XI AND MODI ARE TYRANTS
Investors favour India over China as world’s second biggest economy stutters

Tim Wallace
23 December 2023·

Xi Jinping, the president of China, and Narendra Modi, India's prime minister - MANISH SWARUP/AP

The world’s biggest sovereign wealth funds and public pension schemes are backing India over China as fears grow over Beijing’s interventions in companies operating in the region.

India is the most popular emerging market with investors, favoured by two-fifths of the 100 funds surveyed by the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum (OMFIF), a think tank.

China won the backing of less than a quarter of the managers, putting it on a par with Brazil in joint-second place.


It means China risks losing out on capital from some of the most powerful investors in the world with the funds surveyed having a combined financial firepower of $25.9 trillion (£20.5 trillion).

Almost three-quarters said they are put off investing in China by the regulatory environment, with the same share blaming geopolitical factors.

The biggest remaining reason to put money into China is for diversification of investments, and because the country is included in benchmark indices. This means fund managers investing in emerging market trackers have exposure to China by default, rather than making an active decision to back the nation.

In contrast to previous years’ surveys, not a single fund said it is investing in China with the expectation of higher relative returns, because of the increasing importance of the country in the global economy, or because it has a positive outlook for Chinese growth.

China belatedly lifted strict Covid restrictions - TAO MING/XINHUA

At the start of 2023, economists had hoped for a strong rebound from China as authorities in Beijing belatedly ditched their strict Covid lockdown measures.

But instead the property crisis has deepened and growth has disappointed, deterring investors.

Craig Thorburn, a director of Future Fund, which manages Australia’s wealth, said it is cutting back on investment in China.

In a submission to OMFIF he said: “We reduced our exposure to China, reflecting increased intervention in market sectors and the accumulation of challenges to their economic growth model.”

Nikhil Sanghani at OMFIF, said large, long-term funds will not typically liquidate their investments overnight, but are now likely to make fewer new investments in China.

He added: “What is interesting is the shift in tone. It is all about intentions. They are becoming more hesitant or cautious on China. It tallies up with the general mood in financial markets more broadly towards China.

“They are long-term players, they are looking very strategically at their long-term investments, so I doubt this means they will pull their money out of China immediately. It is more likely that if they are going to allocate towards emerging markets, it looks like that is going to be towards India rather than China right now.”

India is soon going to benefit from more passive investment inflows as its government debt will be added to JP Morgan’s emerging markets government bond index from June, automatically reallocating more international cash to the country.

Mr Sanghani said that India’s economy has remained solid even as China’s has slowed, making the country relatively more attractive to international money.

“Because of these structural headwinds you are seeing in China and its economy, because of some of the geopolitical tensions, in a relative sense India is starting to look a bit more appealing,” he said.

“It is not like things in India have been standing still. I think there are areas where things seem to be opening up to foreign investors.”

This includes improving liquidity in bond markets to gain a place in the JP Morgan index.

He expects pension money to become particularly important to future economic growth as governments around the world have major schemes in mind but have little fiscal headroom to finance their plans.

Mr Sanghani said: “I think [these funds] have a massive role to play. We see across the world right now that, frankly, there isn’t the fiscal space to do a lot.

“Particularly on these big issues around the energy transition for example, there is limited fiscal space.”

He pointed to the German government’s green spending plans which have been shot down by the constitutional court, while in the UK the Government is trying to enlist pension funds to invest more in Britain.

Mr Sanghani added: “There is an increasing onus for probably the public sector to try and make sure they are better mobilising either their existing pools of capital with their domestic pension funds or sovereign funds, but also trying to become more open to that foreign investment.”

Losing access to some of these international funds will be damaging to China’s economy at a time when it is already struggling to regain its pre-Covid momentum.

India’s economy is on track to out-grow China’s for the third consecutive year and, according to predictions from the International Monetary Fund, will keep doing so in every one of the five years of its forecast.

India’s stock market capitalisation is also gaining on China’s, according to Tim Hayes at Ned Davis Research, as the country gains on its bigger rival and draws in more international cash.

He said: “India’s demographic outlook and long-term growth potential are both far better than China’s.”

MONOPOLY CAPITALI$M

Paramount heiress prepares to bow out as Hollywood streaming wars turn ugly


James Warrington
22 December 2023·

Shari Redstone faced considerable opposition when she took control of Paramount Global - Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images North America

When Shari Redstone, the billionaire tycoon behind Paramount Global, seized control of her father’s media empire, she was forced to put up a fight.

The 69-year-old faced opposition from Les Moonves, the now-disgraced former boss of CBS. She was also sued by two former executives who accused her of manipulating Sumner, her philandering and increasingly infirm father.

Shari’s ultimate ascension was just one chapter in a remarkable family saga that proved a major source of inspiration for the hit TV show Succession. Yet after years spent battling to gain control, Shari may now be calling time on her stint at the helm.


Reports earlier this month suggest Shari is exploring selling her 77pc stake of controlling shares in Paramount.

Now, it has emerged that executives at the media giant have held initial discussions with Warner Bros Discovery over a merger that would combine two of Hollywood’s most prestigious media companies.

The moves mark the end of an era for the doyenne of one of America’s most well-known media dynasties.

More broadly, though, the machinations highlight how the rise of Netflix and the dawn of the streaming era have not only shaken up Hollywood but threaten to reshape it altogether.

Paramount, formerly known as ViacomCBS, is the cornerstone of the Redstone family’s National Amusements empire.

The late Sumner Redstone (C) pictured with his daughter Shari (R) and his grandaughter Kim (L) in 2003 - Kevin Winter/Getty Images North America

The media giant is best known for its film and TV studios, which have produced Hollywood blockbusters including Top Gun: Maverick, Titanic, Transformers and Forrest Gump.

It also holds a collection of traditional TV channels, including MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central and Channel 5 in the UK.

For decades, Paramount was a classic tale of growth through acquisition. But now, under the stewardship of Shari, the family jewels are up for sale.

The group has begun selling off assets including the publisher Simon & Schuster, which was offloaded to private equity firm KKR for $1.6bn in October. It is also in talks to sell its Black Entertainment Television (BET) network to an investment group led by members of senior management.

Talks with Warner Bros Discovery, the US media conglomerate behind HBO TV hits and blockbusters including the Harry Potter franchise, are on a different scale altogether. A combination would create the biggest film distributor in the US and shrink Hollywood’s ruling studio elite from five to four.

Talks are also ongoing with Skydance, the production company behind Top Gun: Maverick. Sykdance is led by US billionaire Larry Ellison’s son David and backed by Redbird Capital Partners, the private equity fund involved in a UAE-backed takeover bid for the Telegraph.

Paramount is best known for its film and TV studios, which have produced Hollywood blockbusters including Top Gun: Maverick - Paramount Pictures

For Redstone, all the talks suggest a tycoon calling time on her empire. The billionaire reportedly wants to spend more time at the new mansion she has built in the Caribbean.

Redstone, whose family changed their name from Rothstein and who is herself a practising Jew, has also stepped up her campaign against anti-Semitism in the wake of Hamas’s attack on Israel.

More fundamentally, though, her potential exit reflects how the shifting sands of streaming have forced traditional Hollywood players to rethink their future.

Paramount is now valued at around $10bn, just a third of what it was worth following its re-merger with CBS in 2019.

The company’s Paramount+ streaming service lost $238m in the third quarter and the group is struggling under the weight of around $14bn in debt, giving it the worst debt-to-equity ratio of any player in the sector. Analysts have raised concerns over Paramount’s financial constraints as a result.

Meanwhile, the group’s traditional – or linear – TV channels are in decline as viewers increasingly shift to streaming. Channels are also heavily exposed to the downturn in the advertising market.

Warner Bros Discovery is grappling with similar difficulties.

It has a huge debt pile of almost $45bn. Its linear assets, which include CNN and Eurosport, are also in decline. The company, led by serial dealmaker David Zaslav, has put All3Media, the British production giant behind Gogglebox and The Traitors, up for sale in an effort to raise cash.

Sumner Redstone died in 2020, aged 97 - Hollywood To You/Star Max

A tie-up would enable the companies to bring together their Max and Paramount+ streaming platforms, providing scale to compete with larger rivals such as Netflix and Disney.

They would also be able to streamline their production and distribution businesses. More radical options could include merging centrist news channels CBS and CNN.

Alice Enders at Enders Analysis says a deal would make “perfect sense from every perspective”. She adds: “I think the real purpose is the case for efficiencies.”

Talks are at an early stage and the plans are not without their challenges. The hefty debt piles of both companies raise questions over whether a deal would come in the form of an amicable merger, or if one side would buy out the other.

Industry observers highlight the timing of these revelations just before Christmas, suggesting discussions are not yet at a serious stage and both Warner Bros and Paramount merely want to sound out shareholders.

But analysts have also questioned whether the pursuit of scale is in itself a sensible strategy amid shifting viewer habits.

“Layering on even more linear TV assets to any of these legacy media companies feels like a financial death sentence,” says Rich Greenfield, an analyst at LightShed Partners.

Any deal between Warner Bros Discovery and Paramount could fire the starting pistol on a long-awaited wave of consolidation in the streaming market.

Many analysts believe the streaming market will eventually ultimately contain just two or three competitors.

As competition heats up and rising interest rates drive up the cost of debt, the likes of Netflix and Disney have hiked prices, launched ad-funded tiers and pulled back content spend in an effort to rekindle growth.

But for smaller players, the options are more limited. “Small isn’t great in a scale business,” says Enders.

Warner Bros’s streaming platform Max is itself the outcome of a tie-up between HBO and Discovery+. Paramount has already merged with Showtime, while Disney recently bought out the remaining stake in Hulu.

Peacock, the US streaming service owned by NBCUniversal, has also been earmarked as a potential takeover target.

Speaking to investors last month, John Malone, the “cable cowboy” behind Liberty Global and an investor in Warner Bros, warned that the industry was headed for a “period of distress”.

“There will be opportunities presented by distress, and companies that have got dry powder or some kind of currency will find synergistic consolidation opportunities in that distress,” he added.

A merger between Warner Bros Discovery and Paramount would arguably mark the biggest shake-up of traditional Hollywood to date.

Regardless of how things play out, Redstone appears to be preparing to bow out.

Sumner, her father, was 92 when he finally relinquished control of his empire. He died in 2020 aged 97. It seems Shari, who battled so hard to gain control, has lost her appetite for the fight.

Enders says: “It’s a ruthless, brutal business.”

UK

Kuwaiti tycoon behind ‘Dartford Disneyland’ declared bankrupt

Luke Barr
23 December 2023

The London Resort theme park was due to be built in Swanscombe, Kent - The London Resort

The Kuwaiti businessman behind a troubled £2.5bn Kent theme park meant to rival Disneyland has been declared bankrupt.

Abdulla Al-Humaidi, who was a key backer of the proposed London Resort development scheme, was confirmed to be insolvent at a High Court hearing last month.

It is the latest twist relating to the “Dartford Disneyland” scheme, which Mr Al-Humaidi previously ran as a director of London Resort Company Holdings.

London Resort, situated near the Thames in Ebbsfleet, was formed 12 years ago to rival the world’s biggest theme parks. However, it has been plagued by setbacks, including the discovery of a rare spider that hampered development efforts.

Earlier this year, it emerged that administrators had been called in to restructure the debt-laden business, which is owned by the Mr Al-Humaidi family through their investment firm Kuwaiti European Holdings.

Mr Al-Humaidi’s investment in the project came after he rescued nearby non-league football team Ebbsfleet United.

He first invested in London Resort in 2013 and four years later was joined on the board by his brother Dherar Al-Humaidi.

When contacted by The Telegraph, Mr Al-Humaidi declined to comment on his bankruptcy but said he had resigned from the London Resort board last year.

He also claimed to no longer have any involvement in the running of Ebbsfleet United.

It is understood that creditors are chasing Mr Al-Humaidi for millions of pounds. Some put money into the London Resort project, which remains unbuilt.

In 2014, the theme park became the first commercial venture to be designated a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project, allowing it to bypass local planning authorities. However, developers have struggled to make progress amid financial difficulties.

Earlier this year, a number of conservation groups wrote to Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove calling for the planning permission to be revoked because of the “devastating” impact on wildlife.

US media giant Paramount Global has also been caught up in the project’s woes after it partnered with London Resort.

Paramount agreed that developers could build roller coasters at the London Resort inspired by The Godfather and Mission Impossible under a deal struck four years ago.

However, Paramount has since launched a legal battle to reclaim £13.5m in unpaid fees.

London Resort was contacted for comment.

The relentless march of progress

PROLOUGE

Noelle Swan

Christian Science Monitor
22 December 2023·

For many, 2023 was a disquieting year, marked by war, natural disaster, and political turmoil. And yet, in this week's cover story, former Monitor Editor Marshall Ingwerson takes a decidedly different view.

Rather than dwell on the play-by-play of suffering in 2023, Marshall challenges readers to widen their view and consider the relentless march of progress that has also unfolded, not just in the past year, but throughout all of human history. In essence, the story is a reminder of just how far humanity has come.

By practically every measure – from health care and the environment to economic security and global inequality – people's lives have steadily improved over time, as Marshall outlines in detail. That progress is rarely linear, of course: New challenges and horrors seem to arise at just as steady a clip. But neither truth negates the other.

"There are people threatened with bloody violence right now in Gaza and in Ukraine. And for the people who are in the middle of it, that’s as bad as it’s ever been," he says. "But we can also note that there has been a lot less of that [warfare] than there has been throughout history. We should look at why that is and what has worked and brought that about, and build on it."

Marshall started tracking progress in earnest during his tenure at the Monitor. He began giving talks to groups such as the League of Women Voters about the valuable lessons waiting to be gleaned from the victories of the past.

Take climate change. While humanity has never faced a challenge of this scale before, it has successfully confronted problems that are "similar in kind if not in degree," Marshall says.

"I was a distance runner in Southern California back in high school in the 1970s," he says. "In the fall, we would regularly have practice canceled because the air was unsafe. This happened more than 100 times a year, every year, in the Los Angeles Basin throughout the '50s, '60s, and '70s."

Since then, clean air regulations have largely cleared LA's infamous smog. Similarly, the once-catastrophic hole in the ozone layer is expected to fully heal within just a few decades, due to concerted global efforts to eliminate the use of ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons.

Both of these challenges "required sacrifice in terms of new cleaner technology, and it turned out it didn’t kill the economy like many people thought it would," Marshall says. "There are a lot of successes in the past that we can draw from – and we are going to have to draw from them."

While some believe that change can only be inspired by fear and discomfort, Marshall argues that persistence and hope are the true drivers of progress.

"Civilization is a collective learning," Marshall says. "And we’re figuring things out and getting better as we go.

LONG READ

Pessimism or progress: What did you see in 2023?

Marshall Ingwerson

Christian Science Monitor
22 December 2023·



In the sweep of history, what kind of a moment was 2023?

The year will no doubt be remembered for the grisly Hamas attack of Oct. 7 and the violence it unleashed.

But this was also the explosive first year of artificial intelligence surging into households and workplaces, hyperenergizing the race toward what may soon become one of the most powerful tools in human history – with all the existential fear and immense promise that implies.


On climate change, this was the year that China, easily the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, expanded its solar power capacity on such a historic scale as to keep prospects alive, if barely, for holding global warming within a relatively manageable 1.5 degrees Celsius.

This was the year that the accelerating global drop in extreme poverty – which has plunged by more than two-thirds since 2000 – resumed after its pandemic pause.

And this was the year of the recession that never came, despite always being forecast as just a few months away.

For most of us, 2023 was not the year we expected, or dreaded.

In the United States, we started the year with so little confidence in the economy that Gallup analysts called it “among the worst readings since the Great Recession.” Most Americans expected rising joblessness, high inflation, higher taxes, and a falling stock market. They weren’t crazy. In January, a Wall Street Journal survey of economists found 61% forecasting a recession for 2023.

Most Americans and all those economists, of course, were wrong.

Joblessness remains solidly in the zone that economists call “full employment,” meaning essentially that people who want a job can find one. From autoworkers to Hollywood screenwriters to hotel cleaning staff, employees have gained leverage. Even those managers who just want their now-remote workers to show up at the office a few days a week are often forced to back down. Inflation – though still above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target – is close to normal. We can’t know where the stock market will be by the time you’re reading this, but the S&P 500 neared the end of the year up more than 25%.

Yet in a recent Gallup survey, only 1 in 5 Americans gave the economy a positive rating. As markets writer Matt Phillips put it in an Axios newsletter in November, “Psychologically, America is experiencing a recession that doesn’t actually exist.”

Never have so many had so much, in relative peace and safety – and been so unsettled about it.

Why the unease? Some of the leading conjectures are these:

•The aftershocks of the pandemic: About 7 million deaths globally were attributed to COVID-19, and there were possibly as many as 20 million. It upended schooling, work patterns, and businesses, while carving new divisions over civil rights, public safety, fairness, and trust in government.

“It had a lot of knock-on effects,” says Angus Hervey, a political economist and editor of the Future Crunch newsletter. The world is still working back from them. “Globally, we’re still numb.”

•Media tribalism: People are increasingly able to curate and inhabit their own realities digitally, and that often includes a negative view of those outside their bubbles. In the hyperpartisan U.S., many media and political players make a living from riling people up – focusing on threats to their values rather than on trust-building, common ground, or progress.

•The pace of change: For many people, in many parts of the world, social change has just been too much, too fast. New attitudes toward gender, the computerizing of jobs, the shifting mixes of ethnicities and cultures through immigration – all keep unsettling the familiar and can create insecurity.

“Things are just changing too fast for people to be comfortable with,” says global opinion expert Bobby Duffy, now a professor at King’s College London.

•Rising expectations: As Zachary Karabell, a historian, investor, and founder of The Progress Network, puts it, “Never have so many people felt they have the right to be heard and lead a good life and have their needs respected.”

That, of course, is not in itself a bad thing. But it’s a yardstick by which it can be hard for reality to measure up.

As 2024 dawns, the world faces daunting dangers. But most of them – from climate disaster to rogue artificial intelligence – are complications arising from the enormous, sweeping progress the world has made in the human condition. As we face the hard work ahead, we can perhaps draw confidence from the great distance we’ve already traveled.

Here is a review of the state of progress on some major fronts.
The economy and standards of living

Global wealth is rising again after a pandemic dip. The recovery is across the board, but even stronger in poor and middle-income countries than in rich ones.

“The global economy has outperformed even our optimistic expectations in 2023,” summed up Goldman Sachs analysts in a November report.

The positive transformation of billions of lives over the past generation has been enormous and unprecedented in the history of humankind. The explosion of prosperity in China is familiar to many. But it’s a much broader story.

Bangladesh, for example, was the third-poorest country in the world 50 years ago – the flood-soaked endpoint for India’s largest rivers. It has now surpassed upwardly mobile India itself in income per capita and is projected to graduate out of the United Nations’ “least developed countries” status in the next two or three years. Economic confidence there is relatively high.

Since the turn of this century, the wealth of the world’s median family has grown fivefold. Extreme poverty – defined by the World Bank as living on less than the equivalent of $2.15 per day – was the lot of most people up to 1955. By the year 2000, it had dropped to 29.3% of the world population, and the plunge was accelerating – to 8.4% in 2019. The next year, at the height of the pandemic, the rate jogged upward for the first time in decades to 9.3%. In 2023, it headed down again to about 8.6%.

Meanwhile, the net worth of the median American family grew 37% from pre-pandemic 2019 to post-pandemic 2022, after discounting for inflation, according to Federal Reserve Bank surveys. For poorer households, the rising value of their vehicles accounted for the bulk of their assets, but still, wealth grew more for poorer and middle-income families than for richer ones.

Soaring post-pandemic inflation is quickly losing altitude. Thanksgiving dinner this year actually cost less than in 2022. So did a tank of gas. Wages have pulled ahead of inflation, especially for lower-income workers.

Housing is still stuck at the worst level of affordability since the Reagan years (when it was far worse). For most Americans, about two-thirds of whom are already homeowners, affordability is not a problem until they need a new mortgage. But the national median rent has risen 22.5% since the pandemic began, to about $2,000 per month. It leveled out in 2023, letting incomes catch up a bit. But about half of all renters still spend more than 30% of their income on rent.

While Americans give their economy dismal ratings, that’s not how they behave. They keep spending briskly. (When people are worried, they save.) And even as households run up credit card bills, the share that have debt in collection is at a historic low.

Americans also believe by 2 to 1 that each generation is faring worse than its parents. Here again the numbers say otherwise. Some 73% of Americans in their 40s have higher incomes than their parents did at the same age, adjusted for inflation, according to a Federal Reserve Bank of New York study. By comparison, in 1979 that figure was 57%. Similarly, University of Central Arkansas economist Jeremy Horpedahl has found that the net worth of millennials, mostly in their 30s, is about the same as it was for baby boomers at the same age. Gen Xers, in their 40s and 50s, have actually done somewhat better than the boomers at their age.

But this is all in the rearview mirror. Looking forward, 2023 was the year millions of people first used a generative AI program (such as ChatGPT), the next great platform for economic productivity. Though too soon to assess its impact, AI has the potential to become as powerful a change agent as the internal combustion engine, mass manufacturing, electricity, and computing itself, says Jason Crawford, a technology historian and founder of The Roots of Progress. “In the most extreme scenario, which I still think is pretty speculative but not impossible, it is the next big thing in human history – after agriculture and the Industrial Revolution.”

Such a powerful tool also raises civilization-scale fears about what could go wrong. But promise and peril both, this brave new world is coming fast.
Inequality in America and the world

The world has become dramatically more equal in recent decades. On measures like life expectancy at birth, average years of schooling, daily calorie intake, and access to the internet, the differences between countries have narrowed. A Cato Institute study looking at eight such quality-of-life measures found that overall inequality between countries had closed by about half in less than 30 years.

The pandemic was a setback, as it hit the economies of poor countries harder than richer ones. But the emergence from the pandemic has also been stronger in poor countries, according to a report by the Swiss bank UBS. So the longer trend is moving back toward its lifting-all-boats course.

In the U.S., on the other hand, inequality has risen significantly since the 1970s – with the concentration of wealth in the top 1% nearing the extremes of the Roaring ’20s.

But inequality appears to have topped out around the Great Recession in 2008. When taxes and government aid are figured in to get a more accurate view of actual household incomes, a Congressional Budget Office study found that the Gini index, the most common measure of income inequality, actually dropped about 5% from 2007 to 2019. And coming out of the pandemic, wage gains by lower-income workers have accelerated that trend. A 2023 National Bureau of Economic Research report found that higher pay has cut the soaring inequality that developed over the previous four decades by 38%, and in just three years.

Earlier this year, the gap between white and Black employment rates reached a historic low. This came a few months after the gap between white and Hispanic rates also reached a historic low. A U.S. Treasury report called the recovery the “most equitable in recent history.”

Homeownership is still highly unequal between races, however. While 74.5% of white Americans own homes, only 45.5% of Black residents do. But a survey this summer of Generation Z (20-something) first-time homebuyers by the insurance-comparison website The Zebra found that 20.2% were Black, far higher than their 13.6% of the population. This may imply a greater degree of homeownership equity for this rising generation.

Most of the gains in equality both around the world and within the U.S. have come not by making the prosperous less so but by raising the incomes of the rest, especially those who are lowest paid.
Health and safety

The progress in humanity’s health in modern times has been enormous. The most sweeping and inclusive way to track overall health is through changes in life expectancy, which is based on the ages of those who have already died. In 1900, global life expectancy was 32 years. In the U.S., it was 47.3. Today, the global average is 73, many countries have averages into the 80s, and no country in the world, not even Afghanistan, has a life expectancy as low today as America’s in 1900.

The most dramatic gains in the early 20th century were in children surviving past the age of 15 and in mothers surviving childbirth. Much of the later progress has been against tropical diseases like malaria as well as smallpox and polio. It’s also due, especially in the higher-income countries, to the decline in smoking.

Then came the pandemic. It created a dip in life expectancy almost everywhere (hat tip here to no-dip Norway). But by 2022, most of the world was back on the upward path, pushing life expectancy to a new global high.

But not the U.S. American life expectancy peaked a decade ago at 78.8 years. By 2022, it had slid 2.4 years to a 20-year low. It rose again in 2023 to 77.5 years. But why the slippage?

The biggest factors have been the epidemic of opioid addiction (especially fentanyl), the rise in Alzheimer’s cases, and the spike in homicides seen in 2020 after the police murder of George Floyd and during the pandemic.

The direction at least is looking up. Opioid deaths declined slightly in 2022, but no clear trend has emerged. The number of dementia cases has risen as baby boomers age, but studies now show that in North America and Europe, the percentage of people at a given age who develop dementia has been falling about 13% per decade for the past 25 years. And the surge in homicides is fast heading back downward.

In pre-pandemic 2019, the homicide rate in the U.S. was about half the level of the early 1990s. America had become a far safer place – though still not nearly as safe as any other high-income country. The rate shot up 30% during the pandemic, then dropped 6% in 2022, and at the midpoint of 2023 was on track to drop another 7% to 10%. The latter would be the biggest one-year drop ever.

Yet a Gallup poll found that 56% of Americans thought crime had risen in 2022. In fact, over the past 24 years, majorities thought crime was higher in all but four years, while it had actually fallen in all but four of those years.

Furthermore, violence has declined while incarceration rates have moved toward greater racial equity. Black men are still imprisoned at four times the rate of white men, but the disparity used to be much higher. The Sentencing Project found that from 2001 to 2021, the share of Black men in prison fell by 48%, and white men by 27%.

Falling violent crime is a global phenomenon. But in America, there are also signs of an underlying civility growing in the shadow of rancorous political divides.

An 18-year study of California schools completed in 2023 by a team at UCLA found that in the state’s public schools, fights and weapons-carrying were down dramatically, especially among Black and Latino youth. Students report greater connection, comfort, and what the report calls “belongingness.” And beyond California, despite the fear levels driven by high-profile campus shootings, every available measurement shows American schools to be far safer than they have been in decades.
Environment

The average global temperature has already risen at least 1.2 degrees Celsius since preindustrial times. Sea level is 8 to 9 inches higher than in 1880. The 12 months through this past October were the hottest year, globally, on record. The 10 hottest-ever summers have happened since 2010.

These are signs of our climate-challenged times. But so are the following.

China expanded its solar power output so massively in 2023 as to “all but guarantee” its emissions will go down in 2024 and beyond, according to an analysis by the website Carbon Brief. The country huffs out a quarter of the world’s greenhouse gases but also accounts for about half of the world’s clean energy investment. It now looks to hit its ambitious goal of producing 1,200 gigawatts of clean energy by 2030 – five years early. And if 2023 is indeed China’s peak year for emissions, it’s arriving seven years ahead of its declared target.

In fact, the whole world is toeing the edge of peak emissions. Global emissions would have dropped in 2023 except for the widespread droughts that slowed hydropower output, according to the energy think tank Ember. Most of the countries already past peak have reduced emissions even as electricity demand has grown.

The world’s current path is toward a high-impact total temperature rise between 2.5 and 2.9 degrees Celsius by the end of this century, the latest United Nations report says. This is down from a 3-degree Celsius rise forecast in 2015. A recent International Energy Agency report says the path to holding it to a modest 1.5 degrees Celsius is “very difficult – but remains open.”

Diplomats achieved a symbolic breakthrough at the U.N. climate summit in December, where nearly 200 nations agreed for the first time to “transitioning away from fossil fuels” in a “just, orderly, and equitable manner.” It’s easier said than done, of course, but this was an important step in articulating a shared global goal.
Democracy

Americans don’t like the quality of their hyperpartisan, deeply divisive political life. And they attach high stakes to it. Majorities in both parties see their individual rights, their values, and democracy itself under attack.

The good news: Surveys still show Americans’ long-standing confidence in local government running strong.

But it falls off sharply from there. A Pew Research Center study this fall found overall trust in government at its lowest levels in nearly 70 years. For the first time ever, a majority now sees the U.S. Supreme Court unfavorably. The share that holds negative views of both political parties has risen to 28%.

Here’s an oddly hopeful note: One of Americans’ top concerns, and one of very few that show complete partisan unity, is the inability of Republicans and Democrats to work together. People still want the relationship to work.

It’s not, as yet, getting better. A Gallup study in the fall found that differences between Democrats and Republicans on each of 24 issues had either widened or stayed the same over the past decade.

But on 17 of those issues, opinion in both parties was moving in the same direction even when the gap widened. For example, Democrats are far more supportive of stricter gun laws than Republicans are, but support for such laws in both parties is higher than it was 10 years ago. Also, Republican majorities now back the legalization of marijuana and same-sex marriage, which Democrats have long favored. And Democrats have shifted slightly toward the Republican position on the unfairness of taxes, while Republicans have moved even further in that direction.

In the U.S. over the past 20 to 30 years, political affiliation has become an increasingly central, emotionally charged tribal marker. But on policy issues, says political philosophy professor Robert Talisse at Vanderbilt University, “rank-and-file citizens are no more divided than ever.”

“It’s more like being a Mets or a Yankees fan,” he adds.

For many, the concern is less the direction of change than the speed of change – cultural, demographic, climatic, and economic. On the right, it’s too far, too fast. The left feels it shouldn’t wait any longer. This is a global phenomenon.

These debates are amped up by real or perceived insecurity when people feel threatened. “There is also agency here, where media and political actors can increase this sense of tension through focusing on differences and tribal identities, in stoking a culture war,” says Dr. Duffy of King’s College.

There are better ways to have these conversations. None have yet found traction in the U.S., but so-called deliberative reform is popular in northern Europe and Canada. Ireland created its first Citizens’ Assembly in 2016, choosing 100 people at random, like a jury, to make recommendations on Ireland’s constitutional ban on abortions. The assembly heard a wide range of testimony and recommended new abortion policies, beginning with removing the ban. The referendum on the latter passed by 66.4% of the vote. Since then, four other assemblies on controversial issues have been held, and 87 of the 128 recommendations of the first four assemblies have been all or partly adopted by Irish governments.

A 2022 survey by The Irish Times found that 80% of the Irish population trusts the assemblies to make good decisions. Versions of the Irish model are being adapted in countries from Belgium to South Korea.

“People are not unwilling to look at information and consider the issues,” says Dr. Duffy. “They will listen and they will adapt.”

But we don’t see each other that way these days.
How far we’ve come

“The social fabric appears to be unravelling: civility seems like an old-fashioned habit, honesty like an optional exercise and trust like the relic of another time.”

That sentence may seem to capture the tenor of the times. But it was written 2,000 years ago in Rome. It opens a recent study by social scientists from Columbia and Harvard universities of the perception of moral decline across 60 countries over at least 70 years. Researchers found that people in every country and in every decade believed moral and ethical behavior started worsening roughly around the time they were born.

The study’s conclusion: They are “almost certainly mistaken.”

The past year has seen much tragedy in Ukraine, Israel, Gaza, Ethiopia, Yemen, and beyond. Some of the dangers ahead are potentially massive in scale. Progress, like all learning, has come in leaps and pauses and some stumbles back. But as we’ve gained ground, our expectations have moved ahead with us. As they keep rising, it’s easy to lose sight of how far we’ve come.

Marshall Ingwerson is the former editor of the Monitor and founder of The What Works Initiative.

 csmonitor.com

Nike to axe jobs in $2bn cost-cutting drive

Daniel Woolfson
22 December 2023·

People walk past a Nike store

Nike is poised to shed swathes of jobs in an effort to cut $2bn (£1.6bn) of costs amid weak sales at the sportswear giant.

The Oregon-headquartered company said it was “taking steps to streamline the organisation” that would lead to as much as $450m (£353m) in employee severance costs.

Nike did not specify how many jobs would be affected by the cost-cutting drive. The last time it made large-scale layoffs, in 2020, it sacked 700 people.


It comes as Nike cut its sales forecasts amid weakening demand from consumers. It reported a 1pc rise in revenues over the three months to Nov 30.

Nike’s shares plunged by more than 14pc in pre-market trading as investors flinched at the prospect of softer demand. Shares in fellow sportswear brands JD Sports and Adidas have also fallen following Nike’s announcement, dropping by 4.7pc and 5.5pc respectively on Friday.

The cost-cutting drive also involves Nike simplifying its range of products and ramping up automation across its business.

Nike said money saved would be used “to fuel future growth, accelerate innovation at speed and scale, and drive greater long-term profitability”.

Nike’s £45 pair of baby trainers were criticised as ‘unnecessary’

While sales rose in China, that growth was offset by declines in the US and Europe, Nike said.

Matthew Friend, the chief financial officer, said: “Nike’s second-quarter financial performance was a turning point in driving more profitable growth.

“As we look ahead to a softer second-half revenue outlook, we remain focused on strong gross margin execution and disciplined cost management.”

News that Nike plans to simplify the range of products it sells comes after the company was criticised for making a £45 pair of baby trainers, the launch of which was met with derision on social media by users who branded them “unnecessary”.

The company has also been locked in a battle with rival Adidas to create so-called “super shoes” that are super light and have been reported to save athletes’ energy.

The introduction of these shoes into professional sports and athletics has sparked debate over whether rapid product development has devalued world records.

Nike was approached for further comment.

Health alert after parrot fever infects humans in Sweden


Lilia Sebouai
22 December 2023

Parakeets, the UK’s only wild species of parrot and a popular household pet, could pose a particular threat - iStockphoto

Parrot fever is surging in Sweden, with 12 people infected this month alone, amid concerns that the outbreak could escalate.

The flu-like disease – spread by wild birds including parakeets, of which there are many in Britain – can lead to severe pneumonia and meningitis in humans.

Since September, 25 cases have been reported in Sweden, with 12 this month alone. Infections have been recorded in eight regions across the country, with most cases from Västra Götaland and Kalmar, according to Folkhälsomyndigheten, Sweden’s Public Health Agency.

The disease mainly jumps from birds to humans via the inhalation of airborne particles from the droppings of infected wild birds. Although spillovers remain fairly rare, recent studies suggest “human to human transmission may be more common than previously thought,” according to Prof Paul Hunter, a professor in Medicine at the University of East Anglia.

A 2022 paper in the Lancet journal called the potential increase “an emerging public health risk to medical workers and other close contacts”.

“Sweden has seen a marked increase in reports of psittacosis since 2016,” Prof Hunter said. “The Swedes are not sure of the cause but suspect it may be due, in part, to new diagnostic test panels that now include the disease whereas previously the test was mainly only done when the requesting doctor specifically asked for it”.
Fears for pregnant women

Parrot fever, better known as psittacosis, is an acute respiratory disease caused by a bacteria called Chlamydophila psittaci. It typically causes flu-like symptoms, but can lead to severe pneumonia and meningitis in humans and has up to 90 per cent chance of killing young birds.

Where psittacosis during pregnancy is rare, it can cause substantial maternal and foetal death. A 2020 study showed an 80 per cent risk of foetal mortality, and an eight per cent risk to maternal mortality, due to gestational psittacosis.

There was an unexpected increase in infections in southern Sweden earlier this year, where more than half the infections, 28 out of 45 cases, were reportedly caused by handling of poultry, caged birds or bird feeders, according to the Department of Epidemiology and Disease Control in Sweden.

“People who live with birds in the house or work with poultry are at an increased risk, especially if the workplace is poorly ventilated, or if not using PPE when cleaning out cages,” said Professor John Tregoning, a professor of Vaccine Immunology at Imperial College London.

The pathogen has infected people in Britain, with between 25 and 50 cases confirmed in England and Wales each year, according to the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA).
Invasion of ‘posh pigeons’

Parakeets, the UK’s only wild species of parrot and a popular household pet, could pose a particular threat due to the vast numbers across the country.

Since arriving in the last century feral parakeets have become Britain’s fastest spreading bird. Between 1995 and 2015, their population rocketed by 1,455 per cent, with total numbers of the bright green bird now believed to be around 50,000.

Concerns have been raised by scientists about rising numbers of rose-ringed parakeets which are largely concentrated in suburban areas, particularly in gardens and parks across leafy south-east England.

The Telegraph reported in 2021 that Defra officials were in discussions about culling “satellite populations” of the bird for the first time, after concerns that they were spreading like “grey squirrels of the sky” across the UK.

The question of how the birds – nicknamed ‘posh pigeons’, they are the UK’s only wild species of parrot and a popular household pet – were first released into the UK has long been a topic of debate.

Urban legend variously suggests that the tropical birds were first released in the UK at the wrap party for the Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn film The African Queen in 1951 and by rockstar Jimi Hendrix, when he let a pair go free on Carnaby Street in 1966.

Nearly 150,000 were imported into Europe as pets between 1984 and 2007, with many people releasing them from captivity.

Half of healthcare workers arriving in UK are from ‘red list’ vulnerable nations


Steven Edginton
22 December 2023

Britain has awarded 106,788 entry visas to healthcare professionals from countries which the World Health Organisation wants to safeguard against recruitment 

- MARTIN PRESCOTT/iSTOCKPHOTO

Half of all foreign healthcare professionals who have arrived in Britain since 2020 came from the “world’s most fragile health systems”, analysis shows.

The Centre for Migration Control (CMC) revealed that in that period the UK has awarded 106,788 entry visas to healthcare professionals from countries described by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as requiring “additional safeguards that limit active international recruitment”.

Findings from the CMC, a new think tank focused on reducing migration, show that since the Skilled Worker and Healthcare visa was introduced at the end of 2020, of the 222,308 visas awarded, 48 per cent were given to individuals from fragile healthcare systems.

There are 55 countries on the WHO’s “health workforce support and safeguards list”, the so-called “red list”.

Last week the Migration Advisory Committee, a government body that advises the Home Office, in its annual report to Parliament warned: “The labour shortages in health and social care sectors in red list countries are in part due to the workforce crisis caused by health and social care workers leaving their home countries.

“[The] Government should consider careful planning within the UK to reduce reliance and consequent negative effects on red list countries.”

In response to the figures, Dr David Bull, the deputy leader of the Reform Party, called for health care workers to be encouraged to return to their home countries.

Dr Bull said: “We should train our own people to work within health and social care, bringing back the nursing bursaries that were cut by the Tories under Cameron and Osborne, whilst encouraging the return of trained personnel to their home countries.

“They will return to help build those countries’ healthcare systems and help to cut the vast numbers of legal migrants and their dependants that are coming to this country in their hundreds of thousands every year.”

“It is a moral disgrace that this country is strip mining human resources from the poorest and most needy countries in the world, while we have 770,000 under 25 not in employment, education or training amongst the 8.6 million economically inactive people in Britain.”

As part of its Code of Practice, the Department of Health and Social Care says “health and social care organisations in England do not actively recruit from those countries the World Health Organisation recognise as having the most pressing health and care workforce-related challenges”.

In March, discussing the need for the red list, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO’s director-general, said: “Health workers are the backbone of every health system, and yet 55 countries with some of the world’s most fragile health systems do not have enough and many are losing their health workers to international migration.”

Five of the top seven countries of origin for healthcare workers arriving in the UK on a visa from late 2020 are on the list of vulnerable nations.
‘Giving with one hand’

Visas were given to 38,003 people from Nigeria, 24,976 from Zimbabwe, 15,391 from Ghana, 10,054 from Pakistan and 8,135 from Bangladesh, all of which are on the red list.

Robert Bates, research director at the Centre for Migration Control, said: “Every year the British Government spends hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ money to develop the healthcare systems of the world’s poorest nations. These figures show that they are giving with one hand and taking with the other, whilst running roughshod over their own code of practice.

“There is simply no need for the UK to be reliant on foreign healthcare professionals. Every year thousands of young Brits are turned away from studying medicine and healthcare, rather than being trained up to work in the NHS, as important studies by Migration Watch have shown.”

“Doctors and nurses from Zimbabwe and Bangladesh should be strengthening the domestic capacity of their own nation, not plugging gaps caused by UK underfunding. We need to adopt a model that ensures the world’s most vulnerable healthcare systems are able to retain and re-attract their own domestically trained professionals.”

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: “A record number of domestically-trained nurses joined the NHS in the first half of this year – and that number is increasing, alongside continued international recruitment of talented and dedicated nurses from across the world.

“The NHS Long Term Workforce Plan – backed by more than £2.4 billion – will significantly expand domestic education, training and recruitment and deliver more healthcare professionals than ever before.

“All international recruitment of health and care workers must be done ethically. This is why we do not actively recruit from the countries the WHO recognises as having the most pressing workforce challenges.”

POSTFORDISM

Chinese EV automaker BYD to build car factory in Hungary

AFP
22 December 2023·

A worker cleans the company logo of Chinese carmaker BYD at their booth before the official launch of the International Motor Show (IAA) in the center of Munich, southern Germany, on September 4, 2023 (Tobias SCHWARZ)

China's top electric automaker BYD will build a car factory in Hungary, the company said Friday, as it pushes forward with plans for expansion into Europe despite growing concerns around fair competition.

BYD Europe said the factory in the southern city of Szeged would mark "a significant step toward green mobility in Europe" as it made the announcement on X, formerly Twitter.

Earlier this year, the firm became the first global manufacturer to pass the five million milestone in electric vehicle (EV) production, crowning itself "the world's leading manufacturer of new energy vehicles and power batteries".

The growing success of Chinese EV firms in foreign markets has started to draw scrutiny, however.

In China, the EV sector has benefited from decades of subsidies issued by Beijing in related tech fields.

The European Union this year announced an investigation into these subsidies, citing unfair competition.

But Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's longstanding policy to "look East" has seen Asian businesses offered lucrative tax breaks, infrastructure and job creation subsidies to lure them to his country.

The factory "will be one of the largest investments in the history of the Hungarian economy", Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said in a statement, without giving a specific figure.

BYD already has operations in Hungary, including an electric bus factory.

With the new car factory, the company "hopes to accelerate the entry of new energy passenger vehicles into the European market, further deepen (the firm's) global layout, and actively promote the green transformation of the global energy structure", it said on Chinese social media.

The plant will be constructed in phases and is expected to create thousands of local jobs, BYD said.

Hungary is set to become a major producer of EV batteries -- second in Europe after Germany -- with a huge factory also planned by Chinese group CATL.

Originally specialising in battery production, BYD moved into the automotive sector in 2003 and has since become a heavyweight in EV production.

It still faces stiff competition from several local brands -- including XPeng, Nio and Geely -- but still announced a record quarterly profit in October.

Foreign automotive leaders like Tesla, BMW, Mercedes and Audi depend on BYD for their batteries.

The company ceased production of gasoline-powered cars last year, and is now focusing exclusively on hybrid and electric models.

BYD launched its European offensive in 2022 at the Paris Motor Show, and targets growing sales with its Atto 3 small SUV and its Dolphin hatchback.

tjx-reb/je/dva

New French health minister under fire over undeclared gifts


Par Isabelle CORTES et Laurent BARTHELEMY
22 December 2023·

Mediapart broke the story on Firmin Le Bodo a day after her appointment as interim health minister (Ludovic MARIN)

France's new interim health minister was caught in a row Friday over accusations she failed to declare gifts sent her as a professional pharmacist.

Investigative website Mediapart reported that pharmaceuticals group Urgo had sent Agnes Firmin Le Bodo luxury gifts worth more than 20,000 euros, which she had failed to declare.

She had received the gifts, including watches, bottles of wine and magnums of champagne, between 2015 and 2020 at her offices in the northern port of Le Havre, Mediapart added.

Firmin Le Bodo was only appointed to her ministerial post on Wednesday.

On Friday, she confirmed to her local radio station France Bleu Normandie that an investigation was underway. Whatever else she had to say would be to the competent authorities, she added.

The city's prosecutor Bruno Dieudonne, while not identifying the people involved, confirmed to AFP on Thursday that an investigation had been opened following on from the conviction of Urgo laboratories in January.

They were fined 1.125 million euros, a little over half of which was suspended, for having offered pharmacists gifts in exchange for them not offering Urgo products at discounted prices.

Firmin Le Bodo was appointed after health minister Aurelien Rousseau resigned earlier this week in protest at the government's controversial immigration law, which was backed by the far right.

Since the start of French President Emmanuel Macron's second term, the government has lost three health ministers.

lby/jj/pvh

White House urges 'serious scrutiny' of US Steel takeover deal

AFP
22 December 2023·

Nippon and US Steel asked a federal interagency panel to review their proposed $14.1 billion deal following protests on Capitol Hill (Kazuhiro NOGI)

A proposed deal that would see US Steel Corp bought by Japan's Nippon Steel should be closely investigated by American authorities, the White House said Thursday, warning it could have national security implications.

Unveiling the planned transaction this week, the two companies depicted the deal as a marriage of the holders of top technologies that would boost steel output and accelerate efforts toward decarbonization.

But US Steel's possible sale abroad has triggered furious criticism in Washington and from trade unions.

President Joe Biden "believes the purchase of this iconic American-owned company by a foreign entity -- even one from a close ally -- appears to deserve serious scrutiny in terms of its potential impact on national security and supply chain reliability," National Economic Advisor Lael Brainard said in a statement.

The White House's intervention came as the companies asked the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) -- an interagency body established to review foreign takeovers of US firms -- to evaluate Nippon's $14.1 billion acquisition of Pittsburgh-based US Steel.

"We look forward to a successful review," a statement from US Steel's media office said.

"This is a strongly positive development for American steel, American jobs and America's national security," it said.

Brainard said President Biden's administration "will be ready to look carefully at the findings of any such investigation and to act if appropriate."

- 'Outrageous' -

In Tokyo, Japan's Industry Minister Ken Saito said Nippon Steel "needs to respond appropriately to necessary procedures."

Relations between the United States and Japan were "stronger than ever," Saito told reporters, adding he would not comment further because the deal was a matter between the companies.

The combined company vowed to honor contract agreements between US Steel and the United Steelworkers (USW) union.

But the USW ripped the proposed deal as reflective of a "greedy, shortsighted attitude" of US Steel, which dates to 1901, and questioned the ability of Nippon to honor contracts.

USW said late Thursday that it welcomes the US administration's assessment that heightened scrutiny was needed for the announced sale.

"Our union shares many of the concerns expressed in today's White House statement, including how this deal may impact the future of domestic steel production," USW International President David McCall said.

The transaction also drew bipartisan howls on Capitol Hill, with Pennsylvania Democratic Senator John Fetterman calling the deal "absolutely outrageous," adding that "steel is always about security as well."

Ohio Senator JD Vance and two other Republicans asked Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who chairs CFIUS, to block the deal, calling domestic steel production "vital to US national security."

A spokesperson for the Treasury Department declined to comment.

CFIUS is required to complete a review of a transaction within 45 days. The committee can then launch an investigation of up to another 45 days.

The committee can approve the transaction afterward, require mitigation steps to address national security concerns or refer the transaction to the president if it determines the deal should be blocked.

jmb-bys/bgs/sn/pbt

Nippon Steel's $14.1 billion deal for US Steel sparks criticism

AFP

Japan's Nippon Steel has agreed to buy US Steel Corp for $14.1 billion, the company said in a statement

Branden EASTWOOD

Japan's Nippon Steel agreed to buy US Steel Corp for $14.1 billion, the companies announced on Monday, sparking criticism about the firm's ownership in an industry crucial to US national security.

A major US steelworkers' union and a top US politician came out against the Japanese conglomerate's all-cash agreement to acquire the US firm for $55 per share.

The deal price marks a 40 percent premium on US Steel's closing price on Friday and represents an equity value of about $14.1 billion, the companies said in a statement.

Nippon will also assume the US firm's debt, taking the total value of the agreement to $14.9 billion.

The US company's share price finished the trading day up more than 26 percent on Wall Street following the announcement.

- Union, senator slam deal -

While the markets responded positively to the deal, the United Steelworkers (USW) union -- which represents 1.2 million US steelworkers and retirees -- did not.

In a statement, USW International President David McCall said the deal demonstrated "the same greedy, shortsighted attitude that has guided US Steel for far too long."

Neither US Steel nor Nippon "reached out to our union regarding the deal, which is in itself a violation of our partnership agreement that requires US Steel to notify us of a change in control or business conditions," he added.

The US Senator for Pennsylvania John Fetterman, who represents a state with many steel plants, came out against the Nippon deal and vowed to try and block it from going ahead.

"It's absolutely outrageous that they have sold themselves to a foreign nation, and a company," he said in a video posted to X, formerly Twitter.

"Steel is always about security as well," he continued, adding: "I'm going to fight for the steelworkers and their union way of life here."

In a statement, Nippon Steel said it would honor all collective bargaining agreements with USW, as part of a "commitment to maintaining strong stakeholder relations."

US Steel launched a strategic review in August after receiving several unsolicited offers for a partial or total takeover.

It rejected an offer from its main US competitor, Cleveland-Cliffs, which valued the merger at around $10 billion.

USW had indicated it supported the deal put forward by Cleveland-Cliffs.

On Monday, Nippon Steel said the acquisition will significantly expand its current production in the United States to an annual crude steel capacity of 86 million metric tons.

"We are excited that this transaction brings together two companies with world-leading technologies and manufacturing capabilities, demonstrating our mission to serve customers worldwide," Nippon Steel President Eiji Hashimoto said in a statement.

He added that the deal also underscored the firm's "commitment to building a more environmentally friendly society through the decarbonization of steel."

"Today's announcement also benefits the United States -- ensuring a competitive, domestic steel industry, while strengthening our presence globally," US Steel President and CEO David Burritt said.

"Our shared decarbonization focus is expected to enhance and accelerate our ability to provide customers with innovative steel solutions to meet sustainability goals," he added.

US Steel's appeal, according to analysts and industry insiders, stems from the fact it is about to complete a costly investment plan, including the installation of electric arc furnaces instead of coal-fired blast furnaces, to reduce its carbon footprint.

Both boards of directors have unanimously approved the deal, which is subject to approval by US Steel's shareholders, the firms said.

Nippon Steel has some 160,000 workers globally in countries including Japan, India, Brazil, Thailand and Sweden.

The firm has had a presence in the United States for around four decades, and currently employs around 4,000 people -- 620 of which are USW workers.

US Steel, which was founded in 1901 and had almost 23,000 employees at the end of last year, has its manufacturing facilities in the United States and Slovakia.

bur-mtp/pbt/da/nro/caw

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2023/12/japan-us-ties-stronger-than-ever.html

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2023/12/us-steel-nippon-steel-seek-us-security.html