THIRTY YEARS LATE

X-57: Nasa’s electric plane is preparing to fly – here’s how it advances emissions–free aviation

Hugh Hunt, Professor of Engineering Dynamics and Vibration, University of Cambridge

THE CONVERSATION
Mon, 30 January 2023 

Nasa

The experimental airplane X-57, developed by Nasa, is due to fly for the first time this year. It has an impressive 14 propellers along its wings and is powered entirely by electricity. This sounds great considering we have to get off fossil fuels yet our demand for aviation is growing. But how much closer will Nasa’s plane bring us to this goal?

Finding an alternative to aviation fuels such as kerosene will be key if we want to continue flying. The X-57 uses lithium batteries to run electric motors for its propellers. But the energy you get from batteries, relative to their weight, is 50 times less than you can get from aviation fuel.

The X-57 is a modified, four-seater, Italian-built Tecnam P2006T aircraft. It relies on a combination of lots of propellers, small motors and many batteries spread out across an aircraft, known as “distributed propulsion”. This approach represents an exciting area of research and development that can be found in many experimental electric aircraft designs.

What’s different about the X-57 is that the wings are completely redesigned with propellers positioned to optimise air flow around them. When a propeller is not needed, its blades can be folded back to reduce drag.

Propeller technology generally is having a rebirth. Designs are becoming not just more efficient, but also less noisy and more affordable. The speed and pitch angle of propellers can even be changed during flight to adapt to the different aircraft speeds required for takeoff, landing and cruising.

Air density changes with altitude and affects the thrust you get from a propeller. Now that we can make propellers that work effectively at all altitudes and speeds, we can really get the most out of the energy stored in the batteries. New designs, such as the first ever 11-bladed propeller (on the Piper Cheyenne plane), can achieve very high thrust even at high air density.

Some aircraft even use “vectored thrust” by allowing the motors and propellers to rotate, which gives the option of vertical takeoff and landing. These aircraft might more resemble helicopters than planes, and might mean conventional airports with long runways and large terminals will be a thing of the past.

X-57 being tested in 2019.

Battery technology

The X-57 uses off-the-shelf lithium-ion batteries. This is because the project is primarily addressing the potential for new propeller and wing configurations rather than developing the perfect battery.

But that will be an important challenge for electric aircraft developers to overcome. Lithium batteries are pretty much the best we’ve got so far, but they are still heavy. Lithium metal is also hazardous as it catches fire easily.

There are advantages with using batteries. Their weight stays constant throughout the flight, meaning they don’t need to be stored in the wings as aviation fuel traditionally has been. With liquid fuel, the weight of the plane reduces significantly as fuel is consumed and keeping the fuel in the wings ensures that the balance of the aircraft isn’t changed.

However, it is really energy density – the amount of energy a battery contains compared to its weight or size – that matters. New advances are being made constantly, such as batteries created based on quantum technology. But while these charge faster than normal batteries they won’t replace lithium batteries and are unlikely to transform the prospects for electrically powered flight.

What we’re really waiting for is a revolution in battery technology, one that gives an energy density comparable to aviation fuel.

Is X-57 the future?

With a range of about 160km and a flight time of about one hour, the X-57 is not expected to lead to a replacement technology for long-haul flying. At least not straight away. Instead, short-hop flights with ten or so passengers are a good and potentially possible target for early, battery-powered flights.

Hydrogen-powered planes are also of great interest because the energy density of hydrogen is nearly three times greater that that of conventional aviation fuel. But hydrogen is a gas and it needs to be stored in pressurised fuel tanks to reduce its volume.

This would require a complete rethink of aircraft design. Some work has been done with hydrogen stored as a liquid at -253°C. Hydrogen for aviation is therefore exciting, but probably impractical.

Synthetic fuels are ready to go as a substitute for aviation fuels – at a price. Perhaps as technologies develop, they’ll become cheaper, but it’s still likely that the cost of flying will increase as we move away from fossil fuels. Batteries will almost certainly be powering our short-haul flights in the near future and if there is a revolution in battery technology then the future of aviation will be completely changed.

Eventually, we will be faced with an ultimatum: either we figure out how to make planes that don’t need fossil fuels, or we stop flying.

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

The Conversation

‘Suspicious death’ of Rwandan journalist prompts calls for investigation

Caroline Kimeu in Nairobi

THE GUARDIAN
Tue, 31 January 2023

Calls are growing for an investigation into the apparent accidental death two weeks ago of a prominent Rwandan journalist and government critic.

John Williams Ntwali, a regular critic of the authorities, was found dead on 18 January. According to reported police accounts, he was killed when a speeding vehicle rammed a motorcycle on which he was riding pillion in the capital, Kigali. A US senate committee said he had been “silenced”. Human rights organisations have joined other activists in raising doubts about the cause of the death of the 44 year-old editor of The Chronicles newspaper.

Amnesty International and the Committee to Protect Journalists, an independent NGO based in New York, are among media and rights organisations calling for an independent investigation.

“Two weeks after the alleged accident, Rwandan authorities have failed to provide a police report, the exact location of the alleged accident, any photo or video evidence, or detailed information on the others involved in it,” a network of press associations and civil society organisations said in a joint statement on Tuesday.

Signed by more than 60 organisations, the statement said Ntwali, was “regularly threatened and attacked in pro-government media for his investigative reporting” and called on Rwanda’s international partners, including the Commonwealth, “to stand by their stated commitment to media freedom and to call on Rwanda to allow an effective, independent and prompt investigation” into his death.

On Monday, Unesco’s director general, Audrey Azoulay urged the Rwandan authorities to “initiate a full and transparent investigation into this case to fully account for the circumstances of his death”.

USAid administrator Samantha Power called for action in a tweet on Saturday.

The US, along with the UK, has previously called for Rwanda to improve its human rights record.

Tuesday’s statement said Ntwali was one of only a few journalists in Rwanda covering high-profile, politicised trials of journalists, commentators and opposition members, and posting videos about their conditions in prison.

Days before he died, Ntwali posted a YouTube video about the unexplained disappearance of a genocide survivor who had reportedly spoken out about police brutality.

According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), Ntwali told friends last year he had been intimidated by government officers and feared for his life.

Police authorities declined to comment on Ntwali’s death, saying the case had been taken over by the prosecutor’s office. The prosecutor’s office did not respond to requests for comment.

“This is a regime which has a track record of extrajudicial killings, political assassination, disappearances, unexplained deaths involving human rights activists, journalists, opposition leaders and politicians,” said British journalist Michela Wrong, whose book Do Not Disturb alleges the involvement of President Paul Kagame in numerous human rights abuses against prominent Rwandans – allegations he denies. “It’s against that context that [Ntwali’s] death has to be judged.”

Lewis Mudge, central Africa director at HRW, said: “Rwanda is an incredibly closed country with regard to people’s ability to do free and fair reporting. Journalists know the red lines, and don’t go near them for their own safety. Ntwali was one of the only journalists in Rwanda who would speak about what was happening.”

Related: ‘We choose good guys and bad guys’: beneath the myth of ‘model’ Rwanda

Rights groups say Ntwali’s death fits within a pattern of political opposition figures, prominent government critics and journalists who have disappeared or been found dead under suspicious circumstances in recent years.

In 2021, the poet Innocent Bahati, whose work was regarded as a “critical expression on issues affecting Rwandan society”, went missing.

The same year, radio journalist Cassien Ntamuhanga was sentenced to 25 years for conspiracy against the government and complicity in terrorism. After what HRW calls his “highly politicised trial” he escaped to Mozambique but was arrested there. Mozambican authorities denied having detained him and his whereabouts have been unknown since.

Rwandan singer Kizito Mihigo talks to reporters after his release from prison, in Kigali, Rwanda, 15 September 2018. His death in 2020 raised suspicions. Photograph: Jean Bizimana/Reuters

In 2020, the death of Rwandan gospel singer and genocide survivor Kizito Mihigo raised suspicions. The singer was convicted of conspiracy against the government after writing a song that called for empathy towards Hutu as well as Tutsi victims of the genocide, to which he later claimed he was forced to confess. He was reported to have killed himself in police custody – just days after an attempted escape to neighbouring Burundi. Requests for an independent inquiry into his death were unsuccessful.

“There’s just too many cases of people who are considered to be critical of the government who disappear in these mysterious ways,” said Mudge.

“Ntwali’s death is going to send yet another chilling message to anyone who tries to do independent reporting in Rwanda,” he said. “That if you dare to do investigations and cross the line – you could pay with your life.”

Emissions divide now greater within countries than between them – study

Fiona Harvey Environment editor
Tue, 31 January 2023 

Photograph: Eric Gaillard/Reuters

The difference between the carbon emissions of the rich and the poor within a country is now greater than the differences in emissions between countries, data shows.

The finding is further evidence of the growing divide between the “polluting elite” of rich people around the world, and the relatively low responsibility for emissions among the rest of the population.

It also shows there is plenty of room for the poorest in the world to increase their greenhouse gas emissions if needed to reach prosperity, if rich people globally – including some in developing countries – reduce theirs, the analysis has found.


Most global climate policy has focused on the difference between developed and developing countries, and their current and historic responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions. But a growing body of work suggests that a “polluting elite” of those on the highest incomes globally are vastly outweighing the emissions of the poor.

This has profound consequences for climate action, as it shows that people on low incomes within developed countries are contributing less to the climate crisis, while rich people in developing countries have much bigger carbon footprints than was previously acknowledged.

In a report entitled Climate Inequality Report 2023, economists from the World Inequality Lab dissect where carbon emissions are currently coming from. The World Inequality Lab is co-directed by the influential economist Thomas Piketty, the author of Capital in the Twenty-first Century, whose work following the financial crisis more than a decade ago helped to popularise the idea of “the 1%”, a global high-income group whose interests are favoured by current economic systems.

The report found that “carbon inequalities within countries now appear to be greater than carbon inequalities between countries. The consumption and investment patterns of a relatively small group of the population directly or indirectly contribute disproportionately to greenhouse gases. While cross-country emission inequalities remain sizeable, overall inequality in global emissions is now mostly explained by within-country inequalities by some indicators.”

The report also found that although overseas climate aid – a key focus of the recent Cop27 climate negotiations – would be needed to help developing countries reduce their emissions, it would not be enough and developing countries also needed to reform their domestic tax systems to redistribute more from the wealthy.

The authors suggest windfall taxes on excess profits could help to fund low-carbon investment, as well as progressive taxation in countries, including developing countries, which often under-tax rich citizens and companies.

Large emerging economies – such as China – now bore an increasing responsibility for the stock of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the report added. They must now produce clear plans on reaching net zero emissions.

Peter Newell, a professor of international relations at the University of Sussex, who has worked extensively on the issue of the polluting elite, and was not involved in the report, said it showed that patterns of consumption needed to change to tackle the climate crisis.

“Inequalities in emissions matter because carbon inequality within countries accounts for the bulk of global carbon emissions inequality between those generating the emissions and those suffering the worst effects of global heating and who have the least capacity to adapt,” he said.

“Patterns of consumption and investment by the polluter elite, which drive these unequal contributions to climate change, need to be reduced and redirected respectively. This is a huge challenge.”

But he added that the report also showed how tackling global poverty could be achieved without increasing greenhouse gas emissions overall, a key point as the world must reduce emissions by about half by 2030 in order to limit global temperature rises to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.

Newell told the Guardian: “[The report shows that] tackling global poverty will not overshoot global carbon budgets, as is often claimed. Failure to address the power and privilege of the polluter elite will. These are related because reducing carbon consumption at the top can free up carbon space to lift people out of poverty.”

The solutions, he said, lay in changing government policy to focus on the polluting elite, and devise a more equitable – and efficient – approach to emissions cuts.

“Combinations of progressive taxation, including on highly polluting activities, and the redeployment of subsidies for fossil fuels can help strengthen the welfare state and provide social protection to help bridge some of these gaps,” he said.

“This critical report underscores once again the need for a just transition to a low carbon economy which reflects unequal responsibility for causing the climate crisis and uneven capacity to help address it.”

Last year a paper by the PIK Potsdam Institute for Climate Research, co-authored by the Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, found that taxing the rich was one of the best ways to fund a shift to a low-carbon economy.

Tax the rich: A wealth tax could fund better transport and weather warning systems, report finds

Charlotte Elton

EURONEWS
Tue, 31 January 2023 



A 1.5 per cent tax on the world’s richest people could pay for climate adaptation in lower income countries, research suggests.

From devastating floods and fires to sweltering droughts, the symptoms of our changing climate are everywhere.

But these impacts are not equally distributed. Low and middle income countries bear the brunt of global heating, despite having little responsibility for its underlying causes.

An overhaul of the global taxation system - including a 1.5 per cent tax on individuals earning more than $100 million (€92 million) - could help rebalance the books, according to the Climate Inequality Report.

The generated revenue would pay for climate adaptation in low-income countries - building resistant infrastructure and early warning systems, for example.

“Adaptation finance flows to developing countries reached US$29bn (€26bn) [in 2020]. Finance needs amount to about $200bn (€192 billion),” the report reads.

“A wealth tax on centimillionaires could generate US$295bn per year, enough to close the gap and generate additional revenues.”

2022 video recap: The year that devastating floods, heatwaves and droughts gripped Europe

A year of highs and lows, but just how exceptional was our climate in 2022?

Are the impacts of climate change distributed equally?

The top 10 per cent of global carbon emitters generate almost half of all greenhouse gas emissions, the report reads.

If emissions were equally distributed across the world, the average citizen of the Democratic Republic of Congo would see their emission levels increase tenfold.

Europeans and North Americans, meanwhile, would experience a drop in their emissions levels of almost 40 per cent and over 70 per cent respectively.

Yet the people who are least responsible for the climate crisis bear its worst impacts.

The bottom 50 per cent of the world population contributes 12 per cent of global emissions but is exposed to 75 per cent of relative income losses (income as a percentage of total income) due to climate change.

Nine of the ten countries exposed to the most significant risk of flooding are low or middle-income countries. The tenth - the Netherlands - can afford flood-resistant architecture.

These numbers can sound dry, but the real-world implications are catastrophic. When Pakistan was hit by floods in the 2022, 1,700 people were killed, while a further 20.6 million require humanitarian assistance.

“I have seen many humanitarian disasters in the world, but I have never seen climate carnage on this scale,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said.

Pakistan is responsible for just one per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Flooding - which disproportionately impacts low-income countries - causes the spread of diseases like malaria. - Canva

What are some tax-based solutions to global climate inequality?

The authors of the climate inequality report argue for progressive tax reform to rebalance the scales.

Their “relatively modest” proposal would see the world’s richest people taxed on a sliding scale.

Assets worth between $100 million (€92 million) and $1 billion (€920 million) would be taxed at 1.5 per cent.

Those between $1 billion (€920 million) and $100 billion (92 billion) would be taxed at 2 per cent, and assets above $100 billion at 3 per cent.

These taxes would apply to roughly 65,000 people - the number of people with assets more than $100 million (€92 million).

“Let us stress that at these levels of wealth, the per adult net wealth growth observed over the past two decades has been around 7-9 per cent per year,” the report authors state.

What is climate finance and why is it so important?

Loss and Damage: Developing countries need $2 trillion a year to cope with climate crisis - report

This means that the proposed tax would hardly decimate the bank accounts of the ultra-wealthy.

Nonetheless, it would raise nearly $300 billion (€275 billion) every year. This money would be invaluable for saving lives in developing countries.

The report's authors also call for excess profit taxes - so-called ‘windfall taxes’ on the massive amounts of money made by energy companies.

“Harvest the low-hanging fruit,” they write.

Myanmar junta prepares for poll, raising fears of more bloodshed

Mon, 30 January 2023 


Two years after a coup snuffed out Myanmar's short-lived democratic experiment, the country's military is planning elections that analysts warn could spark further bloodshed as opposition to junta rule rages on.

Observers also say the planned poll cannot be free and fair under the present circumstances, with one analyst characterising it as a mere "performance" aimed at justifying the junta's hold on power.

Allegations of voter fraud in the last election in November 2020 -- won resoundingly by democracy figurehead Aung San Suu Kyi's party -- were the army's excuse for seizing power on February 1, 2021.

Though the claims were never substantiated, the generals arrested Suu Kyi and other top civilian leaders in a series of pre-dawn raids.

With the political opposition now decimated, and the junta buttressed by tacit backing from close allies Russia and China, the military is expected to hold a new election later this year -- no later than August, according to the constitution.

But with resistance raging from the hilly jungles of the borderlands to the plains of the army's traditional recruiting grounds, people across swathes of the country will be unlikely to vote -- and run the risk of reprisals if they do.

Any junta-held poll will be "like a cart with only one wheel", a former civil servant in Yangon who has been on strike since the coup told AFP.

"There is no way it will bring any progress," he said, requesting anonymity for fear of reprisals.

In the jungle near the border with Thailand, Lin Lin, a member of one of the dozens of "People's Defence Force" groups battling the junta, vowed elections would have no bearing on their mission to oust the military from Myanmar's politics.

"We will hold on to our weapons until we get our elected government," he told AFP.

More than a million people have been displaced by violence since the coup, according to the UN, with the military accused of bombing and shelling civilians and committing war crimes as it struggles to crush resistance.

Last week UN human rights chief Volker Turk said the country faced a "catastrophic situation, which sees only deepening human suffering and rights violations on a daily basis".

- Elections -

The junta-imposed state of emergency is due to expire at the end of January, after which the constitution says the authorities must move to hold fresh elections.

The government of junta supremo Min Aung Hlaing has not set a date, but last week gave all existing and aspiring political parties two months to register with its election commission.

Military negotiators are working to stitch together a large enough patchwork of constituencies to make an election credible, including ethnic rebel groups that have stayed out of the post-coup chaos, and smaller, regional parties.

But voting will likely be impossible in many areas of the country, said Htwe Htwe Thein at Curtin University in Australia.

"In areas they do control, it is possible that people could be forced to vote, and vote for the junta-affiliated party or parties," she told AFP.

"People would certainly assume that they are being watched -- and there could be punishment for not voting or voting against the junta."

Threats have also been made by anti-coup fighters against those cooperating with the election, with local media reporting several attacks on teams verifying voter lists in commercial hub Yangon.

The junta's "technical ability to conduct anything approaching even clearly fake elections will be circumscribed by lack of bureaucratic capacity, confusion, boycotts and violence," independent analyst David Mathieson told AFP.

Any poll would be "beyond fraudulent", Mathieson warned.

"These aren't real elections, remember. They're a squalid performance to justify the (junta's) coup d'etat claims of a corrupt 2020 election," he said.

- 'Determination and defiance' -

With the generals shielded at the United Nations by Moscow and Beijing -- and the international community grappling with crises in Ukraine and Afghanistan -- many in Myanmar have given up on help from outside.

It would take nothing short of "a miracle" for Myanmar's opposition to get the kind of weapons support currently rolling into Ukraine, said Mathieson.

Close ally Russia has already come out in support of the polls, and while Washington has urged the international community to reject any election as a "sham", diplomatic sources say neighbours such as Thailand, India and China will likely give their tacit approval.

But whatever the outcome, it is unlikely to end the violence that is convulsing the country.

"The mission is to attack the military dictatorship with the determination of defiance," said Lin Lin from the jungle near the Thai border.

"When an elected government is selected by people, we will rest."

AFP

Women’s health in Turkmenistan: ‘Silence strips us of agency. This must change’

Aynabat Yaylymova
Tue, 31 January 2023 

Photograph: B O’Kane/Alamy

Turkmenistan has two faces. The first is the one we see in state media: a pretty dancer, a caring mother, a sister or daughter in a beautiful traditional dress. She may be dancing, cooking or decorating an event with her presence.

The second is closer to reality: women and girls who have nowhere to go when they meet domestic violence, have no recourse to contraception and family planning services, and face sexual harassment – a few examples on a long list of unmet needs.

Access to information is severely curtailed. The state owns or controls all media and the internet is aggressively censored and restricted.

As founder and editor of Saglyk.org, the only website with credible public health information in the Turkmen language, my colleagues and I have been calling for nuanced and informed conversations by educating the public and advocating for science-based best practices in public health in Turkmenistan.

Women and girls are taught that domestic violence is a private matter to be heroically endured in silence

Saglyk’s comprehensive content on sexual and reproductive health is our most read. There is a great demand for this information, especially among women and girls. Turkmen schools don’t teach it. Families don’t discuss it. The media does not publish stories about it. The public space to discuss this basic aspect of being human is nonexistent.

Government agencies sustain this confusion by not providing science-based information to the public and failing to provide any public health data. This leads to women and girls in Turkmenistan having poor health outcomes. It also strips them of their agency. This needs to change.

According to Unicef, Turkmenistan has the highest mortality rate among under-fives in central Asia. According to the latest UN population fund figures only 50% of Turkmen women who are married or in a relationship are using a modern form of contraception. And across all women aged 15-49, 8% have an unmet need for contraception.

In Turkmenistan, nearly 60% of women cannot make independent decisions on fundamental issues such as healthcare, contraception and consenting to sex. The government promotes the pro-natalist messages of eight-child families, reinforcing the idea of women’s primary role as subservient wives and mothers.

The first national report on domestic violence against women, published by UNFPA in August 2022, found that 58% of women aged 15-49 believe that violating the restrictions and obligations imposed by a spouse is sufficient reason for a husband to beat his wife. The most common form of spousal control is preventing women from leaving the house without permission. The second most common is banning women from working or studying outside the home. According to the study, 41% of women have encountered at least one type of controlling behaviour from their husband or partner in their lives.

Patriarchal culture, harmful traditions, government inaction and absence of public education and communication drive awareness of reproductive and sexual health underground. The public in Turkmenistan see abortion as something deeply immoral so women prefer to keep silent. This also applies to the endemic domestic violence in the country. Women and girls are taught that it is a private matter that should not be discussed in public but heroically endured in silence.

Many government orders are communicated by word of mouth, without legal status. This creates room for corruption, misinterpretation and speculation, not only in public health but in all areas of economic and social life.

The restrictive law on abortion in Turkmenistan undermines the rights, dignity and health of half the population, denying them access to essential reproductive healthcare. In 2015, the government passed a law restricting abortion to only up to five weeks. Before 2015, women in Turkmenistan were allowed to access abortion care up to 12 weeks.

Related: Killed by abortion laws: five women whose stories we must never forget

The abortion law further entrenches health inequality: women with resources can overcome the restriction and have an abortion but women with lower financial and social status cannot afford to bypass these restrictions and have no network to do so.

Research shows that restricting access to abortion drives it underground and makes it unsafe. The law was adopted without any public discussion on the medical, moral, legal and economic consequences, and was only made public in 2022. Our calls for constructive engagement with the Ministry of Health have been met with silence.

Saglyk has created a safe space to anonymously share stories of domestic violence, abuse and harassment. Our Bilim app helps women and girls track their periods and learn about their health and rights (Bilim means both period and knowledge).

But these efforts are not enough to bring structural changes to our society, so in the past two years we have been increasingly engaging with international organisations. We are asking organisations that grant or lend money to the country to hold the government accountable on its international commitments to gender equality and the way they are implemented in practice.

This way, we can ensure that tomorrow we do not wake up to a new law that will further restrict the basic rights of Turkmen women and girls to dignity and equality.

• Aynabat Yaylymova is the founder and executive director of Saglyk and Progres Foundation.

UK

Kate Garraway confronts Matt Hancock over Covid response and I’m a Celeb appearance

Rachael Burford

Tue, 31 January 2023 

Matt Hancock has insisted he did not "primarily" go on I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! for the money as he was grilled by Kate Garraway.

The former Health Secretary was confronted about the Government's Covid response, breaking pandemic restrictions and his appearance on reality TV during an awkward exchange on ITV's Good Morning Britain on Tuesday.

Ms Garraway, whose husband Derek Draper spent months in an induced coma after contracting coronavirus and continues to suffer from severe long Covid, questioned why he decided to take part in the reality series when the public was still "raw" about his behaviour during the pandemic.

The West Suffolk MP was sacked from his cabinet job when it was revealed he been conducting an affair with Gina Coladangelo during Covid restrictions.

He lost the Tory whip when he entered the Australian jungle last year.

"The problem is that because you were Health Secretary," Ms Garraway said. "Because at that time, I couldn't visit Derek in hospital.

"He couldn't see his kids. Thousands of others couldn't go and see the people they loved for various reasons because they were following the guidelines and you have to understand it was all very muddled at that point for us out here in the world.

"It gives the impression that you still don't get why they are cross. You still don't get why people are upset."

Mr Hancock said the programme was “one of the few ways that you can really communicate with the British public”.

He described the 3 per cent of his £320,000 I’m A Celeb fee he gave to charity as a “decent sum”.

The £10,000 donation was made to the British Dyslexia Association.

Mr Hancock described it as “more than my MPs’ salary”, which he still received while appearing on the show.

Co-host Richard Madeley asked him if "the money wasn't important to you, why have you held on to most of it?”

"I did absolutely give some of the money to charity," Mr Hancock said.

"I didn't primarily do it for the money, I primarily did it to try to show who I am."

He did concede that "of course there was a discussion and negotiation over the fee".

UK Discount retailer to give employees 10 per cent pay rise


Shuiab Khan
Tue, 31 January 2023 


The Poundstretcher Blackburn store is based close to B & Q. (Image: Google Maps)

Poundstretcher, which has stores in Blackburn and Preston has announced it is giving nearly 4,000 employees a 10 per cent rise.

All employees with more than one year’s service will be eligible for the rise, which covers more than 70 per cent of the store’s workforce.

The company says the majority of Poundstretcher customer-facing staff will be eligible.

Owner, Aziz Tayub, said: “This 10 per cent pay raise will make a real difference in this current climate to the majority of our employees who are committed to servicing our customers and growing our business in the current economic climate.”

Last year, the company says it implemented a 10 per cent increase on salaries to reward employees for their work post pandemic and for the positive turnaround of the company’s profits post successful Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA).

Mr Tayub added, “This will be the second year in a row we will have introduced a second pay rise in the same year for our store colleagues.

"We wanted to do more to support them and to say thank you for their commitment to quality service and customer care."

Poundstretcher opened more than 30 stores nationwide in 2022, with plans to open another 50 by the end of 2023.

France: Wave of strikes hits electricity supplies and transport links

Euronews
Tue, 31 January 2023 at 1:32 am GMT-7

A new wave of strikes on Tuesday to protest French government plans to raise the retirement age to 64 has already impacted transport links and electricity production.

TotalEnegies says between 75% and 100% of workers at its refineries and fuel depots are on strike, while electricity supplier EDF said they're monitoring a drop in power to the national grid equivalent to three nuclear power plants.

"Following the call for a strike, shipments of products from TotalEnergies sites are interrupted today but TotalEnergies will continue to ensure supplies to its service station network and its customers," the group's management said.

In EDF power stations, strikers reduced loads by "nearly 3,000 MW" on Monday night, but without causing any cuts, the company said.

Hundreds of thousands of workers are expected to take to the streets across France on Tuesday, for a second day of industrial action that unions hope will be even more massive than the first, earlier this month.

Authorities say some 1.12 million protesters turned out on 19 January, while unions say more than two million people took part in demonstrations at that time.

Deserted platforms are pictured at the Montparnasse train station Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2023 in Paris. - Michel Euler/AP

Transport network hit by strike action

The government had warned in advance of Tuesday's strike about likely disruption to France's transport network.

In the Paris region the metro and local rail services are "very disrupted" say officials. Long distance TGV train services are also impacted, as are regional trains with intercity services almost at a standstill.

Rail operator SNCF said only one in three high-speed TGV trains will operate on Tuesday while disruptions are also expected at French airports and on transnational rail services.

However in Lyon there were at least some bus and tram services running Tuesday morning, and there was a noticeable increase in the numbers of cars on the road as commuters made alternative plans to get to work.

At Bobigny bus station in Paris, pensioner Marie-Hélène Plautin left an hour and a half early for her medical appointment, a journey that normally only takes half an hour by tram.

"I have an appointment with a doctor for the first time in Saint-Denis. Since I know that this strike is going to take place, I wonder if I will be able to go," she said Tuesday morning.

In Bordeaux, Josselin and Alicia Frigier, 40, have just returned from Madrid and after spending several hours on the bus, their train to La Rochelle has been cancelled.

"Instead, they were offered a one-hour train ride and a three-hour bus ride," said Alicia, while her husband conceded that the strike "is surely for a good reason."

Pension reform in France: Which countries have the lowest and highest retirement ages in Europe?


What to know about France's nationwide strike over pension reform


Which countries have the most strikes in Europe and what is the impact on the economy?

Mass demonstrations start on Tuesday morning

Protest marches are expected to begin at 10:00 CET with union leaders expecting "largely as many people" as in January. "At least I hope so," said Laurent Berger, the Secretary General of the CFDT union on Monday.

At the heart of their grievances is a plan by Emmanuel Macron's government to raise the legal retirement age from 62 to 64 by 2030, with a new law to enter into force in September 2023.

In order to receive a full pension, the government's proposal says it will be necessary to work for at least 43 years. By age 67, workers who haven't been active that long will still receive a full pension.

Those who started to work earlier will be able to retire earlier, while disabled workers will be able to retire early. Injured workers will also be allowed to retire early, the proposal says.

The current special retirement plans for some public workers will no longer be applicable for new recruits but the new proposal would raise the minimum pension by €100 per month.

France's trade unions and left-wing parties say that the proposed changes are not needed in order to fund France's pension system. Some have argued instead for higher employee and employer contributions and a crackdown on tax evasion.

They claim that the plan will penalise those who are most vulnerable and increase inequalities.

France braces for major transport woes from pension strikes



Mon, January 30, 2023 

PARIS (AP) — France's national rail operator is recommending that passengers stay home Tuesday to avoid strikes over pensions that are expected to cause major transport woes but largely spare high-speed links to Britain, Belgium and the Netherlands.

Labor unions that mobilized massive street protests in an initial salvo of nationwide strikes earlier this month are hoping for similar success Tuesday to maintain pressure on government plans to raise France's retirement age.

Positions are hardening on both sides as lawmakers begin debating the planned change. France's prime minister, Elisabeth Borne, insisted this weekend that her government's intention to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 is “no longer negotiable." Opponents in parliament and labor leaders are determined to prove her wrong.

Rail operator SNCF warned that major network disruptions were expected from Monday night to Wednesday morning, recommending that passengers cancel or postpone trips and work remotely if possible.

Rail services in the Paris region and regional trains across the country are expected to be severely affected, setting up a potential nightmare day for commuters.

Severe disruptions also are expected on France's flagship network of high-speed trains serving cities and major towns, including the Lyria service that links France and Switzerland, the SNCF said.

But it said high-speed Eurostar links with Britain and the Thalys services between France, Belgium and the Netherlands should run largely as normal.

Raising the pension age is one part of a broad bill that is the flagship measure of President Emmanuel Macron’s second term. The bill is meeting widespread popular resistance — more than 1 million people marched in protests against it earlier this month.

Lawmaker Manuel Bompard, whose France Unbowed party is leading the parliamentary push against Macron's plans, called for “the biggest possible” turnout Tuesday in strikes and protests.

The government says its proposals are necessary to keep the pension system solvent as France’s life expectancy has grown and birth rates have declined.

Unions and left-wing parties want big companies or wealthier households to pitch in more to balance the pension budget instead.

The bill was going to a parliamentary commission Monday ahead of full debate in the National Assembly on Feb. 6. Opponents have submitted 7,000 proposed amendments that will further complicate the bill's legislative passage.

The Associated Press

SURVEILLANCE STATE RAP

How a Drake concert put NYPD’s ‘arsenal’ of surveillance technologies under the spotlight

Alex Woodward

THE INDPENDENT
Mon, 30 January 2023

(Getty/iStock)

As Drake fans streamed out of Harlem’s historic Apollo Theater on January 21, they were greeted by a New York City Police Department officer with an iPhone. Holding the phone aloft at head height, the officer captured the faces of hundreds of people leaving the concert.

The incident, captured by a reporter for The New York Times and shared widely on social media, drew immediate criticism and a furious public backlash. To critics, the image serves as a reminder of the growing scale of everyday surveillance in the nation’s largest city under the eyes of the nation’s largest police force.

Over the next several days, police officials gave statements and television interviews to reassure the public that officers were not using the footage to surveil the crowd but instead, apparently, to shoot a promotional video. New York City Mayor Eric Adams even lauded the operation at his State of the City address, while dismissing the expressed fears and criticism from other New Yorkers.

But those New Yorkers had credible reasons to be alarmed – not only because they’re being watched, but watched in ways that are newer, more invasive and largely untested, watchdogs told The Independent.

The footage “serves as an unsettling reminder of the NYPD’s widespread surveillance practices that threaten the privacy of New Yorkers,” according to Daniel Schwarz, senior privacy and technology strategist at the New York Civil Liberties Union.

“NYPD has a vast arsenal of invasive technologies, including facial recognition and other video analytics, which it’s used for more than a decade to surveil and target New Yorkers – especially Black and brown communities,” he said. “People have every right to be alarmed, and we must demand real transparency and accountability.”

NYPD has the ability to track millions of people in Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx with more than 15,200 cameras and facial recognition software that disproportionately targets neighbourhoods of color, according to Amnesty International. Police relied on facial recognition technology in at least 22,000 cases between 2016 and 2019.

“You are never anonymous,” Amnesty researcher Matt Mahmoudi said in a statement accompanying the report. “Whether you’re attending a protest, walking to a particular neighbourhood, or even just grocery shopping – your face can be tracked by facial recognition technology using imagery from thousands of camera points across New York.”

Last fall, New York Governor Katy Hochul announced a state programme for two cameras inside each of the city’s more than 6,400 subway cars, adding to a growing list of hundreds of existing cameras throughout the city’s subway system. “You think Big Brother’s watching you on the subways?” the governor asked during a press conference in September. “You’re absolutely right.”

A $3bn surveillance operation

A statement from the NYPD said that the officer who filmed the Drake event was a “community affairs officer involved with the 28th Precinct’s social media team” who was filming for a social media video to “highlight local community events”. The video “will not be utilized for any other reason,” according to the statement.

Mayor Adams hailed the incident as a “creative” way for police to engage the public, dismissing criticism coming from constituents on social media as “not real”.

“Twitter is not real and those little people that [go] back and forth all the time talking to themselves,” he said during an unrelated press conference the day after the concert. “When you have those that are sitting at home in the corner of the room, trying to find a reason to divide NYPD from everyday New Yorkers, then they are going to say that.”

The mayor gave a “thumbs up to that great captain up in the 28th precinct,” where precinct commander Captain Tarik Sheppard has taken credit for the operation. “We have to talk about how public safety is the backbone of being able to do these types of events,” Mr Sheppard told New York’s PIX11. “This has nothing to do with a facial recognition programme or anything like that … Never would I think an officer with a selfie stick and an iPhone 10 would be considered facial recognition.”

Addressing the footage in his State of the City address inside the Queens Theatre on 26 January, the mayor told New Yorkers to “stop starting off hating each other and start embracing each other”. But mounting scrutiny into the Apollo incident “highlights just how on edge New Yorkers are about the ways that the NYPD already is engaging in surveillance,” according to Albert Fox Cahn, founder of watchdog organisation Surveillance Technology Oversight Project.

“Every time we see people being subjected to these sorts of efforts, the response is just a litany of concerns and questions about, ‘What are you doing with this footage? How long are you keeping it? Who has access to it?’ And I think that comes because of so many scandals in the past where footage was used in ways that shouldn’t be,” he told The Independent.

New York City’s Police Department spent nearly $3bn growing its surveillance operations and adding new technology between 2007 and 2019. That included roughly $400m for the Domain Awareness System, built in partnership with Microsoft to collect footage from tens of thousands of cameras throughout the city, according to a recent analysis from STOP and the Legal Aid Society.

The NYPD has failed to comply with public disclosure requirements about what those contracts – from facial recognition software to drones and license plate readers – actually include, according to the report. Until 2020, that money was listed under “special expenses” in the police budget until passage of the Public Oversight of Surveillance Technology Act. The following year, more than $277m in budget items were listed under that special expenses programme, the report found.

In its review of NYPD’s compliance with the POST Act, NYPD’s own internal watchdog raised similar concerns. Though it is legally obligated to share information about its surveillance technologies with the public, the NYPD used such vague language in its reporting that it is hard to tell what exactly the police are using it for, according to a report from the Office of the Inspector General. That report found that disclosures do not contain “sufficient detail” for the office to perform annual audits or provide “full transparency” to the public. The NYPD’s statement responding to the report said the agency “remains committed to working collaboratively toward our shared goal of enhancing public safety as we build stronger relationships with the communities we serve.”

One firm, listed with the city as operating from an apartment in the East Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn, reportedly received a $2m contract for “Various Cameras, Recorders, and Accessories”. But when The New York Daily News tried to reach the person listed as the firm’s executive director, he said he had never heard of it. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said. “This is very upsetting. I can barely pay my bills and my rent. I have nothing to do with any of this.”

In 2021, Amnesty International and STOP sued NYPD over public records disclosures about the use of surveillance tools. That case is ongoing. Amnesty International and STOP also have filed a lawsuit seeking records about the use of surveillance technologies before and during Black Lives Matter protests throughout 2020 after the NYPD denied a public record request. That case also is ongoing.

‘Dangerous, expensive, clearly unconstitutional’

Technological advances in police surveillance are the latest chapter in the NYPD’s long history of surveillance operations, from monitoring the Black Panthers in the 1970s to post-9/11 surveillance of Muslim communities and Black Lives Matter demonstrations. The Apollo incident also has echoes of the NYPD’S Enterprise Operations Unit, a group derided as the “hip hop police” that patrols the insides of clubs and other performance venues.

“One of the things that’s most frustrating about all of this is these technologies aren’t just unconstitutional. They’re not just bad for democracy. They oftentimes don’t work,” Mr Fox Cahn told The Independent.

A programme that relies on a network of always-recording microphones has faced widespread scrutiny from oversight authorities over false reports of gunshots. Such false reports can end up sending officers into crime scenes that don’t exist by responding to reports of gunfire that never happened, putting both police and civilians in harm’s way.

Mr Fox Cahn said that ShotSpotter technology, in use in dozens of cities across the US, is powerful enough to pick up nearby conversations, with the potential to operate as a warrantless wiretap across communities of color. In other words, it gives police unprecedented abilities to intrude into people’s private spaces. A recent investigation from the Associated Press discovered that human employees are given broad discretion to decide if a sound is a gunshot, fireworks, thunder or something else. A single human error made by someone who isn’t even present at the scene can therefore have widespread — potentially even catastrophic — consequences.

Another controversial law enforcement tool – a “geofencing” warrant – compels companies like Google to provide mobile device information from a particular time within a geographic area. If police suspect a crime was committed within that “fence”, they can collect that information to produce a suspect. Of course, collecting such information means that anyone within the “fence” will also have their data collected and provided to the police, simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong crime.

A handful of court rulings have found digital dragnets from geofence warrants unconstitutional. A federal court judge said they “plainly” violate the Fourth Amendment. But they have become a routine investigatory tool, including by federal law enforcement to identify people who stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

“A geofence warrant is such a broad tool, something which allows police to get thousands of people’s data through a single warrant,” Mr Fox Cahn told The Independent. “It’s something that is so dangerous, it’s so expensive, it’s clearly unconstitutional, and while the courts are slowly beginning to recognize that, we don’t have to wait the years it will take to litigate those to the Supreme Court, and New York stands poised to outlaw that particular type of surveillance. … It seems clear that lawmakers aren’t willing to stand by and let this continue much longer.”

Equipping police with facial recognition software and artificial intelligence pulling from databases across social media platforms “can potentially create a tool to track anyone, anywhere, at any time, across the city, obliterating any anonymity, and really transforming an open democratic city into a place of authoritarian control,” he added.
‘What recourse is there for the average New Yorker?’

In November, a personal injury lawyer seeing a Christmas Spectacular show at Radio City Music Hall in Manhattan was pulled out of the venue by security guards who had identified her with a facial recognition system linking her to an “attorney exclusion list”. The list – created by MSG Entertainment, the company that also operated Madison Square Garden and the Beacon Theatre – targets lawyers from more than 90 law firms representing clients engaged in litigation against the company. They are prohibited from entering the venues, some of New York’s most prominent performance spaces.

MSG Entertainment has justified the list by arguing that their presence “creates an inherently adverse environment.” The company’s billionaire chief executive, James Dolan, also threatened to shut down alcohol sales at a future New York Rangers hockey game and quoted The Godfather in his defense of the building’s use of facial recognition technology against perceived legal adversaries, saying in a rare, bizarre interview with New York’s Fox 5 that “it’s not personal, it’s strictly business.”

“Our values are important to us, too,” he said. “The Garden has to defend itself.” State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal, who has introduced legislation restricting facial recognition technology, called the interview a “public meltdown of a petulant, petty and vindictive billionaire”. The office of New York Attorney General Letitia James also is investigating the practice, suggesting that the company may be engaged in human rights violations.

In a letter to MSG Entertainment last week, Ms James requested information about the use of facial recognition technology used to “identify and deny entry” to lawyers representing clients in pending litigation against the company. Ms James said the allegations raise a number of red flags over violations of “local, state, and federal human rights laws, including laws prohibiting retaliation,” according to a statement from her office on January 25. “MSG Entertainment cannot fight their legal battles in their own arenas,” she added. “Madison Square Garden and Radio City Music Hall are world-renowned venues and should treat all patrons who purchased tickets with fairness and respect. Anyone with a ticket to an event should not be concerned that they may be wrongfully denied entry based on their appearance, and we’re urging MSG Entertainment to reverse this policy.”

STOP’s Mr Fox Cahn told The Independent that increasingly powerful technologies utilising burgeoning facial recognition technology are “simply too powerful” to wind up in the hands of police and private firms surveilling public spaces. “For years, we’ve let the police police themselves when it comes to mass surveillance, so elected officials have often abdicated their role in overseeing the agency allowing officers to choose what technologies are best,” he said.

New York state Senator Kristen Gonzalez, chair of the Senate’s Internet and Technology Committee, said she is “alarmed” by the lack of oversight of such technologies used by both “private and public” entities in the state.

“If Madison Square Garden can use biometric technology to ban an attorney from its premises, what recourse is there for the average New Yorker?” she in a statement. “It’s far overdue for the state to step in and enshrine regulations to protect our right to privacy and against discrimination.”