First Quantum to appeal Panama order to halt giant copper mine

Cecilia Jamasmie | January 10, 2023 | 

Cobre Panama mine, the company’s largest copper operation. (Image: First Quantum Minerals.)

Canada’s First Quantum Minerals (TSX: FM) said on Tuesday it planned to appeal an order by Panama’s government to halt its giant copper mine in the country as the two sides remain in talks over a new contract that would increase royalties paid by the miner.


The Central American country’s government decided in December to create a plan to halt operations at Cobre Panama copper mine. The move, unusual among Latin American countries, came after the Vancouver-based miner missed a deadline to ink a new contract due to disagreements on royalties and tax payments.

Panama has demanded First Quantum to pay a corporate tax of at least $375 million a year, along with a profit-based mineral royalty of 12% to 16%, which represents a steep rise on the $61 million the company paid in 2021.

First Quantum said on Tuesday it was prepared to agree with, and in part exceed, the objectives that the government outlined in a pre-agreement reached in January 2022 regarding revenues, environmental protections and labour standards.

“I don’t think we’re very far away,” chief executive officer Tristan Pascall said in a Tuesday call with analysts to provide an update on the negotiations. “There has been progress and movements since December 14 and these final items do need to be resolved, but they do need to be resolved fairly for us to close this out.”

First Quantum noted the minimum payment structure proposed is both unique and unprecedented in the mining industry.

“Under the newly proposed profit-based royalty, the government would receive revenue that is multiple times higher than under both the existing contract and the current Panamá Mining Code,” First Quantum said in the statement. “The proposed royalty rates would be amongst the highest, if not the highest, paid by copper miners in the Americas,” it noted.

The company noted that it has already given a number of concessions to the government, including elimination of $250 million in tax credits and a limit to the ones that can be used in any one year going forward.

It also said it was ready to place Cobre Panama, responsible for 1.4% of global copper supply, into “care and maintenance” if the country did not offer certain legal protections.

First Quantum has demanded assurances that the current revised mining code will be in place beyond the current administration, as Panama is gearing up for a general election, expected in May this year.

Operations continue as normal, the miner said, with no disruption to production for now.

The miner also noted it had notified the country about two arbitration proceedings, days after the order to halt operations.

Panama weighs mine options

The Panamanian government is reportedly working with a financial advisor to identify new potential partners for Cobre Panama, which raises concerns about the country nationalizing the asset or removing First Quantum’s license to operate, experts at BMO say.

“Our base-case expectation is that the government’s position is part of a broader negotiation; however, the recent escalation does raise uncertainty about First Quantum’s ability to operate in the country long term, and the risk that investors will see in Panama going forward,” BMO Metals and Mining analyst, Jackie Przybylowski, wrote.

From a copper market perspective, any sustained outage at the mine would further tighten global supplies, contributing to an expected annual deficit of 4.7 million tonnes by 2030.

“The government is prepared to face all potential legal scenarios that may arise and will continue to ensure that workers’ labor rights are maintained and protected,” the Commerce and Industry Ministry said earlier this month.

Cobre Panama is the biggest foreign investment in the Central American nation, supporting 40,000 jobs. (Image courtesy of Minera Panama.)

The local unit of First Quantum, Minera Panamá, said that suspending jobs to reduce expenditure would be “a last resort”.

Still, the company would need to cut “the various programs and projects that we undertake in the communities and beyond which benefit so many Panamanians.”

Cobre Panama achieved commercial production in September 2019. The asset is estimated to hold 3.1 billion tonnes in proven and probable reserves and at full capacity can produce more than 300,000 tonnes of copper per year, or about 1.5% of global production of the metal.

The company says it has invested around $10 billion in Cobre Panama, the largest private investment ever in the country, and was contemplating expanding the processing capacity of the mine from 85 million tonnes per year to 100 million tpy in 2023. This would have allowed it to boost production to nearly 360,000 tonnes of copper by the end of this year and to 350,000-380,000 tonnes in 2023.

First Quantum is one of the world’s top copper miners and Canada’s largest producer of the metal. It produced 816,000 tonnes of copper in 2021, its highest ever, thanks mainly to record output at Cobre Panama.

The Cobre Panama mine complex, located about 120 km west of Panama City and 20 km from the Atlantic coast, contributes 3.5% of the Central American country’s gross domestic product, according to government figures.
Fairly uncommon move

Panama’s decision is a major blow to chief executive Tristan Pascall, who succeeded his father, Phillip, in May.

Latin America is the region where risks of asset seizures and taxes hikes have increased the most in the past two years, risk consultancy Verisk Maplecroft estimates.

The practice, however, has been rare in Latin America’s recent past. One of the last major expropriations was in 2012, when then-Argentina President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner’s government seized a 51% stake in the country’s largest oil and gas producer, YPF SA, from Repsol SA.

Almost ten years later, in April 2022, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador declared lithium a “strategic mineral” whose exploration, exploitation, and use are the exclusive right of the country, through a new state-run company called Litio para Mexico, or Lithium for Mexico.

Copper shipments from Cobre Panama. (Image courtesy of Cobre Panama.)

First Quantum aims to appeal Panama order to halt copper mine

Bloomberg News | January 9, 2023 |
Cobre Panama. (Image courtesy of Minera Panama).

First Quantum Minerals Ltd. plans to appeal an order by Panama’s government to halt production at a massive copper mine in the Central American country as the two sides try to reach a tax agreement for the project.


Panama’s Ministry of Commerce and Industries issued a resolution Dec. 20 that gave First Quantum 10 business days to submit a plan for putting the Cobre Panama mine on care and maintenance, a status that would halt commercial operations. The ministry has already rejected a request by First Quantum to reconsider the decision.

“Our next step will be to submit an appeal,” the Vancouver-based miner said in an internal memo seen by Bloomberg News.

First Quantum and Panama have been negotiating new tax terms for more than a year on a mine that accounts for about 1.5% of global copper output. The talks failed to produce an accord by a Dec. 14 deadline set by the government, putting the two sides at an impasse when the threat of a global copper shortfall looms large.

In the meantime, First Quantum said it is drawing up the maintenance plan for the mine to submit to government. The metals producer would be forced to suspend “a significant amount” of workers if the mine goes into maintenance mode, according to the Jan. 6 memo.

“This is a drastic and, in our view, unnecessary step, which will potentially have a huge impact on our employees, our suppliers and the community around us,” First Quantum said in the letter. “This is not an action that should be taken lightly, but we will regrettably be compelled to follow the government’s directive if the final outstanding terms cannot be resolved on a reasonable basis.”

If the order is approved by authorities, First Quantum would have two days to comply.

First Quantum and the Panamanian government resumed negotiations in late December, but an agreement remains elusive. One of the sticking points appears to have been over a minimum $375 million contribution, with First Quantum pushing for an exception in the case of much lower metal prices and profit.

“We are prepared to agree with, and even exceed, the objectives that the government outlined to us in January 2022 related to revenues, environmental protections, and labor standards, including a minimum revenue agreement that is unique and unprecedented in the mining industry,” the Jan. 6 memo said. “This includes a minimum $375 million in government income per year, with downside protections aligned with the government’s position.”

(By Yvonne Yue Li)

First Quantum could suspend Panama jobs due to gov’t order to halt operations
Reuters | January 8, 2023 |

First Quantum Minerals personnel and representatives from the Panamanian government in 2021. (Reference image by First Quantum Minerals, Facebook.)

Canada-based miner First Quantum would suspend a “significant amount” of jobs at its operations in Panama if the Central American government forces it to halt operations during a contract dispute, the company said in a letter.


“If we have to reduce operations to care and maintenance mode, the company will need to take steps to reduce expenditure across the business. We could be forced to suspend a significant amount of our valued workforce,” the letter sent to employees and seen by Reuters said.

The company’s Cobre Panama mine generates about 40,000 direct and indirect jobs and interacts with some 1,800 suppliers, according to a consultant.

First Quantum was notified on Dec. 21 of a government order for it to create a plan to halt operations within 10 working days, after it missed a deadline for a new contract due to disagreements centered on royalties and tax payments.

“This is a drastic and, in our view, unnecessary step, which will potentially have a huge impact on employees, our suppliers and the community around us,” said the letter, signed by General Manager Alan Delaney.

First Quantum is working on the plan, but expects to reach a deal with the government before the order is enacted, the letter said, adding that its next step will be issuing an appeal.

A spokesperson for the government did not reply to a request for comment on the timetable for the order. The Canada-based miner did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

The two parties have been at odds for more than a year over payments to the government, contract stability and the area of the company’s operations. The government has pushed to raise annual royalties to $375 million.

First Quantum is prepared to meet and even exceed $375 million in royalties per year with downside protections, the letter said, though it did not outline the remaining hurdles preventing the two parties from reaching a contract.

(By Valentine Hilaire; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

UN chief calls for sweeping reform of 'biased' financial system




Mon, January 9, 2023 
By Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber and Emma Farge

GENEVA, Jan 9 (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres called on Monday for sweeping reform of the international financial system to allow for low-income countries vulnerable to climate calamities to receive adequate funding from richer nations.

Addressing a conference in Geneva on rebuilding efforts in the wake of devastating floods in Pakistan, Guterres said the international financial system was skewed to benefit wealthy countries and should be reformed to ensure a more equitable distribution of resources.

"It is very clear that the present system is biased," he told reporters in a strongly-worded critique of what he called a "morally corrupt global financial system".

"The system was conceived by a group of rich countries and naturally it basically benefits rich countries."

Guterres was speaking alongside Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who said Pakistan needed $8 billion from the international community over the next three years to support recovery efforts after floods that killed at least 1,700 people, displaced millions and damaged critical infrastructure.

"We need a new debt architecture and we need to make sure that debt relief is effectively provided by the system even to middle income countries that are on the verge of very difficult, very dramatic situations including suspending payments," Guterres added.

The International Monetary Fund, whose delegation was meeting Pakistan's finance minister on the sidelines of the conference, has yet to approve the release of $1.1 billion originally due to be disbursed in November last year. That has left Pakistan with only enough foreign exchange reserves to cover

one month's imports.

Voicing frustration at the inaction of global leaders and scant investment to combat climate emergencies, Guterres called for the vulnerability of countries to be taken into account when major financial institutions distribute below-market-rate financing.

"We need to redesign our financial system in order to be able to take into account vulnerability and not only GDP when decisions are made about concessional funding to countries around the world," he said. (Reporting by Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber and Emma Farge; editing by Mark Heinrich)

United Nations Executive Secretary Talks with Protiviti: 'We Need Private Sector Engagement, Investment to Solve Environmental Crises'

Mon, January 9, 2023 

In this article:

Ibrahim Thiaw
Deputy Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme

Ibrahim Thiaw, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, on climate change, biodiversity and productive land loss requiring immediate action, featured in exclusive interview with 'VISION by Protiviti'

MENLO PARK, Calif., Jan. 9, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- In an interview with VISION by Protiviti, the United Nations' (UN) Executive Secretary of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification calls on global business leaders to take an active role in helping to solve the planet's biggest problems. "Businesses need to shift from a linear economy — extracting resources, using them quickly and discarding them as waste — to a circular economy where used products are repurposed and re-injected in the economy," said Ibrahim Thiaw in an interview with global consulting firm Protiviti while he was at COP27, the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Protiviti logo. (PRNewsFoto/Protiviti) (PRNewsfoto/Protiviti)

"Business has a huge role to play in shaping the consumption patterns of the growing middle class, as it will demand more land, water and other resources. There is a dire need for investments that, at once, match this huge consumer demand for change, and ensure we adapt to the multiple disruptions exacerbated by climate change and land degradation," stated Thiaw.

The interview, conducted by Protiviti's Baris Karapinar, ESG and Sustainability lead for the firm's operation in Switzerland, wrapped up Protiviti's six-month exploration of the business impact of sustainability in a content series titled "Future of ESG," the latest theme explored on the VISION by Protiviti online thought leadership platform.

Thiaw calls on the private sector to help solve Earth's environmental challenges, including climate change, drought, water scarcity, land degradation and biodiversity loss. Doing so will give people a chance to generate 50 percent more wealth over the next three decades, Thiaw says. "The world has a choice: Either we continue with the current nature-destructive path and lose up to half of the global GDP by 2050, or we take a sustainable land management approach to combat the current environmental crises we're facing."

The UN has led the global effort to raise awareness and affect action with its Sustainable Development Goals, a call for action by all countries — poor, rich and middle-income — to promote prosperity while protecting the planet. "The global economy will lose an estimated US$23 trillion by 2050 through land and soil loss alone if we continue with business as usual," Thiaw said.

The economic returns of restoring land and reducing degradation, greenhouse gas emissions and biodiversity loss are estimated at US$140 trillion every year. That's about 1.5 times the global GDP of $93 trillion in 2021, according to the UN. "This is an investment opportunity, not a threat to business," Thiaw said. Perhaps business could shift to a more 'nature-positive' business model, where the ultimate objective goes beyond the traditional bottom line of a company to embracing 'doing good,' as well, he added. "The possibilities for business to drive change are unlimited. The choice is ours."

Cory Gunderson, executive vice president, Global Solutions, Protiviti, says the United Nations' message couldn't be clearer. "Business leaders will play a critical role in helping solve some of the planet's biggest challenges. There are many paths to explore. We believe having clear strategic goals and objectives to address ESG matters is a key to future success. And it can be good business. We're thrilled to highlight the key issues facing businesses, including ESG, in our landmark VISION by Protiviti program," said Gunderson.

The interview with Thiaw is one of more than 30 pieces of content, including videos, podcasts and articles, currently available as part of VISION by Protiviti's Future of ESG initiative available here.

 Other highlights include:

Morgan Stanley's Carla Harris on what lies ahead for ESG


Accelerating digital and net zero sustainability with Microsoft


AWS Energy Solutions Lead on Scope 3, 'data obesity' and a decarbonized future


Protiviti-Oxford survey finds ESG enthusiasm gap among North America executives


Boardroom Buzz: Cambridge dean on the business of sustainability


Inside The Economist's global ESG rankings


A global 'grand bargain' will be required for complicated climate transition in India


CEO of Nepad: Agenda 2063 could transform Africa into 'global powerhouse'

VISION by Protiviti is a provocative thought leadership series that puts megatrends under the microscope to provide strategic insights for C-suite executives and board members. Content is available in a variety of formats, including articles, podcasts, video interviews and special events. Subscribe to VISION by Protiviti for free here. In Q1 2023, the series will explore the metaverse.

About Protiviti

Protiviti (www.protiviti.com) is a global consulting firm that delivers deep expertise, objective insights, a tailored approach, and unparalleled collaboration to help leaders confidently face the future. Protiviti and its independent and locally owned Member Firms provide clients with consulting and managed solutions in finance, technology, operations, data, digital, legal, governance, risk and internal audit through its network of more than 85 offices in over 25 countries.

Named to the 2022 Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For® list, Protiviti has served more than 80 percent of Fortune 100 and nearly 80 percent of Fortune 500 companies. The firm also works with smaller, growing companies, including those looking to go public, as well as with government agencies. Protiviti is a wholly owned subsidiary of Robert Half (NYSE: RHI). Founded in 1948, Robert Half is a member of the S&P 500 index.

Protiviti is not licensed or registered as a public accounting firm and does not issue opinions on financial statements or offer attestation services.

All referenced marks are the property of their respective owners.

Editor's note: Protiviti photo available upon request.


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EXPLAINER: Roots of the Brazilian capital's chaotic uprising



Police stand on the other side of a window at Planalto Palace that was shattered by protesters, supporters of Brazil's former President Jair Bolsonaro, after they stormed the official workplace of the president in Brasilia, Brazil, Sunday, Jan. 8, 2023. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres
CARLA BRIDI
Mon, January 9, 2023 

SALVADOR, Brazil (AP) — Thousands of Brazilians who support former president Jair Bolsonaro invaded the Supreme Court, presidential palace and Congress on Jan. 8 in an episode that closely resembled the U.S. Capitol insurrection in 2021. The groups were able to break through police barricades along the capital Brasilia’s main boulevard and storm the buildings, damage furniture, smash windows and destroy artworks. As they unleashed chaos in the capital, Bolsonaro was holed up in Florida, home to his ally, former U.S. President Donald Trump. The incident sparked accusations that Bolsonaro's actions stoked the flames of dissent and ultimately produced the uprising.

WHO ARE THESE PROTESTERS, AND WHAT DO THEY WANT?

The protesters are hardcore Bolsonaro supporters, some of whom have been camped outside a military headquarters in Brasilia since Bolsonaro lost the Oct. 30 presidential election and reject the race’s results. Others traveled to Brasilia for the weekend on buses. They have been demanding military intervention to oust newly inaugurated President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, alleging he is a thief who will lead the country into communism, and restore Bolsonaro to power.

HOW DID BRAZIL GET TO THIS POINT?

Throughout his administration, Bolsonaro trained fire at Supreme Court justices for opening investigations targeting him and his allies. He repeatedly singled out Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who presided over the electoral authority during the election, and at one point pushed Brazil to the brink of an institutional crisis by threatening to disobey any of de Moraes' future rulings.

Bolsonaro also sowed doubt about the reliability of Brazil's electronic voting machines, then declined to concede defeat. After his loss, he largely vanished from view, though he addressed his supporters once to tell them they had the power in their hands and that he controls the armed forces. His supporters maintained hope Bolsonaro or the armed forces would lead an intervention to overturn the results.

WHAT HAS BOLSONARO CLAIMED ABOUT THE VOTING SYSTEM AND ELECTIONS?

Bolsonaro insisted the electronic voting system should feature a printed receipt in order to enable audits, but Congress' Lower House in 2021 voted down his proposal for that change and electoral authorities say the results can already be verified. Security experts consider electronic voting less secure than hand-marked paper ballots because they leave no auditable paper trail. Brazil’s system is, however, closely scrutinized and domestic authorities and international observers have never found evidence of it being exploited to commit fraud since its adoption in 1996.

After the 2022 elections, Bolsonaro and his party petitioned the electoral authority to nullify millions of votes cast on the majority of voting machines that featured a software bug — the machines lacked individual identification numbers in their internal logs. The request didn’t say how the bug might affect results, and independent experts said that it would not undermine reliability in any way. The electoral authority's president swiftly dismissed the request and imposed a multi-million dollar fine on the party for what he called a bad-faith effort.

WHAT ARE BOLSONARO’S TIES TO TRUMP AND HIS ALLIES?

Former U.S. President Donald Trump was one of Bolsonaro’s few foreign allies and Bolsonaro often exalted his American counterpart’s leadership, even posting photos of himself watching Trump’s addresses.

Bolsonaro and his lawmaker son Eduardo visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago, and both attended dinners at the house of Steve Bannon. The longtime Trump ally amplified Bolsonaro's claims about the electronic voting system before the October vote and, after the Jan. 8 uprising in Brasilia, called the protesters “Brazilian freedom fighters” in a video on social media.

Eduardo Bolsonaro has repeatedly attended the Conservative Political Action Conference in the U.S., positioning himself as the international face of the right-wing movement led by his father and making inroads with his American counterparts. Jason Miller, the former Trump campaign strategist, also met with Eduardo in Brazil. On the eve of the Jan. 6 insurrection in the U.S. Capitol, Eduardo was in Washington, and met with Ivanka Trump and My Pillow chief executive Mike Lindell.

After Trump lost his reelection bid, then-President Bolsonaro waited five weeks before recognizing Joe Biden’s victory and was one of the final world leaders to do so.

WHY IS BOLSONARO IN THE U.S.?

Bolsonaro flew to Florida two days before Lula’s Jan. 1 inauguration, when the outgoing president traditionally bestows the presidential sash to his successor. Instead, Bolsonaro took up temporary residence in the home of a Brazilian former mixed martial arts fighter outside Orlando. He hasn’t specified the reasons for his departure, and analysts have speculated it marks an attempt to avoid potential prosecution in connection with several ongoing investigations targeting him, blame from backers for not mobilizing the armed forces or responsibility for his supporters’ actions.

How Miami got an undeserved central role in Brazil riots, accusations against former leader

Nora Gámez Torres
Mon, January 9, 2023 

Carl Juste/cjuste@miamiherald.com


From the nation’s “cocaine capital” in the 1980s to its label “home of the Cuban mafia” by Fidel Castro, Miami has been accused of so many things that over the years, the city has earned an oversized reputation for being at the center of things — even when it’s not.

The latest example involves a Latin American country, a defeated presidential candidate who had warned he would not accept the election’s results — and hundreds of rioters breaking into the presidential palace, congress and the supreme court.

This time Miami is getting the blame as the nerve center from which former right-wing Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who repeated false claims of election fraud, plotted the attack by his supporters on the South American nation’s main government buildings in the capital, Brasilia, on Sunday.

Except the Brazilian press and videos circulating online actually place Bolsonaro in Orlando, to where he traveled before the year’s end on the presidential plane to skip the Jan. 1 inauguration ceremony of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, to whom he lost his reelection bid.

That detail didn’t matter much for Bolsonaro critics, mostly from the left, who have inundated social media with references to Miami as the conspiracy nest for the riots.

“Fascism uses the same tactics everywhere. Meanwhile, Bolsonaro is happy spending time in Miami, where all fascists and gusanos [worms] meet,” wrote Andreína Chávez Alava, a former Telesur journalist from Ecuador, using the pejorative term Fidel Castro coined to refer to his home-grown opponents of the Cuban revolution.

“Bolsonaro sheltered in Miami leading the fascist mob of his followers with the complicity of the head of the Federal District in a remake of the assault on the Capitol by Trump and his henchmen,” wrote Carmen Hertz, a member of the Chilean Congress from the Communist Party. “How dangerous the ultra-right is for democracy and the lives of the citizens!”

President Lula himself opened the gate to the comments during remarks blaming Bolsonaro for encouraging the riots.

“This genocidal man ... is encouraging this via social media from Miami,” Lula said on Sunday at a press conference. “Everybody knows there are various speeches of the ex-president encouraging this.”

Bolsonaro’s response, denying the accusations and condemning the attacks several hours after, was also widely commented on in social media and Latin American media outlets as being sent “from Miami.”

Officials from countries with left-leaning governments such as Colombia and Cuba have also echoed the accusations, which go hand-in-glove with the propaganda narrative that links the U.S. and Miami, home to thousands of Latin Americans who fled leftist regimes, with every political crisis in the region.

“#Bolsonaro in #Miami and his followers in #Brasilia try to force with violence in the streets what he could not achieve at the polls,” said Cuban Foreign Ministry official Johana Tablada. “NotothecoupinBrazil,” she added in her tweet in Spanish.

“Bolsonaro flees by helicopter to Miami and from there orders a failed coup attempt,” tweeted Moisés Ninco Daza, Colombia’s ambassador to Mexico. “A clear example of the cowardice of anti-Latin American fascism. They are and will be defeated by popular power.”

Some of the messages on Twitter were from current or former journalists affiliated with Telesur, Venezuela’s government-paid television channel, as well as accounts linked to troll farms that routinely promote Cuban government propaganda, which suggests that coordinated disinformation efforts might be behind some of the mentions of the supposed Miami connection in social media.

“How similar!” commented a Cuban Twitter account under the name Frank Lamadrid of pictures of the assaults on the U.S. Capitol in January 2021 and the Brazilian Congress on Sunday. “Does this have something to do with Bolsonaro’s refuge in Miami?” The tweet included the hashtag #DeZurdaTeam, the name of a group linked to the Cuban government that routinely disseminates propaganda on Twitter. The group has been busy retweeting content in support of Lula da Silva, the third-time Brazilian president from the Workers Party who is close to Raúl Castro.

From day one, Bolsonaro’s stay in Florida has not gone unnoticed. Videos of him wandering around a Publix, eating at a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant and addressing supporters outside a residential Orlando complex have gone viral. The United Kingdom’s Daily Mail reported that Bolsonaro has been living in an Orlando property owned by former Brazilian Ultimate Fighting Championship fighter Jose Aldo. That rental property has eight bedrooms and is near Disney World.

Brazilian media outlet O’Globo reported Monday that Bolsonaro, 67, who was stabbed on the campaign trail in 2018 and had undergone multiple surgeries in the past, was admitted on Monday to AdventHealth Celebration “with acute abdominal pain.” The Orlando-area hospital is popular with Walt Disney visitors. But it is unclear if the former president might have been admitted under another name to protect his privacy because a hospital employee told the Miami Herald there was no patient there with that name.

Some Democratic U.S. House members like Joaquin Castro of Texas have called on the U.S. government to expel Bolsonaro to Brazil, where he faces several criminal investigations for alleged corruption and other charges.

“I stand with @LulaOficial and Brazil’s democratically elected government,” Castro said. “Domestic terrorists and fascists cannot be allowed to use Trump’s playbook to undermine democracy. Bolsonaro must not be given refuge in Florida, where he’s been hiding from accountability for his crimes.”

National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said Monday the Biden administration had not received an extradition request, according to Bloomberg, but Bolsonaro’s Florida vacation is likely to create diplomatic tensions with the newly elected Lula, himself formerly convicted of corruption and later acquitted. The Biden administration sent U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland — but not Vice President Kamala Harris, as some expected — to Lula’s inauguration, setting the relationship up for a cool start.

Early on Monday, President Joe Biden, who is in Mexico for a North American leaders summit, issued a joint statement with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau condemning the violence in Brazil and expressing their desire to work with “President Lula on delivering for our countries, the Western Hemisphere, and beyond.”

While most prominent Miami Republicans, some of whom personally met Bolsonaro during a Florida trip in 2020, have stayed silent about the riots in Brazil, at least one, former Miami-Dade commissioner and current Hialeah Mayor Esteban Bovo, weighed in.

He used his private Twitter account to reply to Democratic U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, who referred to Bolsonaro as a “strongman” with “bogus claims of election fraud” and lamented that “the world will suffer the consequences of Trump’s terrible example for years to come.”

Schiff ended his tweet: “We stand with you, Brazil.”

Bovo replied: “Leftists seem to [be] coming together to support the corrupt new leader of Brazil.”

Democratic Reps Say Brazil's Bolsonaro Should Be Kicked Out Of Florida

Marita Vlachou
Mon, January 9, 2023 

Democratic lawmakers called on President Joe Biden to extradite former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro back to his country from Florida following the ugly scenes in Brasilia that echoed the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said the U.S. should not allow Bolsonaro to stay after thousands of Bolsonaro supporters on Sunday attacked key government buildings in Brazil’s capital, including Congress and the Supreme Court. The rioters demanded that Bolsonaro be reinstalled president or that President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva be removed from office despite his win in October’s general election.

“He basically used the Trump playbook to inspire domestic terrorists to try to take over the government,” Castro told CNN.

Bolsonaro, who never acknowledged defeat, has been living in a rented home near Disney World in Orlando, Florida, since December, according to The New York Times. He did not attend Lula’s inauguration last week, mirroring the 2021 behavior of former President Donald Trump, who skipped Biden’s inaugural ceremony.

Former Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro, center, meets with supporters outside a vacation home where he is staying near Orlando, Florida., on Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2023.

Former Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro, center, meets with supporters outside a vacation home where he is staying near Orlando, Florida., on Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2023.

“He basically used the Trump playbook to inspire domestic terrorists to try to take over the government,” Castro told CNN.

Castro continued: “He’s actually very close to Donald Trump. He should be extradited to Brazil. In fact, it was reported that he was under investigation for corruption and fled Brazil to the United States.”

While Republicans are trying to stoke fear over asylum seekers crossing into the U.S., Bolsonaro is on U.S. soil close to Trump, Castro pointed out.

Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) echoed Castro, writing that the U.S. should stand by Lula and “cease granting refuge to Bolsonaro in Florida.”

Biden denounced the attack on Brazilian democracy, but he made no reference to Bolsonaro’s status in Florida.

“Brazil’s democratic institutions have our full support and the will of the Brazilian people must not be undermined,” Biden wrote.

Bolsonaro addressed Brazil’s violence on Twitter, denying that he was in any way responsible.

Following Brazil's far-right uprising, Biden will bring Lula to the White House

SHANNON K. CRAWFORD
Mon, January 9, 2023 

In the wake of a violent uprising on Sunday by supporters of Brazil's far-right former president, President Joe Biden on Monday spoke with the nation's newly inaugurated leader, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and extended an invitation to visit the White House.

"President Biden conveyed the unwavering support of the United States for Brazil's democracy and for the free will of the Brazilian people as expressed in Brazil's recent presidential election, which President Lula won. President Biden condemned the violence and the attack on democratic institutions and on the peaceful transfer of power," read a joint statement released by both Biden and the Brazilian president, who is commonly known as Lula.

The statement added that da Silva accepted the invitation to "visit Washington in early February for in-depth consultations on a wide-ranging shared agenda."

Sunday's attack on three of Brazil's seats of power -- its Supreme Court, Congress and the presidential office, called the Planalto Palace, in Brasilia -- was also condemned in a joint statement issued by Biden, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who convened in Mexico City on Monday for the North American leaders' summit.

"We stand with Brazil as it safeguards its democratic institutions. Our governments support the free will of the people of Brazil," they declared. "We look forward to working with President Lula on delivering for our countries, the Western Hemisphere, and beyond."

The scenes from Brasilia on Sunday, of rioters overtaking government buildings while calling for a newly elected president's removal, echo the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

PHOTO: President Joe Biden meets his Mexican counterpart Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador at an official welcoming ceremony before taking part in the North American Leaders' Summit at the National Palace in Mexico City, Mexico January 9, 2023. (Henry Romero/Reuters)

In responding to the turmoil in Brazil, Biden also confronts another conundrum created by da Silva's predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, who is currently staying in the U.S.

Bolsonaro had flown to Florida at the end of December, days before da Silva was inaugurated. Dubbed the "Trump of the Tropics," the populist ex-president refused to accept the results of Brazil's election when he was voted out in October and spread unsubstantiated claims of fraud.

While Bolsonaro condemned the "depredations and invasions of public buildings" in a tweet on Sunday after the violent rioting, da Silva and others accused him of implicitly spurring on his supporters with false allegations about a stolen election.

MORE: Jair Bolsonaro admitted to US hospital as Biden condemns 'outrageous' attack on Brazilian government

Some Democratic lawmakers in the U.S. were quick to call for Bolsonaro's removal.

"Nearly 2 years to the day the US Capitol was attacked by fascists, we see fascist movements abroad attempt to do the same in Brazil," New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. "The US must cease granting refuge to Bolsonaro in Florida."

"He's a dangerous man. They should send him back to his home country, Brazil," Rep. Joaquin Castro of Texas urged during a televised interview.

PHOTO: Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva speaks during a meeting with Governors at Planalto Palace in Brasilia, on January 9, 2023. (Mauro Pimentel/AFP via Getty Images)

The Biden White House's national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, told reporters on Monday that the Biden administration had not received any request from Brazil's government to extradite Bolsonaro but that "if we did receive such requests, we treat them the way we always do -- we treat them seriously."

While the U.S. and Brazil have an extradition treaty in place, it stipulates that the individual must be formally accused of an offense that is considered a crime in both countries. Bolsonaro is the subject of several investigations, but Brazilian authorities have not filed any charges against him.

MORE: House Republicans propose sweeping committee to review government's criminal investigations

Separately, if the Biden administration wanted to expel Bolsonaro from the country, it could revoke his visa without any legal justification. While that would be an extraordinary move, John Feeley, who served as the U.S. ambassador to Panama when the country's former president attempted to avoid corruption charges by fleeing to Florida, said it likely wouldn't be met by significant backlash on the international stage.

"I think one of the possible silver linings out of this whole episode is that there has been universal condemnation from Latin American governments," Feeley said. "There has been literally no government that has supported Bolsonaro. There have been some that have been quiet, but most have made very strong statements."

PHOTO: Protesters, supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro, clash with police during a protest outside the Planalto Palace building in Brasilia, Brazil, Jan. 8, 2023. (Eraldo Peres/AP)

While individual visa cases are confidential, State Department spokesperson Ned Price seemed to suggest that Bolsonaro -- who is believed to have entered the U.S. on a diplomatic visa as Brazil's head of state -- would have a grace period of 30 days to either exit the country or request a change to his immigration status before facing consequences.

The former Brazilian president was admitted to an Orlando-area hospital on Monday afternoon for abdominal pain resulting from a stabbing he endured on the campaign trail in 2018, his wife announced via Instagram.

ABC News' Aicha El Hammar Castano contributed to this report.

Tucker Cheers on Brazilian Insurrection and Repeats ‘Rigged’ Election Lies

William Vaillancourt
Mon, January 9, 2023 

Tucker Carlson reacted sympathetically to rolling anti-government riots Sunday in Brazil’s capital, claiming—without any evidence—that voters ousted far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro in what was “very clearly a rigged election.”

Instead of offering information to back up any of the widely debunked claims of fraud, the Fox host simply assured viewers that “millions of people in Brazil understand exactly what happened. They know that their democracy has been hijacked, possibly forever.”

Pro-Bolsonaro protesters, Carlson continued, “are angry because the new Lula government has eliminated their most basic civil liberties. Lula is working to turn Brazil into a Chinese-style dictatorship”—again, offering little evidence for the sweeping claims.

In addition, Carlson did not follow up when his guest, journalist Matthew Tyrmand, asserted that “there were many an agent provocateur” causing damage at the riots and made the stunning claim that “it looks like this is turning into a Reichstag fire,” in reference to the 1933 arson at the German parliament that Nazi leaders exploited to further their rule.

After rioters made their way into Brazil’s Congress, Supreme Court and presidential palace, authorities made at least 400 arrests as of early Sunday evening. “There is no precedent in the history of the country [for] what they did today,” current president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva wrote on Twitter in response. “For that they must be punished.”

Bolsonaro, an ally of Donald Trump, fretted to Carlson in an interview just last summer that if he were to lose reelection, the left would remain in power permanently.

After Bolsonaro refused to acknowledge his loss in October, he arrived in the U.S. earlier this month and has reportedly been living in the Florida home of an MMA fighter, perhaps to avoid corruption charges in Brazil.

Over the weekend, he was admitted to an Orlando-area hospital over “abdominal pain”—but posted Monday evening that he had since been discharged.

Astronauts Will Share a Painfully Cramped Space Aboard Future Lunar Space Station

Passant Rabie
Mon, January 9, 2023

An illustration of the lunar gateway in orbit around the Moon.

Architects designing the living space for the upcoming lunar Gateway did their best to make it comfortable for astronauts, but technical constraints forced them to create a tiny, noisy corridor with no windows and barely enough room to stand upright.

The European-built international habitat, or I-Hab, is meant to provide living quarters for astronauts on board the Lunar Gateway, a future outpost that will orbit the Moon. The purpose of Gateway, a collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency, and other international partners, is to provide a place for astronauts to conduct science in lunar orbit and to transfer from one spacecraft to another, such as a lunar lander. But an architect involved in I-Hab’s design recently revealed the claustrophobic conditions for the orbital habitat that’s supposed to house up to four astronauts for around 90 days at a time.
Related story: What to Know About Lunar Gateway, NASA’s Future Moon-Orbiting Space Station

During the Czech Space Week conference in Brno, Czechia (the country formerly known as the Czech Republic), René Waclavicek, a space architect and design researcher at Austria-based LIQUIFER Space Systems, stated that the Lunar Gateway will be roughly one-sixth of the size of the International Space Station (ISS), Space.com reported. Waclavicek, who was involved in I-Hab’s design, said that the architects behind the lunar living quarters were constrained by the amount of material that can be transported to the Moon, requiring them to make some sacrifices.

I-Hab “will have habitable space of about 8 cubic meters [280 cubic feet] and you will have to share it with three others,” Waclavicek said during the conference. “In other words, that would be a room 2 by 2 by 2 meters [6.6 by 6.6 by 6.6 feet], and you are locked in there.”

By comparison, the ISS stretches for about 357 feet (108 meters) from end-to-end, and is essentially a five-bedroom orbital complex complete with a gym, two bathrooms, and a 360-degree window with an enviable view of our home planet.

A view of the Moon wouldn’t be bad either, except I-Hab won’t be equipped with the same luxury. “We always get asked ‘where is the window?’,” Waclavicek said. “The moon is a thousand times farther away [than the ISS] and each window is a disturbance in the continuity of the structure. Also, glass is very heavy so a window is the first thing that gets canceled.” The Gateway will have windows, although not in the living quarters. Instead, the refueling module ESPRIT will have small windows, according to Waclavicek.

With an extremely curtailed view of the surrounding cosmos, the astronauts will have a hard time relaxing during their downtime—especially as they’re being serenaded by the robotic hum of onboard machinery. “Actually, you are living in a machine room,” Waclavicek said. “The life-support systems make noise, they have a lot of fans, and you have [a tiny amount] of private space where you can close the door and tame the noise.”

The architect admits that they began with a design for larger living quarters but had to shrink it down due to mass restrictions for the lunar outpost. As a result, astronauts will be cramped inside a tiny tube for the duration of their mission around the Moon. “[The I-Hab] really is just a cylinder with a hatch on each end and two hatches at the sides and a corridor going through the length axis,” he said. “Even if you want to pass one another, it’s already quite difficult, you have to interrupt whatever you are doing in the moment to let the other [person] pass by you.” It will be a cramped environment, no doubt, but it’s important to remember that a capsule, namely NASA’s Orion spacecraft, will be attached to the Gateway station during these missions, which will allow for some added elbow room. Lunar landers, such as SpaceX’s upcoming Starship, will also dock to Gateway.

NASA’s Artemis program is officially underway, having kicking off in November 2022 with the launch of Artemis 1. Unlike Apollo, Artemis is designed to establish a sustainable presence of astronauts on and around the Moon, with the Lunar Gateway being an essential part of the mission objective.

The first components of the Lunar Gateway could reach orbit as early as 2024, but I-Hab isn’t expected to make it up there until 2027. The living quarters may not sound like it would provide for a pleasant experience on board, but it will likely contribute some valuable science on Earth’s natural satellite and beyond.

Employees and managers have a key disagreement about one factor of remote work that affects productivity

Orianna Rosa Royle

Mon, January 9, 2023 

After almost three years of working from home, managers are very much not on the same page as their workers when it comes to productivity.

Simply put: Managers believe that working from home reduces productivity while employees think it massively increases it.

Now, new research published in the Harvard Business Review suggests this massive difference in opinion could boil down to very different parameters of what constitutes a working day.

When thinking about how productive their day was, HBR’s research shows that employees tend to include commuting time in their mental calculations. Therefore, they counted not having to commute on days working from home as an increase in productivity. Managers on the other hand tend to focus on output and ignore commuting time when thinking about staff productivity.

Does commuting count toward productivity?

Neither side is wrong.

First, take the employee's point of view. Imagine a gig economy worker who charges a business a daily rate of $1,000. If they work a nine-hour day and spend an hour commuting, they are charging $100 for every hour they spend on the job. But on days working from home, they’re getting $111 for every hour they put toward the job. They are still putting nine hours of work into the job, but they don’t have to dip into their personal bank of time, energy, and money to commute to the office.

However, from an employer’s perspective, they are getting less bang for their buck—or at least fewer hours for the same amount of money. An increase in productivity would have the employee working during the hour they formerly spent commuting.

Although these calculations are made up, and productivity isn’t only measured by the number of hours dedicated to a job, the disagreement illustrates why employees may perceive working from home as a personal productivity win while bosses do not.

This difference in opinion becomes increasingly important as businesses ask staff to come back to the office—and reflects a need for clarity from employers on where they stand on the matter.

Employees who opt to work from home in order to increase productivity could be putting themselves at risk of termination—especially if they’re specifically dodging “in-office” days. When HBR asked employees, "What happens to workers who work from the office on fewer days than requested?," a third responded “nothing.” However, the majority of managers answered that they risked being fired.

Changing norms

The HBR research comes as many businesses have started defining their policies on working from home.

Although many companies, including BlackRock, PwC, and Aviva, have adopted a hybrid work system, some are scrapping working from home altogether.

After acquiring Twitter, Elon Musk made it his first order of business to end Twitter’s “work from anywhere” policy. Musk emailed the social media giant’s employees that they would be expected in the office for at least 40 hours a week and that unless approved by their manager, an office no-show would automatically equate to “resignation accepted.”

While the billionaire’s actions aren’t an example of leadership at its finest, it does show that clarity and transparency are key to getting employees in line with managers’ expectations on productivity and remote working.

In the end, thousands who weren’t on the same page as Musk left the business.

Southwest Crisis Reveals Clubby World of Airline Leaders



Mary Schlangenstein
Mon, January 9, 2023 

(Bloomberg) -- The operational chaos that engulfed Southwest Airlines Co. over the busy holiday period was a crisis decades in the making.

In the aftermath of a meltdown that led to 16,700 flight cancellations and may cost the airline more than $800 million, blame has fallen on an outmoded crew scheduling system and an unusual point-to-point route network. Southwest was overwhelmed and unable to adapt as a severe storm swept the US.

But behind those specific issues is an insular management team that critics say lacks the imagination and technology expertise to help avoid such crises. While the bootstrap culture instilled by co-founder Herb Kelleher turned Southwest into one of the nation’s largest carriers, the size of the company now demands new ways of thinking and investment in innovation.

“It makes you wonder if there isn’t sort of a correlation or cause and effect here, where you’ve got a fairly entrenched, stagnant board, a grow-your-own leadership team since it was a very small, scrappy airline,” said Keith Meyer, global leader of the CEO and board practice at executive search firm Allegis Partners. “A founder-based culture can only take it so far.”

Southwest is full of lifers. Bob Jordan, who took over as chief executive officer in February, has been with the airline 34 years. The chief financial officer and communications chief have each worked there 30 years, while the chief commercial and chief legal officers have been around at least 20. The closest to a newbie among Southwest’s top management might be Chief Operating Officer Andrew Watterson, who joined a decade ago from Hawaiian Airlines.

Jordan doesn’t see it as a problem.

“We’ve always been proud of the fact we’ve developed leaders here and that we have folks with so much tenure,” he said in an interview. “They have a very deep airline knowledge, functional knowledge and very deep relationship that serves you well in normal times and when you get into an incident like this.”

Aviation ‘Laggard’

Southwest isn’t alone in recruiting from within. American Airlines Group Inc.’s top leadership had been together since the mid-1990s, first at America West Airlines, then US Airways before a merger with American. The group first began to fracture when Scott Kirby moved to United Airlines Holdings Inc. in 2016 and later became CEO there.

“The aviation industry more broadly has been a bit of a laggard experimenting with executives from outside, let alone their boards,” said Jason Hanold, CEO of executive search firm Hanold Associates.

But Southwest is in a unique position, with the challenges of a major carrier and the mindset of a small one.

The airline, which began flying between a handful of cities within Texas in 1971, has grown into a behemoth that has carried more domestic passengers than any other airline in recent years. That expansion has added complexity to its keep-it-simple business model, and resulting cost pressures mean it often can’t offer the cheapest fares.

Southwest’s focus on stretching every dollar has also made it more conservative than other carriers in a highly regulated, safety-focused industry that rewards consistency, said Samuel Engel, senior vice president for innovation at ICF, and former head of the consultant’s aviation group. It leans more on insiders because of “the continued belief that Southwest is different.”

The airline’s 13-member board has an average tenure of nearly 12 years, compared with about six and a half at Delta Air Lines Inc. and American and five and a half at United, which agreed to a board revamp in 2016 at the behest of activist investors. None of Southwest’s directors has a background in tech.

The carrier has a long-standing reputation of being slow to adopt new technology, and spent years implementing a new reservation system and updating its maintenance operations. It’s now spending $2 billion to improve a balky Wi-Fi system, add power ports at seats and install larger overhead bins.

“Southwest is the largest domestic airline in the US and it should start behaving that way,” Helane Becker, an analyst with Cowen Inc., said in a research note. “There are probably a lot of smart technology people who are getting laid off from tech companies that could help it out.”

Southwest has acknowledged putting updates to its crew scheduling system behind other improvements, despite long-standing complaints from pilots and flight attendants. Watterson called the system its “Achilles’ heel” in the December breakdown.

The airline has said it’s looking at every aspect of operations to find what produced the meltdown, and expects to “swiftly” reach conclusions. It hasn’t said how many passengers were affected, but the company is reimbursing travelers for canceled flights and hotels, meals and other related expenses.

In one sign of frustration among institutional investors, New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, who oversees the state pension fund, asked Southwest in a letter to provide information on when it “is planning to correct these failures — not just in the immediate term, but for the coming years.”

‘Considerable Concern’

“All of this is of considerable concern to investors, for whom Southwest’s ability to attract customers and retain employees is of paramount importance,” DiNapoli said in the letter, which was dated Jan. 6. “The management of these basic business operations are the heart of a company’s ability to provide a return to shareholders.”

Southwest didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. New York’s state retirement fund held 1.35 million Southwest shares as of March 31, he said. The comptroller’s letter was reported earlier by the Wall Street Journal.

The carrier’s shares have lagged the broader market since the travel fiasco. The stock rose 2% as of 2:35 p.m. Monday in New York.

Southwest tumbled 21% in 2022, the second-worst performance among the five biggest US carriers. The reputational damage may lead to more volatility, and its shares will underperform the S&P 500 Index by 5% over the next two months, according to Nir Kossovsky, CEO of reputation risk insurer Steel City Re.

Jordan said he’s committed to getting the company back on track, regardless of what it takes.

“We have a 51-year history of doing really well, operating really well,” he said. “This one event, which is significant, won’t define us.”

Germany's new China strategy 'guided by ideology', ambassador says

 

FRANKFURT, Jan 8 (Reuters) - Plans for a tougher China strategy by Germany are "guided by ideology" and reflect a Cold War mentality that could put cooperation between the world's second- and fourth-largest economies at risk, China's ambassador to Berlin was quoted saying.

"What I read about it in the media and know from many conversations is very disconcerting to me," Wu Ken told Handelsblatt. "The paper gives the impression that it is guided primarily by ideology. It is not based on the common interests of Germany and China."

Germany is working on a new strategy taking a more sober look at its relations with China and aiming to reduce its dependence on Asia's economic superpower.

"As far as I know, the paper exaggerates competition and confrontation between our two countries in a way that has nothing to do with reality. I'm also hearing that certain values and human rights are to be a prerequisite for cooperation in the future," Ken said.

He added that if this happened it would put obstacles in the way of both countries' cooperation.

"Moreover, according to the draft at least, Germany wants to coordinate its China policy more closely in future with 'like-minded' allies such as the U.S. This suggests that the German government is forfeiting its independence and is instead following the U.S. completely in matters of China policy."

The planned measures include requirements for German firms particularly exposed to China to share details on that business with the government and undergo regular stress tests, according to the ministry's "Internal Guidelines on China" seen by Reuters last month.

"In doing so, the German government is ultimately contradicting itself. After all, it has always emphasised that it is not aiming for a confrontation between different camps. To me, this smells suspiciously of a Cold War mentality," Ken said. (Reporting by Christoph Steitz; Editing by David Holmes)