It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Friday, June 07, 2024
JORO, JORO, JORO
Venomous flying spiders the size of a human hand are about to invade New York
Just a picture is enough to give you the heebie-jeebies (Picture: Getty Images)
Bad news for arachnophobes living in or planning to visit New York this summer.
Venomous Joro spiders are expected to invade the east coast of the US – and their spread will be hastened by their ability to fly.
The spider species, native to east Asia, first appeared in the US in about 2010 and are most commonly found in Georgia.
But in the years since they’ve continued to spread north, and they’re expected to reach the New York and New Jersey areas in the coming weeks, NJ Pest Control says.
They’ve already been spotted in Maryland, prompting warnings about a potential east coast invasion from pest experts in recent months.
It’s thought they arrived on cargo shipments from Japan. Horrifyingly, they can grow to the size of a human palm and use a unique technique called ‘ballooning’ which helps them fly as they’re carried by the wind.
The spiders can move quickly thanks to a technique called ‘ballooning’ (Picture: David Madison/Getty Images)
A study released earlier this year by the University of Georgia found Joro spiders in both traffic-dense and rural areas.
However, they only seem to use their venom against pests, and they’re not thought to be a significant threat to the local ecosystem.
José Ramírez-Garofalo, an ecologist at Rutgers University, said the species is able to make its way across the southeast thanks to an adaptability to a wide range of habitats and the ability to travel large distances by ballooning.
‘They can also hitch a ride on cars, like a lot of other species of spiders,’ Ramírez-Garofalo told The Times.
‘The climate across the northeast is very much like their native range, so they will have no problem moving into virtually any area north of the southeastern US.
‘We should expect to see Joros soon, as early as this year, but when they do arrive they will be in such small numbers that chances are you won’t actually see them.
The species is set to arrive in New York this summer (Picture: Getty Images/iStockphoto)
‘There is more of a chance that you will see one of our native garden orb weavers, which are also large and look a lot like Joros.
‘There are already spiders here that look like them and occupy a similar role in the ecosystem, and adding a relatively small number of Joros likely will not have a major effect.
‘They pose no threat to humans, as their venom is not considered medically significant.’
There haven’t been any reports of Joro sightings in New York or New Jersey yet, but the Department of Agriculture is monitoring their spread.
World Oceans Day: Joint Statement by High Representative/Vice-President Josep Borrell and Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries Virginijus Sinkevičius
On 8 June, we celebrate the World Oceans Day. Oceans are vital for life on Earth, playing a crucial role in climate regulation, providing more oxygen than all forests combined and being paramount in addressing pressing global challenges, such as food security, energy and fast-tracking green transition.
Ocean temperatures, however, have never been higher and marine life is disappearing at an unprecedented pace, putting the world at risk. Our oceans, functioning as our planet’s greatest carbon sink, cannot wait for the reversal of dramatic developments, and neither can we.
The task ahead is now to reach the number of sixty ratifications of the Agreement for it to enter into force and we can proceed to its effective implementation. Our objective is to make this happen by the June 2025 United Nations Ocean Conference in France.
The EU is taking action. Ocean sustainability is a priority of the EU’s green diplomacy. At the 9th Our Ocean Conference held in Greece, earlier this year, the EU made 40 new commitments for a safe, secure, clean, healthy and sustainably managed ocean adding up to some € 3.5 billion from various EU funds, the highest EU contribution since the start of the Our Ocean Conferences a decade ago. Our engagement remains rooted on the principles of dialogue, partnership and solidarity with our partners around the globe.
Looking ahead, strengthening the nexus between oceans and climate change remains a priority for the EU. The EU also seeks to expand the scope of marine protected areas in the Southern Ocean and advocates for an ambitious outcome of the negotiations on an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution, including in the marine environment.
Protecting our oceans is a shared responsibility and only the implementation of global solutions, such as the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and the BBNJ Agreement, can contribute to this.
Climate change exacerbated marine heatwave
If only the water were a little warmer… Salcombe, South Devon. Image: Ollie Taylor/Shutterstock
A new study has revealed that the North Atlantic marine heatwave of 2023 was exacerbated by climate change
The UK is blessed with an exceptionally varied and beautiful coastline, which means that from seaside piers to tiny rocky coves and the long wind-whipped stretches of sand, there’s a beach for every mood in the UK. However, as beautiful as our beaches are, when it comes to a beach holiday there’s a problem. As anyone who has splashed into the British seas will have noticed, the water, even in high summer, can be a little bracing. Except that is, for last summer. With sea temperatures on the more sheltered beaches being several degrees warmer than average it meant that bathing was a pleasure rather than merely a feat of endurance.
The reason for those added degrees was a very strong marine heatwave created, as was widely reported at the time, by strong high-pressure systems in the North Atlantic and over the UK. Now though, new research has shown that while high-pressure weather conditions were the main driver behind the unusually high sea temperatures, warming due to climate change exacerbated the situation.
Like hurricanes, marine heatwaves are categorised from 1-5 with 5 being an extreme marine heatwave. In June 2023 some coastal waters in northwest Europe experienced sea-surface temperatures of up to 5°C higher than normal, which meant that they were classed as a category 5 marine heatwave. This was followed by another marine heatwave in September 2023 and, according to the UK Met Office, we are currently experiencing a category 1 (+1-2°C) marine heatwave with pockets of category 2 (+2-3°C). Moving towards the Norwegian part of the North Sea, it is reaching category 3/4 (>+4°C) in areas.
The study, led by UK Met Office scientists and a consortium of British and Irish institutions, including Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML), showed that the UK experienced its longest-ever category 2 marine heatwave (16 days), with temperatures around the British Isles reaching a 16°C peak in June 2023 instead of the typical 13.5°C.
The study showed that the marine heatwave developed quickly due to high-pressure weather conditions, including reduced levels of cloud cover, strong sunshine, weak winds and tropical air. Additionally, the high-pressure dominant over the North Atlantic made for minimal swell activity which resulted in little mixing of warmer surface waters with colder deep-sea waters. This allowed the sea surface water to warm unusually quickly.
The study also found that the influence of the warmer sea water led to warmer land temperatures than average, and heavier rainfall through stronger, warmer and more moist sea breezes.
The authors of the report say that although the study shows climate change was not the direct driver, the warming trend for sea-surface temperatures over the last two decades exacerbated the scale of the marine heatwave, making it reach category 2 instead of 1. Worryingly, the authors also suggest that such high sea surface temperatures will become commonplace by the middle of the century without strong mitigation to slow the rise of greenhouse gas emissions.
Explained: Why US regulators want to investigate Nvidia, OpenAI and Microsoft
Action is the latest aggressive measure by President Joe Biden's administration against Big Tech companies
OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman, left, shakes hands with Microsoft chief technology officer Kevin Scott at a conference at Microsoft headquarters in May,
The US plans to open antitrust investigations against Nvidia, Microsoft and OpenAI over their increasing dominance and partnerships in the artificial intelligence sector.
The regulatory attempt to rein in the three high-flying technology companies is the latest aggressive measure by US President Joe Biden's administration against Big Tech's business practices.
The investigations will be split between two regulators, the New York Times reported on Thursday. The Justice Department will investigate Nvidia, while the Federal Trade Commission will probe Microsoft and OpenAI.
FTC chairwoman Lina Khan in January said the agency launched a “market inquiry” into companies such as Microsoft and OpenAI, as well as Amazon, Alphabet and Anthropic.
“At the FTC, the rapid development and deployment of AI is informing our efforts across the agency, as we work to promote fair competition and protect Americans from unfair or deceptive tactics,” she said at the FTC Tech Summit. “There is no AI exemption from the laws on the books, and we’re looking closely at the ways companies may be using their power to thwart fair competition or trick the public.”
The agency is scrutinising Microsoft's $650 million deal with Inflection AI, the Wall Street Journal reported.
As part of the deal, Inflection's AI model would be hosted on Microsoft's cloud platform and much of its team would join Microsoft's Copilot programme.
In 2019, Microsoft first announced an investment in OpenAI, maker of the popular AI tool ChatGPT. The company has since increased investments in OpenAI and partnered with the company on several levels, including using ChatGPT in its offerings such as GitHub Copilot, Designer, Teams and BingChat.
Microsoft has also not been shy about its partnership with chipmaker Nvidia, which has had an unprecedented, meteoric rise as its AI chip technology continues to be in strong demand.
The regulatory and legal remedies sought by the US ultimately revolve around concerns that the partnerships between the three companies could lead to less choice, and ultimately drive up prices due to a lack of competition.
Lina Khan of the Federal Trade Commission has not been shy with her criticisms of Big Tech. AFP
That notion, however, is not without scrutiny.
Alden Abbott, who served as the FTC's general counsel from 2018 to 2021, is cautious and somewhat critical of the recent regulatory attempts.
“I do not know the details of the antitrust investigations, but the antitrust enforcers should not take actions that will slow innovation in this space. Keep in mind that there is no big AI monopolist, and we are not talking about mergers among the big AI players,” he said.
“As a general matter, partnerships between AI innovators and large high-tech companies such as Microsoft and software/chips innovator Nvidia should be applauded,” he added.
Mr Abbott, who now works for the Mercatus Centre at George Mason University in Virginia, US, also reflected on the potential upside of technology company partnerships, saying that competition might actually be enhanced, rather than stifled.
“By bringing complementary technologies on board, the two large established companies [Microsoft and Nvidia] may be able to enhance their competition with the other big leading competitors in [the] AI space, including Google, Meta and IBM,” he added.
Microsoft, unlike Nvidia and OpenAI, is not new to US federal regulatory scrutiny.
In 1998, the technology giant, based in Redmond, Washington, found itself accused by the Justice Department of unfairly stifling competition from rival companies, in particular, Netscape, which at the time had a popular web-browser on both Windows and Macintosh computer platforms.
String of mysterious attacks across Europe opens new front in Russia’s war on the West
Joe Barnes Thu, June 6, 2024
Donald Tusk, the Polish prime minister, said Russia may have been behind a fire at the Marywilska 44 shopping centre in Warsaw
- Dariusz Borowicz/Agencja Wyborcza.pl via REUTERS
First, a warehouse in east London being used to supply aid to Ukraine burned down. Weeks later, an Ikea in Vilnius, Lithuania, mysteriously caught fire.
Swedish investigators were already looking into the possibility that several railway derailments could have been caused by a state-backed saboteur.
Then an inferno engulfed the largest shopping centre in Warsaw, Poland’s capital. It was Donald Tusk, the Polish prime minister, who began joining the dots to suggest the West was under attack by Russian espionage.
“We are examining the threads – they are quite likely – that the Russian services had something to do with the Marywilska fire,” he said last month.
His claims were further bolstered when a former Russian soldier was arrested north of Paris this week after explosives detonated in his hotel room.
Warnings from European intelligence agencies that Russia is plotting acts of sabotage on the Continent in its escalation of the stand-off with the Nato military alliance have been thrust into the limelight.
An intelligence assessment shared with Western governments claims that Russia’s notorious GRU military intelligence agency, known for its attacks on foreign soil using highly-trained agents, is now turning to criminal gangs to carry out attacks in Europe.
The Kremlin’s spy network was dealt a blow in the weeks after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb 24 2022, when more than 600 of its intelligence officers in Europe with diplomatic cover were expelled.
Britain resorted to a similar tactic when James Cleverly, the Home Secretary, expelled Col Maxim Elovik, Moscow’s defence attache, after the allegedly Russia-linked arson attack on the east London warehouse that was being used by a business providing aid to Ukraine.
Four men will go on trial next year accused of setting fire to the commercial property, a court heard last month.
Lack of sophistication
Alexander Lord, lead Europe-Eurasia analyst at Sibylline, a geopolitical risk firm, said: “The capabilities these gangs can provide are pretty low-level, but they can still achieve Russian foreign policy objectives, namely, destabilising the West, deterring European decision-makers against supporting Ukraine and exacerbating polarisation and societal tensions across not only Nato but the European Union.”
The lack of sophistication is a particular worry for Western intelligence services, with the proxies now relied on by the Kremlin more likely to cause collateral damage because of their lack of skills with explosives.
A Western counter-intelligence officer told the Financial Times: “There is a greater chance of collateral damage and casualties as the proxies are not skilled in tradecraft, such as explosives.”
Their theory was displayed earlier this week when the former Russian soldier, from Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, was badly burned in an explosion on Tuesday in a hotel room in Roissy-en-France, near Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport.
Investigators confirmed they had discovered bomb-making materials, as Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, arrived in France to join commemorations marking the 80th anniversary of D-Day.
It is a trend tracked from the beginning of the year, with intelligence officers going “tick, tick, tick down a list of all of the things that have been identified as stuff that Russia would do in advance of a conflict to immobilise,” said Keir Giles, a senior consulting fellow at the Chatham House think tank.
“And since then, that pattern has just got stronger,” he added.
Unexplained explosions
Despite the lack of sophistication in some of the alleged acts of sabotage, military facilities have also been targeted.
In Germany, two men were arrested for allegedly plotting to blow up a Nato site in the south of the country that is used by the West to support Ukraine.
The Russian-German dual citizens were arrested after they were caught carrying out what the interior ministry said was “surveillance” of the US military facility.
Poland arrested a man it said was suspected of helping Russian intelligence prepare an attack on Mr Zelensky. The country’s railways, which carry military aid east to Ukraine, have also been targeted.
A Western official said: “We are seeing sabotage continue as another ascent of Russia’s behaviour.”
These more advanced incidents will further raise questions over the unexplained explosions at a BAE Systems munitions factory in Wales, which supplies shells used in Ukraine, and at a similar facility owned by German arms firm Diehl.
Russian agents were blamed for a similar attack on a Czech arms depot in October 2014, where weapons destined for Kyiv were also being stored.
Mr Lord said: “If we start to ask ourselves why this is happening now, the discussions in Western capitals around ever-growing Western involvement in Ukraine, I think what the Russians are seeing is a potential mission creep threat for them.
“Over the last two-and-a-half years, we’ve seen previous ‘red lines’ being crossed, and the Russians haven’t done anything to respond to that.”
‘Intimidation’ attempts
Nato, which is vying for a greater role in the supply of weapons and munitions to Ukraine, has taken a greater interest in the alleged malign acts by Russian-backed agents.
Jens Stoltenberg, the alliance’s secretary-general, recently said: “I can say that we have seen increased Russian intelligence activity across the alliance. Therefore we have increased our vigilance.”
Top Nato officials have warned the alliance could be at war with Russia in the next two decades, with those timescales drastically shrinking, to as little as two years, in similar warnings from national governments.
The Dutch government has warned of Russian attempts to “intimidate” both Nato and EU countries.
Kajsa Ollongren, the Dutch defence minister, recently told EU counterparts that electricity and water supplies, as well as undersea infrastructure, were particular weak spots.
Mr Giles said: “It’s something that everybody should be aware of because it is another example of Russian hostile activity that seeks to disrupt our countries and could be preparation for something more severe.”
It has also raised the question of whether the West is capable of handling malign threats from a hostile state, after so long focusing on counter-insurgency work in the Middle East.
Mr Lord said: “There are capability gaps in this regard. The focus on counter-terrorism post-9/11 was incredibly important, but the relatively benign international situation, aside from the terror threats, after the fall of the Soviet Union has led to an element of complacency that great power, competition and confrontation was a thing of the past.
“The invasion of Ukraine has radically upended that notion and Western intelligence agencies, police forces and militaries are now scrambling [to] plug capability gaps considering the severity of the state actor threat.”
Blast at Romanian DIY store injures at least 13 people
Four of the injured are said to be in a serious condition.
An explosion at a chain home improvement store in north-eastern Romania has injured at least 13 people, four seriously, authorities said.
A mobile intensive care unit was dispatched to the scene in the town of Botosani, in Suceava county, emergency authorities said.
Four of the injured are in serious condition, while 10 were conscious but suffered “various traumas and burns” and are receiving medical attention.
Emergency helicopters were alerted, and two ambulances and two fire trucks were sent to the scene to extinguish a blaze.
At least four people were seriously hurt (Romanian Emergency Services via AP)
A search and rescue mission is under way inside the store. It is not immediately clear what caused the blast, nor whether the injured were customers or staff members.
Two of the victims in serious condition will be transported to a hospital in the city of Iasi, about 68 miles to the south, while two will be airlifted to the capital, Bucharest, to receive faster medical care, according to the ministry of health.
Some of the injured suffered burns of 10-15% to the upper parts of their bodies, it said.
Video footage shared by the emergency authorities showed part of the building’s facade had been blown out by the explosion, with air-conditioning units strewn across the area in front of the store amid a blanket of debris.
By Press Association
Lagarde's reluctant cut leaves markets guessing on next ECB move
Alice Gledhill, Alexander Weber and Aline Oyamada, Bloomberg News
The European Central Bank delivered on its promise to cut interest rates but left investors querying where policy is headed next by also saying it will take longer for inflation to reach two per cent.
While Thursday’s quarter-point reduction in the deposit rate from its nine-month peak at four per cent was widely expected, the upward revision to next year’s forecast for consumer-price growth — to 2.2 per cent from two per cent — came as more of a surprise.
President Christine Lagarde noted that the inflation outlook has improved “markedly” and said there’s a “strong likelihood” that the ECB is shifting into a “dialing-back phase.” But she declined to confirm that such a change of gear has now happened.
While investors are still betting the ECB will lower rates again this year, the timing of that reduction is once again being questioned — with some already saying that cutting rates when inflation is still running hot puts the ECB’s credibility in doubt.
Traders went from betting on two additional moves this year to favouring just one. A cut in September is seen as the most likely outcome but confidence on that has waned.
“Going forward, for the ECB’s credibility they will need to hold a very, very neutral stance,” Vasileios Gkionakis, senior economist and strategist at Aviva Investors, told Bloomberg Television. “The bar for gaining more confidence has increased.”
He questions whether — in light of the stubborn price pressures — the ECB’s cut would even have arrived had officials not touted it for months in advance.
The announcement was “almost exclusively driven by it being far too embarrassing for the Governing Council to back-pedal” on their pre-commitment, Gkionakis said. “It doesn’t make sense.”
This week’s decision begins to roll back the unprecedented barrage of hikes deployed to quell the euro zone’s worst-ever spike in prices. The step, which nudges the ECB ahead of the U.S. Federal Reserve and the Bank of England in loosening monetary policy, could also help to reinvigorate the 20-nation economy after two years of stagnation and a mild recession.
But it comes on the back of data releases — including May inflation, early-year wage rises and recent private-sector business activity — that came in higher than anticipated. Labour costs will continue to fluctuate in the near term, according to Lagarde.
“Inflation in Europe hasn’t been on a neat downward trajectory, echoing the same awkward policy and credibility dilemma faced by the Federal Reserve,” said Julian Howard, lead investment director and head of multi-asset solutions at GAM Investments.
What Bloomberg Economics says...
“The ECB tried to communicate its discomfort with elevated cost pressures, even though the Governing Council decided to reduce interest rates by 25 basis points today. President Lagarde hinted at a pause in July and the potential for more action in September, although she refrained from providing any clear indications on the timing for the cut.”
—David Powell and Jamie Rush, economists.
While people familiar with the matter are all but excluding a second cut in July, and some are questioning a September move, Lagarde did little to clarify when interest rates may next be adjusted.
“Are we today moving into a dialing-back phase? I wouldn’t volunteer that,” she told reporters in Frankfurt. “There’s a strong likelihood but it will be data dependent, and what is very uncertain is the speed at which we travel and the time that it will take.”
She also cautioned against paying too much attention to predictions from her Governing Council colleagues. “We know the path we are on but we also know there will be other bumps on the road,” she said.
They include meeting the inflation target later than planned, with the ECB’s latest quarterly outlook showing it will moderate to two per cent in the third quarter of 2025, rather than in the middle of that year as previously thought.
The revision adds to the “sticky inflation story that may limit the room for additional rate cuts,” said Theophile Legrand, a rates strategist at Natixis SA.
Nicolas Forest, chief investment officer at Candriam, goes further.
“This initial cut may not signal the start of a sustained easing cycle,” he said. “On the contrary, the new guidance remains cautious, avoiding any clear direction on future moves.”
UBIQUITOUS ACROSS CANADA
Funeral home company Park Lawn agrees to be taken private, shares surge
The Canadian Press
Shares of Park Lawn Corp. soared nearly 60 per cent in early trading after the company announced a plan to be taken private in an agreement valued at about $1.2 billion, including debt.
Under the proposal, Viridian Acquisition Inc., an affiliate of Homesteaders Life Co. and Birch Hill Equity Partners Management Inc., will pay $26.50 per share for Park Lawn.
Shares in the funeral home and cemetery company were up $9.57 at $25.92 in early trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange on Tuesday.
The agreement, which has been unanimously recommended by the Park Lawn board of directors, requires approval by a two‐thirds majority vote by shareholders.
John Nies, chair of Park Lawn's special committee which reviewed the proposal, said the transaction is in the best interests of Park Lawn and fair to the company's shareholders.
Park Lawn owns and operates cemeteries, crematoria, funeral homes, chapels and event centres in Canada and the United States.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 4, 2024.
