to Rogers-Shaw deal

Divya Rajagopal and Ismail Shakil
Fri, June 17, 2022

Rogers Building, home of Rogers Communications in Toronto

TORONTO (Reuters) -Canada's antitrust regulator said on Friday it remains opposed to Rogers Communications' plan to purchase Shaw Communications, rejecting the companies' argument that benefits to the economy would offset the harm to competition.

Proceedings to litigate the matter are due to start on June 23 and could continue until the end of the year.

The Competition Bureau has, however, not won a merger challenge before. Of eight that have gone before the competition tribunal, it lost or settled six, and two are pending, according to official data.

Canadian law allows for mergers that harm competition to be approved if the companies can prove the merger brings efficiency to the economy.

As part of the proposed C$20 billion ($15.4 billion) deal, Rogers has offered to sell Shaw's Freedom mobile unit to allay competition concerns.

The bureau said the sale would weaken Freedom's operations, taking out "competitive discipline" for the national carriers. The merger would also lead to a transfer of wealth from low and middle income groups to the wealthy families of Rogers-Shaw, it said.

Rogers declined to comment.

The companies had planned to close the transaction by July 31.

Shaw shares ended 1.5% higher at C$34.64, a 14.7% discount to Rogers' offer price, reflecting uncertainty surrounding the deal. Rogers shares rose 1.9% to C$59.01, while the benchmark Canadian share index fell 0.4%.

($1 = 1.3026 Canadian dollars)

(Reporting by Divya Rajagopal and Ismail Shakil in Toronto; Editing by Alistair Bell and Edwina Gibbs)

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.