New report uncovers dirty truth about beloved toilet paper brands: ‘Must take urgent action’

Erin Feiger
Sun, December 17, 2023 


The Natural Resources Defense Council released its fifth edition of the “The Issue with Tissue” report, and it airs the dirty truth about some of our most used personal cleaning products — specifically toilet paper.

Since its initial report in 2019, a lot has changed with the paper product, but the NRDC points out that perhaps the biggest change is the disparity between the “leaders and laggards.”

While many sustainable brands have emerged in response to the tissue issue, the three biggest producers in the United States are still dragging their feet. Procter & Gamble, Kimberly-Clark, and Georgia-Pacific, who are responsible for brands like Charmin, Cottonelle, and Quilted Northern, perpetuate the system that wreaks havoc on the boreal forest in Canada and its inhabitants, threatened species, and carbon stores.


This graphic features a limited selection of the brands reviewed in “The Issue with Tissue” Fifth Edition scorecard. Image Credit: NDRC

Shrink That Footprint reports that toilet paper has such a huge negative impact on our carbon pollution because 80% of manufactured toilet paper — including brands like Charmin, Cottonelle, and Quilted Northern — is made from virgin forest fiber.

A virgin forest is an old-growth forest that has never been logged. Trees in virgin forests are powerful carbon sinks that absorb vast amounts of planet-warming carbon dioxide. This makes them one of our biggest helpers in stopping Earth’s overheating, and their loss is devastating for all of us.

A report by the Environmental Paper Network says that according to the UN Food

and Agriculture Organization, deforestation accounts for 25% of annual carbon pollution caused by human activity.

Shrink That Footprint further reports that an estimated 27,000 trees are cut down daily to make each ton of toilet paper. When the trees are cut down, not only is the carbon they are storing released, but there is also no longer a forest to absorb more carbon.

To add insult to injury, toilet paper is also typically packaged in plastic, a product of which about 40 million tons are thrown away annually in the U.S. Only about 5% is recycled, and the rest ends up in the ocean and landfills.

The point of the NRDC report is the importance of using recycled or more sustainable materials like bamboo for toilet paper and other paper products.

“By making toilet paper from ancient forests essential to the climate fight, tissue companies are flushing away our forests and our planet’s future,” said Shelley Vinyard, NRDC’s Boreal Campaign Manager and co-author of the report. “Instead of exacerbating the climate crisis, companies like Procter & Gamble must take urgent action to create more sustainable products.”

Portugal’s Socialists Pick Santos as Leader Before Snap Election

Joao Lima
Sat, December 16, 2023 



(Bloomberg) -- Portugal’s ruling Socialists picked former minister Pedro Nuno Santos to be the new party leader ahead of a snap election in March that was called after his predecessor unexpectedly quit as premier.

Santos won party elections held on Friday and Saturday, Socialist official Pedro do Carmo told reporters in Lisbon late on Saturday. The 46-year-old beat current Home Affairs Minister Jose Luis Carneiro, 52, who presented himself as being more moderate than Santos.

“I’m not radical or moderate, I’m Socialist,” Santos told supporters in Lisbon.

The new Socialist leader has been seen for years as a successor to Antonio Costa, who resigned on Nov. 7 amid a probe into possible influence peddling in government. President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa then called an early election for March 10. Costa, who’s been prime minister since 2015, had won reelection in January 2022 with an absolute majority in parliament that the Socialists are unlikely to repeat in March.

Santos, an economist who’s been known for speaking his mind, is often linked to the leftmost wing of the party. He’s been a defender of the state’s role in controlling certain businesses, including the country’s carrier.

Santos resigned as infrastructure and housing minister at the end of 2022 following criticism about the compensation paid earlier that year to a board member for leaving TAP SA, the state-owned airline that received more than €2 billion ($2.2 billion) of government aid.

Since then, he became a political commentator for a television channel, a step that could help bolster his popularity.

As secretary of state for parliamentary affairs from 2015 to 2019, Santos was the link between the minority Socialist government and the far-left parties that ensured Costa had majority backing in parliament. That experience could be useful if the Socialists need support from other parties again after the March 10 snap election.

After getting his university degree, Santos started working in his family’s northern Portugal-based industrial equipment business, called Grupo Tecmacal SA. He also led the Socialist Youth from 2004 to 2008.

Opposition Leader

In the March election, Santos will face Luis Montenegro, 50, a lawyer who’s led center-right opposition party PSD since July 2022. He was parliamentary party leader from 2011 to 2017, a period that included the years when his party was in government implementing a bailout program.

Even as the Socialists have struggled with challenges including a surge in living costs, opinion polls published before Costa resigned suggested that Montenegro wasn’t able to make his party capitalize more on those problems and win supporters. The PSD party, which also pledges fiscal discipline, has called for deeper tax cuts than the Socialists plan for 2024.

The ruling Socialists led PSD by 4 percentage points in an opinion poll published by weekly newspaper Expresso on Dec. 8.

Read more: Portugal’s Outgoing Premier Apologizes for Cash in Aide’s Office

The challenge for the Socialist Party now will be to hold onto votes amid the ongoing investigation into possible influence peddling, and anger over housing and salaries. For the opposition parties, the focus will be on how to take advantage of those troubles.

While the economy has recovered from the Covid-19 pandemic, average wages remain low in Portugal, and the PSD party has made that an issue. It’s pointed out that the country has been overtaken in terms of gross domestic product per capita by eastern European nations that joined the European Union later, including the Czech Republic and Slovenia.

Whoever becomes prime minister after the March election will go into office with a budget already in place. The outgoing Socialist government’s 2024 budget includes income tax cuts and targets a surplus of 0.2% of gross domestic product, smaller than the surplus projected for 2023. The economy is slowing, and the Bank of Portugal on Friday cut its 2024 growth forecast.

A change in government may not necessarily lead to a major shift in budget policy. With the debt ratio above 100% of GDP, and the memory of the euro area debt crisis and Portugal’s bailout still relatively fresh, fiscal discipline will likely remain central to any administration.

Santos said he wants to continue reducing the country’s debt ratio. “My dream has always been to have a decent country, a country with less inequality,” he added.

The political upheaval in November didn’t have a big impact on Portugal’s bonds. The country’s 10-year bond yield was at 2.7% on Friday, compared to 3.2% six months ago. It peaked at 18% in 2012 at the height of the euro region’s debt crisis. And ten days after Costa resigned, Portugal’s government bond rating was raised two levels by Moody’s Investors Service.

The election won’t just be about the two main, historical centrist parties. When Costa was reelected in 2022, the far-right Chega party grew to 12 seats in parliament from one, becoming the third-biggest force. Opinion polls indicate support for that party has since increased further.

Chileans Again Vote on New Constitution, This Time a ‘Business Friendly’ One

Carolina Gonzalez
Sun, December 17, 2023 



(Bloomberg) -- Chileans are heading to the polls in a second attempt to approve a new constitution and move past the period of political and economic uncertainty set off by the charter’s rewrite four years ago.

Sunday’s referendum asks voters if they’re in favor or against the text written by a right-leaning Constitutional Council to replace the current constitution, dating back to the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. Voting centers will close at 6 p.m. local time in Santiago, and the result is expected to be published one to two hours after that.

The vote should be the culmination of a process that has roiled financial markets and stalled investment in the South American country. Polls indicate, however, that the document will be shot down — just like a previous and more left-leaning proposal was overwhelmingly rejected in September 2022. President Gabriel Boric has said there will not be a third attempt to rewrite the constitution if this one fails to pass.

Center-right and right-wing parties as well as some investment banks support the “business friendly” text, saying it will boost economic growth, control clandestine migration and reduce crime. Opponents say it would endanger hard-earned social victories such as abortion rights, set unrealistic goals on migration and improperly overstep in eliminating taxes.

Even as polls show that most Chileans want a new constitution, a survey from Cadem released Nov. 26 showed an 8 percentage-point advantage for those against this text.

The process of drafting a new charter came in response to social unrest in late 2019. Back then, an increase in subway fares evolved into broader demands to fight inequality, improve social services and reform the country’s political system. It also sparked riots and arson attacks.

Clear Rules

If those in favor of the new constitution score a surprising victory, local financial assets should rally and the Boric administration will be forced to tone down its reform agenda, according to Scotiabank.

Implementing the new charter would take between five to 10 years, Scotiabank economists Jorge Selaive, Anibal Alarcon and Waldo Riveras wrote in a research note.

Even though Boric has said the process ends with Sunday’s vote, a rejection of the current proposal wouldn’t put an end to all constitutional reform chatter. Political parties may try to drive changes to the charter through Congress or even back a new overhaul push further down the road, said Kenneth Bunker, a professor at Universidad San Sebastian in Santiago.

The debate will inevitably return before the next presidential election in 2025, Bunker said. “There can be some calm after the storm, but we will eventually come back to the same discussion.”

 Bloomberg Businessweek

DECRIMINALIZE POT!

Federal agency quashes Georgia's plan to let pharmacies sell medical marijuana

Associated Press Finance
Sun, December 17, 2023

Medical marijuana prescription vials are filled at a medical marijuana dispensary in Venice, Calif. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration on Nov. 27, 2023, warned pharmacies in Georgia to not dispense medical marijuana products despite state permission to become the first pharmacies nationwide to do so.

 (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes, File)

ATLANTA (AP) — Federal drug officials are warning Georgia to shelve its plans to be the first state to allow pharmacies to dispense medical marijuana products.

News outlets report that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration on Nov. 27 warned pharmacies that dispensing medical marijuana violates federal law.

The Georgia Board of Pharmacy began accepting applications to dispense the products in October. Licenses have already been issued to 23 Georgia independent pharmacies, the board said.

The Georgia Access to Medical Cannabis Commission, which oversees Georgia's fledgling medical marijuana industry, said it can't override the federal directive, even though pharmacies are allowed to dispense the products under state law.

Andrew Turnage, the commission's executive director, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution the state would love to see pharmacists be allowed to continue providing consultations for medical cannabis products as they do with other medication.

In a memo to pharmacies, the DEA said none of them can lawfully possess, handle or dispense marijuana or related products containing more than 0.3% tetrahydrocannabinol — the psychoactive chemical known as THC that gives users a high.

Georgia lets patients with medical needs buy medical marijuana products with up to 5% THC. Marijuana sold for recreational use typically has a higher level.

The DEA said it considers products derived from the cannabis plant with a THC content above 0.3% to be marijuana, making it illegal under federal drug law.

Georgia has allowed patients with certain illnesses and physician approval to possess and consume low-THC medical cannabis products since 2015. But until April, there was no legal way for them to buy the product in Georgia.

Nationwide, 24 states have legalized marijuana for recreational use, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Another 23 allow some form of medical cannabis.

The recent DEA notice was published online by the group Smart Approaches to Marijuana, which generally opposes marijuana legalization.

Ira Katz of Little Five Points Pharmacy in Atlanta told WXIA-TV that he thought pharmacies like his should able to dispense the products in the same way marijuana dispensaries do.

“It just doesn’t make any sense to me that people can go to a dispensary and not to a pharmacy,” he said. “We would be buying it from the same growers.”

Mahlon Davidson, interim CEO of the Georgia Pharmacy Association, said he doubted independent pharmacists would risk imperiling their businesses by flouting the DEA.

“The current conflict between state and federal law puts Georgia’s pharmacies in a difficult position,” the Georgia Pharmacy Association wrote in a letter to pharmacists, adding that the association is “putting forth the maximum effort to help provide timely information and assist in navigating this issue.”

Those who oppose rapid legalization of marijuana said the DEA's stance will protect consumers and allow time for more research.

Michael Mumper, the executive director of the nonprofit Georgians for Responsible Marijuana Policy, said consumers trust that drugs dispensed from pharmacies are fully tested, approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and federally legal. Mumper said that’s not the case with medical marijuana.

But the federal stance could change if a recent proposal to loosen restrictions on marijuana goes through. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in August proposed taking marijuana off the banned list of Schedule I substances and reclassifying it as a lower-risk Schedule III drug.

The S&P 500 is trading 8% higher than before the Fed started hiking interest rates. Why that's surprising - but perhaps it shouldn't be.

Theron Mohamed
Fri, December 15, 2023

The S&P 500 is trading 8% higher today than it was before the Fed started hiking rates last spring.

That's surprising as higher rates hit earnings and economic growth, and make stocks less appealing.

Investors may be betting inflation is over, a recession has been avoided, and rates are coming down.

The S&P 500 is trading 8% higher today than before the Federal Reserve began its flurry of interest-rate hikes last spring. That's surprising for a bunch of reasons — but perhaps it shouldn't be.

The benchmark US stock index closed at 4,720 points on Thursday, compared to 4,358 points on March 16 last year, the day before the Fed began its latest hiking cycle. The US central bank went on to raise its benchmark rate from nearly zero to upwards of 5.25% — a 22-year high — in the space of just over 16 months. It has held rates steady since July.

The Fed hiked in response to a historic spike in inflation. Annualized price growth hit a 40-year high of over 9% last summer, far outpacing the central bank's 2% target. Higher rates encourage saving over spending and make borrowing more expensive, which tends to temper overall demand in the economy and slow the pace of price increases.

The rate hikes work in part by squeezing consumers, forcing them to allocate more of their monthly incomes toward the bigger payments due on their credit cards, car loans, mortgages, and other debts. American households have also faced soaring food, fuel, and rent costs, which have stretched their budgets even more.

Between inflation in living expenses and higher debt costs, consumers have been left with less disposable income to spend on goods and services produced by companies, hurting sales. Corporations have also seen their costs and interest payments jump, pinching their profit margins.

A company's shares are generally valued at a multiple to its future earnings, meaning if investors expect its profits to grow less quickly or even shrink, its stock price should come down. Stocks also become relatively less appealing to investors when rates rise, as the returns from safe assets like savings accounts and government bonds increase.

Stocks are valued based on their future cash flows, so if investors see companies struggling to raise prices to protect their profit margins from inflation, and spending more to cover their debt costs each month, they'll reduce their cash-flow forecasts and assign a lower value to their shares today.

Moreover, hiking interest rates can slow the economy so much that it enters a prolonged downturn or recession. Consumers tend to pull back on spending and investors flee to safety when they fear economic pain, providing another reason why stocks tend to suffer when rates increase.

Between elevated inflation, a rapid-fire series of rate hikes, and the increased risk of a recession, there are clear pressures on stocks today. On the other hand, inflation has cooled to below 4% in recent months, the US economy grew strongly in the third quarter, and the Fed signaled this week that it expects to cut rates three times next year. The stock market prices in future expectations, and may reflect investors' optimism that prices are under control, a recession will be avoided, and rates will come down soon.

Ben Inker, the co-head of asset allocation at elite investor Jeremy Grantham's GMO, recently offered two more reasons why stocks are worth more today than a couple years ago. Inflation has boosted the fair value of stocks, because companies produce the goods and services that have climbed in price, he said. The US economy has also grown, and companies tend to grow alongside the wider economy, raising the fair value of stocks once again, he said.

It may be jarring to see the S&P 500 trading 8% higher today, when rates are over 5%, than its level when rates were almost zero. Investors may simply believe the worst of the economic pain is over, and the future is so bright for stocks that they're worth more today.

Federal Reserve on cusp of what some thought impossible: Defeating inflation without steep recession

CHRISTOPHER RUGABER
Fri, December 15, 2023 

WASHINGTON (AP) — It was the most painful inflation Americans had experienced since 1981, when “The Dukes of Hazzard” and “The Jeffersons” were topping the TV charts. Yet the Federal Reserve now seems on the verge of defeating it — and without the surge in unemployment and the deep recession that many economists had predicted would accompany it.

Inflation has been falling more or less steadily since peaking in June of last year at 9.1%. And when the Fed's preferred inflation gauge for November is reported next week, it's likely to show that in the past six months, annual inflation actually dipped just below the Fed's target of 2%, economists at UBS estimate.

The cost of goods — such as used cars, furniture and appliances — has fallen for six straight months. Compared with a year ago, goods prices are unchanged, held down by improved global supply chains.

Housing and rental costs, a major driver of inflation, are growing more slowly. Wage growth has cooled, too, though it still tops inflation. Milder wage growth tends to ease pressure on restaurants, hotels and other employers to increase their prices to cover their labor costs.

“I think it’s really good to see the progress that we’re making,” Chair Jerome Powell said at a news conference Wednesday after the Fed's latest policy meeting. “If you look at the ... six-month measures, you see very low numbers.”

On Friday, the Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan agency, estimated that inflation will drop to 2.1% by the end of next year.

There will likely be bumps on the road toward getting inflation fully under control, officials have said. Powell insisted that “no one is declaring victory.” And he reiterated that the central bank wants to see further evidence of falling inflation before it would feel confident that it is sustainably headed back to the 2% target.

A news report shows the Federal Reserve's rate decision as Specialist Meric Greenbaum works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Nov. 1, 2023. Confidence is growing among Federal Reserve officials and many economists that high interest rates and healed supply chains will soon defeat inflation.

 (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File) 

Yet many economists, normally a cautious lot, are now willing to declare that inflation is nearly back under control after two-plus years in which it imposed hardships on millions of American households.

"It appears that inflation has returned to 2%,” said Tim Duy, chief economist at SGH Macroeconomics. “The Fed looks like it has won that battle.”

Prices spikes are also moderating overseas, with both the Bank of England and European Central Bank keeping their benchmark interest rates unchanged this week. Though inflation is still at 4.6% in the United Kingdom, it has fallen to 2.4% in the 20 countries that use the euro currency.

With inflation cooling, Powell said the 19 officials on the Fed's policy setting committee had discussed the prospects for rate cuts at this week's meeting. The officials also projected that the Fed will cut its key interest rate three times next year.

That stance marked a drastic shift from the rate-hiking campaign the Fed began in March 2022. Beginning then, the central bank raised its benchmark rate 11 times, from near zero to roughly 5.4%, its highest level in 22 years, to try to slow borrowing, spending and inflation. The result was much higher costs for mortgages, auto loans, business borrowing and other forms of credit.

Powell's suddenly more optimistic words, and the Fed's rate-cut projections, sent stock market indexes soaring this week. Wall Street traders now foresee a roughly 80% likelihood that the first rate cut will occur when the Fed meets in March, and they are forecasting a total of six cuts in 2024.

On Friday, John Williams, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and a top lieutenant of Powell's, sought to pour some cold water on those expectations. Speaking on CNBC, Williams said it was “premature to be even thinking" about whether to cut rates in March. But he also mentioned that his forecast was for inflation to move down “sustainably” to 2%.

The week's events represented a departure from just two weeks ago, when Powell had said it was “premature” to say whether the Fed had raised its key rate high enough to fully conquer high inflation. On Wednesday, he suggested that the Fed was almost certainly done with rate increases.

Recent data appeared to have helped shift Powell's thinking. On Wednesday, a measure of wholesale prices came in lower than economists had expected. Some of those figures are used to compile the Fed's preferred inflation gauge, which, as a result, is expected to show much lower inflation numbers next week.

Powell said some Fed officials had even updated their economic projections on Wednesday, not long before they were issued, in light of the lower-than-expected wholesale price report.

"The speed at which inflation has fallen has been like an earthquake at the Fed," Duy wrote in a note to clients Wednesday.

And yet in the meantime, the economy keeps growing, defying widespread fears from a year ago that 2023 would bring a recession, a consequence of the much higher borrowing rates the Fed engineered. A report on retail sales Thursday showed that consumers grew their spending last month, likely encouraged by increased discounting that will also lower inflation. Such trends are supporting the growing belief that the economy will achieve an elusive “soft landing,” in which inflation is defeated without an accompanying recession.

“We think the Fed cannot believe its luck: We are back to ‘immaculate disinflation,’ ” Krishna Guha, an economic analyst at investment bank Evercore ISI, wrote in a client note.

Economists credit the Fed's rapid rate hikes for contributing to inflation's decline. In addition, a recovery in global supply chains and a jump in the number of Americans — and recent immigrants — searching for jobs have helped cool the pace of wage growth.

Jon Steinsson, an economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said that by aggressively raising their key interest rate in about 15 months — the fastest such pace in four decades — Fed officials kept Americans' inflation expectations largely in check. Expectations can become self-fulfilling: If people expect higher inflation, they often take actions, such as demanding higher wages, that can send prices higher still.

“They played a crucial role,” Steinsson said.

Still, a continued decline in inflation isn't guaranteed. One wild card is rental prices. Real-time measures of new apartment leases show those costs rising much more slowly than they did a year ago. It takes time for that data to flow into the government's figures. In fact, excluding what the government calls “shelter” costs — rents, the cost of homeownership and hotel prices — inflation rose just 1.4% last month from a year earlier.

But Kathy Bostjancic, an economist at Nationwide, said she worries that a shortage of available homes could raise housing costs in the coming years, potentially keeping inflation elevated.

The Fed's rate hikes, Bostjancic said, could actually prolong the shortage. Today's higher mortgage rates may limit home construction while also discouraging current homeowners from selling. Both trends would keep a lid on the supply of homes and keep prices elevated.

Yet Fed officials appear confident in their forecasts that inflation is steadily slowing. In September, 14 of 19 Fed policymakers had said there were risks that inflation could rise faster than they expected. This month, only eight said so.

“Their projections have mostly gone down, and they think the probability that there will be some flare-up of inflation is lower,” said Preston Mui, senior economist at Employ America, an advocacy group.

RED CAPITALI$M

Standard Chartered to offer China's rich more foreign investment choices via its global network as home markets wilt

South China Morning Post
Sun, December 17, 2023 

Standard Chartered, one of Hong Kong's three currency-issuing banks, plans to strengthen its role as an international service provider in mainland China, tapping its wealthy clients' rising appetite for assets around the globe.

The emerging market-focused lender said it would facilitate Chinese capital to access markets in the Middle East and Africa amid China's consolidated economic tie-ups with the countries in those regions.

"We are considering expanding our international banking services [in China], riding piggyback on Standard Chartered's global network, particularly in the Middle East and Africa, to cater to clients' demand," said Richard Li Feng, deputy CEO of the bank's China business..

He would not elaborate on details of the expansion plan, but said mainland clients keen on diversifying their wealth abroad would benefit from the bank's new growth strategy in 2024.

Richard Li Feng, deputy CEO of Standard Chartered China and General Manager of Personal, Private and SME Banking. Photo: Handout alt=Richard Li Feng, deputy CEO of Standard Chartered China and General Manager of Personal, Private and SME Banking. Photo: Handout>

Technically, mainland businesses and individuals are not able to deposit their money in a bank account offshore or invest directly in equities and bonds abroad.

They can opt for investment schemes such as qualified domestic institutional investor (QDII) and qualified domestic limited partner (QDLP), to allocate assets to markets outside the mainland.

These schemes, under a quota system, allow institutions to raise capital from mainland investors before converting their funds into foreign currencies for buying overseas-listed bonds and equities.

"As an international institution, we found that Chinese people still have a strong desire for allocating assets around the world," Li said. "We will create a global investment platform for the Chinese clients."

He added that increasing the QDII and QDLP quotas would be needed to better serve the high-net-worth residents.

A weak Chinese yuan, a swooning stock market and a property debacle have prompted mainland investors to buy overseas assets as they seek to hedge against domestic market risks.

Economic ties between China and the Middle East are growing with the increase in the number of investment deals following Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to Saudi Arabia last December.

An HSBC report released in August, estimates there is an untapped trade potential of US$178 billion between China and the Middle East and North Africa region from now until 2027.

Foreign banks like Citibank and Standard Chartered are still small players in mainland China, but most of them focus on private banking businesses which seek to help the rich manage their wealth.

China has about 400 million middle-income residents and Premier Li Qiang touted the country's consumer vigour as a key growth driver for the global economy when he urged foreigners to invest while giving a speech at the China International Import Expo on November 5.

In February 2022, Standard Chartered said it would spend an additional US$300 million by 2024 to reinforce its mainland businesses, which included spending on its planned expansion of its retail branch network and on the digitalisation of its operations.

Last month, Jerry Zhang, CEO of Standard Chartered China operations, said the country's economy is on a solid footing, bolstering its confidence to invest more in the country.

"Foreign banks, with their presence around the major markets in the world, will have better chances of expanding their wealth management businesses in China now that many of the riches are avoiding domestic properties and stocks," said Ding Haifeng, a consultant at Shanghai financial advisory firm Integrity. "What they need to do is bring in a diverse portfolio of investment products to lure as many investors with different levels of risk appetite."

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2023 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

Copyright (c) 2023. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

LUXURY COMMODITY FETISHISM

India's Modi says new diamond bourse in Gujarat to create 150,000 jobs

Sun, December 17, 2023 

A delegate listens while Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks on-screen during the inaugural session of InFinity Forum 2.0, at GIFT City, in Gandhinagar


By Dhwani Pandya

MUMBAI (Reuters) - India's Surat diamond bourse will create 150,000 new jobs and become a "one-stop shop" for artisans and businessmen, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said as he inaugurated the new bourse in Gujarat.

Surat, in Gujarat state, where Modi originally hails from, cuts and polishes 90% of world's rough diamonds and the bourse will support its ambition to become the world's diamond capital.

Constructed over 6.6 million square feet, the bourse is touted as the world's largest office building, surpassing the Pentagon which has an area of 6.5 million square feet.

Once it starts operating facilities such as international banking, safe vaults and a jewellery mall, further jobs would be created, Modi said during the inauguration event.

The inauguration comes as Surat's diamond industry is battling a slowdown in global demand for polished diamonds. India's April-October polished diamond exports fell 29% to $10 billion.

Modi said that while Surat's diamond's industry had a leading position in diamond jewellery exports, silver cut diamonds and lab-grown diamonds, India's share of global gems-jewellery exports was just 3.5%.

Surat could help increase India's share of gems-jewellery exports to "double-digits", Modi said.

He added that he would continue to support the sector with a range of incentives and by declaring it a focus area for export promotion.

(Reporting by Dhwani Pandya; editing by Christina Fincher)

India's love of homegrown single malts shakes up Pernod, Diageo

Sat, December 16, 2023 




Workers prepare to pack whisky bottles inside Piccadily Distilleries in Indri

By Arpan Chaturvedi, Aditi Shah and Aditya Kalra

INDRI, India (Reuters) - Oak casks, once used to store bourbon and wine, are stacking up in a distillery near New Delhi, filled with ageing whisky as workers churn out almost 10,000 bottles a day of Indian single malt Indri, recently named the world's best whisky.

Sugarcane and mustard fields, not peat bogs, ring the distillery, where the two-year-old Indian brand's owner Piccadily is ramping up production and building a three-hole golf course to lure connoisseurs and tipplers in the whisky-loving nation.

As India comes into its own as a maker, not just consumer, of whisky, its single malts are reshaping the country's $33 billion spirits market.

Established global brands such as Glenlivet, made by France's Pernod Ricard, and Talisker by Britain's Diageo fight for shelf space with local rivals Indri, Amrut and Radico Khaitan's Rampur.

Unlike many Asian countries where beer dominates alcohol sales, India is predominantly a whisky-drinking nation. Global awards, increased affluence and a mass of drinkers trying new brands while cooped up during COVID-19 have rocked India's whisky landscape, industry executives and analysts say.

Aditya Prakash Rao for years drank foreign brands but now increasingly buys Indian malts for himself and for gifts during festive seasons.

Indian whisky gives Rao a sense of national pride - and goes well with Indian food - the lawyer said. "Nothing beats Indian malts in pairing with our kind of food, which is spicy. I love it."

Indri's $421 Diwali Collector's Edition won "Best in Show" at the Whiskies of the World Awards blind tasting in San Francisco in August, beating Scottish and U.S. rivals.

In response to the drink-India trend, global brands that have focussed on single malts aged in Scotland are looking to Indian whiskies to tap the boom in one of the world's biggest whisky markets.

With Bollywood stars and Indian music, Pernod on Wednesday uncorked its first made-in-India single malt, the $48 Longitude 77, with plans to expand sales to Dubai and then the rest of the world.

"We are extremely bullish about this category. It has seen unprecedented growth," said Kartik Mohindra, Pernod India's chief marketing officer.

'CATEGORY OF THE FUTURE'

Diageo, Pernod's larger rival, last year launched its first Indian single malt, Godawan - named after a large, endangered Indian bird - that sells in five foreign markets, including the United States.

"We seem to be moving from whisky in India to Indian whisky - within India and globally," said Vikram Damodaran, Diageo's India chief innovation officer.

Pernod's Glenlivet, long India's top-selling single malt, grew 39% by volume last year but was dethroned by Amrut, which spiked 183%, Euromonitor data shows.

Indian single malts soared 144% in 2021-22, beating the 32% growth in Scotch, data from IWSR Drinks Market Analysis shows. For the period until 2027, it predicts, consumption of Indian malts is set to grow 13% a year compared to Scotch at 8%.

Indri maker Piccadily Distilleries hopes to expand capacity by 66% to 20,000 litres (5,300 gallons) a day by 2025, reaching beyond the 18 foreign markets that make up 30% of its sales, said founder Siddhartha Sharma.

It plans to double the number of casks to 100,000 at the sprawling distillery in a farm belt 160 km (100 miles) north of India's capital.

The local brands are not cheap: Indri starts at $37 a bottle, Amrut $42 and Rampur $66 in shops near New Delhi. In comparison, Pernod's Glenlivet retails from $40 to $118, depending on age.

At the Longitude 77 launch, Pernod served CEOs, diplomats, celebrity chefs and other invited guests the new single malt and cocktails made with it, combined with local ingredients like Kashmiri saffron and Alphonso mangoes.

Radico expects Rampur sales to double each year and will focus more on expanding the domestic market, as foreign sales contribute 75% of its business, said Sanjeev Banga, president of international business.

The biggest endorsement of the category, he said, "is that you have both Diageo and Pernod coming up with an Indian single malt."

"Otherwise, they were only talking about their mainstream foreign brands," Banga said. "They realise this is a category of the future."

(This story has been refiled to change ‘a’ into ‘the’ in paragraph 8, and to remove the extraneous 'last year' in paragraph 14)

(Reporting by Arpan Chatruvedi and Aditi Shah in Indri, Haryana and Aditya Kalra in New Delhi; Editing by William Mallard)

India's opposition parties protest against Adani's Mumbai slum overhaul plan

Sat, December 16, 2023

People shout slogans as they wear banners during a protest against the redevelopment of Dharavi by the Adani Group in Mumbai

By Dhwani Pandya

MUMBAI (Reuters) -Thousands of protesters led by opposition parties marched towards billionaire Gautam Adani's offices in Mumbai on Saturday to voice their opposition to his conglomerate's $614 million redevelopment plans for one of Asia's largest slums in the city.

Protesters carried flags and banners with slogans such as "Remove Adani Save Dharavi" from the slum to Adani's premises in the central business district of India's financial capital.

"We are not against development, but the way the Dharavi redevelopment is planned it will only benefit Adani and not the slum residents," Baburao Mane, leader of Save Dharavi Committee (Dharavi Bachao Andolan), said.

The protest comes amid growing political opposition to the state government - ruled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) and allies - for giving undue favours to Adani firms in allotting and executing the slum overhaul contract.

A rival bidder - a Dubai-based consortium - has mounted a legal challenge alleging the Maharashtra government improperly cancelled an original 2018 tender for the slum redevelopment and favoured Adani in giving the new contract.

The Dharavi project was awarded to the Adani Group through a fair, open and internationally competitive bidding process, the conglomerate said in statement late on Saturday evening. The state government has denied any wrongdoing and says the contract was awarded as per laws and policies.

Protesters have demanded that both eligible and non-eligible residents of the slum be housed inside the redeveloped area and be given bigger homes of 500 square feet, instead of the promised 300-350 sq ft. Some protesters also want the government to take over the slum overhaul instead of private developers like Adani.

The Maharashtra state government in July approved Adani Group's bid to overhaul Dharavi, which is known for producing leather goods, following years of failed attempts.

The slum, about three-quarters the size of New York's Central Park, featured in Danny Boyle's Oscar-winning 2008 movie "Slumdog Millionaire", and has open sewers and shared toilets. It is located close to Mumbai's international airport and high-rise office blocks housing foreign companies - making a stark contrast to India's development boom.

(Reporting by Dhwani Pandya; Editing by David Holmes and Tom Hogue)

When Greenland was green: Ancient soil from beneath a mile of ice offers warnings for the future

Paul Bierman, University of Vermont 

Tammy Rittenour, Utah State University
Sun, December 17, 2023 

Water and sediment pour off the melting margin of the Greenland ice sheet. Jason Edwards/Photodisc via Getty Images

About 400,000 years ago, large parts of Greenland were ice-free. Scrubby tundra basked in the Sun’s rays on the island’s northwest highlands. Evidence suggests that a forest of spruce trees, buzzing with insects, covered the southern part of Greenland. Global sea level was much higher then, between 20 and 40 feet above today’s levels. Around the world, land that today is home to hundreds of millions of people was under water.

Scientists have known for awhile that the Greenland ice sheet had mostly disappeared at some point in the past million years, but not precisely when.

In a new study in the journal Science, we determined the date, using frozen soil extracted during the Cold War from beneath a nearly mile-thick section of the Greenland ice sheet.



The timing – about 416,000 years ago, with largely ice-free conditions lasting for as much as 14,000 years – is important. At that time, Earth and its early humans were going through one of the longest interglacial periods since ice sheets first covered the high latitudes 2.5 million years ago.

The length, magnitude and effects of that natural warming can help us understand the Earth that modern humans are now creating for the future.

A world preserved under the ice

In July 1966, American scientists and U.S. Army engineers completed a six-year effort to drill through the Greenland ice sheet. The drilling took place at Camp Century, one of the military’s most unusual bases – it was nuclear powered and made up of a series of tunnels dug into the Greenland ice sheet.

The drill site in northwest Greenland was 138 miles from the coast and underlain by 4,560 feet of ice. Once they reached the bottom of the ice, the team kept drilling 12 more feet into the frozen, rocky soil below.

George Linkletter, working for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, examines a piece of ice core in the science trench at Camp Century. The base was shut down in 1967. U.S. Army Photograph

In 1969, geophysicist Willi Dansgaard’s analysis of the ice core from Camp Century revealed for the first time the details of how Earth’s climate had changed dramatically over the last 125,000 years. Extended cold glacial periods when the ice expanded quickly gave way to warm interglacial periods when the ice melted and sea level rose, flooding coastal areas around the world.

For nearly 30 years, scientists paid little attention to the 12 feet of frozen soil from Camp Century. One study analyzed the pebbles to understand the bedrock beneath the ice sheet. Another suggested intriguingly that the frozen soil preserved evidence of a time warmer than today. But with no way to date the material, few people paid attention to these studies. By the 1990s, the frozen soil core had vanished.

Several years ago, our Danish colleagues found the lost soil buried deep in a Copenhagen freezer, and we formed an international team to analyze this unique frozen climate archive.

In the uppermost sample, we found perfectly preserved fossil plants – proof positive that the land far below Camp Century had been ice-free some time in the past – but when?

Exquisitely preserved fossils of more than 400,000-year-old moss, on the left, and a sedge seed on the right, found in the soil core from beneath the Greenland ice sheet, help tell the story of what lived there when the ice was gone. Halley Mastro/University of Vermont

Dating ancient rock, twigs and dirt

Using samples cut from the center of the sediment core and prepared and analyzed in the dark so that the material retained an accurate memory of its last exposure to sunlight, we now know that the ice sheet covering northwest Greenland – nearly a mile thick today – vanished during the extended natural warm period known to climate scientists as MIS 11, between 424,000 and 374,000 years ago.

The uppermost sample of the Camp Century sub-ice sediment core tells a story of vanished ice and tundra life in Greenland 416,000 years ago. Andrew Christ/University of Vermont

To determine more precisely when the ice sheet melted away, one of us, Tammy Rittenour, used a technique known as luminescence dating.

Over time, minerals accumulate energy as radioactive elements like uranium, thorium, and potassium decay and release radiation. The longer the sediment is buried, the more radiation accumulates as trapped electrons.

In the lab, specialized instruments measure tiny bits of energy, released as light from those minerals. That signal can be used to calculate how long the grains were buried, since the last exposure to sunlight would have released the trapped energy.




Paul Bierman’s laboratory at the University of Vermont dated the sample’s last time near the surface in a different way, using rare radioactive isotopes of aluminum and beryllium.

These isotopes form when cosmic rays, originating far from our solar system, slam into the rocks on Earth. Each isotope has a different half-life, meaning it decays at a different rate when buried.

By measuring both isotopes in the same sample, glacial geologist Drew Christ was able to determine that melting ice had exposed the sediment at the land surface for less than 14,000 years.

Ice sheet models run by Benjamin Keisling, now incorporating our new knowledge that Camp Century was ice-free 416,000 years ago, show that Greenland’s ice sheet must have shrunk significantly then.

At minimum, the edge of the ice retreated tens to hundreds of miles around much of the island during that period. Water from that melting ice raised global sea level at least 5 feet and perhaps as much as 20 feet compared to today.

Warnings for the future

The ancient frozen soil from beneath Greenland’s ice sheet warns of trouble ahead.

During the MIS 11 interglacial, Earth was warm and ice sheets were restricted to the high latitudes, a lot like today. Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere remained between 265 and 280 parts per million for about 30,000 years. MIS 11 lasted longer than most interglacials because of the impact of the shape of Earth’s orbit around the sun on solar radiation reaching the Arctic. Over these 30 millennia, that level of carbon dioxide triggered enough warming to melt much of the Greenland’s ice.

Today, our atmosphere contains 1.5 times more carbon dioxide than it did at MIS 11, around 420 parts per million, a concentration that has risen each year. Carbon dioxide traps heat, warming the planet. Too much of it in the atmosphere raises the global temperature, as the world is seeing now.

Over the past decade, as greenhouse gas emissions continued to rise, humans experienced the eight warmest years on record. July 2023 saw the hottest week on record, based on preliminary data. Such heat melts ice sheets, and the loss of ice further warms the planet as dark rock soaks up sunlight that bright white ice and snow once reflected.

At midnight in July, meltwater pours over the Greenland ice sheet in a meandering channel. Paul Bierman

Even if everyone stopped burning fossil fuels tomorrow, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere would remain elevated for thousands to tens of thousands of years. That’s because it takes a long time for carbon dioxide to move into soils, plants, the ocean and rocks. We are creating conditions conducive to a very long period of warmth, just like MIS 11.

Unless people dramatically lower the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, evidence we found of Greenland’s past suggests a largely ice-free future for the island.

Everything we can do to reduce carbon emissions and sequester carbon that is already in the atmosphere will increase the chances that more of Greenland’s ice survives.

The alternative is a world that could look a lot like MIS 11 – or even more extreme: a warm Earth, shrinking ice sheets, rising sea level, and waves rolling over Miami, Mumbai, India and Venice, Italy.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world.If you found it interesting, you could subscribe to our weekly newsletter.

It was written by: Paul Bierman, University of Vermont and Tammy Rittenour, Utah State University.

Read more:

Meltwater is infiltrating Greenland’s ice sheet through millions of hairline cracks – destabilizing its structure

Ancient leaves preserved under a mile of Greenland’s ice – and lost in a freezer for years – hold lessons about climate change

What’s going on with the Greenland ice sheet? It’s losing ice faster than forecast and now irreversibly committed to at least 10 inches of sea level rise

Paul Bierman receives funding from the US National Science Foundation.

Tammy Rittenour receives funding from the US National Science Foundation..

Christians supporting anti-trans bill don't speak for me, my church or my faith | Opinion

Story by Alice Connor • 2d

There are some loud Christian voices supporting House Bill 68, which would restrict gender-affirming medical care for trans youth. We should not be passing bills in the secular world based on people’s faith, but since it’s been brought up, I have a thing or two to say about it as a called and ordained minister in the church of God.

The voices supporting this bill do not represent me nor the entirety of the Christian faith. Indeed, there are hundreds of thousands of the Christian faithful who are gay and trans, who love gay and trans people, and who are horrified by bills and theologies like this. The loud Christian voices do not speak for me. They do not speak for my parishioners or my family or my neighborhood. They do not even speak for the majority of − conservative − Christians.

There’s a recent Fox News poll where 86% of respondents said it’s a problem that families with transgender children are targets of political attacks. Americans are not in favor of these anti-trans laws.

Furthermore, trans people are statistically significantly more likely to be the victims of violence than the perpetrators. I would love for young women not to live in fear of men attacking them. And I would love for us to blame the appropriate parties here, not give in to scare tactics.

Related video: Program works with pastors to bring LGBTQ inclusion to church

 (Scripps News)

The stained glass windows, The Divine is depicted in androgynous

Duration 4:25

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Dailymotion'We are not a threat to people'

0:30

Daily Mail  Torvaianica church opens doors to transgender community

2:55

The message and life of Jesus of Nazareth was one of radical inclusion of those the people around him thought were unacceptable. From my faith and from the faith of thousands and thousands of other people, trans people are made in the image and likeness of God exactly as they are. That is, they are made in the image and likeness of God as trans people.

That first story of creation in our Bibles, it’s beautiful − a love letter to the wild beauty of the natural world and our place in it. It comes from the wonder early peoples had as they looked around them − could this be? Who made this? God, they said. God made this and called it all good. And it was so. "Male and female God created them," says the book of Genesis, and that makes sense, right? We typically see male and female. But, scripture is so much more rich than the surface level. Scripture is poetr

There’s a way of writing in Hebrew called a merism where two extremes are named to then include everything in between. In Isaiah, God says, "I form light and create darkness, I make weal and create woe," which means God has a hand in the good and the bad and everything in between. God, in the Jewish and Christian traditions, is vast, transcendent, contains all things. God contains all genders, male, female and everything in between. And God created humans in the image and likeness of God, male and female and everything in between.

A parishioner of mine many years ago used to say "God don’t make no mistakes." My trans friends realizing who they truly are is not God having made a mistake or them misunderstanding what God did in making them. The fact that they are trans is how they were made − fearfully and wonderfully made.

I was overjoyed the day my kid came out to me because of the trust and safety they felt with me to share that part of their life. I am proud to be their mom. I am also terrified to be their mom. When will they be assaulted or insulted because someone can’t tell what gender they are? Will they cut their own beautiful skin to relieve the pain because they can’t see past the alienation and disgust thrown at them by their peers and by their government?

A couple months ago, a trans friend told me about a 12-year-old girl in Mississippi. She had committed suicide because her family and peers were so cruel to her about being trans. She couldn’t envision things getting better. Twelve years old. I said to this friend, "I couldn’t have imagined at 12 how to even go about committing suicide, much less being so filled with despair that was the only option."

He said quietly, "My first attempt was at 9."

This is the result of bills like HB 68. At CPAC in March, Michael Knowles said "transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely." This is the future that Rep. Gary Click and so many others want. But this is not the future that God wants. This bill is the kind of thing the God of the Bible would send prophets about. And maybe he has. The God of the Bible who so many of us worship is a God of liberation, a God of the marginalized, not of the powerful.

Our trans youth are not threats to be eliminated, they are miracles to be celebrated. HB 68 is not of God, is not representative of the whole of the Judeo-Christian tradition, and will not work to protect anyone. Please do not pass it out of committee.

The Rev. Alice Connor is Assistant Rector of St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church in Anderson Township.

Alice Connor© David N Martin/ © MKphotography

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Christians supporting anti-trans bill don't speak for me, my church or my faith | Opinion