Labour is being too cautious on public ownership - it’s pragmatic policy

Instead of siphoning off profits to private shareholders, state utility companies could tackle the cost of living and climate crisis

‘If Labour brings the whole railway into public ownership and funds it properly, that will be a huge cause for celebration.’ 

Photograph: Kirsty O’Connor/PA

Cat Hobbs
Tue 26 Jul 2022

Yesterday morning, Rachel Reeves was drawn into stating on the Today programme that a Labour government would not bring rail, energy and water into public ownership. Then followed a number of tweets from Labour’s shadow transport ministers, reaffirming the party’s commitment to nationalising the railway. By the afternoon, Keir Starmer had confirmed that rail would indeed be brought into public ownership because this was “pragmatic”, but water and energy would not.

While Starmer claims the pragmatism of the policy rests on the fact that some of the rail network is already in public hands, the more relevant issue is that Labour is terrified of buying back assets. Bringing contracts (like rail franchises) into public ownership when they come to an end is generally cost-free whereas buying back water and energy companies involves compensating shareholders – and Jeremy Corbyn was hammered for this in the 2019 election.

Of course, if Labour brings the whole railway into public ownership and funds it properly, that will be a huge cause for celebration. Privatisation has utterly failed and wastes £1bn a year. The best railway in Europe is publicly owned, in Switzerland.

It could go further. If Labour’s rule is that public ownership is fine if it’s cost-free, why not set up a publicly owned energy supply company to compete in the market and offer people a better deal on their energy bills (as French EDF is doing right now)? The government has propped up Bulb at great cost when it could instead have created a new public supplier and transferred its 1.7 million customers. When smaller suppliers failed, they could be absorbed into this company.

How do we avoid an expensive winter? Take energy back into public ownership

Cat Hobbs

It could go further still. Why not set up a publicly owned renewable generation company to drive forward water and wind energy, while creating jobs and boosting the economy? The Norwegian state owns Statkraft, the largest renewables generator in Europe and is considering setting up a state-owned hydrogen company. Denmark owns 50% of Ørsted (previously Dong Energy), the world’s largest developer of offshore wind power.

Creating an energy supplier and a renewable generation company could be done at very little cost, and would be a pragmatic way to use public ownership to tackle the cost of living crisis and the climate crisis.

But by awkwardly dodging discussion of buying back water and energy grids, when recent polling shows a majority of “red wall” voters believe they belong in public hands, Labour is missing an opportunity.

The privatised English water monopolies have spewed sewage into our rivers and seas, killing fish and making children ill wand allow 900 Olympic swimming pools worth of water a day to leak away, racking up a debt mountain, paying CEOs millions and allowing 900 Olympic swimming pools worth of water a day to leak away because they’d rather not spend money on investing in infrastructure. Meanwhile, they return around £2bn a year to shareholders, pay their CEOs millions and rack up a debt mountain at our expense. Scottish Water has spent £72 a year extra per household on infrastructure because it’s in public ownership.

The energy grid monopolies have extremely high profits, and have similarly been slow to invest in infrastructure. Bringing energy transmission and distribution into public hands would save about £3.7bn a year.

It’s understandable that Labour is scared to talk about this. But bringing these assets into public hands would be a brilliant deal for the public purse. Every household in the country could benefit, and so would local economies.

Parliament can judge what is in the public interest and decide how much compensation would be appropriate. It seems reasonable to compensate shareholders for the money they originally invested, rather than the current market value of shares. The policy would pay for itself in around seven years on that basis.

Would this hurt our pensions? Absolutely not. Our water companies and energy networks are primarily owned by shareholders abroad. Wessex Water, for example, is owned by a Malaysian company, and Northumbrian Water is 80% owned by Li Ka Shing, a Hong Kong businessman. Only 8.5% of the water sector is owned by UK pensions. Northern Powergrid which provides electricity to the North East, is owned by Warren Buffett. UK Power Networks, covering London, is also owned by Li Ka Shing. Only 8.5% of the water sector is owned by UK pensions. US billionaire Warren Buffett owns Northern Powergrid, which provides electricity to north-east England. Li Ka-shing, a Hong Kong businessman owns UK Power Networks, covering London. Only 2% of our energy is owned by UK pensions.

How about really taking back control, having water and energy companies that work for the British public and protecting pensions as needed while we do it? England’s model of selling off water assets wholesale is unique and the UK is almost the only country in Europe to have a privatised energy grid.

Reeves has already committed to £28bn of green investment a year. Bringing water and energy into public ownership would also be an investment, giving the government tools to cut bills, connect up community renewables to the grid, upgrade infrastructure to stop leaks and clean up rivers and seas.

People want decent public transport. They also want affordable energy bills and rivers that aren’t filled with sewage. Taking back our national assets is not only pragmatic, it’s a vote winner.

Cat Hobbs is the founder of We Own It, an organisation that campaigns for public ownership of public services

Plesiosaur fossils found in the Sahara suggest they weren't just marine animals

by University of Bath

Credit: University of Bath

Fossils of small plesiosaurs, long-necked marine reptiles from the age of dinosaurs, have been found in a 100-million year old river system that is now Morocco's Sahara Desert. This discovery suggests some species of plesiosaur, traditionally thought to be sea creatures, may have lived in freshwater.

Plesiosaurs, first found in 1823 by fossil hunter Mary Anning, were prehistoric reptiles with small heads, long necks, and four long flippers. They inspired reconstructions of the Loch Ness Monster, but unlike the monster of Lake Loch Ness, plesiosaurs were marine animals—or were widely thought to be.

Now, scientists from the University of Bath and University of Portsmouth in the U.K., and Université Hassan II in Morocco, have reported small plesiosaurs from a Cretaceous-aged river in Africa.

The fossils include bones and teeth from three-meter long adults and an arm bone from a 1.5 meter long baby. They hint that these creatures routinely lived and fed in freshwater, alongside frogs, crocodiles, turtles, fish, and the huge aquatic dinosaur Spinosaurus.

These fossils suggest the plesiosaurs were adapted to tolerate freshwater, possibly even spending their lives there, like today's river dolphins.

The new paper was headed by University of Bath Student Georgina Bunker, along with Nick Longrich from the University of Bath's Milner Center for Evolution, David Martill and Roy Smith from the University of Portsmouth, and Samir Zouhri from the Universite Hassan II.

Kem Kem plesiosaur silhouettes. Credit: University of Bath

The fossils include vertebrae from the neck, back, and tail, shed teeth, and an arm bone from a young juvenile.

"It's scrappy stuff, but isolated bones actually tell us a lot about ancient ecosystems and animals in them. They're so much more common than skeletons, they give you more information to work with" said Dr. Nick Longrich, corresponding author on the paper.

"The bones and teeth were found scattered and in different localities, not as a skeleton. So each bone and each tooth is a different animal. We have over a dozen animals in this collection."

While bones provide information on where animals died, the teeth are interesting because they were lost while the animal was alive—so they show where the animals lived.

Plesiosaur humerus. Credit: University of Bath

What's more, the teeth show heavy wear, like those fish-eating dinosaur Spinosaurus found in the same beds.

The scientists say that implies the plesiosaurs were eating the same food—chipping their teeth on the armored fish that lived in the river. This hints they spent a lot of time in the river, rather than being occasional visitors.

While marine animals like whales and dolphins wander up rivers, either to feed or because they're lost, the number of plesiosaur fossils in the river suggest that's unlikely.

A more likely possibility is that the plesiosaurs were able to tolerate fresh and salt water, like some whales, such as the beluga whale.

Credit: University of Bath

It's even possible that the plesiosaurs were permanent residents of the river, like modern river dolphins. The plesiosaurs' small size would have let them hunt in shallow rivers, and the fossils show an incredibly rich fish fauna.

Dr. Longrich said: "We don't really know why the plesiosaurs are in freshwater.

"It's a bit controversial, but who's to say that because we paleontologists have always called them 'marine reptiles,' they had to live in the sea? Lots of marine lineages invaded freshwater."

Freshwater dolphins evolved at least four times—in the Ganges River, the Yangtze River, and twice in the Amazon. A species of freshwater seal inhabits Lake Baikal, in Siberia, so it's possible plesiosaurs adapted to freshwater as well.

The plesiosaurs belong to the family Leptocleididae—a family of small plesiosaurs often found in brackish or freshwater elsewhere in England, Africa, and Australia. And other plesiosaurs, including the long-necked elasmosaurs, turn up in brackish or fresh waters in North America and China.

Plesiosaurs were a diverse and adaptable group, and were around for more than 100 million years. Based on what they've found in Africa—and what other scientists have found elsewhere—the authors suggest they might have repeatedly invaded freshwater to different degrees.

"We don't really know, honestly. That's how paleontology works. People ask, how can paleontologists know anything for certain about the lives of animals that went extinct millions of years ago? The reality is, we can't always. All we can do is make educated guesses based on the information we have. We'll find more fossils. Maybe they'll confirm those guesses. Maybe not."

"It's been really interesting to see the direction this project has gone in," said lead author Georgina Bunker. The study initially began as an undergraduate project involving a single bone, but over time, more plesiosaur fossils started turning up, slowly providing a clearer picture of the animal.

The new discovery also expands the diversity of Morocco's Cretaceous. Said Dr. Samir Zouhri, "This is another sensational discovery that adds to the many discoveries we have made in the Kem Kem over the past fifteen years of work in this region of Morocco. Kem Kem was truly an incredible biodiversity hotspot in the Cretaceous."

"What amazes me" said coauthor Dave Martill, "is that the ancient Moroccan river contained so many carnivores all living alongside each other. This was no place to go for a swim."

But what does this all mean for the Loch Ness Monster? On one level, it's plausible. Plesiosaurs weren't confined to the seas, they did inhabit freshwater. But the fossil record also suggests that after almost a hundred and fifty million years, the last plesiosaurs finally died out at the same time as the dinosaurs, 66 million years ago.Medical scan reveals the secrets of New Zealand's extinct marine reptiles

More information: Georgina Bunker et al, Plesiosaurs from the fluvial Kem Kem Group (mid-Cretaceous) of eastern Morocco and a review of non-marine plesiosaurs, Cretaceous Research (2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.cretres.2022.105310

Journal information: Cretaceous Research 

Provided by University of Bath 

From COVID care to cancer, there's a pattern to Danielle Smith's 'alternative' medical thoughts

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UCP leadership candidate's health views aren't

mainstream. 

But she doesn't need mainstream Alberta to 

win

Jason Markusoff · CBC News · Posted: Jul 25, 2022 7:13 PM MT | Last Updated: 9 hours ago

From fellow conservatives and New Democrats, to cancer survivors and medical practitioners, Danielle Smith's comments that cancer before Stage 4 is 'controllable' have been roundly condemned. (Jeff McIntosh/Canadian Press)

It's not a candidate's ideal day on the campaign trail when one must issue a video that takes pains to assert that, no, you did not intend to besmirch cancer patients and survivors in your video from a few days ago.

Danielle Smith, who seems to lead the race to become United Conservative Party leader and then Alberta's premier in October, got into the factually-dubious murk in a lengthy campaign video discussion with a naturopath about cancer being preventable and "completely within your control" until the disease reaches Stage 4.

Outrage ensued from the NDP ("cruel and wrong," said Rachel Notley) and UCP leadership rivals ("irresponsible" — Travis Toews, "hurtful" — Brian Jean), as well as medical practitioners and those who've survived cancer or lost loved ones to it.

When Smith tried to clarify her comments, she didn't walk them back; rather, she reiterated that the "first three stages of cancer are more controllable in terms of what complete care is available to a patient," and insisted that mainstream medicine and naturopathy alike agreed with this point.

We can dissect these comments shortly, but know what's clearly more preventable? Getting into this sticky situation by injecting alternative or contrarian medical arguments into a political discussion.

But this is par for the course with Smith, going back a few years.

She said what? — a retrospective

Her Twitter feed was completely within her control in the early days of the COVID pandemic, when she used a single study and something she'd read on some blog to proclaim that "hydroxychloroquine cures 100 per cent of coronavirus patients within six days of treatment." That would later be proven quite wrong. The bosses of her AM talk radio show took action, and Smith apologized and deleted that tweet.

Smith later gained more control of her own messaging by leaving Global News' radio show. On an online podcast, she'd also give lengthy airing to doctors she reported she wasn't allowed to host on her mainstream program — men who doubted much of the science of COVID, including one who called it "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated."  She'd also advocate for wider use of ivermectin as coronavirus treatment, though it remained unapproved and would later be discredited and debunked.

A patient is prepared to undergo radiation therapy at a hospital in Kitchener, Ont. Oncologists treat cancer with radiation, chemotherapy or surgery at various stages of cancer, not only at Stage 4. (Provided by Grand River Hospital)

Her own apparent curiosity on the fringes of established medical science brought her here, well before Smith was in a leadership race and cultivating a base of the same sort of pandemic-rule skeptics and detractors who rose up against Premier Jason Kenney's leadership of the UCP. 

She now speaks often of the "vaccine choice movement," which would include anti-vaxxers and those forced reluctantly to get vaccines due to mandates. At a Calgary rally, she invited as her special guest Theo Fleury, the conspiracy-minded former hockey player who told her crowd the trauma from his sexual abuse was akin to the trauma of government pandemic rules.

Smith's supporters cheered for Fleury's message, and for hers.

• FRONT BURNER
  The political resurrection of Danielle Smith

These positions stray from the mainstream of Alberta opinion — and expertise — as does her "sovereignty act" proposal to stop enforcing in this province any federal laws a Premier Smith-led government deems run afoul of Alberta's jurisdiction.

But Smith doesn't need most Albertans to buy into her agenda. She just needs a select number, in the tens of thousands, to be UCP members by Aug. 12 and vote for her.

The whole reason she wound up gabbing for a full hour on video with a naturopath (including that bit about cancer being "controllable") was in support of her campaign promise to give every Albertan a $300 health spending account. 

Like the supplementary health benefit packages that some employers offer, residents could spend it on areas the publicly-funded system doesn't cover, like vision care, dental care, massage therapy — and (in some plans) naturopathy, a field that many conventional medicine experts say suffers from lack of evidence and pseudoscience, although it is a regulated profession in Alberta.

The former radio host's podcast-style interview of Calgary naturopath Christine Perkins is largely promotional and complimentary of her field. Smith even at one point muses that the Alberta government needs, alongside a chief medical officer of health like Dr. Deena Hinshaw, a chief of integrative medicine and a chief of functional medicine — two "alternative" fields to traditional medicine.

Naturopathy has served to offer questionable alternatives for people who doubt mainstream health care and COVID science. Perkins tells Smith her naturopathic regulatory college won't allow her to discuss COVID matters, which the politician says "concerns" her.

Sometimes, backlash follows political comments taken out of context. That doesn't appear to be the case here.

Danielle Smith posts a video July 25 to explain earlier remarks about early-stage cancer being 'completely within your control' for a patient. (Twitter/@daniellesmithAB)

Twenty minutes into their chat, Perkins says naturopaths are better than mainstream medicine practitioners at dealing with prevention, a point that physicians who preach good diets, non-smoking and sunscreen (as well as vaccines and face masks) would likely argue. Without discussing cancer stages specifically, the naturopath says she acknowledges the need for chemotherapy or surgery for patients with advanced cancer, but wonders what happened in the body to allow that tumour to form, and whether prevention was possible.

To which Smith says: "Once you've arrived and got Stage 4 cancer, and there's radiation and surgery and chemotherapy, that's an incredibly expensive intervention — not just for the system but also expensive in the toll it takes on the body. I think about everything that built before you got to Stage 4 and that diagnosis, that's completely within your control and there is something you can do about that that is different." Perkins replies: "Sure."

In a video Smith posted on Twitter four days later, she attributes the backlash almost solely to the NDP, and also attributes the statement she made to her naturopath interviewee:

"For over an hour, I listened to Dr. Perkins on her medical opinion, and she's quite correct. The first three stages of cancer are more controllable in terms of what complete care is available to a patient. But once you get to Stage 4, that's when the patient's less in control, and only traditional medicine, chemotherapy and radiation and surgery and other difficult therapies are available as a course of treatment. Naturopaths and Western medicine are in agreement on this and of course everyone knows it to be true, except apparently for the NDP."

Western medicine responds

The comments have both perplexed and infuriated cancer experts. There's consensus around the fact that some cancers are related to behaviours like smoking, diet and environmental exposure, but the relationship isn't always a straight line and many cancers have no clear root causes. 

A cancer's stage refers to its spread within the body. Recommended or required treatment can range more based on the type of cancer than the stage, says Dr. Christina Kim, a medical oncologist at Cancer Care Manitoba, and an associate professor at the University of Manitoba.

"We use radiation, chemotherapy, surgery or any combination of those in early stage disease, and we may also use them in Stage 4 disease," Kim says. "It's false to think early stage cancers can be cured without those things."

To Kim, Smith's repeated remarks about patient control sounded awfully like blaming the patient. 

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"If you talked to any patient who has had cancer, I'm sure they would tell you that having a cancer diagnosis is not something they had control over."

In case it needs stating, Danielle Smith is not a doctor. She is a former political opposition leader, business group advocate, and a former radio broadcaster who has spoken to many doctors, ranging from those who have touted conventional life-saving medicine and those who have pooh-poohed it.

She is now running to lead Alberta's governing party and become premier, and to give more legitimacy to alternative health-care ideas — including her own — and those who promote them. That stands to excite some people, horrify others, and potentially change the way 4.4 million Albertans live, get sick and die.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jason Markusoff
Opinion and Analysis Producer, CBC Calgary
Jason Markusoff analyzes what's happening — and what isn't happening, but probably should be — in Calgary and sometimes farther afield. He's written in Alberta for nearly two decades with Maclean's magazine, the Calgary Herald and Edmonton Journal. He appears regularly on Power and Politics' Power Panel and various other CBC current affairs shows. Reach him at jason.markusoff@cbc.ca

Braid: Danielle Smith turns her love of fringe views to cancer care

This mind in the premier’s office, having its way with modern medicine, could wreak havoc

Author of the article:Don Braid • Calgary Herald
Publishing date:Jul 25, 2022 • 

Danielle Smith speaks at a leadership campaign event on July 14. 

Bailey Seymour/Special to Postmedia
Article content

UCP leadership candidate Danielle Smith’s dabbles in quackery are sometimes almost funny. This one is dangerous.

Her bizarre statement about cancer care could encourage patients not to seek “mainstream” or “traditional” care until their cancer is at stage four. By which time, in many cases, the patients will die no matter what care they get.

If I’d followed her prescription, I might very well be dead, too. We’ll get to that.

Smith talked to a naturopath for an hour on a campaign video. The shared assumption was that mainstream medicine does little to foster wellness or prevent illness. For that, it seems, we must turn to alternate, non-traditional medicine.

False. AHS has many prevention and wellness programs. Physicians’ primary care networks routinely refer patients to nutritionists, mental health consultants and other specialties. Health care usually pays for initial appointments.

I have nothing whatever against naturopaths. They are an accepted, regulated profession in Alberta.

But Smith’s casual acceptance of counter-mainstream claims is downright creepy. This mind in the premier’s office, having its way with modern medicine, could wreak havoc.

Smith said: “Once you’ve arrived and got stage 4 cancer, and there’s radiation and surgery and chemotherapy, those are incredibly expensive interventions, not just for the system, but also expensive in the toll it takes on the body.

“I think about everything that built up before you got to stage 4 and that diagnosis, that’s completely within your control, and there’s something that you can do about that that is different.”

She later fudged this but did not back away from her statement.

The response on Twitter and other social media was incandescent.

“Yeah, I encourage @ABDanielleSmith to visit a pediatric oncology ward and explain to those kids what they should have done differently,” Steve Lillebuen said

Smith’s opponent Brian Jean responded: “When it comes to cancer you don’t know what you are talking about.

“Having lost a child and other family members to cancer I think I can speak on behalf of many parents and loved ones.

“You saying to someone that their cancer is ‘completely within your control’ before stage four is insensitive, hurtful and outright untrue.

“Please stop.”

UCP MLA-elect Brian Jean speaks to supporters at his Fort McMurray campaign office after winning the Fort McMurray-Lac La Biche byelection on Tuesday, March 15, 2022. Vincent McDermott/Fort McMurray Today/Postmedia Network

When I was diagnosed with prostate cancer about eight years ago, I immediately got excellent advice about how to take care of myself, what to eat and not eat, how much to drink, how to lose weight. All of it came from “mainstream” experts.

Older men with low-grade prostate cancer are often called “watch and wait” cases. The reason is not flattering. “At your age you’ll probably die with the cancer rather than of it,” one doctor said.

Nonetheless, my doctors watched me like hawks over a gopher.

I had regular tests, constant wellness reminders. I quit drinking and eventually lost nearly 60 pounds.

The cancer paid no attention. Over a few months two years ago, my PSA reading — the key metric for tracking prostate cancer — vaulted from seven to 17. An urgent biopsy showed a dangerously aggressive cell at work.

At this point I was at stage two, far short of stage four. The cancer was still contained. I was given hormone therapy, which checks the cancer’s growth while giving you the dawning sensibility of a woman (and I mean that seriously.)

Then began a month of radiation therapy — 20 blasts on a Tom Baker table from super-skilled docs and technicians. This is a demanding regime and it does come with awkward after-effects.

But three months after it ended, my PSA level had plunged to 0.3. There it has stayed for more than a year. I was declared cancer free.

My point is: I did everything I was advised to do, including wellness and prevention help, and the cancer still broke loose. It was not in my control no matter how hard I tried to run it off.

I am well today precisely because I got regular “mainstream” assessments at every step, and therapy started at the first sign of serious danger.

Please, do not take your medical advice from Danielle Smith. The candidate is prone to quackery.

Don Braid’s column appears regularly in the Herald.
Twitter: @DonBraid

UCP leadership candidate Danielle Smith under fire by all political stripes for cancer comments

Tyson Fedor
CTV News Calgary Video Journalist
Follow | Contact
Updated July 26, 2022

Danielle Smith, the former Wildrose party leader and UCP leader hopeful is under fire after she hosted a podcast over the weekend with naturopathic doctor Dr. Christine Perkins talking about healthcare and the need for both mainstream and naturopathic medicines.

Smith and Perkins began talking about cancer patients, specifically those with stage four of the disease.

While listening to Perkins, Smith said she believes some of the blame falls at the hands of the patient.

“Once you’ve arrived and got stage four cancer and there’s radiation and surgery and chemotherapy, that is incredibly expensive intervention — not just for the system, but also expensive in the toll it takes on the body,” said Smith.

“But, when you think everything that built up before you got to stage four and that diagnosis, that’s completely within your control and there’s something you can do about that that is different.”

The pair talked about prevention with naturopathic medicines, before using mainstream medicine, such as chemotherapy and radiation, which they compared with being a ‘heroic’ medicine.

On Monday, Smith doubled down, saying the NDP attacked her for her comments.

“She (Dr. Perkins) is quite correct, the first three stages of cancer are more controllable in what complete care is available to a patient but once you get to stage four, that's when the patient is less in control,” said Smith in a Twitter video.



“Apparently everyone knows it to be true, except apparently for the NDP who want to use it as a wedge issue to attack me. I think that's beneath even them, and Albertans are tired of this.”

Smith responding to several politicians who have blasted her for spreading misinformation, including NDP leader Rachel Notley.

But she is also facing blowback from fellow UCP leadership contenders, with almost all coming out and criticizing her viewpoints.

Brian Jean tweeted a reaction to Danielle Smith's comments about cancer patients

Leadership hopeful Travis Toews said he was surprised by the comments.

“Cancer is such an emotional issue, there have been so many families that have been touched by that disease, I don’t want to further politicize it,” said Toews.

Fellow UCP leadership candidate Leela Aheer also tweeted

For Rebecca Schulz, who is also seeking the leadership she believes these statements are what leads to a divided province.

“Saying things like this that are untrue, absolutely going to lead us to an NDP government on a silver platter,” she said.

Rajan Sawney tweet, July 25, 2022

Timothy Caulfield, an expert in health law and policy at the University of Alberta, said these comments frustrate healthcare professionals.

“There is no evidence to support her claims,” he said.

“In fact the evidence tells us that alternative medicine, there have been a number of large studies on this, alternative medicine is associated with worse outcomes.”

He suggested that it's Smith who is politicizing cancer.

“You would think that a politician would be more sensitive more careful about spreading misinformation, health misinformation like this. We don’t need to legitimize pseudoscience, we need more good science,” said Caulfield.

He added that he does agree that lifestyle choices such as exercise, not smoking and eating well are alternative medicines in themselves to hopefully prevent deadly diseases.

Smith’s campaign did not make her available for an interview on Tuesday, referring CTV back to her podcast and video statement.

UCP leadership candidate Danielle Smith is under fire for remarks she made about people with cancer

Canadian Pension Fund loses $150 million in Celsius investment bet

Ana  Nicenko

6 days ago

While the troubled cryptocurrency lending firm Celsius continues to incur significant losses for its investors after freezing client withdrawals and filing for bankruptcy during the crypto market rout, a Canadian pension fund came out with a confession that it too made an investment in the failed crypto lender.

Indeed, Caisse de Depot et Placement du Quebec (CDPQ) had invested $150 million in Celsius back in October 2021, as part of a $400 million funding round co-led by WestCap Investment Partners LLC, Bloomberg’s Mathieu Dion reported on July 20.

According to an emailed statement by CPDQ’s spokesperson Maxime Chagnon:

“We understand that our investment in Celsius raises a number of questions. (…) This is something that we take very seriously, and we will provide further comment at the appropriate moment. Celsius is currently engaged in a complex process that will take time to resolve.”

Reportedly, CPDQ’s October contribution increased Celsius’s valuation by over $3 billion, and Chagnon stated that his company was “making every effort to preserve our rights,” without providing any more details on this effort.

‘A very small portion’ involved

That said, he did explain that a portion of the fund’s portfolio was indeed committed to risk assets that have the possibility of high yield, but that some of these investments, e.g. the one in Celsius, aren’t panning out as CPDQ had expected:

“A very small portion of our overall portfolio is invested in new technologies, which feature innovative, high-growth companies in riskier sectors that offer the potential for superior returns — and have provided outstanding returns to our clients over a number of years. (…) However, some of our investments, such as the one in Celsius, are not performing as expected.”

At the time of the investment, CPDQ’s Chief Technology Officer Alexandre Synnett referred to Celsius as “the world’s leading crypto lender with a strong management team that put transparency and customer protection at the core of their operations.”

Accusations of Ponzi-like con job

Meanwhile, Celsius has been slapped with a class action suit accusing it of selling unregistered securities in a Ponzi-like scheme and convincing investors to purchase its financial products at inflated rates.

In early July, Celsius’s former investment manager Jason Stone also filed a lawsuit allegedly claiming that his ex-employer was involved in crypto market manipulation without implementing basic accounting measures to protect customer deposits, as Finbold reported.

Disruption Warning As Lufthansa Ground Staff Set To Strike On Wednesday

BYCHARLOTTE SEET

PUBLISHED 2 DAYS AGO

The warning strike is set to worsen the woes of Lufthansa as it struggles to cope with increased demand and limited manpower

Germany's national carrier is about to face more disruptions to operations as a labor union has called on Lufthansa ground staff to conduct a one-day industrial walkout on Wednesday. While it might only be for one day, the call to strike applies to all Lufthansa bases within the country and will see tens of thousands of employees walking out on the airline over a 9.5% pay claim.

Call to action

Germany's main union Ver.di, announced on Monday that the main airports of Frankfurt, Munich, Cologne-Bonn, Dusseldorf, Hamburg, Hannover, and Stuttgart would be affected by the strikes. The union, which represents some 20,000 employees of Lufthansa, said in its statement:

“Verdi is calling the one-day strike to raise pressure on the employer to make a much-improved and acceptable pay offer in the next round of talks."

The action at Frankfurt, Germany's largest airport, is scheduled to strike first from 03:30 on Wednesday till 14:30 on Thursday and will mark yet another strike at Frankfurt Airport. However, this time it is between Ver.di and Lufthansa and not the Federal Association of Aviation Security Companies.

Lufthansa employees involved in ground and freight handling, administration, maintenance, and security, are all expected to participate in the industrial walkout. Away from Frankfurt, Ver.di plans for the strikes at other major airports to start from 03:45 on Wednesday and end no later than 14:00 the following day.

Strike Call by the German Union Verdi for Lufthansa Ground Staff on July, 27 2022

Due to a planned strike by the German Union Verdi, representing Lufthansa ground personnel, on Wednesday, July 27, flight disruptions and cancellations are likely to occur during the whole day also at Frankfurt Airport. Lufthansa passengers are advised to check the status of their flight prior to departure via the Internet at www.lufthansa.com.
Information regarding your flight is available on your airline’s website or by calling 01806-FRAINFO (01806-3724636 – flat landline rate of 0.20 euro cents per call; costs of 0.60 euro cents per call from a mobile network within Germany), as well as at www.frankfurt-airport.com.

Lufthansa feels pressured

The two parties are at odds in negotiations on improving salaries and working conditions for the same employees who have been called to strike. With that many employees from various ground positions involved in the planned industrial walkout, flight operations will face massive disruptions. Ver.di is well aware of this and hopes Wednesday's warning strike will further increase pressure on the German carrier.

Michael Niggemann, Member of the Executive Board Chief Officer Human Resources Deutsche Lufthansa AG, said:

"After only two days of negotiations, Ver.di has announced a strike that can hardly be called a warning strike due to its breadth across all locations and its duration. This is all the more incomprehensible given that the employer side has offered high and socially balanced pay increases – despite the continuing tense economic situation for Lufthansa following the Covid crisis, high debt burdens and uncertain prospects for the global economy."

Warning strikes are a common tactic in German labor negotiations and typically last from several hours to a day or two. Photo: Tom Boon | Simple Flying

Back to the table?

The next round of negotiations is scheduled for August 3rd and 4th, but it remains uncertain if Lufthansa will be changing or enhancing its current offerings in an attempt to avert Wednesday's strikes. Among other things, Lufthansa had previously presented a package with the following components:

At the beginning of this month, with a term of 18 months, each employee would receive:An increase in basic pay of €150 ($153.17) per month as of July 1st, 2022,
a further basic pay increase of €100 ($102.10) per month as of January 1st, 2023,
an additional 2% increase in compensation as of July 1st, 2023, depending on how Lufthansa's business develops.

Ver.di has said that these offers from Lufthansa fall considerably short of its demands, which include a 9.5% salary increase this year. The deputy chairwoman of the union, Christine Behle, highlighted the needs of Lufthansa's employees by saying:

"They urgently need more money and relief — for themselves and passengers. The employers' offer is not enough for that."

Thus far, Lufthansa has avoided industrial walkouts affecting its European rivals such as Ryanair. 

A growing burden for passengers

Considering the mass scale of disruptions across so many airports and that many employees, Lufthansa has been unable to share the estimated number of flight cancelations for Wednesday and is still working on re-planning.

Unfortunately for the Star Alliance member airline, Wednesday's cancellations will add to an already long list of flights canceled over this chaotic summer season and further dampen the joy of flying for several passengers.

Niggemann reiterated the potential significance of the walkout, commenting:

"After the enormous efforts to stabilize our flight operations, this represents a renewed, substantial, and unnecessary burden for our passengers and employees beyond the strike day."

Lufthansa is a relative stranger still to strikes when compared to some of its European rivals, such as Ryanair. However, the German national carrier could soon be getting its fair share of experience. Apart from Wednesday's upcoming industrial walkout, the pilots' union, Vereinigung Cockpit, is also currently holding a vote on whether to move forward with a call to strike on Lufthansa. Should the voters favor the strike, Lufthansa and its passengers will inevitably see more cuts to scheduled flights, further deepening the chaotic state of European summer travel.


Charlotte Seet 
Journalist - Charlotte is currently pursuing a full-time undergraduate degree majoring in Aviation Business Administration and minoring in Air Traffic Management. Charlotte previously wrote for AirlineGeeks. Based in Singapore.

More From Charlotte Seet

SCIENCE FICTION; DARK MATTER

Physicists Have Developed a Method for Predicting the Composition of Dark Matter

By  NEW YORK UNIVERSITY JULY 21, 2022

An artist’s rendition of big bang nucleosynthesis, the early universe period in which protons “p” and neutrons “n” combine to form light elements. The presence of dark matter “χ” changes how much of each element will form. Credit: Image courtesy of Cara Giovanetti/New York University

A new analysis offers an innovative means to predict ‘cosmological signatures’ for models of dark matter.

A method for predicting the composition of dark matter has been developed by a team of physicists. Dark matter is invisible matter detected only by its gravitational pull on ordinary matter and whose discovery has been long sought by scientists. 

The new work centers on predicting “cosmological signatures” for models of dark matter with a mass between that of the electron and the proton. Previous methods had predicted similar signatures for simpler models of dark matter. This research establishes new ways to find these signatures in more complex models, which experiments continue to search for, the paper’s authors note. The paper was published on July 6 in the journal Physical Review Letters.

“Experiments that search for dark matter are not the only way to learn more about this mysterious type of matter,” says Cara Giovanetti, a Ph.D. student in New York University’s Department of Physics and the lead author of the paper. 

“Precision measurements of different parameters of the universe—for example, the amount of helium in the universe, or the temperatures of different particles in the early universe—can also teach us a lot about dark matter,” adds Giovanetti, outlining the method described in the Physical Review Letters paper.

In the research, the physicists focused on big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN)—a process by which light forms of matter, such as helium, hydrogen, and lithium, are created. The presence of invisible dark matter affects how each of these elements will form. Also vital to these phenomena is the cosmic microwave background (CMB)—electromagnetic radiation, generated by combining electrons and protons, that remained after the universe’s formation. The work was conducted with Hongwan Liu, an NYU postdoctoral fellow, Joshua Ruderman, an associate professor in NYU’s Department of Physics, and Princeton physicist Mariangela Lisanti, Giovanetti, and her co-authors.

The team of scientists sought a means to spot the presence of a specific category of dark matter—that with a mass between that of the electron and the proton—by creating models that took into account both BBN and CMB.

“Such dark matter can modify the abundances of certain elements produced in the early universe and leave an imprint in the cosmic microwave background by modifying how quickly the universe expands,” Giovanetti explains. 

In their research, the team made predictions of cosmological signatures linked to the presence of certain forms of dark matter. These signatures are the result of dark matter changing the temperatures of different particles or altering how fast the universe expands. 

Their results showed that dark matter that is too light will lead to different amounts of light elements than what astrophysical observations see. 

“Lighter forms of dark matter might make the universe expand so fast that these elements don’t have a chance to form,” says Giovanetti, outlining one scenario.

“We learn from our analysis that some models of dark matter can’t have a mass that’s too small, otherwise the universe would look different from the one we observe,” she adds.

Reference: “Joint Cosmic Microwave Background and Big Bang Nucleosynthesis Constraints on Light Dark Sectors with Dark Radiation” by Cara Giovanetti, Mariangela Lisanti, Hongwan Liu and Joshua T. Ruderman, 6 July 2022, Physical Review Letters.
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.129.021302

The research was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation (DGE1839302, PHY-1915409, PHY-1554858, PHY-1607611) and the Department of Energy (DE-SC0007968).