ET TU BRUTUS
Chad President Idriss Deby Itno killed in clash with rebels: Military

The announcement came just hours after electoral officials had declared Deby, 68, the winner of the April 11 presidential election, paving the way for him to stay in power for six more years.

I GUESS THAT WAS A BIT MUCH FOR SOME



Chadian President Idriss Deby Itno (Picture: AP)

Chadian President Idriss Deby Itno, who ruled the central African nation for more than three decades, died Tuesday of wounds suffered on the battlefield during a fight against rebels, the military announced on national television and radio.

Chad's Idriss Deby, a longstanding French ally in the troubled Sahel

Issued on: 20/04/2021 

In this April 20, 2016 file photo, then Chadian president Idriss Déby at a meeting with then US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power at the presidential palace in N'Djamena, Chad, Wednesday, April 20, 2016. © Andrew Harnik, AP

Text by:FRANCE 24


Idriss Deby Itno, who was on course for a sixth term as Chad's president before he died from injuries sustained in battle, had earned a reputation as a stalwart French ally in the fight against jihadist insurgencies in the Sahel – despite accusations of authoritarianism.


The 68-year-old son of a herder would have been one of the longest-serving leaders in the world, after provisional results showed him winning re-election this week.

But his shock death cut his 30-year political career short and will likely throw Chadian politics into disarray.

Classic path to power

Deby, from the Zaghawa ethnic group, took the classic path to power through the army, and relished the military culture.

Last August, the National Assembly named him field marshal, the first in Chad's history, after he led an offensive against jihadists who had killed nearly 100 troops at a base in the west of the country.

Dressed in a dark-blue silk cape embroidered with oak leaves, and clutching a baton, Deby dedicated the tribute to "all my brothers in arms".

As a young man, he enrolled at the officers' academy in the capital N'Djamena before heading to France, where he trained as a pilot.

He returned in 1979 to a country in the grip of feuding warlords.

Deby hitched his star to Hissene Habre and was rewarded with the post of army chief after Habre came to power in 1982, ousting Goukouni Weddeye.

He went on to distinguish himself fighting Libyan-backed rebels over mountainous territory in the north of the country.

But in 1989, he fell out with his increasingly paranoid boss, who accused him of plotting a coup.

Deby fled to Sudan, where he assembled an armed rebel group, the Patriotic Salvation Movement, which rolled into N'Djamena unopposed in December 1990.

In 1996, six years after he seized power and ushered in democracy, Deby was elected head of state in Chad's first multi-party vote. He won all succeeding elections.

The main opposition withdrew its participation in 2006 and 2011, irked by a change to the constitution enabling the former soldier to renew his term, and the elections in 2015 were marked by accusations of fraud.

French friend

Deby was solidly backed by former colonial power France, which in 2008 and in 2019 used military force to help defeat rebels who tried to oust him.

"We safeguarded an absolutely major ally in the struggle against terrorism in the Sahel," French Defence Minister Florence Parly told parliament in 2019.

Deby supported French intervention in northern Mali in 2013 to repel jihadists, and the following year stepped in to end chaos in the Central African Republic. Experts consider Chadian soldiers the strongest in the G5 Sahel – the regional bloc transformed into a military alliance at Paris’ behest in 2017, bringing together forces from Mali, Niger, Chad, Burkina Faso and Mauritania.

In 2015, Deby launched a regional offensive in Cameroon, Nigeria and Niger against Nigeria-based Boko Haram jihadists, dubbing the Islamic State affiliate "a horde of crazies and drug addicts".

One of Deby's political rivals, Saleh Kebzabo, had protested against France's backing and urged the world to recognise the regime's "dictatorial nature".

Deby's power base, the army, comprises mainly troops from the president's Zaghawa ethnic group and is commanded by loyalists.

It is considered one of the best in Sahel. According to the International Crisis Group think tank, defence spending accounts for between 30 and 40 percent of Chad's annual budget.

'Bullying society'?

In 2018, Deby scrapped the position of prime minister to assume full executive authority.

"Everything is centralised around the presidency – he uses all the weapons of absolute power while bullying society," Roland Marchal at the Centre of International Research at the Sciences Po school in Paris told AFP.

Marchal said Deby had a reputation for a hot temper and notorious mood swings, although a close aide said he had "great listening ability and analytical skills".

Accused of iron-fisted rule during his long reign, Deby banned opposition demonstrations, made arbitrary arrests and severed access to social networks, raising regular objections from human rights groups.

The late president also named relatives and cronies to key positions, and failed to address the poverty that afflicts many of Chad's 13 million people despite oil wealth.

The country ranks 187th out of 189 in the UN's Human Development Index (HDI).

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

From Myanmar to Afghanistan: are we seeing the end of western interventions?

Demonstrators carry placards and flash the three-finger salute during an anti-military coup protest yesterday in Mandalay, Myanmar. EPA

A coup is launched against a democracy barely 10 years old. The brutal military junta that takes over murders hundreds of its citizens. It even stoops to shooting children; a baby loses an eye as a result. The country is near united in opposition to the new regime, as shown by the mass civil disobedience that is crippling the economy. There is no ambiguity: the cause of righteousness is clearly on one side.

In the days of Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, even of David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy, the call might have gone out for the West to act – to send in external armed forces to rescue the country from dictatorship and build a new liberal democracy.

Yet when the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) meets in Jakarta this Saturday to discuss the situation in Myanmar, the junta leader Min Aung Hlaing will be in attendance and the talk will be of sanctions and dialogue. The acting foreign minister of the shadow government formed to represent the overthrown parliament has asked the international community for “co-ordinated political, financial and security measures” to support his country’s people, but for nothing more visceral.

Despite many warnings that Myanmar is on the brink of a Syria-style civil war, the former American ambassador to Naypyidaw, Derek Mitchell, said in an interview with Bloomberg this week that “there’s little more that the West can do”.

Mr Mitchell, now president of the National Democratic Institute, may well be right. The fact that almost no one appears to be suggesting the use of external force, however, makes one ask: has the doctrine of liberal interventionism been so thoroughly discredited that it is not just dead, but has gone extinct?


The worry is that western exceptionalism is alive and all too well

Liberal interventionists were in the ascendance around the turn of the millennium. Britain’s military expedition in 2000 helped bring a close to Sierra Leone’s civil war, while then UK prime minister Tony Blair’s role in Nato’s air campaign in support of Kosovo the previous year was so well received locally that “Tonibler” became a popular name for young boys born in the soon-to-be-independent state.

With their neo-conservative allies in the George W Bush administration, liberal interventionists backed regime-change wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in 2001 and 2003, convinced that they not only had the right to overthrow governments they deemed barbaric and illegitimate, but that they had a moral duty to export democracy and western values, even at the barrel of a gun.

Today, we hear nothing of such liberal interventionist ideas. Even the related notion of the “Responsibility to Protect” adopted by the UN in 2005, under which the Security Council could authorise force to prevent atrocities and protect civilians, has virtually disappeared from regular parlance. (This has been raised in the context of Myanmar, but China and Russia would almost certainly veto any military proposals.)

Other powers are more than willing to insert themselves in other countries – most obviously Turkey, Russia and Iran in Syria – but their interventions have clearly been in pursuit of their own interests, not idealistic (if wrong-headed) goals.

There are also still plenty of liberal hawks. From the Biden administration to Prime Minister Scott Morrison of Australia, there is no shortage of leaders who warn of a “polarisation between authoritarian regimes and autocracies, and the liberal democracies that we love”, as Mr Morrison put it last week. UK parliamentarians speak darkly of the “dangers” they believe are posed by Russia and China. The black-and-white mindset which views western-style liberal democracy as the only legitimate form of governance remains untroubled by nuance, history, or knowledge of – let alone respect for – local cultures.

But moving from the observation that different countries have different value-systems to saying that they must, by necessity, clash, or making clear that the US will defend treaty allies in the Asia-Pacific, falls far short of arguing for liberal interventionism.

From the vantage point of 2021, it is easy to see why very few prominent proponents are left for this once-fashionable doctrine. The catastrophes wreaked by regime-change interventions on Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan – the last described so eloquently by Sulaiman Hakemy and Hussein Ibish in these pages recently – cannot be painted as exceptions to the rule. Empirically, they are the rule.

But it took a while for the facts to dim the reckless warmongering of liberal interventionists and the neo-conservatives who sought ends so similar as to make no difference between them. In his book After the Neocons, the political scientist Francis Fukuyama describes a lecture given by the late US columnist Charles Krauthammer at the American Enterprise Institute in 2004, entitled American Realism: An American Foreign Policy for a Unipolar World. Mr Fukuyama wrote that the war in Iraq was “treated … as a virtually unqualified success”.

“I could not understand why everyone around me was applauding enthusiastically, given that the United States had found no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, was bogged down in a vicious insurgency, and had almost totally isolated itself from the rest of the world by following the unipolar strategy advocated by Krauthammer.”

Seven years later, Britain’s Mr Cameron and France’s Mr Sarkozy appeared to have learned very little when they cheered Nato’s ousting of Colonel Gaddafi in Libya. I warned in these pages at the time that “although the gamble appears to have paid off, it was, like similar ventures in the past, one taken hastily, instinctively (on the basis that ‘something must be done’), with no serious thought for what happened afterwards nor even the vaguest notion of how long it would last”. Now, sadly, we do know what happened afterwards.

Perhaps it has taken the forthcoming allied withdrawal from Afghanistan, where the US military spent not far short of $1 trillion and lost 2,448 military personnel, and where up to 40,000 civilians have died, with precious little gained, to have provided the writing on the headstone for liberal interventionism.

I would hope that this misguided doctrine might rest undisturbed and unconsulted for decades to come. The worry is that the western exceptionalism that underpinned it is alive and all too well. There are many, armed with the unwarranted moral superiority they award themselves, who are itching for conflict as much as the unlamented liberal interventionists. These nostalgists for a US-led unipolar world may in future prove just as deluded – and just as dangerous.

Sholto Byrnes is an East Asian affairs columnist

 for The National/UAE
Updated: April 20, 2021 

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UK Vaccine Taskforce head lifts lid on Novavax deal

Richard Staines

April 19, 2021

The UK’s unique offering as a life sciences research hub helped convince US biotech Novavax to develop its COVID-19 jab there, according to the head of the country’s Vaccines Taskforce. 

Last August the UK government finalised a deal with Novavax to purchase 60 million doses of the NVX-CoV2373 vaccine, which will also be manufactured in the country at a plant owned by FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies in Stockton-on-Tees.

That plant could produce up to 180 million doses annually and a GlaxoSmithKline facility 30 miles away in Barnard Castle will soon be ready to fill and finish the vaccines.

The vaccine is currently under review by the MHRA and could prove to be a vital part of the effort to vaccinate the whole UK population against the virus, providing enough shots to vaccinate a further 30 million people.

Clive Dix, head of the UK’s Vaccine Taskforce, told pharmaphorum in an interview that he was able to persuade Novavax to base research, development and manufacturing in the country because of its efficiency at getting trials up and running.

The vaccine has also been added to a “mix and match” study to see if it can be used as a follow-up shot in people who have already received the AstraZeneca or Pfizer vaccine.

Dix said: “I sat in the (virtual) room with them and said ‘we will help you develop the vaccine faster, help with manufacturing and get you faster regulatory approval’, that was our offer and we contracted with them.”

“If you look at the development, we signed 15,000 people in six weeks in a trial set up by the NHS. It spotlighted the UK as a place to do clinical development.”

“Speed is everything in clinical development. It is really important and we have seen a lot of pharma companies interested in the UK. We have highlighted how good it is – it always has been but not everyone has noticed it.”

UK Vaccine Taskforce head lifts lid on Novavax deal - (pharmaphorum.com)

SCHADENFRUEDE

After calling COVID ‘dirty lying scam’, 

Ted Nugent says he’s been battling coronavirus: ‘I thought I was dying’


Michigan rocker Ted Nugent said he tested positive for COVID-19. (Photo by Cory Morse | MLive)

By Edward Pevos | epevos@MLive.com
4/20/2021

Just days after he went on a video rant of debunked COVID-19 myths, Ted Nugent says he’s tested positive for COVID-19 and his symptoms have been pretty bad.

The Michigan rocker went on Facebook Live on Monday, saying that’s when he tested positive after battling flu symptoms for nearly two weeks.

“I have had flu symptoms for the last 10 days and I thought I was dying,” Nugent said in his live video. “I was tested positive today. I’ve got a stuffed up head, body aches. My God, what a pain in the a--. I literally could hardly crawl out of bed the last few days. But I did. I crawled.”

Nugent then went on to use racist language about the virus before giving debunked reasons why he hasn’t taken the vaccine.

Nugent’s Facebook video announcing he has COVID-19 comes after he posted a video on his Facebook page on April 7 saying he wasn’t scared of COVID-19 as he ranted about one debunked myth after another, including why the country didn’t shut down for COVIDs one through 18.

“I ain’t scared of nothing,” Nugent said on Facebook on April 7. “This year’s tour is canceled again. Dirty lying scam. Smoke and mirrors. COVID-19 freaks.”

“I guess I would ask you, because I’m addicted to truth, logic and common sense and my common sense meter would demand the answer to. Why weren’t we shut down for COVID one through 18? COVID 1-18 didn’t shut anything down, but whoa, COVID-19, even though it’s 99.8% survivable. Why didn’t we shut down for the AIDS epidemic or the flu or influenza every year?”

“They’ve claimed 500,000 people have died from COVID-19. BS!”

Nugent went on to say that medical professionals have been made to put COVID-19 as the cause of death no matter what the cause of death was, which has also been debunked.

COVID-19 was named by The World Health Organization for the disease which is causing the novel coronavirus outbreak. COVID-19 stands for “corona,” “VI” (for virus), and “D” (for disease). The “19″ is for 2019, the year in which the virus was first identified. There is no COVID one through 18.

According to the CDC, more than 564,000 people have died from COVID-19 in the United States.

Arm will likely become a cog in a US monopoly: UK Govt to investigate NVIDIA acquisition on national security grounds

By Martyn Warwick
Apr 20, 2021

cogs in a machine (wikimedia)

Competition regulator initiates "Phase One" inquiry

Government investigation will be separate and concurrent

No binding NVIDIA promises on jobs or keeping Arm in the UK

From the "Switzerland of the global microchip market" to a microchipped American poodle

The UK government has intervened, on public interest grounds, in the ongoing saga of the proposed US$40 billion acquisition of the phenomenally successful microchip designer Arm, (which is headquartered in Cambridge in the East of England and is a company registered in the UK) by the graphics chips company NVIDIA of California in the US. The government cites "potential" national security issues and the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, Oliver Dowden, has written officially to the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to instruct it to initiate a "Phase One" investigation into the take-over.

The acquisition has been contentious since it was first announced in September last year and the CMA is due to publish a report on its findings into the competition and jurisdictional implications of the take-over by July 21 this year. The report will also cover any national security issues that might arise were any divisions or units of Arm to be relocated to the US - or elsewhere overseas. Now, the UK government itself will conduct an investigation into the potential national security issues highlighted by the mooted buy-out. It will run separately but alongside and concurrently with the CMA probe.

The Secretary of State commented, "Following careful consideration of the proposed takeover of Arm, I have today issued a Public Interest Intervention Notice on national security grounds. We want to support our thriving UK technology industry and we welcome foreign investment but it is appropriate that we properly consider the national security implications of a transaction like this. The Phase One investigation will ensure specific considerations around competition, jurisdiction of a transaction like this." Should the investigation advance to Phase Two, the process will be long and laborious. The mills of the government grind slow but they grind exceeding small.

Arm was a British success story until it was sold to Softbank of Japan at the knockdown price of $32 billion when the value of the British pound plummeted as the country voted to leave the EU. Most of the transaction was paid in NVIDIA shares. Arm chips power billions of smartphones around the world, as well as many other edge devices. The company's licensing-based business model is to create CPU architecture designs that other organisations including Apple, Qualcomm, Samsung etc., customise for their own purposes. Softbank kept Arm more or less at arm's length and independent until September 2020 when, racing to shore-up its battered balance sheet in the wake if the We Work debacle, it hurriedly it sold to NVIDIA.

Promises, promises…

NVIDIA, extremely bullish about its perceived coup, promised at the time that Arm would remain headquartered in the UK "until at least September 2021". That deadline, now less than six months away, has gone forever. Expectations are that it will be at least 18 months before any final decision will be made. Meanwhile the company continues to pledge that it will employ more British workers (there are presently 3,000 in the UK out of a total of 6,500 worldwide) and that the brand will remain unsullied. However, whereas Softbank made legally binding commitments to back up its promises, NVIDIA has done no such thing and reassuring words are plentiful - and cheap.

Hermann Hauser, Arm's co-founder said the buy-out "will be a disaster for Britain", adding that the promise to maintain and even expand the number of British jobs is "meaningless and will turn the country into 'a vassal' of the US." He added, "If Arm becomes a US subsidiary of a US company, it falls under the CFIUS (the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States) regulations. This could mean that if the hundreds of UK companies that incorporate Arm products in their devices want to sell and export their output to anywhere in the world "the decision on whether they will be allowed to do so will be made in the White House and not in Downing Street." Brits have not forgotten when Kraft bought Cadbury the iconic confectionary and chocolate company, and within months reneged on solemn promises it had made not to cut jobs or close plants.

Mr Hauser added that the future for Arm would be as bleak as it would be preordained. He told the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee of the British parliament that once acquired, Arm would be swallowed-up to become a cog in the machinery of the next enormous technology monopoly company to emerge in the US

Arm’s business model is based not on making revenue per chip but on volume and on the promise that the company will continue to treat all its customers in a neutral manner. More than 180 billion Arm-designed ships have been shipped since the company was founded some 30 years ago. The business model, in combination with Arm's position of neutrality in the production and supply chain has resulted in it being, admiringly, referred to as "the Switzerland" of the global semiconductor market. Worries are that if the acquisition is allowed to go ahead it will become more like a Puerto Rico.

TAKE OFF, EH
INGENUITY HELICOPTER NEXT FLIGHT: NASA ISN'T DONE WITH THE MARS COPTER

The short but successful flight will set the stage of future exploration of other planets. But what happens to Ingenuity now?

PASSANT RABIE

NASA’S INGENUITY HELICOPTER just went where no other aircraft has gone before.

The 19-inch-tall helicopter flew from the surface of Mars, marking humanity’s first powered, controlled flight on another planet. Those 39.1 seconds of flight set the stage for a new way to explore Mars — and worlds beyond.

Ingenuity is set to take on at least four more test flights on the Red Planet over the next month as engineers start to think of developing future aircraft beyond Earth. Here’s what you need to know about the Mars helicopter’s future plans.

The first flight took place at around 3:30 a.m. ET. Ingenuity lifted off about 10 feet from the Martian ground, hovering for about 30 seconds. The helicopter then descended back down and landed once more on the planet’s rocky surface, with the entire flight lasting for a little under 40 seconds.

ARE THERE MORE FLIGHTS FOR THE MARS HELICOPTER INGENUITY?

April 19 was the first of a series of test flights planned for Ingenuity.

Over the course of 30 Martian sols, a team of NASA engineers will test out Ingenuity's ability to fly. (A sol is the equivalent of a day on Mars, lasting about 40 minutes longer than a day on Earth.)


The Perseverance rover dropped off the Ingenuity helicopter on Mars and watched it fly for the first time.NASA


MiMi Aung, Ingenuity Mars Helicopter project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in a briefing after the flight that the goal of the Ingenuity helicopter is to deliver data to the engineers designing future generations of helicopters destined for Mars.

“Beyond this first flight, over the next coming days, we have up to four flights planned — and increasingly difficult flights, challenging flights — and we are going to continually push all the way to the limit of this rotorcraft,” Aung says.

The helicopter could fly for up to 90 seconds at a height of 10 to 15 feet, traversing distances of almost 980 feet horizontally in that time.

Ingenuity isn’t built to sustain the harsh Martian environment for long, so after the 30 day period, Perseverance will leave its companion behind to die.
WHAT’S NEXT FOR INGENUITY?

Although brief, those flights are meant to help space engineers understand whether or not it is possible to explore Mars from an aerial perspective.

NASA has landed five rovers on the surface of Mars, the latest one about the size of an SUV that roams around the surface of Mars on its four wheels. But being able to send a helicopter to Mars would give scientists a new perspective on the Red Planet. Subsequent helicopters will carry a suite of instruments, whereas Ingenuity has just a camera aboard.

And even beyond Mars, engineers are eyeing a few worlds in our Solar System with a substantial atmosphere that could support aerial flight. There’s already a proposed mission to Saturn’s moon Titan, and NASA has performed some modeling of if helicopter flight might work on Venus, though its intense heat could kibosh near-term plans.

Titan has a thick atmosphere, in addition to showing signs of potential habitability which makes it an ideal destination for future exploration.

“This is exactly the way we build the future,” Michael Watkins, JPL director, says at the press conference. “I think you'll hear a lot more about the scientific promise of the rotorcraft on Mars as part of other planets, and as part of the Science Mission Directorate portfolio.”



LIFT OFF
NASA: MARS HELICOPTER BRINGS US INTO “THE THIRD DIMENSION”

The little helicopter proved it could make history by flying on another planet.

PASSANT RABIE

4.19.2021 

ON MONDAY MORNING, NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter lifted its scrawny legs 10 feet off the Martian ground. The four-pound helicopter wasn’t in the air for long, but in less than a minute, it made history.

Those mere 39 seconds marked the first powered, controlled flight of an aircraft on another planet in all of space exploration history, a major feat that will set the stage for a new way for humanity to explore other worlds. The Wright Brothers flyer — of which there’s a piece aboard Ingenuity — lasted only 12 seconds and still changed the world forever.





Ingenuity took off at around 3:30 a.m. ET. Ground control received word of the flight’s success shortly after, unveiling first images at 6:46 a.m. ET from flight headquarters at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California.

Ingenuity downlinked its data through its Martian companion, the Perseverance rover, which communicates to mission control via the Deep Space Network. In a press conference on Monday, JPL director Michael Watkins discussed how it opens up a new era of exploration.

“What the Ingenuity team has done is given us the third dimension,” Watkins says. “They freed us from the surface now forever [in terms of] planetary exploration.”

The Perseverance rover captured this footage of Ingenuity taking its first flight on Mars .NASA

Ingenuity’s takeoff was not guaranteed. The team behind the helicopter designed the aircraft specifically to fly on Mars and tested it in a simulator before sending it off, but there was no way to know that it would actually work until it flew from the Red Planet.

Paul Byrne, associate professor of planetary science at North Carolina State University, who is not involved in Perseverance, explains that a lot of things had to go right for Ingenuity to take off from Mars.

“What we saw this morning was no less than an incredible feat of human, well, ingenuity!” Byrne tells Inverse. “The sheer number of technical things that had to go right for that first flight — safe launch, safe delivery to the Martian surface, safe deployment from Perseverance, the ability of the helicopter to survive the cold Martian nights, the fact that there's no ground-in-the-loop and everything has to be automated and commanded ahead of time — is remarkable.”

Ingenuity flew to a maximum altitude of 10 feet and maintained a stable hover for 30 seconds, according to NASA. The helicopter then touched back down on the surface of Mars after logging a total of 39.1 seconds of flight.

The flight was autonomous, preprogrammed by the team at JPL since they cannot fly the helicopter from Earth in real-time considering that the data has to travel millions of miles between Earth and Mars.

On Mars, Ingenuity was piloted by its onboard guidance and navigation system. According to Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, it was an intricate technical feat.

“We all have a hard time finding that right line between crazy and innovative and it turns out we're often wrong with that line,” Zurbuchen says during the press conference. “This was a crazy idea that was being developed and this team put that idea into reality.”

Ingenuity landed on Mars on February 18, tucked inside the Perseverance rover.

Ingenuity’s initial flight was originally slated for April 8 but suffered some delay after the helicopter shut itself down unexpectedly during a high-speed rotor spin test.

In order to set it back on track, NASA’s engineers modified and reinstalled Ingenuity’s flight software to correct what Ingenuity project manager MiMi Aung describes as “an intricate timing issue.”

The helicopter is only 19 inches tall and weighs about four pounds, with two four-foot-long carbon-fiber rotors spinning in opposite directions.

“What will we be flying on Mars in 24 years' time? I can't wait to fi

 

Paul McCartney and Kate Bush lead call for change to music streaming payments

Open letter to Boris Johnson signed by 156 musicians including Led Zeppelin and Annie Lennox aims to reword 1988 Copyright Act

‘Put the value of music back where it belongs’ … Sir Paul McCartney and Kate Bush. Composite: Getty Images; Rex/Shutterstock

Ben Beaumont-Thomas

@ben_bt

Tue 20 Apr 2021 

British musicians including Paul McCartney, Kate Bush and Chris Martin have signed an open letter calling on Boris Johnson to enforce changes to the economic model of streaming.

“For too long, streaming platforms, record labels and other internet giants have exploited performers and creators without rewarding them fairly. We must put the value of music back where it belongs – in the hands of music makers,” begins the letter to the prime minister – signed by 156 artists.

Their proposal centres on a suggested change in wording to the 1988 Copyright Act to bring royalty payments more in line with how those in radio are paid, while acknowledging the very different on-demand nature of streaming. The change in the law, the signatories argue, would mean that streaming companies would have to make “equitable remuneration” to artists via a rights collection company, a method already enshrined in British law for music played on the radio

UK radio stations purchase a licence from a rights collection company, which then uses that revenue to distribute royalties to songwriters and performers based on how often their songs are played. With streaming, revenue from users is pooled by each streaming company, such as Spotify or Apple Music. Royalty payments are distributed by each company to the rights holder – usually a record label, who take their own share depending on their deal with the artist – according to the number of plays and other undisclosed formulas. The royalty rates are set by each company.

The signatories complain that the level of agency afforded to streaming companies needs to change, and a UK regulator also be brought in.

Their statement complains of “multinational corporations wielding extraordinary power and songwriters struggling as a result. An immediate government referral to the Competition and Markets Authority is the first step to address this … we need a regulator to ensure the lawful and fair treatment of music makers.”

Other signatories include Sting, Gary Barlow, Noel Gallagher, Annie Lennox, Damon Albarn, and Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page and Robert Plant.

‘Extraordinary power’ … streaming services. Photograph: Thiago Prudencio/Dax/Zuma Wire/Rex/Shutterstock

Horace Trubridge, head of the Musicians’ Union, which is backing the letter with a petition campaign, said British law “simply hasn’t kept up with the pace of technological change. Listeners would be horrified to learn how little artists and musicians earn from streaming when they pay their subscriptions.”

As well as streaming companies being targeted for more revenue to be shared with songwriters and performers, Crispin Hunt, chair of the songwriter organisation Ivors Academy took aim at record companies, calling them “marketing firms. Without manufacturing and distribution costs, their extraordinary profits ought to be shared more equitably with creators.”

The letter, also worked on by Tom Gray of the #BrokenRecord campaign, comes in the wake of a government inquiry into the economics of streaming, that ran from November until March. MPs heard testimony from artists such as Elbow frontman Guy Garvey, who said the “system as it is is threatening the future of music”.

The music streaming debate: what the artists, songwriters and industry insiders say

Read more

Amid wider calls for more transparency and change in the sector, Apple Music messaged artists last week to state that they paid an average of one US cent per stream. Spotify has launched Loud & Clear, a website outlining how it pays the artists on its platform. Chief executive Daniel Ek said: “Our goal is to help musicians that aspire to be, or are, professional to make a living.”

Charlie Hellman, the service’s vice president and head of marketplace, told Pitchfork it was “constantly testing” ways to price its service to maximise revenue, “because if we can find the revenue-maximising price, that’s best for Spotify and it’s best for all artists. When we grow our revenues, artists’ revenues grow. When we make our programming better, more artists can fit in and have a chance to grow an audience.”

However, Spotify and its rivals often oppose efforts to increase their royalty payments, and any definition of “equitable remuneration” in the UK, even if brought into law, is likely to be highly contested.

After a 2017 US ruling that ordered the percentage of revenue paid to songwriters rise from 10.5% to 15.1%, Spotify, Google, Amazon and Pandora opposed the ruling in a statement that the US National Music Publishers Association called “shameful”. The companies scored a partial win in August 2020, with a court finding fault in the methodology used to calculate the new rates, requiring them to be recalculated. The case continues.

Apple Music declined to comment on the open letter; the Guardian has also contacted Spotify for their reaction.

P&G is raising prices on feminine-care brands this fall

The pink tax is about to get higher.

By Anagha Srikanth | April 20, 2021

Story at a glance

The coronavirus pandemic has disrupted the global supply chain and forced companies to adapt to changing demands.

Procter & Gamble announced it would raise prices on baby care, feminine care and adult incontinence products in the United States this September.

Feminine care products have long been priced higher than male care products, dubbed “the pink tax.”

If you menstruate, you already know how costly tampons and pads can be — not to mention the Advil for your cramps and skincare for those pesky zits. This fall, the price tag is about to get even higher. Thanks COVID.

The coronavirus pandemic has disrupted the global supply chain and driven up demand for many care products, including toilet paper and diapers, while others, including razors (looking at you with the overgrown beard), have dropped. Feminine care sales dropped in European markets last year, according to the P&G third quarter report, but were partially offset by "premium innovation growth in North America."

So why are Americans paying the price? Well, the company said it's hoping to offset the rising costs of raw materials — especially industrial chemicals and resins present in these products — by raising prices on baby care, feminine care and adult incontinence products, which are disproportionately affected.s.

Feminine care products include menstrual hygiene products, which are used by people of all genders, but the higher cost of care products marketed towards women (compared to those marketed to men) has been dubbed “the pink tax.”

One in 10 college students and one in five first-generation college students experience period poverty each month in the United States, according to a recent survey. Even for those who do have access to sanitary products, menstrual hygiene education, toilets, hand-washing facilities and waste management, the costs can add up. Scotland became the first country in the world to make period products free last year, but so far, the United States hasn’t followed suit. But new companies and advertising campaigns are raising awareness.

As for P&G products, the company said in a statement via email that, “as opportunities allow, we’ll close-couple price increases with new product innovations – adding value for consumers.”

Alaska Gov warns China and Russia are taking over the Arctic, says we must protect the 'American Suez'

THAT 'AMERICAN SUEZ' WOULD BE CANADA'S NORTHWEST PASSAGE

By Adam Barnes | April 7, 2021


Story at a glance

Northern Sea Route, which might prove to be a vital global trade pipeline, could be free of ice blockage in nearly 30 years.

The Republican governor points out the major question of how the United States will prepare for the potential shift in the dynamics in international trade.

Dunleavy warned that the crisis should be approached with a sense of urgency and that this is a problem that cannot wait years for an action plan.

Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy (R) warned Americans in the wake of the massive Suez Canal blockage not to take their eyes off the Arctic.

The potential financial fallout brought about by the Ever Given freighter, which clogged the Suez Canal for nearly a week, could have held up nearly $400 million per hour in international trade, according to analysts at the German insurer Allianz.

But Dunleavy argues that despite the financial ramifications of halted trade, a greater threat may loom in the near future. In fact, “this marvel of engineering could be rendered obsolete,” according to Dunleavy.

Dunleavy wrote in an Op-Ed for The Daily Caller — a conservative news website — that the Northern Sea Route, which might prove to be a vital global trade pipeline, could be free of ice blockage in nearly 30 years. This, according to Dunleavy, could cut “transits between Northwest Europe and the Far East by 40%.” Likewise, a new major point of transit might also diminish the need for the Panama Canal, Dunleavy wrote.

America is changing faster than ever! Add Changing America to your Facebook or Twitter feed to stay on top of the news.

The Republican governor points out the major question of how the United States will prepare for the potential shift in the dynamics in international trade.

“As the governor of Alaska — our nation’s only Arctic state — the importance of this region is not lost on me, but how will America defend the Arctic? Already, China and Russia have staked claims in the region and begun building Arctic fleets and infrastructure.”

Further, according to Dunleavy, the U.S. must increase preparedness in shipping capabilities.

“As Russian nuclear heavy icebreakers take to the water and Cold War installations reopen, the Coast Guard continues to operate a single, barely functional icebreaker that is not set to be replaced until 2024. Even China, who has declared itself a 'near-Arctic' nation, operates more ice-hardened ships.”

Dunleavy warned that the crisis should be approached with a sense of urgency and that this is a problem that cannot wait years for an action plan. Yet, the Alaska governor, noting the central role his state might play, expressed optimism — citing the military recruitment of troops who prefer cold weather stations. Still, Dunleavy argues that may not be enough if the U.S. is to compete with Russia and China for the potentially vital trade route and recommends they should focus on a port near the Bering Strait and a “fleet of ice hardened vessels.”

“A century ago, Gen. Billy Mitchell told Congress that Alaska would one day stand at the crossroads of the world,” Dunleavy wrote. “As our planet evolves and trade patterns shift, Mitchell’s statement becomes more prescient with each passing day.”

ExxonMobil proposes $100bn Gulf of Mexico carbon-capture project
 April 21, 2021

ExxonMobil’s plan to tackle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions involves carbon capture and storage (CCS), a technology the company says “could enable some heavy-emitting sectors to decarbonise.” It is seeking support to develop a public-private, multi-user CCS project in the Houston Ship Channel, part of the Port of Houston, that it estimates would cost $100bn or more. It is pressing for tax incentives or a carbon-pricing system, as well as financial contributions from other companies in the area.

ExxonMobil Low Carbon Solutions – created in February 2021 to commercialise ExxonMobil’s low-carbon technology portfolio – chose the Houston Ship Channel for this project because of its numerous refineries and chemical plants, facilities that are hard to decarbonise, according to Joe Blommaert, president of the Low Carbon Solutions business.

The plan looks to store 50mn tonnes of CO2 under the Gulf of Mexico by 2030 and double that by 2040. Captured CO2 would be piped to offshore reservoirs in rock formations up to 6,000 feet below the sea floor.

ExxonMobil, although committed to lowering its greenhouse gas emissions, sees oil and gas continuing to play a vital role in the economy for some time into the future. Rather than transitioning to cleaner fuels or energy sources, the company is increasing its spending on carbon-capture projects, despite some shareholder pressure to change.

While ExxonMobil views CCS as the most viable way to meet increasingly stringent GHG emission targets, the technology’s critics say a move away from fossil fuels is the only path to successfully reduce emissions to the degree required to stop climate change. CCS “is not something that’s going to save [oil and gas companies] from having to go through the energy transition,” said Rob Schuwerk, executive director of the North American office of Carbon Tracker Initiative.

Kim Biggar  started writing in the supply chain sector in 2000, when she joined the Canadian Association of Supply Chain & Logistics Management. In 2004/2005, she was project manager for the Government of Canada-funded Canadian Logistics Skills Committee, which led to her 13-year role as communications manager of the Canadian Supply Chain Sector Council. A longtime freelance writer, Kim has contributed to publications including The Forwarder, 3PL Americas, The Shipper Advocate and Supply Chain Canada.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for CCS 

COINCIDENTALLY THE ALBERTA GOVERNMENT AND BIG OIL ASKED THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OF CANADA FOR $30bn FOR EXACTLY THE SAME PROJECT SINCE EXXON MOBIL IS EXXON/IMPERIAL OIL/ESSO IN CANADA

CCS IS NEITHER CLEAN NOR GREEN
ExxonMobil has proposed a public-private carbon capture and storage (CCS) project, which would require an investment of more than $100bn.

20 Apr 2021

ExxonMobil seeks partners on the proposed carbon storage project. Credit: wasi1370 / Pixabay.

ExxonMobil has proposed a public-private carbon capture and storage (CCS) project, which would require an investment of more than $100bn.

The project would collect carbon dioxide emitted by industrial facilities, including oil refineries and petrochemical plants, located along the Houston Ship Channel in the US.

The collected emissions would then be transported via pipeline for storage in reservoirs deep under the Gulf of Mexico.

The proposal has been floated by the oil major firm ahead of the virtual US climate summit, which is scheduled for 22-23 April.

At the summit, where 40 world leaders have been invited, US President Joe Biden plans to announce carbon emission reduction targets for the country.

ExxonMobil Low Carbon Solutions business president Joe Blommaert said: “We could create an economy of scale where we can reduce the cost of the carbon dioxide mitigation, create jobs and reduce the emissions.”

Blommaert was cited by Financial Times as saying that CCS ‘should be a key part of the US strategy for meeting its Paris goals and included as part of the administration’s upcoming Nationally Determined Contributions’.

ExxonMobil is seeking potential partners for the proposed carbon storage project, which would require support from federal, state and local government agencies.

However, concerns are being raised on carbon capture programmes to offset emissions by Carbon Tracker Initiative, a think-tank that assesses the clean fuel transition’s financial implications.

Carbon Tracker Initiative North American office executive director Rob Schuwerk said: “It is not something that’s going to save them from having to go through the energy transition.”

Schuwerk added that CO₂ storage underground ‘is not going to be a solution that works to preserve fossil fuel industries for an extended period of time’.

The proposal comes close on the heels of ExxonMobil launching a new business unit, Low Carbon Solutions, in February to focus on new CCS opportunities.

The company said it is advancing up to 20 new plans with a planned investment of $3bn until 2025.

COINCIDENTALLY THE ALBERTA GOVERNMENT AND BIG OIL ASKED THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OF CANADA FOR $30bn FOR EXACTLY THE SAME PROJECT SINCE EXXON MOBIL IS EXXON/IMPERIAL OIL/ESSO IN CANADA

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for CCS 

GREENING CAPITALI$M

Public-private partnership must be at the heart of tackling climate change ahead of COP26

Opinion

Claire Perry O'Neill

Monday 19 April 2021 

LONDON, ENGLAND - FEBRUARY 23: Prime Minister Boris Johnson chairs a session of the UN Security Council on climate and security at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office on February 23, 2021 in London, England.(Photo by Stefan Rousseau-WPA Pool/Getty Images)

Later this year, representatives of over 190 governments will gather at COP26 to voice their commitments to tackling the climate crisis, confirm a “landing zone” on net zero and negotiate the intricacies of the Paris Agreement rulebook. But it’s an illusion to think that government commitments are enough to kick-start climate recovery.

Since the global gathering to halt climate change in 1991, greenhouse gas emissions have continued their inexorable rise. This year can be different. There is a unique opportunity for the UK, as COP host, to show global leadership in decarbonising an industrial economy by highlighting the role that the private sector must play going forward.

The science is clear and continues to emphasise the urgency of tackling climate change, however a greener world must not be a poorer one. Turning off the carbon tap now, as some activists advocate, would simultaneously turn off the global economy. Climate action must, therefore, be entwined with economic growth, creating a viable economic future for those whose livelihoods are set to be impacted by a green transition. It is my long-held belief that well-regulated market forces are the way to deliver growth and prosperity.


It is sadly the case that for too long business activities have been associated with environmental degradation. Although, those who advocate overthrowing capitalism as the solution to the planet’s problems have clearly not studied the wholesale climatic and natural destruction wrought by some centrally planned economies.

Increasingly, there is a growing cadre of global business leaders who recognise the personal, moral and economic imperative to operate in a way that benefits people and the planet. Initiatives such as The Prince of Wales’ Terra Carta and the World Business Council for Sustainable Developments’ Vision 2050 are setting the gold standard for sustainable business ambition and action.

But how do you bring together the governments who “set the rules” and the private sector who accelerate action, amplify innovation and create prosperity?

Firstly, the private and public sectors must work in synchrony to ensure the policies being put in place deliver a commercially viable outcome – long-term subsidies lead to poor decision-making.

Second, transparency and reporting must underpin every green pledge. Without shared taxonomies like the Greenhouse Gas Protocol or the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), public and private investment has no way to weed out action from greenwash. And finally, every pathway must consider the realities of the world as we find it not as we want it to be. Far too many conversations around energy transition ignore the real energy dilemmas facing so much of the developing world and can smack of energy imperialism.

In the run-up to COP, the UK Government can look to its own track record of pragmatic public and private policy-making that has switched off coal plants and turned on an offshore wind revolution. It can be proud of its championship of TCFD and other climate reporting initiatives. Importantly, it can also point to its inclusion of the private sector in the decision-making and planning process. An example of this work is the virtual convergence of the teams behind Partnerships for Growth (P4G) and COP26 in London later today.

P4G aims to match the best sustainable innovators with investors aiming to build climate-resilient economies and, since its start in 2018, the platform has generated revenue of $300 million and reduced CO2 emissions by 110,000 tonnes, with a scalable and replicable model. At this pre-summit, ahead of the P4G annual event in Seoul this summer, the success stories of private-public partnerships as part of the race to net zero will be on show, and the P4G serves as a reminder that enterprise and investment is the key enabler in supporting climate action on the ground.

Claire Perry O’Neill is a Senior Advisor (Energy & Climate) at Public Policy Projects and the former Minister for Energy and Clean Growth

City A.M.'s opinion pages are a place for thought-provoking views and debate. These views are not necessarily shared by City A.M.