It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Tuesday, January 10, 2023
Conscious Robots Will Be 'Bigger Than Curing Cancer,' Scientists Say
Tim Newcomb Mon, January 9, 2023 Is Robot Consciousness the Next Big Thing?
Instead of simply adapting to situations, a conscious robot would proactively improve itself.
Is robot consciousness just a different form of human-programmed artificial intelligence?
Scientists have long considered robot consciousness a subject fraught with ethical—maybe even moral—pitfalls, and so they left it out of the artificial intelligence equation. But that’s no longer the case, says a Columbia University engineer.
Hod Lipson, Columbia’s director of the Creative Machines Lab, recently told the New York Times that the idea of a robot with a conscious was traditionally taboo. “We were almost forbidden from talking about it,” Lipson said. “Don’t talk about the c-word; you won’t get tenure. So in the beginning I had to disguise it, like it was something else.”
That disguise has now lifted. According to Lipson, the next step for robotic artificial intelligence will be allowing a robot to learn about its own function and make its own decisions on self-improvement. So, instead of just effectively responding to circumstances, a conscious robot would then predict how it might better its operations. Once this type of conscious robot is up and running, Lipson said it could one day outpace humans in function.
He continued: “This is not just another research question that we’re working on—this is the question. This is bigger than curing cancer. If we can create a machine that will have consciousness on par with a human, this will eclipse everything else we’ve done. That machine itself can cure cancer.”
Before we get carried too far away, researchers aren’t yet sure if they can even effectively build a robot with a conscious. And can humans really create something smarter than ourselves? Add in the fact that nobody quite knows how to properly define conscious, and are we even sure exactly what we’re trying to create?
And that’s why, philosophy aside, researchers are focused on establishing a basic animal-like definition that centers on a robot becoming self-aware—able to see itself performing in the future and adapt function to better meet potential needs.
Of course, we’re a long way off from crafting any sort of robot that can challenge a human’s mind—after all, we don’t even fully understand how the mind works, so how could we program one?—but that won’t stop the discussion or the attempt to create a smarter, more helpful robot. If that means it needs a conscious, there’s at least one scientist eager to explore the next step.
A giant dolphin-like ichthyosaur fossil or a fake?
Geology
Dale Gnidovec Sun, January 8, 2023 Ichthyosaurs swam the world's oceans at the same time that dinosaurs ruled the land. A fossil of the dolphin-like seagoing reptile discovered on Scotland's Isle of Skye is one of the thousands of marine fossils found from the Jurassic Period.
Sometimes fossils are not what they seem.
That is especially true of ones that have been in museums for a long time. A recently reported bit of research by a team of three scientists, from England, Germany, and the U.S., discussed a good example.
The specimen was that of an ichthyosaur in the collections of the Reutlingen Natural History Museum in southern Germany, which bought it in 1984. Ichthyosaurs were marine reptiles that co-existed with the dinosaurs. Most were about the size and shape of modern dolphins, but some got much bigger — one species may have been 85 feet long.
They were the first large prehistoric animals to be studied scientifically, as early as 1814, decades before dinosaurs were even discovered. Thousands of specimens were collected, especially from the Early Jurassic rocks along the southern coast of England. Many found their way onto the walls of private mansions as decorations.
The specimen in question was supposedly collected in England, but paleontologists looking at photographs felt that something didn’t look quite right.
Close examination of the actual fossil showed why. The skull, while containing a few real fossil teeth, is fake, carved from plaster. The vertebrae (individual elements of the backbone) are real, but from a number of different individuals, and some are in the wrong position. Dale Gnidovec
Also, the rock enclosing the pelvis and hind fins is a slightly different shade of grey. Further study showed that the pelvis/hind fin section was indeed from England, but the rest of the skeleton came from Germany, from the shale quarries around Holzmaden, Germany, which has also produced thousands of Jurassic ichthyosaur specimens.
It would be one thing if the parts were from the same species, but not only were they from different species, they were from animals that lived at different times.
Imbedded in the rock containing the bones of the ichthyosaurs were fossils of ammonites, mollusks related to the modern chambered nautilus. Ammonites were very abundant in Mesozoic seas, and they evolved rapidly, with new species constantly replacing old ones. Each species lived for only a short period of time, so like coins that have their date of manufacture stamped on them, they can be used to date other fossils they occur with.
The ammonites showed that most of the skeleton came from an animal that was alive around 179 million years ago. The pelvis and hind fin came from an animal that was living around 196 million years ago, 17 million years earlier.
The scientist dubbed the specimen the ‘iffyosaur’.
The quest to cure death is a rich person’s game. And that doesn’t seem likely to change any time soon, which worries some experts in case humans ever figure out how to achieve immortality.
As science continues to push the possibilities of living longer—and living better longer—that science is often driven by funded research. And who better to provide a blank check than mega-billionaires like Jeff Bezos? Indeed, last year, the founder and former CEO of Amazon made a hefty investment in Altos Labs, a biotech startup focused on “cellular rejuvenation programming to restore cell health and resilience, with the goal of reversing disease to transform medicine.”
So, if the rich can live longer, the rich can get richer longer, compounding the already imbalanced spectrum of money, power, and control, experts argue in a new Financial Times article.
“The longer you’re around, the more your wealth compounds, and the wealthier you are, the more political influence you have,” Christopher Wareham, a bioethicist at Utrecht University, tells FT. The science of longevity will only widen existing gaps, he says.
Make no mistake, the effort to slow down aging isn’t slowing down. The Institute for Aging Research at New York’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine claims we’ve moved beyond hope in turning anti-aging into reality, and we now sit “at the point between having promise and realizing it.”
The Financial Times article notes that private funding far outpaces public funding in the anti-aging research. So, if all the proponents of anti-aging research outlive their dreams—a big if at this point in time, but a goal many have—the first ones to benefit from said science will undoubtedly be those funding the research, like Bezos. And if mega-billionaires have all the insights in not only adopting anti-aging science, but then licensing that science out to the masses, not only do the rich get richer, but the rich get richer for ... forever.
Of course, a democratized solution to anti-aging will help the masses, but the rich can still compound their wealth and power, a byproduct worthy of a philosophical discussion.
Did hunter-gatherers have a writing system?
Devika Rao, Staff writer Mon, January 9, 2023 A caveman. Illustrated | Getty Images
Archeologists have decoded the markings on 20,000-year-old cave paintings created by Ice Age hunter-gatherers. The results show that early humans used writing to convey information far earlier than researchers previously believed. Here's everything you need to know:
Why did hunter-gatherers make cave drawings?
Scientists have known about prehistoric cave paintings for hundreds of years. Some of the oldest ones date back to the Neanderthals over 60,000 years ago, writes History. They depict people, animals, and hybrid creatures, as well as more abstract markings like dots and lines. These dots and lines have been found in over 600 cave drawings dating back to the Ice Age. Little was known about their purpose until recently.
Amateur archaeologist Ben Bacon spent years attempting to decode the abstract markings on the paintings, which experts believed to be a form of "proto-writing," reports The Guardian. He, along with a group of researchers, released a report identifying the drawings as means of artistic expression as well as record-keeping for animals' reproductive cycles.
They also deduced that in tracking reproductive cycles, early hunter-gatherers were following mating seasons by lunar month, BBC reports. "The results show that Ice Age hunter-gatherers were the first to use a systemic calendar and marks to record information about major ecological events within that calendar," explains Paul Pettitt of Durham University, one of the researchers who contributed to the report. How was the discovery made?
Bacon was the first to see a pattern within the markings. About his process, he said, "Using information and imagery of cave art available via the British Library and on the internet, I amassed as much data as possible and began looking for repeating patterns." Bacon collaborated with researchers from Durham University and University College London (UCL) to release the findings in the Cambridge Archaeological Journal.
The most common markings were dots, lines, and a symbol similar to the letter "Y." He noticed that the "Y" marking appeared in a number of animal species drawings and came to the conclusion that it was a symbol representing giving birth. The symbol was depicted in between dot and line markings, which "constitute numbers denoting months," per the report. The "Y"'s position within the dots and lines "denotes month of parturition," or birth-giving.
With the belief that the markings represented ecologically significant events per the lunar calendar, the researchers set out to map it, explains The Independent. "Lunar calendars are difficult because there are just under 12-and-a-half lunar months in a year, so they do not fit neatly into a year," explained Tony Freeth, professor at UCL and researcher on the study. He added that early humans would have used a "'meteorological calendar' — tied to changes in temperature, not astronomical events such as the equinoxes."
In turn, the researchers conceptualized a calendar that "helped to explain why the system that [Bacon] had uncovered was so universal across wide geography and extraordinary time scales."
Why is this discovery important?
The breakthrough shows that our ancestors may have had more in common with us than previously understood. This research falls under the area known as palaeopsychology, which is "the scientific investigation of the psychology that underpins the earliest development of human visual culture," per BBC.
"The implications are that Ice Age hunter-gatherers didn't simply live in their present, but recorded memories of the time when past events had occurred and used these to anticipate when similar events would occur in the future," remarked another contributing researcher, Robert Kentridge, from Durham University. This discovery can be tied to the evolution of modern humans. "We're able to show that these people — who left a legacy of spectacular art in the caves ... also left a record of early timekeeping that would eventually become commonplace among our species," Pettitt said.
"As we probe deeper into their world, what we are discovering is that these ancient ancestors are a lot more like us than we had previously thought," commented Bacon. "These people, separated from us by many millennia, are suddenly a lot closer."
1980s NASA Satellite Crashes Back to Earth Over Bering Sea
George Dvorsky Mon, January 9, 2023 Artist’s depiction of ERBS.
A 2.7-ton defunct satellite came down over the Bering Sea on January 8 near the Aleutian Islands, and while most of it burned up in the atmosphere, NASA says it’s likely that some pieces reached the surface.
NASA says its Earth Radiation Budget Satellite (ERBS) made its reentry at 11:04 p.m. ET on Sunday, January 8, with Space Force’s Space Track confirming a reentry near the Aleutian Islands, as reported in SpaceNews. The 5,400-pound research satellite had spent the last 38 years in low Earth orbit, having been delivered to space on October 5, 1984 by the Space Shuttle Challenger. The ERBS mission was only supposed to last for two years, but it eked out a 21-year career, having been retired in 2005.
While it was in operation, ERBS gathered data on Earth’s energy budget, that is, the balance between the amount of solar energy that our planet receives and the amount it radiates back to space. Three instruments aboard the spacecraft were used to measure stratospheric concentrations of water vapor, ozone, nitrogen dioxide, and various aerosols. ERBS boosted our understanding of climate and ozone layer health, and it contributed directly to the adoption of the 1987 Montreal Protocol Agreement limiting the use of damaging chlorofluorocarbons (CFS), according to NASA.
NASA “expected most of the satellite to burn up as it traveled through the atmosphere, but for some components to survive the reentry,” as the space agency explained in its statement. An earlier version of its post assessed the odds of potentially harmful debris reaching the ground at 1 in 9,400. There are no reports of injury or damage as a result of the falling debris.
This latest satellite reentry represents the old way of doing things, both in terms of the time it took the satellite to deorbit after retirement and the risk it posed to people on the ground. In September 2022, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission adopted a new five-year rule for the deorbiting of defunct satellites, a move designed to decrease the amount of space junk and minimize chances of in-space collisions. In addition, a 2019 update to U.S. government orbital debris mitigation standard practices states that the “risk of human casualty from surviving components” should be less than 1 in 10,000.
ERBS violates both of these rules, but obviously these policies weren’t in place when ERBS launched to space in 1984; these sorts of things are to be expected for legacy spacecraft, though on a decreasing basis. Or at least, for satellite and launch providers who adhere to these guidelines, whether they be domestic or international. Indeed, China designed its Long March 5B rocket such that it cannot perform a controlled reentry—a decision that has now threatened human life and property on four different occasions, the most recent in November 2022.
NASA Begins Inspection of Orion Spacecraft, Freshly Returned From the Moon
George Dvorsky Mon, January 9, 2023 Orion at at NASA’s Multi-Payload Processing Facility in Florida.
The Artemis 1 demonstration mission ended with a Pacific Ocean splash on December 11, but the task of evaluating the returned capsule, including its heat shield and internal payloads, has only begun.
Orion survived its historic 1.4-million-mile journey to the Moon and back, but it now needs to survive an entirely different test: the scrutiny of NASA engineers. The uncrewed capsule splashed down in the Pacific Ocean in mid-December and was transported to Naval Base San Diego following its recovery. A truck delivered the capsule to Kennedy Space Center in Florida on December 30, where it’s now being de-serviced at NASA’s Multi-Payload Processing Facility.
A NASA photo taken on January 2 shows the capsule in the inspection bay, with several engineers crawling beneath the spacecraft to take a closer look at its heat shield. This was done in preparation for removing the heat shield entirely and transporting it to a different facility for detailed inspections, NASA explained in a statement.
The heat shield took the brunt as it protected the capsule from 5,000-degree temperatures during reentry. Orion made history as being the fastest human-rated spacecraft to return from the Moon, hitting the atmosphere at speeds reaching 24,600 miles per hour (39,590 kilometers per hour). The performance and integrity of the heat shield is critical to the Orion system and the Artemis program as a whole, which seeks to return humans to the lunar surface later this decade. The Artemis 1 demonstration mission tested both the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and the Orion spacecraft, as NASA now sets its sights on Artemis 2—a repeat of Artemis 1 but with astronauts aboard.
NASA technicians also removed external avionics boxes and are in the process of inspecting the capsule’s windows and the thermally protected back shell panels, which cover the spacecraft. Five airbags, now deflated, can still be seen atop the capsule. Those airbags kept Orion floating right-side-up after splashdown.
An important next step will be to extract air samples from within the capsule. Orion will then be fitted into a service stand that will allow technicians to access the interior. After opening the hatch for the very first time, technicians will remove internal avionics boxes and internal payloads, including the three manikins—Campos, Helga, and Zohar—who came along for the journey. NASA plans to reuse the avionics boxes for the Artemis 2 mission.
The de-servicing and inspecting of Orion will take months to complete, with other next steps including the removal of hazardous commodities and running acoustic vibrations tests at at NASA Glenn’s Neil A. Armstrong Test Facility in Ohio. Orion will eventually get its report card, allowing NASA to make any necessary changes in preparation for the crewed Artemis 2 mission, which won’t happen any earlier than late 2024.
IT'S WHAT THEIR IMPERIALIST MASTERS WANT With not a single elected leader left, Haiti is becoming a textbook case of a ‘failed state’
Jacqueline Charles Mon, January 9, 2023
For years, Haiti has suffered from a disastrous economy, a struggling police force and a practically invisible government.
After midnight Monday, there will also be no semblance left of a constitutional order.
One of the last remaining provisions of the country’s constitution that was still in existence, even if barely, is set to end at midnight with the expiration of the terms of the country’s last remaining 10 senators. The exit of the final tier of the 30-seat Senate will leave Haiti with no Parliament since the country failed to hold timely legislative elections in October 2019.
Now, for the first time since the adoption of the 1987 Constitution, which told Haitians how their country was going to exist as a nation after the fall of the nearly 30-year father-son Duvalier dictatorship, there is not one constitutional provision in existence beyond the struggling, ill-equipped Haiti National Police and reconstituted army. There is no functioning electoral commission; no functioning Supreme Court, no constitutional court.
There is not a single elected official in the entire country of nearly 12 million people — not a council member, not a mayor and certainly not a president.
This leaves just Ariel Henry as prime minister. The 73-year-old neurosurgeon, who was never ratified by law, became the country’s interim leader when Jovenel Moïse, the last elected president, tapped him to carry out day-to-day operations as head of the government shortly before his assassination on July 7, 2021.
Haiti, has for all practical purposes, become a failed state, experts say — and all under the eye of the international community.
“It is evident there is a Potemkin Village, which barely controls what’s outside the doors of the National Palace,” said Georges Fauriol, a Haiti expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.
The reality for most Haitians, Fauriol said, is that, “what you see when you walk out of your house or your apartment, is not the Haitian government. It’s some other force. And that’s who you have to deal with on a daily basis.”
Even with all the working arrangements currently in place to give the facade of a functioning nation, the reality is hard to ignore. The country is being dominated by violent kidnapping gangs that the United Nations says control nearly two-thirds of the capital. The gangs’ turf battles and escalating sexual attacks have caused more than 100,000 people to flee their homes and resulted in another 20,000 Haitians facing what the U.N.’s humanitarian chief in Port-au-Prince, Ulrika Richardson, says are “catastrophic famine-like conditions” amid an ongoing cholera outbreak.
“You see these reports of the Haitian national police having killed this person, arrested that person. But as a practical reality, the power relationship between the government, the central government, the Haitian government, and gangs, networks of drug dealers, assorted other characters — the government is on the losing end of that,” Fauriol said. “So that’s a failed state.”
Observers say that in the absence of any legitimate institution, the political vacuum that rattled the nation 18 months ago with the killing of Moïse will trigger an even deeper crisis. ‘The most dire it has ever been’
But never has the reality been this dire or the prognosis so grim, observers say.
The country faces the total collapse of its security and economy. Killings and rapes are on the rise, with the number of reported kidnappings last year, more than 1,200 cases, double the number of the previous year, according to the U.N.
Still, the challenges remain, especially for the beleaguered Haiti National Police. Funded by the U.S. and others in the international community, the force has seen attrition lower its number of active-duty officers to fewer than 9,000, according to statistics provided last month to the U.N. Security Council.
“Yes, some effective operations against the gangs in Port-au-Prince have been mounted, but holding these security gains continues to be a challenge,” said Helen La Lime, the head of the U.N. Integrated Office in Port-au-Prince.
“The [police] needs assistance in the form of a specialized force,” she added, referring to a request by U.N. Secretary General António Guterres in October for international troops to come to the aid of Haiti’s government.
“It’s a country that has had crisis after crisis. It’s now, I think, the most dire it’s ever been in the last 50 years,” he said. “It’s an extremely insecure place right now: politically unstable, economically unstable. Daily security is a massive problem.”
Posner, who is director of the New York University Stern Center for Business and Human Rights, said Haiti is not solely to blame for its current state.
“For generations, we have not done what needed to be done to build a strong democratic base to help support a strong democratic order and now order’s breaking down,” he said. Elections coming?
In a speech marking Haiti’s 219th anniversary of independence from France on New Year’s Day, Henry declared this will be the year he launches an electoral process. He promised the restoration of the Supreme Court with a sufficient number of judges, and the establishment of a nine-member Provisional Electoral Council to propose “a reasonable timetable” for organizing elections.
He also touted a new political agreement to guide the government in the absence of any legitimate institutions and the endless cycle of crises. Known as the December 21 Accord, the decree seeks a national compromise over the transition through the establishment of two new entities: a High Council of the Transition and a Body of Oversight of Government Action. Their purpose is to oversee the government during the transition and prepare a road map for organizing “transparent and uncontested elections.”
Assistant U.S. Secretary of State Brian Nichols said in a tweet that he was “encouraged by the Dec. 21 political accord bringing together Haitians of various sectors to address the political crisis.” But he added he wants to see broader consensus and greater flexibility among leaders.
Some prominent politicians have refused to sign the accord, saying the transition council lacks any real power and is nothing more than an advisory board to shore up Henry’s tenuous rule. The disagreement has raised questions and doubts about the agreement’s viability.
Henry has managed to convince only three people to sit on the five-member transition council: former presidential candidate and constitutional law expert Mirlande Manigat, Chamber of Commerce head Laurent Saint-Cyr, and Pastor Calixte Fleuridor of the Federation of Haiti.
Members of the civil society-backed coalition known as the Montana Accord called the December 21 Accord an election ploy and criticized those who signed it, accusing them of endorsing “the catastrophic results” of Henry’s leadership and that of his entire government. The new Henry accord, they said in a statement, is not the consensus Haiti needs so it can begin “the process that will put an end to its ‘unspeakable suffering.’ “
Fauriol said it would be “politically suicidal” for Haiti to rush toward elections this year, given all of the problems the country faces, including the inability of its warring political factions to come together around a broad-based agreement.
Instead, some foreign diplomats believe now would be an ideal moment for Haiti to put together a constituent assembly to rewrite its constitution. The aim would be to break the cycle of political transitions the crisis-wracked nation has endured ever since the army staged a coup against its first democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, in 1991. ‘Failed state’
In his 2014 book “Haiti: Trapped in Outer Periphery,” Haiti-born political scientist Robert Fatton put the country in the same category as Somalia, Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo — nations besieged by wars, natural disasters, regime change and foreign occupations.
Rather than refer to them as “failed or fragile states,” Fatton, who teaches political science at the University of Virginia, calls them “states of the outer periphery.” The book, he says, was born out of the Haitian state’s inability to deal with the devastation of the 2010 earthquake and the negative effects foreign policies have had.
Fatton argues that financial entities like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have “inflicted waves of economic deregulation and privatization on poor, dependent nations” like Haiti to the point that the country cannot perform vital functions.
“In fact societies in the outer periphery exhibit symptoms of decadence, pervasive corruption and depravity. With the complicity of imperial forces, rulers seek to use electoral circuses to hide these symptoms of venality and disintegration,” he writes in his book. “The decomposition of the state has generated political decay, increased levels of insecurity and narco-trafficking, not to mention the complete erosion of the sense of civic obligation.”
A group of graduate students at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, who have been researching the implosion of the Haitian state, said the role of foreign governments, including their own, cannot be ignored in the current turmoil. The group plans to present a policy brief to the Canadian government highlighting the need for changes in Canada’s foreign policy toward Haiti.
Simply labeling Haiti a “failed state” does not take into account the “spectrum of fragility” that helped Haiti get where it is, said the students, who are working under David Carment, a professor of international affairs at Carleton. Outside troops
As the Haitian Senate chambers at the edge of a gang-controlled neighborhood in Port-au-Prince stood silent Monday because there were no incoming lawmakers, 1,700 miles away in Mexico City the leaders of the U.S., Mexico and Canada prepared to meet for their first summit since 2021. Both the U.S. and Mexico penned the U.N. resolution seeking the deployment of a military force for Haiti that the Biden administration would like Canada to lead.
Last week, U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters that an outside protection force for Haiti is something the administration “is continuing to consult [on] with partners.”
“No one wants to really step forward. ... No one wants to do it right now, under the working assumption also that somehow the situation is bad, [but] it’s manageable,” said Fauriol. “I think that’s where they are making a mistake.
“Everything is hanging by a thread.”
AGE INAPPROPIATE HOW FRENCH
France's Macron opens up about love to autistic interviewers
French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte Macron attend a national memorial ceremony for Hubert Germain at the Hotel des Invalides, Friday Oct.15, 2021 in Paris. A group of "atypical journalists," on the autism spectrum, got France's 45-year-old president to talk about himself with unusual and illuminating candour in a televised interview this weekend.
(Ludovic Marin, Pool Photo via AP) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)
JOHN LEICESTER Sun, January 8, 2023
LE PECQ, France (AP) — The question for France's president about his teenage romance with a teacher at his high school was so close to the bone, so eye-popping in a country where politicians largely keep their private lives to themselves, that the interviewer couldn't quite rustle up the courage to ask it. So he got Emmanuel Macron to pose it to himself.
“He is the president," the French leader said, reading the question out loud from a piece of paper his interviewer handed to him.
“He should set the example and not marry his teacher.”
Ouch.
A group of interviewers on the autism spectrum, described by their publication as “atypical journalists,” got France's 45-year-old president to talk about himself with unusual and illuminating candor in a televised interview this weekend, with frank but fair no-filter questions that professional journalists mostly don't dare ask of the French leader.
The interviewers from Le Papotin, a journal founded in 1990 in a Paris-region day care center for young people with autism, playfully grilled Macron about his marriage to Brigitte, his friends (he said he doesn't have many), Russian President Vladimir Putin and other matters in his heart and thoughts.
In the process, they winkled out some remarkably intimate details and gave Macron a platform to show a more personal side at a critical juncture in his second term as president. His government is embarking on a high-risk effort to push back France's retirement age, a promised reform of the pension system that is infuriating critics and threatens to bring protesters onto the streets.
Le Papotin's interviewers have over the years questioned numerous people of note, including former Presidents Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy, and actor Vincent Cassel ("Ocean’s Twelve," “Black Swan”). Their Macron interview was filmed in Paris in November and broadcast by France Televisions, which said the only rule was: “Anything can be said to the Papotin but, most of all, anything can happen!”
Macron responded gamefully, even to the probing about his romance with Brigitte, 24 years his senior. She was Brigitte Auzière, a married mother of three children, when they met at the high school where he was a student and she was a teacher. She later moved to the French capital to join Macron and divorced. They married in 2007.
“It's not about setting an example or not, you see? When you're in love, the choice isn't yours," Macron said in his defense.
“She wasn't really my teacher. She was my drama teacher. It's not quite the same,” he additionally ventured, a wiggle-round that Macron himself chuckled at and which provoked peals of laughter and a teasing “he's crafty!” from one of the interviewers sat beside him.
To another delicate question — “Do you have a lot of dough?” — the former banker said he earns less now as president, without divulging figures.
On friendship, he said: “It's not the best job to have lots of friends.”
And of Putin, whom he's met, and the Russian president's war in Ukraine, the French leader said: “When you meet him like that, he's not unpleasant. That's the paradox.”
At the end of the half-hour question-and-answer session, Macron thanked his interviewers for a job well done.
“Your questions took me onto grounds ... where I'd not been in other interviews, with other journalists,” he said.
Norway’s Oil Profits Soared To New Heights In 2022
Editor OilPrice.com Sat, January 7, 2023
Following several previous successful years, Norway once again saw record oil and gas profits in 2022, as well as progressing its renewable energy operations. With energy prices soaring last year, in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent scarcity of oil and gas in Europe, Norway recorded significant profits throughout the year. The Nordic powerhouse quickly stepped in to provide gas to other European countries that were facing severe shortages, offering an alternative to Russia. Thanks to its favorable position in the international energy market, Norway expects to continue achieving record earnings throughout 2023, as well as developing its green energy capacity to support the gradual transition away from fossil fuels to renewables.
In October, Norwegian oil and gas firm Equinor announced record third-quarter profits, achieving $24.3 billion in the July-September period, and over $9.77 billion in the same period of 2021. This was largely due to increased post-pandemic demand and higher gas prices, which almost tripled since the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. This figure was greater than its previous earnings prediction of $23.5 billion.
Equinor’s CEO, Anders Opedal, stated “The Russian war in Ukraine has changed the energy markets, reduced energy availability and increased prices.” He added, “High production combined with continued high price levels resulted in very strong financial results.” Due to sanctions on Russian energy, Equinor became the main gas supplier to Europe in 2022, reducing Russian firm Gazprom’s market share.
Despite strong profits, Equinor expected to achieve a 1 percent growth in production in 2022 compared to the previous year, lower than the planned 2 percent rise. This was blamed primarily on delays on its Johan Sverdrup Phase 2 development, which was expected to commence operations in December instead of October. Equinor expects the new phase of Sverdrup to boost its crude output by 220,000 bpd.
And the Norwegian government believes the country’s success to extend well into 2023, with anticipated earnings from oil and gas of $131 billion for the year. This would set a new record, marking an 18 percent rise on 2022, and five times the earnings of 2021. It predicts an output average of 4.3 million bpd, over 4.1 million in 2022.
Although the Prime Minister, Jonas Gahr Stoere, has rejected calls for a price cap on gas, Norway has introduced a windfall tax on its oil and gas companies. Stoere believes that a price cap would not support the boost in production required to meet Europe’s high gas demand, as it continues to face shortages. However, taxes will be increased on Norwegian oil and gas by around $195 million in 2023, as the government reverses an incentive package offered during the pandemic, reducing the tax deduction from 12.4 percent to 17.69 percent. The introduction of the windfall tax responds to pressure from left-wing parties to increase taxes on companies that are depleting Norway’s natural resources, to tackle inflation.
While Norway’s oil and gas industry continues to boost its fossil fuel production and see record profits, there are concerns about the ongoing reliance on energy sources with high greenhouse gas emissions. Since 2020, Norway has run almost entirely on renewables. But it still operates large-scale, highly profitable oil and gas projects in response to the growing global demand for energy. For a country that strives to be a world leader in renewable energy and a forerunner in the transition to green, it still relies heavily on its oil and gas wealth. Norway is the seventh wealthiest country by GDP per capita, and has seen its earnings soar over the last year thanks to oil and gas. This helps it pump funds into renewable energy capacity development, as well as supporting other countries in their development. Yet, it is at the cost of the environment.
By Felicity Bradstockfor Oilprice.com
UK
ANTI-STRIKE LEGISLATION
Bill to ensure ‘minimum safety levels’
during industrial action being introduced
PA Reporters
The Government will introduce new legislation to Parliament on Tuesday for “minimum safety levels” during industrial action.
The Bill would ensure vital public services maintain a “basic function” when workers go on strike, the Business Department previously said.
Business Secretary Grant Shapps has said the legislation will demonstrate “life and limb must come first” when strike action takes place.
He told GB News: “We don’t really ever want to have to use that legislation.”
The proposals have sparked threats of legal challenges, while Labour has said it would likely repeal the legislation.
The introduction of the Bill comes a day after crisis talks between ministers and unions failed to resolve industrial disputes involving nurses, teachers and rail workers.
Health Secretary Steve Barclay is considering backdating next year’s NHS staff pay increase as part of efforts to prevent further strikes, several reports have suggested.
Health Secretary Steve Barclay spoke in the Commons following his meeting with union officials on Monday (Andy Bailey/UK Parliament/PA)
Mr Barclay used a meeting with health unions on Monday to suggest that improvements in efficiency and productivity within the health service could “unlock additional funding” to lead to an increased offer for the 2023/24 pay settlement in the spring.
Sara Gorton, head of health at Unison, said there had been an “acknowledgement” from the Health Secretary during the talks that avoiding strikes over next year’s pay settlement would “involve a reach-back” into the current pay year.
It raises the prospect that the pay deal for 2023/24, which is due to be agreed in time for April, could be backdated and applied to the final quarter of the 2022/23 financial year.
Ms Gorton said the discussion represented a “tone change” from the UK Government, with pay discussions firmly on the table after months of ministers refusing to budge beyond what had been recommended by the independent pay review bodies.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s PM programme, the Unison official said: “There was an acknowledgement from the Secretary of State (Steve Barclay) that, to use his words, any resolution to the dispute now, or preventing further disputes for next year’s pay, would involve a reach-back into the current pay year.”
Unions said there was no “tangible offer” made, however, with Ms Gorton calling for “cold hard cash” to be offered so members can be consulted over ceasing industrial action.
Multiple reports have suggested that unions put forward the call for the 2023/24 pay deal to be backdated to January in order to create a bigger uplift for 2022/23.
The Daily Telegraph, citing a source close to Mr Barclay, said the Health Secretary had “agreed to consider both this idea and proposals for a one-off payment”.
On the issue of a one-off payment, an ally of Mr Barclay said he had “listened to what (they) had to say and agreed to take it away”.
Unison general secretary Christina McAnea, asked on BBC’s Newsnight whether a backdated pay offer was something she recognised, said: “That hasn’t been put to us.
“All of it would have to depend on what the actual figures were like when you take them over a year.
“If we were talking about a fairly low sum for 2023/24 and that being backdated, then no, I don’t think it would be enough.”
The Government had previously refused to discuss wages for nurses and other public-sector workers, insisting those were matters for the independent pay review bodies, but over the weekend Mr Sunak hinted at movement.
While there were positive noises about the talks in some quarters, other unions were incensed by the lack of perceived progress.
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) and Unite criticised the meeting with Mr Barclay, accusing ministers of “intransigence”.
The discussions in Whitehall were not enough to prevent the likelihood of further strikes in the health sector.
Physiotherapists also said they would be announcing industrial action dates later this week despite the talks while the GMB union said ambulance strikes would go ahead as planned on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) union will stage a strike in primary schools, special schools and early years sites, the DVSA driving examiners’ strike continues in London, the South East, South Wales and the South West, Rural Payments Agency (RPA) continue their walkout and London bus workers at Abellio go on strike.
On Monday it was not only health officials meeting with ministers, with Westminster hosting a series of cross-sector talks as the UK Government grapples with industrial action in the face of high inflation.
Teaching unions met Education Secretary Gillian Keegan ahead of announcements this week over whether their members will go on strike.
Mary Bousted, joint general secretary of the National Education Union (NEU), urged ministers to come forward with “real and concrete proposals very quickly” to avoid possible strike action this year.
Rail minister Huw Merriman called in train workers after sustained action crippled services, with only one in five trains running between Tuesday and Saturday.
RMT general secretary Mick Lynch dodged questions about progress in rail talks but said that further discussions would take place.
New anti-strikes law will ‘poison’ industrial relations, ministers warned
David Hughes and Sophie Wingate, PA Tue, January 10, 2023
New laws requiring minimum levels of service from ambulance staff, firefighters and railway workers during industrial action risk triggering a fresh clash with the unions, ministers have been warned.
Business Secretary Grant Shapps has claimed the new legislation, being introduced in the Commons on Tuesday, is a “common-sense” response to the wave of industrial unrest.
But unions warned it could see key workers facing the sack if they exercise their right to strike, and that if it becomes law it could “poison industrial relations” and lead to more walkouts.
Mr Shapps said the new Bill would end the “postcode lottery” seen during the ambulance strike, when differing levels of service were agreed by striking unions with local NHS organisations.
“I don’t think any civilised society should have a situation where we can’t get agreement to, for example, have an ambulance turn up on a strike day for the most serious of all types of ailments,” he told Times Radio.
On Sky News, Mr Shapps said: “The problem we had in the recent strikes was that the Royal College of Nursing – that’s the nurses – did make that agreement at the national level so there was a guarantee.
“Unfortunately, the ambulance unions didn’t do that last time round, so there was a sort of regional postcode lottery. That’s the thing we want to avoid.
“That’s why today I’ll introduce minimum safety levels and service levels for key public services to make sure that we don’t end up in a situation where people’s lives are at risk, while still respecting the right to withdraw labour and strike.”
He played down the prospect of union members being sacked for refusing to work in line with the new law and insisted the Government is prepared for the legislation to be challenged in the courts.
TUC general secretary Paul Nowak has hit out at the new legislation (Stefan Rousseau/PA)
Mr Shapps also said the Government wants to end “forever strikes” on the rail network and argued that new anti-strike legislation would bring the UK “into line” with other European countries.
“Everyone knows we want to bring these strikes, which in some cases, railways for example, seem to have turned into sort of forever strikes,” he said.
“We want to bring this to a close and the Government is bending over backwards to do that.”
An impact assessment prepared by officials for earlier legislation aimed at imposing minimum service levels on the rail network warned that it risks a “potential increase in strike action”.
Mr Shapps said “I don’t think that’s likely” and said he hopes the legislation would not have to be used.
But Trades Union Congress general secretary Paul Nowak warned the legislation would risk further strikes.
“This legislation would mean that, when workers democratically vote to strike, they can be forced to work and sacked if they don’t comply. That’s undemocratic, unworkable, and almost certainly illegal,” he said.
“Let’s be clear: if passed, this Bill will prolong disputes and poison industrial relations – leading to more frequent strikes.”
Fire Brigades Union general secretary Matt Wrack said: “This is an attack on all workers – including key workers, who kept our public services going during the pandemic.
“It’s an attack on Britain’s Covid heroes and on all workers. We need a mass movement of resistance to this authoritarian attack.”
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “This Bill is another dangerous gimmick from a Government that should be negotiating to resolve the current crisis they have caused.”
Frank Ward, interim general secretary at the TSSA transport union, said the plans were “wrong, unworkable, and almost certainly illegal”, adding: “Our union totally opposes this move to bring in what amounts to further draconian anti-strike laws which are a clear attack on the rights of working people in our country.”
The introduction of the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill comes a day after transport, health and education unions held a series of crisis meetings with Westminster ministers.
Health Secretary Steve Barclay is considering backdating next year’s NHS staff pay increase as part of efforts to prevent further strikes, a union involved in the talks claimed.
Mr Barclay used a meeting with health unions on Monday to suggest that improvements in efficiency and productivity within the health service could “unlock additional funding” to lead to an increased offer for the 2023/24 pay settlement in the spring.
(PA Graphics)
Sara Gorton, head of health at Unison, said there had been an “acknowledgement” from the Health Secretary during the talks that avoiding strikes over next year’s pay settlement would “involve a reach-back” into the current pay year.
It raises the prospect that the pay deal for 2023/24, which is due to be agreed in time for April, could be backdated and applied to the final quarter of the 2022/23 financial year.
The unions also raised the prospect of a one-off payment to ease the cost-of-living burden.
The GMB union said a strike by ambulance workers will still go ahead on Wednesday unless a “significant” pay offer is made by the Government.
National secretary Rachel Harrison told BBC Breakfast: “Yesterday was a real shift, because there was that willingness from the Secretary of State and from his team to listen to us, to talk to us about pay for next year specifically, but unfortunately the meeting wasn’t progressive enough for us to be able to suspend the strike action tomorrow because no offer has yet still been made.”
It came as NHS England urged people to still call 999 if their condition is life-threatening but to turn to NHS 111, pharmacies and GPs for non-urgent needs.
Meanwhile, primary schools around Scotland have closed after last-ditch talks failed to prevent strike action, with secondary school staff set to walk out on Wednesday.
'Shameful, Shameful, Shameful': Tory MP Slams Rishi Sunak's New Anti-Strike Law
On Tuesday the government unveiled new laws requiring minimum levels of service from ambulance staff, firefighters and railway workers during industrial action.
Grant Shapps, the business secretary, said the legislation was a “common-sense” response to the wave of industrial unrest.
But Stephen McPartland, who served as security minister during Boris Johnson’s premiership, attacked the proposals.
“Shameful, shameful, shameful to target individual workers & order them to walk past their mates on picket line or be sacked,” the MP for Stevenage said on Twitter.
“By all means fine the unions, make them agree to minimum service levels, but don’t sack individual NHS staff, teachers & workers!!!”
Speaking in the Commons, Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader, branded the new laws “insulting” to nurses as well as “utterly stupid”.
Shapps has also been condemned for accusing ambulance workers of “putting lives at risk” when they went on strike last month.
The business secretary has played down the prospect of union members being sacked for refusing to work under the new law.
But TUC general secretary Paul Nowak warned the legislation would risk further strikes.
“This legislation would mean that, when workers democratically vote to strike, they can be forced to work and sacked if they don’t comply,” he said.
“That’s undemocratic, unworkable, and almost certainly illegal. Let’s be clear: if passed, this Bill will prolong disputes and poison industrial relations – leading to more frequent strikes.”
The introduction of the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill comes a day after transport, health and education unions held a series of crisis meetings with Westminster ministers which did not resolve the disputes.
