Air Travel in Northern Germany Disrupted by Strikes, Another Set to Occur on March 17

March 17, 2023

© Pzaxe | Dreamstime.com

Strike actions by German’s public sector employees and ground and flight control staff at the country’s largest airports brought significant problems in air traffic in the northern part of the territory, according to a China Daily report.

A total of 351 flights were cancelled, thus affecting 100,000 travellers, based to the German Airports Association (ADV), which threw criticism that the strike was announced at short notice; therefore, passengers had little chance to search for other alternatives, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.

“Airports are part of the critical infrastructure and must be protected from strike escalations. All-day strikes that cut off several German metropolitan areas from international air traffic ceased to have anything to do with warning strikes long ago,” Ralph Beisel, ADV Chief Executive, told Xinhua.

At Berlin Brandenburg Airport, a total of 200 departures were suspended, affecting over 27,000 passengers. At the same time, in Hamburg, 123 departures were suspended, while in Hanover and Brement there were no arrivals or departures at all.

In addition, German trade union Verdi has called another set of strikes that are scheduled to happen on March 17 at Düsseldorf, Cologne/Bonn & Stuttgart airports.

“For Friday, March 17, the trade union ver. di have called for a one-day strike at the airports in Dusseldorf, Cologne/Bonn as well as Stuttgart. Cancellations, as well as delays, are expected in the Lufthansa Group flight schedule to and from these airports,” Lufthansa noted in a statement.

Strike actions in Germany have brought significant uncertainties to passengers, causing additional difficulties for this country.

Ongoing strikes are continuously bringing difficulties to passengers. In February, airports in Germany, including two of the largest: Dusseldorf and Frankfurt, were subject to massive strikes.

In this regard, Dusseldorf airport stressed that it was dealing with significant problems following strike actions, recommending all people to ensure their flights are officially scheduled to take off before reaching the airport, so they do not have to be subject to any inconveniencies.

The airline, through a statement, called on passengers to find out about the situation before starting their journey.

At the same time, last month, Cologne Bonn airport also informed passengers about the flight that would be suspended.

The Cologne Bonn airport stressed that a total of 66 take-offs as well as 65 landings would not take place until the end of the strike.

The airport noted through a statement that a total of 136 flights were planned for February 27, while urging passengers to stay updated with the latest news before arriving at the airport.

New Data Links Pandemic’s Origins to Raccoon Dogs at Wuhan Market

Genetic samples from the market were recently uploaded to an international database and then removed after scientists asked China about them.

Members of the Wuhan Hygiene Emergency Response Team leaving the closed Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market on Jan. 11, 2020.

Credit...Noel Celis/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

By Benjamin Mueller
March 16, 2023

An international team of virus experts said on Thursday that they had found genetic data from a market in Wuhan, China, linking the coronavirus with raccoon dogs for sale there, adding evidence to the case that the worst pandemic in a century could have been ignited by an infected animal that was being dealt through the illegal wildlife trade.

The genetic data was drawn from swabs taken from in and around the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market starting in January 2020, shortly after the Chinese authorities had shut down the market because of suspicions that it was linked to the outbreak of a new virus. By then, the animals had been cleared out, but researchers swabbed walls, floors, metal cages and carts often used for transporting animal cages.

In samples that came back positive for the coronavirus, the international research team found genetic material belonging to animals, including large amounts that were a match for the raccoon dog, three scientists involved in the analysis said.

The jumbling together of genetic material from the virus and the animal does not prove that a raccoon dog itself was infected. And even if a raccoon dog had been infected, it would not be clear that the animal had spread the virus to people. Another animal could have passed the virus to people, or someone infected with the virus could have spread the virus to a raccoon dog.

But the analysis did establish that raccoon dogs — fluffy animals that are related to foxes and are known to be able to transmit the coronavirus — deposited genetic signatures in the same place where genetic material from the virus was left, the three scientists said. That evidence, they said, was consistent with a scenario in which the virus had spilled into humans from a wild animal.

A young raccoon dog at the Chapultepec Zoo in Mexico City in 2015.Credit...Alfredo Estrella/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

A report with the full details of the international research team’s findings has not yet been published. Their analysis was first reported by The Atlantic.

The new evidence is sure to provide a jolt to the debate over the pandemic’s origins, even if it does not resolve the question of how it began.

In recent weeks, the so-called lab leak theory, which posits that the coronavirus emerged from a research lab in Wuhan, has gained traction thanks to a new intelligence assessment from the U.S. Department of Energy and hearings led by the new Republican House leadership.

But the genetic data from the market offers some of the most tangible evidence yet of how the virus could have spilled into people from wild animals outside a lab. It also suggests that Chinese scientists have given an incomplete account of evidence that could fill in details about how the virus was spreading at the Huanan market.

Jeremy Kamil, a virologist at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center Shreveport who was not involved in the study, said the findings showed that “the samples from the market that had early Covid lineages in them were contaminated with DNA reads of wild animals.”

Dr. Kamil said that fell short of conclusive evidence that an infected animal had set off the pandemic. But, he said, “it really puts the spotlight on the illegal animal trade in an intimate way.”

Chinese scientists had released a study looking at the same market samples in February 2022. That study had reported that samples were positive for the coronavirus but suggested that the virus had come from infected people who were shopping or working in the market, rather than from animals being sold there.

At some point, those same researchers, including some affiliated with the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, posted the raw data from swabs around the market to GISAID, an international repository of genetic sequences of viruses. (Attempts to reach the Chinese scientists by phone on Thursday were not successful.)

On March 4, Florence Débarre, an evolutionary biologist at the French National Center for Scientific Research, happened to be searching that database for information related to the Huanan market when, she said in an interview, she noticed more sequences than usual popping up. Confused at first about whether they contained new data, Dr. Débarre put them aside, only to log in again last week and discover that they held a trove of raw data.

Virus experts had been awaiting that raw sequence data from the market since they learned of its existence in the Chinese report from February 2022. Dr. Débarre said she had alerted other scientists, including the leaders of a team that had published a set of studies last year pointing to the market as the origin.

An international team — which included Michael Worobey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona; Kristian Andersen, a virologist at the Scripps Research Institute in California; and Edward Holmes, a biologist at the University of Sydney — started mining the new genetic data last week.

One sample in particular caught their attention. It had been taken from a cart linked to a specific stall at the Huanan market that Dr. Holmes had visited in 2014, scientists involved in the analysis said. That stall, Dr. Holmes found, contained caged raccoon dogs on top of a separate cage holding birds, exactly the sort of environment conducive to the transmission of new viruses.

The swab taken from a cart there in early 2020, the research team found, contained genetic material from the virus and a raccoon dog.




“We were able to figure out relatively quickly that at least in one of these samples, there was a lot of raccoon dog nucleic acid, along with virus nucleic acid,” said Stephen Goldstein, a virologist at the University of Utah who worked on the new analysis. (Nucleic acids are the chemical building blocks that carry genetic information.)

After the international team stumbled upon the new data, they reached out to the Chinese researchers who had uploaded the files with an offer to collaborate, hewing to rules of the online repository, scientists involved with the new analysis said. After that, the sequences disappeared from GISAID.

It is not clear who removed them or why they were taken down.

Dr. Débarre said the research team was seeking more data, including some from market samples that were never made public. “What’s important is there’s still more data,” she said.

Scientists involved with the analysis said that some of the samples had also contained genetic material from other animals and from humans. Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada, who worked on the analysis, said that the human genetic material was to be expected given that people were shopping and working there and that human Covid cases had been linked to the market.

Dr. Goldstein, too, cautioned that “we don’t have an infected animal, and we can’t prove definitively there was an infected animal at that stall.” Genetic material from the virus is stable enough, he said, that it is not clear when exactly it was deposited at the market. He said that the team was still analyzing the data and that it had not intended for its analysis to become public before it had released a report.

“But,” he said, “given that the animals that were present in the market were not sampled at the time, this is as good as we can hope to get.”

Benjamin Mueller is a health and science reporter. Previously, he covered the coronavirus pandemic as a correspondent in London and the police in New York. @benjmueller

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UK aid to India failed to support human rights, inclusive growth: Watchdog

Britain provided about £2.3 billion in aid to India between 2016 and 2021, including £441 million in bilateral aid and £1 billion in investments 

16 March, 2023

The Independent Commission for Aid Impact said the UK’s aid to India aimed at achieving inclusive growth lacked a compelling development rationale (Photo: Getty Images)

By: Chandrashekar Bhat

Britain’s aid to India has failed to achieve the desired objectives of poverty reduction and inclusive growth due to a “lack of coherence”, a review has found.

The aid programme also did little to support Indian democracy and human rights despite “negative trends in these areas”, the Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI) said.

Britain provided about £2.3 billion in aid to India between 2016 and 2021, including £441 million in bilateral aid and £1 billion in investments through British Investment International. But it was fragmented across activities and spending channels and there was no “compelling development rationale,” the aid watchdog said in its review published on Tuesday (14), calling for a sharper focus.

The ICAI gave the UK’s model of development cooperation a score of amber-red.

Britain should focus its aid portfolio on a limited number of areas to make “India’s economic growth more inclusive and pro-poor,” the watchdog said.

“The UK should build on its emerging success story in climate finance and green infrastructure, looking for opportunities to combine technical assistance, research partnerships, development investments and multilateral partnerships for greater impact and value for money”.

India was one of the largest recipients of the UK’s aid in the decade before 2015 but it shrank after New Delhi stated that it no longer needed London’s aid. Yet the ICAI estimated that the UK sent around £1.9 billion of aid to India between 2016 and 2020.

ICAI chief commissioner Tamsyn Barton said, “while we appreciate that democracy and human rights in India is a sensitive area for the UK, we were surprised to find out that the UK had largely ceased supporting work at the local level.”

“Despite concerns about the model that has emerged in India, there are areas of strength to build on if the UK and India want to continue this partnership,” said Barton who led the review.

“The UK has provided innovative support on climate change and clean energy, showing the value of combining support for policy reforms with well-targeted development investments,” she said.

UK government to have ‘intensive talks’ with education unions to end strikes

Teachers across England walked out this week over pay and working conditions in the state-funded school system – the latest in a series of education strikes

• 17 March, 2023

Striking teachers and supporters march to Trafalgar Square on March 15, 2023 in London, England. 

By: Chandrashekar Bhat

The British government and education trade unions have agreed to begin “intensive talks” that will focus on pay, conditions and workload reduction, a joint statement said on Friday (17).

Teachers across England walked out this week over pay and working conditions in the state-funded school system – the latest in a series of education strikes that have disrupted life for millions of Britons.

The talks, beginning on Friday, will run over the weekend. The National Education Union said it would hold off calling any fresh strikes for two weeks to create a “period of calm”.

The statement was issued by the Department for Education Association of School and College Leaders, National Association of Head Teachers, NASUWT and National Education Union.

More broadly, prime minister Rishi Sunak has been under growing pressure to quell the worst wave of British worker unrest since the 1980s, with strikes over pay affecting almost every aspect of daily life as inflation runs at more than 10 per cent.

On Thursday (16), the government agreed a pay proposal with unions that would see more than a million healthcare workers get a five per cent pay rise for 2023/24 and a one-off payment for the current financial year. That deal now needs to be approved by union members.

LIBERAL STATE CAPITALI$M

Japanese workers are set to get their largest pay raise in decades

The outcome of "shunto" wage negotiations will help determine the central bank's interest rates strategy

Diego Lasarte

Kazuo Ueda addressed parliament ahead of his appointment as the next governor of Japan’s central bank.Photo: ISSEI KATO (Reuters)

Japanese workers are awaiting the outcome of the annual “shunto” wage negotiations between the government, top businesses and union leaders on Wednesday (March 15), with economists predicting one of the most significant wage hikes in decades.


A survey by the Japan Economic Research Center (JERC) found that domestic firms will raise salaries by an average of 2.85% in the fiscal year beginning in April, marking the largest wage increase in 25 years. Even then, it would be below what workers were hoping for. Japan’s trade union confederation, Rengo, sought a 5% increase, inclusive of a 3% base pay raise. The JERC’s figure sets a 1.08% increase in base pay, but the remaining comes from seniority-based extras, according to Reuters.

If that’s the case, the raise would not be enough to meet the Bank of Japan (BOJ)‘s goals for the country’s economy. The central bank has signaled that it must see wage rises at pace with the consumer price index in order to keep low interest rates and ensure the continuation of its $200 billion stimulus program meant to ease the effects of high prices. The inflation rate in Japan in January was 4.2%.

The government’s involvement in the “shunto” negotiations is part of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s “new capitalism” policy, a new initiative encouraging firms to hike pay stemming from campaign promises to ensure a more equal distribution of wealth in the country.

Last month, Japan’s largest automakers announced broad raises for workers. Honda said it would raise employee wages by 5%, while union representatives for Toyota confirmed the company had agreed to its largest wage hike in two decades.

The Japanese tradition of “shunto” negotiations

Loosely translated as “spring offensive,” shunto refers to annual wage negotiations between enterprise unions and employers in Japan. Occurring ahead of the start of the new financial year in April, negotiations typically begin in February or March with thousands of unions across the country starting the bargaining process with employers.

The practice was invented in 1954 as part of a strategy by the General Council of Trade Unions of Japan to strengthen negotiating power by unifying the process across disparate industries. In Japan, unlike most other countries, unions are organized by enterprise as opposed to industry, meaning there are individual unions for each company.

This lack of cohesion made union members reluctant to strike, as it made it likely that other companies in the same industry would simply make up the lost market share. Thus, shunto set a specific deadline for companies to negotiate a new contract, or else all workers, across industries, would automatically strike.

However, union membership in Japan has fallen precipitously in recent years, leading many critics to consider the Shunto practice nothing more than a hollow tradition.

Person of interest: Kazuo Ueda

The Japanese government has remained committed to a policy of ultra-low interest rates as a way to counter the highest inflation rate the country has experienced in 41 years, with current BOJ governor Haruhiko Kuroda keeping the status quo at a central bank meeting last Friday (March 10).

With the BOJ leadership set to change in April, this strategy might not last much longer. Kishida has nominated Kazuo Ueda as the next governor of Japan’s central bank, a hawkish economist and academic who is expected to raise interest rates and move the country away from its current ultra-easy monetary policy.

Ueda, a former member of the BOJ board of governors, isn’t expected to radically overhaul Kuroda’s other policies, but he has historically been against the central bank’s current policy of strongly regulating bond yields.

Specifically, at the BOJ’s 2016 policy board reception Ueda argued that the central bank imposing strict limits on bond yields could lead to hyperinflation. Most analysts expect Ueda to eliminate the current 0.5% ceiling on the 10-year government bond yield, a cornerstone of Kuroda’s fiscal strategy.

Last week, Japan’s lower house of parliament officially confirmed Ueda’s nomination as governor. He is expected to chair his first BOJ policy meeting on April 27.

SpaceX delivers new science experiments to ISS to explore origins of life on Earth

By Josh Dinner published about 13 hours ago

SpaceX is delivering a fresh batch of scientific research equipment to the orbital laboratory.

This scanning electron microscopic image shows a biofilm, colored to show cells of Staphylococcus capitis (round orange knobs), a bacteria species isolated from the International Space Station, embedded in the biofilm matrix (larger blue rod-shaped figure), part of the preflight experiments for Biofilms. 

(Image credit: German Aerospace Center (DLR))

A new round of scientific experimentation is set to begin in the microgravity environment of the International Space Station.

For its 27th commercial resupply mission (CRS-27), SpaceX delivered a fresh round of science and cargo to the International Space Station (ISS). The mission saw a SpaceX Cargo Dragon launch on Tuesday (March 14) at 8:30 p.m. EDT (0030 GMT on March 15) atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex-39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

CRS-27 is carrying thousands of pounds of research, maintenance supplies and crew necessities to Expedition 69 crew members aboard the ISS. The space-bound experiments include: Two tissue chip studies; a high schooler-built camera hardware demonstration; an investigation into more efficient carbon dioxide absorption; a study examining different antimicrobial surfaces; and an experiment that could potentially shed light on the origins of life on Earth.

About the size of a large thumb drive, tissue chips contain living segments of engineered heart tissue suspended in a 3D matrix that can used to test responses to various stimuli in microgravity such as drugs, genetic changes and other stress factors. The final two tissue chips are part of an ongoing program between the National Center for Translational Sciences and the ISS National Lab and will be used in the Cardinal Heart 2.0 and Engineered Heart Tissues-2 research studies.

According to NASA, the predecessor to the first of those experiments affirmed hypotheses that microgravity can have a detrimental effect on heart tissue. Cardinal Heart 2.0 provides researchers an opportunity to test the heart tissue's response to preventative drugs in space, which will possibly be able to treat other heart conditions for people back on Earth.

Engineered Heart Tissues-2 will also test therapies to prevent the negative effects of microgravity on the heart. This experiment looks further into the similarities between the cardiovascular system response in low Earth orbit (LEO) and terrestrial age-related heart diseases. Researchers hope these findings will lead to ways of preventing that type of decay before it starts.

Preflight image of a BioCell, developed by BioServe Space Technologies, that contains 162 beating cardiac spheroids to be incubated in space as part of Cardinal Heart 2.0, an investigation that tests drugs to protect heart cell function. (Image credit: Joseph Wu, Dilip Thomas, and Xu Cao, Stanford Cardiovascular Institute)

From the High School Students United with NASA to Create Hardware (HUNCH) program comes the HUNCH Ball Clamp Monopod(opens in new tab). Students from Texas high schools, Cypress Woods, Clear Creek and Conroe were able to contribute to the monopod which will test a platform for stabilizing tracking cameras inside the ISS. Once aboard, the monopods will attach to handrails and be used for video and photography inside the station, as well as ground tracking from orbit. HUNCH students also hope the technology will have practical applications for photography on Earth.

HUNCH Ball Clamp Monopods packaged for transport to the International Space Station. Students designed these devices to keep cameras stable while tracking targets on the ground or taking images and video inside the space station. (Image credit: Hunch)

Carbon Dioxide scrubbers, which help recycle breathable air aboard the space station and other in-space habitats, are some of the most maintenance-heavy equipment aboard the ISS. CapiSorb Visible System (CVS) aims to reduce that burden by researching capillary forces' usefulness in manipulating carbon dioxide-absorbing liquids.

In a NASA statement, co-investigator Grace Belancik explains, that "Using liquid sorbents to capture carbon dioxide works great on Earth, but in microgravity, it's a challenge," adding, "[CapiSorb's] geometry provides liquid control and passive transport in microgravity in the form of a continuous liquid flow loop." Belancik and other scientists hope to use data from the CapiSorb experiment to help develop carbon dioxide removal systems for future moon and Mars missions such as those planned under NASA's Artemis program.

The CapiSorb Visible System Degasser Subsystem, shown pre-flight, controls and passively transports liquid fructose while heating the liquid to drive off water vapor (Image credit: IRPI LLC)

In another study with potential impacts on future interplanetary missions, the European Space Agency (ESA) is conducting an investigation to minimize microbial contamination inside spacecraft and other in-space habitats. The Banishing Biofilms experiment is an ongoing study from the ESA into the growth of microorganisms called biofilms on various types of metal surfaces.

Per NASA's statement, "Principal investigator Ralf Möller notes that microbial contamination is inevitable on crewed space missions since microorganisms are an integral part of a healthy human body." The Banishing Biofilms study will test three different species of bacteria on three different types of metal surfaces. By investigating how these biofilms grow and interact in low Earth orbit, scientists and engineers hope to gain a better understanding of how to minimize microbial contamination in orbit through the optimized use of specific antimicrobial materials.

The Tanpopo-5 experiment from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is also stowed aboard CRS-27. Tanpopo-5 comes on the tail of four predecessor experiments to study the responses of radiation-resistant microbes, moss spores and amino acid compounds to exposure to space. Some hypotheses for the origin of life on Earth involve amino acid transmission from a meteorite impact, and recording the response of those amino acids to the cosmic ultraviolet radiation of space could better inform those ideas.

Tanpopo-5 continues this series of studies on how organisms respond to space exposure, which could inform strategies to protect other planets from human contamination and for returning extraterrestrial samples to Earth. (Image credit: NASA)

"Today, Earth's ozone layer shields much of the ultraviolet radiation, but the space environment can be considered a model for primitive Earth," said Principal Investigator Hajime Mita, Fukuoka Institute of Technology in the NASA statement. Researchers hope Tanpopo-5 data will better inform mitigative strategies for human contamination during missions to the moon and Mars.

SpaceX's CRS-27 Crew Dragon arrived at the ISS at 7:52 a.m. EDT on Thursday (March 16), and will dock to the forward port of the station's Harmony module. Dragon is scheduled to remain docked for about a month before returning to Earth via parachute splashdown off the coast of Florida, carrying more research and other return cargo.

HOW TO PISS OFF CTHULHU
A Spanish firm wants to kill one million octopuses a year using 'ice slurry' baths at first-ever factory farm

Charles R. Davis
Mar 16, 2023

An octopus in the Mediterranean Sea. Kurt AMSLER/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images

A proposed commercial octopus farm is sparking outrage among experts and animal rights campaigners.

The farm would slaughter roughly one million octopuses each year by submerging them in icy water.

"It would be very cruel and should not be allowed," Dr. Peter Tse told the BBC.

A proposed commercial octopus farm in Spain has sparked outrage after a leaked plan suggested that the operator intends to kill up to one million of the animals a year by submerging them, alive, in freezing water.

Companies have for years strived to produce octopuses at a commercial scale in captivity, citing growing demand and pressure to find more sustainable alternatives to fishing. But critics argue the creatures are far too smart — and capable of feeling pain — to be raised for food in confined quarters.

The proposed farm at issue would be based in Spain's Canary Islands and run by Nueva Pescanova, a seafood company that boasted in 2019 of having succeeded at not only raising octopuses in captivity but, for the first time, getting them to reproduce.

"We will continue to research how to continue improving the well-being of the octopuses, studying and replicating their natural habitat, with the expectation to be able to sell aquaculture octopus starting in the year 2023," CEO Ignacio González said at the time.

But campaigners with Eurogroup for Animals, an activist group, say that documents they obtained — and shared with the BBC — show that the proposed factory would subject octopuses to torturous conditions and a long, painful death.

In a report released Thursday, the activist group said that Nueva Pescanova intends to slaughter around one million octopuses each year by submerging them in a freezing "ice slurry." In addition, it criticizes the conditions they will be kept in prior to their slaughter, saying the company intends to cage a solitary creature in dense housing — up to 15 octopuses per cubic meter of water — and subject them to 24-hour periods of light in an effort to speed reproduction.

"It will inflict unnecessary suffering on these intelligent, sentient and fascinating creatures, which need to explore and engage with the environment as part of their natural behaviour," Elena Lara, research manager at the group Compassion in World Farming, said in a statement.

Nueva Pescanova did not respond to Insider's request for comment. But in a statement to the BBC, the company said it had high standards that ensure "the correct handling of the animals." In particular, it said, the slaughter of the octopuses "involves proper handling that avoids any pain or suffering to the animal."

Experts disagree, however, that submerging live animals in freezing water is a pleasant way to go.

"To kill them with ice would be a slow death," Dr. Peter Tse, who studies octopus cognition at Dartmouth, told the BBC. "It would be very cruel and should not be allowed."

In an open letter last year, before specific details of the proposed factory were released, a group of environmental scientists at New York University who specialize in animal sentience argued that is not possible to humanely raise octopuses in captivity at a commercial scale — and could indeed cause not just pollution, from the release of contaminated waters, but cannibalism in animals that have effectively been driven mad.

"Beyond environmental and health concerns, octopuses are capable of observational learning, have individual personalities, play, and are capable of problem-solving, deception, and interspecies hunting," the scientists wrote.

WAGE THEFT
Bed Bath & Beyond is reportedly skipping on severance payments for workers

Dominick Reuter
Mar 16, 2023

Denying severance for store employees could complicate efforts to finish selling inventory, as some workers are quitting their jobs weeks before their locations actually close, Bloomberg reported. 

Ben Tobin

Bed Bath & Beyond is skipping out on some severance payments, Bloomberg reported Thursday.

The struggling housewares giant previously paid up to 12 weeks' wages following past store closures.

More than 400 locations are slated to close as the company aims to avoid filing for bankruptcy

Bed Bath & Beyond has decided not to offer severance payments to workers at stores affected by its planned closures this year, Bloomberg reported Thursday.

Citing internal documents and correspondence, as well as current and former employees with knowledge of the matter, Bloomberg indicated that the decision was announced in February and appears to be a move to conserve cash and avoid declaring bankruptcy.

"We continue to take disciplined steps to enhance our cost base, improve our financial position, and enable Bed Bath & Beyond to serve our customers well into the future," a spokesperson said in an emailed statement to Insider, but declined to comment on "employee matters." A similar statement was previously provided to Bloomberg.

Bed Bath & Beyond has previously paid as much as 12 weeks' wages — worth several thousand dollars — in severance packages for employees as recently as last year, per Bloomberg.

More than 400 locations across three brands are slated to close as the struggling housewares giant attempts to salvage its business and return to profitability.

The company said this year it is targeting a final store count of 360, a mere shadow of its peak of 1,552 locations across its portfolio just five years ago.

Denying severance for store employees could complicate efforts to finish selling inventory, as some workers are quitting their jobs weeks before their locations actually close, Bloomberg reported.

Read the full story from Bloomberg.

What is AUKUS? With China Spooked by Nuclear Subs Deal, a Look at the Agreement

By: Vidushi Sagar
News18.com
MARCH 14, 2023

US President Joe Biden, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak deliver remarks on the AUKUS partnership.

 Reuters/FILE (Image: Reuters)

Explained: AUKUS is the term given to the security agreement reached by Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States

The United States, Australia and the United Kingdom are traveling “further down the wrong and dangerous path for their own geopolitical self-interest,” China’s Foreign Ministry said Tuesday, responding to an agreement under which Australia will purchase nuclear-powered attack submarines from the U.S. to modernize its fleet.

Spokesperson Wang Wenbin said the arrangement, given the acronym AUKUS — for Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States — arises from the “typical Cold War mentality which will only motivate an arms race, damage the international nuclear nonproliferation regime, and harm regional stability and peace.”

U.S. President Joe Biden flew to San Diego to appear with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak as they hailed an 18-month-old nuclear partnership that enables Australia to access nuclear-powered submarines, which are stealthier and more capable than conventionally powered vessels, as a counterweight to China’s military buildup.

Biden emphasized the ships would not carry nuclear weapons of any kind. Albanese has said he doesn’t think the deal will sour its relationship with China, which he noted had improved in recent months.

BUT WHAT IS AUKUS? NEWS18 EXPLAINS:

AUKUS is the term given to the security agreement reached by Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States (A-UK-US) in the end of 2021. The first and largest part of the agreement is the submarine contract, also known as Pillar One.

Both the United Kingdom and the United States, which have nuclear-powered submarines, agreed to collaborate with Australia and provide schematics for their subs so that Australia might build its own, explains a report by ABC.

The second AUKUS pillar will involve improving our defence capabilities with the assistance of the UK and the US in general.

Biden views the partnerships and alliances in the region as cornerstones for U.S. strategy for years to come. Asked if AUKUS would survive if a new, more isolationist president was elected — a veiled reference to Donald Trump, who is running for another term — Biden said yes.

The secretly brokered AUKUS deal included the Australian government’s cancellation of a $66 billion contract for a French-built fleet of conventional submarines, which sparked a diplomatic row within the Western alliance that took months to mend.

The US is sharing a once highly-guarded missile system that will make British and Australian nuclear submarines far more deadly

Tom Porter
Mar 14, 2023,

The Ohio-class guided-missile submarine USS Michigan arrives for a regularly scheduled port visit while conducting routine patrols throughout the Western Pacific in Busan, South Korea, 

 Jermaine Ralliford/Courtesy U.S. Navy/Handout via REUTERS

The US is sharing submarine missile launch tech with allies to counter China.

 
The subs would be equipped to fire hypersonic missiles capable of evading air defense.

 
The announcement comes amid heightened tensions between China and the US.

The US is sharing once-secret submarine missile launch technology with Australia and the UK as part of a pact to counter growing Chinese military power in the Pacific region, reports say.

The US, UK, and Australia on Monday announced plans for Australia to obtain a new fleet of nuclear-powered submarines.

Under the AUKUS pact, which was first unveiled in 2021, the US will sell Australia three of its nuclear-powered submarines, while the UK and Australia will collaborate to build new vessels - a model that is being called SSN - AUKUS.

The deal will involve building at least eight nuclear-powered submarines for the Australian naval fleet, using UK designs, and underpinned by a US-made vertical launch system.

Sidharth Kaushal, an analyst at London's Royal United Services Institute, said that technology gives the submarines the capacity to fire hypersonic missiles, which can evade defense systems.

"Hypersonic missiles are important as they have the speed and range to penetrate defended airspace and hit hardened targets," he told Insider. "For nations which do not have stealth bombers (everyone excluding the US) they may represent the only way of striking targets at reach within well defended enemy airspace."

According to reports, the new Australian submarines will also have the capacity to fire cruise missiles through the vertical launch system.

The fact that they are nuclear-powered means the submarines can operate at far greater distances, and stay submerged for longer.


Until the AUKUS pact, the UK was the only country with which the US had shared its nuclear submarine technology.

The new Australian submarines will begin operation in the 2040s, and the new UK subs in the 2030s. In the interim, the US and UK will berth nuclear submarines in Perth, Western Australia.

Defiant European Central Bank powers on with 0.5% interest rate hike despite financial market turmoil

By JOHN-PAUL FORD ROJAS FOR THE DAILY MAIL
PUBLISHED: 16 March 2023

The European Central Bank (ECB) yesterday pressed ahead with a half percentage point interest rate hike despite financial market turmoil –but admitted the crisis could take its toll on the wider economy.

ECB chief Christine Lagarde stressed it was focused on bringing down inflation – and closely monitoring the turbulence.

The decision came hours after Credit Suisse accepted a £45billion bailout from the Swiss National Bank amid global jitters over the sector.

Crunch call: ECB chief Christine Lagarde (pictured) said rate setters were focused on bringing down inflation but that the bank was monitoring the turbulence

Investors have been betting that the turmoil will slow the pace of rate rises by central bankers in Europe, America and the UK.

Rates decisions from the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of England are due next week. The fear is that more big increases could spell further trouble for lenders whose vast holdings of bonds fall in value when rates go up.

Lagarde insisted there could be no ‘trade-off’ between the rises needed to fight inflation – at 8.5 per cent in the eurozone – and financial stability.

She played down the idea that a financial crunch on the scale of the 2008 crisis could be under way, saying banks today were ‘much stronger’ but acknowledged the potential for the crisis to bleed into the wider economy.

The ECB rate is now 2.5 per cent to 3 per cent, its sixth consecutive rate hike. Lagarde said it was supported by a ‘very large majority’ of rate setters.

Tom Hopkins, at BRI Wealth Management, said: ‘Some may find this increase surprising given investor fears over the strength of the banking system.’

Carsten Brzeski, at ING Bank, said: ‘Every additional rate hike increases the risk of breaking something. We expect the ECB to turn more dove-ish, probably hinting at a slowdown in the pace and size of further hikes.’

Paul Dales, at Capital Economics, said it was ‘almost 50/50’ whether the Bank would go for a quarter-point rise or end the hikes.

A lot will depend on what happens in the global banking system between now and next Thursday,’ Dales said.