Barely out of a pandemic, here’s why Jason Kenney’s government is picking a fight with Alberta nurses

By Kieran LeavittEdmonton Bureau
Thu., July 8, 2021

EDMONTON—After 15 long pandemic months during which health-care workers were largely heralded as front-line heroes, the news this week that Alberta wants to roll back wages for nurses landed with a thud.

Premier Jason Kenney’s government is proposing a three per cent wage rollback for nurses as part of long-running and contentious contract negotiations.

Union president Heather Smith calls the move “incredibly insulting” to an “exhausted workforce,” and says her United Nurses of Alberta are getting ready for a potential strike.

So why would a provincial government choose this moment to pick a fight with a group of workers still riding high in ranks of public esteem following an unprecedented health crisis?

Looming large in that conversation are the province’s finances — and Kenney’s political future.

Kenney, during a Thursday news conference, said nurse compensation is, on average, 5.6 per cent higher than the rest of Canada and that “we have a $16-$17 billion deficit.”

“This government is not going to squeeze more money out of taxpayers by raising their taxes to deal with that,” he said, touching on a question ever present in Alberta about whether it should finally introduce a provincial sales tax.

NO THEY WOULD RATHER GIVE OUR TAXES TO THEIR PALS; BIG OIL

“We just need to operate more efficiently.”

The United Conservative government has had its eyes on reining in public-sector spending since it was first elected in 2019. Post-secondary workers and doctors have already faced similar government moves — nurses are just the latest cohort.

One political observer said Kenney is trying to make cuts like it’s the 1990s.

Ralph Klein, the long-serving and storied conservative premier of the province — often invoked by Kenney when he explains his decisions — is partly remembered for cutting public-sector wages and reining in finances during that era.

University of Calgary political science professor Lisa Young says Kenney’s government appears to buy into that ideology.

“There is a view in conservative circles in Alberta that the public sector is compensated in too generous a way, that we pay too much for public services in Alberta and get too little in return,” she said.

However, she called the timing of the proposed wage rollback “politically disastrous.”

Recent polling suggests that if an election were held today, Kenney’s government would at least struggle to hold onto power, if not get beaten by Rachel Notley’s NDP. Many in Alberta have been angry with public-health restrictions, the handling of the pandemic and several ethical faux pas that have plagued the United Conservatives.

Young says Kenney faces a problem of whether to appeal to his base on the right, which could be favourable to public-sector cuts that could help deal with his province’s current deficit, or play to the centre to try and win over voters who could go to the Opposition NDP.

“This is sort of an existential question for this government,” she said.

That said, “in pursuing wage rollbacks, particularly for nurses at this moment, it’s very clear the choice that the government is making. They are choosing to try to win back the supporters on the right flank,” added Young.

“What you end up doing is alienating those probably urban voters who are centrist, who see it as crass and unkind.”

Trevor Tombe, a University of Calgary economist, said Alberta’s health-care spending — it spends about $23 billion a year — is by far its largest line item, much like other provinces, and that wages are largest expense and thus a natural place for a government to look to make cuts.

The previous NDP government also had “difficult negotiations” with public-sector unions while it sought to bar wage increases, Tombe said.

However, “They also didn’t really engage publicly in the overt political way that the current government is doing,” Tombe said. “If things would just be kept at the bargaining table, or if conversations were less confrontational, let’s say, then the level of controversy might be a little bit less.”

Tombe said Alberta “has options” on the revenue and spending side in that it could bring in new taxes or cut program spending.

“The Alberta government has fiscal capacity that is the envy of every other provincial government in the country,” he said.

Smith, the United Nurses of Alberta president, says the government doesn’t have a spending problem at all.

“It is a revenue problem which they want to solve on our backs,” she said.

Negotiations between the union and Kenney’s government, along with the province’s health authority, Alberta Health Services, have been on-and-off for months, but Smith said that “the government is calling the shots” at the table.

“Throughout the pandemic, we have worked with less than adequate staffing, meaning that the staff who are here have had increased demands, forced labour, in effect, mandatory overtime,” she said.

“They’re physically and mentally exhausted and now being told that after all of this, they are actually worth less value to Alberta and Albertans than they were 18 months ago.”

Smith echoed Kenney’s logic around compensating similarly to other provinces: “We are the only province without a sales tax. If we had comparable taxes to other comparators, we wouldn’t even have deficits here.”

Kieran Leavitt is an Edmonton-based political reporter for the Toronto Star. Follow him on Twitter: @kieranleavitt

OPINION
As the heat dome takes lives, Canadian banks must acknowledge their role in climate change

By Ali Wines

Contributor
Fri., July 9, 2021


In the week before Canada Day, over 700 people in British Columbia died in Western Canada’s record-breaking heat wave — triple the number that would normally occur.

In the same period, 10 people in the province died from COVID-19.

Fewer people are being lost to COVID, because we listened to scientists. We saw a disastrous wave cresting and, globally, our full attention and resources were directed to stopping it, by trusting those with the knowledge and expertise to keep us safe. We wore masks, we kept our distance and, after a year of uncertainty, welcomed the astonishing solution of not one but four different vaccines.

We need to treat the climate crisis with the same level of determination as we have the pandemic. Because if this week has taught us nothing else, climate change is a public health emergency. A dire one, and we should be alarmed.

Historically, we have thought of climate change as something that will happen at a distant time in the future, something we can put off worrying about while we address more important issues. It’s seemed, also, to be something that happens, conveniently, somewhere else. The Arctic, or Pakistan, or a tiny Pacific island whose name we don’t know. Yet, here it is — searing our towns with temperatures of over 48 blistering degrees, buckling roads, causing power outages and, tragically, taking lives.


It should now be apparent to all of us that this isn’t something that means pleasantly warmer temperatures and slightly fewer polar bears: the climate crisis threatens our quality of life, and the lives of the most vulnerable Canadians.

The pandemic taught us that global solutions require the collaboration of governments, academia and the private sector. The climate emergency is no different: if we are to prevent disasters like the heat dome, we need to see a level of action from Canada’s corporations that goes well beyond current commitments. First and foremost must be our banks, who currently play an outsize role in funding climate change.


In 2016, Canada joined 197 countries around the world in signing the Paris Agreement. Since then, our Big Five banks have given over $500 billion to fossil fuel projects. That’s equivalent to $1.4 million dollars a day, for the last 1,000 years. Every one of Canada’s major banks is in the top 25 highest funders of fossil fuels globally. At the current rate of financing, it will not be possible to meet our commitments under the Paris Agreement, or halt catastrophic global warming.

Recently, the International Energy Agency (the body oil and gas companies rely on for lobbying and policy guidance) set out a time frame for ending fossil fuel dependence, if we are to keep global heating under the point-of-no-return mark of 1.5 degrees. This included a requirement that new coal, oil and gas projects cease being funded this year.

Canadian banks are lagging their global peers in the move to divest from fossil fuels. In April, 160 financial firms formed the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), spearheaded by Mark Carney, committing to reach net-zero emissions across lending portfolios by 2050. Not one Canadian bank joined.

The risk is not only an environmental and public health one, but an economic one also. As climate policy begins to outpace corporate action, banks risk sitting on billions of dollars of stranded assets that would decimate their bottom line and dramatically impact shareholder value. In fact, the Bank of Canada issued a warning that debt and equity prices for carbon-intensive industries “fail to adequately factor in the risks of climate change, leaving investors exposed to the potential of sudden losses in value.” Many industry experts have noted that the fossil fuel industry is in irreversible decline. TD’s own chief economist, Beata Caranci, recently told the New York Times that “this industry is not going to be turning around.”

That’s why Protect Our Winters (POW) Canada, a non-profit which unites the outdoor community in the fight against climate change, is calling on Canada’s banks to divest from fossil fuels. POW aims to highlight the importance of winter and a stable climate to the well-being of this country. Without a reliable snowpack, industries from tourism to agriculture to shipping face an uncertain future. This year, the Prairies received so little snow that farmers were planting into dust come spring.

While banks fund fossil fuels, they jeopardize the viability of industries that employ millions of Canadians and are critical to GDP. Divestment doesn’t mean abandoning energy workers. It means planning for a transition that supports the well-being — financial, social and physical — of all Canadians, while protecting the climate and wild spaces of this astonishingly beautiful country for future generations.

This year, we listened to the science, and it worked. As deadly heat waves continue to scorch the country, we are asking, will Canada’s Big Five banks take their heads out of the (oil) sand and divest from fossil fuels? Canadian lives are depending on it.

Ali Wines is a Toronto-based writer, communication adviser and a campaign lead for Protect Our Waters Canada.

CHARM, GOODWILL, AND EXECUTIVE ORDERS —

“Bad mergers” and noncompete clauses targeted in Biden executive order

Sweeping order tries to counter rising corporate consolidation.

TIM DE CHANT - 7/9/2021, 10:22 AM

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Getty Images | Bloomberg

President Joe Biden announced his anticipated executive order today, and it’s a sweeping document that seeks to counter rising corporate consolidation and foster greater competition in everything from labor markets to mergers, banking, healthcare, device repairs, transportation, broadband, and more.

“For decades, corporate consolidation has been accelerating,” the White House said in a statement. “In over 75 percent of US industries, a smaller number of large companies now control more of the business than they did twenty years ago. This is true across healthcare, financial services, agriculture and more.” (We published a separate article today that dives into the broadband portions of the executive order.)

With the order, Biden appears to be positioning himself as an antitrust champion, name-checking famed trust-buster Teddy Roosevelt. That’s no surprise—his appointment of Lena Khan as chair of the Federal Trade Commission telegraphed that he would be taking an aggressive approach to consolidation and anticompetitive practices.
Labor market overhaul

Some of the order’s broadest and most immediate effects will be felt in the labor market. Biden encourages the FTC to outright ban or substantially limit noncompete agreements in employee contracts. The practice was once largely limited to top executives who were highly paid and had broad insight into a company’s inner workings, but over the years, it has trickled down to prevent employees in a variety of industries from taking new jobs with competitors, including sub sandwich makers, janitors, and summer camp counselors.

FURTHER READINGSenators propose near-total ban on worker noncompete agreements

The practice also pops up in the tech industry, and while many noncompete clauses may not hold up in court, their presence can have a chilling effect, leading many prospective job seekers and potential employers to err on the side of caution. Some states, like California, refuse to enforce noncompete clauses, and others, like Massachusetts, have enacted legislation recently that prohibits the practice. Congress has attempted to step in, with senators proposing similar bans.

The order also encourages the FTC to use antitrust laws and regulations to prevent employers from collaborating to suppress wages or reduce benefits, which is often done by sharing wage and benefit information with each other. Biden is pushing the FTC to restrict “unnecessary occupational licensing” that can create barriers to entry—sometimes costly ones—for people seeking to enter a new field.Advertisement

Pushing back on platforms

Following the trend of growing antitrust sentiment, particularly of Big Tech, the Biden administration said it would be closely scrutinizing mergers, “especially by dominant Internet platforms, with particular attention to the acquisition of nascent competitors, serial mergers, the accumulation of data, competition by ‘free’ products, and the effect on user privacy.” The order also encourages the FTC to create rules that would regulate the gathering and use of personal information and related data


FURTHER READING  Biden’s right-to-repair order could stop companies from blocking DIY fixes

When the White House previewed the order earlier this week, they said they would be taking steps to give consumers more latitude in how they repair cell phones and tractors, and those steps are present in the new executive order. Though tractors and mobile phones may seem like an odd couple, they’ve both been at the heart of the right-to-repair movement that has sprung up over the last decade. Farmers have been pushing back against EULAs imposed by equipment manufacturers like John Deere that require authorized technicians for repairs. And tech enthusiasts have been lobbying for the ability to execute DIY repairs or to select independent repair shops to fix broken phones and more. This order promises to make right-to-repair more accessible and enforceable.
Other changes

The rest of the order is a bit of a grab bag, covering banking, airlines, and rail transportation, among others. With respect to banks, the White House is encouraging the Department of Justice and other bank regulators to more closely scrutinize mergers, and it's urging the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to issue rules that will guarantee customers downloadable access to their records.

For airlines, the new order attempts to rein-in fees, which have taken off in the last decade, rising from $1.2 billion in 2007 to over $35 billion in 2018. Airlines will have to clearly disclose baggage, change, and cancellation fees, and they’ll have to refund those fees when services aren’t delivered—if baggage is delayed, for example, or if the in-flight Wi-Fi is broken. Advertisement


Passenger rail also gets a boost under the order. The president, who has been nicknamed “Amtrak Joe,” is pushing the Surface Transportation Board to force freight train companies and other track owners to follow through on the rights of way that passenger trains are supposed to receive. Amtrak, which had typically settled disputes with freight companies quietly, has grown increasingly vocal in recent years about the problems it has had with delays caused by freight trains. By law, Amtrak trains are supposed to be given preference, but in practice, that’s not always the case. Biden’s executive order could help Amtrak get its trains back on time.
“Encouraging” order

Many parts of the executive order “encourage” different agencies to take action. There’s a reason for that—though the document is called an “order,” the president cannot force independent agencies, including the FTC, FCC, and others, to follow his every word. “The executive cannot make an agency do anything, because we do not have a command-and-control government,” Shane Greenstein, a professor at Harvard Business School, told Ars. “The executive branch does not even make the budget. It just proposes one, and Congress takes it apart and makes its own. It can only hire and fire the people at the top of an agency—and even then, its ability to fire is pretty limited.”

“So what does the executive branch have? Its charms and goodwill. Its executive orders,” he added. “Since it is still early in the administration, most political appointees will want to play nice. And in any event, most of them largely agree with the general direction, albeit, perhaps not the details and specifics.”

JAPAN HAS A PLAN TO PROTECT THE OLYMPICS FROM COVID-19. BUT CAN IT PROTECT ITSELF FROM THE OLYMPICS?

Japan Has a Plan to Protect the Olympics From COVID-19. But Can It Protect Itself From the Olympics?


BY AMY GUNIA
JULY 9, 2021 


The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has insisted that the Olympics, which begin in two weeks, will be “safe” from COVID-19. But a fresh surge of virus cases in Japan is casting doubt over just how safe the event will be—particularly for the Japanese people.

On Thursday, the Japanese government imposed a COVID-19 state of emergency on Tokyo just three weeks after lifting restrictions—as daily infections hit a two-month high. The order ensures the entire 2020 Tokyo Olympics will take place with the host city under emergency measures. Authorities also canceled an earlier plan to allow up to 10,000 Japanese spectators at events; athletes will compete in Tokyo without crowds.


Despite the latest COVID-19 countermeasures, and the safety precautions in place for the 60,000 athletes, coaches, journalists and others who will travel to Japan for the Games, health experts—who have been warning with increasing fervor for months about the risks—say that they’re concerned that the Olympics could be the catalyst for a major outbreak across the country.

“Medically speaking, I’m not very worried about the Games per se, particularly for athletes,” says Kentaro Iwata, an infectious disease expert at Japan’s Kobe University. “But it might create the atmosphere to spread the disease all over Japan.”
Concern over the virus remaining inside Olympic bubbles

Olympic organizers have created a playbook of guidelines for those traveling to Japan for the Games, relying on frequent testing, masking wearing, social-distancing measures and requirements to stick to isolation bubbles as much as possible.

IOC president Thomas Bach has assured athletes that they should travel to Tokyo with “full confidence” that the Games will be safe for them and that they will not jeopardize the health of the Japanese people. Bach was upbeat after landing in Tokyo Thursday, the same day the Japanese government announced the state of emergency. “What can I say? Finally we are here,” he said, at a virtual meeting which he attended from his hotel, while isolating. “I have been longing for this day for more than one year.”

International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach waves to media as he arrives at an accommodation ahead of the delayed Tokyo Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan on July 8, 2021.
Eugene Hoshiko—Pool/Getty Images

Iwata says the safety measures in place and the fact that athletes are young and healthy—meaning they are less vulnerable to the worst effects of the disease—reduces the COVID-19 risk to people associated with the Games. About 80% of Olympics visitors are also expected to be vaccinated.

But only around 15% of Japan’s population has been fully vaccinated, according to Our World in Data. And many of those are people over the age of 65, leaving younger adults susceptible to the virus.

READ MORE: Tokyo’s Plan to Avoid Pandemic Disaster During the Olympics

Olympics-related events have already spread the virus among those helping to run the event. In May, eight people involved in the torch relay were infected with the virus.

Additionally, one of the first teams to arrive in Japan for the Games provided a worrying example of what may lie ahead. On June 19, a Ugandan coach tested positive when he arrived at the Tokyo airport, despite having two negative tests before his flight. Another member of the team tested positive later, leading the quarantine of the entire team—but not before the athletes met with local officials in the town where they were staying. (No local infections have been reported from the encounter.)


Hiroshi Nishiura, an epidemiologist from Kyoto University who is a member of the health ministry’s expert panel on the coronavirus, questions whether the safety measures will prevent cases from being brought into Japan, or stop cases from the community from infiltrating the Olympics COVID-19 bubbles. “It’s terrifying that we experts are still unsure how strict the travel bubbles will be,” he says.
Olympics could spread COVID-19 across Japan

Hitoshi Oshitani, the virologist who helped devise Japan’s COVID-19 strategy, has concerns about hosting tens of thousands of overseas visitors at a time when many countries are battling new surges of the virus. For example, Indonesia is facing its worst outbreak since the pandemic began—recording more than 30,000 new cases per day. A resurgence of COVID-19 in South Africa is driving record numbers of daily cases; almost 23,000 cases were reported on July 8.

He also worries about the risk of athletes from small Pacific island nations, many of which do not have strong health infrastructure and have kept COVID-19 at bay with strict border controls, spreading the virus when they get home. “It’s not definitely not good timing to have this kind of very, very huge global event,” Oshitani says.

But his biggest concern is that the Olympics will transmit the virus across Japan, as volunteers and staff travel to and from Tokyo—where cases are surging—to pull off the event.

Several events will be held outside of Tokyo, like the marathon races and soccer games, which will take place more than 500 miles north of the capital on the island of Hokkaido. Surfing—which will make its debut at this year’s Games—will be held at a break two hours from Tokyo.

So far, strict border controls have allowed Japan to avoid huge surges seen in places like the U.S. and Europe. The country of 126 million people has recorded about 812,000 coronavirus cases, and 15,000 deaths.

In announcing Tokyo’s fourth COVID-19 state of emergency, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said a major motivation was containing the spread of the more infectious Delta variant, which has been on the rise. The state of emergency includes a request for bars and restaurants to stop serving alcohol—in an effort to keep people from celebrating during the Games.


Read More: Australia Is Nearly COVID-19 Free. Tokyo-Bound Olympic Surfers Are Reaping the Benefits

Experts say it will be difficult to convince Japanese people, who are tired of COVID-19 restrictions, to modify their behavior and stay at home during the summer holiday season, while the government plows ahead with plans to host tens of thousands of overseas visitors.

“Many people see this state of emergency as just for the sake of the Olympics,” says Oshitani, “and that is a big challenge for us.”

Many experts say that canceling or postponing the Games remains the safest option. And many Japanese agree. A poll of almost 1,500 people by the Asahi Shimbun newspaper on June 19-20 found that 62% supported another postponement or the cancellation of the Tokyo Olympics.

I’m tired of watching the world end. 

It’s time to get radical on the climate crisis


OPINION
By Alyssa Scanga

Contributor
Fri., July 9, 2021

The all-time heat record in Canada was shattered three days in a row by Lytton, a small town in British Columbia. That town is now mostly gone, burned to the ground.

Raging across the province are wildfires so large that they are producing their own lightning. Hundreds of people died in a heat wave where temperatures reached 25°C above average. A drought-induced famine in Madagascar threatens over one million people with starvation. A pipeline spill in the Gulf of Mexico resulted in the literal ocean burning like the Eye of Sauron. In June, ground temperatures in Arctic Siberia topped 48°C, and earlier this year the warming Arctic destabilized the polar vortex and resulted in a Texas deep freeze.

Every morning I wake up and watch the world end.

I’m aware this seems melodramatic. However, it’s the cold, hard truth. We use the phrases “climate crisis” and “climate emergency” not because we wish to ignite fear, but because they are accurate.

I was born into a world facing an existential crisis. And yet, I’m one of the lucky ones. My life has been touched by the climate crisis, as all of ours have. But it has not ended because of it, and for that I am more fortunate than many.


I feel the heat and check the air quality each day, planning my life around when the world is most hospitable for my disabled body. For breakfast I consume toast with jam and an endless stream of news about the latest climate disaster. I read the latest press releases, promising action on climate — in 30 years. (Meanwhile, those in charge subsidize fossil fuels, chop down the last old-growth forests in the country and call themselves climate leaders.) I play political whack-a-mole: every time we manage to smack down one short-sighted, environmentally destructive project, two more pop up to take their place.

I am fighting with adults — adults who are supposed to protect me — for the right to not die. I am nineteen and I am so, so tired.

I’m not going to bother re-explaining climate science here, for two main reasons. One, people much smarter than me have already devoted their lives to exactly that. If you are still denying the reality of anthropogenic climate change, my small article won’t change your mind. Two, doing so would legitimize the idea that climate science is up for debate. This is an op-ed, but climate science is not my opinion. It is a fact, and thinking otherwise is extremely dangerous.

Being confronted with disaster and then being expected to go to class like nothing’s wrong does something to you. When people praise individual action and applaud incremental change nowhere near enough to save us from climate disaster, I feel it in my chest like an ache. We as a society know what must be done to mitigate and adapt to this crisis. The fact that we refuse to do so is a betrayal of the highest order.

Too often, the steps we must take to curb the climate crisis are dismissed as too radical, too costly, too inconvenient. Compared to what? Is making ecocide an international crime more radical than allowing the ocean to catch fire because it’s profitable for Big Oil? Is stopping fossil fuel subsidies more radical than logging 2,000-year-old cedars on Vancouver Island? Is investing in a just transition to a sustainable economy for all workers more radical than bulldozing sacred sites and forcing oil pipelines through Indigenous burial grounds at gunpoint?

If so, then I suppose I am radical — and you should be too.

The word radical is derived from Latin and means “of or pertaining to the root.” For change to be radical, it needs to tackle a problem at the root, the very thing causing the crisis. It doesn’t matter with how much care you prune its branches — a tree without roots will blow over the second the wind blows. All the tree planting and carbon offsetting in the world won’t fix the fact that fossil fuel dependency is rapidly destabilizing the Earth’s climate.


World leaders, we are begging you to dig deep and pursue real solutions. Solutions that align with the best available science, hold Big Oil accountable for their deceit and greed, remove systemic inequalities and prioritize Indigenous liberation.


Let’s get radical.

Alyssa Scanga is an organizer with Climate Justice Durham and Climate Strike Canada. She studies environmental science at Trent University.

 CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Lloyds fined £90m for misleading customers about home insurance quotes

Written by: Emma Lunn

09/07/2021

The regulator said the bank failed to ensure that language in home insurance renewals communications was clear, fair and not misleading

The bank has paid out £13.6m to 350,000 customers following an investigation into home insurance renewal policies.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has fined Lloyds Bank £90m for failures in communications for home insurance renewals between 2009 and 2017. The bank failed to ensure that language contained within millions of home insurance renewals communications was clear, fair and not misleading.

The fine related to communication sent to customers by four Lloyds brands: Lloyds Bank General Insurance (LBGI) Limited, St Andrew’s Insurance Plc, Lloyds Bank Insurance Services Limited and Halifax General Insurance Services Limited.

Between January 2009 and November 2017 Lloyds sent nearly nine million renewal communications to home insurance customers which included language to the effect that they were receiving a “competitive price” at renewal.

But Lloyds didn’t substantiate the “competitive price” language included in the renewal communications by taking steps to check that it was accurate. Policies were renewed in respect of approximately 87% of renewal communications containing this language.

The bank rewrote its renewal communications and began to remove “competitive price” wording from 2009 onwards, but the language remained in a substantial number of renewals communications throughout the period concerned.

The FCA says this caused a “risk of harm” for the majority of Lloyds’ home insurance customers who received the communication, because it was likely that the premium quoted to them at renewal would have increased when compared to their prior premium.

Renewal premiums offered to customers would also likely have been higher than the premium quoted to new customers, or customers that chose to switch insurance provider. This was particularly likely to be the case for customers who renewed repeatedly.

Separately, Lloyds informed about half a million customers that they would receive a discount based on either their “loyalty”, on the fact they were a “valued customer” – but the described discount was not applied and was never intended to apply.

This affected about 1.2 million renewals, with approximately 1.5 million communications sent by LGBI. The erroneous discount language was only identified and rectified by Lloyds during the course of the FCA’s investigation.

Mark Steward, executive director of enforcement and market oversight at the FCA, said: “Firms must ensure their communications with customers are clear, fair and not misleading. LBGI failed to ensure that this was the case. Millions of customers ended up receiving renewal letters that claimed customers were being quoted a competitive price which was unsubstantiated and risked serious consumer harm.”

The watchdog has not established whether individual customer behaviour would have been different had the communications in this case been clear, fair and not misleading.

The FCA hasn’t forced Lloyds to refund or compensate affected customers, but the bank has voluntarily made payments of about £13.5m to customers who received communications that erroneously referred to the application of a discount when none was applied. This has been taken into account in the assessment of the financial penalty.

Under the FCA’s new rules, which come into effect on 1 January 2022, insurers will be required to offer renewing customers a price that is no higher than they would pay as a new customer. The FCA estimates that these measures will save consumers £4.2bn over 10 years, by removing the ‘loyalty penalty’ and making the market work better.

Israel destroys West Bank home of detained US citizen

Israeli forces have demolished the family home of Palestinian-American Montaser Shalabi
July 9, 2021 

Israeli forces have demolished the family home of Palestinian-American Montaser Shalabi, who was accused of being involved in a shooting that killed one Israeli and injured two others. Shalabi was indicted in an Israeli military court in the occupied West Bank in May when Israeli student Yehuda Guetta was shot dead.

A father of seven and estranged from his wife, Shalabi appealed in an Israeli court against the demolition, saying that he spent most of the year in the US and only came to the occupied West Bank for a visit every summer.

An Israeli human rights group also appealed against the razing of the Shalabi family home, stating Shalabi suffered from mental health issues and had been prescribed antipsychotic medication.

READ: Israel expels former Palestinian prisoners from occupied Jerusalem

The appeal was unsuccessful, and their two-storey home in Turmus'ayya was flattened by occupation forces in a controlled explosion yesterday.

Human rights groups have repeatedly condemned Israel's use of demolitions as a form of collective punishment, illegal under international law.

Sanaa Shalabi, the accused Palestinian-American's wife, told Al Jazeera: "They want to demoralise us, but we are steadfast. This is the situation of the entire Palestinian people."

The US embassy released a statement following the demolition, calling on "all parties to refrain from unilateral steps that exacerbate tensions and undercut efforts to advance a negotiated two-state solution."

"This certainly includes the punitive demolition of Palestinian homes," a US embassy spokesperson told Al Jazeera.

As we stated numerous times, the home of an entire family should not be demolished for the actions of one individual.

 

‘Wasteful spending!’: Bipartisan committee approval of $3.3 billion in US security assistance to Israel slammed on Twitter

9 Jul, 2021 15:20

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Many United States taxpayers were far from pleased after the bipartisan US House Appropriations Committee approved a $3.3 billion security assistance package to Israel at a time when so many Americans are struggling.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) celebrated on Twitter Friday, following the approval last week, thanking both the Democrat and Republican members of the House Appropriations Committee.

AIPAC declared that the “critical aid helps ensure our ally has the resources needed to defend itself by itself in the world’s most dangerous region.”

Despite AIPAC’s enthusiasm, many Americans on social media were not happy to see their tax money being shipped off to a country with one of the highest GDPs in the world.

“As an American taxpayer I do not approve of this wasteful spending,” complained one person, while another commented, “Are they broke? It’s humiliating for them to even ask for or accept this money.”

Others questioned why the money would not be going toward Americans and joked that the US “must be currently running at a surplus if we have all this money to give away” – a reference to the nation’s $28.5 trillion debt, which is currently on track to reach as high as $89 trillion by 2029, according to the US Debt Clock website.

“There are millions of people who are homeless, unemployed, suffer from trauma and have a multitude of issues that need to be taken care of first,” another person wrote.

Israel is the second-highest receiver of US foreign aid, behind only Afghanistan.

The aid was approved last week as part of the 2022 State and Foreign Operations bill, which also condemned perceived “anti-Israel bias” at the United Nations – which has launched investigations into alleged Israeli war crimes – and expressed concern over international boycott movements of Israel.

AIPAC declared last week that “the committee’s appropriation, with no added political conditions, reflects the strong bipartisan commitment for Israel’s security in Congress.”

Bangladesh: Rising sea levels force women into sex work

Sky News has spoken to Pervin who left her home due to rising water levels and thought she would be working in a garment factory but she ended up being brought to a brothel and sold aged 15.


By Katerina Vittozzi, Sky correspondent, Bangladesh
Friday 9 July 2021 
Bangladesh

Bangladesh: Rising sea levels force women into sex work | Climate News | Sky News
Play Video - How climate change fuelled this brothel


Climate change reporting isn't normally like this.

When you write about rising sea levels and intensifying cyclones, you don't expect to end up in a brothel, talking about human trafficking.

You don't think you'd hear a story about a graveyard for sex workers getting washed away.

Image:The strip of land that Banishanta is built on is disappearing.

Or end up visiting a place with so little hope.

But after six weeks of working on Bangladesh's climate emergency, this is where our reporting has led us: to Banishanta, a shoreline brothel, on the southwest coast.

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Here, women are called "girls" and houses are places of work, not rest.


And it's where we meet Pervin.

She's diminutive, her face wrapped in a light pink scarf, but as she leads us along the shoreline to her hut, she calls out to various neighbours in a surprisingly loud, bassy voice that there are foreigners here who want to speak.

She laughs at their shouted replies, audible from the interior of the tightly-packed shacks.

We sit on a small wooden bench, next to the water's edge, and there Pervin tells us about where she came from, and how her family home and farm were destroyed by a combination of rising sea levels, river erosion and cyclones.

She was 15 and says the family needed money.

Then, one day, a woman came to them and said, if Pervin went with her, she would get her a job in a garment factory.

The story seemed plausible and the family readily agreed.

But instead of finding Pervin factory work, the woman brought her to Banishanta brothel and sold her.

Image:Pervin was brought to the brothel and sold aged 15

"I was young, I didn't know what to do," she says, "so I just stayed here".

"She abandoned me and I stayed."

Banishanta is one of Bangladesh's oldest brothels, drawing customers from the nearby Mongla port.

Even though sex work is legal, sex workers - and any children - are hugely stigmatised in mainstream culture.

Although Pervin was the victim, she says she felt she could not tell her family what happened.

To this day, her mother thinks she is married and working in a factory.

"I tell her I live with my in-laws," she says, pinching the bridge of her nose as if admitting this to us is giving her a headache, "I don't tell her about this. She doesn't know."

Many of the women have been trafficked and some have been exploited because the impact of climate change on their lives has left them vulnerable

There are around 100 women working in Banishanta brothel.

Many have been trafficked and some, like Pervin, have been exploited because the impact of climate change on their lives and livelihoods have left them vulnerable.

They are sold into a precarious, dangerous life that few will ever escape.

There are women here in their seventies, no longer working, but with nowhere else to go.

Oddly, the wide-range of ages, from the very young to the old, does create a sense of community.

There are children running around, in and out of the shacks, playing, laughing and getting in the way of their mothers who, during the day, are cooking food and washing clothes.


Rising sea levels threaten 'the hanging village' of Bangladesh

We see one group of women playing a board game.

Another fishes for shrimp at the water's edge.

But even this tiny shred of stability is being eroded.

The strip of land that Banishanta is built on is disappearing.

Rising sea levels and regular flooding are chipping away at the brothel's banks.

At some points, at high tide, the land is under 10 metres wide.

The women tells us their homes frequently flood, even from a small storm.

They are forced to spend the money they earn on repairs and many have fallen into debt trying to keep their homes - without which they can't work, of course - upright.

We go and meet the brothel's chief madam, Razia Begum, who tells us they are stuck.

Banishanta is one of Bangladesh's oldest brothels, drawing customers from the nearby Mongla port

The sex workers can't rebuild their homes any further inland, because that would mean they would cross the boundary into the nearby village, where they are not welcome.

"This land is disappearing and that's a risk to us and our children," she says, "but we earn better money here because of the port and passing boats."

"If we move, we lose clients and what then?" she asks.

It's an impossible question, because if there is any way out of this place, money is it.

Rina was sold into sex work when she was 10.

She now has an eight-month-old baby son, called Chandon.

Image:Rising sea levels and regular flooding are chipping away at the brothel's banks

When we first meet he's full of smiles and drool but as we talk it starts to rain and the cool breeze seems to make him sleepy.

Rina carries him into her shack, popping him on her black satin bed-spread with a little blanket over him, whilst we speak.

She tells me she hopes one day they can leave here but knows it will take an enormous effort and money.

She also know there is little dignity for those that stay.

"When girls die here, they only get covered with earth," she says, "we don't get a religious burial".

"There was a graveyard here but even that got washed away."

She shrugs, "you just have to hope and work hard".

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52 Killed in Fire at Bangladesh Food Factory

By Associated Press
Updated July 09, 2021 

Firefighters try to extinguish a massive fire that broke out in a beverage and food factory in Narayanganj, central Bangladesh on July 9, 2021. (Photo by Munir Uz zaman / AFP)

DHAKA, BANGLADESH - At least 52 people were killed, 20 injured and many more feared trapped after a massive fire raged through a juice-making factory in Bangladesh, officials said Friday, the latest industrial fire accident in the country.

The fire started on Thursday evening at the ground floor of a six-story factory building in the Narayanganj district, 20 kilometers (12 miles) southeast of the capital Dhaka, run by the private firm Hashem Food and Beverage, which is a unit of Bangladesh's multinational Sajeeb Group. The factory makes mango fruit drinks under the Shezan brand.

"Three people died from jumping off the building to escape the fire and 49 charred bodies have been recovered so far," Mustain Billah, the administrator for the Narayanganj district, told Reuters by phone from the scene.

"It is still burning on the top floor. Firefighters are struggling to control it, as chemicals and flammable materials were stored inside the building."

He said that the cause of the fire is not yet known. "Plastics and flammable substances and chemicals all made it hard to douse the fire," said Abdullah Al Arefin, a district fire service official, adding the severe heat from the fire caused cracks in the building.

Al Arefin said each floor in the building is about 35,000 square feet (3,250 square meters) but they were only accessible by two stairways and that many workers could not get out as the fire spread to the stairs.

One of the doors leading from the stairs to the roof were locked, he said.

"We rescued 25 people after setting a ladder to the rooftop. We could have saved more if others could reach the rooftop,” said Debashish Bardhan, deputy director of the national fire service.
Firefighters try to extinguish a massive fire that broke out in a beverage and food factory in Narayanganj, central Bangladesh on July 9, 2021. (Photo by Munir Uz zaman / AFP)

Where is my son?

Many workers were injured in trying to jump off the building's second and third floors to escape, said Shah Alam, another district fire service official.

Officials at Hashem Foods and Sajeeb Group did not immediately respond to calls seeking comment.

As relatives of the missing staged protests around the factory site, a mother searching for her son, Nazma Begum, cried out, "There is no justice! Where is my son?"

Narayanganj in central Bangladesh is packed with factories making everything from jute to textiles.

Disasters because of poor fire and building safety standards are common in Bangladesh, largely in the textiles sector that employs millions and contributes the most to its economy.

Industry officials promised better safety standards after the collapse of the Rana Plaza garment factory building in 2012 in Dhaka that killed more than 1,000 workers and injured hundreds. But many factories inside and outside the textiles sector still fall short, leading to accidents each year.

The Narayanganj district administration has formed a five-member probe committee to examine the incident, Al Arefin said.

Turn off the blue light!

Researchers from University of Tsukuba in collaboration with Yamagata University scientists find that exposure to light with less blue before sleep is better for energy metabolism

UNIVERSITY OF TSUKUBA

Research News

IMAGE: RESEARCHERS FROM UNIVERSITY OF TSUKUBA HAVE FOUND THAT EXPOSURE TO SPECIFIC TYPES OF LIGHT BEFORE SLEEP CAN HAVE VARIABLE EFFECTS ON ENERGY METABOLISM DURING SLEEP. SPECIFICALLY, PARTICIPANTS WHO WENT TO... view more 

CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF TSUKUBA

Tsukuba, Japan - Extended exposure to light during nighttime can have negative consequences for human health. But now, researchers from Japan have identified a new type of light with reduced consequences for physiological changes during sleep.

In a study published in June 2021 in Scientific Reports, researchers from University of Tsukuba compared the effects of light-emitting diodes (LEDs), which have been widely adopted for their energy-saving properties, with organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) on physical processes that occur during sleep.

Polychromatic white LEDs emit a large amount of blue light, which has been linked with many negative health effects, including metabolic health. In contrast, OLEDs emit polychromatic white light that contains less blue light. However, the impact of LED and OLED exposure at night has not been compared in terms of changes in energy metabolism during sleep, something the researchers at University of Tsukuba aimed to address.

"Energy metabolism is an important physiological process that is altered by light exposure," says senior author of the study Professor Kumpei Tokuyama. "We hypothesized that compared with LEDs, OLED exposure would have a reduced effect on sleep architecture and energy metabolism, similar to that of dim light."

To test this hypothesis, the researchers exposed 10 male participants to LED, OLED, or dim light for 4 hours before they slept in a metabolic chamber. The researchers then measured energy expenditure, core body temperature, fat oxidation, and 6-sulfatoxymelatonin--which is a measure of melatonin levels--during sleep. The participants had not recently traveled or participated in shift work.

"The results confirmed part of our hypothesis," explains Professor Tokuyama. "Although no effect on sleep architecture was observed, energy expenditure and core body temperature during sleep were significantly decreased after OLED exposure. Furthermore, fat oxidation during sleep was significantly lower after exposure to LED compared with OLED."

In addition, fat oxidation during sleep was positively correlated with 6-sulfatoxymelatonin levels following exposure to OLED, suggesting that the effect of melatonin activity on energy metabolism varies depending on the type of light exposure.

"Thus, light exposure at night is related to fat oxidation and body temperature during sleep. Our findings suggest that specific types of light exposure may influence weight gain, along with other physiological changes," says Professor Tokuyama.

Many occupations and activities involve exposure to artificial light before sleep. New information about the effects of different kinds of light on physical processes may facilitate the selection of alternative light sources to mitigate the negative consequences of light exposure at night. Furthermore, these findings advance our knowledge regarding the role of light in energy metabolism during sleep.

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The article, "Metabolic responses to polychromatic LED and OLED light at night" was published in Scientific Reports at DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-91828-6

The work was supported financially by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (KAKENHI grant no. JP 20H04120) and the Japan Science and Technology Agency's Centre for Innovation (grant no. JPMJCE1312). The authors declare no competing interests.

Summary:

Researchers from University of Tsukuba have found that exposure to specific types of light before sleep can have variable effects on energy metabolism during sleep. Specifically, participants who went to sleep after exposure to organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), which emit polychromatic white light that contains less blue light than light-emitting diodes (LEDs), exhibited significantly decreased energy expenditure, core body temperature, and increased fat oxidation, indicating fewer negative health consequences compared with after nighttime exposure to LEDs. Thus, OLEDs may be a worthwhile alternative to LED lighting, especially for exposure at night.

 

Recess quality influences student behavior, social-emotional development, OSU study finds

OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

IMAGE: KIDS AND ADULT PLAY FOUR-SQUARE ON PLAYGROUND BLACKTOP view more 

CREDIT: COURTESY OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY

Recess quality, not just the amount of time spent away from the classroom, plays a major role in whether children experience the full physical, mental and social-emotional benefits of recess, a new study from Oregon State University found.

"Not all recess is created equal," said William Massey, study author and an assistant professor in OSU's College of Public Health and Human Sciences. With schools returning to full-time in-person classes this fall, he said, "Now is a good time to rethink, 'How do we create schools that are more child-friendly?' I think ensuring quality access to play time and space during the school day is a way we can do that."

Massey's study, published this week in the Journal of School Health, involved in-person observation of third- and fifth-grade students at 25 schools across five states during the 2018-19 school year. The schools covered a wide range of socioeconomic status and racial and ethnic diversity.

Researchers measured recess quality on a number of factors, including whether the schoolyard offered physical and environmental safety; whether kids had opportunities to play and had the requisite space and equipment; whether there were opportunities for inclusion; and if they had diverse options for play.

A safe space with basic playground equipment might seem like a given, but that's not always the case, Massey said.

"I've been on playgrounds where the kids go outside, and it's a parking lot with high fences, no play structure, no balls, no jump-ropes, no chalk -- they're literally outside, and there's nothing to do," he said. He has also seen large holes from construction, broken glass, used condoms and needles in play spaces.

Researchers also looked at student behavior and the occurrence of verbal and physical conflict, as well as conflict resolution; and watched what adults on the playground were doing.

"A lot of my previous research shows that adults are one of the most important entities on the playground," Massey said. "One of the most important things is: Do adults model and encourage positive interactions with the students, and do they actually engage with the students themselves? The more adults engage with and play with students at recess, the more kids play, the more physical activity there is and the less conflict there is."

Schools that ranked highly on these measures saw associated positive outcomes in classroom behavior and socio-emotional markers. There was significant correlation between high-quality recess and higher scores in student resilience, self-control, adaptive classroom behaviors and executive function, Massey said.

Based on these findings and his previous research on recess, Massey argues that schools should look at recess as a critical part of the school day -- which means investing adequate time and resources into it.

Schools don't need expensive play structures to accomplish that, he said. Simple, low-cost measures like having an adult do a safety sweep of the playground every morning, or making sure the soccer field is already set up so kids can maximize even 10- or 15-minute recess breaks, would make a big difference.

As schools emerge from the pandemic, Massey said there's a chance for teachers to recognize the importance of kids' social and emotional development and need for play, but some may also think they need to cram all the missed content from the last year into as short a time as possible.

"I would argue that's a huge mistake. Kids don't have the capacity to come in stressed and traumatized and out of the rhythm of school, and have all that dumped on them," he said. "These findings show that recess is not detrimental to what we want to see in the classroom, but rather, it's complementary."

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