UK

No economic benefits from Brexit so far, David Davis admits

Story by Rob Merrick • 

david-davis.jpeg© AP

Brexit has failed to deliver any notable economic benefits, more than six years after the vote to leave the EU, David Davis has admitted.

The former Brexit secretary – a key figure in the push for withdrawal and the negotiations that followed – blamed the Covid pandemic for the absence of any gains from the upheaval.

Asked if, amid growing calls for a change of course, he accepted “we haven’t seen any economic benefit for having left the EU,” Mr Davis replied: “No major ones.”

He pointed to “minor ones” such as the UK beginning delivery of Covid vaccines in 2020 before the rest of Europe – although it is strongly disputed that this was a Brexit freedom.

Mr Davis went on: “There’ll be more of that. You will see our medical based industries and our software based industries grow significantly.”

Speaking to Times Radio, he argued: “Just easing our way out of a Covid crisis, you can’t make any sensible economic measures at the moment.”

Mr Davis, now a backbencher, also echoed Rishi Sunak in insisting the head of the CBI, Tony Danker, is “wrong” to believe looser immigration rules would help rescue the economy.

The comments come amid evidence of disagreement at the top of government about how to mitigate the forecast 4 per cent hit to GDP, with a 15 per cent loss of trade, from Boris Johnson’s hard Brexit deal.

The chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, argued last week that the “vast majority” of cross-Channel trade barriers can be removed, without explaining how.

But Mr Sunak’s official spokesperson declined to repeat the claim, after the prime minister stamped on suggestions he will pursue a closer “Swiss-style” agreement with Brussels.

The prime minister insisted: “Let me be unequivocal about this. Under my leadership, the UK will not pursue any relationship with Europe that relies on alignment with EU laws.”

The “Swiss-style deal” rumour has threatened to reignite the Tories’ Brexit wars – despite it being highly unlikely the EU would offer such an arrangement, even if the UK wanted it.

Brexiteer MP admits Australian trade deal is 'not actually a very good …

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Nigel Farage has called it a “betrayal”, claiming the Conservatives would be “destroyed at the next general election in a way that they cannot begin to contemplate”.

The CBI has pointed to a lack of workers as a key reason for its warning that last week’s autumn statement – while reversing Liz Truss’s blunders – had no plan for growth.

But Mr Sunak told its conference: “The number one priority right now, when it comes to migration, is to tackle illegal migration,” – pointing to the small boats crisis.

Asked if, despite the clashes over Brexit and migration, he would still say the Tories are the “party of business”, he replied: “Yes, unequivocally, unequivocally.”

Sarah Olney, the Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesperson, said: “People will be aghast that, while living standards plummet, Conservative MPs are yet again fighting amongst themselves over Europe. Their pointless red tape is strangling trade with our closest neighbours.”

A story in 4 parts: Grimsby seafood factory blames Brexit as it’s forced to shut

ISI is set to pull out of the UK to focus on its European operations - despite Brexit being heralded as the 'fishing industry's salvation' by a local MP.

 by Jack Peat

 2022-11-21

One of Grimsby’s landmark seafood factories has been forced to close in a major blow to the town.

The former Five Star Fish facility was taken on by Icelandic Seafood International in 2020 but has recorded a staggering £8 million in losses, with bosses blaming Brexit, according to local reports.

ISI will now pull out of the UK and will focus on its European operations.

In 2016, North East Lincolnshire backed the UK’s decision to leave the EU by an overwhelming 69.9 per cent.

The year after, former Chancellor Norman Lamont assured voters that the decision would “not be a disaster” for the port town after the fish processing industry asked for a special free trade status post-Brexit.

In 2020, Lia Nici, the MP for Great Grimsby, reassured voters that Brexit will be the “fishing industry’s salvation” in a Yorkshire Post column.

“The decline in the fishing industry is something we really need to consider. Our constituents in Grimsby are looking for us to make a change”, she said.

“After 40 years there is ongoing anger and resentment”, but we “now have the ability to become an independent coastal state.”

Unfortunately, like many Brexit promises, they have proved to be hollow.

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ISI says it will now exit the UK market “from a value-added perspective” to “run a profitable business within the European value-added seafood industry”.

UK

Labour will 'abolish the House of Lords' to 'restore trust in politics' under Sir Keir Starmer

20 November 2022, 09:44

Keir Starmer wants to abolish the House of Lords. Picture: Getty

By Kit Heren

@yung_chuvak

Sir Keir Starmer will abolish the House of Lords and replace it with a new elected chamber if Labour win power - to "restore trust in politics"

The proposal, reported by The Observer, would see Labour holding a consultation on the composition and size of a new chamber as well as more immediate reform of the current and often-criticised appointments process.

There have long been warnings that membership of the House of Lords is becoming excessive while Boris Johnson courted controversy with some of his appointments to the unelected chamber, notably Lord Lebedev.

Russian-British businessman Evgeny Lebedev leaves the House of Lord. Picture: Getty

The media mogul and son of an ex-KGB agent was given a life peerage in 2020 but has spoken just once on the floor of the House.

More recently, Mr Johnson has faced accusations that he has proposed several Conservative MPs for peerages but told them to delay accepting them to prevent triggering by-elections.

Sir Keir, whose party has a considerable lead in the polls after weeks of political instability, told Labour peers that part of the reason for reform was the public "have lost faith in the ability of politicians and politics to bring about change".

The House of Lords could be abolished. Picture: Getty

Under his plans, the Lords replacement would be "truly representative" of the UK's nations and regions while still retaining its role as the second chamber in relation to the Commons.

Read more: King Charles snubs Andrew and Harry as he asks for Princess Anne and Prince Edward to become stand-ins

Read more: Sir Keir Starmer was 'a bit of a lad’: ex-classmate shares memories of time at school with Labour leader

I want to be clear that we do need to restore the trust of the public in every part of the United Kingdom in our system of government,” Sir Keir told a meeting of Labour MPs.

“House of Lords reform is just one part of that … People have lost faith in the ability of politicians and politics to bring about change – that is why, as well as fixing our economy, we need to fix our politics.”

He added that it should be “truly representative” of the country.

UFOs are no laughing matter for us: behind the scenes of France’s real life ‘Ovni’ hunters

The Conversation
November 21, 2022

UFO

In France, the Study and Information Group on Unidentified Aerospace Phenomena (GEIPAN), has been investigating unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs) – more commonly known as UFOs – for the past 45 years. Attached to the National Centre for Space Studies (CNES), GEIPAN has been invited by NASA to present its activities and working methods before a newly established independent team that will study data and set up methods to analyse unusual phenomena observed in the sky.

Set up in 1977, GEIPAN is a team of four experts tasked with gathering witness accounts, conducting surveys, publishing studies, managing computer systems and overseeing the organisation’s operations. A technical department at CNES, it relies on outside personnel, expertise and talent, liaising with numerous investigators, experts and institutions, including France’s Air Force, National Gendarmerie and Police Force, the Directorate General for Civil Aviation, the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and the weather service Météo-France.


Scene from the Canal+ series Ovni(s) depicting a replica SimOvni device.

The existence of a “UFO Force” in France has entered the country’s popular imagination in recent years, with the Canal+ comedy drama series Ovni(s) – the French term for UFOs. In its quest for realism, the series depicts equipment used for GEIPAN investigations, including the “SimOvni”, which we use to create simulations of the phenomena described in eyewitness accounts.
What exactly is a UAP?

Unidentified aerial phenomena are unusual events observed by eyewitnesses that are seemingly inexplicable. They most often take the form of a bright light.

Simple explanations can be found for over 60% of UAPs – they are usually paper lanterns, party balloons, hot air balloons, aircraft, satellites, meteorites, stars, planets and so forth. While these occurrences may seem straightforward or banal, it is important to remember that every one of these recorded sightings presents some strange, unique, or noteworthy aspect. GEIPAN gathers 700 eyewitness reports annually, with 150 to 200 remaining as open investigations. Anyone is able to submit a report using the form on the GEIPAN website.

An event’s apparent peculiarity may be dependent on the environment and conditions of the sighting. These might involve low-light conditions, an absence of sound, atmospheric turbulence causing a star to twinkle strangely, or sunlight reflecting off a distant aeroplane.

There are also more spectacular sightings, such as the appearance of meteorites breaking up in the atmosphere. One such atypical event was when the Starlink satellite cluster entered into orbit, giving rise to multiple reports of bright spots moving in a row, and others of a “glowing orb”. The series of spots were the 50 to 60 satellites themselves going into orbit, sighted at sunset or sunrise when the sky was darker and the sun was reflecting off the satellites. The orb corresponded to the second stage of the Falcon 9 rocket, which launched the satellites into orbit. Propulsions from this spacecraft every one to two seconds created a bubble of gas, which then appeared as a luminous sphere in the night sky under the light of the setting or rising sun. Alongside this sphere a shining spot, sometimes shaped like a butterfly, caused the removal of the remaining oxygen and kerosene from the rocket’s second stage before it re-entered the atmosphere.


Sighting of the Falcon 9 rocket as documented by GEIPAN.

GEIPAN, Author provided


UAP reports can also be the result of a simple misinterpretation. An amateur astronomer might capture a high-quality image of a bright flash in the sky, but popular astronomy apps would not possess enough data to offer an explanation. In this case, only the CNES internal space surveillance department could prove the presence of the stage of a rocket reflecting the sun’s rays. Even the flickering candle of a paper lantern may be perceived as an object whizzing through the sky at extreme speed.

To understand and explain the observations that the GEIPAN receives, we rely on tools and applications across a range of domains, from aeronautics to aerospace (for satellites and debris), astronomy (for stars and meteorites), meteorology, image processing and more.

Reasonable explanations are found for around two thirds of the observed phenomena, but the remaining third remain unresolved due to a lack of information to analyse the report and produce an explanation. Then there are the “D cases”, accounting for around 3%, whereby we have enough information but have not found an explanation. This is when we deem all the hypotheses that we have formulated and analysed to be inconclusive.

The GEIPAN methodology

GEIPAN’s goal is clear: to present or attempt to present a rational answer for the misunderstood, unusual and sometimes spectacular occurrences spotted by witnesses, and to explain the reasons for their presumed irregularity.

There are three main phases involved in achieving this goal. In essence, we collect eyewitness accounts, conduct technical studies and publish analysis reports on the GEIPAN website, while always protecting eyewitness anonymity.
Each mission begins with a report, be it submitted via our website or at a local police station. Whether using still photos or video footage, the reports always include specific data as witnessed by a human being. As with other types of scientific measurement, the data contains “measurement interference”, which varies greatly depending on the individual. Sometimes the account is of excellent quality, but factors such as emotions, memories and beliefs can alter or even distort a witness’s perceptions. Our priority is to filter out this interference so as to isolate the factual data.

Next, we study the eyewitness account and its consistency. As the quality and quantity of reported information increases, its irregularity tends to decrease. At this stage, we use the GEIPAN computer database along with a host of technical applications and software. These include public-use tools as well as expertise developed by our partners, particularly that of the French Air Force (for reproducing flight paths), Météo-France (for precise weather conditions) and CNES itself (for high-precision tracking of satellites and debris).

Finally, we sometimes carry out fieldwork, which allows us to analyse the conditions of the sighting more precisely and conduct a cognitive interview with the eyewitness. Our aim in these interviews is to flesh out the account, revealing the most reliable information possible, while not distorting it. Developed and taught by our expert psychologist, this is an invaluable method at GEIPAN. For the trickiest cases, our multidisciplinary panel of experts is summoned to help advance the study and decide collectively on its conclusion.

Working together with NASA’s body independent experts over the coming months, France’s GEIPAN will detail its methods and share data. This will allow both groups to explore phenomena that resist easy explanation, examine related aerial hazards, and draw up recommendations for future research.

Translated from the French by Enda Boorman for Fast ForWord and Leighton Kille of The Conversation France.

Vincent Costes, Responsable du GEIPAN, Centre national d’études spatiales (CNES)

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Jacques Vallee Passportto Magonia : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Messengers Of Deception UFO Contacts And Cults, Jacques Vallée ( 1979) : Jacques Vallée : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Even a limited nuclear war could devastate the world’s oceans: here’s what our modeling shows

The Conversation
November 21, 2022

A nuclear explosion (Shutterstock)

The US and Russia have recently agreed to hold talks on the New START Treaty, the only accord left regulating the two largest nuclear arsenals in the world. While this is undoubtedly good news, we must not allow it to lull us into complacency. Global events this year, most notably in Ukraine, have raised fears of a nuclear conflict to levels not seen since the cold war. There are more than 10,000 nuclear warheads remaining in the world, and the Kremlin’s language regarding weapons of mass destruction has became increasingly threatening in 2022.

Beyond the horrible fates of victims in the strike zones, a large-scale nuclear exchange would profoundly alter the climate system as we know it, while more limited scenarios could have a devastating impact. An ever-growing body of work has shown that even a local nuclear conflict could usher in a climate catastrophe. As marine scientists, we have considered what this could specifically mean for the world’s oceans.


Between 1946 and 1958 the United States carried out a series of nuclear weapons tests on Bikini Island in the Pacific.

Global famine and climate breakdown

In 1982, a group of scientists including Carl Sagan began to raise the alarm on a climate apocalypse that could follow nuclear war. Using simple computer simulations and historic volcanic eruptions as natural analogues, they showed how smoke that lofted into the stratosphere from urban firestorms could block out the sun for years.

They found that this “nuclear winter”, as it came to be called, could trigger catastrophic famine far from the location of the war. Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, leaders of the United States and Soviet Union in the 1980s, both cited this work when they declared that a nuclear war could not be won.

The contemporary threat has prompted a new era of research into the potential climate impact of a nuclear war. Using the latest computational tools, we have investigated what the consequences would be for all life on Earth. In our most recent research, we show that a nuclear conflict would massively disrupt the climate system and cause global famine. It could also dramatically disturb the ocean and its ecosystems for decades and potentially thousands of years after a conflict.

How a nuclear war could ice over the Baltic Sea

We explored the scenario of a nuclear war between the US and Russia that results in 150 billion tons of soot from burning cities reaching the upper atmosphere. We found that the low light and rapid cooling would cause large physical changes to the ocean, including a dramatic expansion of Artic sea ice. Critically, this ice would grow to block normally ice-free coastal regions essential for fishing, aquaculture, and shipping all across Europe.

Three years after such a war, arctic sea ice expands by 50%, icing over the Baltic sea year-round and closing major ports such as Copenhagen and St. Petersburg. Even in the scenario of a more limited conflict between India and Pakistan, 27 to 47 billion tons of soot would be ejected into the upper atmosphere, and the resulting cooling would severely compromise shipping through northern Europe.

Worse, the sudden drop in light and ocean temperatures would decimate marine algae, which are the foundation of the marine food web, creating a years-long ocean famine. While the whole ocean would be affected, the worst effects would be concentrated at higher latitudes, including all of Europe and especially in the Baltic states, where ocean light is already in short supply.

The waters in the Arctic and North Atlantic would bear the brunt, likely triggering the collapse of the entire ecosystem. Although fisheries are currently a relatively small sector of the European economy, there might be added pressure to look toward the sea for food should land-based agricultural systems collapse, leaving the continent with few options for food security.

A changed ocean

We expected that a reduction in sunlight and lower temperatures would cause more sea ice and less algae in the oceans. However, we were shocked that our model ocean remained materially transformed for decades after a war, long after temperature and light conditions returned to their pre-war state. Sea ice would settle into to a new expanded state where it would likely remain for hundreds of years.

Ten years after the conflicts, global marine productivity recovers, and even overshoots its initial state. This occurs because enduring changes to ocean circulation push nutrients up to the surface from depth. Once the soot clears and light recovers, phytoplankton can use these nutrients to grow rapidly.


Phytoplankton blooms in the Barents Sea.

Unfortunately, such “good news” never reaches Europe, as marine productivity remains compromised in the Arctic and north Atlantic relative to the rest of the world. This occurs because the new environmental state favours a different, larger, type of marine algae that can actually strip nutrients from the surface ocean once they die and sink, counteracting the physical surplus.

Why would the ocean be so slow to recover from a nuclear conflict? Water heats and cools very slowly, and the ocean is strongly stratified with different water masses layered on top of each other. This gives the ocean a much longer “memory” than the atmosphere. Once disturbed, many changes are either not reversible on human timescales or are unlikely to return to their initial state.

These findings add a new perspective on just how much humanity can affect the Earth system. While we are grappling with the fact that our greenhouse gas emissions can reshape the climate in a blink of geological time, it is worth remembering that nuclear arsenals remain large enough to fundamentally shift the Earth system in the blink of an eye.

The long and the short of it

Given these stark insights, there is a moral imperative to ask what could and should be done to prevent a nuclear conflict. Recently, a new take on an old philosophy has begun to percolate out of Oxford. The idea, known as “longtermism”, posits that proper accounting for the sheer number of possible future human lives should prioritise nearly any action that even slightly reduces the risk of a human extinction.


A Mark 7 nuclear weapon at the US Air Force museum in Dayton, Ohio.

This logic comes with all the standard trappings of trying to do maths with morality, but it starts to make a lot more sense when you realise that the risk of an extinction-level event – and thus the chance we could avert it – isn’t actually unimaginably low.

Even a more limited conflict could push our oceans into a fundamentally new state that lasts much, much longer than we would have expected. Understanding the length, and the weight, of these timescales should be forefront in our calculus of ongoing diplomacy.

Tyler Rohr, Lecturer in Southern Ocean Biogeochemical Modelling, IMAS, University of Tasmania; 

Cheryl Harrison, Assistant professor in oceanography and coastal sciences, Louisiana State University ; 

Kim Scherrer, Postdoctoral fellow at the department of Biological Sciences, University of Bergen, 

and Ryan Heneghan, Lecturer in Mathematical Ecology, Queensland University of Technology


This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Young US voters reduced the ‘Red Wave’ to a ‘Pink Splash’ in the midterm elections — why didn’t polls predict it?

The Conversation
November 21, 2022

Voters (Shutterstock)

It increasingly seems that projections of election results based on public polling are unreliable. The 2022 midterm elections in the United States are a prime example.

Americans appeared set to vote Republican en masse — in a so-called “Red Wave” — on the morning of Nov. 8.

Amid high inflation, a precarious House of Representatives majority and low approval ratings for President Joe Biden, a perfect storm was brewing. Polls suggested a huge Republican win was imminent and the party was poised to secure control of the House and the Senate with a sizeable majority.

We now know those predictions did not materialize. Democrats held onto the Senate and almost held onto the House. Republican results were lacklustre at best.

Youth voters have been hailed as the catalyst that turned the Red Wave into a “Pink Splash.” Twenty-seven per cent of voters aged 18-29 cast a ballot — the second highest youth voter turnout in nearly 30 years. Further still, roughly 63 per cent of youth voters backed Democratic candidates — the only age group in which a strong majority supported Democrats.

The reality of election results and the glaring absence of youth voter impact on projections begs the question: are we accurately capturing public opinion?
What went wrong for pollsters

Historically, there are two methods determining election result projections: statistical models based on trends and political theory or probability sampling. Regardless of the framework, these predictions rely on one thing: accurately representing public opinion.

Though voting methods have slowly begun to adapt to the technological societal shift, such as online options in 2020, public opinion polling remains rooted in the past.

Despite its vital importance to determining election forecasts, the presidential approval rating is “based on interviews conducted by landline and cellular telephones.” Similarly, while probability sampling often relies on aggregating data from several sources, most major media polls are conducted using a traditional phone methodology.

Pop culture is ripe with anecdotes of people ignoring “cold calls,” yet public polling efforts continue to engage — or, rather, disengage — youth voters by failing to understand where they spend their time online.


Pollsters are failing to engage young voters in places where they spend their time online.
(Shutterstock)
How do young voters engage?

In the wake of U.S. midterms results that stunned political analysts, social media buzzed with commentary from young voters.

One user rote: “Before the next election, you might want to find a better way to poll anyone under the age of 30 since they would rather pick up a pinless grenade than a call from an unknown number.”

Of course, this was intended as a joke, but there is some factual basis in the sentiment. Millennials have already been blamed for the death of the phone call, with 75 per cent finding them “too time-consuming” and 81 per cent admitting to feelings of anxiety before making a call.

In any other industry, this data would signal an immediate need to pivot to a digital platform.

Engaging in the right place

The question of public engagement goes beyond “how” citizens are being polled. It must also ask “where.”

It’s not enough to simply shift polling methods from telephone-based to online. The platform where engagement happens matters.

Though some pollsters administered online surveys, often these were via traditional news sources. For an opinion poll to be arbitrarily administered within the same echo chamber of legacy media doesn’t bridge the gap that exists in elections data.

The way each generation consumes content online, particularly news, changes rapidly. More than 40 per cent of Gen Zers report TikTok as their preference for online searches, even over Google. Increasingly, advertisers have begun to embed their consumer polling through platforms like YouTube and TikTok.

Other political outreach organizations have begun to recognize this and adapt their methodology.

In late August 2022, Élections Québec launched a TikTok campaign to generate interest in the provincial election. Playing into viral videos (like the so-called “corn kid”), some of its content garnered more than 350,000 views.


A TikTok screenshot shows the Élections Québec youth vote campaign.
Author provided

Despite predictions of a low voter turnout in Québec, 66 per cent of the total population voted.

While it’s difficult to empirically measure the impact of this specific political outreach method on election results, the sheer engagement on the platform and youth voter turnout speaks volumes.

Looking to the future

Above all else, the 2022 U.S. midterms offer a positive glimpse into the future. No longer can young voters be cast as apathetic and disconnected.

There’s now a generational shift away from voter apathy, which is beneficial across the political spectrum.

The disconnected, in fact, seem to be those trying to accurately measure public opinion.

The “Pink Splash” offers a tough lesson in engagement for pollsters. If they continue to use traditional methods, election polls will never provide an accurate representation of what’s going to happen when voters cast their ballots.

Julia Rodgers, PhD Candidate, Political Science, Dalhousie University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Amy Coney Barrett warned to recuse from gay rights case — by ex-members of her own Christian group: report

LIKE THOMAS SHE WON'T

Matthew Chapman
November 21, 2022

Amy Coney Barrett (Photo by Susan Walsh for AFP)

On Monday, The Guardian reported that former members of Justice Amy Coney Barrett's controversial Christian organization, "People of Praise," are demanding that she recuse herself from an upcoming case which could create further exemptions for businesses to discriminate against LGBTQ people on religious grounds.

"The former members are part of a network of 'survivors' of the controversial charismatic group who say Barrett’s 'lifelong and continued' membership in the People of Praise make her too biased to fairly adjudicate an upcoming case that will decide whether private business owners have a right to decline services to potential clients based on their sexual orientation," reported Stephanie Kirchgaessner. "They point to Barrett’s former role on the board of Trinity Schools Inc, a private group of Christian schools that is affiliated with the People of Praise and, in effect, barred admission to children of same-sex parents from attending the school."

The upcoming case, 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, will be argued on December 5: "It centers on a Christian website developer, Lori Smith, who has claimed an anti-discrimination law in Colorado has violated her right to free speech over same-sex marriage, which she says goes against her religious faith," said the report. "Smith has said the Colorado law has forced her to 'create messages that go against my deeply held beliefs' since she cannot legally turn away gay couples seeking her website services. Barrett said in her confirmation hearing that her personal religious beliefs would not interfere with her abilities to be an unbiased judge."

The case is similar in some ways to the Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado case of 2018, which involved a baker, Jack Phillips, who defied Colorado anti-discrimination law by refusing to create a wedding cake for a same-sex couple, claiming his cakes are themselves artistic expression and therefore selling them a wedding cake, even a prefabricated wedding cake that he would sell to an opposite-sex couple, was a violation of his faith. The Supreme Court ultimately ruled in Phillips' favor; Barrett was not on the Court at that time.

People of Praise was a focus of heightened scrutiny when Barrett was nominated to the Court. The group traditionally exerted "total control" over the lives of women and girls, even literally giving Barrett and others the title of "handmaid," and former members have alleged cases of abuse. People of Praise denies these accusations and claim to have updated their practices around women.

This comes amid other crises of legitimacy at the Republican-dominated Supreme Court, including a New York Times report suggesting Justice Samuel Alito leaked his own opinion to right-wing activists ahead of a ruling on employer-provided contraception coverage in 2014.

How the Russian economy is defying and withstanding western sanctions

The Conversation
November 21, 2022

People walk across Moscow's Red Square near St. Basil's Cathedral and Spasskaya Tower on September 21, 2022. © Evgenia Novozhenina, Reuters

Since Russia first invaded Ukraine in February 2022, western media has frequently suggested that economic sanctions against the Russians are going to stifle the war effort or even bring the country to its knees.

As recently as early November, for example, the Wall Street Journal reported that “mobilization, sanctions and falling energy prices” were hurting the Russian economy and that the economic outlook “bodes poorly for Vladimir Putin’s ability to fund Russia’s war in Ukraine.”

Credit agency Standard and Poor’s so-called Global Russia Services Purchasing Managers’ Index is a good example of the sort of data being used to argue that sanctions are now starting to really hurt Russia.

The data is based on information provided by Russian companies willing to talk to them. Consequently, the survey could be drawing on a distorted sample

The impact of mobilization

Nonetheless, media coverage also contains Russian government and other Russian-sourced statistics that highlight some of the economic problems confronting the country. One example is the impact that the recent mobilization of reservists to fight in Ukraine has had on the Russian workforce.

The Russian daily Kommersant — a sort of Russian Financial Times — has reported that Russian companies have lost workers due to them either being drafted to serve in Ukraine or fleeing the country to avoid it.

According to both Kommersant and the Wall Street Journal, a third of Russian companies have reported being hit with war-related labour issues. But Kommersant also went on to report that half of the Russian companies affected were able to rapidly adapt to new circumstances.


A young man walks as another rides his bicycle toward the border crossing between Georgia and Russia at Verkhny Lars in September 2022 after Moscow announced a partial military mobilization in Ukraine.
(AP Photo)

It wouldn’t make much sense if Russia’s economy hadn’t been affected by unprecedented western sanctions and the wider burden of the war. But media coverage of western sanctions against Russia rarely mentions that western economies are also struggling, due in part to those measures — as Standard and Poor’s itself recently pointed out.

Is Russia actually faring any worse? In some key areas, no.

Positive indicators

Russia’s current economic situation has been helped by a bumper grain harvest this year. Russian agriculture has produced more than 150 million tonnes of grain in 2022, giving it enough to send some to Africa free of charge.

As in the West, Russians too have been facing high inflation in the double figures. But Russian pensions, the country’s minimum wage and salaries are keeping pace with inflation better, in some cases, than those in the West.

There is also evidence that in recent months, the Russian inflation rate has been dropping after spring highs.

There are other positive trends and areas in which the economic picture might improve for Russia, including the replacement of western products and companies with Russian equivalents.


Cooks barbecue meat for customers during a street celebration of Moscow City Day in Moscow on Sept. 11, 2022.
(AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

Businesses quickly replaced

Western icons like McDonald’s may have pulled out of Russia, but some have been replaced. McDonald’s was bought out in Russia and renamed Vkusno i tochka — meaning “tasty, full stop” in English.

As someone who recently visited Russia, I can personally vouch from recent visits to Vkusno i tochka restaurants in both Murmansk and Moscow that they’re doing a brisk trade offering products that are essentially the same or very similar to McDonald’s standbys.

There’s been a lot of reporting in the West about how Russia is finding it difficult to obtain microchips for its weapons. What’s less frequently reported is the efforts the Russian government is making to try to deal with the problem.


Russia is working on ramping up its own production of microchips, though Russian media has also pointed out it’s facing an uphill struggle to be self-sufficient on this front. But even relatively easily sourced basic and older chips intended for consumer electronics can be used in the defence sector, as Russia adapts to new realities.

Many countries and companies may not be willing to adhere to sanctions on the sort of western technology that is being found in Russian weapons.
An under-estimated Russia?

The West seems to have under-estimated Russia’s ability to withstand sanctions and Russian acceptance and understanding of difficult economic times.

As one Russian recently remarked to me: “We know why we’re having to put up with inflation — do westerners?”

Russian support for Vladimir Putin’s leadership and the war in Ukraine remains high. Anecdotal evidence from my many conversations with Russians from all walks of life in both Moscow and Murmansk in late October and early November certainly support this.

Some university-educated younger Russians opposed to the war have left the country to avoid mobilization or to continue working for western companies that have left Russia. The absence of this group leaves Russians more committed than ever to the war, given that older citizens are more likely to support it.


Russians hold state flags and flags with the letter Z, a symbol of the Russian military, with the hashtag ‘we don’t abandon our own’ at a demonstration in Moscow in September 2022 on the eve of referendums in four Russian-held regions of Ukraine.
(AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, File)

In the face of recent Ukrainian battlefield successes, many Russians are finally waking up to the seriousness of the war in Ukraine.

Four Ukrainian regions have now been nominally incorporated into Russia. The Russian government slogan “we don’t abandon our own” seems to be resonating for many in Russia who view the war as being about the protection of a Russian-speaking minority in Ukraine.

Russia’s population as a whole is likely able to tolerate more economic hardship, given what Russians regard as being at stake. It remains to be seen if the same can be said for populations in western Europe that are also struggling under the weight of western sanctions.

Alexander Hill, Professor of Military History, University of Calgary

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Chagall painting stolen by Nazis sells for $7.4 million at US auction

Agence France-Presse
November 16, 2022

A picture dated June 11, 1952 of Russian-born French painter Marc Chagall working in the Madoura studio in Vallauris, France. © Meunier, AFP

A painting by Marc Chagall, which was among 15 works stolen by Nazis and eventually returned by France to the heirs of the affected families, sold for $7.4 million at auction in New York Tuesday.

The sale at the Phillips auction house was part of the fall auction season, which sees major industry players sell hundreds of works of art for several billion dollars in a few days in the upscale neighborhoods of Manhattan.

On Tuesday, Phillips sold 46 works for nearly $139 million. The most expensive, a monumental painting by Cy Twombly, "Untitled" (2005), which once belonged to the French businessman Francois Pinault, went for $41.6 million.

Chagall's 1911 oil on canvas, "The Father," was purchased in 1928 by a Polish-Jewish violin maker, David Cender, who lost his possessions when he was forced to move to the Lodz ghetto.

Deported to Auschwitz, where his wife and daughter were killed, the violin maker survived and moved to France in 1958, where he died in 1966 without regaining possession of the painting.

In the meantime, the work had reappeared in exhibitions and it turned out that it was Marc Chagall himself who had bought it, probably between 1947 and 1953 -- without knowing its provenance, according to Phillips and the French culture ministry.

After the artist, who was born in the Russian empire, died in France in 1985, "The Father" entered the national collections in 1988, and was then assigned to the Pompidou Center and deposited in the Museum of Jewish Art and History in Paris.

The French parliament unanimously adopted a law at the beginning of the year to return 15 works of Jewish families looted by the Nazis. The then culture minister, Roselyne Bachelot, had called it a historic "first step," noting that other looted works of art and books were still kept in public collections.

Cender's heirs decided to sell the painting, a common scenario "when a work is restituted so long after it has been stolen," because "you've got multiple heirs and the work itself cannot be split," said Phillips deputy chairman Jeremiah Evarts.

Chagall painted the portrait of his father the year he arrived in Paris. He was "electrified by the modernism" of the city at the time and his works from that period are rare.

"Many of them were destroyed when he left Paris to return to Russia in 1914," Evarts noted, saying he was certain "The Father" would attract interest from museums and collectors.

Phillips did not reveal details about who bought the work, a common practice among auction houses.

(AFP)

Christie's cancels controversial T-rex auction in Hong Kong
Agence France-Presse
November 21, 2022

Visitors take pictures of the T-rex skeleton named 'Shen' in Singapore

 Roslan RAHMAN AFP/File

Christie's has called off the auction of a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton, the auction house told AFP on Monday, days before it was due to go under the hammer in Hong Kong.

The cancellation came after an American fossil company raised doubts about parts of the skeleton named "Shen", The New York Times reported on Sunday.

Christie's said in a statement to AFP that Shen -- a 1,400-kilogram (3,100-pound) skeleton -- was withdrawn from its autumn auctions week that starts in Hong Kong on Friday.

"The consignor has now decided to loan the specimen to a museum for public display," it said.

Excavated from the US state of Montana, Shen stands 4.6 meters (15 feet) tall and 12 meters long, and is thought to be an adult male that lived about 67 million years ago.

Its auction would have followed the sale of another T-rex skeleton named "Stan" by Christie's for $31.8 million in 2020.

It is very rare for complete dinosaur skeletons to be found, according to The Field Museum in Chicago, one of the largest natural history museums in the world.

Most frames on display use casts of bones to complete the skeleton. The Field Museum estimates the number of bones in a T-rex at 380.

Christie's original materials said about 80 of Shen's bones were original.

The controversy was sparked when Peter Larson, president of the Black Hills Institute of Geological Research in the United States, told The New York Times that parts of Shen looked similar to Stan.

The T-rex skeleton 'Stan' is seen on display in New York City in 2020 

Angela Weiss AFP/File

The Black Hills Institute holds the intellectual property rights to Stan, even after its sale in 2020, and it sells replicas of that skeleton

Larson told the newspaper that it seemed to him that Shen's owner -- not identified by Christie's -- used bones from a Stan replica to complete the skeleton.

Its spokesman Edward Lewine told the newspaper that Christie's believes Shen "would benefit from further study".

Sales of such skeletons have raked in tens of millions of dollars in recent years, but experts have described the trade as harmful to science as the auctions could put them in private hands and out of the reach of researchers.

© 2022 AFP

Major strike looms as largest rail union in US rejects White House-brokered contract

Jake Johnson, Common Dreams
November 21, 2022

This is a developing news story... Check back for possible updates...

The largest railroad workers union in the United States announced Monday that its members voted to reject a contract negotiated with the help of the Biden White House, once again raising the prospect of a major strike or lockout as employees revolt over profitable rail giants' refusal to provide adequate paid sick leave.

"SMART-TD members with their votes have spoken, it's now back to the bargaining table for our operating craft members."

The Transportation Division of the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail, and Transportation Workers (SMART-TD) said in a statement that just over 50% of its members voted to reject the proposed contract. Members of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET)—the second-largest rail union in the U.S.—voted to ratify the contract, the union said Monday.

If any of the rail unions decide to strike, the others have vowed to honor their picket lines. SMART-TD said a strike or lockout could begin as soon as December 9.

"SMART-TD members with their votes have spoken, it's now back to the bargaining table for our operating craft members," said Jeremy Ferguson, the union's president. "This can all be settled through negotiations and without a strike. A settlement would be in the best interests of the workers, the railroads, shippers, and the American people."

"The ball is now in the railroads' court. Let's see what they do. They can settle this at the bargaining table," Ferguson added. "But, the railroad executives who constantly complain about government interference and regularly bad-mouth regulators and Congress now want Congress to do the bargaining for them.




The tentative contract agreement was reached in September after marathon negotiations between the Biden White House, rail unions, and rail company representatives.

As the details of the proposed deal began reaching union members, it became increasingly clear that many were furious at how little the agreement would do to alter rail companies' punitive attendance system, under which workers can be penalized or fired for taking a day off to see the doctor.

"Press reports made it sound like the deal would create three sick days for railroad workers," Jonah Furman of Labor Notes reported last month after the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees—the nation's third-largest rail union—voted to reject the proposed contract.

"Once the actual language came out, what was created turned out to be something less than sick time: heavily circumscribed, unpaid time off for routine or preventative medical appointments, on a Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday with at least 30 days notice, plus no attendance penalties for hospitalization or surgery," Furman added.

Jared Cassity, a conductor and the national legislative director at SMART-TD, told The Washington Post Monday that the union's vote against ratifying the contract was "about the frustration that the railroads have created with [their attendance policies] and the deterioration of quality of life as a result for our conductors."

"It's about attendance policies, sick time, fatigue, and the lack of family time," Cassity added. "A lot of these things that cannot be seen but are felt by our membership. It's destroying their livelihoods."