UCP WANTED AHS TO TELL THEM

Alberta premier accuses health system of giving government unreliable pandemic information 

WHAT THEY WANTED TO HEAR

Premier Jason Kenney says Alberta Health Services did not respond to political direction during the most dire waves of the COVID-19 pandemic.


Alberta Premier Jason Kenney blames AHS for providing what he says was fluctuating information about intensive care capacity during the COVID-19 pandemic.

© Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press

KENNEY IGNORED THE SCIENCE TO OPEN UP FOR THE CALGARY STAMPEDE

Janet French - CBC

Kenney told reporters at a Calgary news conference Wednesday that Alberta Health Services (AHS) provided the government with continually changing numbers about the number of intensive care beds it could operate across the province during the pandemic.

"All politics aside, decision makers need clear and timely information when you're dealing with a crisis like this, and we simply did not receive that," Kenney said at a news conference about expanding private surgery capacity in the province.

Critics who wanted more measures to contain the spread of the virus causing COVID-19 have lambasted Kenney and his government for being too slow to respond at times when cases increased in the province.

Kenney took particular heat for going on vacation during the summer of 2021 when most health restrictions were removed and cases of the Delta variant began to rise rapidly in August and September of 2021.

Kenney said Wednesday that AHS had initially said it could operate more than 1,000 ICU beds across the province during the pandemic. By May 2021, the government was saying its maximum ICU bed capacity was 425.

"We were given a September surprise a year ago that the best the system could do was to stretch from 173 [beds] to 230," Kenney said.

ICU bed peak

According to government data, pandemic ICU bed use peaked in the province on Sept. 28, 2021, at 337 patients with and without COVID-19. Another 53 beds were considered unoccupied that day.

But the situation was more acute on May 15, 2021, when there were only six ICU beds considered unoccupied while patients were in 259 ICU beds.

However, Kenney said the information from AHS about ICU capacity limits the next fall were unexpected.

"It was in my view unacceptable to have decision makers surprised with that radical reduction in stretch capacity at the last minute in a critical moment," he said Wednesday.

AHS has not yet responded to a request for comment.

Many politicians have pointed fingers at the health agency for their pandemic response and claimed they were unprepared to handle a large influx of sick patients.

In April, AHS suddenly announced CEO Dr. Verna Yiu was leaving less than halfway through a two-year contract.

At the time, the government said they were looking for a new, longer-term leader to oversee changes, such as the use of more private surgical clinics.

Critical care expansion

United Conservative Party leadership candidate Danielle Smith, who is vying to replace Kenney, has proposed firing the board overseeing AHS. Most board members were appointed by the current government.

Kenney said his government has since made it clear to AHS they expect a permanent expansion of critical care capacity, and have funded an expansion of 50 more ICU beds, 32 of which are now open.

NDP leader Rachel Notley said Wednesday that earlier in the pandemic, people working within the health-care system didn't believe they could scale up intensive care units as much as the government was promising. She said it was unachievable with Alberta's health-care worker numbers.

"Jason Kenney's attempts to whine about AHS is nothing but a continuation of a long practice of falling to take responsibility for really bad decisions that he has made that hurt Albertans."

Notley said the government's management of health-care has been chaotic, by ending a master agreement with Alberta's doctors, threatening some workers with pay cuts and outsourcing jobs to private companies.

Mysterious white mounds spark alarm after appearing across Great Salt Lake: ‘We are concerned’

Graig Graziosi - 

Park rangers in Utah are concerned and confounded by the appearance of strange white mounds along the shorelines of the Great Salt Lake.


Great Salt Lake© ASSOCIATED PRESS

Over the last several winters, rangers have noticed that the lake's usually flat southern shoreline has been pocked by unusual white mounds popping up along its shoreline.

Angelic Anderson, a ranger at the Great Salt Lake State Park, told Gizmodo that she and other rangers grew so concerned by the mounds that they reached out to other state agencies for help.

“We were very concerned,”she said. “One of our rangers contacted the Utah Geological Survey looking for answers.”

UGS geologists responded and collected samples from the mounds. Their tests determined that the piles were a type of salt formation called a mirabilite mound, which is sometimes called Glauber's salt.

The formations are generally rare and occur when underground water reacts with minerals and then bubbles up to the surface. When the mixture mingles with cold air, it forms white crystals, which then solidify into the chalky, white mounds.

The mounds were first spotted in 2019. Generally the section of the lake where they cropped up would be covered in water, but the lake's levels have dropped significantly over the last three years to record lows thanks to worsening drought conditions throughout the west.

This has provided an ideal environment for the mounds to grow. The UGS report suggested that the mounds may eventually seal off their initial water source, which forces the groundwater to find a new path to the surface. When that happens, a new mound forms, continuing the cycle.

Ms Anderson said each year since 2019 they have found more mounds, and often larger mounds than in years prior.

“But this year, we’ve recorded 15, the most we’ve ever seen," she said. "They’ve also gotten bigger, with one measuring three feet in height. Last year there was also one that was 35-feet long.”

The emergence of the mounds has spurred local tourist interest thanks to their coverage in the news. Rangers have begun leading tours to the mound sites, and a local university has started collecting samples to study the biology of the structures.

Lending to the interest is the fact that the mounds are temporary; the mounds need the cold air of winter to form, and as temperatures rise through the spring and summer, the mounds collapse into a thin layer of white powder called thenardite.

Utah's Great Salt Lake reaching historic low levels
View on Watch
Duration 0:56

It's unlikely conditions at the lake will change significantly enough in the next few months, so it is likely that a new set of mounds will show up this winter along the shoreline.

From news to politics, travel to sport, culture to climate – The Independent has a host of free newsletters to suit your interests. To find the stories you want to read, and more, in your inbox, click here.

Movie chain Cineworld files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy

Movie theater operator Cineworld Group LLC has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S. as it deals with billions of dollars in debt and lower-than-expected attendance at screenings.


Movie chain Cineworld files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy© Provided by The Canadian Press

“The pandemic was an incredibly difficult time for our business, with the enforced closure of cinemas and huge disruption to film schedules that has led us to this point," CEO Mooky Greidinger said in a statement.

The company and its subsidiaries have commitments for an approximate $1.94 billion debtor-in-possession financing facility from existing lenders, which will help ensure Cineworld’s operations continue as usual while it undergoes a reorganization.

Recommended video: Cineworld stares at possible bankruptcy
Duration 1:04
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3:03
Business expert reacts as Cineworld group considers bankruptcy

Daily Mail


4:35
Cineworld Short Seller: Equity Holders 'Will Get Zero'

Bloomberg

Last month the British company, which owns Regal Cinemas in the U.S. and operates in 10 countries, said its theaters remained “open for business as usual” as it considered options for relief from its debt load.

Cineworld had built up $4.8 billion in net debt, not including lease liabilities. The company, which has about 28,000 employees, previously said that its admissions levels have recently been below expectations. And with a “limited film slate,” it expects the lower levels to continue until November. That would mean an additional crunch to its finances.

Cineworld anticipates exiting from Chapter 11 during the first quarter of 2023.

Michelle Chapman, The Associated Press

Exclusive-Mexico state utility bought coal from uninspected mines, including fatal site -records

By Jackie Botts - TODAY

Mine accident in Sabinas

© Reuters/DANIEL BECERRIL

OAXACA CITY, Mexico (Reuters) - Mexico's state-owned power utility has been buying coal from new mines that have not yet been visited by labor inspectors, according to a Reuters analysis of coal contracts and inspection records, including the mine where 10 people died last month after flooding trapped them below ground.

Mexican law does not require prior labor inspections for mines that supply Federal Electricity Commission (CFE). But the disaster at the El Pinabete mine, which triggered a huge rescue effort that has yet to retrieve the victims, highlights the dangers faced by thousands of low-paid Mexican miners who work in narrow, primitive mine shafts digging out coal with hand drills and shovels.


Mine accident in Sabinas

 Reuters/DANIEL BECERRIL

Many such mines were heading towards extinction until President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador announced he would "rescue" both Mexico's coal industry and CFE.

In a bid to increase the country's energy independence and combat inequality, Lopez Obrador ordered CFE to buy coal directly from small-scale producers in the northern border state of Coahuila, circumventing the typical bidding process.

Researchers, activists and politicians have criticized the policy for lacking transparency, doubling down on dirty energy production, and boosting primitive coal mines prone to fatal accidents.

"It results in the exploitation of pits without the necessary safety (measures) to be able to take care of the workers' lives," said Coahuila Governor Miguel Riquelme in an August press conference.

It also resulted in coal being bought from mines that had not yet been inspected by labor officials.

Of 67 companies in Coahuila that CFE contracted in 2020 and 2021, at least 30 had not been inspected by the Mexican Labor Secretary prior to receiving a contract, according to inspections records of mines obtained by Reuters that date from 2016 through March 2022.

Those 30 suppliers received just under a third of the 3.15 billion Mexican pesos ($157.38 million) that CFE awarded in coal contracts in 2020 and 2021.

The records show that labor inspectors visited most of those mines the year after they received contracts. But three companies have never been inspected.

Among them is El Pinabete, where the disaster occurred, which received a contract from CFE in 2021 for 33.61 million pesos ($1.68 million) worth of coal.

In response to a request for comment, a Labor Secretary spokesperson said they had never sent inspectors to the El Pinabete mine because they were unaware the company operated there. The spokesperson added that inspectors had visited the two other mines, only to find that "at the time of the visits they were out of operation."

The Labor Secretary does not get involved in CFE's procurement process, nor does it have the legal power to, the spokesperson said.

Before signing a contract, CFE requires coal companies to declare under oath that they comply with all mining safety regulations, but is not required to take additional steps to verify.

CFE did not respond to requests for comment.

However, in a July news conference, CFE Subdirector of Procurement Miguel Lopez said the energy company required Coahuila coal mines to provide proof of a positive rating by the Secretary of Labor during a new round of coal contracts awarded to 52 mines this summer. It is unclear whether any of those mines lacked a safety inspection before receiving a contract, because the records reviewed by Reuters do not include inspections past March 2022.

Aleida Azamar, an Autonomous Metropolitan University professor who studies the mining industry, said CFE's policy has led dangerous, small-scale coal mines to "sprout up everywhere" in the coal region, inspiring locals to call them "milpas," or cornfields.

In some cases, Azamar said, beneficiaries of CFE contracts are actually prominent coal companies that registered new mines – often dug in previously abandoned mining zones – under borrowed names.

At the fatal El Pinabete mine, the name of the man who was registered as the employer in Social Security records, Cristian Solis, may have been used to conceal the identity of the real owner, President Lopez Obrador said in an August press conference. Reuters was not able to reach Solis for comment.

The Attorney General's Office announced on Sunday that it obtained arrest warrants for Solis and two others allegedly responsible for "illegal coal exploitation" at the mine.

($1 = 20.0149 Mexican pesos)

(Reporting by Jackie Botts; editing by Stephen Eisenhammer and Marguerita Choy)

Judge calls Elon Musk's legal team's efforts 'suboptimal' and takes a dig at his decision to waive due diligence on Twitter deal

gkay@insider.com (Grace Kay) - 5h ago -  Business Insider

A Judge had some harsh words for Elon Musk's legal team in its court battle with Twitter.

During a hearing, the judge called efforts to produce people with knowledge of the deal "suboptimal."

The Delaware judge later granted Musk's request to amend his countersuit against Twitter.

Elon Musk speaks at an oil and gas conference in Stavanger, Norway on Monday. 

THE PHANTOM SANS MASQUE

Twitter filed a lawsuit against Elon Musk for trying to back out of his deal to buy Twitter for $44 billion.

Musk said he wanted to terminate the deal because of issues around Twitter's disclosure of the number of spam accounts on its site.
Twitter's lawsuit is full of fiery accusations against Musk.

Twitter isn't letting Elon Musk back away from his initial promise to buy the social media site that easily.

On Tuesday, Twitter filed a lawsuit against Musk, accusing him of "refusing to honor his obligations."

The suit comes after Musk announced last week that he wanted to terminate the agreement he signed in April to buy Twitter for $44 billion. Musk claimed he wanted to end the deal because Twitter did not hand over enough data for his team to verify the number of bots and spam accounts on the site.

In response to the lawsuit late Tuesday from Twitter, Musk tweeted: "Oh the irony lol."

Twitter's lawsuit is full of fiery accusations against Musk. Here are some of the best lines:

A Delaware judge took some digs at Elon Musk's legal team during a pre-trial hearing on Tuesday in Twitter's lawsuit to force the billionaire to honor his $44 billion purchase agreement.

Chancery Court Judge Kathleen St. J. McCormick sounded irritated with Musk's team at several points during the hearing.

She told Musk's lawyers that their work to produce and identify people that had spoken with Musk about the deal for court discovery "bothered [her] a lot."

"I ordered you to do the job," McCormick said. "You had two custodians. Have you heard the saying: 'You had one job?'" she added.

Her comments came after Twitter's legal team argued that the opposing side was withholding and delaying the information it shared — causing issues with Twitter's attempts to subpoena individuals involved in the acquisition. Over 100 subpoenas have been issued in the case so far.

McCormick also called Musk's legal team "suboptimal" in its response to naming the parties involved in the deal.

Recommended video: Musk and Twitter face off in contentious court hearing
Duration 1:26
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The judge pushed back at multiple claims from Musk's legal team.

During the hearing, the lawyers discussed allegations made last month by a former executive-turned-whistleblower. Musk's legal team argued that Twitter would have hidden the accusations even if the billionaire had done an in-depth appraisal of the company leading up to signing the purchase agreement.

In reality, the Tesla CEO waived his rights to due diligence when he agreed to buy the social media company in July, experts have said.

"We don't know what would have happened in diligence because there wasn't any due diligence, right?" McCormick said.

Musk's legal team argued in the hearing that the billionaire had bargained for information rights — meaning the ability to look into financial statements and other company information like any other investor.

Ultimately, McCormick granted the motion for Musk to include the whistleblower's complaint in his countersuit. However, she denied Musk's efforts to delay the trial, saying Twitter has already started to see negative effects due to the case.

In July, she initially ruled in July that Twitter's lawsuit attempting to force Musk to close on his $44 billion agreement to acquire Twitter needed to be expedited, given the deal was set to close in late October and various financing agreements are contingent on that date. The five-day trial is set to take place in October.

It wasn't the first time that the judge has had sharp words for Musk's legal team. Last month, she called the lawyers' request for data from Twitter "absurdly broad."

"No one in their right mind has ever tried to undertake such an effort," McCormick said in the late-August order partially granting Musk's demand for more data from Twitter on the number of spam accounts on its site.

A spokesperson for Twitter told Insider that the company looks "forward to presenting our case in Court beginning on October 17th and intend to close the transaction on the price and terms agreed upon with Mr. Musk."

"We are hopeful that winning the motion to amend takes us one step closer to the truth coming out in that courtroom," Alex Spiro, a lawyer for Musk, said.

Argentina and IDB agree to $5 billion deal as foreign reserves dwindle

Yesterday 

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Argentina and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) agreed on Tuesday to expand financing to the South American country to almost $5 billion between 2022 and 2023.


Argentina inflation soars to highest level in years, in Buenos Aires

© Reuters/MARIANA NEDELCU

The agreement comes as Argentina seeks to leave behind financial turmoil that has raised inflation to over 90% this year, pushing consumption and economic activity down and over 40% of the population into poverty.

After a meeting between Argentine and bank officials, IDB President Mauricio Claver-Carone told reporters that the bank and the country have drawn up a plan to unlock "what was stuck," alluding to recent doubts about financing Argentina.

Sources with knowledge on the matter told Reuters that more than $3 billion of the agreed total would be sent to Argentina this year.

The idea came after negotiations were held in Washington between representatives from Argentina's economy ministry and the IDB, a government source said, adding that the country urgently needs foreign currency to avoid a depreciation of the peso in the midst of high inflation.

Of those $3 billion, $1.2 billion would be freely available and would be disbursed in two steps: $500 million before Sept. 30 and $700 million before Dec. 30, according to the Argentine government source.

In 2023, the agency will disburse another $1.8 billion.

"This measure ... allows us to show the strength that we want our central bank to have in reserves," Argentine Economy Minister Sergio Massa said after the meeting with IDB officials.

(Reporting by Nicolas Misculin; Additional reporting by Kanishka Singh; Editing by Stephen Coates)

The Infamous ‘Grandfather Paradox’ Doesn’t Make Time Travel Impossible After All

Robert Lea - 

Popular Mechanics

It just means you can’t go back in time and kill your grandfather.© Comstock - Getty Images

The grandfather paradox is a potential logical problem in which a time traveler could go back in time and erase their own existence.

Closed timelike curves, or paths through spacetime that lead to the past, allow time travel.

An MIT experiment suggests any jaunt that would lead to a paradox in time travel is canceled preemptively.

It’s a classic science fiction trope: a time traveler journeys back in time and causes a change in history that has disastrous effects on the present or even threatens their very existence.

If these changes jeopardize their ability to travel back through time in the first place, then surely the traveler can’t make that change to time, right? But then they can go back in time again, so, can make those changes again … and so forth.

That’s the essence of a trap called the “grandfather paradox,” an idea that has been used to great effect in books, films, and TV shows—from Ray Bradbury’s short story A Sound of Thunder to Futurama to Back to the Future. And as much fun as this concept is in science fiction, it’s also something that actual physicists and philosophers are intensely thinking about.

“The argument runs like this, if you could ‘go back in time’ then you could go back to a time before your grandfather had had any children and murder him,” Tim Maudlin, a philosopher of science who investigates the metaphysical foundations of physics and logic, explains to Popular Mechanics. “But if that happened, then one of your parents would not have been born, so you would not have been born, so there would be no you to go back in time. Contradiction.”

This problem arises from the risk time travel would present to one of the most preserved ideas in physics — causality, the idea that cause must proceed effect in all circumstances.

“The grandfather paradox is usually presented as a reductio ad absurdum, or a refutation of the proposition that time travel is possible,” Maudlin says. “So the hypothesis must be impossible because of the grandfather paradox; time travel— or reverse causation — is not possible.”

Though he doesn’t ultimately think travel backward through time is possible, Maudlin thinks that the grandfather paradox shouldn’t prevent time travel in and of itself. Instead, the paradox just prevents what actions can be conducted on a trip through time.

“The grandfather paradox does not prove that you can’t go back in time, just that you can’t go back in time and kill your grandfather,” he says. “There would be nothing logically wrong with going back in time and, say, saying ‘Hello’ to your grandfather.”

Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have an idea of just how causality violation could be prevented.

Time Travel That Protects Granddad



Seth Lloyd, a professor of mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a self-described “quantum mechanic,” has been conducting research for over a decade that suggests a way of going back in time and avoiding the grandfather paradox altogether.

This involves the physics of closed timelike curves (CTCs), paths through time and space that return to their starting point, which are allowed by general relativity — Albert Einstein’s theory of gravity and the effect mass has on space and time, or the single entity of spacetime.

“A closed timelike curve is a path through spacetime that leads to the past,” Loyd tells Popular Mechanics. “If you follow a closed timelike curve in your spaceship, you can end up interacting with your former self. That is, closed timelike curves allow time travel.”

There are a few different types of CTC models, which Lloyd illustrates with examples from popular fiction.

“There are basically two different possible types of models for CTCs. In one — which we call, imaginatively, Type I — the time traveler can intervene to change the past as she remembers it, at which point she enters into a different quantum branch of the universe— as in Back to the Future, Hot Tub Time Machine, and other time-travel narratives,” he explains. “In such Type I theories of time travel, it’s perfectly possible for the time traveler to kill her grandfather.”

In the other type of CTC model, which is predictably called Type II, time travel has to obey a principle of self-consistency. Sometimes called the Novikov self-consistency principle, or Niven’s Law of the conservation of history, this principle prevents causality violation by placing some events in order on the same CTC. This self-consistency would prevent our time-traveler from landing her machine on granddad, even if she wanted to. Some effect would always divert her course.

“In Type II theories, the time traveler cannot change the past, no matter how hard she tries,” Lloyd says. “Examples of Type II time travel narratives include Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and the Terry Gilliam film, Twelve Monkeys.”

Terminator Photons: Back in Time With a Mission to Kill

Lloyd and his team set about exploring a version of Type II CTCs that combine the concepts of quantum teleportation with post-selection — the factor in a computation that allows certain results to be accepted while others are rejected.

“Quantum teleportation is a process in which a quantum system dematerializes here and then rematerializes somewhere else based on the counter-intuitive quantum phenomenon of entanglement [the idea that two or more particles can be linked in such a way that a change in one instantaneously causes a change in the other no matter how distant they are],” Lloyd says. “In the quantum theory of CTCs that we developed, travel through the closed timelike curve is closely related to teleportation.”

The quantum mechanic added that adding post-selection to quantum measurement makes the process deterministic rather than probabilistic and it effectively bans events that would prove to be paradoxical.

Lloyd set about testing this idea by developing an “in principle” time machine — a quantum simulation that effectively sends a photon a few billionths of a second backward in time to have it attempt to “kill” its previous self.

The results showed that the closer a photon got to doing something self-inconsistent, the more frequently the experiment failed. Lloyd’s results could hint that time travel might work in the same way — any jaunt that would lead to a paradox is canceled preemptively.

Could Quantum Physics Provide an Exit to the Grandfather Paradox?

Quantum physics might provide another out to the Grandfather Paradox. One particular interpretation of quantum mechanics — Hugh Everett’s Many World Interpretations — suggests that for every quantum possibility that exists, a separate and distinct world emerges.

Physicist David Deutsch, a pioneer in quantum computing, imagined the Many Worlds idea in the case of time travel. He envisioned a particle traveling along a CTC loop through time in a quantum superposition— a phenomenon that exists in quantum physics that allows a system to exist in multiple, potentially contradictory, states at once.

To avoid paradoxes at the end of the journey and ensure a particle arrives back at its starting point the same as it was when it left, a world is created for each possible state. Let’s see how that would work for a human traveler in time if such a thing was possible.

Imagine a hypothetical time traveler, who we’ll call Susan, takes a CTC-based journey back through time to meet her grandfather as a child in 1963. Being hyper-literal and overprecise, she lands this time machine exactly where granddad was standing in Totter’s Lane scrapyard, London, squishing him dead. Susan waits to disappear from existence, but the Many Worlds interpretation of quantum physics may protect her.

This is because when Susan arrived in 1963, she created a world that is distinct from the world she left. In the world she left, let’s call it Earth 1, her grandfather wasn’t squashed. He went on to have a granddaughter called Susan who once disappeared in a time machine. So, the child Susan landed on in the past isn’t her grandfather at all, just a version of him from an alternative world.

Traveling back to the future, Susan would find it different from the world she left—not because it’s been altered by her actions, but rather because this world, Earth 2, was created by her — it’s not the same world.

The Many Worlds Interpretation has a consequence for our time traveler; Everett insisted that one of the rules of his theorems was that worlds couldn’t interfere with each other. This means that our time traveler can’t get back to Earth 1.

If Susan attempts to travel back in time to 1963 to prevent the death of her grandfather, she creates a third world — Earth 3 — in which two time-travelers appeared in Totter’s Lane scrapyard in 1963. She travels forward again realizing she now can’t get back to Earth 1 or Earth 2.

Somewhere on Earth 1 and in that timeline, Susan’s wistful grandfather awaits her return, which will never come about.

Of course, the Grandfather Paradox isn’t the only argument against time travel. One very sensible question is: if time travel is possible, when are all the time travelers?

“For what it’s worth since we put forward the theory and performed the proof of principle experiment, many people have written to me claiming to be time travelers who are stuck in time and asking me if they can use our time machine to get back to their own time,” Lloyd says. “I advise them to wait until the bugs have been worked out.”

‘Deep roots in racist organisations’: Magdalena Andersson on the far-right threat in Sweden’s election

Miranda Bryant in Norrtälje - 

The Guardian

Sweden’s Social Democratic prime minister, Magdalena Andersson, has said the country is at a pivotal moment as it prepares for its most critical election in years, in which rightwing populists with neo-Nazi roots are likely to become the second biggest party.


Photograph: Jessica Gow/AP© Provided by The Guardian

Andersson, who took over from Stefan Löfven in November to become Sweden’s first female leader, told the Guardian in an interview while campaigning near Stockholm that the repercussions would be considerable if the right-leaning parties win Sunday’s vote.

A second-place result for the Sweden Democrats could lead to a coalition with the Moderates, an established centre-right party that has moved to embrace the populists.

“There are rightwing populist parties in many European countries, but the Sweden Democrats have deep roots in the Swedish neo-Nazis and other racist organisations in Sweden,” said Andersson, speaking on a campaign bus emblazoned with the words Vårt Sverige kan bättre (Our Sweden can do better).


“And still today, I mean just last week, one employee at their central headquarters invited the other employees to celebrate the Nazis’ invasion of Poland during the second world war. I mean, it’s not like other parties.”

In other examples, she cited a television interview in February in which the party’s leader, Jimmie Åkesson, refused to say whether he preferred Joe Biden or Vladimir Putin, and Åkesson’s recent criticism of the Centre party leader Annie Lööf’s tone after she was the suspected target of a terror attack.

“Having that party having a say in every government decision of course would mean a lot. And also would mean a lot for Sweden and for the tone of the political debate,” she said.

While Andersson insisted the majority of Sweden Democrat voters were “decent people” disappointed with the status quo, she said there was an inner circle including MPs who “act and have ideas that are very far away from the majority of the Swedish people”.

The election comes at a tumultuous time for Sweden, against the backdrop of growing hostility from Russia as it prepares to join Nato, a Europe-wide energy crisis, and violence on the streets. So far this year, up to the start of September, there have been 273 shootings, 47 of which were deadly, according to police statistics. And the pandemic has exposed stark inequalities in living conditions among immigrants and refugees.

While Andersson said she did not consider Russia a “direct military threat”, she added: “It’s very important that we do have these security assurances that we got from the UK, the US, France, Germany and many other countries during our Nato application. We’re very grateful for that, it means a lot to us.”

Calling for Europe to become less dependent on Russian gas, she said gas and electricity prices must be “decoupled”. “We are all affected by the energy war that Putin is having against Europe with the low supply of Russian gas. The lesson to learn is, for long-term, to not be as dependent on Russian gas, and in the short-term we have in the European Union to decouple the gas prices and the electricity prices, that’s absolutely necessary.”

Asked why she wanted to continue in the job when the challenges, domestically and abroad, are so tough, Andersson – speaking between visits to Norrtälje and Botkyrka, both near Stockholm – said she wanted to help the country through tough times.

As her bus, well stocked with pick’n’mix sweets, pulled into campaign events, she was greeted by circular placards of her face and the sound of Fyra nya år! (Four New Years!), the song of the party’s youth league. At one, a small group of women sang a song dedicated to “Magda”, her nickname, to the tune of Yellow Submarine.

At her first stop, at a community centre in Norrtälje, she warned voters that the election was extremely even. She said the vote was about “what kind of Sweden we want and how we want our country to develop”. At her second, a family event in Botkyrka, she urged hundreds of parents to “go and vote”.



Andersson poses for a photograph with a girl in Botkyrka. 

Photograph: Jessica Gow/AP© Provided by The Guardian

If she remains prime minister after Sunday’s election, she said Ukraine would be “top of the agenda”, and her priorities at home would include reducing gang violence, creating a more inclusive society, increasing employment in segregated areas, protecting welfare, stopping private companies profiting from the school system, and speeding up the green transition.

“What we see in Sweden right now is fantastic, with thousands of jobs in the new green industry, like battery factories and fossil-free steel production, so we really have potential also to show the world that you can speed up the green transition and have good prosperous development with lots of new jobs.”

She spoke positively about Boris Johnson, who she said had “shown a lot of leadership” on Ukraine and whose security assurances to Sweden she appreciated. “If I continue, I will look forward to working together with Liz Truss,” she added.

Related: ‘People don’t want to hear about it’: how the pandemic shaped Sweden’s politics

Andersson said it was not hugely significant to her if she became Sweden’s first elected female prime minister (she succeeded Löfven after a vote in parliament), though she recognised it would be “good for Sweden”, adding that she had seen what it meant to other women and girls to see her lead the government.

“They are happy that we finally got there. So it’s an important symbol – maybe more important than I thought before I got elected, to be honest. And of course if I could also be elected in a general election that would be another important step for Sweden.”

The treatment of Sanna Marin, Finland’s prime minister, with whom she has worked closely, after footage emerged of her dancing highlighted the unfair treatment of female leaders, she said. “I don’t think it would be global news in the same way if she had been a man.” She believes the 36-year-old’s relative youth also contributed to the way she was targeted.

In Botkyrka, Ingalill Strömqvist, 76, said she was pleased with Andersson’s performance so far as prime minister as she was “very loud and clear about what she thinks”.

Serkan Elcen, 37, and engineer, said his voting priorities were energy politics and security, adding it had been a difficult time with Ukraine but that Andersson had “handled the circumstances well.”

Elcen said: “She’s popular, but it’s very polarised right now.”

Illegal drones hamper helicopters fighting Chetamon wildfire: Parks Canada

Madeline Smith - 25m ago - Edmonton Journal

Parks Canada officials are issuing stern warnings about illegal drone use after drones flying near the Chetamon Mountain wildfire grounded eight helicopters fighting the blaze Tuesday.


The Chetamon wildfire, about 15 kilometres east of the Jasper townsite, is currently estimated to cover about 5,500 hectares, down from 6,150 hectares on Tuesday.

In a Wednesday update, Parks Canada fire management officer Katie Ellsworth said drone operation is illegal in national parks without a permit, adding drones recently interrupted crews dropping water from helicopters to suppress the fire burning 15 kilometres from the Jasper townsite.

“This means that critical fire suppression operations were halted, in this case it was for approximately an hour, in the middle of the peak burning period, so we were no longer able to conduct our fire operations,” she said.
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“If this activity occurs during a very active wildfire day, it could result in an increase of fire behaviour. It can result in the injury or death of a firefighter, and if there is an interaction between a drone and a helicopter while they’re flying, it can be catastrophic to the pilot and to the helicopter.”

According to Parks Canada, the drone operators will be charged. Flying a drone in a park illegally can come with a fine of up to $25,000.

The Chetamon wildfire is currently estimated to cover about 5,500 hectares, down from 6,150 hectares on Tuesday. But Ellsworth said it still isn’t under control, and fire activity is expected to increase in the coming days.

“We have been able to, with the reduction in fire behaviour, have firefighters on the ground laying hose line and hot-spotting and suppressing those active areas on the fire that are closest to our populated areas,” Ellsworth said.

There’s still no risk of the fire spreading to the Jasper townsite, but it has damaged at least 18 power transmission structures. ATCO has been gradually shifting to generator power, and restored power to about half the town as of Tuesday night.

But Jasper Mayor Richard Ireland said the other half of the town of about 4,600 people has been without power for more than 50 hours.

He again urged visitors to stay away for now.

“We are not able to welcome visitors to Jasper until we are connected to the main power grid.”

According to ATCO’s Amanda Mattern, that will take some time. Crews are still assessing the full scope of damage to power lines.

“We are weeks, not days, out from rebuilding that transmission infrastructure,” she said.

Mattern and Ireland reminded residents and businesses to keep conserving power while they’re relying on generators.

masmith@postmedia.com

Analysis-Sterling returns to the 1980s, and it may get cheaper still

By Tommy Wilkes and Dhara Ranasinghe - 3h ago

British pound coins are seen in front of displayed stock graph

LONDON (Reuters) - Sterling's slide against the dollar to a rate last seen in 1985 has sparked talk of a dramatic spiral downwards that ends in a collapse in confidence in British assets and a balance of payments crisis.

Fund managers, analysts and former policymakers believe such a scenario is unlikely, but suspect the pound will need to get cheaper before investors return.

The currency fell to as low as $1.1407 on Wednesday as investors grow fearful of the economic outlook. Sterling has lost nearly 10% of its value since early June -- a huge move for one of the world's major G10 currencies.

Goldman Sachs expects the economy to contract by 0.6% in 2023.

Britain's new prime minister, Liz Truss, is also under scrutiny as she gets ready to cut taxes and use tens of billions of pounds of extra government borrowing to fund a freeze in consumer energy bills. An energy plan is expected to be unveiled on Thursday.

"The market has moved very far and very fast in the last couple of weeks, in the face of what is a relatively bleak economic outlook. That means there will be a recession but it will be deeper in the UK," said Charles Diebel, head of fixed income strategy at Mediolanum Asset Management, which is betting against the pound.

Britain faces slower economic growth and more persistent inflation than any other major economy next year, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecasts.

"The currency is cheap but probably needs to be cheaper," Diebel said.

Several economists including Mohamed El-Erian forecast the pound will hit $1.10 soon, implying a further 4% fall from current levels.

Capital Economics reckons sterling could test its all-time low of near $1.05 plumbed in March 1985, just before G7 powers acted to rein in the superdollar of the Reagan era in the so-called "Plaza Accord".

Yet the rush to dump British assets has been driven by international developments too, including soaring gas prices and global growth worries that have driven investors to seek shelter in the dollar. The euro and yen have also hit multi-decade lows.

A Reuters Sept. 1-6 poll of nearly 60 currency strategists, is not as pessimistic. The consensus was for sterling to nudge up to $1.16 in one and three months' time. Also, sterling has not fallen as much versus the euro or on a trade-weighted basis.

ALARMIST?

Still, sterling's slide has revived talk seen following the 2016 Brexit referendum that Britain is behaving like an emerging market with an increasingly volatile currency.

Many traders dispute such comparisons and say trading remains orderly, and confidence in institutions such as the Bank of England strong.

Mediolanum's Diebel said discussion of extreme sterling scenarios such as Britain being forced to turn to the IMF for help, as it did in 1976, was "alarmist."

Deutsche Bank on Monday warned that the risk of a UK balance of payments crisis "should not be underestimated" under a Truss government, citing the potential for large unfunded fiscal expansion and changes to the BoE's mandate.

August was the worst month on record for some UK bond prices as investors headed for the exit. The 10-year yield on British government debt rose this week to around 3.15%, its highest level since 2011.

Britain is no stranger to balance of payments crises, and sterling devaluations have played a part in ending previous periods of Conservative Party rule. There was a collapse in the pound in 1992, when Britain was forced out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism.

In a reassuring sign for investors, Britain's new finance minister Kwasi Kwarteng said on Wednesday he wanted to reaffirm the central bank's independence.

Andrew Sentance, former member of the BoE's rate-setting committee and now advisor to Cambridge Econometrics, believes balance of payments crisis are a thing of the past, only relevant when Britain was trying to defend the value of its currency.

But he said the BoE, which meets next week, should be more concerned about the drop in sterling than it is.

"Anything that is priced in dollars has gone up 14% in dollar terms this year and that imported inflation is a problem for inflation and a squeeze in consumers," he told Reuters.

Ultimately, sterling's outlook depends on the international picture improving and whether Truss' economic polices can limit the depth and length of a recession.

More expansionary fiscal policy should also, especially if inflation doesn't fall, mean tighter monetary policy. Expectations for BoE rate hikes have soared in recent weeks -- investors see rates peaking at 4.3% by June 2023 from the current 1.75% -- but the pound has only weakened.

"If they (the BoE) did act more robustly at the next few meetings that would help sterling," Sentance said.

(Reporting by Tommy Reggiori Wilkes and Dhara Ranasinghe; additional reporting by Samuel Indyk; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)