“A Historic Moment”: A Look at AMLO’s Legacy as Claudia Sheinbaum Becomes Mexico’s First Female President

October 01, 2024
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GuestsEdwin Ackerman
sociology professor at Syracuse University.

Links"AMLO's War on Neoliberal Corruption"
"Origins of the Mass Parties: Dispossession and the Party-Form in Mexico and Bolivia"


Mexico is making history today as the country prepares to inaugurate the first woman to be elected president. Claudia Sheinbaum, a climate scientist and the former mayor of Mexico City, won a landslide victory in Mexico’s June elections. Sheinbaum is a member of the ruling Morena party and a close ally of outgoing Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, whose six-year term ends today. AMLO, as he’s widely known, leaves behind a complicated legacy as Mexico’s most popular president in decades whose approval rating never dropped below 60%. AMLO championed a “progressive reframing of anti-corruption politics that thinks of neoliberalism itself as a form of corruption,” says Edwin Ackerman, sociology professor at Syracuse University, who lays out how the president’s economic policies dramatically increased the economic power of the working classes in Mexico. However, Ackerman says AMLO also faced criticism for empowering the military, increasing the use of fossil fuels and pushing through highly contested judicial reform.

Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.


AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

Mexico is making history today as it inaugurates its first woman president. Claudia Sheinbaum, climate scientist, Mexico City’s former mayor, won a landslide victory in Mexico’s June elections. Sheinbaum is a member of the ruling Morena party, a close ally of outgoing Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, whose six-year term ended last night at midnight.

AMLO, as he’s widely known, leaves behind a complicated legacy as Mexico’s most popular president in decades. He’s been championed as an ally of Mexico’s poorest communities, with policies that increased the minimum wage, strengthened labor and union rights.

AMLO’s critics say he’s eroded democratic oversight in Mexico, where his recent enactment of a contested judicial reform was met with protest. AMLO says the reform would crack down on corruption in courts, but critics argue the plan could threaten judicial independence. AMLO has also been accused of failing to significantly address violence in Mexico, including the murder of journalists and rising femicides. Meanwhile, Indigenous leaders denounced AMLO’s completion of the ambitious Tren Maya project, a 1,000-mile railway that cuts through the Yucatán Peninsula, causing deforestation and environmental destruction.

For more, we’re joined here in New York by Edwin Ackerman, sociology professor at Syracuse University. His recent piece for Jacobin is headlined “AMLO’s War on Neoliberal Corruption.”

So, today is the first day of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum’s presidency; last night, the last moment of AMLO’s presidency. Can you talk about the significance of both, Professor Ackerman?

EDWIN ACKERMAN: Yeah. This is a historic moment on many accounts. As you were mentioning, first woman president in the country, but also coming in with a very clear mandate, having won, as you mentioned, the election overwhelmingly, her party having secured a two-thirds majority in Congress and, basically, close to doing so — one short of doing so in the Senate, which is an increasing, I think, anomaly in Western democracies at least, that are at this point sort of accustomed to political stalemate. What we have here is a very strong president at the beginning of her term, who campaigned on continuity with the previous administration.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Edwin Ackerman, could you talk about AMLO’s legacy? Here’s a man who tripled the minimum wage, doubled old-age pensions, lifted millions out of poverty, but yet there is a lot of criticism of him, especially in the Western media.

EDWIN ACKERMAN: Yeah, that’s right. I mean, I think we could characterize the legacy in three respects. I’ll try and be brief here. But one is, as you were mentioning some of these elements, the return, I would say, of class politics, which takes the form of a series of important legislative measure that includes raising the minimum wage, facilitating the formation of unions, but also more specific things like, for example, recognizing the labor rights of domestic workers for the first time in the country. And this has produced very clear results that are increasingly incontrovertible. We have a 30% increase in the real wages of the average worker. The laborers’ share of income over the past six years has moved in favor of labor for the first time in decades. And the spending capacity of the bottom 10% of the population has increased by almost 100%. And this has meant, depending on the calculations, about 9 million people lifted out of poverty. This has meant at the same time that there’s an increasing, really clear voter realignment going on, in which increasingly the working classes, particularly the peasantry, the employees and the informal sector, are the basis of support of the party, and increasingly the business sector and certain sectors of the professional and middle classes are sort of moving away from its support.

The second important element, I think, of his legacy is a return of the state, which takes also several forms. One, perhaps the most well-known one, is the series of major infrastructure projects that ranges from the train that was being mentioned earlier here to refineries, airports, transportation corridors, etc., producing a lot of regional development, a lot of work, public works and so forth. There’s also an effort to recentralize a series of previously outsourced government functions. And there’s also, as you were mentioning, this slate of social programs that, in short, are different ways of — different sort of universal cash transfer programs — that is, not means-tested cash transfer programs — that are hugely popular here, at least successful during his time there. And this has all been part of what I would call a progressive reframing of anti-corruption politics that thinks of neoliberalism itself as a form of corruption — I’m happy to talk a bit more about that later on.

But yeah, there are concerns that different camps have raised. You know, some of these concerns are raised, as you would imagine, by sort of knee-jerk critics of AMLO, members of the opposition parties and allies and so forth. But there are also, I think, types of critiques that have a certain legitimacy, in my personal opinion. Two that I would mention here are the way in which the military has been empowered over the past six years. Many of these infrastructure projects are actually managed, constructed and designed by the military. And I’m happy to talk about why that’s the case. But it is — the bottom line is that there has been a process of military empowerment in the past years. And there’s also increasing environmental concerns, particularly in the project to revamp the state-owned oil company and the obvious tension between fomenting the increase of fossil fuels under the objective of national energy sovereignty and the looming climate crisis.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And could you talk also, in terms of the criticism, especially from other countries, of the judicial reform? What’s your sense of that?

EDWIN ACKERMAN: Right. So, what was the judicial reform that just passed, first of all? It would put judges up for election, right? This includes up to the Supreme Court judges. Now, a couple of things to clarify here is, judges — the Supreme Court judges in Mexico are already term limited, so it’s not a lifetime appointment like it is in U.S. So, they would be limited to 15 years, capped. And there’s also a recent history of a revamping of the Supreme Court in the late '90s, right? So it doesn't hold the same sort of, let’s say, quasi-divine, mystical character that it does in the U.S. It’s been sort of, you know, meddled with much more recently.

But what is the motivation for this push to have judges be elected? The motivation, from the point of view of the government, is judicial independence, actually, that there’s a sort of politicization of the judiciary. It’s too beholden to formal and semiformal networks of influence, of private interest groups, and putting judges up for election is a way of overcoming that.

And a couple of important things about the context to keep in mind for this reform is that, as I was mentioning, the judiciary, the Supreme Court in particular, has become, at least according to the government, increasingly politicized, even explicitly so. For example, there’s a series of major legislative reforms during the six-year period that were overturned on, we could say, sort of petty proceduralist grounds, right? This included things like major reforms to the energy sector that would have given the state-owned electricity company a much stronger role. But there’s also more concrete things like, for example, at the beginning of the year it was revealed that the head of the Supreme Court, Norma Piña, the head of the Supreme Court, had held secret meetings with the leader of the PRI and a very top high-ranking leader of the PAN, so two of the parties of the neoliberal right. These were secret meetings held in a private address. The information was then leaked. Actually, the content of the meetings is still unknown, but the meetings themselves are quite troubling.

In addition to that, there’s an even long-standing — longer-standing dispute between the Supreme Court and the executive and the Legislature, for that matter, over salaries, over compensation of the Supreme Court justices. So, when AMLO took office, he voluntarily lowered his salary. And the Constitution, as it stands, states that no public official can make more than the president. So, that meant that, by default, the Supreme Court justices, who have really high compensation packages, would have to take a pay cut. They refused to do so, against what the Constitution says. So they have been actually in violation of the Constitution for the past six years. And the list goes on and on. We could — last point I would say here is, for example, by the —

AMY GOODMAN: We have 20 seconds.

EDWIN ACKERMAN: OK. The Supreme Court’s report on this, their own report, half of the people that work in the judiciary have family members in the judiciary, which just speaks to the level of nepotism and, again, formal networks and semiformal networks of influence that exist there. So, that’s the context for the push.

AMY GOODMAN: We want to thank you for being with us. Edwin Ackerman is sociology professor at Syracuse University, author of Origins of the Mass Parties: Dispossession and the Party-Form in Mexico and Bolivia. We’ll link to your piece in Jacobin, “AMLO’s War on Neoliberal Corruption.” We’ll do an interview in Spanish at democracynow.org and post it at there. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
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Irish government splashes the cash to keep out Sinn Féin

A bumper €2.2 billion will go into voters’ pockets, with Apple’s bonus €14 billion put aside as a nest egg for future projects.


With a hint of a smile on his face the Finance Minister Jack Chambers told lawmakers that Ireland had already collected far more corporation tax than it needs this year. |

October 1, 2024 
By Shawn Pogatchnik
POLITICO EU

DUBLIN — Tax-rich Ireland unveiled a sweeping giveaway budget Tuesday that will put €2.2 billion into voters’ pockets — just in time for an election the government hopes will keep Sinn Féin out of power.

Finance Minister Jack Chambers used his budget speech to detail how he’ll give typical workers an extra grand to spend in coming months — and to confirm the government won’t yet spend its “transformational” €14 billion bonus from Apple.

With a hint of a smile on his face, the 33-year-old told lawmakers that Ireland had already collected far more corporation tax than it needs this year from the iPhone maker and hundreds of other U.S. multinationals based here.

The Apple windfall, being added to the 2024 national accounts thanks to a surprise European Union court judgment on back taxes due, will go into Ireland’s two new sovereign wealth funds. The government created those funds in last year’s budget specifically to ring-fence and grow its Europe-leading collection of corporate tax, expected to rise to a record €30 billion this year alone. That doesn’t include the extra €14 billion from Apple.

The coalition government of Prime Minister Simon Harris — eyeing a new five-year term in office following elections that must happen by March but could come much sooner — wants those funds to finance long-term investment in the country’s electrical grid, water system and transport links.

All those services are straining amid rising business demands, particularly for more power to feed the multinationals’ scores of data centers here, and a fast-growing population that is fully employed but struggles to find affordable homes.

“We’ve got to maintain our competitiveness. That’s why the investment in infrastructure is so important,” said Foreign Minister Micheál Martin, whose Fianna Fáil party seeks to stay in government alongside Harris’ Fine Gael.
The importance of infrastructure

Their two pro-business, middle-ground parties — once bitter enemies with roots in the opposing sides of Ireland’s civil war a century ago — have worked well together since agreeing in 2020 to share power for the first time and keep a then-surging Sinn Féin in opposition.

The Irish republicans have seen their public support plummet by nearly half in the past year, their anti-establishment appeal sapped, in part, because of a rising challenge from anti-immigrant militants agitating against Sinn Féin within its usual working-class power bases.

The government’s enviably deep pockets have also helped to wrongfoot Sinn Féin. Leader Mary Lou McDonald has been left to argue that, should her party rebound in the polls to lead Ireland’s next government, they would spend even more — but less wastefully.

Sinn Féin’s core promise to build public housing for as little as €250,000 per unit — half the current cost in Dublin — has been challenged by many economists as unrealistic.

Those economists likewise warn that competition for votes in such fiscally dynamic times will inevitably fuel inflation, no matter who wins the election.

The Apple windfall will go into Ireland’s two new sovereign wealth funds. | Annice Lyn/Getty Images

The government’s trove of tax and spending moves are designed to add more than €1,000 to average incomes in the coming year.

Ireland already pays parents €140 per child each month. Newborn babies in 2025 will earn their parents a triple first payment of €420, while all households will get double payments of €280 for each child next month and again right before Christmas.

All households will see €250 automatically deducted from their winter utility bills, too.

Cash for kids

Income tax bands will be raised sharply to prune €1.6 billion from payslip deductions, particularly for workers earning less than €44,000 a year, in a system that already taxes lower-paid workers little by international norms.

Chambers said the changes would mean workers earning less than €20,000 would pay no income tax at all.

Simultaneously, the national minimum wage will be hiked by 6 percent to €13.50 an hour, or €27,400 a year for a fulltime worker — the second-highest in the EU behind Luxembourg.

To soften the blow from Ireland’s EU-leading property prices and rents, tax write-offs on rent payments will be increased, while two programs for subsidizing the eye-watering price tag of property will be extended.

The budget for the state’s Land Development Agency will be raised 25 percent to €6.25 billion to boost supply in a market where private developers complain costs are already too high to build apartments at affordable prices.

Chambers said Ireland would spend €3 billion more than previously planned on infrastructure projects in 2025. This would be financed not by the Apple back taxes but a different windfall: the sale of shares in Ireland’s second-largest bank, AIB, following its state bailout and nationalization in 2010.

Chambers said the sovereign wealth funds — one earmarked for infrastructure, the other for environmental projects — would grow to more than €16 billion next year, much of it coming from Apple. “Protecting and nurturing” these investment reserves would be essential to secure Ireland in what he called “a more shock-prone world.”

“While we cannot prevent external shocks,” he said, “we can ensure we are on the best possible footing when they do occur.”

Ukrainian Lessons for the Age of Automated Warfare

By Federico Borsari

October 1, 2024

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has highlighted 

the continued relevance of massed combat power and 

new technologies on today’s battlefields. 

The West must adapt to meet the challenge.

Both sides have fired millions of artillery shells, launched thousands of missiles, and deployed millions of drones in two and a half years of conflict. After initial challenges, Russia is now on a war footing and outpaces the West in the production of all those capabilities.

Equally importantly, both Russia and Ukraine — as well as China and Iran — have integrated expendable systems, such as consumer-grade reconnaissance drones and loitering munitions, making the use of expendable resources at scale part of their military strategies.

This trend is poised to increase, but the West is unprepared and has been slow in adapting. The US and its NATO allies are failing to build the mass needed to extend their military capabilities and make their conventional deterrence more credible.

Besides missiles and artillery ammunition, the lack of magazine depth and large-scale manufacturing capacity affects tactical unmanned aerial systems (UAS) and highly automated loitering munitions, both of which have become key assets in modern warfare.

Industrial challenges and bottlenecks, combined with cumbersome procurement processes and inadequate defense budgets, are among the causes. At the same time, political hesitancy, ethical concerns, and inconsistent approaches to key technologies have created additional challenges.

In Ukraine, it has become plain that both 20th and 21st-century means of warfare are critical to the fight. The mass use of artillery, trench warfare, and even frontal infantry assaults reminiscent of World War I, have combined with artificial intelligence applications, one-minute sensor-to-shooter cycles, and an extensive variety of drones.

Field artillery remains a major force shaping the tactical fight, but its primacy is threatened by the large-scale use of first-person view (FPV) attack drones, which are performing suppression and precision strike missions at an unprecedented scale.

Data suggests that in some areas of the front like Chasiv Yar, FPV kamikaze drones are responsible for 90% of the wounds treated close to the battlefront and, since September 2023, have put more than 800 Russian main battle tanks out of combat, inflicting damage worth more than $1.5bn at a fraction of the price. Open-source evidence also indicates a spike in the use of Russian Lancet-3 loitering munitions, with almost 1,500 strikes since January 2024.

The integration of automated features is already counterbalancing the defensive role of electronic warfare (EW.) A small yet growing number of FPV drones used by Ukraine have automated lock-on-target guidance enabled by computer vision.

This allows the operator to select the target and keep control of the system at all times, including aborting the attack if necessary. At the same time, it makes enemy EW techniques ineffective once the operator has confirmed the target with the onboard engagement system.

Commercially developed software applications powered by computer vision (e.g., Skynode S and YOLO) support automated terminal guidance as well as visual navigation in GPS-denied environments and run on low-cost yet powerful computing systems that typically come with contained energy.

While computer vision alone does not make the system autonomous (i.e. able to select among different courses of action without human intervention), it is among the critical enablers of full autonomy, which is likely not too far away.

Autonomy will come with significant challenges in terms of energy and logistics, human-machine teaming, the establishment of new tactics and concepts of operations, and — crucially — ethical implications.

Yet, peer adversaries like China and Russia consider AI technologies and autonomous systems as critical to closing the technological gap between the US and NATO and may have fewer qualms about employing fully autonomous systems. Russia’s daily war crimes and disdain for civilian lives in Ukraine and elsewhere should give us enough warning in this respect.

Western countries should therefore pursue a pragmatic approach to autonomous weapon systems, supporting international efforts to regulate and bind their use, but also demarcate areas and mission sets for their eventual use. Such kill boxes are already emerging as experimentation with automated weapons expands and more battlefield data becomes available for training AI algorithms.

In Ukraine, loitering munitions, including FPV drones, are cost-effective and available in great numbers, lowering the entry bar for tactical, beyond-line-of-sight precision strike capabilities to platoon-level units, with specialized UAS operators now embedded at all levels of the Ukrainian military. Similar adaptations are emerging in the Russian military, although at a slower pace. 

These developments have profound implications for force design, doctrine development, training, personnel, and other areas of the military.

Packs or swarms of loitering munitions with different ranges and warheads can be used to slow, fix, and destroy hostile forces, disrupting their logistics and inhibiting their ability to effectively maneuver, regroup, or react. FPV drones are often employed to suppress enemy forces, including during mechanized assaults, and provide accurate fire support for infantry units.

For decades, highly automated weapons requiring minimal (but essential) human control, including fire-and-forget and homing missiles like the Javelin and Spike, have seen widespread use in conflicts across the globe.

Ukrainian FPV drones work according to the same principle as the Javelin missile, using humans for target selection and terminal guidance for engagement. However, there is still reluctance across Western governments to fully embrace such systems, largely as a result of ethical concerns related to a poor understanding of the technology among decision-makers.

Innovation, dictated by frontline as well as commercial demands, moves at lightning speed, but the Western defense system has struggled to catch up and absorb novel technologies.

This lag is amplified by extremely bureaucratic acquisition processes, insufficient training and experimentation, indecisiveness among policymakers, lack of demand signals, and a defense industry that is structured for peace-time production. According to a US defense industry representative, “the West has forgotten what the word volume means.”

All of which may undermine Western conventional defense and deterrence.

Conversely, Ukraine has been able to adapt and upgrade its industrial base to integrate innovation at pace and produce expendable drones at scale. Russia is also outpacing the West in the production of key military equipment — from artillery shells and missiles to cheap reconnaissance drones and loitering munitions.

Bridging this gap requires greater political ambition and larger defense budgets across the Western alliance, but also a shift from the requirement-based procurement model to a threat-based model. This would allow for rapid acquisition and more flexible budget allocation to keep pace with technological evolution and battlefield needs.

As software applications redefine military capabilities and the conduct of operations, Western nations need to digitize their military enterprises and guarantee easy and rapid access to software — including commercial products — at all levels.

According to the CEO of one European drone and software company that this author consulted, this can happen only through a reform of defense production and procurement processes, so “the application-level software is decoupled from the hardware it runs on, tapping into commercial software solutions to build many more functionalities rather than having a few primes that produce everything.”

This would create greater price pressure and competition, generate a broader range of solutions, and facilitate cross-collaboration between the military and commercial sectors, unlocking the potential for speed, interoperability, and rapid iteration that software guarantees.

Federico Borsari is a Resident Fellow with the Transatlantic Defense and Security Program at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) and a cohort of the NATO 2030 Global Fellowship. At CEPA he focuses on issues at the intersection between technology and international security, in particular unmanned systems and autonomy, and his portfolio also includes NATO and transatlantic defense and security. He has authored several analyses and publications on the use and security implications of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) by both state and non-state actors and recently co-authored the first-ever report on drone warfare and the implications for NATO with the Center for European Policy Analysis.

Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the position or views of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis.

Will a Worker Shortage Kill the U.S. Manufacturing Boom?

The United States is witnessing a boom in manufacturing investment, stimulated by massive government subsidies, but the skilled workforce necessary to support it is severely lacking.

Blog Post by Benn Steil and Elisabeth Harding
September 27, 2024 

COUNCIL ON FORIEGN RELATIONS (CFR)



In order to make supply chains more resilient, boost domestic manufacturing, and compete with China in “strategic” industries, the Biden administration has—across the Inflation Reduction Act, Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and CHIPS and Science Act—pledged over $2.1 trillion in investment incentives.

As a result, private investment in construction of manufacturing buildings, as shown in the left-hand figure above, has almost tripled since 2019—rising significantly more rapidly than investment in building construction overall. As shown in the right-hand figure, however, the United States lacks the human capital to sustain a manufacturing boom. By 2033, 3.8 million new positions will open, yet only half of these are likely to be filled.

Nearly 75 percent of this employment gap will owe to retirements. A quarter of U.S. manufacturing workers are over the age of 54, and those between 55 and 64 leave the industry at a higher rate than do those in other industries. Though the CHIPS Act gives preference to companies that provide workforce training and education investments, and the administration has promised to create jobs requiring only apprenticeships, a huge mass of new skilled entrants in areas such as engineering and computer science will still be required to replace the coming wave of retirees. Already, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has had to delay production in its chip manufacturing plant in Arizona owing to a shortage of specialized workers. Going forward, reducing such shortages will require far wider policy initiatives, such as expanding scholarships for technical-college training and raising visa numbers for skilled foreign workers.

ECOCIDE

Yemeni army says hit British oil tanker in Red Sea

TEHRAN, Oct. 01 (MNA) – The Yemeni army said Tuesday that its forces hit British oil tanker Cordelia Moon in Red Sea.

Brigadier General Yahya Saree, spokesman for the Yemeni Armed Forces said in a statement on Tuesday that the Yemeni military targeted and hit the British oil tanker Cordelia Moon in Red Sea.

Yemen says its armed forces have targeted a British oil vessel with cruise and ballistic missiles during a series of operations in the Red Sea on Tuesday.

The country’s armed forces said in a statement that the oil tanker—CORDELIA MOON— was severely damaged after being struck with “eight ballistic and cruise missiles, a drone, and a drone boat.”

A British maritime agency also confirmed the attack on the oil tanker, saying it was hit by a sea drone, puncturing a ballast tank.

Another vessel, MARATHOPOLIS, which is registered and sailing under the flag of Malta, was struck in a separate operation in the Indian Ocean with a cruise missile, Yemen said. 

MNA

News ID 222267

Tribes in Nevada Honor Victims of US Cavalry Massacre

Commemoration Highlights Need to Respect Indigenous Communities’ Rights

Bria Nelson
Researcher and Advocate, Racial Justice and Equity
HRW


Click to expand Image
Members of People of Red Mountain and their supporters stand around a fire for a song for healing during a gathering at Sentinel Rock to honor the lives of their ancestors, September 21, 2024. © 2024 Chanda Callao

On September 21, I attended the fourth annual commemoration of a massacre at Peehee Mu’huh, land sacred to People of Red Mountain (Atsa Koodakuh wyh Nuwu) in northern Nevada. During the commemoration, tribe members and their supporters gathered at Sentinel Rock in the McDermitt Caldera to celebrate community and honor the ancestors who died there on September 12, 1865, when the United States Cavalry murdered elders, women, and children and left their entrails spread across the sagebrush.

At the commemoration, I watched as the knowledge keepers and descendants of the Fort McDermitt Paiute, Shoshone, and Bannock Tribes sang the songs of their people and threw cedar, tobacco, and sage into the fire. People of Red Mountain and other Native people use this land to hunt animals and gather plants for food and medicine. The commemoration was an opportunity to gather and worship the sacred land and spirits who occupy it, and to honor both the memory of those the US military massacred and all who carry their memory forward.

A lithium mine is also under construction at Peehee Mu’huh, signaling a tension between the present, the past, and the future.

The memory of the Peehee Mu’huh massacre is a stark reminder of the violent forces and brutal federal policies that have shaped colonialism in the United States.

People of Red Mountain remain dedicated to honoring the legacy of their people. “There are three things they can never take away from us: our medicine, our prayer, and our song,” said Ray Bacasegua Valdez of the American Indian Movement.

The US has only begun to acknowledge what it has taken from Native people.

How climate change threat is being tackled by Scotland's salmon farmers

By Tavish Scott
Published 1st Oct 2024

Scotland’s salmon farmers are developing innovative new techniques to keep their fish safe from the wider effects of rising sea temperatures

The past few months have masqueraded as summer. Walking to the office during the Edinburgh festivals was akin to a version of the Cruel Sea with water running amok. But while lower air and sea temperatures and above-average rainfall and gusty winds are miserable for humans, this is great weather for fish

Compared to 2023, when some coastal waters around the UK saw temperatures four to five degrees warmer than average, 2024 has been the polar opposite. The El Niño weather patterns are widely accepted as contributing to that phenomenon, but forecasters predict that this period is now past – and temperatures have reduced in line with normal trends.

Seawater temperatures are not a direct problem for the salmon being raised on Scotland’s coastal west strip and around the islands; they thrive within a range. Fish are cold-blooded, so higher seawater temperatures actually encourage growth and allows the harvest weight to be reached more quickly.

Algal blooms and micro-jellyfish

However, warmer seas also mean an increase in plankton, algal blooms and micro-jellyfish –marine species that can harm salmon. Fish farmers – like all farmers – want as many of their animals to make it to market, even more so when Scottish salmon has never been in more demand.

So this year has, therefore, seen a very welcome and significant increase in survival rates at Scotland’s salmon farms. In fact, the most recent published figures for August 2024 show the best survival rates in five years.

Scotland's salmon farms have a long history of innovation (Picture: Jeff J Mitchell) | Getty Images


The percentage of fallen stock was less than half the same month the year before, and the lowest level of monthly mortality since August 2019. It is testament to the hard work of the men and women, the vets and the farm assistants, working in our sector that we seem to have turned a corner.

But we know that climate change will continue to pose a significant challenge to all forms of food production – on land and at sea. We can’t simply stand back and hope that normal seawater temperatures continue in the years ahead.

Curtains made of air

That’s why salmon farming companies are investing in innovation, research and development, something which Scotland has a long, proud history of pioneering. We have been farming in the seas around Scotland for half a century, and the knowledge and experience we have built up over that time will help us thrive into the future.

I am often asked what is the solution to the challenges posed by climate change? Salmon farmers now have an increasing number of tools at their fingertips to provide the best growing conditions for fish.

These include aeration and oxygenation of seawater added to feeding techniques that reduce the time salmon spend near the water’s surface. Other innovations such as bubble curtains use air to create a barrier which prevents contact with organisms that are harmful to our fish.

And several farming companies are also developing initiatives that will see larger fish put to sea, reducing the amount of time salmon spend in the elements.

With its low carbon footprint, Scottish salmon is exactly the sort of food the world needs. And through the very best in Scottish innovation, research and development, we can overcome the challenge of climate change.

Tavish Scott is chief executive of Salmon Scotland, the trade body for the salmon farming sector

Inspectors have no concerns over dead salmon at fish farm


Dead salmon being removed before the visit by MSPs

Government inspectors say they have no concerns over the number of dead salmon removed from a fish farm just hours before MSPs visited.

Members of the Scottish Parliament's rural affairs committee visited Dunstaffnage fish farm near Oban on Monday 25 September for a fact-finding mission.

Animal Equality UK accused the fish farm operator of trying to paint a "wholly inaccurate" picture of the industry but Scottish Sea Farms insisted the footage showed "routine" operations.

Members of the Fish Health Inspectorate have now told committee members dead fish removal is a "recognised aspect of animal husbandry".

The committee is holding a follow-up inquiry into how the sector has changed since a damning report in 2018 raised environmental concerns.

Following the release of the footage of dead and dying fish being removed, a spokesperson for the committee said it had heard concerns about fish mortality on salmon farms during its inquiry and added that the footage raised further questions for the committee.

BBC Scotland News understands that the removal of the fish on 25 September was not discussed with MSPs.

Fish farm 'removed tonnes of dead salmon' before visit by MSPs

Farmed salmon production drops by a fifth

Animal Equality UK accused the industry of wanting to "hide the truth" regarding parasites and diseases.

But Scottish Sea Farms, which operates the site, insisted the footage showed teams following standard operating procedures by regularly removing dead or dying fish.

It said the number of fish removed each time would vary between pens and from day to day.

But it insisted it had "categorically not" had a mass mortality event.

The inspectorate has written to the parliament committee saying 1,082kg of biomass was removed from the site on the day the footage was taken but said the mortality levels had not been above the voluntary reporting levels.

It said: "The FHI do not have concerns with the routine mortality removal procedure being undertaken in the video footage."

Scottish Parliament
Six members of the rural economy and islands committee visited the salmon farm

On Tuesday, Dr Ralph Bickerdike, head of fish health & welfare at Scottish Sea Farms, said: "The response by the Fish Health Inspectorate reinforces what we clearly stated to the BBC last week: that the footage shows our farm team fulfilling their duty of care by swiftly removing any poorly fish or fallen stock, something we do each morning where conditions allow."

Abigail Penny, executive director of Animal Equality UK, said: "The public outcry upon seeing this footage speaks for itself.

"Containers full to the brim of dead animals tell a story that percentages on a page cannot. The fact this doesn't even cause regulators to bat an eyelid is deeply troubling.

"If this is business as usual, MSPs must question whether this is an industry Scotland should continue supporting."

Parasitic sea lice

Scottish salmon is the UK's biggest food export, worth £578m in 2022.

But the number of fish dying on farms has been increasing, with a record 17 million salmon deaths reported in Scotland last year.

Warm sea temperatures have led to a significant increase in micro-jellyfish which cause harm to farmed salmon.

There are also long-standing concerns around parasitic sea lice and the use of chemical treatments in open waters.

In 2018, Holyrood's environment committee concluded that Scotland's marine ecosystem faced "irrecoverable damage" from an expansion in fish farming.

A report by the regulator Sepa, in the same year, found that almost one in five salmon farms in Scotland failed to meet statutory environmental standards.

Another report, by the Scottish parliament's rural economy committee, made 65 recommendations for improvement but stopped short of backing a moratorium on new fish farms.

The current inquiry is examining to what extent those recommendations have been implemented.

 

The end of UK coal power: Community action’s quiet victory

Features, Oct 1st

Site occupations have been a significant tactic in slowing or stopping new coal mines and power stations

~ From Coal Action Network ~

Smoke filled the sky across the industrial parts of the UK, as coal powered the industrial revolution. First coal brought prosperity and progress, but over decades the smoke stacks have been identified as a major cause of the climate crisis.

Over the last 20 years the UK has changed dramatically, with the closure of Ratcliffe on Soar power station at the end of September 2024 marking the beginning of a coal free era. As recently as 2012, coal provided 40% of the UK’s electricity, with around 40 coal mines extracting 17.1 million tonnes of coal, with an additional 45 million tonnes of coal imported from Russia, Colombia and the USA.

Ratcliffe on Soar, near Nottingham opened in 1967, with a capacity of 2,000 megawatts, enough to power 2 million homes. Since the early 2000s people across the UK have campaigned against coal power stations, coal mines and other coal infrastructure. Coal is the greatest historical cause of climate change and still a major global contributor of green house gas emissions.

In 2015, the UK was the first country to announce it would phase-out coal by 2025. While lauded as a big climate victory the Government’s intention was also to ensure coal didn’t exit the UK’s grid any earlier than 2025. At the time coal still contributed 9% of the UK’s electricity supply.

Ratcliffe power station has seen its fair share of protests demanding closure. One example of direct action took place on the site in 2007, when Spring into Action, saw 11 people locked on to the dumper trucks and the conveyor belts, feeding coal to the power station. This caused major disruption to the plant operation, before they were removed. Back then Ratcliffe was the UK’s 3rd largest source of carbon dioxide emissions in the UK.

One of the group occupying the site said “the threat of climate change is so huge and the government so complacent that the people themselves are now acting in proportionate response to this and targeting the root causes of climate change”.

In a far cry from recent sentencing, in 2009, when 114 people were pre-emptively arrested from a meeting place in Nottingham, they were found to have been intending to occupy Ratcliffe for as long as possible. When activists were sentenced, one judge declared they acted with “the highest possible motives”. They accepted that they were intending to close the power station, but said that the urgency of climate change meant they had to take this action.

Undercover police officer Mark Kennedy, was involved in organising actions against Ratcliffe power station and as such some of the convictions were later overturned.

Three years ago, prior to the Glasgow COP climate summit, the phase-out date was brought forward to 2024. The UK wanted to be seen as a climate leader in phasing-out coal and setting up the Powering Past Coal Alliance with Canada in 2015, but others got there first.

Although the UK was first to announce the end of its coal power sector, Belgium was the first European nation to stop burning coal, ending its use in 2016. Sweden stopped using coal in 2019, bringing forward the planned date by 2 years. Austria stopped using coal in 2020. Neither the Belgium nor Austrian phase-outs were considered to be government driven. Portugal brought forward its phase-out date twice from a starting point of 2030 to 2021.

The UK Government extended the life of coal power stations after Russia invaded Ukraine. Drax, West Burton and part of Ratcliffe coal power stations were kept from retiring in 2022, in a fear that Russian warmongering would endanger electricity supply. The UK stopped Russian coal imports in response to the war.

In 2017, the UK had sourced 49% of its imported coal from Russia, where coal mining contributed to cultural genocide and laid waste to large areas of the country, decimating rivers, forests and agricultural areas.

Imported coal comes with a high toll for the local populations and campaigners in the UK have been pushing for an end to imports of coal from Russia as well as Colombia, while calling for the end of its mining and use in the UK. Over the years London Mining Network has brought visitors to the UK from international coal affected regions, particularly in Latin America. Meeting these campaigners has been profoundly moving experiences for people living close to proposed coal mines in the UK, as the similarities in their struggles are numerous, and it shows that the campaigns are thinking globally by acting locally and pushing for the end of coal power.

The movement against coal power in the UK has been wide, with people standing up and saying no to opencast coal mines near their homes and joining together to stop 45 planned new opencast coal mines from operating. Significant battles were fought at Lodge House in Derbyshire, in the Pont Valley in Durham and Ffos-y-fran the UK’s largest opencast mine, which was allowed by the Welsh Government to mine coal for an unbelievable 15 months after planning permission ended.

Coal Action Network has worked with communities resisting opencast and later deep coal mining across the UK. From its inception in 2008, it has supported more than 25 communities to stop coal mines and extension from destroying local wildlife, filling local people’s lungs with dust and the industrialisation of the countryside.

Site occupations have been a significant tactic in slowing or stopping coal mines from starting. Coal Action Scotland occupied several sites including Mainshill and later Glentaggart East, both in South Lanarkshire for action camps that disrupted operations on existing opencast sites. Scotland’s last coal power station, Longannet closed in March 2016, and the Scottish Government banned coal mining in 2022, in a protest against the proposed West Cumbria coal mine.

In 2018 the last two opencast coal mines started, both in County Durham, opposition to the one in the Pont Valley a protest camp was set up and featured in the urgent film documentary Finite: the climate of change. This campaign, and others in the North East had brought the local opposition to coal extraction to a head and in 2020 the proposed mines at Druridge Bay, and Dewley Hill were rejected, along with an extension to the Pont Valley opencast. Support for coal had turned a corner.

With the coal-phase out announcement and pressure on opencast coal mines coal companies started saying that their coal was destined for use in the steel industry. The second and third biggest single site emitters of carbon in the UK were Port Talbot steelworks and the steelworks at Scunthorpe. Drax power station has the dubious honour of being the biggest carbon emitter, which although it no longer burning coal, it does burning trees from old growth forests.

In September 2024 the planning permission for the proposed West Cumbria coal mine was revoked and then the license from the Coal Authority was rejected. Communities in Cumbria and beyond fought long and hard to bring about these results which were cemented in court by South Lakes Action on Climate Change and Friends of the Earth.

Welsh train staff consider strike action over pay

David Deans
Political reporter, BBC Wales News

BBC
Transport for Wales is owned by the Welsh government

Staff working for the Transport for Wales train service are being balloted for strike action over pay.

The TSSA union said it was "extremely disappointing" that the Welsh government-owned train service had offered a below inflation pay rise.

It warned of "significant disruption" to the railway network if members, which include station staff and depot managers, vote to walk out.

Transport for Wales said it will be meeting representatives from the TSSA and is "confident of working together to find a resolution".

The union said it had rejected a "below inflation" offer of 3.5% for the first year and pay linked to the retail prices index-rate of inflation for year two.

Inflation currently stands at 2.2% under the consumer prices index, but BBC Wales was told it was higher when negotiations began.

TSSA general secretary Maryam Eslamdoust, said: "We are balloting our members for industrial action as a last resort but feel we have no option but to take this course."

She added: “TfW should be in no doubt that our members are deeply unhappy with the situation – one which the company could alleviate and stop significant disruption to the railways, by making an improved offer which meets our aspirations."

A spokesperson for TfW said: "We will shortly be meeting with representatives from the TSSA and are confident of working together to find a resolution."

 

New tip law introduced for hospitality workers in Great Britain but not NI

By James Bayley

Published:  01 October, 2024

From today (1 October), hospitality workers in Great Britain will have legal protection to receive 100% of tips paid by customers in restaurants, cafes, hotels and other service industries. However, these rights do not extend to Northern Ireland, leaving workers there without the same protections as the rest of the UK.

The Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act, is a result of a campaign by hospitality workers in the Unite union. The legislation impacts over four million workers who receive tips or service charges and requires employers to distribute all tips – whether card, cash or service charge – fairly and transparently.

Workers can take their employer to a tribunal if the law is breached, with the potential for judges to order a reallocation of tips plus up to £5,000 in compensation per affected worker.

• Read more: 50 Top Drinks Wholesalers 2024 ranking – 50-41 revealed

Despite the introduction of the new law across Great Britain, no equivalent legislation has been implemented in Northern Ireland. Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “It is completely unacceptable that fair tips laws, which Unite has fought to win since 2007, have been introduced by Westminster but not by the Stormont executive.

Neil Moore, Unite’s lead regional officer for hospitality in Northern Ireland, added: “Stormont’s failure to implement fair tips legislation has left bosses free to dip their hand in the tips when it suits them. Hospitality workers need these rights to be legally enforceable now.”

According to the union, the lack of protections in Northern Ireland, combined with low pay, means many hospitality workers rely on tips to meet basic needs.