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Japan Looks Beyond US Alliance for Help to Deter China Military



Isabel Reynolds and Ben Westcott
Sun, January 15, 2023 

(Bloomberg) -- Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is looking beyond his country’s alliance with the US to deter China, bolstering security ties with democracies from Australia to Europe.

On his tour of Group of Seven countries last week, which came after the biggest overhaul of Japan’s security policy since World War II, Kishida told French President Emmanuel Macron that the security of Europe and the Indo-Pacific were indivisible. He signed a deal on mutual troop access with UK premier Rishi Sunak and agreed with Italian leader Giorgia Meloni to upgrade defense ties.

Japan’s alliance with Washington — complete with its “nuclear umbrella” — remains the cornerstone of its strategy, and US President Joe Biden endorsed the country’s more robust security strategy in a meeting with Kishida at the White House on Friday. Yet Japan’s deepening unease about the dangers in its neighborhood has prompted a fresh push to build a bulwark of other partnerships.

Concerns linger in Japan that Biden could be succeeded by a less sympathetic US leader, said Euan Graham, a Singapore-based senior fellow for Indo-Pacific Defence and Strategy at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Donald Trump, for instance, repeatedly questioned the fairness of the US-Japan alliance during his years as president.

“They can’t rely on the US entirely, both for political reasons and in simple scale terms,” Graham said. “They need extra help, and that’s where Canada and the other G-7 countries come into play.”

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, North Korea’s growing missile prowess and rising tensions around Taiwan — including Chinese military exercises that involved lobbing missiles into waters near Japan — have all contributed to its concerns. Last year Kishida became the first Japanese prime minister to attend a NATO summit.

On each stop of his five-country tour, Kishida explained Japan’s defense expansion and regional security worries. It culminated with a joint US-Japan statement that blamed China and North Korea for making it necessary to ramp up the nation’s military capability.

“In managing relations with China, it is absolutely necessary for Japan, the US and Europe to work together as one,” Kishida said in a speech at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington on Friday.

European allies are increasingly conscious of the growing security threat China poses in a variety of arenas, particularly in the long-term, and are taking steps to address that. Macron highlighted security as one area where they can increase cooperation with Japan when he met Kishida last week, as they looked to a new round of joint military exercises.

Germany and the Netherlands have, along with Japan, the U.S. and the UK, sent frigates to sail in the South China Sea in recent years as a way to counter China’s claims there and underscore the importance of freedom of navigation.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which includes the U.S., Canada and European members, for the first time mentioned China in its 2022 Strategic Concept, laying out the alliance’s priorities for the coming decade. NATO leaders agreed at their summit last June, also attended by Asia-Pacific partners like Japan and Australia, that China posed a “systemic challenge” and warned about a deepening strategic partnership between Beijing and Moscow.

‘Unbreakable Bond’

Eagerness to get involved with a wider range of partners manifested itself in last year’s decision to work on a next-generation fighter jet with the UK and Italy, rather than with the US. Japan is set to negotiate an information-security agreement with Canada as part of a joint action plan sealed last year, which includes joint military exercises and defense exchanges.

Japan’s new-found openness to such ideas has met with particular enthusiasm from London.

“Japan is our closest security partner in Asia and the UK is Japan’s closest security partner in Europe,” Sunak said in an op-ed published in Nikkei Asia. “Between us is an unbreakable bond that reaches halfway around the world.”

Britain has and is moving toward what it calls an Indo-Pacific tilt in its foreign relations and is in the middle of updating its strategic foreign affairs goals.

Closer to home, talks are also under way with the Philippines on deepening defense ties.

Taiwan Question

None of this obliges any of Japan’s partners to come to its aid in the event of a conflict over Taiwan, or the East China Sea islands disputed between Tokyo and Beijing, known as Senkaku in Japanese and Diaoyu in Chinese. Unlike the US, other G-7 partners have made no treaty pledges to help defend Japan.

“In the event of a contingency around Taiwan or the Senkaku, I don’t think they are expecting the UK or France to come to the Indo-Pacific,” said Kyoko Hatakeyama, a professor of international studies at the University of Niigata Prefecture. Still, she added, the effect Japan is seeking is deterrence.

Japan’s strategy with G-7 members appears to be following its engagement with Australia. Ties with Canberra progressed to a defense agreement last year in which the two countries pledge to increase interoperability between their forces.

‘Eggs in the US Basket’

Pressure from the US could prompt Australia and other countries to offer some degree of assistance in the event of a Taiwan contingency, said Graham from IISS. But he warned that Japan’s dubbing of Australia a “quasi ally” might be misleading.

“The whole point about alliances is that they are definitive,” he said. “It’s a black and white commitment — we will be there for you. I don’t think the Australians are going to offer that.”

Japan’s outreach to partners like Australia and the UK also serves as insurance in case US power in the Asia-Pacific begins to fade, according to Amy King, associate professor at the Australian National University’s Strategic & Defence Studies Centre.

Until recently, the US has been by far the largest military presence in Asia, providing protection for its allies including Japan. However, concerns over the rise of “America First” rhetoric among US conservatives has led Tokyo to hedge its bets in the event of a US departure.

“It’s Japan diversifying the partners with whom it acts,” King said. “It doesn’t want to put all its eggs in the US basket any longer.”

--With assistance from Natalia Drozdiak, Kitty Donaldson and Jon Herskovitz.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for PERMANENT ARMS ECONOMY 

Spanish health workers march against Madrid regional govt

Sun, January 15, 2023

MADRID (AP) — Several thousand health workers returned to the streets of Spain’s capital Sunday to protest what they claim is the dismantling of Madrid's public health care system by its conservative regional government.

Carrying homemade signs with slogans that translated into English as “S.O.S. Public Healthcare” and “Stop Privatization,” the marchers clamored against staff shortages and criticized what they consider the favoritism shown by regional authorities toward private health care providers.

The event was the latest in a series of protest actions, including strikes, by Madrid’s public health workers against the capital region's government, which is led by Popular Party heavyweight Isabel Ayuso.

The unions that organized Sunday's demonstration said Madrid spends the least amount per capita on primary health care of any Spanish region even though it has the highest per capita income. They claim that for every 2 euros spent on health care in Madrid, one ends up in the private sector.

Ayuso has alleged the protests were motivated by the political interests of left-wing rivals ahead of May regional elections across most of Spain.

The Associated Press

Tens of thousands of Spanish health workers protest for better future





Tens of thousands of Spanish health workers Protest against the regional government's public health care policy, in Madrid


Sun, January 15, 2023 
By Raul Cadenas and Silvio Castellanos

MADRID (Reuters) -Tens of thousands of health workers protested in Madrid on Sunday over what they say is the destruction of the public health system by the conservative regional government.

Dressed in white coats and banging drums, many chanted: "Cutting public health is criminal."

The demonstration attracted about 30,000 protesters, a regional government spokesman said.

The Madrid regional government, led by the Popular Party’s Isabel Ayuso, has come under fire in recent years, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic started in 2020, for poor staffing in hospitals and primary healthcare centres.

Protesters say the regional government is dismantling public health services and favouring private health providers.

Dressed as the Grim Reaper and bearing a mock scythe, one protester held a sign reading, "I am Ayuso's plan for (the) emergency ward."

"We have about 40 or 50 patients per day and can give them about six minutes each. The problem is that they do not allow us to give proper care to patients," Ana Encinas, 62, a doctor who has worked in primary care in Madrid for 37 years, told Reuters.

Ayuso denies the accusation that her administration is dismantling public health services in favour of the private sector and says the protests and strikes are being orchestrated by left-wing parties in the run-up to municipal and regional elections this year to undermine the conservative regional government.

In November, tens of thousands of people marched through central Madrid in support of health workers calling for better working conditions.

(Reporting by Graham Keeley, Silvio Castellanos and Raul CadenasEditing by Raissa Kasolowsky and Christina Fincher)

UK Teachers May Go On Strike as Sunak Battles to Contain Unrest



Alex Morales
Sun, January 15, 2023 at 5:01 PM MST·4 min read

(Bloomberg) -- Teachers may join hundreds of thousands of UK employees taking industrial action as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s administration battles to contain a surge of worker unrest over pay that’s failing to keep pace with rampant inflation.

The National Education Union on Monday will announce the results of a strike ballot, with NEU General Secretary Mary Bousted telling Times Radio on Sunday she’s “confident” the vote will meet the minimum threshold required. The union would then have two weeks to notify employers before they can take action, giving time for talks, she said.

“We are saying to the government get around the table and start negotiating,” Bousted said. “Our members don’t want to take strike action, they have been driven to it by government neglect.”

A vote in favor of strikes would pile more pressure onto Sunak, whose administration is already grappling with industrial action by nurses, ambulance drivers and rail workers. A strike by teachers could have knock-on repercussions in the wider workforce, with parents forced to stay at home.

Nurses plan to strike again on Wednesday and Thursday, with ambulance workers planning a walkout next week. On Feb. 1, some 100,000 civil servants have announced plans to join the industrial action.

Pay Demands

The NEU vote comes after only 42% of members voted in a ballot of another teachers’ union, NASUWT, meaning that although 9 in 10 were in favor of industrial action in state schools, the vote wasn’t valid. Nevertheless, the union did secure a mandate for strikes at more than 130 private schools.

Teaching unions argue that the 5% pay rise offered to most teachers fails to keep pace with inflation at more than 10%, while saying a 20% cut in real terms over the past decade has led to a staff exodus.

But the Conservative government has taken a hardline on remuneration, saying bigger pay awards risk stoking inflation. Sunak’s administration has also provoked the ire of unions by proposing legislation to limit strikes and ensure minimum service levels in key industries.

The controversial bill will return to the House of Commons on Monday for its second reading amid a clamor of opposition. The Labour Party is opposing the legislation as well as government attempts to fast-track it through Parliament. Leader Keir Starmer has said if it’s passed, he’d repeal the law in government.

‘Full-Frontal Attack’

“This shoddy, unworkable bill won’t do a thing to help working people or avoid strikes,” Deputy Labour Leader Angela Rayner said in a statement. “Instead of getting round the negotiating table to resolve disputes, they’re pouring petrol on the fire.”

Under the proposed law, minimum service levels would be required on strike days for fire, ambulance and rail services, with the government consulting on the adequate level of coverage. The legislation also covers health care, education, nuclear decommissioning, border security and other modes of transport, but those sectors will be subject to voluntary agreements.

Trades Union Congress General Secretary Paul Nowak said in a statement that far from averting strikes, the legislation will only “make matters worse.” He called it a “full-frontal attack on the right to strike” and accused ministers of “trying to steamroller it through parliament, without proper consultation or scrutiny.”

Ministers last week held a series of meetings with unions in an attempt to defuse the disputes, and some signs of progress have emerged.

Better Offer

On Sunday, Transport Secretary Mark Harper told the BBC that “I made sure after I met the trade union leaders, that there was a better deal on the table for rail workers.”

He said that any pay rise needs to be accompanied by reform to “free up money,” but suggested there’s flexibility from the government on the issue of insisting train guards are phased out, leaving services managed only by the train driver.

There was also a glimmer of hope from British Medical Association Chair Philip Banfield, whose union is balloting members over taking action. He told Sky News on Sunday that strikes “are not inevitable at all” and that his first meeting with Health Secretary Steve Barclay “was not as negative as I was expecting.”

Barclay last Monday signaled flexibility in talks with health unions, saying he’s open to backdating the next pay rise for health workers to cover part of the present fiscal year.

While government officials see a deal on railways closer than one on health care, senior Tories — conscious that nurses benefit from considerable public sympathy — have called on Sunak to make them a more generous pay offer. An Opinium poll at the weekend found that 57% of Britons support the nurses’ strike, with 31% opposing. Net support for industrial action by ambulance workers is +17%, while for railway workers, it’s minus 7%.

UK seeks stronger powers to stop disruptive protests


British PM Sunak leaves Downing Street for the Houses of Parliament in London

Sun, January 15, 2023
By William James

LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's government will on Monday announce new proposals to clamp down on protests, broadening the range of situations in which police are able to act to prevent serious disruption.

In recent years, protests, usually on environmental issues, have shut down large parts of central London and blocked traffic on key highways, leading to calls for the police to have more power to stop the disturbance.

The government passed legislation to address this in 2022, but is planning to go further with a new set of laws known as the Public Order Bill.

The bill was published last year and is currently in the final stages of debate in parliament. It has drawn heavy criticism from civil rights groups who say it is anti-democratic and gives police too much power.

The government wants to amend the Public Order Bill before it becomes law to broaden the legal definition of 'serious disruption', give police more flexibility, and provide legal clarity on when the new powers could be used.

"The right to protest is a fundamental principle of our democracy, but this is not absolute," Sunak said in a statement late on Sunday.

"We cannot have protests conducted by a small minority disrupting the lives of the ordinary public. It’s not acceptable and we’re going to bring it to an end."

The government says the new laws, if passed, will mean police can shut down disruptive protests pre-emptively.

The bill already includes the creation of a criminal offence for those who seek to lock themselves to objects or buildings, and allows courts to restrict the freedoms of some protesters to prevent them causing serious disruption.

It builds on the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act, passed in April 2022, which sparked several large 'kill the bill' protests.

(Reporting by William James; Editing by Christina Fincher)

Car makers like Ford and GM are increasing loan payments, while some rivals are keeping costs down

Alexa St. John
Sun, January 15, 2023 

The average monthly vehicle loan payment was $785 in December 2022.

Thomson Reuters

Car-buyers are looking for the best way to get the best deal these days.

Certain brands have had larger increases in monthly payments since the pandemic started.

Experts say to look out for those brands and what those prices could mean in a recession.

Consumers in the car-buying market are in luck… with the prices of certain vehicle brands this year.

There's no question that car-buying has proven difficult over the past few years, driven by the pandemic and chip shortage that left new and used vehicle inventory low and the prices of these cars high. Those dynamics meant car-buyers weren't likely to find what they were looking for on dealership lots and might have had to overpay for a vehicle that didn't have the features they wanted.

Some of that is starting to normalize as inventory replenishes and prices creep down.

But one of the most key factors to consider, especially as the challenging economic environment persists, might be vehicle brand, Cox Automotive senior economist Charlie Chesbrough said at a recent Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago annual auto insights symposium in Detroit.

Between March 2020 and December 2022, average monthly loan payments jumped about 29%, according to Dealertrack data Chesbrough shared. The average was $785 for a loan in December.

"It's not the same for all the different manufacturers," Chesbrough said. "Not everybody has risen their monthly payments in quite the amount."
Certain brands raised loan prices more than others

Homegrown automakers like Ford and GM accounted for eight of the top 10 brands with the largest increases in those payments during that period.

That means that, of the vehicle brands that got more expensive since the pandemic began, Detroit-based brands are the top culprits, including Dodge, with an average 44.5% increase, GMC at 44%, Jeep at 42%, Cadillac at 39%, and Ford at 36%.

"Their customers are going to be in for a big surprise when they come in to buy their next product from them," Chesbrough said.

Alfa Romeo, Mini, Subaru, Jaguar, Audi, Kia, Mercedes-Benz, Infiniti, Toyota, and Genesis, made up the 10 brands with the lowest increases in their average monthly loan payments over the same period. Alfa only saw a 9% increase, and Genesis' was 21%.

Toyota was one of the 10 brands with the lowest increase 

in their average monthly loan payments since the pandemic began.

Yichuan Cao/NurPhoto via Getty Images

What buyers should look out for

The brands that saw only mild inflation may be less vulnerable to worsening economic conditions, according to Chesbrough.

"One would think that if we do fall into a recession, some of these brands may be a little bit more insulated from a downturn than others," he said.

That doesn't necessarily mean consumers shouldn't buy from certain automakers. The domestic brands, despite those increases, might actually have more inventory now than others, which could benefit car-buyers. It depends on if a buyer is seeking out the right price, or the right vehicle.

"We think that there's really not going to be enough demand there at these high prices," Chesbrough said. "The manufacturers are going to have to start discounting, but it's going to be a game of chicken and as to who is willing to hold price and not discount and maybe lose some market share, and who's going to aggressively go at that."

OLDE FASHIONED CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

A Faked Kidnapping and Cocaine: A Montana Mine's Descent Into Chaos


Hiroko Tabuchi

The New York Times
Sat, January 14, 2023 

An entrance to the Signal Peak Mine, owned by a coal company that was fined $1 million last year in connection with safety and environmental violations, in Roundup, Mont., Aug. 25, 2022. (Louise Johns/The New York Times)

LONG READ

Just before 2 a.m. April 18, 2018, Amy Price, the wife of coal executive Larry Price Jr., called police in Bluefield, Virginia, to report her husband missing. Police scoured Bluefield, a town of less than 10,000 people nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains, and soon discovered Larry Price’s white Mercedes at a deserted parking lot.

Price, a 42-year-old father of six, was an industrious businessperson who ran surface operations at an underground mine, one of the nation’s largest, near Roundup, Montana. He also ran a motorcycle shop, Hawg Pit Cycles, that traded used Harley-Davidsons. And he had promised several investors big returns in coal. Recently, some of them had confronted Price about their money.

As night fell, a driver traveling along a state road some 20 miles away from Bluefield noticed a man on the roadside: a disheveled Price, who was rushed to a hospital. He told investigators that he had been abducted by an outlaw biker gang that drugged him and took him to his motorcycle shop, where they robbed him before loading him into a van and dumping him on the roadside. When surveillance cameras showed there hadn’t been a robbery, he changed his story, saying that the gang had asked him for coal train schedules for a scheme to traffic methamphetamines by rail.

The truth was, Price hadn’t been kidnapped at all. As he later admitted in court, he had staged his own kidnapping, a last-ditch attempt to escape investors’ wrath for embezzlement schemes totaling more than $20 million that he’d hatched with the president of the Montana coal mine.

The embezzlement and fake kidnapping were part of the unraveling of a coal company called Signal Peak Energy that also involved bribery, cocaine trafficking, firearms violations, worker safety and environmental infringements, a network of shell companies, a modern-day castle, an amputated finger and past links to President Vladimir Putin of Russia.

Nine former Signal Peak executives, including Price, and their associates have been either convicted or charged as part of a broad federal investigation. Price is now serving time in a federal prison. Signal Peak’s former president and CEO, Brad Hanson, who Price said was the mastermind behind the schemes, died at his home in Florida in 2020. The company itself was fined $1 million last year for failing to report worker injuries and for illegally dumping toxic slurry, chemicals and unprocessed soil containing heavy metals, arsenic and lead into an abandoned section of the mine.

Attempts to reach Price in prison were unsuccessful. In written responses to questions, Signal Peak stressed that it had taken “swift and comprehensive remedial measures” after the misconduct came to light, terminating all employees involved, installing new executive leadership and revising its internal policies to prevent future wrongdoing.

Local ranchers and environmental groups that oppose the mine say Signal Peak Energy, which operates the Montana mine, 30 miles north of Billings, has become an extreme example of the opaque operators left behind in a declining industry as the biggest actors leave or go bankrupt. Coal use has shrunk by half from its peak in 2007 amid the shift to natural gas and renewables. Those left behind have an incentive to extract as much money as possible — and get out.

Last summer, a coalition of environmental groups petitioned the federal government and the state of Montana to order the mine to cease operations pending a wider investigation, citing ongoing environmental and permit violations and its overall “destructive and lawless operations.”

That hasn’t stopped Signal Peak from planning a 7,000-acre expansion of the mine, although those plans have been repeatedly stopped by federal courts for failing to meet environmental standards.

On a recent afternoon, Signal Peak’s new CEO, Parker Phipps, ushered a visiting reporter from his office in a squat two-story building perched at the mine’s edge, saying he was unable to speak with reporters. He cited the “tremendous amount of litigation” against the firm. Nearby, coal trundled up a conveyor and onto a vast, black mound.

A ‘Bastion’ of Malfeasance

Miners have dug for coal in the outcrops of the Bull Mountains, a range of grasslands and sagebrush in southern Montana crisscrossed by cattle trails, since the late 1800s. But after booming through the 1960s, mining in the region declined precipitously. Then, in 2008, the Boich Cos., run by Ohio-based billionaire Wayne Boich, and FirstEnergy Corp, one of the nation’s largest investor-owned utilities, bought the Bull Mountains’ No. 1 coal mine for $125 million and renamed it Signal Peak Energy. Two years later, the Gunvor Group, an oil and commodities trading firm registered in Cyprus, assumed a stake in the company.

Signal Peak embarked on an intensive method of digging coal from the ground, known as longwall mining, in which miners systematically mine coal from panels of earth several miles long and hundreds of feet wide.

Price, who had worked mining jobs in the coal fields of southwest Virginia, took a job with Signal Peak in 2009. At the mine, Price rose through the ranks to become vice president in charge of surface operations, a position that brought him in close contact with Signal Peak’s then-CEO, Hanson. On the side, Price operated a private business called 3 Solutions, which supplied Signal Peak with industrial chemicals.

At his trial, Price painted Hanson as the mastermind behind a series of schemes to defraud investors at two separate companies, as well as Signal Peak itself, of more than $20 million. Yet a federal judge found Price was responsible for the fraudulent activity. In one scheme, he persuaded a Wyoming firm called Three Blind Mice to lend 3 Solutions $7.5 million for a contract that did not exist.

The money supported an extravagant lifestyle. In Billings, he lived with his family in the area’s largest home: a 26,000-square foot, 10-bedroom stone castle. It had a tower, moat, drawbridge, glass elevator, bowling alley, swimming pools and an indoor shooting range with bank vault doors. At his sentencing, Price admitted that the full scope of the embezzlement was closer to $40 million.

But Price was not simply a rogue element at an otherwise reputable company. By 2018, the mine had become, in the words of U.S. attorneys working on the case, a “bastion of unreported injuries and malfeasance.”

According to Justice Department statements, Dale Lee Musgrave, Signal Peak’s vice president of underground operations at the time, pressured mine employees not to report injuries that had occurred while on duty, using overt and implicit pressure, threats and bribes — actions that gave the mine “the veneer of an outstanding safety record.”

In 2018, according to the Justice Department, Musgrave instructed an employee who had crushed his finger while loading mining materials to say that the injury was unrelated to his job, telling him that he would “make it worthwhile.” Musgrave eventually gave the employee, whose finger had to be partially amputated, $2,000 in cash.

Federal investigators who were looking into activities at the mine then noticed multiple mysterious FedEx shipments arriving at Musgrave’s residence — 27 such shipments just in the first few months of 2019. When they intercepted one, they found small bags of cocaine inside. In December 2021, Musgrave pleaded guilty to conspiracy to submit false statements in records. Under a plea agreement, prosecutors dismissed two counts of cocaine trafficking.

Last year, Signal Peak was given a criminal sentence and a $1 million fine for willfully violating health and safety standards. In a broad summary of the case, U.S. Attorney Leif M. Johnson underscored the “utter disregard for environmental and worker health and safety standards.”

Industry experts say the criminal activity points to a bigger mystery: Despite the embezzlement and despite the coal industry’s protracted decline, the company has been able to survive. Many of Signal Peak’s better-positioned industry peers lost money on coal exports and went bankrupt.

“It never quite made sense to me,” said Clark Williams-Derry, an energy finance analyst at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. “How did Signal Peak even stay afloat?”

Shell Companies

Pat and Maureen Thiele run a small, 50-acre ranch in Roundup, just outside the boundaries of the Signal Peak mine. The small herd that grazes on the couple’s land, as well as their hardscrabble garden, relies on water that they fear is under threat from the mine, and Signal Peak’s expansion plans would bring the drilling under their property.

“It’s marching toward us,” Maureen Thiele said. “It’s coming close, and damage to our land and our aquifer is becoming more likely.”

The couple are two in a handful of ranchers in the area who are upset about the damage Signal Peak has done to the land.

Steve Charter, a member of the local environmental group Bull Mountain Land Alliance, said that in 2020, mine workers used an excavator to tear up a watering hole that provided water for his cattle. Now the company, which controls much of the ranch land in the area, is canceling leases that ranchers have held for more than a half-century.

“It’s like dealing with the mob,” he said.

Signal Peak said Charter’s watering hole, made of old tires, had posed “a significant risk” to its employees and the environment. And by canceling leases, the mine said, it was merely exercising its land rights.

In recent months, Pat Thiele has been consumed by a new pastime: digging into the multinational corporations that lurk behind Signal Peak, an attempt to understand the corporate forces that ranchers like him are up against.

“It’s important for us to know who we’re dealing with,” he said during a recent interview at his home, about a 10-minute drive from the mine.

In painstakingly compiled handwritten notes and diagrams, Thiele laid out the corporate structure: Signal Peak is technically owned by two shell companies, paper-only businesses with minimal disclosure rules, that obscure the fact that they are controlled by a trio of out-of-state corporations. What’s more, he was stunned to learn, those corporations are embroiled in their own scandals.

One is FirstEnergy, the Ohio-based utility that invested $400 million to open the underground mine in 2009 with investment firm Boich Group. In 2021, the company admitted to funneling tens of millions of dollars in bribes to state legislators and regulators to advance a $1 billion bailout for aging nuclear and coal-fired power plants. The Justice Department fined FirstEnergy a record $230 million in a sprawling bribery case, the largest in Ohio. A spokesperson for FirstEnergy said that while FirstEnergy has a stake in the company that operates the mine, it does not run the site.

Boich has also been implicated in the case. According to local news reports and a federal criminal complaint, he made substantial donations to the dark-money organization at the center of the scandal. He has not been charged with any crime. A spokesperson for Boich said the billionaire’s political contributions had taken place in strict accordance with the law.

The third owner is the Gunvor Group, a multinational trading company formerly owned by Gennady Timchenko, a Russian billionaire and confidant of Putin. Signal Peak is the only coal mine owned by Gunvor, which specializes in trading commodities like oil, gas, and minerals, not producing them.

For years, the Treasury Department maintained that Putin held investments in Gunvor and may have had access to Gunvor funds. After Russia invaded Crimea in 2014, the State Department placed sanctions on Timchenko, and he announced that he had sold his interest in the company.

A Gunvor spokesperson stressed that Timchenko now “had absolutely zero involvement with Gunvor in any way” and called any alleged links with Putin “old and entirely baseless.” Gunvor has “been seeking to divest its share in Signal Peak, which holds no strategic value for our company,” he added.

Environmental groups have alleged in complaints to state and federal regulators that by using shell companies, the mine is violating requirements to clearly disclose the identity of its owners. These groups worry that the current owners, wracked by their own scandals, will be able to walk away from their obligations — to restore land or water degraded by the mining, for example.

So far, the environmental groups have been unsuccessful. This year, the Interior Department said it believed the mine was violating ownership disclosure rules and had failed to update parts of its mining permit. But the department said it could not find adequate proof of any imminent danger to public health or the environment.

“There’s a history of companies creating shells, and the owners walking away, leaving taxpayers to pick up the mess,” said Anne Hedges, a director at the Montana Environmental Information Center, a local nonprofit group. “And they’ve all already operated like they’re above the law.”

Signal Peak has supporters in the community, including Sue Olson, a local rancher who sits on the board of a philanthropic foundation funded by Signal Peak.

“Signal Peak mine did have some very bad apples,” she said. “But they’ve been caught, and the mine is now operating as a respected, honest business.”

Charter, the rancher, recently zigzagged to the top of his ranch on Bull Mountain, stopping to examine the latest crack that has appeared in the hard ground, a crevice several hundred feet long.

Below was a sweeping vista of Montana’s grassy plains, hazy with the smoke of distant wildfires. Charter’s finances have already been squeezed by the big meatpackers that have consolidated control of the U.S. livestock industry. The mine is a more elusive adversary.

“Coal is in its death throes,” he said, “and it’s taking us down with it.”

© 2023 The New York Times Company

NO JUSTICE! NO PEACE!

Twitter's laid-off workers cannot pursue claims via class-action lawsuit-judge


The Twitter logo is seen outside the offices in New York

Sat, January 14, 2023 at 2:29 AM MST·2 min read

(Reuters) -Twitter Inc has secured a ruling allowing the social media company to force several laid-off workers suing over their termination to pursue their claims via individual arbitration than a class-action lawsuit.

U.S. District Judge James Donato on Friday ruled that five former Twitter employees pursuing a proposed class action accusing the company of failing to give adequate notice before laying them off after its acquisition by Elon Musk must pursue their claims in private arbitration.

Donato granted Twitter's request to force the five ex-employees to pursue their claims individually, citing agreements they signed with the company.

Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment

The San Francisco judge left for another day "as warranted by developments in the case" whether the entire class action lawsuit must be dismissed, though, as he noted three other former Twitter employees who alleged they had opted out of the company's arbitration agreement have joined the lawsuit after it was first filed.

The lawyer who represents the plaintiffs, Shannon Liss-Riordan, said on Monday that she had already filed 300 demands for arbitration on behalf of former Twitter employees and would likely file hundreds more.

Those workers all claim they have not received the full severance package promised by Twitter before Musk took over. Some have also alleged sex or disability discrimination.

Last year, Donato had ruled that Twitter must notify the thousands of workers who were laid off after its acquisition by Musk following a proposed class action accusing the company of failing to give adequate notice before terminating them.

The judge said that before asking workers to sign severance agreements waiving their ability to sue the company, Twitter must give them "a succinct and plainly worded notice".

Twitter laid off roughly 3,700 employees in early November in a cost-cutting measure by Musk, and hundreds more subsequently resigned.

In December last year, Twitter was also accused by dozens of former employees of various legal violations stemming from Musk's takeover of the company, including targeting women for layoffs and failing to pay promised severance.

Twitter is also facing at least three complaints filed with a U.S. labor board claiming workers were fired for criticizing the company, attempting to organize a strike, and other conduct protected by federal labor law.

(Reporting by Mrinmay Dey in Bengaluru, Nate Raymond in Boston, and Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York, Editing by Angus MacSwan and Deepa Babington)

EXPROPRIATION IS NOT STEALING

'They should shoplift even more': Some Canadians stealing high-priced food from grocery stores

Soaring grocery prices across Canada are forcing many to change
their habits, and some aren't afraid to brag.

https://archive.org/details/pdfy-TNlDHryRIk4DXKAU

Chris Stoodley
·Lifestyle and News Editor
Sun, January 15, 2023

Some Canadians are shoplifting high-priced food items from grocery stores as the cost of living continues climbing, with a few even taking to social media to brag.

Last week, Dalhousie University professor Sylvain Charlebois wrote about the impact of grocery store theft.

"Grocery theft has always been a major problem, but with food inflation as it is, shopkeepers now fear the wrongdoers more than before," the Halifax-based Agri-Food Analytics Lab director wrote in an article published on Jan. 10.

"According to some industry data, an average-sized food retail store in Canada can have between $2,000 and $5,000 worth of groceries stolen per week. With the relatively narrow profit margins in grocery, this amount is huge. To cover losses, grocers need to raise prices, so in the end, we all pay for grocery theft."

Twitter users weren't happy with Charlebois' words, with some proudly admitting they shoplift and others repeating the phrase, "If you see someone shoplifting, no you didn't."

Charlebois eventually responded to some of the online backlash, standing firm on his position on grocery theft.

"You think it is appropriate to shoplift while grocery shopping, just because you think food prices are too high? Crazy," he wrote, while retweeting another Twitter user.

Since being tweeted on Jan. 10, Charlebois' tweet has gained more than seven million views and hundreds of responses, the majority of which expressed disagreement with his stance.

Some people online have also called out Charlebois personally, revealing his income and saying he "shills" for Loblaw Companies Ltd. and Galen Weston's family.

The outrage over soaring grocery prices has been a hot topic as inflation continues to impact Canadians.

Earlier in January, a picture of a pack of chicken breast at a Loblaw in Toronto went viral, as people expressed outrage over its high-priced label.

The photo, taken by CTV News reporter Siobhan Morris, showed that a five-piece pack of chicken was selling for nearly $27/kg.

In November, both Loblaw and Metro reported growth in sales and profit, but shared they were pushing back against suppliers' continued price increases.

Research from Dalhousie University also showed that Canada's top three grocery companies — Loblaw, Metro and Empire — made higher profits in 2022 compared with their average performances over the last five years.

Notably, Loblaw outperformed its five-year average performance but also did better than any of those years individually.

Food is becoming a concern for many Canadians, as a family of four is expected to spend around $1,066 more on groceries in 2023. (Photo by Chris Stoodley/Yahoo News Canada)

According to a food report released in December, a Canadian family of four will spend around $1,066 more on groceries in 2023, with food prices set to increase by up to 7 per cent from last year.

"In 2023, it is expected that Canadians will continue to feel the effects of high food inflation, and food insecurity and affordability will also be a big issue with rising food prices," the Canada Food Price report indicated.

"Canadians will still need to be prepared to spend more in the coming year."

Germany Targets Three New Windmills a Day for Energy Reboot


Chris Reiter
Sat, January 14, 2023 

Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Germany needs to increase its pace of expanding renewable power to reach its goal of becoming climate-neutral by 2045, even as Europe’s largest economy withstands the initial impact of Russia’s energy squeeze.

“We are getting through this winter” without a gas shortage, Scholz said Saturday at the opening of a liquefied natural gas terminal in Lubmin on the Baltic coast, according to news agency DPA. He added that there’s been “no economic crisis in Germany.”

For the long-term transition away from coal, oil and natural gas, Germany needs to increase electricity generation by one third by 2030 and then double that in the following decade, Scholz said in an interview with the Berlin-based Tageszeitung newspaper published on Saturday.

“If we want to achieve the energy transition, we need more speed,” he told the publication widely know as taz. “The goal needs to be to set up three to four large wind turbines in Germany every day.”

Energy has dominated Scholz’s first year in office. Germany’s fragile energy security was exposed as Russia squeezed supplies in retaliation for Berlin’s support of Ukraine following its invasion. LNG has helped plug the gap. Lubmin is the second terminal to open with more to follow this year.

The energy squeeze prompted Germany to extend operations of the country’s remaining nuclear power plants, but Scholz told taz that the reactors would “definitely” be shut down in the spring.

He said a number of laws were changed to speed up approvals for wind power projects, which can currently take as long as six years.

“We are facing the greatest industrial modernization in Germany since the end of the 19th century,” he said in the newspaper interview. “Nobody should underestimate this task.”

THE HEGEMON BREAKS THE RULES

Why the World Is Protesting America's Climate Plan

IT MADE

Justin Worland
Sun, January 15, 2023 

UNFCCC COP27 Climate Conference: Day Six
President Joe Biden speaks at the UNFCCC COP27 climate conference on Nov. 11, 2022 in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. Credit - Sean Gallup—Getty Images

The U.S. came to last year’s United Nations climate conference in Sharm El-Sheik Egypt riding high. Finally, the country had passed the Inflation Reduction Act, a $369 billion dollar spending package designed to put the country on a path to eliminate its carbon emissions.

But, a few short months later, administration officials and members of Congress faced a range of questions and complaints about the landmark law. Why doesn’t it include funding to help countries most vulnerable to climate change? Could a future Republican Party undo it? Perhaps the most biting question came from allies: why does the law throw some of the U.S.’s closest partners under the bus?

One South Korean official called the law a “betrayal.” In the midst of the conference in Egypt, the EU dropped an extensive document complaining of “problematic” tax provisions that would harm the bloc’s industry. Japan said the law might stop its car companies from investing in the U.S. In December, Amitabh Kant, the Indian government official charged with leading this year’s G20 summit, joined the chorus, telling me the law represents “the most protectionist act ever drafted in the world.” He called on the U.S. to rethink provisions that favor U.S. manufacturing and “find a way out for its trusted partners,” including India.

The attacks are, on their face, startling. The U.S. has faced criticism for decades for failing to implement policies to cut its emissions and address the scale of climate change. Now it is being attacked for doing just that.

But the pushback is also an inevitable consequence of America’s long-awaited and full-throated embrace of climate policy. Building a clean energy economy from the ground up was always going to require new materials, supply chains, and manufacturing facilities—and new trade rules to accompany them.

Now, the attention turns to how the U.S.—and its partners and competitors—reconcile climate and trade considerations. A deft handling would support new investments in climate technology from governments across the globe, creating jobs and expanding economies at the same time. A poor handling would doom both the economy and decarbonization efforts. “We obviously need to manage this so it doesn’t go off the rails,” says Alden Meyer, a senior associate at the international climate think tank E3G. “But clearly part of the context here is that there is enough to go around in terms of growing markets, growing technologies.”

You would be forgiven for being surprised that the world turned against the IRA. For years, decades even, countries called on the U.S. to pass big climate legislation. And activists welcomed the law as a giant leap in the right direction when Biden signed it in August.

But the immense legislation—unveiled in July and passed by Congress shortly thereafter—came so quickly that foreign friends and foes alike had little chance to process its substance. When they did, they found lots not to like. The law contains a range of subsidies for things like the production of clean hydrogen, electric vehicles, and renewable energy components that incentivize manufacturers to set up shop in the U.S.

“Any policy you devise, like we did with the Green Deal, like the IRA right now, has the potential of creating tensions because you’re taking things in a different direction, which was not envisaged when you entered into trade agreements,” Frans Timmermans, the top EU climate official, told me in September. “So it’s logical that there might be issues that need to be debated.”

The tone grew only more concerned from there. In my conversation with Kant, he returned to the IRA multiple times without prompting. “You don’t [decarbonize] by being uncompetitive and doing something which you’ve been against all your life,” Kant said of his message to U.S. officials. “You believed in market forces and now you do this?”

The U.S. has mounted a response on multiple fronts. Officials, from President Biden on down, have met with their counterparts to reassure them. During French President Emmanuel Macron’s state visit to the U.S., Biden suggested that there might be “tweaks” to the law to satisfy Macron’s concerns. With that in mind, the Biden Administration has sought to take the edge off the law in its implementation. Guidance released by the Treasury Department in late December suggested that the U.S. would try to take a flexible approach as it implements the IRA’s auto provisions.

But for the most part the U.S. remains adamant that the law is actually a huge boon to other countries. The enormous American investment in the IRA will bring down the cost of clean energy technology not just for the U.S. but also for the rest of the world. In doing so, officials say, the U.S. is footing the green energy research and development costs bill for everyone else.

“It falls upon the most able countries in the world, including the United States, to make the investments that will commercialize these technologies and lower their costs for the rest of the world,” said John Kerry, the U.S. climate envoy, in November. “By the time 2030 approaches, folks, we’re going to have made clean technologies much more accessible, much more affordable for the rest of the world.”

Whether they like it or not, foreign leaders will ultimately need to accept that the law isn’t going to change much. John Podesta, who is charged with overseeing the implementation of the IRA, said in November that he was “fully engaged” in discussions regarding the concerns, but added that “the law is the law.”

What happens next? Some officials in Europe have called for the EU to match the IRA’s approach rather than trying to fight it. India is pursuing a “Make in India” program to bolster its own domestic clean energy manufacturing. Greater production of clean energy technology is, of course, a good thing. But policymakers need to make sure that these developments amount to a race to the top rather than a race to the bottom. To do that will require officials to have serious conversations in multilateral forums about new rules of the road that will allow for the development of domestic clean energy manufacturing while still encouraging global trade.

“Whatever we do, let’s not have a confrontation on these issues,” said Timmermans. “Let’s solve them. So that we’re all on the same page.”

Kant says the G20 forum which he is leading this year on behalf of the Indian government is an opportunity for the world’s largest economies to discuss these issues. Kant is particularly keen on developing rules of the road for so-called green hydrogen, a fuel source that many hope could provide a clean fuel source for industry.

Conversations are also happening at the World Trade Organization and between individual countries. The intersection of trade and climate will certainly be on the agenda at the World Economic Forum in Davos next week. All the better. “What is the best space?,” asks Meyer. ”We need a multitude of spaces where this conversation can develop.”