Friday, September 17, 2021

PROPERTY IS THEFT
Some Landlords Would Rather Evict Tenants Than Accept Federal Rental Aid

Arthur Delaney
Fri, September 17, 2021, 

Congress set aside $46 billion to cover rent for people struggling because of the coronavirus pandemic, but states and cities have so far distributed only a fraction of the funds.

Some local governments lack the staff and the know-how to distribute the aid, and many have saddled renters with tough paperwork requirements.

But another problem is that some landlords refuse to accept the money.

In Baltimore, one property management firm told local TV station WBAL earlier this week that it wouldn’t take the payment because the wording in the city’s rental assistance contract “contained ambiguities and conflict,” an apparent reference to the city’s requirement that participating landlords hold off on evictions for 90 days.

“If you’re getting paid in full and all the balances will be zero, I’m not understanding,” the property manager’s struggling tenant told WBAL.

Another tenant in Broward County, Florida, voiced a similar complaint to TV station WSVN last month after she said her landlord wouldn’t accept federal rental assistance: “If the funds are there and the government are giving funds to help people, why are you denying me?”

For the most part, landlords like rental assistance. Lobbying groups for the rental housing industry have supported the federal rental aid programs, viewing them as a much more favorable alternative to the eviction moratoriums that were in place for much of the year. Rental housing trade associations and renter advocacy groups alike have lobbied for a simplified application process for landlords to get paid.

But not all landlords want to participate. Nearly half of rental aid program administrators struggled with landlord responsiveness, according to an April survey by the National Low Income Housing Coalition, with one administrator sharing that “many landlords are not looking to keep unreliable tenants.”

Just making the rental aid program less bureaucratic might help.

“Sometimes, landlords just need help in understanding the advantages of rental assistance and how to access it,” Rachel Garland, managing attorney for housing at Community Legal Services in Philadelphia, told HuffPost in an email.

Philadelphia is one area that has had success with distributing rental aid, thanks in part to a local court order requiring landlords to apply before filing for eviction, plus an eviction diversion program that links renters to housing counselors who set up mediation sessions with landlords.

Some landlords dislike the document requirements, which can involve handing over sensitive information in tax forms ― a particularly dicey proposition for landlords with unlicensed units. Other landlords might be looking for new tenants, and hot rental markets may create a strong incentive for evictions, as NLIHC director Diane Yentel has suggested.

“Our real estate market has been red hot throughout the pandemic because we have, in addition to our already pretty strong demand, a lot of people moving from New York and Philadelphia to New Jersey,” Adam Gordon, executive director at Fair Share Housing Center in New Jersey, told HuffPost.

“We’ve seen a lot of landlords who want to evict long-standing tenants, and especially long-standing tenants of color, to slap a new coat of paint on the deck to try to attract newcomers,” Gordon added.

(New Jersey still has its own eviction moratorium through the end of the year.)

Nationally, the federal rental assistance program had paid out only $5.1 billion of the $46 billion allotted as of the end of July, with several dozen localities having failed to disburse a dime in more than eight months. The Treasury Department has been pleading with local governments to drop their paperwork requirements and let renters “self-attest” to their hardship and risk of homelessness.

One way around obstinate landlords would be for governments to pay renters directly — which they can already do, but most don’t. Only 28% of local rental programs advertised direct payments to renters, according to the NLIHC.

Earlier this week, the House Committee on Financial Services approved legislation that would make it easier for renters to receive payments directly. The bill would also temporarily prohibit evictions by participating landlords ― a provision loathed by the rental industry ― and require more public outreach about the program. It’s not clear whether Democrats plan to include the measure in an upcoming budget bill they’re hoping to send to President Joe Biden’s desk this fall.

Jurisdictions that fail to distribute their rental aid allotment by the end of the month stand to lose the funds, which the Treasury Department will redistribute to other local governments that will actually use them.

Amanda Terkel contributed reporting to this story.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.


THIS IS CONDOIZATION & RENOVICTION

'They came in like we were nothing': New Hampshire woman with housing voucher evicted

Megan Fernandes, Fosters Daily Democrat
Thu, September 16, 2021

Dover resident Mary Cameron is seen packing her things Tuesday, Sept. 14, 2021, in her apartment, but she has been unable to find a new home that will accept her Housing Choice Voucher as payment.

DOVER, N.H. — Sixty-four-year-old Mary Cameron’s belongings are currently collected in brown boxes stacked in the living room of her one-bedroom apartment.

She spends a lot of time with local organizations that provide resources for houseless people in the community, often donating and helping pack personal hygiene bags and volunteering with Waypoint. Now, she finds herself in need of help as the uncertainty and pressure builds to find a new place to live before she finds herself without a roof over her head.

“I knew all along that I was only one step away from being in their shoes, that there wasn’t much separation between our situations,” Cameron said, referring to people who are houseless. “I don’t know what’s next, I don't know what more I can do.”


On Aug. 1 she and the eight other tenants in Dover received eviction notices in their mailboxes from the building's new owner, Commonwealth Collective LLC, which bought the property earlier this summer.

Dover resident Mary Cameron holds up the eviction notice she received Aug. 1 after being a tenant for seven years in an apartment at 20 Pierce St. She spoke about her situation on Tuesday, Sept.14, 2021.

Cameron said tenants were told they were being evicted so the apartments could be remodeled and put back on the market with increased rent prices.

Housing crisis: Supreme Court blocks Biden's COVID-19 eviction moratorium in a blow to renters

Cameron's rent has been $850 per month, but her voucher would pay a landlord up to $1,136 per month, the capped amount per the rules of the federal program in the area where she lives.

The new rent after the planned renovations will be priced much higher than Cameron and the other tenants can afford, she said. Some tenants have to be out by the end of August, but some, like Cameron, were given until the end of September.

“In two weeks, we went from a closing of the property in July that we didn't know about until the last minute, to an eviction notice in our mailboxes. I’m trying to find another place, but there's nothing within my means,” Cameron said.

As the deadline quickly approaches, Cameron hasn’t been able to find an apartment with a landlord who accepts a Housing Choice Voucher (formerly known as Section 8 voucher) as payment. She’s anxious about what happens next for her and her support animal Hailey, an African grey parrot that has been her companion for 26 years. She said because she is disabled she relies on the voucher and Social Security, along with the help of local food pantries to make ends meet.

Housing Choice Voucher Program is a lifeline

The program assists low-income families, the elderly, and the disabled to afford decent, safe, and sanitary housing in the private market, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The vouchers are administered locally by public housing agencies. Most of those who qualify are applicants whose incomes do not exceed 30% of the area median income.

Cameron has been a tenant of her current residence for seven years, and she has a glowing recommendation from the prior landlord, but she can’t find a new apartment. Cameron said her neighbors are experiencing similar challenges, with some forced to sleep in their vehicles or move in with family until they find housing. Cameron isn’t the only tenant with a housing voucher, and they are all scrambling to find a new home.

Local government step in: White House calls for state, local eviction moratoriums after Supreme Court ruling


Dover resident Mary Cameron is seeking a new apartment that will accept her Housing Choice Voucher as payment and also accept her support animal Hailey, a 30-year-old grey parrot that has been her companion for 26 years.

“I’ve looked around everywhere including well outside of Dover, and I have not been able to find anything out there, even with a portable housing voucher that I can take with me wherever I go,” Cameron said.

Commonwealth Collective LLC, the company that now owns the building where Cameron is about to depart, lists its founders as Michael Ketchen, Hannah Ketchen and Matthew Hitchcock on its website. They did not reply to multiple attempts to reach them for comment on this story, including emails and phone messages. The company's website states it specializes “in revitalizing and increasing the value of neglected, distressed, or underutilized properties” and “optimizing the property management process, increasing the ultimate return on investment.”

The company currently owns and operates residential and commercial rental properties in Maine and New Hampshire. According to its website, this includes a five-unit residential apartment building on Park Street in Dover. The company states that after completing upgrades and increasing all five units to market-price rental rates, the property's value “nearly tripled from the original purchase price of $300,000.”
‘Crisis’ on the Seacoast

Cameron isn’t alone in her struggle to find housing as a voucher holder. According to the Dover Housing Authority, the wait list for its elderly housing is 20 years. Within Dover, there are about 880 units of government owned or managed affordable housing, with 347 occupied by Housing Choice Voucher holders.


Dover Housing Authority Executive Director Ryan Crosby said the DHA is often ignored by landlords its staff approaches about accepting Housing Choice Voucher payments.

Those who apply for vouchers may be on the waitlist for two to three years before being selected, after which they have 120 days to find a unit. When tenants are evicted in situations that are no fault of their own, they are given extensions up to 120 days to search for a new place.

Ryan Crosby, executive director of the DHA, said it's common for housing authorities in the Seacoast area in New Hampshire to have more people with vouchers in hand than available units. In an already tight housing market, voucher holders are at a disadvantage and find their options even tighter than the average renter.

Crosby said the current market is worsening these challenges. As people who bought into the market three to 10 years ago can turn properties around now to recoup their investment for top-dollar profits, he said.

“Landowners assume that they are passing their tenants on and the new owners will rent to them, too,” Crosby said. “Except that everyone that's buying in this market is buying at an inflated market price, which means in order to have rents sufficient to justify the mortgage that they took out, they're probably going to have to leverage higher rents. The units that currently offer HUD rents are not being preserved if there's no obligation to maintain those HUD rents.”

According to a study published by the nonprofit National Low Income Housing Coalition, the fair market rate for a one-bedroom apartment is around $1,000 in New Hampshire and fair market value for a two-bedroom is $1,286. The New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority in its 2021 rental survey report said the median rent of a two-bedroom apartment in Strafford County is $1,394 per month and that in the five-year period from 2016 to 2021 rents have jumped by 28.7%. Meanwhile, the vacancy rate in the county is just 0.9%.

Related story: 89% of federal rental assistance remains unspent as potential evictions crisis looms

Crosby said the Seacoast is “in a real affordable housing crisis” and has been for some time. He said the intensity of that crisis is ramping up. Crosby said simply that chances are, those with the money to invest in real estate and rentals right now, are out of state investors hoping to make money through passive income streams as owners; and those are the harder owners to convince to rent at HUD rates.

Since the rental market is increasingly expensive and competitive and some landlords are reluctant to work with voucher holders, recruiting and retaining landlords has become more difficult, according to Cathy Gallagher, a Housing Choice Voucher specialist at the Dover Housing Authority.

“When we pull from our waitlist up to 20 to 30 households waiting for a Housing Choice Voucher, we may issue seven out of that pull, and one or two might actually find housing with it,” Gallagher said.

Gallagher said when trying to reach out to new owners of apartment buildings that formerly took vouchers, like in Cameron’s situation, they are often shut down. The Dover Housing Authority and other organizations do a lot of work to educate current and prospective landlords of the benefits of accepting the vouchers.

Dover Housing Authority Executive Director Ryan Crosby and Cathy Gallagher, Housing Choice Voucher specialist for DHA, seen on Tuesday, Sept. 14, 2021, say it's difficult recruiting and retaining landlords to accept the vouchers from low-income residents.

The Dover Housing Authority is aware of Cameron’s situation, but said conversations with the new owners to keep the tenants on vouchers were unsuccessful, noting that the price of rent for that building will significantly increase upon completion of its remodeling project.

“We’re always encouraging landlords to preserve what affordable housing they have by whatever method we can, even if it’s asking: 'Can you accept the voucher for another year, can you extend the lease just a little longer.' Beyond that we’re vigorously advocating and engaging with legislators, cities, Seacoast partners, regional partners and national partners,” Crosby said.

There are incentive measures in place that try to encourage more developers to have some HUD rate rental apartments, through things like tax breaks or density bonuses. Every private housing development that promises to have a percentage of HUD- restricted rents and adds to the affordable market is considered “a success story” Crosby said.

“Even 20% of units at HUD rates are a huge advantage for us, but it’s only a small percentage of the Seacoast,” Crosby said. “We’re losing affordable apartments faster than we’re gaining them. When you say HUD rents, people assume it's a crazy low amount, but we pay up to 110% above fair market rate. If you ask a landlord if they charge fair market rent and look at the fair market rates, we see some charging 150% to 200% above fair market value.”

Recruiting landlords to help


Donna Marsh, executive director of Home For All, a Portsmouth, New Hampshire-based housing and homelessness prevention coalition, is among the area organizations working to match voucher holders with landlords, in addition to recruiting new landlords.

She notes they’ve seen similar success with a program to incentivize landlords to set aside a small percentage of units for voucher holders. Marsh hopes to scale the program up in the future, but right now they are nearly maxed with having matched all of their units with tenants.

“We have partnered with landlords who are interested in helping solve this problem and are willing to devote a certain percentage or portion of their properties to help low-income tenants,” Marsh said. “We have generous landlords that have been willing to take voucher holders in a market that doesn't necessitate that, but they do it because they know that it's best for their communities and the people that live there.”

Housing market finds: Should I rent or buy a home right now? Well, that depends on where you want to live.

Marsh is also a board member of the New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority. Marsh says that homeless shelters across the area are at capacity, which leaves many with nowhere else to go.

Crosby said that it's frustrating seeing properties that accept vouchers be sold, because the voucher-holding tenants were the ones able to consistently pay their rent as the nation suffered massive layoffs during the coronavirus pandemic that led to many being unable to pay rent. He said it feels like those tenants were taken advantage of during the pandemic as a source of steady income to pay the mortgage, but when new owners come in and take a different direction, those tenants are left in the dust.
Uncertainty on the horizon

Dover resident Mary Cameron, 64, on Sept. 14, 2021 in her apartment, faces eviction at the end of the month and says her children's landlords will only allow her to stay with them for two weeks.

If Cameron doesn’t find a place to live, she will continue the search. In the meantime, she plans to move all her belongings into a storage unit and live with her children for two weeks, which is all their landlords allow. Cameron doesn’t want to think much past that, noting stress and fear are having a physical impact on her health.

Cameron hoped to be able to use the rent moratorium to keep a roof over her head for another month, but was told it was only for tenants that couldn’t afford to pay rent and she didn’t qualify. She is hopeful that when the moratorium ends, more units will go on the market, but she is skeptical that will happen.

“We did everything right. We are steady tenants that always pay their rent on time, and they came in here like this was nothing, like we were nothing,” Cameron said. "What else can we do?"

While there is no clear cut solution as to how to address these issues facing the Seacoast and beyond, Crosby and Marsh said, it starts with making a small dent in the affordable housing market where you can, and working closely alongside landlords.

“If we could see a greater collaboration between landlords, the community and community agencies that work with low income clients, I think in the future we may be able to find more creative and collaborative housing solutions,” Marsh said.

Follow Megan Fernandes on Twitter: @Meg_Fernandes.

This article originally appeared on Fosters Daily Democrat: Eviction notice left N.H. woman with housing voucher nowhere to go


Property is theft! - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property_is_theft!

"Property is theft!" (French: La propriété, c'est le vol!) is a slogan coined by French anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon in his 1840 book What is Property? Or, an Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government. If I were asked to answer the following question: What is slavery? and I should answer in one word, It is murder!, my meaning would be understood at once. No extended argument woul…

By "property", Proudhon referred to a concept regarding land property that originated in Roman law: the sovereign right of property, the right of the proprietor to do with his property as he pleases, "to use and abuse," so long as in the end he submits to state-sanctioned title. Proudhon contrasts the supposed right of property with the rights (which he considered valid) of liberty







UK
City comment: ESG goes up in smoke at L&G in handling of Philip Morris’s Vectura bid

Fri, 17 September 2021

Philip Morris makes Marlboro cigarettes (Martin Rickett/PA) (PA Archive)

Look up ESG — the buzzword du jour for ethical investing — on Legal & General Investment Management’s (LGIM) website and you’ll find this bold statement: “Our very purpose at LGIM is to create a better future through responsible investing.”

You wouldn’t know it from how it has handled the Vectura takeover deal. LGIM bowed out with a whimper last night, announcing in a mealy-mouthed statement that it was agreeing to sell its 3.7% stake in the inhaler maker to Philip Morris International (PMI), the manufacturer of Marlboro cigarettes.

It’s a deal that lets PMI profit twice from smoking, as campaign group STOP (Stopping Tobacco Organizations and Products) points out: once from the sale of cigarettes and then again from the treatment of problems caused by smoking. Scientists working on health products now find themselves awkward bedfellows with executives whose main business is cancer sticks.

LGIM spent “considerable time reviewing the competing ESG factors and financials” of the “highly sensitive bid,” it says. But ultimately it concluded that accepting the offer was “the optimal result for our clients, investors and the futures of both companies”. So much for a better future.

Contrast LGIM’s response with Axa’s. The French business also owns Vectura stock and is selling out, but doesn’t mince its words. Axa “did not support” the takeover and is “uncomfortable with the ethics behind a tobacco group’s purchase of an inhaler manufacturer,” it says. The company backed a rival bid from private equity firm Carlyle, which ultimately went nowhere. It’s only selling now because it is forced to by PMI’s controlling position.


LGIM should take note. If it wants to be taken seriously as an ethical investor, it shouldn’t pull its punches in crunch moments.

More broadly, the asset management industry needs to figure out how they square the circle of ethical investing and fiduciary duty. It’s all very well to put pictures of turtles on your website and praise the ocean but when push comes to shove, a challenging - but financially attractive - bid like PMI’s can be difficult to turn down. If financial returns trump ethics, then at least be clear about it from the start.

Read More

Marlboro maker Philip Morris takes control of asthma inhaler maker Vectura

Vectura’s cancer scientists will question if they want to work for Big Tobacco

Battle for health firm Vectura cools as Carlyle pulls plug on bidding war with Marlboro maker


Vectura barred from major medical conference after Philip Morris takeover

James Warrington
Thu, 16 September 2021

Inhaler

British inhaler developer Vectura has been barred from a major medical conference amid a growing backlash over its £1bn takeover by tobacco giant Philip Morris International.

The drugmaker had been listed as a sponsor and participant at an Oxford Global event on inhaled drug delivery in London next week, but has been banned from taking part after other speakers threatened to withdraw.

Philip Morris International, which makes Marlboro cigarettes, seized control of Vectura on Thursday after securing 74.8pc of the company’s shares, fending off a rival offer from private equity firm Carlyle Group.



One of Vectura’s largest shareholders, Legal & General Investment Management (LGIM), confirmed it had accepted the offer and vowed to “exert influence from within”. It has built a reputation for speaking out on the importance of ethical investing and in 2017 launched a tobacco-free pension fund for Cancer Research UK.

Nicholas Hopkinson, professor of respiratory medicine at Imperial College London, said the decision to remove Vectura from the event was “a clear and immediate example” of the firm being excluded from scientific activities.

Scientists working for Vectura were now likely facing a moral quandary over their future at the company, he added. “If you stick with Vectura you’re stuck with the tobacco industry possibly for the rest of your career.”

Oxford Global, the life sciences conference operators behind the event, declined to comment.

The Philip Morris takeover of Vectura has faced stiff opposition from the scientific community and anti-smoking charities.

Sarah Woolnough, chief executive of Asthma UK and the British Lung Foundation, accused Vectura of having “sold out millions of people with lung disease”, adding that it had “prioritised short-term financial gain” over its long-term viability as a business.

In a letter to the public health minister, Jo Churchill, 35 charities, public health experts and clinicians renewed calls on the Government to intervene, warning the merger could lead to greater tobacco industry influence over public policy.

“We think it clear that this deal is not in the public interest and that it creates perverse incentives for PMI to increase harm through smoking so they might then profit again through treating smoking related diseases,” they said.

Legal & General, which had been a top 10 shareholder in Vectura, said it had spent “considerable time” reviewing the environmental, social and governance factors and financials of the deal before backing the bid.

“During this highly sensitive bid process, we came to the conclusion that based on the information available to us, the sale of our shares was the optimal result for our clients, investors and the futures of both companies. As a responsible investor and steward of our clients capital, our approach is to engage with companies and exert influence from within,” a spokesman said.

Several high-profile respiratory organisations are now poised to cut links with Vectura due to ethical firewalls that prohibit work with the tobacco industry.

The British Thoracic Society said the deal was “inappropriate, unethical and should have been prevented”, adding that companies and individuals who have a relationship with Vectura now fell foul of its policies.

The European Respiratory Society said the merger was “not suitable, ethical, or in the best public interest”, adding that it was also considering the implications on its partnerships.

An industry source said further distancing by the medical community was inevitable, adding that it was a case of “when it happens not if it happens”.

Vectura’s ability to win future contracts from partners such as Novartis, Bayer and Recipharm will now also be in doubt due to ethical concerns. All three companies declined to comment on their future relationships with Vectura.

The takeover also raises questions over Vectura’s tie-ups with universities due to similar rules about academic institutions accepting funding from tobacco firms.

It is understood that Imperial College London, which has previously accepted funding from Vectura for research into viral lung inflammation, will not pursue any future partnerships once the deal goes through.

In a further blow to Vectura’s standing in the medical world, critics have warned that the link to PMI could prevent it from publishing articles in top publications such as the British Medical Journal and the Lancet.

PMI has defended the deal, insisting it fits with its strategy of expanding beyond tobacco and nicotine products into a broader healthcare company.

Chief executive Jacek Olczak told The Telegraph last month that opponents of the deal were “not interested in progress, but rather in settling old scores”.

On Thursday he pledged that the takeover would provide Vectura’s scientists “with the resources and expertise to grow their business”.


Inhaler firm Vectura removed from conference over Philip Morris takeover

Julia Kollewe and Rob Davies
Thu, 16 September 2021

Photograph: Vectura/Reuters

Asthma inhaler maker Vectura has been excluded from a pharmaceutical conference after academics staged a rebellion over the company’s £1.1bn takeover by cigarette company Philip Morris International (PMI).

PMI effectively sealed the takeover on Thursday, after more than half of Vectura’s shareholders agreed to sell their stock.

But within hours the deal was overshadowed by the removal of Vectura as a sponsor of, and participant in, a conference called Formulation and Delivery UK due to take place next week.

Emails seen by the Guardian show that a group of leading clinicians who were invited to the event objected to Vectura’s involvement because of its links to PMI, which says it is aiming for a “smoke-free future” but still derives 75% of its revenue from selling cigarettes.

Peter Barnes, professor of thoracic medicine at the National Heart and Lung Institute, coordinated a letter from multiple academics to event organiser Oxford Global, describing the takeover as “extremely unwelcome news”.

“Unless the sponsorship and invitation to Vectura to participate is withdrawn, we will no longer be able to take part in the conference next week and will have to withdraw from the programme,” he said.

Further correspondence shows that Oxford Global later confirmed that Vectura “will no longer be participating in or sponsoring the event”.

Barnes said he expected other pharmaceutical industry events would follow suit because professional societies for specialist respiratory scientists and clinicians did not allow them to participate in any events with links to the tobacco industry.

Vectura’s removal from the conference appears to lend weight to warnings from academics that the company could be prevented from working with leading scientists in its field, respiratory medicine. Vectura declined to comment. The Guardian has approached PMI for comment.

PMI wrapped up the Vectura deal on Thursday morning, saying it had either bought shares, or received acceptances of its offer, reaching just under 75% of the company, well ahead of the 50% it needed.

The offer has become “unconditional”, meaning the remaining shareholders cannot prevent it and can in effect be compelled to sell.

The takeover of a respiratory disease specialist by a cigarette company has sparked outrage among health charities and public health experts around the world.

But the Marlboro maker has argued that its transition away from cigarettes requires it to move into fields such as respiratory medicine, where it already has some expertise.

Jacek Olczak, the chief executive of PMI, said on Thursday: “We are very excited about the critical role Vectura will play in our beyond nicotine strategy and look forward to working with Vectura’s scientists and providing them with the resources and expertise to grow their business to help us achieve our goal of generating at least $1bn [£725m] in net revenues from beyond nicotine products by 2025.”

Vectura investors had been given until 15 September to decide whether to sell to PMI. Under market rules governing takeovers, PMI was not allowed to build its stake by buying shares from investors within the US.

But it was able to buy stock from other international investors to move closer to its 50% target. It said in August that it had gathered 29% of the stock, as it sought to reach 50%.

At that point, which PMI has now reached, reluctant shareholders have little incentive to hold out because PMI would take control of the company anyway. PMI said on Thursday morning that investors could still sell their shares to it until 30 September.

Sarah Woolnough, the chief executive of Asthma UK and the British Lung Foundation, said: “There’s now a very real risk that Vectura’s deal with big tobacco will lead to the cigarette industry wielding undue influence on UK health policy.”


SEE   


AUSTRALIA
Adviser whose former lobby group provided lump of coal to Scott Morrison made ambassador to OECD



Amy Remeikis
Fri, 17 September 2021,

Photograph: Dave Hunt/AAP

The man whose lobby group supplied Scott Morrison with the lump of coal he famously brandished in the federal parliament is off to Paris as Australia’s newest ambassador to the OECD.

Mining lobbyist Brendan Pearson will be reunited with former finance minister Mathias Cormann in the new role having served as his senior adviser before moving into the prime minister’s office as an industry and trade adviser in 2019.

Pearson was chief executive of the Minerals Council of Australia when it supplied then-treasurer Morrison with the lump of coal he held aloft in the parliament in 2017 while saying “this is coal, don’t be afraid”.




Before serving in Cormann and then Morrison’s offices, Pearson also worked at the American coal giant Peabody Energy.

The press release issued by the treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, announcing Pearson’s elevation to the OECD ambassadorship didn’t mention the question time coal but pressed Pearson’s international experience.

Related: Mathias Cormann’s flights to win OECD job cost Australia $11,000 a day

“Mr Pearson was most recently senior adviser (industry, trade and investment) [in the] office of the prime minister,” the statement read.

“He has previously worked overseas as counsellor (trade policy) at the Australian embassy in Washington, North Asia bureau chief for the Australian Financial Review in Tokyo and as a visiting scholar, department of politics and international studies at the University of Cambridge.”
















Cormann, the former Morrison government finance minister, was narrowly elected the head of the OECD earlier this year. He was forced to defend his previous stance on climate action, having called net zero targets “extremist’, “irresponsible” and “reckless” while a member of the Coalition government, while also having acted as a strong advocate of the coal industry.

Cormann has since said he would pursue a “global approach” to climate action and net zero carbon targets by 2050, as part of his stewardship of the OECD.

Pearson is expected to help the Morrison government push its “technology not taxes” climate solution in response to the European Union’s carbon tariff proposal – which would see levies placed on products from countries showing less ambition in their climate action.

Related: Liberal Andrew Bragg urges Scott Morrison to commit to net zero

The Morrison government is facing increasing global pressure to commit to its own net zero target ahead of the Glasgow climate conference in November.

Critics of the Coalition’s climate policies have questioned the appointment of a former mining and coal lobbyist to the OCED role.

The Australia Institute’s Richie Merzian said Australia “already has a reputation as a lobbyist for the fossil fuel industry”.

“This appointment will only serve to drive Australia’s climate credentials further backwards,” he said in a statement.

Pearson replaces Alexander Robson in the ambassador role. Robson, a former economics adviser to former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, had served as ambassador since 2019.




The Queen’s Gambit: Netflix sued for $5m over ‘grossly sexist’ line in series finale


Georgian grandmaster says Netflix has done irreparable damage to her reputation by implying she ‘lacked skills’ to compete against men


Maanya Sachdeva


The Queen’s Gambit: Netflix sued sued over misrepresenting Georgian grandmaster’s career

Soviet-era chess icon Nona Gaprindashvili has sued Netflix for $5m in a defamation lawsuit over a line in The Queen’s Gambit.

Poised to win big at the 2021 Emmy Awards this weekend, the Anya Taylor-Joy starrer has found itself in the middle of a legal drama over a year after it was released.

In court filings accessed by Deadline, Gaprindashvili alleges that the makers of the show about fictional American chess prodigy Beth Harmon (Taylor-Joy) have deliberately and knowingly misrepresented truths about the Georgian grandmaster’s pathbreaking career.

The lawsuit highlights the series finale “End Game”, during which a commentator references Gaprindashvili, after Harmon beats Russian grandmaster Viktor Laev, another fictional character, at the Moscow Invitationals.

The commentator says: “The only unusual thing about her [Harmon], really, is her sex. And even that’s not unique in Russia. There’s Nona Gaprindashvili, but she’s the female world champion and has never faced men.”

The camera then pans to a woman in the audience who, the lawsuit said, “is obviously meant to be Gaprindashvili”.

The allegation that Gaprindashvili has never competed against men is “manifestly false”, “grossly sexist” and “belittling”, according to the 25-page complaint filed in Federal District Court in Los Angeles.

“By 1968, the year in which this episode is set, she had competed against at least 59 male chess players (28 of them simultaneously in one game), including at least 10 grandmasters of that time,” the filing added.

The lawsuit added that despite having these facts, Netflix “brazenly and deliberately” lied, with “actual malice” about the 80-year-old’s achievements for the “cheap” purpose of “heightening the drama”.

Netflix’s depiction of Gaprindashvili as Russian, not Georgian, added further “insult to injury”.

In a statement to NBC News on Thursday, a spokesperson for the streaming giant said: “Netflix has only the utmost respect for Ms Gaprindashvili and her illustrious career, but we believe this claim has no merit and will vigorously defend the case.”

Gaprindashvili said she confronted the streaming giant over these alleged lies after the series aired but Netflix dismissed her assertions and claimed the scene was harmless.

Netflix also refused to offer a retraction, re-dub the voiceover or issue a public statement, she added.

The lawsuit said there were four instances of “actual malice” on the part of Netflix, including “deliberately” altering the text of Walter Tevis’ eponymous 1983 novel that The Queen’s Gambit is based on.

Gaprindashvili’s lawyers made the case that the mini series, which was viewed by 62 million people, has done irreparable damage to their client’s reputation by implying that she “lacked the skills” to compete against men.

“Thus, in a story that was supposed to inspire women by showing a young woman competing with men at the highest levels of world chess, Netflix humiliated the one real woman trail blazer who had actually faced and defeated men on the world stage in the same era.”


Nona Gaprindashvili - Wikipedia



Nona Gaprindashvili (Georgian: ნონა გაფრინდაშვილი; born 3 May 1941) is a Soviet and a Georgian chess player, and the first woman to be awarded the FIDE title Grandmaster, which occurred in 1978. She was the fifth women's world chess champion (1962–1978).

In 1961, aged 20, Gaprindashvili won the fourth women's Candidates Tournament, setting up a title match against world champion Elisaveta Bykova. She won the match easily, with a final score of 9-2 (+7−0=4), and went on to defend her title successfully four times: three times against Alla Kushnir (1965: 10–6; 1969: 12–7; 1972: 12–11) and once against fellow Georgian Nana Alexandria (1975: …

Wikipedia · Text under CC-BY-SA license




CPTPP: Trump abandoned this giant trade deal. Now, China wants in

By Diksha Madhok, CNN Business 

China has applied to join a major Asia-Pacific trade partnership that the United States ditched several years ago, as the world's second largest economy tries to bolster its relationships in the region.

EVEN THOUGH IT HAS ITS OWN FTA CALLED RECTP WHICH TPP WAS A RESPONSE TO

© Esteban Felix/AP The signing ceremony of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership in Chile in 2018.

Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao applied for membership in the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), according to a statement published by the ministry late Thursday.


The CPTPP is an 11-country free trade pact that came into force in December 2018 and includes Mexico, Australia, Canada and Singapore. It succeeded the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) after the United States withdrew under former President Donald Trump in 2017.

The TPP was negotiated under former US President Barack Obama, who wanted to counterbalance China's growing clout in the region by imposing US-backed labor, environmental and patent protections.

Obama wanted the deal to be a major part of his legacy, but his successor, Trump, withdrew the United States from the partnership in 2017. Chinese leaders began angling to take its place almost immediately.

US President Joe Biden backed the TPP during his time serving as Obama's vice president. But his stance has shifted over the years: While running for president in 2019, Biden said he would "not rejoin the TPP as it was initially put forward."

"I would insist that we renegotiate pieces of that," Biden said at a presidential debate during the Democratic primary.

Chinese officials on Friday boosted the idea of involvement with the CPTPP. Foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian called it "conducive to promoting regional economic integration in the Asia-Pacific region, as well as the economic recovery, trade development and investment growth after the pandemic," at a press conference.

The agreement cuts tariffs among participants, standardizes regulations in areas such as food safety and determines levels of market access for goods and services, such as visa rules for business travelers, which can vary between members.

But the path forward may not be easy for China, particularly since relations between the country and CPTPP member nation Australia have been worsening.

In recent years, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has moved to embrace the United States more closely as a security partner, building a personal relationship with Trump and attempting to do with same with his successor, Biden.

China's official application comes just a day after Canberra signed a security deal with the United States and the United Kingdom called AUKUS.

Australian coal, wine, barley and beef have all already been affected by trade tensions with China, and experts say that defense deal has antagonized Beijing further.

"China probably won't get into CPTPP anytime soon, but news of its formal application coming a day after the AUKUS announcement neatly underscores the continuing rift in how Washington and Beijing conceive of 'competition' in Asia," tweeted Ankit Panda, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Still, the Chinese and Australian economies are highly dependent on each other. In 2020, tensions between Australia and China did not stop the two countries from pressing ahead with a free trade deal in Asia-Pacific called the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, as both nations saw benefits from their deeper economic integration with other Asian countries. The RCEP spans 15 countries — including Japan, Indonesia and Thailand — and 2.2 billion people, or nearly 30% of the world's population.

At Friday's press conference, Zhao, the Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, said that China's efforts to join the CPTPP have "nothing to do with the US, UK and Australia trilateral agreements."

"[China] is pushing for economic cooperation and regional integration while the US, the UK and Australia are pushing for war and destruction," he added.

Even if China were allowed to join the CPTPP, the country may find some aspects of the agreement challenging, said Alex Capri, a research fellow at Hinrich Foundation. He singled out "e-commerce and data standards," though said China may be able to find loopholes.

"Keep in mind that when the US pulled out, some 20 provisions dealing with data privacy, IP protection and other digital standards were essentially put on hold," Capri added.

Meanwhile, China isn't the only country attempting to join the CPTPP. Earlier this year, the United Kingdom began talks on entering the partnership, which it sees as one of its biggest opportunities to forge economic alliances beyond Europe after Brexit.

— Hanna Ziady, Ben Westcott and CNN's Beijing bureau contributed to this report.
GOP Senate candidate: US should not accept Afghan refugees


PHOENIX (AP) — The United States should not accept Afghan refugees, including translators and others who helped the American military during the 20-year war, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Jim Lamon said, staking out a hardline stance against a group of immigrants that has had widespread support from both parties.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Rather than bringing them to the homeland, the United States should help Afghans who assisted in the war to flee the Taliban and resettle in the Middle East, Lamon told The Associated Press Wednesday evening.

“They should go to countries that are friendly to them and us,” Lamon said. “We cannot continue to be the world’s refugee camp.”

Lamon is running in a crowded Republican primary to take on Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly in one of the most closely watched 2022 Senate races.

His stance on refugees comes as GOP candidates across the country wrestle with how to balance the base's skepticism of immigration with broad public support for providing refuge to Afghans who risked their lives assisting the United States.

While many Republicans have questioned whether refugees are sufficiently vetted or suggested the U.S. is accepting too many Afghans, few have said that even those who most closely assisted U.S. troops should be excluded.

A handful of former Trump administration officials are working to turn Republicans against Afghan refugees, looking to make the collapse of Afghanistan another opportunity to push a hard-line immigration agenda. But they support letting Afghans who obtain a Special Immigrant Visa settle in the United States.

Lamon is aggressively courting Trump's endorsement, going so far as to air a campaign ad in Bedminster, New Jersey, while the former president was visiting his golf course there.

His position puts him at odds with others in the GOP who say accepting refugees is consistent with Christian teachings.

Gov. Doug Ducey and House Speaker Rusty Bowers, both Republicans, issued a joint statement last month welcoming Arizona's “fair share” of refugees and promising that the state's refugee resettlement office would help them settle in.

“They helped our military members in their country, and now we stand ready to help them in ours,” Ducey and Bowers said.

Lamon said the U.S. has spent billions of dollars in the Middle East, including Oman, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, and those countries “need to have brought them in and helped us in that respect."

“What I would have proposed is that those who helped us, we help them move into neighboring countries,” Lamon said.

Lamon, the founder of a solar energy firm making his first run for political office, spoke after accepting endorsements from unions representing thousands of U.S. Border Patrol agents and Arizona police officers, as well as former Trump administration immigration officials.

Jonathan J. Cooper, The Associated Press
Norway's polar bears turn to inbreeding, cannibalism to survive climate change, studies show

Polar bears are turning to inbreeding and cannibalism to survive the effects of climate change in the Arctic, new studies have revealed
.
© Provided by National Post 
In this file photo, a young male polar bear waits for the sea ice to return in the Churchill Wildlife Management Area, in Manitoba on Oct. 27, 2020.

Scientists have noted that ‘rapid sea ice loss in the Arctic Barents Sea’ has led to the loss of 10 per cent of genetic diversity in the polar bear population of Norway’s Svalbard Archipelago, between 1995 and 2015, states the study, published by The Royal Society journal on Sept. 8.


Examining the DNA of 622 polar bears in the archipelago, they found that the group had grown more genetically distinct from polar bears seen at other areas in the Arctic.

Simultaneously, the polar bears had also grown more genetically distinct from the polar bears found at other sites in the Arctic, indicating the bear populations found in the same location are becoming more genetically similar.

Declining sea ice coverage, the study explained, leads to habitat fragmentation, forcing polar bears to mate with others within a smaller area, resulting in inbreeding.

“With genetic diversity, when the population becomes so small, you’ll find that there will be a higher chance of closely related individuals mating and producing offspring. But with that comes risk in the sense that some of the traits that are recessive, will now basically be unmasked in the population,” the study’s author Simo Maduna, of the Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research, told ABC News.

As the animals become more isolated from each other, this “may increase inbreeding in the future, most likely with negative effects such as inbreeding depression,” the study said.

A second study , released in April, found that climate change has severely disrupted the dietary habits of the polar bear population, forcing them to prey on seabirds and eggs instead of seals. However, due to lack of experience, most bears observed were not “efficient” seabird egg predators, the study found, noting that instead of visiting multiple nests, bears would often visit the same empty nest multiple times.

In some areas of the Arctic suffering from a lack of food sources, bears have become increasingly cannibalistic, experts say. The disappearing sea ice, Russian scientist Ilya Mordvintsev said , has forced the bears onshore instead of in the water hunting seals, consequently turning to food sources on land.

“Cases of cannibalism among polar bears are a long-established fact, but we’re worried that such cases used to be found rarely while now they are recorded quite often,” Mordvintsev said at a presentation in St. Petersburg.

“We state that cannibalism in polar bears is increasing…. In some seasons, there is not enough food and large males attack females with cubs.”
Western University students set to walk out of class to protest 'culture of misogyny'

LONDON, Ont. — Students at Western University are set to walk out of class today to protest what they call a "culture of misogyny" on campus after a series of sexual assault allegations surfaced in recent days.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The students say they will also be speaking out about the London, Ont., school's handling of those allegations.

Western and London police have said four women have come forward with formal complaints about being sexually assaulted on campus recently.

Police are also investigating allegations made on social media of mass drugging and sexual assaults at the Medway-Sydenham Hall residence on campus during orientation week.

The force has said no one has come forward with a formal complaint on those online allegations.

Western announced yesterday that it will require students in residence to take training sessions on sexual violence and consent as it works to address what it describes as a problematic campus culture.

The measure is part of a new action plan that will also see the university hire 100 new "safety ambassadors" – a mix of upper-year undergraduates and graduate students who will work overnight in residences.

The school also plans to create a task force that will take "a comprehensive look" at student safety.

Today's event is expected to see students walk out of their classes at noon.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2021.

The Canadian Press