THE ORIGINAL COLLECTORS
Prehistoric Humans Recycled Old Tools, Possibly to Honor Ancestors

BY DIANA BLETTER, ZENGER NEWS ON 3/17/22

Prehistoric human beings collected and recycled old tools, possibly to preserve their ancestors' memory, according to scientists at Tel Aviv University who examined flint tools from 500,000 years ago in an archeological site in Revadim, in southern Israel.

Revadim was a popular site for early humans because of its abundance of wildlife and flint with which to make tools, according to the authors of a study published in Scientific Reports.

The study was written by PhD student Bar Efrati and Prof. Ran Barkai of TAU, along with Flavia Venditti from the University of Tubingen in Germany and Prof. Stella Nunziante Cesaro from the Sapienza University of Rome.

Even though there was enough flint available to make new tools, the early humans seemed to reuse older tools.

Efrati said the researchers discovered tools that had two different "life cycles," as evidenced by two distinct layers of patina, a chemical film that forms when the flint is exposed to the elements for long periods of time.
Analysis of 49 flint tools with two life cycles found at the site revealed that prehistoric humans took the earlier tools and gave them a new active edge, exposing and reshaping fresh flint.Researchers were surprised to find that the tools were used primarily for cutting during their first life cycle, but in their second they were primarily used for scraping, likely for processing soft materials like leather and bone.

Flint tools from the Revadim archeological site in Israel dated to 500,000 years ago show evidence of two life cycles, suggesting prehistoric humans collected and recycled older objects.

TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY

Efrati added that they were also surprised to find the tools reshaped very minimally, preserving the original form. According to the authors, this suggests the early humans attached emotional significance to the old tools.

"Imagine a prehistoric human walking through the landscape 500,000 years ago, when an old stone tool catches his eye," Barkai said. "The tool means something to him — it carries the memory of his ancestors or evokes a connection to a certain place. He picks it up and weighs it in his hands. The artifact pleases him, so he decides to take it 'home'."

According to Barkai, prehistoric humans likely had the same urge as modern humans to collect objects that hold memories.

"The more we study early humans, we discover that they were not so different from us," Barkai said.

"This study suggests that collectors and the urge to collect may be as old as humankind. Just like us, our early ancestors attached great importance to old artifacts, preserving them as significant memory objects — a bond with older worlds and important places in the landscape."

SPEAKING OF 

To see through the fog of Putin's war, talk to Ukraine's millennials

As pundits attempt to explain Putin's invasion of Ukraine, one voice is absent, that of the Ukrainian generation born after the collapse of the USSR. To understand the moment that brought us here, they must be heard, writes Ibrahim Al Marashi.

Perspectives
Ibrahim Al-Marashi
17 Mar, 2022

The reasons that led to Russian invasion of Ukraine can be understood through the post-Soviet Union generation. [GETTY]

Ruslan, a student I taught in the summer of 2016 in Lviv, Ukraine was fascinated by the Transformers. He wore the symbol of the heroic protagonists, the Autobots, on a t-shirt to class.

As a fellow geek myself, I wanted to encourage him to speak up, and asked, “Your parents lived in Ukraine through the Cold War. What distinguished your life from theirs in the USSR?”

Ruslan paused. He was taken aback. Not because he didn’t have an answer. He replied, “No professor in university has ever made me feel like my voice matters.”

I asked him why he thought this.

“Because our professors still have a Soviet mindset. This is the problem for all of Ukraine.”

I replied, “that is the challenge of your generation. You are the products of a transition to a post-Soviet system. Let’s try to define it.”

Rusalan, the other Ukrainian students in his group, and I went on to do just that. Little did we know that years later our formulation would explain why his country would be tragically invaded.

"Whilst a lot of focus has been put on Putin’s personality, and whether his pursuits are rational, the reality is that his decision to invade is greater than the man himself."

We determined that their system had three unique, overarching dynamics. The first included the emergence of new states after the collapse of the USSR which led to new Russian security concerns vis-à-vis NATO and the EU, contested borders, the birth of new identities, the displacement of peoples, and resurgent religious identities.

The second consisted of new means of conflict, including information wars, the privatisation of violence through mafias and mercenaries, as well as the weaponisation of oil and gas.

The third related to new domestic insecurity concerns, including on a societal level amidst rising corruption.

International leaders and media alike have attributed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a means for Moscow to prevent the country from joining NATO, and as a way for Putin to rewrite the post-Cold War political order.

Both explain Putin’s strategic goals.

Whilst a lot of focus has been put on Putin’s personality, and whether his pursuits are rational, the reality is that his decision to invade is greater than the man himself.

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Granted, the old security dynamics of the Cold War are in place, such as access to warm water ports and passages, the threat of nuclear war, and arms sales and interventions in conflicts, from Syria to Libya. However, Putin’s actions emerged within this post-Soviet system after 1991, that determined why and how he sought to pursue these objectives in the first place.

Afterall, there are rarely singular causes for war. In this case, multifaceted dynamics intersected to lead to the invasion of Ukraine.

Firstly, the Post-Soviet system inherited elements from the Cold War, namely, the geopolitical rivalry between the USSR, NATO and the EU. Russian security concerns vis-à-vis NATO, emerged as newly independent Baltic states, Georgia and Ukraine, sought to and/or joined the trans-Atlantic alliance. The Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia joined. The wars with Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine since 2014 were an attempt to prevent them from pursing the Baltic path.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the formation of new states, another dynamic emerged - contested borders between Russia and the new republics, or infighting, which was the case with Azerbaijan and Armenia last year. Russia’s carving out of the territories in Transdniestria in Moldova, Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia, Donetsk and Luhansk in Ukraine were attempts to establish borders according to Moscow’s security interests and create perpetual instability for all three nations. As long as parts of them were occupied by Russia, they could not join NATO or the EU with their territorial integrity intact.

Another crucial factor, is the creation of new nationalities and resurrection of older identities suppressed during the Soviet Union. The independence of Ukraine, for example, allowed the resurrection of a national narrative which Putin has denied. History is a battlefield over memory in the present, and past events are weaponised. Putin, by denying Ukraine’s distinct history, thus could claim he is reuniting what is essentially Russian territory.

Additionally, the formation of new states after 1991 led to the displacement of peoples. This meant some Russians either moved to Russia, or stayed in the newly created states. Putin could thus claim his own version of Responsibility to Protect over the Russians in Ukraine, when in reality the question of identity has been fluid in the post-Soviet system- particularly in Ukraine- and cannot be reduced to a Russian vs. Ukrainian binary. Other ethnicities were displaced or persecuted for being on the wrong side of newly created borders, like the Crimean Tatars following Russia’s annexation of the peninsula in 2014. The massive movement of Ukrainians to the EU is now also part and parcel of this historic trend.

After 1991, news means of warfare emerged.

Russia has used state media like Russia Today to spread its ideology and launched cyberattacks to target Ukraine’s electrical infrastructure and government websites. On the other hand, the hacktivist group Anonymous has fought on behalf of Ukrainians, declaring a “cyber war” against Russia, and aerospace company Space X has set up satellites to facilitate Ukrainians’ access to the internet.

"The response by Russian leadership, was to divert attention from these domestic failings by fostering a resurgent nationalism and enemies abroad, from the US and NATO to Ukraine and Georgia."

The ability contestation of hydrocarbons, oil and gas has also been a significant contributor. European fears that Russia might turn off the gas supply this winter or Germany’s threat to end the Nord Stream 2 pipeline are just some examples of the tensions over energy.

In addition to all of this, the USSR’ collapse had also led to new domestic issues. Societal insecurities emerged as the state would no longer provide its former social services like housing and employment. This was not aided by the corruption that was being faced on a daily basis. This was not just within official bureaucracies, but also due to mafias and oligarchs that were stifling small businesses and entrepreneurship.

The response by Russian leadership, was to divert attention from these domestic failings by fostering a resurgent nationalism and enemies abroad, from the US and NATO to Ukraine and Georgia.

Whilst the discussion I had had with my students in Lviv in 2016 was a theoretical one for me, I realise that for my students the dynamics we had outlined were a lived reality. It is this very system that years later mobilised students like Ruslan to be on the frontlines in the hope of seeking agency within it so that they may finally overcome it entirely.

Ibrahim Al-Marashi is an associate professor of history at California State University San Marcos. He is co-author of Iraq's Armed Forces: An Analytical History and The Modern History of Iraq.
Follow him on Twitter: @ialmarashi

CIA CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Honduran court approves extradition of former president Hernández to U.S. on drug, weapons charges

By Kevin Sieff

MEXICO CITY — A Honduran judge has ruled that the country’s former president, Juan Orlando Hernández, can be extradited to the United States, removing the last major roadblock to Hernández’s prosecution in a U.S. courtroom.

Hernández was president of Honduras from 2014 until January. He was considered a U.S. ally during much of that time, even as U.S. prosecutors alleged he was working to traffic drugs throughout his presidency. He has denied wrongdoing.

Honduran authorities detained Hernández last month after the United States requested his extradition to face drug trafficking and weapons charges in federal court. That action stunned Hondurans who had opposed Hernández for years — decrying him as a “narcopresidente” — but believed that the impunity he had enjoyed while in office would continue into his retirement.

Honduran president, a Trump ally implicated in drug trafficking, tries to win over Biden

Even after his arrest, many Hondurans believed Hernández would use his clout to keep Honduran courts from approving his extradition. That scenario apparently has not come to pass. The judge’s ruling, announced late Wednesday, allows Hernández three days to appeal, after which he could be sent to the United States immediately. He remains in a Honduran prison.

The Honduran Supreme Court said it approved Hernández’s extradition on charges of manufacturing, trafficking and distributing illicit substance brought by prosecutors in the Southern District of New York. The charges also included the use of firearms linked to the trafficking of drugs, the Supreme Court said in a statement.

Hernández’s brother, Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernández, was convicted by the U.S. court of drug trafficking and weapons charges and sentenced last year to life in prison. Prosecutors named Juan Orlando Hernández an unindicted co-conspirator in that case.

The prosecutors alleged that Juan Orlando Hernández agreed “to facilitate the use of Honduran armed forces personnel as security” for drug traffickers. In a separate court filing, witnesses alleged that Hernández said he wanted to shove drugs “right up the noses of the gringos” by flooding the United States with cocaine.

Hernández was a particularly close ally of the Trump administration due to his willingness to help stop Central American migrants from reaching the U.S. border.

“President Hernández is working with the United States very closely,” President Donald Trump said in December 2019. “You know what’s going on on our southern border. And we’re winning after years and years of losing.”

Hernández’s wife, former first lady Ana García Carías, told journalists Wednesday she was surprised the United States was attempting to prosecute, given his cooperation with Washington.

“I regret that this happens to someone who has been [a U.S.] ally,” she said.

Former Honduras president Juan Orlando Hernández arrested; U.S. seeks extradition on drug trafficking charges

Hernández, who was barred by term limits from running for reelection, had hoped his National Party would win the presidential election in November and extend some protection against a U.S. prosecution. But the National Party suffered a surprising loss to democratic socialist Xiomara Castro, who was inaugurated to succeed him in January.

The Biden administration has expressed hope that Castro’s presidency could lead to a shift away from the corruption that plagued Honduras under Hernández and which, administration officials say, led in part to high levels of migration.

Hernández says the United States is relying on false information in its case against him. He tweeted this year that the claims are based on the accounts of “drug traffickers and confessed assassins who were extradited by my government or had to flee and hand themselves in to U.S. authorities for fear of being extradited.”


 Kevin Sieff has been The Washington Post’s Latin America correspondent since 2018. He served previously as the paper's Africa bureau chief and Afghanistan bureau chief. 

Ex- Honduras first lady Rosa Bonilla convicted of corruption

By Associated Press

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — A court in Honduras convicted former first lady Rosa Elena Bonilla of corruption Thursday for the second time.

Bonilla was sentenced to 58 years in prison in September 2019 for embezzling more than $1 million in government money between 2010 and 2014, when her husband Porfirio Lobo was president.

But the Supreme Court of Justice overturned her conviction six months later, citing procedural problems and ordering a new trial.

On Thursday, that second trial resulted in a conviction too.

Honduras’ court system said via Twitter Thursday that the court had unanimously convicted Bonilla of embezzlement and fraude. Her private secretary at the time, Saúl Escobar was also convicted Thursday.

The court ordered them jailed while awaiting sentencing, which was scheduled for Monday.

“They were accused of appropriating public funds that were designated for social projects,” Lucía Villars, spokeswoman for the court system said.

The investigation that led to the charges had started with the Organization of American States anticorruption mission in Honduras.

According to prosecutors, Bonilla took some $480,000 from an account for the first lady’s office and deposited it in her personal account four days before Lobo left office. The defendants also allegedly took $650,000 from the office through checks written to nine front businesses between 2010 and 2014.

Bonilla was originally arrested in February 2018.

The farce of Israeli peace-making

Israel, a serial invader, cannot be a force for peace between Russia and Ukraine, and the prospect of holding talks in occupied Jerusalem is an insult to the Palestinians under fire, writes Yara Hawari.

Perspectives
Yara Hawari
17 Mar, 2022

Ukrainian president, Volodomyr Zelensky, suggested Jerusalem as an ideal location for peace talks with Russia. [GETTY]

Ukrainian president, Volodomyr Zelensky, stated that the Israeli regime has the potential to play an important role in ending the war. He further commented that Jerusalem would be an ideal location to host peace talks between his country and Russia. This comes off the back of Israeli Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett, acting as a mediator between the two states, including flying to Moscow in order to speak directly with Putin.

Indeed the Israeli regime has taken a quasi-neutral position on the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In an emergency UN General Assembly session at the beginning of March, the Israeli regime voted for a resolution that condemned the invasion and called for the immediate withdrawal of Russian troops. Yet it has refused to participate in both US and European sanctions on Russia despite the US directly asking them to. The Israeli regime has also ignored Zelensky’s request for defensive weapons and instead has sent medical supplies.

"Palestinians look on in absolute bewilderment at the Israeli regime’s new self-appointed role as mediator and potential peacemaker. If it was not so tragic, it would be a comedy."

This quasi neutrality is reflective of the Israeli regime’s long standing relations with both countries as well as a significant number of both Israeli Ukrainians and Russians. Yet its relationship with Russia is more complicated and for this reason, it is treading carefully. Russia is a significant military force in the Middle East, particularly in Syria where it has a large presence. Some have even claimed that the Israeli regime is afraid of Russia.

Then, there are the Jewish Russian oligarchs, some of whom have sought refuge in Israel since the invasion and the implementations of sanctions. Most infamously among them is Roman Abramovich, Chelsea Football club owner, a big financier of Israeli settler groups and reportedly a member of Putin’s inner circle. As a result of his close relationship with Putin, Abramovich has faced sanctions from the EU and UK including asset freezes and travel bans. Immediately after which, his private jet was seen to have landed in Tel Aviv.

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Not everyone has been impressed with Israel’s attempts at “peace-making”. The Ukrainian ambassador to Israel stated that there shouldn’t be a special role for Israel in the war and that its neutrality is more about game playing. It is becoming increasingly clear that Bennett’s shuttle diplomacy is a farce in the face of the Israeli regime’s own (complicated) interests. How long it will be able to maintain this “neutral” stance amidst US and EU pressures to stand unequivocally with Ukraine, is still to be seen however.

Meanwhile Palestinians look on in absolute bewilderment at the Israeli regime’s new self-appointed role as mediator and potential peacemaker. If it was not so tragic, it would be a comedy. After establishing an apartheid state in 1948, literally on the ashes of Historic Palestine, the Israeli regime has since continuously invaded Palestinian land and appropriated it for exclusive Jewish Israeli use. In doing so it has forcibly removed Palestinians from their homes and in many cases has forced them into permanent exile. The Israeli regime has also long laid siege to Gaza and frequently subjects it to devastating bombardments.

The city of Jerusalem, in which Zelensky wishes to host peace talks, is itself a city under intense invasion. Having conquered the west of the city in 1948, the Israeli regime went on to conquer the east in 1967. In May 2021, a Palestinian neighbourhood in Jerusalem, Sheikh Jarrah, rose up against its imminent ethnic cleansing. It sparked what many dubbed the Unity Intifada, during which Palestinians across colonised Palestine resisted in shared struggle. They were met with brutal Israeli regime suppression and since then Palestinians in Sheikh Jarrah and elsewhere in Jerusalem have been thrown out of their homes.

Israel has repeatedly been condemned over decades by UN resolutions for its violation of Palestinian rights, even though it has faced no consequences for its actions. More recently various human rights organisations including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, echoing Palestinian scholars and activists, have charged the Israeli regime of committing the crime of apartheid. By all standards of morality this should condemn the Israeli regime to being a pariah state and certainly not one that should be playing peacemaker. The people suffering from Russian invasion of Ukraine deserve better than that. Yet the dystopic reality we live in says otherwise.

Yara Hawari is the Senior Analyst of Al-Shabaka, the Palestinian Policy Network.
Follow her on Twitter: @yarahawari

Pfizer’s Covid Pill Unlikely to Reach Much of World for a Year

James Paton, Bloomberg News

A worker unpacks boxes of Pfizer Inc.’s Paxlovid antiviral medication in a warehouse in Shoham, Israel, on Jan. 18, 2022. A fourth dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was insufficient to prevent infection with the omicron variant of Covid-19, according to preliminary data from a trial in Israel released Monday. , Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- Agreements to expand global access to Pfizer Inc.’s highly effective Covid-19 therapy will be announced shortly, yet parts of the world may wait a year for the drug due to production and regulatory hurdles.

The United Nations-backed Medicines Patent Pool plans to name the generic drugmakers that are going to be making the pills next week, four months after reaching a licensing accord with Pfizer. The drug companies may be ready to supply the first Paxlovid pills by December, according to the Geneva-based group. Larger quantities may only reach the market in May 2023, analytics firm Airfinity Ltd. estimates.

Demand for the antiviral treatment is expected to outpace supply after it slashed the risk of hospitalization or death by almost 90% in clinical trials. So far, a group of mostly richer countries have secured about a quarter of Pfizer’s initial supplies. That’s increasing pressure on the pharma giant and others to accelerate the rollout in lower-income nations that have also struggled to obtain vaccines.

“It’s a potential game-changer, but not if we accept a two-tier system,” said Rachel Cohen, North American regional executive director of the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative, a nonprofit. “We cannot accept these obstacles as static. It has to be an issue around which people mobilize.”

Two years into the pandemic, Pfizer’s drug has emerged as a crucial tool to combat Covid. Even as cases drop and restrictions are lifted in some countries, health officials are pushing to expand access to Paxlovid and other drugs to counter the risk of future variants and battle a disease that’s still causing tens of thousands of deaths a week.

Pfizer is “focusing our efforts and resources in a way that maximizes our overall supply,” according to Kit Longley, a spokesperson. The company has reached out to more than 100 countries, including low-income nations, and is collaborating with the World Health Organization to share information about its treatment, pricing and supplies, Longley said in an email. 

Paxlovid consists of two pills. One, nirmatrelvir, is a new drug designed to block the action of a key enzyme that the virus uses to make copies of itself. The other, HIV medication ritonavir, helps slow the breakdown of the first drug, enabling it to remain active for longer and at higher concentrations. 

Potent Tool

Pfizer’s treatment appears to be a more potent virus-fighting tool than Merck & Co.’s molnupiravir, which comes with safety risks for certain patients and was just 30% effective against hospitalization and death from Covid. Guidelines from the U.S. National Institutes of Health specify Merck’s drug should be used only when Paxlovid and other outpatient medications can’t be given. Pfizer has also pointed to data suggesting its treatment works against multiple variants. 

But it’s expected to be tougher for manufacturers to make their own versions of Pfizer’s pill when compared with Merck’s.

“It looks like it’s going to take considerably longer than for molnupiravir and other drugs,” said Peter Sands, executive director of the Global Fund, which is helping to coordinate the distribution of Covid therapies and is in talks with Pfizer.

Public information about nirmatrelvir, the new drug in Pfizer’s combination therapy, has been relatively limited, and manufacturers have had to wait for licenses and Pfizer’s original product to become available, according to the patent pool. 

There are unavoidable hurdles and complexities that take time to clear, including regulatory approvals and demonstrating the drug can maintain its properties over time, said Charles Gore, the Medicines Patent Pool’s executive director. 

Unfair Expectations

“It’s not fair to have expectations that these things can be done overnight,” he said. “They just can’t.”

Merck, meanwhile, signed initial agreements with Indian generic-drug companies almost a year ago before a broader accord in October, and generic companies have more familiarity with the therapy, experts say. Developed by scientists at Emory University and Merck’s partner Ridgeback Biotherapeutics LP, the drug had been previously tested against viruses including influenza.

Another potential challenge in making Paxlovid is getting access to raw materials, said Andrew Hill, a senior fellow at the University of Liverpool in England. The production process requires the mass acquisition of 38 different ingredients and reagents sourced from suppliers around the globe, according to Airfinity. While there aren’t any shortages known today, the amounts needed to create Paxlovid could lead to future bottlenecks, it said.

Despite the promise of Pfizer’s drug, Hill added, some manufacturers also will be uncertain about demand and recovering their costs given the uncertainties about the trajectory of Covid.

Pfizer has taken steps to broaden availability of its drug. In addition to signing a licensing pact and promising it won’t receive royalties from sales in low-income countries, the company said that during the pandemic it will use a tiered-pricing system in which richer countries pay more. The company has also reached an initial agreement to supply Africa, African officials said.

Pfizer has raised its 2022 production estimate for Paxlovid to 120 million courses and plans to deliver 20 million to the U.S. this year. The U.K. purchased about 2.75 million and another 10 million could go to lower-income nations, according to Airfinity.

Still, health advocates are calling on the company to allocate more courses to the developing world and make Paxlovid available to researchers evaluating its use in combination with other Covid therapies. Covid testing capacity, they say, may be insufficient in many countries, which could also present a problem given Paxlovid should be taken no more than five days after symptoms begin.

©2022 Bloomberg L.P.

The forest whisperer Suzanne Simard: Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk should pay up

The scientist who unearthed the “wood wide web” calls on governments and green billionaires to meet the climate challenge

By India Bourke

The Environment Interview
17 March 2022

Photo by Brendan George Ko

“Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk: these incredibly wealthy people are making their money off the backs of people, and resources which they are exploiting from the earth. They need to pony up and pay for this,” the world-renowned professor of forest ecology, Suzanne Simard, told me at an outdoor café in St James Park, London. “[They] undermined our government so that they could make cheap s**t. We have to close the circle of responsibility […], we have to hold them to account.”

With her wispy silver hair, piercing birdlike eyes and simple black coat, Simard in many ways conforms to the image of an academic being shepherded around the city on a book tour. But as these passionate outbursts suggest, little about Simard is typical.

Simard’s research has transformed Western understanding of forests, and was the basis for the “tree souls” in James Cameron’s blockbuster movie Avatar. Her work helped unearth the secrets of an underground web of fungi (nick-named the “wood wide web”) that allows trees to communicate and share resources – delivering nutrients and carbon not just within species but between them. Large dominant “mother trees” are also key to these efforts, she has established, helping funnel the network’s support to new seedlings.

[See also: “Austerity is coming back”: Tim Lang fears for food security as war rages]

But while her contributions to science have established that it is collaboration, not competition, that is the governing principle of forest growth, it has been a battle to get there. Even the name “mother tree”, with its anthropomorphising overtones, has sparked controversy: “Everybody was like, ‘don’t do it: it’s going to ruin your career’. And really, the knives do come out.”

Simard is not someone to be easily cowed, however. And working with people from Canada’s indigenous communities helped cement her confidence in her communication style. “Their whole world is about the integration of humans and the nonhuman world; you don’t separate these things at all. In fact, when we do separate them, that’s when we get into so much trouble.”

Her bravery perhaps even runs in her DNA. Raised in the Monashee Mountains of rural Canada, Simard’s gripping memoir Finding The Mother Tree introduces many important figures who populated her youth, from her rodeo-riding brother to her grandfather who rolled logs down rivers at great personal risk. Simard has continued this legacy, helping lead the way for women, first in the logging industry, then science. (Not to mention battling breast cancer, the development of which her research involving toxic herbicides and radioactive isotopes might have contributed).

It is a sweaty, dangerous and highly unique personal story that has captivated creative minds around the world. The author Richard Powers is said to have based his heroine in the award-winning The Overstory on the scientist, while actress Amy Adams is set to star as Simard in an upcoming film adaptation of her memoir.

Yet in light of the evermore dire warnings about the health of the planet, it is not the personal, but the practical and political context of her work that Simard wants to stress. Indeed, she has narrowed her thinking down to a four-point action plan for governments.

[See also: Could Happy the elephant follow an Ecuadorian monkey into legal personhood?]

The “number one” priority should be stemming the source of climate change by decarbonising the energy sector, she explains. Second would be putting a moratorium on deforestation, especially in old growth forests and rainforests, like those in the Amazon, Pacific Rim and Congo. And third should be creating financial mechanisms to ensure that green reforms support people and nature as part of a “well-being economy”.

For too long, she insisted, private companies and corporations have shirked their responsibilities. “They’ve privatised the wealth and socialised the risk,” she explained. “Private wealth has long railed against governments because they don’t want to be taxed.” This has fed a narrative where politicians can’t be trusted, tax is seen as a negative thing and governments are consequently stripped of their resources, she argued. Corporations must “step up and share their wealth, and start funding these life saving measures over the next five years”.

Two much-touted ways of redirecting private finance towards green reform are via carbon-offsetting and carbon taxes. The former involves polluting companies or countries buying “carbon credits” from schemes or nations that are actively absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere, often via planting or protecting forests. The latter charges emitters for each tonne of greenhouse gas emissions they produce. Simard is sceptical about both.

Regarding offsets, the polluter often still continues to pollute, she said, and there’s no guarantee in an age of increasing wildfires, social unrest and poverty, that those forests involved in the schemes are permanent. Similarly with carbon taxes, Simard fears the current carbon price is far too low. It would take thousands of dollars to return this hectare of land back to original forest, she said, looking around at the highly manicured flower beds of St James’ Royal Park. “You’d have to bring in new soil, recreate the landscape, bring in new trees and have people looking after them: it’s expensive.” The price of carbon is at only around $3-$60 a tonne in G20 economies, while analysts estimate it needs to reach at least $100 to meet net zero by 2050.

But if these discrepancies and injustices can be addressed, Simard is hopeful forests – and their wider ecosystems – can respond. The fungal spores that are essential to regeneration can remain in forests for thousands of years, she said, while her research with the Mother Tree Project is exploring how trees from warmer climes can be successfully migrated north as the world heats up. Adapting forestry so that it protects and nurtures mother trees, rather than continuing with today’s clear-cut practices, will be essential to this, she believes.

And that brings us onto her final fourth point for saving the planet: recognising the active role that humans must now play in ecosystem protection. “We need to be moving seeds and species,” she stressed, “because it’s too late for us to let [nature] do it all by itself. We got to return to our original responsibility of caring for Mother Earth.”

Does that mean we are the ultimate “mother tree” I suggested? “Yes.”

Finding the Mother Tree: Uncovering the Wisdom and Intelligence of the Forest, by Suzanna Simard. Published in the UK by Penguin.

 

Scientists may have solved Professor Stephen Hawking’s black hole paradox

According to two new studies, something called “quantum hair” is the answer to the problem

THU, 17 MAR, 2022 - 17:31

NINA MASSEY, PA SCIENCE CORRESPONDENT

Researchers may have solved Stephen Hawking’s famous black hole paradox – a mystery that has puzzled scientists for almost half a century.

According to two new studies, something called “quantum hair” is the answer to the problem.

In the first paper, published in the journal Physical Review Letters, researchers demonstrated that black holes are more complex than originally thought and have gravitational fields that hold information about how they were formed.

Black holes have long been considered the perfect laboratory to study how to merge Einstein’s theory of general relativity with quantum mechanics

The researchers showed that matter collapsing into a black hole leaves a mark in its gravitational field – an imprint referred to as a “quantum hair”.

In a follow-up paper, published in a separate journal, Physics Letters B, Professor Xavier Calmet from the University of Sussex’s School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences and Professor Stephen Hsu from Michigan State University said quantum hairs resolve Prof Hawking’s Black Hole Information Paradox.

In 1976, Prof Hawking suggested that, as black holes evaporate, they destroy information about what had formed them.

That idea goes against a fundamental law of quantum mechanics which states any process in physics can be mathematically reversed.

In the 1960s, physicist John Archibald Wheeler, discussing black holes’ lack of observable features beyond their total mass, spin, and charge, coined the phrase “black holes have no hair” – known as the no-hair theorem.

However, the newly discovered “quantum hair” provides a way for information to be preserved as a black hole collapses and, as such, resolves one of modern science’s most famous quandaries, experts say.

Professor Stephen Hawking (Joe Giddens/PA)

Prof Calmet said: “Black holes have long been considered the perfect laboratory to study how to merge Einstein’s theory of general relativity with quantum mechanics.

“It was generally assumed within the scientific community that resolving this paradox would require a huge paradigm shift in physics, forcing the potential reformulation of either quantum mechanics or general relativity.

“What we found – and I think is particularly exciting – is that this isn’t necessary.”

Explaining the discovery of the “quantum hair”, Roberto Casadio, Professor of Theoretical Physics from the University of Bologna, said: “A crucial aspect is that black holes are formed by the collapse of compact objects and then, according to the quantum theory, there is no absolute separation between the interior and the exterior of the black hole.

“In the classical theory, the horizon acts as a perfect one-way membrane which does not let anything out and the exterior is therefore the same for all black holes of a given mass.

“This is the classical no-hair theorem.

“However, in the quantum theory, the state of the matter that collapses and forms the black hole continues to affect the state of the exterior, albeit in a way that is compatible with present experimental bounds. This is what is known as ‘quantum hair’.”

WAR IN UKRAINE TURNS HUNGARY ELECTION CAMPAIGN ON ITS HEAD

Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban at the NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, 25 February 2022. 

EPA-EFE/STEPHANIE LECOCQ


Budapest
BIRN

March 14, 202208:05

Viktor Orban has moved from fighting phoney battles with fictitious enemies in this election campaign to championing himself as the guarantor of peace and stability for Hungarians at a time of war.

Billboards publicising the Hungarian government’s anti-LGBT referendum to be held the same day as the April 3 general election have been pushed into the background almost overnight. So, too, the campaign slogans of the Hungarian opposition about cracking down on corruption or raising teachers’ pay. The war in Ukraine has radically

 transformed the political reality in Hungary.

“The war is highly troublesome for Orban and we see the whole 12 years of his friendship with [Vladimir] Putin come tumbling down on him,” Andras Biro-Nagy, director of Policy Solutions, a critical think tank, tells BIRN.

It is proving more than embarrassing for Orban that he visited Moscow just three weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine, one of the last EU and NATO leaders to meet Putin. Thus, the Russian president, previously a major ally for Orban, has now unexpectedly become a liability and one the biggest threats to his re-election chances in the election.

“Orban and Putin or the West and Europe – these are the stakes. A choice between the dark or the good side of history,” Peter Marki-Zay, the joint opposition’s prime ministerial candidate in the April 3 election wrote on Facebook.

He also accused Orban of rolling out Putin’s political model in Hungary, undermining European unity and serving Putin’s interests for the last 12 years.

“The opposition is trying to seize the opportunity to frame the election around the existential question: East or West? Where do we belong?” Biro-Nagy says.
Transformed into a dove of peace

Yet Fidesz is pushing another narrative, a less grand overarching one, perhaps lacking moral considerations, but one that is proving equally as powerful.

It took the government and its spin-doctors several days to come up with a new slogan, but Orban’s newly discovered rhetoric about “peace and stability” – amplified by the legions of pro-government media – is beginning to hit home.

“We have to stay out of this war, we should not be involved,” Orban now intones repeatedly, underlining his long government experience. He has also managed to portray Marki-Zay as a politician who would send Hungarian troops into Ukraine and involve Hungary in a war that is not “ours”.

“Our research shows that Hungarian society favours peace. We do not share the existential fears of Poles about the Russians,” Agoston Samuel Mraz, director of the government-allied think tank the Nezopont Institute, tells BIRN.

Mraz believes the current situation could work in the government’s favour; amid growing international insecurity, the willingness of voters to change government tends to diminish. Fidesz, he says, is closely monitoring the mood of society and is tailoring its messages to suit.

“After the 1956 revolution, Hungarian society, under huge pressure, compromised with the communist regime and the Russians. This was not a free, but pragmatic decision of a society opting for relative welfare and security,” Mraz says.

Hungarian opposition leader Peter Marki-Zay speaks during a protest against the Russian invasion of Ukraine at the headquarters of the International Investment Bank (IIB) in Budapest, Hungary, 01 March 2022. 

EPA-EFE/Szilard Koszticsak


It also explains why Orban and his ministers endlessly repeat that energy trade with Russia should not be included among the Western sanctions. Higher utility prices would undermine this notion of stability, which – at least in the minds of government spin doctors – would erode government support.

At a conference organised last week in Budapest, Ukraine’s ambassador to Hungary, Ljubov Nepop, in a voice cracking with emotion, questioned whether the Orban government cared more about low utility prices than human lives? “Are you not ashamed?” she asked, tears in her eyes.

This deeply rooted need for stability might explain why there have been no mass demonstrations against the war in Hungary, unlike in Prague or Berlin where hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets with withering attacks on Putin and his allies at home and abroad.

Yet observers point out it might have more to do with the inability of the opposition to mobilise its voters and organise big demonstrations beyond the few thousand people who regularly attend.

“Currently, it seems that the opposition has not been able to turn the situation to its advantage,” election expert Robert Laszlo from the independent think tank Political Capital tells BIRN. “They were probably too cautious and shy in the beginning, while the government is vehemently pushing its new narrative with the help of its loyal media and has managed to ‘retune’ its voters in no time. The communication bubbles created by the state media and government billboards are proving unbreakable, especially in the countryside.”

Other experts agree that Orban’s new central narrative of safeguarding peace and stability is gaining traction in society. Although polls are usually not very reliable in Hungary as results tend to depend on the affiliation of the polling institute, an end-February survey by Median indicates that the government has managed to actually increase its lead over the joint opposition. Orban’s monolithic voting block of 2.2-2.5 million is not being eroded, it seems.

Mraz, from the government-allied Nezopont Institute, says their polls show Fidesz support growing slightly, but what’s more important, opposition voters are becoming more disoriented. Undecided voters, seen as a potential reservoir for opposition parties, have become even more insecure and could plump for the safe choice of the government at a time of such instability.
Economic clouds loom

However, other challenges lie ahead for the government over the final weeks of the campaign.

Stability could be undermined by the free fall of the Hungarian currency, which has sunk to a record level of 400 forints per euro since the war began on February 24. A positive upshot of Fidesz’s much-heralded economic growth of the last 12 years is being eaten up by instability and inflation.

The opposition Democratic Coalition (DK) is gleefully reminding voters that when Orban took power in 2012, the exchange rate was at 269 forints per euro, meaning an overall devaluation of almost 50 per cent over its 12 years in power, by far the biggest among the Visegrad Group of Central European countries. The Hungarian currency’s exchange rate is slightly below that of Zimbabwe’s, DK writes, mocking the government’s slogan that Hungary is moving ahead, not backward.

Government circles admit privately that the galloping inflation and deteriorating exchange rate could pose a bigger threat to election victory than the actual war in Ukraine.

With just two weeks before the election, insecurity dominates the mood, both within society and among the political elite. Orban’s new balancing act – supporting the EU and NATO, but keeping the door open for energy business with Russia and generally voicing his reservations about sanctions as effective measures to bring about change – appears so incoherent at times that the government appears to be adjusting strategy on the hoof.

For example, Orban announced Hungary would not send weapons to Ukraine, not even allowing weapons to transit its territory. But it then appeared to backtrack in a carefully worded government decree, which allows the transport of weapons to NATO allies, only ruling out direct transport to Ukrainian forces.

The same happened with its refusal to station NATO troops on Hungarian soil. Now, it seems, the government is open to having them, and the optimism of Defence Minister Tibor Benko about the Hungarian military not needing support is no longer valid.

The almost daily corrections reveal that Orban is trying to realign policies with Western allies, but often too little, too late. Orban’s ambivalent approach to the war has brought relations with Poland, Hungary’s main ally within the EU, to a new nadir, and it looks to have cemented Fidesz’s toxic image in most Western capitals.

But questions of foreign policy and international affairs leave the majority of Hungarian society unmoved or even just confused, possibly as a consequence of the country becoming increasingly inward-looking and provincial during the 12 years of the Orban government.

“It is yet to be seen which of the Orban’s peace and security narrative or the opposition’s West vs. East approach will convince voters more,” Biro-Nagy of Policy Solutions admits. “But what’s highly challenging for Orban is that he has no control over what’s happening in Ukraine, or even in the economy – he can only do damage control.”

Hundreds of Filipino sailors still stranded in Ukrainian ports

Filipino seafarers make up 25 per cent of crews worldwide. A few hundred have been evacuated and repatriated. The problem is also in the opposite direction: Ukrainians and Russians on boats abroad cannot return home or get paid.



Manila (AsiaNews) - The Russian invasion of Ukraine is also having an impact on the maritime sector: thousands of foreign sailors are stranded on board ships in Ukrainian ports; Ukrainian and Russian sailors abroad are unable to return home.

Data from Stella Maris Manila, the Scalabrinian missionaries' dormitory and training centre for seafarers, 49 of their sailors have been evacuated, 227 repatriated and 146 are stranded on board 27 vessels in 11 different ports in Ukraine. The Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs claims to have evacuated over 300 seafarers and to have brought home just over 170 so far.

Filipinos represent 25% of the world's seafarers, 1.9 million in total.

On 10 and 11 March, the United Nations International Maritime Organisation (IMO) convened an extraordinary meeting to assess the risks faced by vessels in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. Imo Secretary General Kitack Lim called for merchant shipping to be spared the violence: "Together with the Ukrainian people, ships, seafarers and port workers engaged in trade should not be caught up in this growing crisis. Shipping, and in particular seafarers, cannot be collateral victims of a wider political and military crisis, they must stay safe and be protected".

At least five ships have so far been hit by bombings, killing a sailor from Bangladesh.

The total number of foreign sailors stranded in Ukraine is estimated at around 1,000, on board more than 100 ships. The crews are not trained to command the vessels in wartime, which is why they remain stranded in ports with their cargoes.

The problem is also in the opposite direction: Russian and Ukrainian sailors make up 17% of the world's seafarers and at the moment about 60,000 are at sea or waiting to go home. But there are no flights and many of them cannot be paid because their bank accounts are blocked or under sanctions.

Most of the Russian and Ukrainian sailors are also senior officers, captains and mechanics, and it is not easy to find people to replace them to keep the supply chains going. To remedy the situation, shipowners are also offering double salaries to seafarers from the Philippines and Romania for sailings in the next two months, but much will depend on how the conflict in southern Ukraine, near Odessa and Mariupol, develops.

Dirty money: Russian oligarchs flock to UAE to evade sanctions

Analysis
In-depth
James Snell
17 March, 2022

In-depth: As the world responds to Russia's invasion of Ukraine with unprecedented sanctions, Russia's richest oligarchs have flocked to the UAE as a financial haven to hide their wealth, and the business hub nation has welcomed them with open arms.

In the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the unprecedented international sanctions targeting Russia’s economy, people and money have been fleeing Russia. Among them are some of the richest people in the world, Russia’s oligarchs, who are the target of both personalised sanctions and international attention.

Many of them are making their way to the United Arab Emirates. The Financial Times reported that several Russian oligarchs are establishing business and buying up property in the Gulf nation, hoping to avoid the worst of financial restrictions and a weak currency in Russia, and clinging on by all available means to the currents of global finance.

The UAE spent much time turning itself, and especially Dubai, into a playground for the world’s rich. Its leaders have turned Dubai into a glittering tourist destination, filled with amenities and shops, to attract the wealthy.

"As campaigners against kleptocracy have long argued, the UAE has established a system of offshoring, lax regulatory oversight, and a lack of transparency, all of which has attracted dirty money"

As campaigners against kleptocracy have long argued, the UAE has established a system of offshoring, lax regulatory oversight, and a lack of transparency, all of which has attracted dirty money. This month, the Financial Action Task Force, a global financial crime watchdog, added the UAE to the “greylist” risk of jurisdictions being monitored.

A seminal 2020 report for the Carnegie Endowment argued that “part of what underpins Dubai’s prosperity is a steady stream of illicit proceeds borne from corruption and crime.”

“The wealth”, the editors argue, “has helped to fuel the emirate’s booming real estate market; enrich its bankers, moneychangers, and business elites; and turn Dubai into a major gold trading hub.”

Until now, the system that Russian oligarchs are now seeking to use to their advantage has escaped major international scrutiny. Campaigners against kleptocracy expressed their pleasure to The New Arab that now, amid unprecedented global focus on dirty money, this could begin to change.

A luxury yacht is pictured off the Dubai Marina Beach on June 10 2021. Dubai earned a reputation for delivering luxury for the world's richest, and has become a safe haven for those looking to hide their wealth. [Getty]

“Dubai has been working very hard to position itself as a wealth haven for a long time and has been able to take advantage of rules put in place by the West banning blood diamonds and blood gold, both of which can be part of the economy in Dubai,” said Oliver Bullough, the author of Moneyland and Butler to the World.

“The UAE has created this system of offshore finance and services, basically pro-kleptocracy services, for practically everyone who has dirty money burning a hole in their pockets,” said Casey Michel, an Adjunct Fellow at the Hudson Institute's Kleptocracy Initiative and the author of American Kleptocracy.

Among the rich, the wealthy Gulf nation is known for “opaque corporate ownership, a clear lack of willingness to implement oversight and transparency mechanisms.”

“The UAE has followed a similar playbook to other offshore jurisdictions,” Michel said. This has brought a “tsunami of illicit or questionable or suspect wealth, fleeing and looking for a new home with its arms wide open, more than happy to welcome anybody in.”

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This attitude has always been appealing to oligarchs but now, as they are running out of alternative destinations, all eyes have turned to the UAE.

“Oligarchic figures and their families are, as they have been for the past three decades, constantly looking for locations they can move and hide, and I would argue, launder their money, moving it into third party jurisdictions,” Michel said.

But as even previous financial havens like Monaco and Switzerland have closed their doors to sanctioned individuals, the net has grown tighter.

Publicly visible data has shown oligarchs’ yachts arrive in larger numbers than usual in Dubai and Israel. Firms working in the UAE claim to have seen significant interest from Russians and Belarusians in buying UAE property and establishing businesses in Dubai, both possible ways of securing residency and lodging some money in assets unlikely to depreciate or to be frozen and seized by sanctioning authorities.


"Unlike in western Europe, where public opinion and the political current has decidedly turned against Russian oligarchs...Dubai remains calmer and more welcoming – and more willing to respect new residents’ privacy"

“No one has any idea where this is going to end. Recent weeks have seen targeted sanctions unlike anything we’ve seen before. There is nothing to compare this to,” Michel added.

For the moment, the authorities in the UAE appear willing to accept this new interest and these new visitors.

“It’s not surprising to me that it’s the UAE and Dubai in particular that’s had this transformation. It has been the UAE for the past few decades that’s stood at the centre of some of the greatest money laundering and bank scandals in financial history,” Michel said.

“This is one of the transitions – moving from Western jurisdictions that have acted as offshore havens, to the UAE – there is no concern of eventual domestic pushback. Oligarchs do not need to worry about Emirati voters waking up one day and voting out the authorities in question.”

In Europe and America, where much dirty Russian money has sloshed around for years, things appear suddenly different.

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“Folks are finally realising the national security threats these unchecked systems pose. It’s a shame it took this long to have this realisation in capitals like Washington and London,” Michel explained.

Britain’s parliament has fast-tracked a new Economic Crime Bill aimed at dirty money. Buoyed up by popular pressure, it has been voted through Parliament and received Royal Assent with uncommon speed.

Unlike in western Europe, where public opinion and the political current has decidedly turned against Russian oligarchs, and property allegedly belonging to men like Oleg Deripaska has been taken over by squatters, Dubai remains calmer and more welcoming – and more willing to respect new residents’ privacy.

“These systems are built upon anonymity in itself. The purpose of their existence is making it difficult to track and trace people in the first place. At the end of the day, we’re not going to have a whole picture because of the UAE’s opacity.”

"It might be hoped by Emirati authorities that if Russian wealth arrives in Dubai without making too much of a splash, the country might be able to absorb it quietly, without either falling victim to secondary sanctions or being pressured by allies into levying new tough measures on Russian wealth"

There are already 60,000 Russians estimated to live in the Emirates. Their numbers could barely change, yet money in large quantities could move almost entirely undetected as the Russian rich relocated their assets.

“There’s no reason for Dubai to poke their head up and advertise themselves as an offshore destination. They want to remain a boutique, bespoke offshore destination without alerting regulatory authorities or Western partners elsewhere,” said Michel.

News coverage in sanctioning countries is already beginning to pick this thread up. Both Israel and the UAE have faced criticism for their claimed equivocation on the subject of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The UAE’s abstention on the United Nations General Assembly vote on the subject was widely noted, and broadly derided.

It might be hoped by Emirati authorities that if Russian wealth arrives in Dubai without making too much of a splash, the country might be able to absorb it quietly, without either falling victim to secondary sanctions or being pressured by allies into levying new tough measures on Russian wealth.

But oligarchs and their children might unintentionally bring matters to a head. Many of them live on Instagram, which has now been banned in Russia. If these children continued to post about their lavish lifestyles, this time from Dubai, the financial dealings of their parents could receive yet more scrutiny.

“All the daughters of the oligarchs are showing up in Dubai, having a lovely time,” Michel noted.

“Oligarch’s children are a journalist’s dream. They are so indiscreet,” Bullough said.

“Many oligarchs have been very happy to move to Dubai when things have looked uncomfortable here [in the West]. And this looks certain to accelerate. This is profitable for Dubai, but it is not a risk-free policy. Dubai is wealthy, but it is small and reliant on the goodwill of western powers to function,” said Bullough.

“A lot of Russian oligarchs will be looking to move their wealth to Dubai. But I suspect that the people in charge of the financial sector there will not want it to be too public. They will not want to become victims of their own success,” Bullough added.

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The world is moving under their feet. Things that were once impossible – in both defence and economic terms – are becoming commonplace.

“This is a generational crisis, and the United States and European allies are throwing everything at this. If Dubai is going to be really blatant about being a loophole, Washington will be cross,” Bullough explained. “I will be surprised if we start seeing pictures of oligarchs like influencers on their Dubai balcony – they won’t want to embarrass the Emiratis.”

If things become really flagrant – impossible to deny or hide – both the oligarchs and the UAE will likely be unable to avoid new pressure, Bullough explained. This could fray relationships between the UAE and its Western allies.

“They will feel a cold wind from Washington very fast.”

Indian judge at the International Court of Justice votes against Russia

Dalveer Bhandari, a former justice with the Supreme Court of India, backs the decision ordering Russia to stop military operations. The court rejects Russia’s claim that Ukraine is guilty of genocide. At the UN, India has abstained in resolutions against Russia to avoid condemning it.

New Delhi (AsiaNews) – At the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, Indian judge Dalveer Bhandari voted in favour of an order intimating that Russia stop military operations in Ukraine.

Thirteen members (out of 15) of the main judicial organ of the United Nations, voted in favour of the order, while its vice-president, Kirill Gevorgian of Russia, and one of the judges, Sue Hanqin from China, voted against it.

Bhandari's vote takes on particular significance in light of India's position with respect to the conflict. Hitherto, New Delhi has avoided voting against Moscow at the UN, abstaining both in the resolutions presented to the Security Council and the Emergency General Assembly on 2 March.

The Indian government is trying to hold a delicate balance between its traditional neutrality and its economic and geopolitical interests in this crisis. Called to express an opinion on the legal aspect of the crisis, the Indian judge chose to condemn the military action.

Bhandari, 74, hails from Jodhpur. A former justice with the Indian Supreme Court, he was elected to the ICJ in 2012 and re-elected in 2018. His renewed mandate was seen as a sign of India’s political rise, as it forced the United Kingdom to withdraw its candidate once it was clear that the Indian judge had the support of the General Assembly.

For his part, Bhandari signed off on important issues involving humanitarian law during his career as a Supreme Court justice, such as the right to food, education and shelter for the homeless.

The ICJ order notes that no evidence has been presented that Ukraine engaged in genocide against Russian-speaking communities in eastern Ukraine, which is one of claims Russia has cited to justify its invasion.

Although the court orders “The Russian Federation” to “immediately suspend the military operations”, it has no power to enforce the order, that is vested in the Security Council where Russia has a veto.

IRS Is ‘Outgunned’ in Audits of Major Companies, Agency Chief Says

Laura Davison, Bloomberg News

Charles Rettig, commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), speaks during a House Ways and Means Committee hearing in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Thursday, March 17, 2022. The IRS has a backlog of roughly 20 million tax returns, leaving some people waiting months or even years to receive refunds or resolve disputes with the agency saying it hopes to get it below 1 million by the end of 2022. , Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- The IRS is outmatched in resources and expertise when it audits some of the largest companies in the country, the agency’s top official said.

“We do not have the resources to go after the bigs or the superbigs, as we refer to them, and we get outgunned routinely in that space,” IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig told House Ways and Means Committee members on Thursday.

The Internal Revenue Service, which is in charge of implementing and enforcing the nation’s tax laws, has struggled for years to keep pace with increasingly complicated business structures created by teams of corporate lawyers and accountants. The IRS has also faced a series of budget cuts and a wave of retirements as older employees leave the workforce.

Rettig said this mismatch between corporations and the IRS means that lawmakers should consult with the agency when creating new tax policies -- to get input on the feasibility and enforceability of those ideas.

President Joe Biden has proposed giving the IRS an additional $80 billion over the next decade to overhaul the agency’s audit and enforcement teams so the agency can more effectively move against tax cheats. That funding is part of his roughly $2 trillion Build Back Better proposal that is stalled in the Senate, and it’s unclear if or when that funding could become law.

About 0.3% of corporate tax returns filed in 2018 were audited, according to the IRS’s most recent annual data book. That’s compared with a 1.4% audit rate in 2010, according to IRS data.

©2022 Bloomberg L.P.

Egypt setting new rules to maximise local wheat procurement, document reveals

March 17, 2022 

An Egyptian man arranges fruits at a shop in a market in Cairo, on March 17, 2022

 [KHALED DESOUKI/AFP via Getty Images]

March 17, 2022 

Egyptian farmers will have to sell at least 60 per cent of their wheat to the government this season, or risk losing financial support, according to a document circulated by traders, amid efforts by the state to offset disruption to Black Sea wheat imports, Reuters reports.

The government has taken several steps to protect wheat supplies since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which largely cut off shipments from Egypt's two top suppliers and left the North African country scouting for alternative exporters.

The Supply Ministry document said farmers would have to sell at least 12 ardebs (150 kg) of wheat per feddan (acre). A feddan usually produces an average of 20 ardebs. The rules also apply to any third party that purchased wheat from farmers before the decision was taken.

After meeting the quota, farmers would need a permit from the government to sell the rest of their wheat elsewhere. Farmers who fail to comply would be denied access to subsidised fertilisers in the summer, as well as any support from the Agricultural Bank of Egypt.

READ: Will the Gulf continue to support Egypt out of its economic crisis?

The rules also provide for incentives for farmers with plots of more than 25 feddans who sell 90 per cent or more to the government, including subsidised fertilisers. No such rules have been applied to farmers in recent years.

The Supply Ministry and Agriculture Ministry could not immediately be reached for comment, and it was unclear if the rules had received final approval.

The Supply Ministry has said it is aiming to procure more than 6 million tonnes of wheat from the local harvest this season, 66 per cent more than the quantity of wheat procured the previous year.

Officials have said existing wheat reserves and the local harvest will suffice for eight months of supplies for subsidised bread, which is available to about two-thirds of Egypt's population.

The government has also raised the amount it will pay farmers for their wheat and imposed a three-month ban on wheat and flour exports. It is expected to set a price for unsubsidised bread

U.K. to Ramp Up Offshore Wind Targets in Energy Security Push

Alex Morales, Bloomberg News

A 2.4-megawatt wind turbine in the sea. , Photographer: Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- The U.K. is planning to significantly raise targets for offshore wind power as part of its drive toward energy self-sufficiency in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, two people familiar with the matter said.

The goals -- including for floating wind turbines -- will form part of an energy security plan that was promised earlier this month by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, which is set to be unveiled next week by the government. 

The strategy’s focus will be on accelerating deployment of technologies that the U.K. is already pursuing, according to the people, who requested anonymity talking about policy that hasn’t yet been announced. There will also be a component that aims to reduce demand for power and heating by increasing the energy efficiency of buildings, they said.

The war in Ukraine and its impact on global energy markets has put into sharp focus the U.K.’s dependence on imports to heat homes, fuel cars and generate electricity. Johnson has pledged to ban imports of Russian oil by the end of the year, and ministers are also looking at halting imports of Russian gas. 

But with inflation a major concern -- economists warn it could reach double digits this year -- Johnson this week acknowledged that freezing Vladimir Putin’s Russian administration out of global energy markets will be “painful.”

‘Putin’s Manipulations’

“We need permanently to reduce the cost of energy at source -- and that will only happen if our supply is more secure, more sustainable and less vulnerable to manipulation by others,” the prime minister wrote in an op-ed for the Daily Telegraph newspaper. “Renewables are the quickest and cheapest route to greater energy independence. They are invulnerable to Putin’s manipulations.”

Johnson said green energy of “all kinds,” including tidal, hydro, geothermal and solar power, will be at the center of what he called the “British Energy Security Strategy.” He pledged to “double down” on wind power, and said that now is also the time to “make a series of big new bets on nuclear power.”

The people familiar declined to say what the new targets for wind power will be. The U.K. is already a world-leader in deploying the technology, with over 14 gigawatts of offshore wind farms. The current goal is to expand that to 40 gigawatts by 2030 and 100 gigawatts by 2050. 

The U.K. is already developing offshore wind faster than the industry expected. About 25 gigawatts was awarded rights in a Scottish auction in January, more than double what was predicted. It takes about a decade to get an offshore wind farm through planning and construction.

Accelerating Plans

The government’s aim is to shorten planning horizons for both onshore and offshore wind, enabling turbines to be erected more quickly, the people said. The plan is penciled in for an announcement Monday or Tuesday, before Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak is due on Wednesday to deliver a statement in the House of Commons on the state of the U.K. economy.

The timing could yet shift to after Sunak’s speech, according to the people.

The government is also considering changing the rules that govern the award of new permits for North Sea oil and gas fields, so that it can speed up the exploitation of domestic hydrocarbons. 

“It is time to give investors more confidence in British hydrocarbons,” Johnson wrote. “That way, we will have more domestic energy resilience as we make the transition to a zero carbon future.”

©2022 Bloomberg L.P.