Industry steps up lobbying ahead of bumper EU climate votes

Sun, June 5, 2022
By Kate Abnett

BRUSSELS, June 6 (Reuters) - European Union lawmakers have been inundated by lobbyists ahead of votes this week on more ambitious EU climate change policies, with some industries urging them to scale back the proposals.

The European Parliament is set to confirm its position on a raft of proposals to cut planet-warming emissions faster this decade, ahead of negotiations with EU countries on final laws.

Among the measures are an upgrade of Europe's carbon market, a planned tariff to impose CO2 costs on imported goods, and an effective ban on new combustion engine car sales in the bloc from 2035.

Emails to EU lawmakers, seen by Reuters, show a last-minute lobbying push from industries unhappy with positions approved by parliament's environment committee and up for a vote by the full assembly this week.

"We are overwhelmed by requests and solicitations from the lobbies," Green EU lawmaker Marie Toussaint said.

A flashpoint is the committee's plan to speed up the phase-out of the free CO2 permits the EU gives industries to help them compete with foreign rivals that do not pay for carbon emissions and discourage industries from moving to regions with weaker climate policies. It proposes to replace them by 2030 with a carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) - a new levy on imports of carbon-heavy goods like cement, steel and fertilisers.

The European Commission, which drafts EU policies, had proposed a 2036 phase-out and steel industry association EUROFER last week sent lawmakers a statement warning against bringing the date forward.

Signed by 50 CEOs and published online, it urged them to avoid further scaling back of the current system "until the CBAM has proven its effectiveness and a solution for exports is in place."

The EU says free permits must go when its new carbon border charge kicks in to avoid breaching World Trade Organization rules by giving European companies "double" protection.

Higher CO2 costs are a key tool in the EU's plans to fight climate change, by giving businesses a financial incentive to cut emissions. While already-soaring EU carbon prices have hiked costs for polluters in recent years, they have also raised billions of euros for national governments' budgets.

Many industries want to keep their free permits for longer, however. Another statement sent to lawmakers by energy-intensive industries including EUROFER, Cefic and Cembureau also warned against cutting them faster. EUROFER will co-host a "dinner debate" for lawmakers on Monday to present its position ahead of the assembly votes.

A EUROFER spokesperson said Europe's steel firms support EU climate goals and have 60 low-carbon projects underway, but accelerating free permits' phase-out would boost their carbon costs, leaving them with less to invest in decarbonisation.

Farming industry group Copa-Cogeca also wrote to lawmakers, warning that the environment committee's plan was "too ambitious" and would put an "additional burden" on agriculture.

Copa-Cogeca said a faster introduction of the border carbon levy would further hike prices of imported fertilisers, which have soared in recent months amid surging gas and raw materials costs.

Other emails showed auto lobby groups urging lawmakers to oppose plans to end polluting car sales in 2035, while airport groups warned against proposals to hike CO2 costs for flights.

Jytte Guteland, who was parliament's negotiator on the EU's 2030 emissions-cutting target, urged colleagues to keep in mind voters calling for faster action on climate change.

"Society would prefer that we do more for climate," she said.

With some lawmakers still undecided, EU officials said the vote results were uncertain.

 (Reporting by Kate Abnett, additional reporting by Victoria Waldersee; Editing by John Chalmers and Tomasz Janowski)

A rural county in heart of red California votes more like San Francisco. Here's why


Mark Z. Barabak
Sun, June 5, 2022

Markleeville, population 275 or so, is the seat of Alpine County in the Sierra Nevada. Despite its rural nature, the county routinely votes along the lines of Democratic bastions like Los Angeles and San Francisco. (Max Whittaker / For The Times)

Alpine County, perched like an emerald on the crest of the Sierra Nevada, is as rural as rural California gets.

Vast distance separates its sparse settlements, tucked among forests and crystalline streams. The views, unobstructed by city clutter, go on forever.

There is no hospital, no supermarket, fast-food restaurant or shopping mall anywhere in its 743 square miles. The only stoplight is temporary, put in place for a bridge repair.

And yet if all goes as expected in Tuesday’s primary election, Alpine County will vote along the same lines as Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Francisco and other urbanized blue bastions.

Rural usually means Republican. But Alpine County, set in the far eastern reaches of the state, is a notable exception — a Democratic speck bobbing alone in a sea of red.

Richard Harvey is one of those who gives the place its distinctive hue. Like many, he came from someplace else, moving here from Oakland as part of the 1970s back-to-nature movement.

“I was raised believing that helping people who have less is sort of an obligation for being a good citizen in this country,” the retired emergency room doctor said over the rush of Markleeville Creek, as it ran though this tiny county seat (population 275, give or take).

“The Democratic Party seemed to be the party that helped out people with less, more than the other options," said Harvey, 78. "So I’ve been a Democrat since.”

Alpine County is small, population-wise, but its political leaning poses a big mystery.

Is it liberals from the Bay Area choosing to cast their ballot from a second home? Is it the Democratic-leaning Native American community, which makes up a significant part of the population? Is it Democrats moving in and Republicans moving out as people seek to live among like-minded partisans?

All seem like plausible explanations.

Markleeville General Store in Alpine County. (Max Whittaker / For The Times)

Alpine County has just 1,200 or so residents, which works out to about two people per square mile, the fewest of any county in California. There are 918 registered voters. (Los Angeles, by contrast, has thousands of voters per precinct.)

The sample size is small, but the pattern is clear.

Going back to 2000, when Republican George W. Bush narrowly beat Democrat Al Gore in the race for president, Alpine has consistently voted Democratic — and not by a little. Its voters rejected the recall of Gov. Gavin Newsom 61% to 39%, and in 2020 backed Joe Biden over Donald Trump 64% to 33%.

At the same time, Alpine’s rural neighbors Amador, Calaveras, El Dorado and Tuolumne counties voted just as consistently Republican, often by landslide margins.

(The exception was in 2006, when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger romped to reelection, carrying 52 of California’s 58 counties, including Alpine. Even then, Schwarzenegger won just 54% of the vote in Alpine, compared with 70% or more in those neighboring counties.)

So what explains it?

People smiled at the suggestion it’s something in the water, or pure mountain air.

But maybe that’s a part of it.

::

The East Fork of the Carson River winds its way through Alpine County near Markleeville. (Max Whittaker / For The Times)

Natural beauty is Alpine County's great gift and its main source of livelihood.

Pristine rivers flow between soaring granite walls and through endless carpets of green meadow. Juniper, aspen and ponderosa pine cover the hillsides, and snow-peaked mountains paint the vistas.

There is a feeling of time slowed down, a throwback to a less-frenzied era, which seems fitting for a place that boomed and busted well over a century ago. Little has changed since.

What's the appeal of life with no bank, no chain store, no movie theater? Where it's a 20-minute drive, or more, to get a haircut or Frappuccino?

"That's the appeal," said Dianna Mitzner, 70, a longtime Democratic activist who moved to Alpine County 20 years ago because it seemed like a better place to raise a child than the Hollywood Hills. "It's the authenticity."

Dianna Mitzner, former chair of the Alpine County Democratic Central Committee, outside her home in Markleeville. (Max Whittaker / For The Times)

The Washoe people were the county's original inhabitants. (About 400 members of the Hung-A-Lel-Ti community of the Washoe Tribe remain.) A silver strike in the 1860s brought a rush of white settlers, who saw the peaks and named the place after the Swiss Alps. In less than a decade, though, the mines were played out and the population quickly dwindled to a just few hundred.

There it stood for decades, until the 1960s, when the development of ski resorts at Kirkwood and Bear Valley brought an influx of residents and boosted tourism, which is pretty much the county's only industry.

More than 95% of the land is national forest, which makes it a natural playground for fly fishers, backpackers, mountain bikers and rock climbers. It also keeps virtually all of the county off-limits to development.

Polaroids of proud anglers adorn the walls of Markleeville General Store. (Max Whittaker / For The Times)

There is a bit of cattle ranching. There was once some logging. But that dried up long ago, just like the silver mines. So there was never the raging battle over natural resources that took place in other rural California counties, turning many residents against the Democratic Party and others foes derided as tree-huggers.

Maybe that's another reason the party thrives. People come here because they cherish the unspoiled outdoors and want to keep it that way, and believe voting Democratic is the best way to do so.

Some of them may have stayed at Mitzner's bed-and-breakfast in Woodfords (population 150) or at John Brissenden's place just down the road.

Brissenden lived in Santa Cruz and worked for a time as a field representative for Democratic Rep. Leon Panetta. His wife, Patty, worked for Democratic Assemblyman Sam Farr. They passed through Alpine County in 1980 on their honeymoon and fell in love. The couple bought a collection of ramshackle cabins and turned it into a rustic resort.

Highway 89 passes through mountainous terrain near Woodsford in Alpine County. (Max Whittaker / For The Times)

Now and then the hosts talked politics with their guests. Some liked what they heard — enough to move here once they retired. (More than a quarter of the county's residents are 65 or older, compared with fewer than 15% statewide, which may account for its extraordinarily high voter turnout. The county is also whiter and more affluent than the state on average.)

With so few people, it didn't take much beyond word of mouth to help turn Alpine from red to blue.

"There was a heartbeat of more liberal thought," said Brissenden, 73, who sold the resort in 2019 but is still active in environmental politics. "And that attracted like-minded people who want to continue that legacy of preserving and protecting."

::

Andy Lovell has a theory, which he shared over a plate of fried cheese curds at Cutthroat Brewing Co. (That's cutthroat as in trout.)

The upscale saloon is one of fewer than a dozen businesses that make up downtown Markleeville, a two-minute stroll end-to-end along Highway 89. During the day, when traffic is heaviest, 20 minutes or more can pass between cars.

Lovell, 60, who works winters at Kirkwood and does a lot of volunteering year-round, believes Alpine County leans Democratic because people of a certain mindset — conservationist, socially liberal, OK with the federal government owning most of their surroundings — have come and stayed put.

Those who don’t agree need travel not terribly far down the road to make their home in Douglas County, Nev., one of the most conservative in that state.

“They can still come here and enjoy everything we have to offer — all the different recreational possibilities,” said Lovell, who settled in Markleeville 26 years ago when South Lake Tahoe grew too crowded and expensive.

“Why," Lovell asked, "come to this small community that isn’t necessarily conservative in its values when right there they have people they feel more comfortable with?”

It isn't easy getting people in Alpine County to talk about politics, especially in these antagonistic times. Just about everyone knows everyone else. You're sure to bump into familiar faces at the general store, the gas station, or a meeting of the school board or volunteer fire department. So it’s important to keep on good terms.

An ambulance can take 45 minutes to show up, said Bill Scherbak, “so your neighbor is going to be the first one to come to your aid. We depend on each other.”

Scherbak, 54, is a general contractor. His wife, Aimee Nitzberg, 51, is a yoga instructor who also works at the public library. They set up camp chairs in their big backyard and invited Harvey, the retired physician and a neighbor, to sit by Markleeville Creek and discuss why they're Democrats.

They referred to the party's stand on social issues, on cultural matters and helping those with less. Inevitably, the conversation came around to the stunning beauty, the clear water and pure mountain air around them.

"The environment is very important to me," Scherbak said. "Protecting what we have and even trying to enhance it, to make it better."

Bill Scherbak and Aimee Nitzberg outside their home in Markleeville. (Max Whittaker / For The Times)

The Tamarack Fire nearly destroyed Markleeville last summer — residents were evacuated for two weeks — and much of the town is surrounded by sooty hillsides and trees turned to black matchsticks.

None of that was visible, however, beneath a canopy of green that sifted the day's fading sunlight. Cici, the couple's pudelpointer, sniffed around for a treat. The talk turned to wildflowers, hiking and great outdoor adventure. The creek rumbled steadily past.

Soon darkness fell and the stars put on their nightly show.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Former Afghan model lives in Iowa after fleeing Taliban's persecution over her profession


Rekha Basu, Des Moines Register
Sun, June 5, 2022

When Afghanistan’s government fell to the Taliban on Aug. 15, 2021, Laila Naseri knew her life was going to be upended. Most Afghans' lives were in different ways, but the threats to her were immediate.

As a single woman in her early 20s, she'd be compelled to submit to the strictures of the brutally misogynistic Taliban regime, which is bent on enforcing a radical form of Islamic fundamentalism on women. Suddenly, the now 23-year-old was relegated to home and hijab, the head covering mandated for women by the ruling party. In recent months that has morphed into mandatory head-to-foot coverings in public, including over the face.

Anywhere she goes, a woman must now be accompanied by a male relative. There are no exceptions — even if she's fleeing domestic violence. Only old women and young girls are exempted from wearing the burqa in public. Violations can result in prison for the father or closest male relative, who can also be fired from government jobs.

This clothing decree was depicted by Afghanistan's supreme leader and Taliban chief, Hibatullah Akhundzada, as "traditional and respectful." Its purpose, he said, was "in order to avoid provocation when meeting men who are not mahram [adult close male relatives]." In other words, if men can’t control themselves in a woman’s presence, the onus is on women for dressing provocatively.

Laila Naseri

So imagine how the Taliban feels about female fashion models, strutting down runways, sometimes in Western clothing, sometimes striking sultry poses for television commercials, or even flirting.

That had been Laila Naseri's profession for three years when the Taliban took over.

“If the Taliban knows about the modeling girls, they will kill them,” the 23-year-old told me through an interpreter in Des Moines. “I couldn’t leave the house.”

Within days she heard women in media jobs were getting evacuated from Afghanistan, so she and a friend went to the Kabul airport to try to tell officials about their situations. She was clutching her modeling documents to show she was legitimately at risk. The security guards they spoke with outside the airport told them to wait while they went inside to confer with superiors.

From there it was a whirlwind. When they returned, the men let the women into the airport where, the next day, they were flown to Dubai for four days for processing. Naseri, not expecting such fast action, had no luggage, nothing but the clothes she wore. Her passport had gone to Germany with someone else. They entered the U.S. through Washington, D.C., on Aug. 29 and ultimately arrived in Des Moines via Wisconsin.

Naseri was one of some 700 Afghans to be relocated here. Since leaving Afghanistan, she received word that two of the women she had modeled with had been shot to death while leaving Kabul by car. The founder of Modelstan, the first of Afghanistan's modeling agencies, fled to Germany after being warned he would be killed. Hamed Valy had studied in India, and said he returned to Afghanistan hoping to make fashion and glamor more accepted in his home country.

Now they bring death threats.

Laila Naseri shows how she used to make her living back in Afghanistan.

In Des Moines, life for Naseri is assuming some semblance of normalcy, and she feels safe and free here. But it was a rocky start, as the Register documented previously, and the future isn't guaranteed. Resettlement of many Afghans was fraught with problems. Many lacked adequate food and services, were living in temporary substandard housing and couldn’t get caseworkers from the resettlement agencies to respond to their calls for help.

Laila Naseri felt threatened in her homeland of Afghanistan, but feels safe in Iowa.

Naseri said it was particularly rough being one of few single women in the group. “I’m very sad. I’m broken. I’m suffocating in this room,” she told the Register in April. Things have improved since she moved into better housing and has a job. But far from the glamorous, highly competitive one she had posing for the camera, she’s doing an overnight shift packaging car parts. During the day she sleeps, and three days a week at 5:30 p.m. she takes English lessons at DMACC through Lutheran Services in Iowa’s program for refugees.

She doesn’t speak English, so this interview was done with a friend interpreting.

With neither a driver’s license nor a car, Naseri depends on others to go anywhere she can't walk to. The Register's Lee Rood has taken her under her wing since witnessing her struggles, and Naseri has many friends. She just wishes her parents and siblings were with her.

The Taliban first took over Afghanistan in 1996 after both the U.S. and the former Soviet Union pulled forces out. It remained in control until 2001, when the U.S. invaded in search of Osama bin Laden, following the attacks of Sept. 11.

After that, some women's rights were restored so Naseri hadn't personally experienced such repression before. A new constitution was passed, strengthening women's rights, and an Elimination of Violence Against Women law was passed in 2009. But the former Ministry of Women’s Affairs has now been replaced by the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, which gives you a sense of the priorities.

In 2009 we at the Register had a visit from a different 23-year-old Afghan woman who had suffered under Taliban extremism when both her parents were killed. She had gone on to write the 2003 book “Zoya’s Story,” using only her first name because of threats on her life. Though she had moved to Pakistan with her grandmother, she wrote and spoke of joining the Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan and returning to Afghanistan to help organize underground schools for girls, among other things.

But with the Taliban back in power, girls above sixth grade are now barred from attending school. "Is it a sin to be girl, is it sin to seek education?" asked a tearful one captured on a news video.

Zoya's trip to America at the time was to encourage the government to pull U.S. troops out. Many Afghans felt the U.S. had turned its back on Afghanistan after the fall of the former Soviet Union, leaving a void into which the Taliban stepped; they didn't want to see history repeat itself.

Sadly, it has.

Some of the newest refugees believe last year's outcome could have been avoided had the U.S. done more, earlier, to help create a more stable Afghan government and better equip it to resist the Taliban. When NATO troops withdrew last August, the Taliban vowed not to reimpose the same strict rules on women as during its previous tenure. But it has proceeded to do exactly that, prompting the U.S. and other countries to cut development aid there and impose sanctions on the banking system.

The newest Afghan emigres are here on two-year “humanitarian parole" status. That's granted by the Secretary of Homeland Security to people deemed ineligible for refugee status. But it's given only for emergency, humanitarian and public interest reasons. Everyone must apply within the first year for political asylum to stay on. That requires proof that they'd be targets if they returned. But many lack access to lawyers.

Laila Nesari is shown at work with her team in Afghanistan.

Naseri has been lucky enough to get one, and given her past as a model, she should have a strong case.

When she’s seriously homesick, Naseri says she prays. In Afghanistan under Taliban rule, women aren’t even allowed to go to mosques. Demanding extreme piety of women without even letting them into places of worship is just another cruel hoax of a government that should never have made a comeback. Yet for all the bloodshed, upheavals, years of foreign intervention and vows to do right by women, and for all the courageous resistance, this brutal, extremist regime is free to victimize women again.

Russia, when it was the Soviet Union, helped establish education and jobs for women when it controlled Afghanistan. Now it's busy invading Ukraine. And in America, which went into Afghanistan 21 years ago talking about women's rights, women are bracing for the loss of the most fundamental right over our own bodies.

It may be too late to reverse some of the damage done in our wake, but our government can and should grant long-term status to Afghans here who fled. They shouldn't be required to prove they were specifically threatened when we know that Afghan women as a whole are threatened. And so are the men who helped the U.S. military there. There is still time to do the right thing by those forced to flee, and our government should.

Rekha Basu is an opinion columnist for The Des Moines Register. Contact: rbasu@dmreg.com. Follow her on Twitter @RekhaBasu and at Facebook.com/rekha.basu1106. Her book, "Finding Her Voice: A collection of Des Moines Register columns about women's struggles and triumphs in the Midwest," is available at ShopDMRegister.com/FindingHerVoice.

Workers want raises. Shippers want robots. 

The supply chain hinges on reaching a deal


Sam Dean
Sun, June 5, 2022

The Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach handle more than 30% of containerized imports entering the U.S. The expiration of a deal between dockworkers and shippers could snarl that pipeline. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

The immediate future of the global supply chain rests on a bargaining table in San Francisco, where the union representing all West Coast dockworkers is hashing out a new contract with the assembled bosses of maritime shipping.

The current contract, which covers the International Longshore and Warehouse Union's more than 22,000 workers at the 29 ports dotting the Pacific coast of the U.S., is set to expire July 1.

At stake is the continuing flow of goods into the country, after two years of disruptions to the supply chain from pandemic lockdowns, material shortages, soaring fuel prices and the occasional giant ship getting stuck in the Suez Canal. Forty percent of all U.S. maritime imports pass through the West Coast ports, with more than 30% of all containerized imports arriving at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, which together make up the nation's largest port complex.

Past contract talks have run beyond the expiration date and led to major disruptions to port operations, as workers and shipping companies, represented at the table and the West Coast docks by the Pacific Maritime Assn. industry group, agitated for a better deal.

In 2002, negotiations deteriorated to the point where the PMA, which represents 70 ocean carriers and terminal operators, locked out its workforce for 10 days until the George W. Bush administration intervened. In 2014 and 2015, the Obama administration also got involved to help end a yearlong contract fight peppered with slowdowns and stoppages.

The backdrop of the negotiations is starkly distinct from earlier rounds. In 2002 and 2015, the shipping companies were facing either low profits or outright losses, as a glut of new megasize ships kept freight rates and shipping revenue low.

But the last two years have brought financial bonanzas for ocean shipping companies, with the industry as a whole posting more than $150 billion in profits in 2021. One of the industry leaders, A.P. Moller-Maersk, had the most profitable year of any company in Danish history, with $18.7 billion in profits — a trend that the shipper has continued into 2022, with a $6.8 billion reported profit in the first quarter alone.

All the while, total imports from Asia to the U.S. West Coast have increased over the years, giving the workers of the ILWU more power over their crucial point in the global flow of goods. A surge in import demand led to a historic backup at the L.A. port complex over the last year, with more than 100 gargantuan container ships idling offshore waiting to berth at certain times during the holiday season. That number has since declined to 30 ships waiting to be unloaded, but as the labor negotiations unfold this summer, supply chain experts are bracing for a new round of shipping whiplash.

Port congestion "has improved," said Christopher S. Tang, a distinguished professor at the UCLA Anderson School of Management who studies supply chains, but "this will be short-lived because the tsunami is coming." The peak ocean liner shipping season typically picks up in August for the back-to-school and holiday seasons, and retailers burned by delays in previous years are getting a head start in anticipation. Combined with a backlog of ships idling at port in Shanghai, which has been subject to strict COVID-19 lockdowns, Tang believes another crunch will arrive soon.

With the supply chain and its link to inflation in the national spotlight for the first time in decades, both sides of the table opened talks with guardedly positive rhetoric in statements made before bargaining, and a mutually agreed-upon media blackout, began.

The president of the ILWU, Willie Adams, wrote that "the men and women of the ILWU are looking forward to the opportunity to meet with the employers and seek a contract that honors, respects, and protects good American jobs and U.S. importers and exporters" in an open letter published in early May. James McKenna, chief executive of the PMA, said in a video statement that the organization is committed to negotiating a new contract without disruptions.

Politicians have already weighed in, urging both parties to reach an agreement. Adams was called to a meeting at the White House last October to talk supply chain with President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, among others, and was joined on a tour of the port complex in November by California Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Biden administration's port envoy, John Porcari. In May, as the talks began, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California published a letter to Adams and McKenna asking them to come to terms quickly, noting that any slowdowns or stoppages would "exacerbate global supply chain disruptions."




If negotiations grow more heated, the Biden administration has also indicated that it will step in. “We don’t need to get involved in this negotiation unless we have to,” Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh said in a May interview with Bloomberg.

The potential for conflict is clear. PMA CEO McKenna highlighted the fact that ILWU workers receive "world-class wages" that approach $195,000 per year on average for full-time workers, plus benefits, and stated that the PMA was committed to advancing automation at the ports.

ILWU President Adams countered both points in his open letter. "We make no apologies for achieving wages that allow workers to provide for their families, have retirement, and the healthcare these difficult and dangerous jobs require," Adams wrote, noting that "decades of previous negotiations have made longshore jobs good blue-collar jobs."

On the automation question, Adams was more forceful, writing that "automation not only kills good jobs but does not move more cargo" and poses a national security risk as infrastructure hacking becomes more widespread.

After two years of working through the pandemic, with shippers booking record profits, the historically well-organized and powerful ILWU is likely looking for raises to beat inflation, according to Jake Wilson, professor of sociology at Cal State Long Beach who has written multiple books on the ILWU and global logistics labor.

"When you look at the value added and the importance of the work the dockworkers do, it’s a small percentage of an overall highly profitable system for these massive corporations," Wilson said.

West Coast dockworkers are the highest paid logistics workers in the United States, but Wilson noted that "these jobs are still increasingly being squeezed — workers at the docks haven’t had a raise in years, there’s ongoing pressure to work more hours and work through the night and other demands that would require hiring more dockworkers who are union."

The numbers bear out Wilson's argument. The PMA paid out $2.26 billion in wages in 2021, and another $1.55 billion in benefits, according to its annual report. The shipping industry made $150 billion in profits.

A 10% raise across the board for the West Coast longshoremen would raise labor costs on the West Coast from $3.8 billion to roughly $4.2 billion. That $400-million increase represents just over a quarter of 1% of the industry's profits last year. The estimated cost of the 10-day work stoppage in 2002 ran into the billions for the U.S. economy. Ten days of profits lost out of the $150-billion year would add up to more than $4 billion for the shipping companies alone.

"What’s really unique about dockworkers around the world is their strategic location in the world’s choke points. Working in the ports provides a lot of leverage," Wilson said. "The money is there, the shippers are accumulating massive amounts of profit, while most people aren’t."

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Russia's Rusal files suit against Rio Tinto over alumina refinery -documents


FILE PHOTO: The logo of Russian aluminium producer Rusal is seen on a board at the SPIEF 2017 in St. Petersburg


Sun, June 5, 2022, 
By Praveen Menon

SYDNEY (Reuters) -Russian aluminium producer Rusal has filed a lawsuit against global miner Rio Tinto, seeking to win back access to its 20% share of the alumina produced at a jointly owned refiner in Queensland.

The lawsuit challenges Australia's response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which included wide-ranging sanctions against Russian firms and oligarchs who had links with President Vladimir Putin.

Rio stepped in to take sole control of Queensland Alumina Ltd (QAL) in April, sidelining Rusal and cutting its access to the refinery's output of alumina, a compound from which aluminium is derived. Rio owns 80% of the refinery, while Rusal owns the remaining 20%.

Rusal's Australian unit Alumina and Bauxite Company (ABC) said in a Australian Federal Court filing that the circumstances required for Rio to step-in to take control did not exist and amounted to a breach of obligations, according to the court documents reviewed by Reuters.

Rio's move at QAL came shortly after the world's biggest iron ore miner severed all ties with Russian businesses over Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. Russia calls its actions in Ukraine "a special operation".

Australia banned the export of alumina and aluminium ores, including bauxite, to Russia in March.

In the filings reviewed by Reuters, Rusal's subsidiary asks the federal court to restore its rights at QAL, and declare there would be no sanctions breach if its business continues there.

Rio declined to comment. Rusal, the world's second largest aluminium producer, could not be immediately reached for comment outside usual business hours.

Rusal was not directly targeted by Australian sanctions, but Rio's actions were triggered by sanctions on oligarchs Oleg Deripaska and Viktor Vekselberg, who own stakes worth 25.6% and 8% respectively in Rusal.

In 2018 Rusal was covered by U.S. sanctions against Russian businessmen and companies.

(Reporting by Praveen Menon and Renju Jose; Editing by Diane Craft and Kenneth Maxwell)

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

'Fake' Aluminum Stocks Put Perils of China's Commodities Funding in Spotlight



Bloomberg News
Sun, June 5, 2022

(Bloomberg) -- The opaque world of funding commodities trading in China is again under the spotlight.

This time, metals markets are fixated on an incident in the southern province of Guangdong, in which several traders claim they were duped into providing credit against fictitious quantities of aluminum. More than 500 million yuan ($75 million) may have been loaned, backed by stockpiles of the metal stored in a warehouse in the city of Foshan that turned out to be worth significantly less than that.

The amounts being talked about are relatively small, certainly in the context of the aluminum market in China. The world’s biggest producer churned out over $100 billion of the lightweight metal last year, for everything from window frames to car parts. But what’s spooked traders is the similarity to a much bigger scandal eight years ago in the northern port city of Qingdao that caused a crisis of confidence in China’s metals markets.

What might cause the mismatch in stockpiles?

Commodities trading, whether that’s wheat, copper or oil, is typically a high-volume, low margin business. To optimize cash flow, traders often pledge their assets for loans. In the metals industry, that collateral takes the form of warehouse warrants, which record details like the quantity, quality, ownership and location of the goods.

Fabricating multiple warrants for a single stockpile of metals would allow the owner to access loans from more than one lender, a practice sometimes referred to as “over-pledging.” A mismatch between receipts and the actual quantity of metal could happen under such procedure.

Why would a trader take that risk?

Traders running on already razor-thin margins have been operating under even tougher financing conditions in recent months. Banks have become more cautious on lending because of bigger price swings caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as well as jitters over some high profile losses in the nickel market.

That’s encouraged some to seek alternative financing, including the practice where smaller, privately owned firms pledge their goods to larger, state-run traders to obtain cash. Commodities prices are also generally higher due to the war in Ukraine, which means that inventories may be worth more as a currency for making other investments.

The risk now is that larger traders aren’t going to lend to their smaller peers if they don’t have confidence that their loans are secured by valid warehouse warrants.

How was the potential foul uncovered?

That market volatility may have jangled creditors’ nerves. The sharp drop in aluminum prices after the latest virus outbreak locked down the entire city of Shanghai led some to try and take hold of the pledged metal, fearful that borrowers wouldn’t be able to repay their loans. That was when the mismatch between too many warrants and not enough aluminum became apparent, according to people familiar with the matter, who declined to be identified discussing a private matter.

What happened during the Qingdao scandal?

The Foshan incident is relatively small beer and so far involves just traders. At Qingdao, it was banks, including international institutions, that ended up with the biggest exposure to a merchant and its affiliates who pledged the same metals stockpile multiple times to obtain loans of more than 20 billion yuan.

But that in itself is probably instructive. Banks have learned the lessons of Qingdao and other commodities financing scandals, making them more cautious lenders and driving traders to seek other arrangements, including borrowing from larger peers. China’s regulator also urged banks to strengthen oversight, and the use of metals as collateral for financing has diminished since then.

Other similar frauds outside China include French and Australian banks getting hit by loan losses in 2017 that totaled over $300 million, after they discovered fake documents for nickel stored in Asian warehouses owned by Access World, a subsidiary of Glencore Plc. And in 2020, Singaporean oil trader Hin Leong (Pte) Ltd. forged documents to win trade financing for products it had already sold.

What are the potential outcomes?

The local police in Guangdong are investigating and will determine whether fraud occurred but because the warrants in question weren’t registered with the Shanghai Futures Exchange, China’s biggest commodities bourse won’t be on the hook for examining the regulatory angles to the case. Instead, the creditors will probably go after the warehouses first for the inventories, while waiting for investigations to decide if the borrowers are accountable for the losses.

The incident has led to a domino effect whereby more warehouses in China have suspended operations to check on-site metal inventories, according to people with knowledge of the information.

Although the Chinese government and its state banks are preparing to expand lending to counter the ill-effects of the virus on the economy, their largess is unlikely to extend to commodities trading. As such, smaller outfits may find it harder to get financing in the wake of another scandal.

The incident is having a baleful effect on prices, as well. Aluminum has dropped in the days since news of the possible fraud started circulating, and traders will continue to be wary of buying metal while such uncertainty around ownership persists. There’s also the risk that confidence will be sapped in other important markets for materials that rely on warehouse warrants, like copper, nickel or zinc.

Nupur Sharma: Prophet Muhammad controversy strains India-Arab ties

Vikas Pandey - BBC News, Delhi
Sun, June 5, 2022,

India shares a cordial relationship with Saudi Arabia

India has been forced to placate its partners in the Islamic world after growing anger over controversial comments made by two members of the country's ruling party about the Prophet Muhammad.

Nupur Sharma, who was an official spokesperson of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), made the remark on a television debate, while Naveen Jindal, who was media head of the party's Delhi unit, had posted a tweet on the issue. The comments - especially Ms Sharma's - angered the country's minority Muslim community, leading to sporadic protests in some states.

The two leaders have issued public apologies and the party has suspended Ms Sharma and expelled Mr Jindal.

"The BJP strongly denounces insults of any religious personalities of any religion. The BJP is also against any ideology which insults or demeans any sect or religion. The BJP does not promote such people or philosophy," it said in a statement.

But experts say this may not be enough after what looked like the country's internal matter took an international turn - Kuwait, Qatar and Iran called Indian ambassadors to register their protest on Sunday. Saudi Arabia also condemned the remarks on Monday.

Qatar said it expected a public apology from India.

"Allowing such Islamophobic remarks to continue without punishment, constitutes a grave danger to the protection of human rights and may lead to further prejudice and marginalisation, which will create a cycle of violence and hate," Qatar's ministry of foreign affairs said.

Saudi Arabia also used some strong words in its statement. "The Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed its condemnation and denunciation of the statements made by the spokeswoman of the Indian Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), insulting the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, and reaffirms its permanent rejection of prejudice against the symbols of the Islamic religion, alongside all religious figures and symbols," it said.

Nupur Sharma made the controversial comments on a TV debate

India's ambassador to Qatar, Deepak Mittal, said the remarks from some "fringe elements" did not represent the views of the Indian government. Senior BJP leaders and other ambassadors have also condemned the controversial statement.

But analysts say that the top leadership of the party and the government may have to make public statements on the issue. Not doing so, they say, runs the risk of damaging India's ties with these countries.

Too much at stake

India's trade with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which includes Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman and the UAE, stood at $87 billion in 2020-21. Millions of Indians live and work in these countries and send millions of dollars in remittances back home. The region is also the top source for India's energy imports.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been a regular visitor to the region since coming to power in 2014. The country has already signed a free trade agreement with the UAE and is in talks with the GCC for a wider deal.

Mr Modi famously attended the ground-breaking ceremony of the first Hindu temple in Abu Dhabi in 2018 - it was termed as an example of the growing ties between India and the region.

While Delhi's relations with Tehran have been lukewarm over the past few years, the controversy could overshadow Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian's upcoming visit to India.

Former Indian diplomat Anil Trigunayat, who has served in the Arab world, said that India was in a difficult situation and only sincere efforts at the leadership level could prevent a negative fallout.

"Exemplary action under the law must be taken so that such fringe elements do not repeat it and create societal chaos and cause damage to the country's reputation," he said.

Other analysts say the diplomatic cost from the fallout could greatly hurt India's interests in the region.

"Indian officials often react defensively when foreign capitals, including close friends of New Delhi, criticise Indian domestic matters. But in this case, expect Indian diplomats to work quickly to defuse tensions with apologies and other forms of damage control," said Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia Program at the Wilson Center think-tank.

Millions of Indians live and work in the Gulf countries

Arab nations are also looking to take concrete action to soother anger among their own people. Hashtags criticising India have been trending in these countries and the incident has been the top story in their media outlets.

Some of these hashtags have called for a boycott of Indian products. There have also been reports of some stores in Qatar and Kuwait removing Indian products from their shelves.

Mr Kugelman said the relationship was important to both the GCC and India and both sides would be looking at mitigating the risks.

"As concerned as Delhi should be about this angry response from such a strategically critical region, India is also shielded from further damage by its own clout. Because of their economic interests, Gulf states need India to keep importing their energy, they need Indians to continue living and working there, and overall, they need to keep doing business with India," he said.

He added that there might be limits to how far these countries would go in responding to these anti-Muslim comments.

It was coming

Critics say that religious polarisation has increased in India since the BJP came to power in 2014. And the past few weeks have been particularly tense after some Hindu groups went to a local court in Varanasi to seek permission to pray at a centuries-old mosque, claiming that it was built on the ruins of a demolished temple.

TV channels have held provocative debates and social media has seen rampant hate over the issue. Many people associated with right-organisations often make controversial statements on TV shows, but critics say Ms Sharma wasn't a "fringe element" as the BJP has claimed. She was an official spokesperson of the BJP, tasked with representing the party's views.

Analysts add that the international fallout over the controversy should be a wake-up call for India.

"Delhi is learning that when it comes to the country's increasingly toxic politics, what happens in India often doesn't stay in India. As India's global clout grows and its diplomatic and economic partnerships abroad become stronger, there's more at stake when its domestic politics cause unhappiness abroad," Mr Kugelman said.

SEE LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for HINDUISM IS FASCISM 

Tech investor and Arizona Republican Senate hopeful  Blake Masters Blames 

Gun Violence on ‘Black People, Frankly’

Roger Sollenberger
Sun, June 5, 2022,

Gage Skidmore/The Star News Network/Wikimedia Commons

Tech investor and Arizona Republican Senate hopeful Blake Masters acknowledges that the United States has a gun violence problem. But he also has a theory about why there’s a problem—it’s “Black people, frankly.”

Masters boiled the issue down in an April 11 interview on the Jeff Oravits Show podcast, telling the host that “we do have a gun violence problem in this country, and it’s gang violence.”

“It’s people in Chicago, St. Louis shooting each other. Very often, you know, Black people, frankly,” Masters clarified. “And the Democrats don’t want to do anything about that.”

The Epic Back-Scratching Fest Between a GOP Senate Wannabe and a Trumpy Billionaire

It’s unclear why Masters—who has pushed the baseless “great replacement” conspiracy theory narrative—felt compelled to single out Black people. Moments earlier in the interview, during a discussion about Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation hearings, Masters told Oravits that “most Americans just, you know, just want to stop obsessing about race all the time,” adding that “the left’s biggest tool in their toolkit is just to divide people on the basis of race, and that’s really messed up.”

Republicans frequently cite urban gang violence, most often in Chicago, in attempts to tap out of the gun control debate. While their redirections are often as misleading as they are cliche, those officials aren’t always as forthright as Masters about the racial undertones.

But Masters, whom the white nationalist website VDARE fêted last year as an “immigration patriot,” was quite clear about his vision of two Americas.

After pinning gun violence on gangs and Black people—and saying, falsely, that Democratic administrations “don’t want to do anything” about gang shootings—the Stanford-educated libertarian went on to complain to Oravits that gun control efforts target “law-abiding people like you and me.”

“When they ban ‘ghost guns’ and pistol braces, that’s all about disarming law-abiding people, like you and me, that’s what it’s about,” Masters said, referencing government efforts to crack down on the surge in privately made, untraceable firearms. “They care that we can’t have guns to defend ourselves.”

Peter Thiel Protégé Blake Masters Resigns From Thiel Groups

Masters—a Bitcoin evangelist who routinely hawks automated surveillance technology developed by his benefactor, billionaire tech mogul Peter Thiel—claimed that “it’s pretty rare” for homemade firearms to show up in criminal activity. But his information might be outdated.

Ghost guns aren’t just built and owned by technocrats, to be appreciated as physical instantiations of political theory. They’re also on the rise among criminals, including in gang activity, according to officials with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, as well as fresh police data VICE published this week, which documents a 90 percent increase in seizures last year.

The day of the Oravits interview, President Joe Biden announced a rule change to address the ghost gun problem. In response, Masters tweeted a photo of his own “ghost” gun kit, claiming that he would be a “felon” under the new rule if he made “another one just like it today.”

That’s not accurate. The Biden administration has not banned those weapons, which don’t have serial numbers and can be 3D-printed at home. The new rule doesn’t make it illegal to build your own gun; it applies to people who sell gun kits. Those sellers are now required to become licensed firearms dealers, run background checks on buyers, and include serial numbers on their kits.

The rule also targets violence in urban areas—a sore point for Masters—where ghost guns are multiplying.

Last year, police seized more than 225 of the weapons in New York City, along with 300 seizures in Baltimore and 455 in Chicago, CBS News reported. And government data shows that law enforcement agencies reported recovering 20,000 suspected ghost guns in criminal investigations last year alone—nearly as many seized over the previous four years combined.

GOP Congressman Who Backed Gun Control Drops Re-Election Bid

A Masters campaign spokesperson did not reply to a request for comment.

Back in the interview, Masters—who has likened federal campaign disclosure laws to Kristallnacht—veered into conspiratorial territory.

Democrats “don’t like the Second Amendment,” he said, because “it frankly blocks a lot of their plans for us”—an unhinged, fact-free statement that liberal officials have cooked up a plot to physically force conservatives to comply with some unarticulated maleficent regime, but have been bayed by fears that a constitutionally endowed populace will shoot them if they try.

Masters also tossed out misleading red meat gripes about crime in West Coast cities Los Angeles and San Francisco, where Masters lived much of his adult life before relocating to Arizona ahead of his Senate bid.

Those cities, he told Oravits, have “legalized crime,” claiming that “you can’t get arrested if you smash someone’s window and take a purse or an iPhone.”

It’s not immediately clear what Masters was referring to, but the riff appears to be a nod at Prop 47, which California voters passed at the state (not city) level nearly eight years ago. The Prop 47 coalition included Democrats along with libertarians like Masters, who wanted to roll back felony punishment for lesser offenses, including property crimes like shoplifting.

Prop 47 didn’t “legalize crime,” but reclassified certain felonies as misdemeanors. But after the recent rise in property crimes such as “smash and grab” robberies, most Californians support tougher sentencing laws, including overhauling parts of Prop 47.

“They talk about crime but I find it crocodile tears,” Masters said, an apparent reference to Democratic outrage over an unending drumroll of domestic massacres. “Because if they were actually tough on crime they would get serious about gang violence.” (Masters himself did not put forward a solution to gang violence in the interview.)

Republican Representative and Senate Candidate Blames Abortion For Rise in Gun Violence

Masters, 35, is a fairly new name in GOP politics, but he has benefited from powerful friends—including his mentor, Thiel, who threw $10 million into a super PAC backing his primary bid.

Thiel’s support went a long way to landing a recent endorsement from former President Donald Trump, who officially blessed Masters on Thursday. It wasn’t a surprise—Trump has a score to settle with Masters’ top opponent, Arizona attorney general Mark Brnovich, who resisted Trump’s pressure to invalidate his state’s 2020 election results.

But Masters isn’t MAGA, exactly. He’s more MAGA-adjacent, part of a loosely affiliated group of young, very online hyper-conservatives known as the “new right.”

Masters is fiercely anti-tech while being fiercely pro-tech, backs a national abortion ban, claims Democrats want to “import a million people every year to replace Americans who were born here,” has said that the media and big tech “conspired to manipulate the 2020 election”—which he claims “Trump won”—and calls the gender pay gap a “left-wing narrative.”

(The “new right” crowd also counts another Trump-endorsed Thiel protege: Ohio Senate candidate JD Vance.)

Masters won Trump’s endorsement on Thursday, nine days after an 18-year-old used a legally purchased semiautomatic rifle to slaughter 19 elementary school students and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas.

“Blake will fight for our totally under-siege Second Amendment, and WIN!” Trump wrote in his announcement. An hour later, Biden called on the country to support an array of gun control measures in a primetime national address.

'CHAINSAW'* JACK WAS HIS ORIGINAL MONICKER

'Neutron Jack' fired thousands of GE workers and helped the rise of 'Trumpism'. A new book explains why he was wrong

Ryan Hogg

Sun, June 5, 2022, 

NBC/Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images; Rachel Mendelson/Insider

• Jack Welch ran General Electric from 1981 to 2001 and helped reshape the US business landscape.

• In "The Man Who Broke Capitalism", NY Times reporter David Gelles evaluates Welch's legacy.

• Gelles says Welch was responsible for aggressive layoffs and populism that helped elect Trump.

Few people born since the 1980s have heard of Jack Welch. But they do know Trump, the Boeing 737 Max disasters and a US economic landscape that has led to populism and rising inequality.

"When people look around and say 'why is the system like this? why are things unfair?' there's actually a guy who made it happen. There was a guy who set a precedent for the economy today, and that guy was Jack Welch," says David Gelles, a reporter for The New York Times and author of a new book called "The Man Who Broke Capitalism".

Welch took over as CEO of General Electric in 1981 when it had 400,000 workers and was a reliable, innovative household name making lightbulbs but also more sophisticated equipment such as jet engines and power systems.

Coined "Neutron Jack" after the neutron bomb, which purportedly kills people while leaving buildings intact, Welch was a mascot for an age of deregulation and cheap thrills, which quickly unravelled in the recession of the late 200s.

Under his two-decade tenure GE expanded to be worth hundreds of billions of dollars and was the most valuable company in the world at one point. But, Gelles argues, he did so while rupturing the fabric of America, leaving not just GE but the US worse than when he found it.

A 'Vitality Curve' of fired workers

Welch was obsessed with growth and spent about $130 billion on nearly 1,000 acquisitions during his time running GE, although many of them failed. Under Welch the company's financial services division, GE Capital, became enormous but it later needed a $139 billion bailout from the US government following the 2008 financial crisis, as well as a $3 billion rescue investment by Warren Buffett, Gelles says.

Welch also pioneered the "stack ranking system," in which the bottom-performing 10% of employees were laid off each year, a practice he called the "Vitality Curve." Companies such as Goldman Sachs still use that approach to keep staff "motivated".

Welch slashed GE's workforce by 112,000 people between 1980 and 1985 as well as outsourcing and offshoring jobs to cheaper markets such as Mexico.

"What Welch did was fire people when things were going well," Gelles tells Insider. "And that was a rupture – the behavior of firing people to turn a bigger profit."

It was not economics that drove Welch's labor practices, says Andrew Mawson, co-founding director of Advanced Workplace Associates: "Firing 10% of under-achievers each year seems to me to be a poor way of overcoming an underperforming performance management system."

Others say that beyond harming morale and productivity, focusing solely on labor costs is inefficient. Simon Geale of supply chain consultancy Proxima tells Insider: "Some business leaders like it because the salary line is easy to measure and quick to action, but the reality of job cuts is that they address a proportionately low expenditure when compared to supplier costs in most industries."

'Jack Welch rigged the game' for Trumpism

More damaging, though, was the thinking Welch inspired among other business leaders. Gelles says his approach was embraced by Jim McNerney, who as Boeing CEO was accused of embarking on a range of cost-cutting measures that contributed to the Boeing 737 Max disasters that killed 346 people five months apart.

"It was clear in talking with hundreds of Boeing employees over the last few years that it is just poorer because of the influence of Welch," Gelles says.

Jack Welch at a news conference for the Boeing 777-200X jetliner that used GE engines in New York in February 2000.Getty Images

Inevitably, actions on such a scale would have political ramifications. Gelles says the layoffs and outsourcing Welch initiated helped form "the rust belt" base that put Donald Trump into the White House.

"What Welch did with his series of mass layoffs and factory closures truly destabilized the American working class," Gelles says.

"And it was from this disaffected base that Trump found many of his most ardent supporters. But the reason they felt like it wasn't working for them was because Jack Welch rigged the game."

After Welch died in March 2020 Trump said they had "made wonderful deals together".

A turning point

Gelles thinks the US is at an inflection point, with the pendulum swinging back in favor of workers. He points to new models that have emerged, including the decision by former Unilever CEO Paul Polman to scrap quarterly guidance in pursuit of longer-term gains, and a move by PayPal CEO Dan Schulman to focus on benefits for his staff.

However, many companies are still geared towards short-term results, as evidenced by recent upheaval in the tech industry, with sliding share prices triggering job cuts.

"The fact that one or two bad quarters is resulting in mass layoffs is crazy to me. The fundamentals haven't changed much but CEOs feel like they need to be doing something," Gelles says, suggesting it would be a "decades-long battle" to offset the changes Welch helped to trigger.

Gelles adds: "These are choices that companies made, about how they were going to treat workers, what they were going to prioritize, and how they were going to show up in their communities, and it matters. It's going to take a long way to get back."

* CHAINSAW REFERRED TO HIS SLASH AND BURN OF JOBS