SEC Intensifies Check On Auditors' Report On Crypto After FTX Collapse

Anusuya Lahiri
Thu, December 22, 2022 


The SEC ramped up scrutiny of audit firms' service to cryptocurrency companies, fearing unscrupulous audit reports misleading investors.

The SEC warned investors against some claims from crypto companies, Paul Munter, the SEC's acting chief accountant, said in an interview.

The increased scrutiny has led at least one audit firm to drop crypto clients, in some cases soon after producing reports on the companies' assets and liabilities, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Many of these companies were closely held or based offshore, helping them evade regulatory actions.

The SEC is particularly worried about so-called proof-of-reserves reports, which aim to show that the crypto company has sufficient assets to cover customers' funds.

In December, leading crypto exchange Binance showcased its "audited proof of reserves," independently verified by audit firm Mazars.

However, the report contained sparse financial information, and Mazars did not express an opinion.

A report for exchange Crypto.com this month did not disclose the nominal amounts of assets and liabilities, citing confidentiality reasons. The same Mazars partner in South Africa signed off on both the Crypto.com and Binance reports.

Such a report "is not enough information for an investor to assess whether the company has sufficient assets to cover its liabilities," Munter added.

Mazars last week paused doing proof-of-reserves crypto work and pulled copies of the reports from its website.

Other audit firms, including Marcum LLP and BDO, also reevaluated their work for crypto companies, fearing lawsuits, reputational damage, and heightened regulatory scrutiny.

The high-profile scrutiny of FTX's external auditors after the crypto exchange filed for bankruptcy disclosed the risks of signing off on unreliable numbers.

Amplify Transformational Data Sharing ETF (NYSE: BLOK) traded lower by 0.97% at $15.29 in the premarket on the last check Thursday.

The SEC’s Crypto Crackdown Is Just Getting Started After FTX Blowup

Allyson Versprille
Thu, December 22, 2022 

The SEC’s Crypto Crackdown Is Just Getting Started After FTX Blowup


(Bloomberg) -- The US Securities and Exchange Commission is just getting started with its crackdown on crypto firms that refuse to abide by its rules.

SEC Chair Gary Gensler said in an interview on Thursday that the agency’s patience is wearing thin for digital-asset exchanges and other firms that shirk its regulations. Just hours earlier, the watchdog - which had already filed a lawsuit against FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried — sued two more prominent crypto executives for their alleged roles in the collapse of the digital-asset exchange.

“The runway is getting shorter” to start following rules and register with the agency, said Gensler. “The casinos in this Wild West are non-compliant intermediaries,” he added.

Although he declined to identify firms facing scrutiny, or comment on where the FTX probe may go next, Gensler warned about a number of practices that are rampant in the industry.

Over the past year and a half, the SEC chief has argued that most tokens are really just unregistered securities trading on the blockchain. He says they must follow the agency’s tough trading and investment rules.

Client Funds

Gensler chided platforms for not walling off the different parts of their business, such as custody and market-making functions. He also said client funds often aren’t being properly segregated — a problem that’s gained a lot of attention following the failure of FTX.

The SEC has accused former FTX chief executive officer Bankman-Fried and two of his former top associates — Caroline Ellison and Gary Wang — of participating in a multi-year scheme to defraud investors by falsely touting the exchange as a safe platform, while at the same time diverting customer funds to trading firm Alameda Research and concealing other risks and problems.

On Thursday, Gensler also took issue with so-called proof-of-reserves reports, which some crypto firms publish to prove they have enough funds on hand to back customer deposits. Gensler said the practice, which has been used by major crypto firms including Binance Holdings Ltd., falls short of the disclosures needed to protect investors.

“Proof of reserves is neither a full accounting of the assets and liability of a company, nor does it satisfy segregation of customer funds under the securities laws,” Gensler said.

More broadly, the SEC chief signaled that regulators remain focused on crypto firms’ financial record keeping.

“There are some in this field that have talked about ways to give customers confidence that their crypto is really there,” Gensler said, without referencing any specific firm. “They should do that by coming into compliance with time-tested custody, segregation of customer funds rules and accounting rules.”

Self-Driving Truck Company TuSimple Axed Close To 350 Employees As Macro Uncertainties Weigh

Anusuya Lahiri
Thu, December 22, 2022

Autonomous driving technology company TuSimple Holdings Inc (NASDAQ: TSP) disclosed a restructuring plan to consolidate its position as a leader in the autonomous trucking industry.

The restructuring plan involves a 25% reduction of TuSimple's total workforce, equivalent to 350 employees.

About 80% of the remaining 1,100 staff are in research and development.

Also Read: TuSimple Fires Its CEO And Chair Following Internal Investigation, Draws Regulatory Scrutiny

The layoffs followed the termination of TuSimple and Navistar's deal to co-develop purpose-built autonomous semi trucks, TechCrunch reports.

TuSimple plans to actively work with crucial shipping partners and scale back freight expansion, including unprofitable freight lanes and respective trucking operations.

There was a one-time restructuring charge of $10 million - $11 million, with the majority recognized in the fourth quarter of 2022 and paid in the first quarter of 2023.

The compensation-related restructuring savings will likely be $55 million - $65 million annually.

"I returned to TuSimple as CEO to help address a number of challenges and set the Company up for long-term success. This required evaluating our entire workforce and making tough decisions. It's no secret that the current economic environment is difficult," – Cheng Lu, TuSimple President and CEO.

TuSimple had named three independent directors to the board, reconstituted its board committees, and stabilized the management team, including naming its interim CFO, Eric Tapia, as permanent CFO.

Reportedly, TuSimple looked to downsize 50% of its workforce, affecting 700 employees.

Price Action: TSP shares closed lower by 5.96% at $1.42 on Wednesday.

Self-driving truck company TuSimple to lay off 25% of workforce

Rebecca Bellan
Wed, December 21, 2022


Update: CEO Cheng Lu said laid off workers will remain on the payroll for two months and will receive severance.

Well, we knew it was coming. Self-driving trucking technology company TuSimple confirmed Wednesday it plans to lay off 25% of its total workforce as part of a broader restructuring plan designed to keep the company running.

The layoffs come a couple of weeks after TuSimple and Navistar ended their deal to co-develop purpose-built autonomous semi trucks. The staff reductions, which we estimate to affect around 350 workers, also follow a rough year for the company, including a series of executive shakeups, multiple federal investigations, a truck crash and a plummeting stock price. Like many other companies exploring pioneer technology, TuSimple has struggled to make up enough revenue to cover its cash burn.

"It's no secret that the current economic environment is difficult. We must be prudent with our capital and operate as efficiently as possible," said Cheng Lu, TuSimple's president and CEO, in a statement. Lu recently re-joined the company as CEO after he was ousted earlier this year. His predecessor and TuSimple’s founder Xiaodi Hou was fired following an internal probe that showed certain employees having ties and sharing confidential information with Hydron, a China-backed hydrogen-powered trucking company.

"While I deeply regret the impact this has on those affected, I believe it is a necessary step as TuSimple continues down our path to commercialization. This is part of our overall strategy to prioritize investments that bring the most value to shareholders, and position TuSimple as a customer-focused, product-driven organization."

TuSimple is in the process of selling off its Asia-focused business, so the layoffs are only affecting staff in the U.S. TuSimple has workers in San Diego, Arizona and Texas. It's not yet clear which teams were affected or if the layoffs will hit a specific region, although one deep perception engineer in Los Angeles has already posted on LinkedIn about being cut. About 80% of the remaining staff are in research and development and are responsible for working in hardware and software resilience, reliability, safety and information security, TuSimple said in a statement.

The company is scaling back freight expansion, including unprofitable freight lanes and respective trucking operations that still rely on previous generations of autonomous software, which TuSimple says provides limited value to its ongoing technology development.

The focus now is on validating and commercializing its autonomous trucking technology by working with shipping partners, the company said. TuSimple had previously received around 7,000 reservations for its Navistar trucks with customers like DHL Supply Chain, Schneider and U.S. Xpress. It's not clear if any of those partnerships remain, or if TuSimple will have to shop around again. A source familiar with the matter recently told TechCrunch TuSimple would find another truck-maker to work with in the future.

The restructure will cost TuSimple about $10 million to $11 million, a line item that'll show up on Q4's balance sheet and be paid in the first quarter of 2023. TuSimple estimates it'll save $55 million to $65 million on an annual basis as a result of the layoffs and restructuring.

At the time of publishing, TuSimple is trading at $1.42, which is down nearly 6% today and 96% year-to-date.

Employees will remain on the payroll for two months, as required under the WARN Act, and TuSimple plans to offer severance on top of that, Lu told TechCrunch.

Bankrupt miner Core Scientific may sell facilities under development: report

Core Scientific, one of the world’s largest publicly-listed Bitcoin miners, said it may sell some of its mining facilities under development that could be worth up to a gigawatt of power after it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Wednesday, The Block reported, citing the firm’s chief mining officer.

See related article: U.S. crypto miner Core Scientific files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, continues to mine Bitcoin

Fast facts

• The U.S.-based miner said that it will only consider selling facilities under development that were planned to go online in 2023. It doesn’t plan to sell existing mining sites that are worth up to 850 megawatts, according to The Block’s report.

• A Core Scientific spokesperson has confirmed the report with Forkast.

• The Nasdaq-listed mining company’s shares closed down 75.53% to US$0.051 on Wednesday, a significant drop from US$11.34 a year ago.

• Core Scientific’s liquidity crisis comes as low Bitcoin prices and high electricity costs continue to damage Bitcoin miners’ profits.

• The company said in a statement on Wednesday that it will “continue to operate its existing self-mining and hosting operations, which remain significantly cash flow positive on a debt-free basis.”

• In October, Core Scientific warned that it expected to run out of cash resources by the end of this year.

• Earlier this week, another troubled U.S.-based miner Greenidge Generation Holdings Inc. entered a debt restructuring agreement with NYDIG, a cryptocurrency service provider to which Greenidge owes US$74 million.

• Last month, mining firm Foundry Digital LLC said that it plans to acquire two turnkey mining facilities from embattled miner Compute North.

Core Scientific Declares Bankruptcy as Crypto Winter Lingers

Carly Wanna and David Pan
Wed, December 21, 2022 


(Bloomberg) -- Core Scientific Inc., one of the largest miners of Bitcoin, became the latest crypto company to file for bankruptcy as the industry reckons with a plunge in digital-asset prices.

The Austin, Texas-based company listed $1.4 billion of assets against $1.33 billion of liabilities in its Chapter 11 petition, which was filed in the Southern District of Texas. The company’s shares, already down 98% this year to trade at a fraction of a dollar, lost a further 40% on Wednesday morning.

Chapter 11 bankruptcy allows a company to continue operating while it works out a plan to repay creditors. Core Scientific said in a statement that it intends to reach a restructuring agreement with a group of convertible bondholders and continue operating its mining and hosting business.

The company contributes about 10% of the computing power to secure the entire Bitcoin network. It had 243,000 servers for Bitcoin mining with 143,000 for self-mining. It has provided hosting services to the largest miners in the industry.

In court filings, the company attributed its bankruptcy to falling Bitcoin prices, soaring energy costs and the July bankruptcy of Celsius, one of its largest hosting customers.

The company also over-committed on construction costs to build out its mining operations and owed around $275 million on equipment financing debts that it wasn’t paying significant amounts on before the filing.

Core Scientific is among a handful of Bitcoin mining companies that went public in 2021 through special-purpose acquisition companies before crypto prices fell. However, the “crypto winter” and energy cost hikes have wrecked havoc on the industry, and many major miners now face liquidity crunches.

A slew of crypto companies have sought bankruptcy protection this year as slumping token prices continue to weigh on the sector. Compute North Holdings Inc., a provider of data services for miners and blockchain companies, filed for bankruptcy in September, while Voyager Digital Ltd. sought court protection in July. Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX exchange filed for bankruptcy in November under a cloud of alleged mismanagement, a move that forced lender BlockFi Inc. to follow suit soon after.

Among Bitcoin miners, Greenidge Generation Holdings Inc., once one of the largest public Bitcoin miners in the US, warned Tuesday that it may seek bankruptcy protection while entering into debt restructuring talks with lender New York Digital Investment Group.

Bankrupt Crypto Miner Soars in Move Reminiscent of Hertz

Matt Turner and David Pan
Thu, December 22, 2022


(Bloomberg) -- Core Scientific Inc. surged by a record 73% on Thursday just a day after the Bitcoin miner became the latest cryptocurrency company to file for bankruptcy.

It’s a move reminiscent of the one seen in Revlon Inc. earlier this year after its own Chapter 11 filing. Retail traders caused similarly confusing spikes of other bankrupt companies in mid-2020 including Hertz Global Holdings Inc. and JCPenney.

“Maybe after seeing the list of creditors and assets on hand, investors could have gained some confidence that there actually will be a positive future,” said Matthew Kimmell, digital asset analyst at crypto investment firm CoinShares. “It is not an FTX situation, where they are heavily weighted in the liability category versus assets.”

The company’s bankruptcy fillings show that it has $1.4 billion assets against about $1.3 billion liabilities and that makes the miner different from most bankrupt crypto firms. US authorities are pursuing a sprawling investigation into the collapse last month of FTX, which was once one of the world’s biggest crypto exchanges.

On Thursday, Core Scientific received permission to access a $37.5 million loan to help fund its bankruptcy. The Bitcoin miner is working on a plan to restructure its debts that would nearly wipe out existing shareholders.

About 544 million Core Scientific shares changed hands, nearly 3,000% more than its daily average over the past three months. But, unlike with Hertz and Revlon, retail investors appeared to be avoiding the frenzy. Roughly 1,000 buy orders were placed on Fidelity’s platform, according to data provided by the firm, markedly lagging demand for true retail-trader favorites.

Even with Thursday’s sudden rally, Core Scientific remains as one of the worst performing stocks in the US for 2022. After starting the year trading at roughly $11 per share, the company has watched its share price crater by 99% year-to-date, trading as low as 5 cents following Wednesday’s bankruptcy announcement.

Austin, Texas-based Core Scientific is the largest Bitcoin miner by computing power and the first major public mining company that has declared bankruptcy. Bitcoin miners raised billions of dollars from debt financing during the last bull run but have struggled to repay debt due to low Bitcoin prices and power cost hikes.

--With assistance from Bailey Lipschultz and Jeremy Hill.

HQ MOVES
Hundreds of workers leaving Tyson Foods as company closes offices: report

Ken Martin
Wed, December 21, 2022 

Hundreds of employees at Tyson Foods have decided not to relocate to the company's headquarters in Arkansas next year as the company consolidates its corporate offices.

The workers are reportedly from two of its largest business units, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Tyson announced in October that it planned to close its offices in Chicago, Downers Grove, Ill., and Dakota Dunes, S.D.

Those corporate employees work in the prepared foods, beef and pork divisions. About 1,000 employees total work in those locations, the company has said.

CHICAGO FACES MORE CORPORATE DEPARTURES AS TYSON FOODS MOVES TO ARKANSAS

A sign hangs above the Tyson Foods offices in Chicago, Illinois.

Tyson set a deadline of Nov. 14 to decide if they would relocate.

About three-quarters of the 500 employees in Tyson’s South Dakota office told the company they wouldn’t make the move.

More than 90% of the employees in Tyson’s Chicago office have declined to relocate, people told the Journal.

Nationwide, the meat company has about 120,000 employees, with about 114,000 of them working in production plants.

TYSON FOODS LATEST LARGE BUSINESS TO FLEE CHICAGO, WHAT SPARKED THE EXODUS?

."I’m confident the plan we have in place ensures business continuity and positions us for long-term success," said Tyson Chief Executive Donnie King in a statement. "We knew there would be a variety of responses when we announced the consolidation of our corporate locations."

Some key managers have planned to leave instead of relocate including the leader of its beef and pork unit.

Tyson Foods Inc. signage on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

Tyson’s beef and pork division makes up almost half the company’s $53 billion in revenue in its 2022 fiscal year.

Tyson Foods Employees From Chicago And Dakota Business Units Plan To Quit


Shivani Kumaresan
Thu, December 22, 2022 



Tyson Foods Inc (NYSE: TSN) employees from its Illinois and South Dakota business units are planning to leave the company.

The move comes as Tyson solidifies its corporate offices to northwest Arkansas in 2023, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The food processing company had said in October it plans to bring together all its corporate team members from the Chicago, Downers Grove and Dakota Dunes area corporate locations to its world headquarters in Springdale, Arkansas.

The decision, according to Tyson, is expected to boost closer collaboration, enhance team member agility, and enable faster decision-making.

So, the company asked its workers to decide if they wanted to relocate to Arkansas and gave them time until November 14.

About three-quarters of the 500 employees in the South Dakota office have seemingly decided against moving to Arkansas and are mulling leaving when the company winds up its offices in mid-2023.

Also, over 90% of workers in Chicago did not favor relocating.

The senior vice president of Tyson’s pork business, Leah Andersen, is also expected to leave.

Tyson’s beef and pork division constituted about half of its $53 billion revenue in FY2022.

“I’m confident the plan we have in place ensures business continuity and positions us for long-term success,” said CEO Donnie King.

“We knew there would be a variety of responses when we announced the consolidation of our corporate locations.”

France fines Microsoft €60 million for imposing ad cookies on users

NEWS WIRES
Thu, 22 December 2022 

© Mike Blake, Reuters

France's privacy watchdog said Thursday it has fined US tech giant Microsoft 60 million euros ($64 million) for foisting advertising cookies on users.

In the largest fine imposed in 2022, the National Commission for Technology and Freedoms (CNIL) said Microsoft's search engine Bing had not set up a system allowing users to refuse cookies as simply as accepting them.

The French regulator said that after investigations it found that "when users visited this site, cookies were deposited on their terminal without their consent, while these cookies were used, among others, for advertising purposes."

It also "observed that there was no button allowing to refuse the deposit of cookies as easily as accepting it."

The CNIL said the fine was justified in part because of the profits the company made from advertising profits indirectly generated from the data collected via cookies -- tiny data files that track online browsing.

The company has been given three months to rectify the issue, with a potential further penalty of 60,000 euros per day overdue.

Last year the CNIL said it would carry out a year of checks against sites not following the rules on using web cookies. Google and Facebook were sanctioned last year by the CNI with fines of 150 million and 60 millioneuros respectively for similar breaches.

Culture Re-View: Why is 22/12/12 the most important fictional date in pop culture?

David Mouriquand

Wed, 21 December 2022 

Culture Re-View: Why is 22/12/12 the most important fictional date in pop culture?

22 December 2012: The colonization of the planet by aliens was supposed to begin exactly 10 years ago today… in The X Files, that is.

In TV show The X-Files' season 9 finale (and final episodes at the time, titled “The Truth” - aired on 19 May 2002), the date was set.

Everything that fictional FBI agents Mulder and Scully were looking to uncover had come down to one date: 22/12/12.

This was the date the conspiracists had set with an alien race for colonization to begin.

Scene revealing the truth in the final episodes of The X Files, Season 9 - Fox

Spoiler alert: It didn’t take place – fictionally or in real-life, as many predicted the end of the world due to the Mayan calendar ending in 2012.

But we’re still here, and by 2016's season 10 revival of the show, the aliens still had yet to invade Earth.

The new seasons of The X Files gave fans renewed hope that the mythology arc would be wrapped up and that the failed colonization would be explained. Series creator Chris Carter moved past it and wrote themselves out of an apocalypse corner by including one scene in the season 11 premiere which explained why colonization didn't occur: the aliens called off their colonization plans because they had "no interest in a warming planet with vanishing resources."

Essentially, Earth has become too spoiled by its inhabitants to colonize.

Food for thought…

You can expect a shedload of X Files coverage from Euronews Culture next year, as the beloved and hugely influential TV series turns 30 in September 2023.

Time flies when the truth is out there.

The history of chocolate: when money really did grow on trees


Kathryn Sampeck, Global Professor in Historical Archaeology, University of Reading
Wed, 21 December 2022 

Advent calendars with hidden chocolatey treats, huge tins of Quality Street and steaming cups of hot chocolate festooned with whipped cream and marshmallows are all much-loved wintry staples at Christmastime. But how many of us stop to think about where chocolate actually comes from and how it made its way into our culinary culture?

The story of chocolate has a compelling, rich history that academics like me are learning more about every day.

Chocolate is made by fermenting, drying, roasting and grinding the seeds of a small, tropical tree of the genus Theobroma. Most chocolate sold today is made from the species Theobroma cacao, but Indigenous peoples in South America, Central America and Mexico make food, drink and medicine with many other Theobroma species.

Indigenous Mesoamerican man with implements to prepare and serve chocolate. 

Philippe Sylvestre Dufour / John Carter Brown Library, Brown University, Author provided

Cacao was domesticated at least 4,000 years ago, first in the Amazon basin and then in Central America. The oldest archaeological evidence of cacao, possibly as old as 3,500 BCE, comes from Ecuador. In Mexico and Central America, vessels with cacao residues date to as early as 1,900 BCE.

Cacao is the name in many languages of Mesoamerica (Mexico and Central America) for both the tree, the seed and the preparations that come from it; people who use this word give a nod to that ancient, Indigenous past. Cacao is a convenient catch-all term, the way “bread” in English describes a baked food made of flour, water and yeast.

For thousands of years, Mesoamericans have used cacao for many purposes: as a ritual offering, a medicine, and a key ingredient in both special occasion and everyday food and drink – each of which had different names. One of these special, local cacao concoctions was called “chocolat”.
Colonialists and currency

How did chocolate take off like wildfire when its birthplace has been long neglected? The most popular initial use of cacao in the 16th century, by colonists from Europe and Africa in Latin America, was as currency rather than something to eat or drink.

My research on cacao as money shows its steady development in the crucial role of small coin, as one of several commodity monies in pre-Colombian Mesoamerica. The Rio Ceniza valley in what is now western El Salvador was an extraordinary producer, among only four high-volume farming centres that greatly expanded the cacao money supply in the 13th century.

Spanish colonists quickly made the convenient and reliable cacao money legal tender for all kinds of transactions. However, they were initially dubious about ingesting the substance, debating its health effects and flavour. The Rio Ceniza valley, known then by the Indigenous name Izalcos, became famous as the place where money grew on trees and newly arrived colonists could make a fortune. Their local, unique cacao drink was “chocolat”.

Crossing the world

Despite a hesitant start, chocolate had become hugely popular in Europe by the late 16th century. Among a host of new flavours from the Americas, chocolate was especially captivating. Most importantly, drinking chocolate became a way to socialise.

It also became increasingly associated with luxury and indulgence, to the point of sinfulness, as well as healthful properties that particularly enhanced beauty and fertility. By the 1600s, Europeans were using the word chocolate to describe cacao-flavoured sweets, drinks and sauces.

Chocolate soon began to change the way people did things. As Spanish literature scholar Carolyn Nadeau points out: “Prior to chocolate, breakfast was not a communal event as lunch and dinner were.” As chocolate became increasingly popular in Spain, so too did breakfast. It was also fashionable as a mid-afternoon or late-night snack, taken with bread rolls or even fried bread – the ancestor of today’s breakfast-time churros.

By the 18th century, a variety of recipes using chocolate filled the pages of European cookbooks, demonstrating how important it had become at all levels of society. Far from its Indigenous Central American origins, enslaved Africans, labouring on new plantations in Latin America and later in west Africa, grew much of the cacao that fed the expanding global market. For makers and consumers, chocolate developed vivid connections to class, gender and race. Chocolate became an evocative shorthand for blackness.

Steep inequalities have become entrenched ever more deeply with the globalisation of chocolate. For example, 75% of chocolate consumption takes place in Europe, the US and Canada, yet 100% of the world’s cocoa is produced by Black, Indigenous, Latin American and Asian people – areas that consume only 25% of the world’s finished chocolate, with Africans consuming the least at 4%.

It is largely produced by hand and is a source of livelihood for up to 50m people in mostly developing countries. The COVID-19 pandemic made things even worse. Reduction in movement, limitations on gatherings, supply chain interruptions and poor access to healthcare hit producing communities hard.

Meanwhile large cocoa buyers and traders reduced or paused their cocoa purchasing for as long as two years to weather the storm of uncertain consumer demand throughout the pandemic.
Inequality, fair trade and farmers

Current trends have deep roots in chocolate’s past. Chocolate consumption continues to grow. Europeans are today’s largest consumers of chocolate and the UK is among the highest in Europe, with a per capita consumption of 8.1kg per year and the largest market for fair trade chocolate.

As the chocolate market grows, so too do problems of social inequality and ecological disruption. Carla Martin, founder and director of the Fine Cacao and Chocolate Institute, and I have explained that a path towards economic, social and environmental sustainability will require a range of significant investments.

The University of Reading has already made vital efforts with the Cocoa Germplasm Database to help farmers identify and access cacao’s genetic diversity, and to understand how genetic profiles relate to greater crop resilience and productivity.

Innovative social enterprises such as Cocoa360 are incubators for addressing the big challenges that cacao farmers face, and charting a more hopeful future for chocolate and those who produce it. Food for thought as you unwrap another Ferrero Rocher this Christmas.

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

The Conversation

Kathryn Sampeck receives funding from The British Academy, the National Science Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, the Social Science Research Council, the Institute for International Education Fulbright Program.

From Queen Elizabeth to Sanna Marin, young women in politics have always faced prejudice

Emma Crewe, Professor of Social Anthropology, SOAS, University of London
Wed, 21 December 2022 at 11:56 pm GMT-7·5-min read
In this article:
Sanna Marin
Finnish politician and the 46th Prime Minister of Finland


Two prime ministers meeting to discuss relations between their countries is standard practice in international politics. But New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern and Finland’s Sanna Marin had to defend a recent summit after a reporter asked whether they met because they are both young, female leaders.

As prime ministers, Ardern and Marin have indeed broken barriers in politics. But the prejudice demonstrated by this question has a long history. Young women have always faced scepticism about their experience and ability to rule.

This was even true of the late Queen Elizabeth II. Questioning 15 prime ministers in weekly private sessions for 70 years surely gave her insight into the challenges of government. But when she first took the throne, Winston Churchill thought she was “just a child” and too inexperienced for the role, according to historian Kate Williams. We have to wonder whether he would have said that about a 25-year-old king.

Quarter life, a series by The Conversation
This article is part of Quarter Life, a series about issues affecting those of us in our twenties and thirties. From the challenges of beginning a career and taking care of our mental health, to the excitement of starting a family, adopting a pet or just making friends as an adult. The articles in this series explore the questions and bring answers as we navigate this turbulent period of life.

You may be interested in:

Elizabeth II took the throne at age 25 — one of the many young queens who shaped Britain’s history

Why you’re less likely to get rich these days if your parents aren’t already wealthy

A video of you goes viral without your consent – what does the law say?

UK society has a complicated relationship with age. Older people are seen as wise and experienced, but also out of touch and mentally and physically in decline. Younger people are seen as inventive but unreliable, or even reckless.

These are merely generalisations, of course. But they still have an impact on workplaces and political institutions, making it easier for older people to establish themselves as experts. It is partly for this reason that the UK parliament remains dominated by older people.

This is certainly true in the House of Lords, which retains 92 places for hereditary peers. Hereditary political positions are extremely risky and, of course, unfair. They privilege a tiny number of families, and especially the older generation because you only become eligible when the peer before you (usually your parent) dies.

The rest of the peers are appointed after establishing their careers, so the age of the House of Lords is high to begin with. But as people increasingly marry and die later, it is skewed even further – this year, the average age was 71.

The House of Commons is slightly younger – the average age of MPs was 51 in 2019. In the last 50 years, we have seen an increase in the number of MPs aged 60-69 up to 105. Although those aged between 18-29 have also risen, they still only number 21 MPs.

Young women in the UK parliament

The few young people in the House of Commons are patronised, particularly the women. Prejudice is perpetuated by unthinking negligence as much as active hostility. For decades, MPs and peers of colour (especially women) have reported to me over and over again in interviews that security officers, and even other politicians, assume they are staff or visitors. If you are already struggling with imposter syndrome, which many politicians do, imagine how off-putting it is when people assume you are automatically out of place.

Young women in politics are also frequently targets of horrifying online abuse. In a debate asking the House to consider misogyny a hate crime in 2018, Mhairi Black, the youngest MP ever to be elected aged 20, explained:

There is no softening just how sexualised and misogynistic the abuse is … I’ve been assured multiple times that I don’t have to worry because I am so ugly that no one would want to rape me. All of these insults have been tailored to me because I am a woman.

Even when the abuse is patronising rather than violent, it can be seriously undermining. Just months before her meeting with Ardern, Finland’s leader Marin (at 37, one of the world’s youngest heads of state) was criticised over a video showing her dancing and singing during a night out. The international backlash and political pressure led to Marin taking a drugs test (it was negative). Still, her behaviour was associated with the frivolity of youth – all the more so because she was a good dancer rather than a clumsy one.

All politicians are vulnerable to opponents leaking damaging material, but the specificity of this criticism was significantly shaped by her being a young woman. It was presumably designed to chime with the prejudice that young women tend to be fun-loving and unserious. Politics is serious, and still seen as the preserve of men in most countries around the world.
Prejudice in parliaments

Sociologist Nirmal Puwar has pointed out that women – especially young, minority ethnic and working-class women – are seen as invaders into political spaces that have been occupied by white men for centuries.

Societal inequalities around age and gender are often amplified in spaces like parliament, where representatives engage in intense power struggles. Prejudice based on these issues is used as a weapon by politicians (and their supporters) against each other to patronise, make allegations and exclude.

But the opposite of prejudice – a sense of common, shared experience – can be an antidote. In solidarity with Marin, women in Finland and Denmark uploaded videos of themselves dancing, a riposte to misogyny and ageism that did no harm to anyone.

At a time when older people are increasingly struggling to keep up with the digital world and lack a sense of urgency about climate change (the effects of which will hardly affect them), they may need to make way for more young people in the political world, whether we like it or not. We just need to figure out a way to make being in the public eye more bearable for these young politicians.

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

The Conversation

Emma Crewe receives funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AH/W006944/1) and the European Research Council (834986).

Nurses: attracting more men to the profession could help with talent shortage

Zografia Bika, Professor of Entrepreneurship, University of East Anglia 

and Adi Gaskell, Senior Research Associate, University of East Anglia
Wed, 21 December 2022 

Seldom has the state of the NHS workforce been more in the public consciousness. A global survey of nurses undertaken by the consultancy firm McKinsey in the summer of 2022 highlighted the perilous state of the sector. The survey, which was conducted in France, Singapore, Japan, the US, Australia, Brazil and the UK, found that around one in four nurses was considering leaving the profession. Central to this desire was the burnout that was caused by being overworked and understaffed.

It’s a situation that has been widely discussed in the UK as a result of the first-ever strike by members of the Royal College of Nursing in England. Data from NHS Digital reveals that there are over 133,000 unfilled vacancies across NHS England, with about one in three of these vacancies for registered nurses. The extent of the crisis is underlined by the fact that this figure has grown by 19% on the same period last year.

The huge number of unfilled vacancies has led to an understandable call for a renewed focus on recruiting new nurses into the NHS. It’s an effort that would be greatly helped if the sector was as attractive to men as it is to women. Indeed, official data from the Nursing and Midwifery Council shows that just 11% of registered nurses in the UK today identify as men.

Gender stereotypes

This matters in a number of ways. First, men can often suffer from discrimination when applying to or working in stereotypically female roles. Indeed, research has shown that men receive about 40% fewer requests for interviews when applying for jobs in female-dominated sectors.

These gender-based stereotypes emerge as early as five years of age, with children associating certain professions with men and others with women – and they are incredibly hard to shift. To do so will require a rethink about how nurses are portrayed both in the media and in communication between the industry and the wider public.

We have seen in attempts to increase the number of women studying science, technology, engineering and mathematics (Stem) subjects, and participating in those industries, that having a strong supply of role models significantly increases participation by women. Just as those efforts have had to confound the stereotype that science and engineering were male disciplines, so too do we need a concerted effort to show that men can thrive as nurses as well.

Research shows that going against gender norms carries a social and emotional cost, but whereas there has grown to be less stigma associated with women when they perform “men’s” jobs, the same is not the case when men perform “women’s” jobs. This is confounded by the stereotyping often associated with male nurses as either effeminate or homosexual (or failed doctors).

Not only is the healthcare sector facing a chronic skills shortage today, but it is also estimated that the number of jobs in the sector will grow by 13% by 2031. While there has been a justifiable focus on Stem subjects as underpinning the jobs of tomorrow, jobs in healthcare promise to be more important than ever due to the ageing society and general trend towards greater spending on healthcare. If the industry is to meet those needs, it cannot afford to overlook half of the population.

The successful efforts to increase female participation in Stem point to several approaches that could be adopted to do likewise for male participation in health-related roles.

For instance, healthcare organisations and universities should actively target men for vacancies and training opportunities. This should be done in conjunction with providing more positive male role models. The potential of this was highlighted by a recent NHS campaign, called We are the NHS, which resulted in a record number of male school leavers applying to be nurses. The campaign was backed by actor Charles Venn, who plays a nurse in the BBC series Casualty.

It’s an outcome that needs to be built upon, with investment to back up such campaigns. For instance, in the US, The American Association for Men in Nursing offers scholarships for men who have embarked on a career in nursing, but while this is encouraging, it is not at the same level as the financial support offered to Stem-related projects.

Getting more men into nursing has clear benefits for both the NHS and for society as a whole, but achieving it will require a truly national effort. We’ve shown what’s possible with the drive to get more women into Stem. Now we need to replicate that to ensure men feel that nursing is a career for them.

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

The Conversation

Zografia Bika currently receives EU funding from the Interreg France (Channel) England Programme (2018-2023) called 'Increase Valorisation Sociale' ('social value' in French) that offers micro-enterprise and employment-support services to those furthest from the labour market, who are often 'invisible' and face various complex barriers to work.

Adi Gaskell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Weather leaves offshore workers stranded in North Sea ahead of Christmas

Craig Williams
Wed, 21 December 2022 

The Tyra II offshore development in the North Sea (Image: TotalEnergies)

There are fears that hundreds of offshore workers could be forced to spend Christmas on platforms in the North Sea due to disruption to helicopter transport caused by adverse weather.

French firm TotalEnergies said the disruption was down to a phenomenon known as ‘triggered lightning’, which is caused by polar air passing over a warmer sea surface.

TotalEnergies confirmed that the phenomenon was responsible for the cancellation of 52 flights so far in November and December 2022, compared to zero cancellations during the same period in 2021.

All of TotalEnergies’s manned offshore installations in the North Sea, located around 250 kilometres off the coast of Denmark, are normally serviced by helicopters, which on a normal weekday transport approximately 130 people back and forth out of a total offshore workforce of over 1,000 persons.

READ MORE: All staff made redundant as Scottish manufacturer collapses

However, because of the disruption, over 250 workers, many of whom are Scottish, should have left who continue to wait for transport to shore at the Danish seaport town of Esbjerg.

TotalEnergies said it “fully understands” the difficult situation offshore workers currently find themselves in and that it is doing all it can to get all those stranded on its offshore installations back to shore before Christmas.

A spokesperson for TotalEnergies told The Herald: “TotalEnergies is very concerned about the disturbances of the helicopter transport caused by adverse weather. We fully understand the challenging situation that is faced by personnel wanting to get home in time for the holidays, and we are doing all we can to get everyone transported onshore safely as soon as possible.

“All our manned offshore installations are normally serviced by helicopters, which on a normal weekday transport approximately 130 people back and forth out of a total workforce offshore of approx. 1250 persons. Since the flights have not been able to take place to the required extent, there are approx. 255 people who should have left and are now awaiting transport to shore.

“Helicopter transports during wintertime around the North Sea are always challenging due to ice, fog, wind speeds and other factors. This year has been particularly impacted by so-called “triggered lightning” which is caused by polar air passing over a warmer sea surface.

“We never compromise with the safety of our employees, neither on the platforms offshore nor during the transport back and forth between Esbjerg and the fields 250 km out in the North Sea.”

TotalEnergies also confirmed that it has called in extra helicopters to increase flights when the weather allows and chartered three boats to collect workers stranded offshore.

A spokesperson added: We are in close dialogue with our supplier of flights, Offshore Helicopter Services Denmark, and other parties, so that we can best keep our employees informed and maximise flights when it is safe. Extra helicopters have been called in from another helicopter supplier so that we can increase the number of flights when the weather permits.

“In addition, we have committed three boats at short notice. The first boat left Esbjerg harbour the night between Saturday and Sunday, and embarked Monday on its second trip offshore. The two remaining boats sailed off Tuesday on their first trip offshore, and all will sail back and forth as needed.”