It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Sunday, January 07, 2024
Rebels take key Myanmar city after government troops lay down weapons
Sky News Updated Fri, 5 January 2024
An alliance of rebel groups in Myanmar has taken control of a key city in the north of the country after government forces reportedly laid down their weapons and withdrew.
The Three Brotherhood Alliance took control of the city of Laukkaing, located on the border with China, late on Thursday.
Around 1,000 government troops put down their arms and were allowed to leave, according to local people and independent media accounts.
It is the latest success for the alliance and the biggest in a series of defeats suffered by the government since rebels launched an offensive in October.
The alliance is made up of the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), the Ta'ang National Liberation Army and the Arakan Army.
It is one of the threats faced by Myanmar's military government which is fighting pro-democracy guerrillas and other ethnic minority armed groups across the country.
Armed ethnic groups have fought for greater autonomy on and off for decades, but the country has been in quasi-civil war since the army seized power in February 2021 from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, sparking nationwide armed resistance by pro-democracy forces.
When the alliance launched its offensive, it said it had two purposes - to rid the country of both military rule, or what it called "dictatorship" and destroy the large-scale cyber scam operations run by local warlords, with Chinese backing, especially in Laukkaing.
China has publicly sought to eradicate the criminal industry and tens of thousands of people involved have been repatriated to China in recent weeks.
On Thursday, the regional military command headquarters based in Laukkaing, which had been under virtual siege for months, gave up.
Most of the seven army battalions believed to have been under its command, had collapsed in fighting in recent weeks.
A Laukkaing resident who lives nearby told The Associated Press the headquarters had fallen into MNDAA hands after the soldiers stationed there laid down their weapons.
Speaking on the condition of anonymity, he said its soldiers in the city had already surrendered and been allowed to leave the city on military trucks since Thursday evening.
Independent online Myanmar news outlets, including Khit Thit Media and Myanmar Now, reported similar details.
Laukkaing is the capital of Kokang Self-Administered Zone, geographically part of northern Shan state.
The MNDAA is a military force of the Kokang minority, who are ethnic Chinese.
Peng Deren, the MNDAA commander, said in a New Year's speech published by The Kokang, an affiliated online media site, that the alliance had seized more than 250 military targets, five border crossings with China and arrested about 1,000 prisoners of war.
He said more than 300 cyber scam centres were raided and more than 40,000 Chinese involved in cyber crimes were repatriated to their country.
COMMODITY FETISH Rare 70s Star Wars Jawa figurine expected to fetch at least £15,000 at auction Sky News Fri, 5 January 2024
A rare Star Wars figurine dating back to the 70s is expected to fetch at least £15,000 after its owner found it in his loft.
The model is a 1978 Jawa designed by the now-defunct British toy company Palitoy, which used to make Action Man, Pippa doll and Merlin products.
It was found by the owner, who has remained anonymous, as he was unpacking various film memorabilia stored around his house.
The owner was Marvel UK's art director in the 70s and received a host of gifts from Palitoy during the promotion of Star Wars in Marvel's comics.
There are only 10 to 15 figurines of this kind to be documented, and this one is more special as it is in "exceptional condition" and decorated with the original vinyl cape - later substituted with a cloth cape not long into production.
The owner previously came across another Jawa figure which sold at auction for £26,670 smashing its auction estimate of £10,000 - £15,000.
This Jawa carries the same estimate but is expected to exceed that sum again.
Jonathan Torode, Excalibur's Auctioneer said they were "thrilled" to be part of the sale of one of the rarest Star Wars figures.
Owing to the success of the last original figure, he said people all over the world searched to find one in their homes but he never expected another to come from the same source.
Mr Torode added: "I feel utterly spoilt being able to handle another such rare part of Star Wars toy history."
With their cloaked faces, the Jawas' identities remain hidden, but they are renowned scavengers who scour the deserts of Tatooine for scraps to sell to the local residents.
They notoriously kidnapped the loveable droid R2-D2 in the 1977 Star Wars movie, A New Hope.
Enthusiasts will get a chance to bid for the figurine on 27 January at Excalibur Auctions.
Global maritime trade sails into geopolitical storm
Antoine GUY Fri, 5 January 2024 A number of factors have been pushing up shipping costs, including traffic backing up at the Panama Canal due to low water levels (Luis ACOSTA)
International maritime trade has hit stormy waters as attacks by Yemen's Huthi rebels on ships in the Red Sea has reduced the availability of ships, causing freight rates to surge.
Most large international shipping companies have decided to reroute trading to avoid the Red Sea and Suez Canal through which 12 percent of world trade usually passes.
The Huthis say the strikes are in solidarity with Palestinians in war-ravaged Gaza, which Israel has bombarded relentlessly for three months, in what it says is a campaign to destroy militant group Hamas.
Danish shipping giant Maersk said Friday that it would divert all vessels around Africa instead of using the Red Sea and Suez Canal for the "foreseeable future" after Yemeni rebels attacked its merchant ships.
Vessels are circumnavigating Africa via the Cape of Good Hope, which extends the journey between Asia and Europe by 10 to 20 days on average, according to Arthur Barillas, general manager of Ovrsea, a freight organiser.
Shipping companies have already announced significant price increases to cover the costs associated with the detour.
French shipping group CMA CGM has doubled the price of a 40-foot container between Asia and the Mediterranean to $6,000.
Italian-Swiss peer and sector leader MSC has hiked its prices to $5,900 from $2,900 for the same offering.
The United States says there have been more than 20 Red Sea attacks by Huthi rebels since October 19.
- Chinese New Year -
The industry is suffering from a shortage of containers in Asia owing to longer journey times, causing a headache ahead of the Chinese New Year next month.
"There is a real influx (of goods) from Asia," said Barillas.
In the runup to the Chinese New Year on February 10, "all the ships are full", causing freight rates to rise, he added.
Customers are rushing to have their goods shipped before the celebrations bring China, the world's biggest exporter, to a week-long standstill.
A benchmark indicator for measuring the freight tariff rate of goods transported from China -- the Shanghai Containerized Freight Index -- has almost doubled in a few weeks.
Such a sudden increase is reminiscent of what occurred during the Covid pandemic, when freight rates reached unprecedented heights on disruptions to supply chains.
"Many people, they focus on the spot rate. And yes, it has doubled. And, of course, it speaks about how desperate the situation is," Niels Rasmussen, chief shipping analyst at BIMCO, told AFP.
He added, however, that some shippers would have negotiated better deals.
"If you look at the average rate for everything out of China through most of Europe and the Mediterranean, the increase is 15 percent to 20 percent," said Rasmussen.
- Taiwan elections -
Attacks in the Red Sea are not the only ones disrupting international trade. The worst drought in decades to hit the Panama Canal has forced authorities to slow transits.
A potential further hazard could be the outcome of presidential elections in Taiwan due January 13, should it lead to another crisis with China, according to analysts.
However, "even with the threat of some congestion and equipment shortages, carriers are much better-positioned to accommodate operationally for these diversions when compared to the disruptions seen during the pandemic", Israeli freight reservation and payment platform, Freightos, said in a weekly note to clients.
Shipping companies have used recent huge profits to order hundreds of new ships which are beginning to be delivered.
agu-emb/bcp/rl
Tesla slashes electric car range amid claims it exaggerated mileage
James Titcomb Fri, 5 January 2024 Tesla says it has received legal requests from the Department of Justice over issues including vehicle range
Tesla has cut back claims about how far its electric cars can travel as it faces scrutiny from the US government.
Elon Musk’s company has reduced the estimated range of several cars on its US website by as much as 37 miles.
Tesla, which was this week overtaken by China’s BYD as the world’s best-selling electric car manufacturer, did not give a reason for the adjustment.
Tesla updated its website to say that its Model Y Performance vehicle has a range of 285 miles, down from its previous 303-mile claim. Meanwhile, the Long Range model has been cut from 330 miles to 310.
One version of its luxury Model S car has seen its estimated range reduced from 396 miles to 359 miles.
In October, Tesla said it had received legal requests from the Department of Justice over issues including vehicle range.
Tesla did not publicly say why it had changed the range estimates. According to internal company documents reviewed by the Drive Tesla website, the changes are in response to new testing conditions from US regulators, and “comfort and functionality improvements” that require more energy from the battery.
Tesla has faced questions over its cars’ ranges, a key selling point for electric vehicles as their manufacturers seek to avoid the “range anxiety” that deters many drivers.
An investigation by the Reuters news agency last year claimed that Tesla often exaggerated ranges to attract drivers, while the US organisation Consumer Reports found that Tesla cars were among those whose ranges fell short of what was claimed.
Tesla owners have sued the company in the US over false advertising related to the range claims. The company has responded to the lawsuits, calling the Reuters investigation “error-ridden” and the lawsuits “legally untenable”.
Tesla has not reduced its range claims in other countries, such as the UK, which uses a different testing regime.
A regulator in China said Tesla would make the changes through a software update issued to the vehicles. It covers almost every Tesla vehicle sold in China since 2014.
It comes the month after Tesla was forced to update its Autopilot system to more than 2m cars in the US. The company has not been required to make any changes in the UK.
Regulators have launched investigations into Autopilot after dozens of crashes, some of them fatal, in which the technology was activated.
The system warns drivers that they should have their hands on the wheel and pay attention to the road when it is activated, but Mr Musk has been criticised for over-stating the cars’ ability to drive themselves.
This week, China’s BYD surpassed Tesla as the world’s best-selling electric car maker, after selling 526,409 cars in the fourth quarter of 2023 against Tesla’s 484,507.
Dog’s sit-down protest on Scafell Pike forces mountain rescue to save the day
Telegraph reporters Fri, 5 January 2024 Dexter knows his own mind and made his owners and the rescue team well aware that he had no plans on moving an inch
Mountain rescuers were called out when a tired 6st (40kg) dog staged a sit-down protest on England’s highest peak.
Dexter, a Dobermann/Belgian Malinois cross, had been walking up Scafell Pike in the Lake District with his owners when, close to the summit, he decided he had climbed far enough.
The dog sat down and refused all attempts to coax him into carrying on with the walk.
As darkness started to descend and with the walkers failing to check in with loved-ones, family members had no option but to call in mountain rescuers, who trekked up the 978M (3208ft) peak at 11.30pm on Tuesday.
As the rescuers approached they were able to locate the stricken climbers because Dexter began to bark and howl when he heard their approach.
But when no amount of coaxing, pushing and pulling could persuade him to leave his perch, the eight members of the rescue team were forced to camp out on the mountain with the dog and its owners and hope for better luck at daybreak.
His owners were well equipped for spending a night outdoors but rescuers also erected bivvy shelters to protect from the wind and cold.
To the team’s relief, Dexter overcame his stubbornness the following morning and was led down the hill on a 50m rope.
Dexter's stubborn streak forced his owners and the rescuers to camp overnight on the mountain before being coaxed down at daybreak - Kevin Donald
A spokesman for Wasdale Mountain Rescue Team said: “Due to the weather conditions, and potential for hypothermia, a full callout was made and additional support from Duddon and Furness Mountain Rescue Team and Lake District Search Dogs.
“After searches of several areas, the team assigned to Hollow Stones heard barking and howling and spotted a light high on Scafell.
“The walkers were uninjured, cold, and had not wanted to leave their dog on the fell.
“They were equipped well enough to spend an unplanned night on the fell, and we found that Dexter was trained to bark and howl, thus initially attracting our attention.
“Other rescuers harnessed the energy to make the hard pull up to their location but no amount of encouragement could make Dexter move downhill.
“The agreed course of action was to wait for daylight and hope that he regained his confidence to move downhill with better visibility. As such, bivvy shelters were deployed for all, and a long ‘paws’ ensued.
“After a ‘woof’ night, as dawn broke, further attempts were made but Dexter stood fast. As hope was fading a last ditch attempt was made with a 50m rope lead and he was gently encouraged downhill.
“Thankfully once he started moving there were no further problems and a brisk, boisterous and friendly walk with Dexter was then made back to Brackenclose.”
The rescuers - seen here with Dexter - look happy despite the night spent on the mountain - Kevin Donald
Sara Kelly, the mother of Dexter’s owner, thanked the rescuers.
She said: “This was my son and dog. They have climbed all of the local mountains as far as Ben Nevis together without any issues. Something just spooked him this time.
“We knew something was wrong when they didn’t check in as planned. We called the police and the team were there in no time. We cannot thank you all enough.”
BEST DAVID SOUL OBIT
David Soul, Stephen King and the terrifying power of Salem’s Lot
Alexander Larman Fri, 5 January 2024 David Soul in Salem's Lot - Alamy
The actor and singer David Soul, who has died at the age of 80, will best be remembered for his iconic performance as the detective Kenneth ‘Hutch’ Hutchinson in the ever-popular TV series Starsky and Hutch. Soul tended to be associated with roles that played on his apparently straight-arrow persona honed in the show, which, as time went by, he tended to play up to for comic effect. The highest-profile parts that he took in later years, unsurprisingly, were self-parodying cameos in everything from the Irvine Welsh adaptation Filth to the likes of Little Britain and Holby City on British television.
Soul’s twinkly, likeable presence made him a natural fit for roles in comedy and light drama, but these unchallenging roles did his acting abilities a disservice. Not only had he managed to subvert his clean-cut looks as early as 1973, in which he played a treacherous police officer in the Dirty Harry picture Magnum Force, but his finest hour as an actor came when he starred in the lead role of the Stephen King adaptation Salem’s Lot in 1979, which was broadcast on CBS as a two-part drama just after Starsky and Hutch came to its conclusion. Had an impressionable teenager watched the miniseries because they were a fan of Soul’s, they would undoubtedly have been scared witless.
Although King was already a bestselling author with a considerable fanbase by November 1979, with several iconic novels including The Shining, Carrie and – naturally – 1975’s Salem’s Lot terrifying millions of readers worldwide, he was not yet a known quantity in TV and film adaptations.
Although Stanley Kubrick was hard at work filming The Shining, which would ultimately, and publicly, disappoint King upon its release in May 1980, the only film of his work that had been released prior to 1979 was Brian de Palma’s Carrie. It had been a considerable box office hit in 1976, as well as winning critical plaudits for the lead performances by Sissy Spacek as the telekinetic teen and Piper Laurie as her religious fanatic mother.
Stephen King in 1970 - Getty
Any adaptation of Salem’s Lot had to live up to this precedent, and Warner Bros Television, who produced the film on a $4 million budget, were careful not to derail the King bandwagon before it had begun. After all, if it was done properly, it could be the beginning of a long and lucrative association.
Yet King was unenthusiastic at first, later saying that “TV is death to horror. When [Salem’s Lot] went to TV, a lot of people moaned and I was one of the moaners.” Initially, attempts to adapt it were dismal; King complained that “Every director in Hollywood who’s ever been involved with horror wanted to do it, but nobody could come up with a script.”
For it to succeed, it would have to take risks, and for them to pay off admirably, and terrifyingly. Its story of a successful writer, Ben Mears – something of a King trope throughout his novels – who returns to his hometown of Salem’s Lot, only to realise that vampirism is rampant in the town, whipped up by the charismatic and villainous Richard Straker, was rich in potential but would need to find the right filmmakers and stars. Otherwise the results could be disappointing, or even ludicrous.
James Mason, Tobe Hooper and David Soul on the set of Salem's Lot - Alamy
The hot horror director of the moment, Tobe Hooper, was hired, fresh from the vast commercial success of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and veteran screen villain James Mason would prove to be a seductive and terrifying Straker, He managed to make even the words “Good evening” sound frighteningly ominous. But in the lead role of Mears, Hooper and the screenwriter Paul Monash – a King veteran, having already produced Carrie – needed to find someone who was a familiar face but not over-associated with the horror genre, who could stand toe-to-toe with Mason and also provide a steadying figure that the audience might empathise with amidst the scares. The producer Richard Kobritz met with Soul, in what the actor later described as an appropriately “black, bleak” office, and offered him the role.
Soul was delighted to be acting opposite Mason, which he called “a real kick”, and the production was set in the town of Ferndale in Northern California. The crucial location was the Marsten House of the novel, a hilltop property with a reputation for being haunted which Mears is planning on writing a book about. An elaborate set was constructed outside Ferndale, in the style of a New England house, although as Soul said “they built the exterior, [but] it wasn’t a whole house…it was a façade, and the interior was at the Warner Brothers lot back in California.
“One day, when we were preparing to shoot up at the house, we heard this horrible crash, and there was this car that had run into a telephone pole. When we reached the car, the driver had this look on his face like he’d seen something impossible, and sure enough, this man had lived in Ferndale for 30 years, and had never seen this before.” Soul would not be the only person aghast at what the production would conjure up there.
Several of Soul’s Starsky co-stars, including Juliette Lewis’s veteran character actor father Geoffrey and George Dzunda – later to meet a grisly end in Basic Instinct – were reunited with him in Salem’s Lot, and Soul enjoyed working with them. But he reserved his highest praise for Mason, who he called “absolutely a marvel…a legend, a real legend, someone who came out of the old school, and boy, you could tell the difference. He really knew his craft.” Belying his terrifying persona on-set, Soul praised Mason as “a joy to be with, and a joy to be around.”
The two may have been deadly adversaries on set, but when not filming, they would head to Mason’s trailer and play cards together, which Mason was a keen aficionado of. And the veteran actor was not above punning humour, either; he referred to Soul and his young co-star Lance Kerwin, who played Mark Petrie, a boy whose knowledge of horror film lore helps solve the mystery of Salem’s Lot, as “Lancesky and Hutch.”
One of the film’s most terrifying characters was that of Kurt Barlow, the Nosferatu-esque vampire who Straker has come to Salem’s Lot in order to resurrect. As played by the Austrian character actor Reggie Nalder, Barlow’s character was changed from the conventional-looking villain of the novel to a demonic apparition, on the grounds that, as Kobritz said, “I wanted nothing suave or sexual, because I just didn’t think it’d work; we’ve seen too much of it.” (The fact that he had the velvet-voiced Mason as his lead villain meant that suavity was also assured, too.)
Chilling: a scene from Salem's Lot - Alamy
Soul remarked that “Nadler was born to play this role. He didn’t like it very much, because he had to wear these contact lenses, and his make-up kept falling off, so we had to stop and reset his face, eyes, teeth and eight-inch fingernails.” He quipped that Nalder may have been dissatisfied with the requirements of the role – the actor commented “The makeup and contact lenses were painful but I got used to them. I liked the money best of all” – whereas, in Soul’s knowing words, “I did it for the art.”
The series was packed full of immediately iconic scares. The moment in which the child vampire Ralphie Glick tries to enter his brother Danny’s room from outside, while scratching terrifyingly at the window, remains the most memorable, and has been alluded to in everything from The Simpsons to Eminem’s song Lose Yourself. Guardians of the Galaxy director and DC supremo James Gunn wrote, after Hooper’s death in 2017, that the filmmaker “created the moment that scared me the most as a child – that floating, dead kid tapping on the window.”
Bearing in mind the demands of television, rather than film, it largely eschewed explicit bloodshed in favour of what Hooper called “the overtone of the grave.” He said “A television movie does not have blood or violence. It has atmosphere which creates something you cannot escape – the reminder that our time is limited and all the accoutrements that go with it, such as the visuals.”
Soul enjoyed working with “the very fine director”, who he praised for being “very well prepared”. There were lighter moments, too. The actor celebrated his birthday on set; he later quipped, “they told me I had a good time, but I don’t remember a hell of a lot...I’m told I was enjoying it too.”
Reggie Nalder as the villain of Salem's Lot - Alamy
Salem’s Lot was enthusiastically received on its first screening, and was later followed by a sequel, Return to Salem’s Lot, and another 2004 miniseries adaptation, this time starring Rob Lowe. It has subsequently proved to be one of the most influential of all modern-day vampire stories, inspiring everything from such Eighties classics as The Lost Boys and Fright Night to Buffy the Vampire Slayer and King regular interpreter Mike Flanagan’s 2021 Netflix miniseries Midnight Mass.
And another film remake is planned, this time directed by It screenwriter Gary Dauberman. Yet it will struggle to surpass the original, which remains one of the most successful King adaptations, with the emphasis on suggestion and subtlety over bloodshed making it all the more terrifying.
As Soul put it: “Salem’s Lot is responsible for a whole new genre, particularly in terms of television. I think the film we did is the legendary film, the real thing, and everything else tried to copy elements of what we accomplished.” The obituaries will salute this versatile actor for being forever Hutch, but Salem’s Lot is surely his truest – and longer-lasting – legacy.
STANDARD OBIT
Starsky & Hutch actor David Soul’s 50 years on screen and stage
Jordan Reynolds, PA Fri, 5 January 2024
Actor David Soul was best known for his role as Detective Kenneth “Hutch” Hutchinson in the classic crime-solving television series Starsky & Hutch.
US-born Soul, who starred opposite Paul Michael Glaser, who played Detective Dave Starsky, in the 1970s US TV series, was also known for his roles in Here Come The Brides, Magnum Force and The Yellow Rose.
With a career spanning 50 years, Soul also made a name for himself as a director, producer, singer/songwriter and social activist. David Soul (Yui Mok/PA)
David Solberg (Soul) was born in Chicago, Illinois, on August 28 1943, then spent the next 12 years between South Dakota and post-Second World War Berlin.
His father Dr Richard Solberg, a professor of history and political science and an ordained minister, moved his family to Berlin where he served as a religious affairs adviser to the US High Commission.
Soul was affected by his experiences in Berlin and initially considered following in his father’s footsteps, later becoming involved with the South Dakota Young Democrats.
He was also an avid sportsman and was offered a professional baseball contract with the Chicago White Sox after high school in 1961.
David Soul arriving for the Theatregoers’ Choice Awards, held at Planet Hollywood in central London, in November 2005 (Yui Mok/PA)
But instead, during his second year of college, he left to go to Mexico City with his father who went to be a professor at a graduate school for young diplomats.
Here he was introduced to the indigenous songs of Mexico and when he returned to the US, he secured a job singing folk music at a coffee house at the University of Minnesota.
It was in Minneapolis where Soul got his first taste of theatre.
He was 21, married and with a child when he took over his friend’s role as the “Pugnacious Collier” in the Firehouse Theatre’s production of John Arden’s Sergeant Musgrave’s Dance.
Then, separated from his wife, Soul sent an audition tape and a photo, calling himself “The Covered Man” – while wearing a mask and shortening his name to Soul – to the William Morris Agency in New York, which signed him. Actor David Soul in 2004 (Ian West/PA)
Soul travelled to New York in 1965 and appeared on The Merv Griffin Show for multiple singing appearances, as well as with MGM Records.
His first release was The Covered Man. Soul wore a mask for four months and would not show his face, saying he wanted to be “known for his music”.
Studying in New York with Uta Haugen and Irene Daily, Soul was given his first television role in 1960s dolphin series Flipper.
He was spotted on The Merv Griffin Show by a talent executive at Columbia/Screen Gems, then signed a contract with Screen Gems which saw him move to Los Angeles.
Soul acted in Star Trek, Here Come The Brides, Perry Mason and Johnny Got His Gun, throughout the 1960s and 1970s.
He got his break as officer John Davis in Clint Eastwood’s police yarn Magnum Force, about Inspector Harold Callahan, which led to a part in Starsky & Hutch from 1974 to 1979. David Soul arrives for the annual National Television Awards at the Royal Albert Hall in central London in 2004 (Ian West/PA)
In the years following, Soul directed different television series, produced and directed theatre shows and produced and directed three documentaries.
He also funded, produced and co-directed a documentary on the shutdown of Pittsburgh’s steel industry between 1982 and 1985.
At the height of his fame he released the UK chart-toppers Don’t Give Up On Us and Silver Lady, and the hits Going In With My Eyes Open and Let’s Have A Quiet Night In.
Soul toured across large parts of the world with his band and performed as part of the late Queen’s silver jubilee in 1977.
But in the 1980s Soul hit the headlines when he was arrested for attacking his then-wife, and he went on to be part of a BBC programme in the early 2000s which aimed to tackle domestic violence.
He also went on to appear in TV series Salem’s Lot, an adaptation of Stephen King’s novel of the same name, as Ben Mears, who returns to his home town, which has been taken over by vampires.
Soul was also in Miami Vice, Harry’s Hong Kong, Homeward Bound and a TV series remake of Casablanca.
David Soul on stage at London’s Phoenix Theatre (Rebecca Naden/PA)
In the last 30 years of his life, Soul moved from Los Angeles to New Zealand, then to Australia, where he performed in Willy Russell’s Blood Brothers, Paris and finally London where he worked in theatre, television and film.
In the 1990s, he made his debut on the West End stage in the award-winning play Blood Brothers while he was living in the UK.
Some of his many television and film credits in the UK include appearances on Little Britain, Top Gear, Holby City, Agatha Christie’s Poirot: Death On The Nile, as well as films Tabloid and Puritan.
He and Glaser reprised their roles in the 2004 remake Starsky & Hutch, starring Ben Stiller as Starsky and Owen Wilson as Hutch.
Soul, who was a dual US and UK citizen, was married five times, including to actresses Mirriam Solberg, Karen Carlson, Patti Carnel Sherman and Julia Nickson, and had six children and seven grandchildren.
Soul died on Thursday at the age of 80 surrounded by his family, his wife Helen Snell said in a statement.
Vatican says gay blessings can only last 15 seconds
1 SECOND MORE AND ITS HERESY
Nick Squires
Fri, 5 January 2024 The blessings would ask 'the Lord for peace, health and other good things' for the couple - JOE GIDDENS/PA
The Vatican has tried to calm a backlash over its decision to allow priests to bless gay couples – specifying that such gestures should last no more than 15 seconds and do not legitimise homosexual relationships.
Last month, the Holy See released a declaration in which it allowed priests to bless same-sex couples under certain circumstances, as part of the more liberal stance towards gay Catholics which has been adopted by Pope Francis since his election in 2013.
But the announcement prompted anger in many parts of the Catholic world, with particularly trenchant opposition coming from countries in Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe.
Some conservative bishops feared that the declaration represented a significant softening of the Catholic Church’s positions on gay marriage and homosexuality, in which homosexuality is seen as a disorder and homosexual acts are regarded as a sin.
A more liberal stance to gay Catholics has been adopted by Pope Francis - Joe Giddens/PA
In an apparent attempt to appease conservative critics, the Vatican has now sought to clarify its original declaration, insisting that it is “clear and definitive about marriage and sexuality”.
The blessing of a gay couple should be a simple procedure lasting just a few seconds and should in no way be confused with the marriage ceremony for heterosexual couples, the Vatican said.
“To be clearly distinguished from liturgical or ritualised blessings, ‘pastoral blessings’ must above all be very short. These are blessings lasting a few seconds…” the Vatican’s doctrinal office said in a five-page statement. “We are talking about something that lasts about 10 or 15 seconds.”
The blessings would “simply ask the Lord for peace, health and other good things for the two people who request it”.
It insisted that allowing priests to bless gay couples was not “heretical”, nor did it contravene the traditions of the Catholic Church.
The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, the department responsible for overseeing Catholic dogma, admitted that in some countries, for priests to openly bless gay couples might be “imprudent”, inviting persecution, prison or even death threats for the people involved.
“If there are laws that condemn the mere act of declaring oneself as a homosexual with prison and in some cases with torture and even death, it goes without saying that a blessing would be imprudent,” the Vatican said. To appease critics, the Holy See has sought to clarify its position on gay blessings - ANDREAS SOLARO/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
Priests should exercise “pastoral prudence” depending on attitudes towards homosexuality within their countries.
Gay people in Africa and elsewhere continue to face extreme prejudice and persecution. Homosexuality is prohibited in more than 30 countries on the continent. The president of Burundi recently said that gay people should be stoned.
The Archbishop of Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo, said last month: “The ambiguity of the declaration, which lends itself to numerous interpretations and manipulations, is causing much perplexity among the faithful.”
In Uruguay, Cardinal Daniel Sturla, the archbishop of Montevideo, said the blessing of gay couples was “a controversial issue and it’s creating divisions within the Church”.
In Kazakhstan, an archbishop prohibited the new blessing, saying that it contradicts the 2,000-year-old “doctrine and practice of the Catholic Church”.
The Vatican’s clarification, issued on Thursday, came less than three weeks after the original declaration was released, highlighting the consternation it had caused in many parts of the Catholic world.
The blessing of gay couples should not be seen as “a justification of all their actions, and they are not an endorsement of the life that they lead”, the doctrinal office said.
Why fears over a ‘tripledemic’ are surging Cases of three major respiratory viruses — the flu, COVID-19 and RSV — are surging in the U.S., pushing the country toward a feared “tripledemic” during its first post-pandemic respiratory viral season. Joseph Choi
THE HILL Sun, 7 January 2024
Optimism was high this autumn as the U.S. headed into the viral season. The national arsenal against these viruses had vaccines against RSV for the first time, newly updated COVID-19 vaccines, and the flu “immunity debt” that plagued children in 2022 was history.
But now, confidence is waning. Accessing the vaccine for RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, has been a struggle for many, and enthusiasm for the new COVID-19 vaccines turned out to be abysmal. COVID-19 hospital admissions have been rising since November and wastewater detection indicates most sites — 69 percent — are seeing large increases in virus levels.
Flu activity across the country is currently “elevated and continues to increase in most parts of the country,” according to the latest update from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). And vaccine uptake for the flu seems to be lagging, with the CDC saying nearly 8 million fewer people got the shot by mid-December compared to the same period in 2022.
During the first couple of years of the pandemic, flu activity remained low, attributed to the precautionary measures that communities took to mitigate the viral spread of COVID. The 2022-23 flu season appeared to mark a return to normal flu levels.
Only about a fifth of U.S. adults say they’ve received the newest COVID-19 shot, according to polling from KFF. Uptake for the previous bivalent shots was similarly low and many Americans likely haven’t been immunized since receiving their first doses in 2020 or 2021.
“We’re definitely seeing an increase in the number of flu cases, COVID-19. They’re both surging right now,” said Luis Ostrosky, chief of infectious diseases and epidemiology with UTHealth Houston and Memorial Hermann.
Speaking on the RSV cases he’s seen in the Houston area, Ostrosky said infections appeared to surge earlier in December, though he is still seeing a “steady” number.
“This is so alarming that it prompted CDC to send out a health alert towards the end of December reminding all clinicians to really work on getting patients vaccinated and, when they have symptoms, tested so that they can access therapy if they need it,” Ostrosky noted.
Available RSV data from the CDC does seem to suggest test positivity peaked toward the end of November, with the positivity rates for antigen and PCR tests just beginning to drop in recent weeks.
Hopes were high that the approval of two RSV vaccines for seniors and a preventive monoclonal antibody for infants would help keep cases low this season.
But Sanofi, the maker of the monoclonal antibody Beyfortus, said in October that “unprecedented demand” had led to short supply, leading the CDC to advise doctors to reserve doses for their highest-risk patients.
And RSV vaccine uptake among seniors appears rather lackluster, with CDC data suggesting only about 10 percent of nursing home residents had gotten immunized against the virus by mid-December.
“The numbers are not looking good,” said Marcus Plescia, chief medical officer for the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, of the three circulating viruses.
“I think when we get some new numbers for the last week, it’s going to be sort of continued trends in the same direction and increased activity across all of those conditions,” added Plescia.
A holiday “bump” in cases is to be expected following weeks of year-end travel. AAA estimated in December that more than 115 million people in the U.S. would be traveling 50 miles or more from home during the festivities.
Amid all the travel, Plescia lamented that social norms which he hoped became commonplace following the pandemic appeared to have been largely abandoned.
“I think we’re kind of going back to, you know, the old approach of people don’t stay home when they’re sick,” said Plescia. “And they think it’s sort of a minor thing and the thought that they might infect somebody else just doesn’t really occur to them.”
Masking has also become rare once again, though Plescia noted many hospital systems are bringing back mask requirements amid the rise in respiratory viruses. These hospital-enacted requirements may be more easily accepted by communities than those issued by the government, and Plescia expects to see more like them in the future.
While cases are rising, Plescia said his organization hasn’t yet heard of any health systems around the country being unduly stressed by the respiratory viral situation.
“That is sort of the first concern with some kind of ‘tripledemic’ is that we would have so many people getting sick that hospitals would become overwhelmed either because they didn’t have enough beds or they didn’t have enough staff to care for that number of people. We’re not hearing that we’re approaching that, but that is the thing that we’re most concerned about,” he said.
Ostrosky is optimistic case rates will begin to go down soon after a potential holiday bump, with past winter peaks indicating a drop sometime in early January. He emphasized it is still worthwhile to get tested if you experience symptoms because there is now a plethora of therapeutics available for treating these infections.
Going forward, Plescia also recommended that more focus be placed on vaccinations among health care workers.
“That’s important not just because we don’t want health care workers to get sick and give it to their patients but also, you know, when you have a lot of health care workers getting sick, this whole capacity thing becomes problematic,” Plescia said.
“Because what we’re hearing now is that hospitals are less concerned about not having enough beds. They’re more concerned about having enough health care workers to staff those beds.”
Court hands partial victory to First Nations who say they weren't properly consulted over Yukon mine project
CBC Fri, 5 January 2024 BMC Minerals' Kudz Ze Kayah mine project, about 260 kilometres northwest of Watson Lake, Yukon, on Kaska traditional territory. The federal and territorial government's 2022 approval of the proposed mine has been set aside until another consultation meeting can be held with First Nations. (BMC Minerals - image credit)
A Yukon judge has handed a partial victory to First Nations who said they weren't adequately consulted over a proposed mine project in Kaska territory in southeast Yukon.
But the court also found that the federal and territorial governments largely met their duty to consult throughout the environmental assessment process.
In a ruling this week, Yukon Supreme Court Chief Justice Suzanne Duncan found that the Crown "worked hard to engage First Nations in the consultation process" before approving the Kudz Ze Kayah mine in southeast Yukon, while the First Nations often worked to "frustrate and unjustifiably prolong" the consultation process.
At the same time, Duncan found that the Crown failed to give proper attention to a final written submission from the First Nations, and she's ordered the government's approval of the mine be set aside until a final consultation meeting can happen this winter.
The court's decision follows a six-day hearing last spring. The Ross River Dena Council filed a court petition on behalf of Kaska Nation in 2022 seeking a judicial review of how the decision bodies — Natural Resources Canada, Fisheries and Oceans Canada and the territorial executive council office — signed off on the Kudz Ze Kayah mine project after an environmental and socio-economic assessment, allowing it to move to the regulatory phase.
The First Nation argued that the consultation process for the proposed mine in southeast Yukon was unfair and inadequate, as the Crown allegedly listened to Kaska concerns but failed to meaningfully address and incorporate them.
The Kudz Ze Kayah project is about 260 kilometres northwest of Watson Lake, Yukon, on Kaska traditional territory.
U.K.-based BMC Minerals submitted its proposal in 2017 to build the open pit and underground copper, lead and zinc mine. The proposal would see the company mine approximately 180,000 tonnes of zinc, 60,000 tonnes of copper and 35,000 tonnes of lead concentrates annually for 10 years.
In her Jan. 2 ruling, Yukon Supreme Court Chief Justice Suzanne Duncan found that the Crown demonstrated "patience and persistence" in attempting to engage with Kaska throughout most of the consultation process.
"The Crown is not to be held to a standard of perfection in fulfilling its duty to consult and accommodate," Duncan wrote.
"What is required is reasonableness. In this case, I have found the Crown acted reasonably in all respects but one."
Duncan ruled that the Crown failed to give reasonable consideration to the First Nation's 48-page statement of their position and concerns, which was submitted on June 14, 2022. The government's final decision on the proposed mine was issued less than 24 hours later, on June 15, 2022.
"Despite the late timing of this submission, it deserved a more substantive response through a dialogue, rather than through references in the Decision Document to issues that had been raised previously," Duncan wrote.
"The basis for issuing the Decision Document the day after the receipt of the June 14, 2022 submission was not transparent, intelligible, or justified. It did not meet the honour of the Crown."
Duncan ordered that the government's decision on the mine should be set aside to allow for a consultation meeting about the First Nation's June 14, 2022 submission. The meeting must happen within 60 days, and be scheduled for one to two days, as required.
That consultation meeting should focus solely on the June 14, 2022 submission from the First Nation, with no further submissions or documents exchanged between the parties. A decision by the Crown should be then be issued within 30 days of the meeting, Duncan ruled.
Dead letter office? Royal Mail wrestles with a difficult future
Alex Lawson
GUARDIAN Sat, 6 January 2024 Photograph: Royal Mail/PA
If Martin Seidenberg has had any honeymoon period as the new boss of Royal Mail’s parent company, it will end this week. He must respond by Tuesday to a series of testy questions from Liam Byrne MP, the chair of the parliamentary business and trade committee, on Royal Mail’s staff turnover, poor service and disputed parcels policy.
This is the latest tussle in the troubled history of the 507-year-old company – seen by some as a venerable institution and by others as a corporate conundrum – which faces a huge challenge to reinvent itself amid stiff competition.
More than a dozen current and former employees and directors who have spoken to the Observer describe an organisation in flux, wrestling with questions over unions and regulators, workplace culture, changing consumer habits and a decline in letter volumes. Change at the top
A tumultuous few years for the group have been reflected in the pace of arrivals and departures in the boardroom.
Royal Mail is the largest but most problematic part of International Distributions Services (IDS), the recently rebranded group which also contains General Logistics Systems (GLS) and Parcelforce. GLS is the profitable international arm, delivering parcels in 40 countries, mainly in Europe and North America.
Seidenberg, who runs IDS, will be keen to draw a line under a rocky period which has included a flurry of chief executives, damaging strike action over pay and conditions, a corporate rebrand, threats of administration, a £67m ransom demand after a cyber-attack, and a £5.6m fine from the regulator for failing to hit delivery targets. He even tried to address the latter by offering bonuses of up to £500 for postal workers to hit Christmas targets, as he hired 16,000 seasonal temps. (This target was split, with £250 of it linked to national targets which were missed.)
The departure of former Ocado executive Simon Thompson last year left Royal Mail hunting for its fourth boss in four years. Chided as “clueless” by MPs, mocked by the children of his workers and chanted about by thousands of angry postal staff in Westminster, Thompson was the latest chief to leave what may be the most impossible job on the FTSE, after two years at the helm.
He announced his resignation in May but officially remained with the company until October. He is due a payoff of up to £700,000. Despite the lingering goodbye, Seidenberg – formerly head of Amsterdam-based GLS – said he did not meet Thompson after taking charge in August.
Thompson’s predecessor, Rico Back, later said Thompson’s lack of experience in running either a big company or a logistics business had been a “toxic mixture”. Back himself abruptly resigned after less than two years, following a tussle with the Communication Workers Union. He was nicknamed the “flying postman” for running the business from his £2.3m family home overlooking Lake Zurich.
Seidenberg said he was taking “full ownership of Royal Mail on an interim basis as we just can’t wait [around]”. It is understood headhunters at Russell Reynolds have been tasked with finding a permanent chief executive, while pressure is mounting on the chair, Keith Williams, to ensure the next boss is the right one. “Keith hired Rico and that went badly; Simon too. His judgment has to be questioned,” says one former director. Growing losses
The scale of Seidenberg’s task was laid bare in his City debut. Group revenues were flat, at £5.8bn, in the first half of its financial year, while profits in GLS were more than offset by a 46% increase in losses at Royal Mail, to £319m, according to results published in November.
Group operating losses widened to £169m, from a £57m loss in the same period a year earlier, and Seidenberg vowed to get a “grip” on quality of service, to set “the foundation for growth”.Interactive
Competition to land lucrative parcel contracts remains stiff even as a pandemic-fuelled boom subsides. This was underlined in November, when the Post Office signed deals with rivals Evri and DPD to allow them to deliver some parcels sent from its branches, amid concerns over reliability of the service. Royal Mail was legally separated from the Post Office – the state-owned private company that operates 11,500 branches, and which has been embroiled in the Horizon IT scandal – in 2012, before the former’s flotation. The November contract ended Royal Mail’s 360-year-old monopoly on the service.
Meanwhile, e-commerce parcel volumes fell across the sector in 2023, the drop blamed partly on fashion retailers clamping down on returns and partly on rising delivery charges. At Royal Mail, volumes were down in the first half of the year, before recovering some ground. Delivery difficulties
Royal Mail’s long-term future will be significantly shaped by the postal and communications regulator, Ofcom. In September, it began examining options to alter the universal service obligation (USO) – the stipulation that Royal Mail has to deliver to every address in Great Britain six days a week, at a fixed price.
Royal Mail has blamed the USO for rising stamp prices and last summer the government denied its request to stop delivering post on Saturdays – a move which would have needed approval by MPs. Ofcom has previously said the move could save £125m to £225m a year.
The shape of any reforms to the USO have been debated for years. Before the pandemic, consultants at McKinsey were enlisted by Royal Mail to aid this work, coming up with no fewer than 23 models. Their research found dropping Saturdays would require minimal change within the organisation, an insider says.
The biggest indicator of the long-term strategy may come from Royal Mail’s recent moves with its bulk mail customers. These companies, which include UKMail, Whistl and Citipost, specialise in sorting and processing mail for big businesses – typically marketing letters or household bills to consumers. These bulk letters, which are taken on the “final mile” by Royal Mail, make up the majority of all letters sent, though volumes here are also in decline as companies favour email or social media to reach customers.Interactive
Under most bulk mail contracts, Royal Mail is required to deliver the next day and, as with consumer mail, the quality of service has fallen behind targets. However, since 2020, bulk customers have been also able to select a slower, three-day delivery option. Sources believe this cutting back on business mail could offer a blueprint for reducing consumer deliveries.
Ofcom has conducted analysis on how cutting back on delivery days would affect households, with particular emphasis on the implications for vulnerable mail users.
Sources familiar with Ofcom’s work say analysis presented in the autumn had found that 97% of residential customers and small to medium-sized businesses would suffer “minimal” impact from a switch to a Monday-to-Friday schedule, with publishers of magazines likely to be the most affected among bulk customers.
The research also showed that about 80% of residential users and between 60% and 80% of small businesses would be served adequately by a three-day-a-week service, or alternate-day deliveries.
“People think this is about going from six days to five but it’s more about going from five days to three,” says a former employee who has examined the options. “Saturday is a red herring: they need something more radical.”
However, cutting the frequency of bulk deliveries may not significantly reduce costs. Although this work is not regulated under the USO, it is reliant on the same network of postal workers, making the two services hard to disentangle.
The source adds that to cut costs significantly using the alternate-days plan, thousands of jobs would need to be cut, with posties then tasked with walking two different routes on alternate days. “The main issue may be that its small parcels business is entirely reliant on its letters network, so if you cut back on deliveries, you have to put small packages in vans, which is less efficient,” the source says.
Ofcom was expected to give an update on its work on the shape of the future of the postal service in December, but has delayed this to later in January.
“The need for reform is urgent. The UK is getting left behind – most comparable countries have already reformed their universal service,” says a Royal Mail spokesperson.
In a separate move, it is understood that B2B International, a market research company, recently carried out a work on behalf of Royal Mail’s direct mail arm, MarketReach. The study asked large business customers for their views on delivery frequency, including reducing schedules.
Meanwhile, some posties will start their working day up to 90 minutes later from April as part of a cost-cutting drive. Cultural problems
Royal Mail’s historical strategy of offering lucrative overtime to get deliveries done appears to be encountering problems – the number of rounds (or walks) done by posties on overtime has fallen sharply since the pandemic.
“Older workers don’t want to do the walks, but the business model assumes a certain amount of overtime,” says a source. “The problem is the workforce is skewed older and they don’t necessarily want to take the overtime. If posties are delivering fewer letters over greater distances, it may not appeal physically.”
Another longstanding problem appears to be workplace culture. Several sources claim managers show favouritism, giving certain colleagues the best rounds, and allege that problems with bullying remain. The issue of bullying has also been raised in the past by several bosses, including Thompson.
Christopher Davies, who lives in Essex, resigned in 2022 after 32 years with the business, following seven months signed off with stress related to bullying. He claims Royal Mail had a “disgusting culture of bullying which runs through the organisation”.
Davies accuses his managers of bullying him when he returned to work after the death of his infant grandson in 2019. “It’s shocking how I was treated, and bullying happens right across Royal Mail,” the former postman says. “Managers bullied the staff and gave the best shifts and the overtime to their mates.”
Royal Mail says it has a “zero-tolerance approach to bullying, harassment, or discrimination of any kind”.
Also, long-running tensions have resurfaced over whether there has been a push to prioritise delivering more lucrative parcels over letters. Last year, MPs received photographs and recordings of local managers giving instructions to prioritise parcels, but Ofcom later said it “did not identify any suggestion that Royal Mail’s senior management had directed the prioritisation of parcels over letters”.
A union source says: “That was a red rag to a bull for the workforce – they know it’s the case.”
Royal Mail says it may be “logistically necessary to clear parcels first” to make space in delivery offices, but that Ofcom had not found “any suggestion” that senior management were instructing packages be prioritised “outside of recognised contingency plans”. Activist investors
Royal Mail’s attempts to change under private ownership are comparable to struggles at BT and British Gas, both privatised under Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s. At each company, successive bosses have demanded rapid change of their huge workforces in evolving markets, while grappling with ageing infrastructure. But while Thatcher eschewed privatising Royal Mail – even the Iron Lady was “not prepared to have the Queen’s head privatised”, she said – it was listed in 2013 amid a cloud of controversy.
Fleet-footed and less hamstrung rivals have spurred its modernisation efforts, such as introducing barcoded stamps to aid tracking, using drones to deliver to islands, offering Sunday parcel deliveries, installing Amazon-style collection lockers and opening “super hubs” for parcel processing in Cheshire and Northamptonshire. The company says it is making “good progress” in implementing changes to working hours and attendance policies that were agreed to end the strikes.
A notable uncertainty in the background is the intentions of Daniel KÅ™etÃnský, the billionaire who first invested in 2020 and is now IDS’s largest shareholder. The tycoon, nicknamed the Czech Sphinx for his poker-faced approach to investment, faced a national security investigation last year when his firm, Vesa, raised its stake. No action was taken.
KÅ™etÃnský’s investment initially did well, bringing in a share of a £400m dividend in 2021 as the pandemic boosted deliveries. But the shares have since more than halved in value, to 270p. Shareholders have, however, been promised a “modest dividend”, paid from GLS profits, this year.
It was initially suggested that KÅ™etÃnský would push for a breakup of the group – an idea later mooted by the company itself in a threat to the union – but KÅ™etÃnský has since said this is not his intention. He declined to comment for this article.
Royal Mail could also be caught in political turbulence this year, if Labour wins a general election.
“I would like as much parliamentary scrutiny as possible for the new management,” says Kate Osborne, the Labour MP for Jarrow, who worked at Royal Mail for 25 years before entering Parliament. She campaigned against privatisation and would like to see Royal Mail renationalised. However, she says Labour’s frontbench has not stated its desire to see this happen.
“There is still an ‘us and them’ culture at Royal Mail between the workers or middle management and the leaders,” Osborne says. “They still get their big bonuses when Royal Mail fall foul of their targets but those lower down do not get their bonuses. The shareholders keep getting their dividends.”
