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)
Sunday, February 07, 2021
POST FORDISM
Vietnam's Vinfast gets permit to test self-driving vehicles in California
Sun, February 7, 2021
HANOI, Feb 8 (Reuters) - Vietnam's first domestic car manufacturer, Vinfast, said on Monday it had obtained a permit to test autonomous vehicles on public streets in California.
te Vin group JSC, said the permit granted by the California Vehicle Administration was needed in order for the firm to commercialize its electric vehicles in the U.S. market. Vinfast said it has developed three models with autonomous features, adding that two of the models would be sold in the U.S., Canadian and European markets from 2022.
Last year, Vinfast said it had bought GM Holden's Lang Lang Testing Centre in Australia following its move to open a research and develop centre in Melbourne, as part of its efforts to expand internationally.
(Reporting by Khanh VuEditing by Ed Davies)
Ecuador to Hold Election Runoff After Socialist Wins First Round Stephan Kueffner Sun, February 7, 2021
(Bloomberg) -- A socialist economist feared by bond investors won the first round of Ecuador’s presidential election, and will face either an environmentalist or a wealthy banker in a runoff after an unexpected fight for second place.
Andres Arauz, who rejects austerity measures and attacked Ecuador’s deal last year with the International Monetary Fund, got 31.5% of votes cast, according to the quick count published by the electoral authority late on Sunday.
The race for second place is still too close to call. In the fast count, Yaku Perez, from the indigenous party Pachakutik, got 20.04%, giving him a wafer-thin lead over the conservative Guillermo Lasso, who got 19.97%.
Perez opposes mining projects and wants to renegotiate Ecuador’s debt, while Lasso backed the IMF deal and wants the country to have warm relations with Washington. The result confounded polls, which mostly predicted that Lasso would comfortably make the second round.
Once the final vote has been tallied, either Perez or Lasso will face Arauz in the second round, scheduled for April 11.
Arauz’s strong showing means that the nation’s dollar bonds “will definitely be weaker on Monday,” said Siobhan Morden, head of Latin America fixed income strategy at Amherst Pierpont in New York.
The campaign for control of Ecuador, an oil exporter and world-leading producer of bananas, shrimp, and the balsa wood crucial for wind-turbine rotors, has become a battleground of international interests.
Arauz, 36, is a protege of exiled former leader Rafael Correa, who allied the country with the socialist governments of Venezuela and Cuba and who often had an acrimonious relationship with Washington.
Business rates are calculated by looking at a property's rateable value and multiplying it by a tax rate set by the government. A new tax rate comes into effect at the start of each financial year on 1 April.
According to figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), full-year retail sales at physical shops for the 12 months ending 31 December 2020 fell 10.3% from £318.5bn in 2019 to £285.8bn.
Retail advisor Altus Group says that bricks and mortar retailers would have paid £8.25bn in business rates in 2020, had they not been given a tax holiday due to the pandemic.
It says the figure was calculated using rateable values, multiplied by the 2020 tax rate. The £8.25bn figure amounts to 2.9% of total retail sales, which is much higher than what Amazon pays.
For instance, Arcadia - which owns Topshop, Burton and Dorothy Perkins - would have had to pay £91m in business rates on its 444 stores in 2020, had there not been a tax holiday, Altus Group says.
Without the business rates holiday, Arcadia Group would have paid £91m in taxes on its 444 stores in 2020, says Altus Group
A Treasury spokesman said: "We want to see thriving high streets, which is why we've spent tens of billions of pounds supporting shops throughout the pandemic and are supporting town centres through the changes online shopping brings.
"Our business rates review call for evidence included questions on whether we should shift the balance between online and physical shops by introducing an online sales tax. We're considering responses now."
Separately, the Centre for Retail Research (CRR) calculated the business rates paid by physical shops in 2019 and found that they paid £7.17bn in business rates, or 2.3% of their total retail sales in 2019.
The two organisations said that Amazon, which has close to 100 sites in the UK, including distribution warehouses and lockers on High Streets, is not paying enough tax.
However, their calculations do not include corporation tax, which is currently at 19% of profits.
Debate over digital services tax
Amazon would not comment on the calculations made by Altus Group and CRR.
A spokesman for Amazon said: "We've invested more than £23bn in jobs and infrastructure in the UK since 2010.
"Last year we created 10,000 new jobs and last week we announced 1,000 new apprenticeships. This continued investment helped contribute to a total tax contribution of £1.1bn during 2019 - £293m in direct taxes and £854m in indirect taxes."
The government is currently reviewing the way in which the business rates system works, and is also separately considering a 2% tax on online sales and services.
But business lobby group the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) has warned that any tax rises would place additional pressure on businesses that are already struggling due to the pandemic.
CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
Taiwan punishes Deutsche Bank, others in currency speculation case
Sat, February 6, 2021
FILE PHOTO: Staff member stands beside the Taiwanese Central Bank logo in Taipei
TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan's central bank said on Sunday it had banned Deutsche Bank from trading Taiwan dollar deliverable and non-deliverable forwards and suspended it for two years from trading forex derivatives as part of a crackdown on speculation.
The Taiwan dollar is at a more than 23-year-high against the U.S. dollar as the island's trade-dependent economy booms on global demand for its tech products as people work from home. The central bank has been particularly concerned about a case where it said foreign banks helped grain companies engage in currency speculation through deliverable forwards, affecting the stability of Taiwan's foreign exchange market.
Sources told Reuters on Friday that the central bank had sent letters outlining punishments to Deutsche Bank, CitigroupInc, ING and Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd (ANZ) for their involvement.
Apart from the punishment for Deutsche Bank's Taipei branch, the central bank said in statement that ING and ANZ's Taipei offices would not be allowed to trade Taiwan dollar deliverable and non-deliverable forwards for nine months.
Citi's Taipei office would be suspended from trading Taiwan dollar deliverable forwards for two months, it added.
Citi and ANZ declined to comment. Representatives for the other two banks did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The punishments will come into effect on Monday, the central bank added.
Eugene Tsai, head of the central bank's foreign exchange department, told Reuters that transactions made by the banks in accordance with the rules before Friday had been completed on schedule.
He added that the punishment against Deutsche meant it would not be able to trade forex options or swaps.
The central bank announced its probe into the case last month, which it said involved eight grain-trading companies.
(Reporting by Liang-sa Loh and Ben Blanchard; Editing by Christian Schmollinger and Kim Coghill)
Taiwan Penalizes Deutsche Bank,
3 Others for Currency Trades
Cindy Wang and Miaojung Lin
(Bloomberg) -- Taiwan penalized Deutsche Bank AG and three other foreign lenders after a probe into speculation on the surging local currency last year involving grain companies.
Deutsche Bank’s trading approvals for Taiwan dollar deliverable forwards and non-deliverable forwards will be revoked, and it will be banned from engaging in transactions of foreign exchange derivatives for two years, the island’s central bank said in a statement Sunday.
ING Groep NV and Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. won’t be allowed to engage in Taiwan dollar deliverable forwards and non-deliverable forwards trading for nine months, while Citigroup Inc. is banned from Taiwan dollar deliverable forwards trading for two months, the central bank said. The penalties imposed on the local units will take effect on Monday.
The banks were notified of the punishments on Friday. Trades made before the notice won’t be affected, the central bank said.
Citigroup declined to comment. Deutsche Bank, ING and ANZ didn’t immediately respond to calls seeking comment outside of business hours.
Eight of Asia’s leading food traders, with the help of six overseas banks, built a combined $11 billion in their Taiwan dollar deliverable forwards positions as of the end of July, the central bank said last month. The positions were based on overseas physical grain trades deliberately transacted via their Taiwan units to speculate on the local currency, affecting market stability, it said.
Cargill Inc. and Louis Dreyfus Co. were involved, along with Deutsche Bank, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Standard Chartered Plc among others, Bloomberg News reported in January, citing people with knowledge of the matter. At least some of the trades were specifically designed to profit from the rising Taiwan dollar, the people familiar said.
The island’s dollar has strengthened almost 7% against the U.S. dollar over the past 12 months, among the region’s top performers, according to Bloomberg data.
The central bank settled with two lenders in November, it said Sunday, without identifying them. The six banks violated rules because the forwards trades had to be made based on their actual needs, the central bank said Sunday.
Deutsche Bank can reapply for the revoked trading approvals in the future depending on improvements, according to Eugene Tsai, the central bank’s director general of the Department of Foreign Exchange.
Taiwan’s central bank tightly regulates how much of its dollars foreign companies can accrue to avoid speculation on the currency. It had said the huge positions the commodity companies built up in deliverable forwards went beyond their actual business needs.
(Updates with probe from fifth paragraph.)
For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com
ROARING TWENTIES REDUX
The GameStop Phenomenon Is Hardly New. Here’s How a Similar Squeeze Played Out in 1923.
By
Kenneth G. Pringle
Piggly Wiggly’s innovative “self-service” grocery store in Tennessee, circa 1918.
Library of Congress
Long before GameStop, there was Piggly Wiggly.
In 1923, the supermarket company—which still does business in the South and Midwest—was at the center of a short squeeze/market morality play that echoes the recent frenzy around GameStop.
As with GameStop and other “meme” companies like AMC Entertainment, Piggly Wiggly was being sold short...
Piggly Wiggly is an American supermarket chain operating in the Southern and Midwestern regions of the United States, run by Piggly Wiggly, LLC, an affiliate of C&S Wholesale Grocers. Its first outlet opened in 1916 in Memphis, Tennessee, and is notable for having been the first true self-service grocery store, and the originator of various familiar supermarket features such as checkout stands, individual item price marking and shopping carts. The current company headquarters is in Keene, New Hampshire.
Carlsberg predicts surge in demand similar to Jazz Age
boom
Richard Milne, Nordic and Baltic Correspondent
Carlsberg is expecting a surge in demand this summer similar to a boom seen a century ago as more people are vaccinated and lockdowns lift, according to the Danish brewer’s chief executive. In the 1920s, after Spanish Flu and [the] first world war, there was a dramatic surge and you saw things like jazz clubs and ballroom dancing. Its global sales to pubs, restaurants and hotels fell by 20 per cent owing to lockdowns and although revenues from shops increased, it was not enough to compensate.
The Jazz Age is another title for the 1920's. When women became more independent. They were becoming more sexually appealing. They were arrested for wearing "skimpy" beach wear. During this time Jazz was becoming more popular. People would dance in the streets all night till everyone dropped to floor. Women would go to all night parties.
Rolls-Royce plans two-week shutdown of civil aerospace business Sun, February 7, 2021
File photo of an Airbus A350 with a Rolls-Royce logo at the Airbus headquarters in Toulouse
(Reuters) - Britain's Rolls-Royce said on Sunday it is proposing a two week operational shutdown of its civil aerospace unit over the summer as it manages costs due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The aero-engine maker has begun talks with unions on the shutdown and cost cutting at its civil aerospace unit, it said in an emailed statement.
"As we continue to manage our cost base in response to the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the whole commercial aviation sector, we are proposing a two week operational shutdown of Civil Aerospace over the Summer," it said.
Rolls-Royce's finances have been hit by the COVID-19 crisis as its airline customers have grounded planes. It warned last month that travel would be even more constrained than expected this year, leading to increased cash outflow.
(Reporting by Anirudh Saligrama and Sabahatjahan Contractor in Bengaluru; Editing by Alexander Smith)
How Scientists Shot Down Cancer's 'Death Star'
Gina Kolata Fri, February 5, 2021,
After 40 years of effort, researchers have finally succeeded in switching off one of the most common cancer-causing genetic mutations in the human body. The finding promises to improve treatment for thousands of patients with lung and colorectal cancer, and may point the way to a new generation of drugs for cancers that resist treatment.
The finding has already led to a new medication, sotorasib, by drugmaker Amgen. Other companies are close behind with their own versions.
Amgen tested its drug in patients with the most common type of lung cancer, called non-small cell cancer. The disease is diagnosed in 228,000 Americans a year, and for most patients in the advanced stages, there is no cure.
The new drug attacks a cancer-causing mutation, known as KRAS G12C, that occurs in 13% of these patients, almost all of whom are current or former smokers. Sotorasib made the cancers shrink significantly in patients with the mutation, Amgen reported last week at the World Conference on Lung Cancer.
On average, tumors in the patients stopped growing for seven months. In three out of 126 patients, the drug seems to have made the cancer disappear entirely, at least so far, although side effects included diarrhea, nausea and fatigue.
It already is routine to test lung cancer patients for the mutation, because they are often resistant to other drugs, said Dr. John Minna, a lung cancer specialist at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.
Amgen’s drug is not as drastically effective as some new cancer medicines, said Dr. Bruce Johnson, chief clinical research officer at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. But in combination with other drugs, those targeting specific mutations can change the course of the disease in many patients, he added.
For example, drugs targeting specific mutations in melanoma patients at first seemed unimpressive, but when combined with other medicines, they eventually changed prospects for patients with this deadly disease.
“The more I looked at it, the more optimistic I became,” Johnson said of Amgen’s new data.
While the KRAS G12C mutation is most common in lung cancer, it also occurs in other cancers, especially in colorectal cancer, where it is found in up to 3% of tumors, and particularly in pancreatic cancer. KRAS mutations of some type are present in 90% of pancreatic tumors.
How the off-switch was discovered is a story of serendipity and persistence by an academic chemist who managed the seemingly impossible.
In 2008, that chemist, Kevan Shokat, a professor at the University of California, San Francisco, decided to focus on the mutated gene. It had been discovered 30 years earlier in rats with sarcomas, a type of cancer that begins in bones and soft tissues.
Researchers found the mutation in human tumor cells, and then discovered that it was one of the most frequently mutated genes in cancers of many types. Different cancers tend to spring from different mutations in the KRAS gene and the protein it encodes. The G12C mutation occurs mostly in lung cancers.
The search for drugs to block previously discovered cancer-causing mutations was always straightforward: Researchers had to find a molecule that attached to the mutated protein and could stop it from functioning. That strategy worked for so-called kinase inhibitors, which also block a protein created by gene mutations. There are 50 approved kinase inhibitors on the market now.
KRAS was different. The gene directs production of a protein that normally flexes and relaxes thousands of times a second, as if it is panting. In one position, the protein signals cells to grow; in the other, it stops the growth. With the KRAS mutation, the protein remains mostly in an “on” position, and cells are constantly forced to grow.
The standard solution would be a drug that would hold the mutated protein in the “off” position. But that seemed impossible. The protein is large and globular, and it doesn’t have deep pockets or clefts on its surface where a drug could slip in. It was like trying to drive a wedge into a ball of solid ice.
“Our medicinal chemists referred to it as the Death Star,” said Dr. David Reese, executive vice president for research and development at Amgen. “It was so smooth.”
So Shokat and his colleagues began looking for a molecule that could do the trick. Five years later, after screening 500 molecules, they found one and discovered why it worked.
Their drug held the protein steady, making a crevice visible on its surface. “We never saw that pocket before,” Shokat said. The protein normally flexes and relaxes so quickly that the narrow groove had almost been impossible to see.
There was more good news. The drug attached itself to cysteine, an amino acid that occurs in the groove only because of the KRAS mutation. The drug worked only against the mutated protein, and therefore only against cancer cells.
“It is really specific,” Shokat said. “That’s what’s amazing.” He published his findings in 2013, causing a sensation in the field.
Reese, of Amgen, said that the data “gave us the proof that we could actually do this,” and that “it silenced many of the doubters.”
Shokat, too, began working on a drug, which is now being developed by Johnson and Johnson. At least eight companies have their own KRAS inhibitors in clinical trials.
Lung cancer is only the beginning, Shokat said. The next challenge is pancreatic cancer, one of the most lethal types: “KRAS is the signature mutation for pancreatic cancer,” he added.
Most patients have such a mutation, and while it makes the disease very difficult to treat, now it may also make the cancer particularly vulnerable. Researchers have already found drugs that seem promising.
Himalayan glacier breaks in India, around 125 missing in floods
People walk past a destroyed dam after a Himalayan glacier broke and crashed into the dam at Raini
By Devjyot Ghoshal and Manoj Kumar
Sun, February 7, 2021,
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Around 125 people were missing in northern India after a Himalayan glacier broke and swept away a small hydroelectric dam on Sunday, with floods forcing the evacuation of villages downstream.
A wall of dust, rock and water hit as an avalanche roared down the Rishiganga valley deep in the mountains of Uttarakhand, a witness said.
"It came very fast, there was no time to alert anyone," Sanjay Singh Rana, who lives on the upper reaches of the river in Raini village, told Reuters by phone. "I felt that even we would be swept away."
Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat said 125 people were missing but the number could rise. So far, the bodies of seven people had been recovered.
The disaster took place around 500 km (310 miles) north of New Delhi.
Uttarakhand is prone to flash floods and landslides and the disaster prompted calls by environment groups for a review of power projects in the ecologically sensitive mountains.
Earlier state chief secretary Om Prakash said 100 to 150 people were feared dead. A large number of the missing were workers at the 13.2 MW Rishiganga Hydroelectric Project which was destroyed by the bursting of the glacier.
Footage shared by locals showed the water washing away parts of the Rishiganga dam and everything else in its path. At least 180 sheep were washed away.
Videos on social media, which Reuters could not immediately verify, showed water surging through a small dam site, washing away construction equipment.
Twelve people who had been trapped in a tunnel had been rescued and efforts were under way to save others caught in another tunnel, the federal home ministry said after a meeting of the National Crisis Committee, comprising top officials.
"India stands with Uttarakhand and the nation prays for everyone’s safety there," Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Twitter.
State utility NTPC said the avalanche had damaged a part of its Tapovan Vishnugad hydropower plant that was under construction further down the river. It gave no details but said the situation is being monitored continuously.
Indian military helicopters were flying over the area and soldiers deployed for help with relief and rescue.
The neighbouring state of Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous, put its riverside areas on high alert.
'HIMALAYAN TSUNAMI'
It was not immediately clear what had set off the avalanche at a time when it is not the flood season. In June 2013, record monsoon rains in Uttarakhand caused devastating floods that claimed close to 6,000 lives.
That disaster was dubbed the "Himalayan tsunami" because of the torrents of water unleashed in the mountainous area, which sent mud and rocks crashing down, burying homes, sweeping away buildings, roads and bridges.
Uma Bharti, India's former water resources minister and a senior leader of Modi's party, criticised the construction of a power project in the area.
"When I was a minister I had requested that Himalaya is a very sensitive place, so power projects should not be built on Ganga and its main tributaries," she said on Twitter, referring to the main river that flows from the mountains.
Environmental experts called for a halt to big hydroelectric projects in the state.
"This disaster again calls for a serious scrutiny of the hydropower dams building spree in this eco-sensitive region," said Ranjan Panda, a volunteer for the Combat Climate Change Network that works on water, environment and climate change issues.
"The government should no longer ignore warnings from experts and stop building hydropower projects and extensive highway networks in this fragile ecosystem."
(Additional reporting by Saurabh Sharma, Krishna N. Das and Jatin Das; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani, William Mallard and Frances Kerry)
MARTINI GLASSES UNDER ICE
A unique formation of ice builds over
flowing water
Global Unions?: Theory and Strategies of Organized Labour in the Global Political Economy (Routledge Ripe Studies I Global Political Economy).
