Union alleges systemic harassment, discrimination at Veterans Affairs

OTTAWA — One of the unions representing workers at Veterans Affairs Canada is sounding the alarm over what it alleges is widespread harassment and discrimination within the department

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The Union of Veterans Affairs Employees says it surveyed more than 350 of its roughly 2,700 members in the fall, and found more than one in three had experienced some form of harassment in the workplace.

Meanwhile, the union reported that nearly one in five respondents had faced some sort of discrimination based on nationality, ethnicity, gender, sexuality or another factor.

“We should not be having so many instances of harassment discrimination happening within the department,” UVAE national president Virginia Vaillancourt said in an interview on Tuesday. “And some of these are at the senior executive level.”

Vaillancourt said the union, which represents front line workers and administrative staff at Veterans Affairs locations across the country, took its concerns directly to the department’s top managers.

But Vaillancourt, who said she was consulted on five discrimination cases last week alone, was unsatisfied with their answer, alleging they wanted to refer the issue to the department’s human-resources section rather than get personally involved.

“They always say that they value employees’ mental health, and that they want to ensure that people have a workplace free from harassment,” she said. “But that's not the reality of what our members are facing on a daily basis.”

The UVAE’s survey found more reported discrimination and harassment than a separate survey the government itself conducts each year.

In 2019, the wider survey found 13 per cent of Veterans Affairs employees had suffered harassment. Five per cent reported being victims of discrimination.

Both those results were a decline from the previous year.

Veterans Affairs spokeswoman Emily Gauthier noted those figures in an email on Tuesday, adding the governmentwide survey included more employees from the department than the one conducted by the UVAE.

The department has also set up a new organization to help employees facing workplace harassment or violence, Gauthier said, while training has been implemented alongside new rules banning misconduct across government.

Asked about the discrepancy between the governmentwide survey and the union’s results, Vaillancourt suggested members were more forthright to the latter because they took it more seriously and due to privacy concerns.

“We guaranteed their anonymity, where with the Public Service Employee Survey, we know the government is able to break it down into specific offices,” she said. “And if it's broken down into specific offices, there's some situations that can be identifiable.”

Veterans Affairs has faced significant pressure in recent years to deal with a growing influx of applications for assistance from former military personnel suffering from service-related illnesses and disabilities.

That influx has not been matched by added investment from the Liberals into the department, which was significantly slashed nearly a decade ago as part of the previous Conservative government’s budget-cutting efforts.

The result has been an explosion in wait times for services and delays in the processing of applications, which has resulted in a massive backlog that has become a source of anger for veterans and a black eye to the government and the department.

Vaillancourt said most of the harassment and discrimination reported by staff originated from within Veterans Affairs, including from supervisors and managers. Yet she said some comes from outside the department.

“We do have situations which it does involve veterans with cyberbullying and things like that,” she said. “We're still trying to deal with the department to find some sort of mechanism or process to deal cyberbullying.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 2, 2021.

Lee Berthiaume, The Canadian Press

Union says Bell Media cuts hit 210 employees in Toronto, half from newsrooms

CALGARY — The union representing some Bell Media workers says a total of 210 employees in the Toronto area are being laid off, with most of the notifications taking place Tuesday

.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

About 100 of the employees are union members and are connected to Toronto television newsrooms, while the non-union staff include administration and sales staff, said Howard Law, media section director for Unifor, on Tuesday.

The affected union members include field camera operators but not on-air television reporters, he said, declining to be more specific because some affected employees have not been notified yet.

"They're laying off camera operators which has to mean less news coverage, unless they expect everybody else to work twice as hard," Law said.

Some support staff are being laid off temporarily because certain local TV information shows aren't being made in-house during the COVID-19 pandemic, he added.

Bell Media wouldn't confirm the number of layoffs.

"There are further changes in roles, including some departures, reflecting Bell Media’s streamlined operating structure," said director of communications Marc Choma in an emailed response to questions from The Canadian Press.

"As the media industry evolves, we’re focused on investment in new content and technology opportunities while also ensuring our company is as agile, efficient and easy to work with as possible. That includes programming changes affecting some on-air positions, but I think it’s pretty clear by now that our policy is not to comment on individual employees."

He added departing employees will be supported with retirement or severance packages and career transition support.

Bell Media is part of BCE Inc.'s Bell Canada division, the country's largest telecommunications company. Its holdings include the CTV television network, specialty TV channels, radio stations and production studios.

In a news release Tuesday, Unifor's national office condemned the cuts being rolled out to CTV newsrooms across much of Bell Media's operations, saying the layoffs will cost the network many valued media workers just when their communities need them most.

“Since the beginning of the pandemic, Canadians have seen how important a strong media sector is to their continued health and safety,” said Unifor national president Jerry Dias.

“These cuts go against the assurances made by the broadcasters last summer to the CRTC (the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission) to stand by local news.”

It stated that Bell Media had laid off all of the staff in the newsroom of Montreal radio station CJAD.

Bell Media confirmed last month it had restructured its leadership team leading to some staff departures.

Shortly after Wade Oosterman took over as Bell Media's president, it parted ways with president of content and programming Michael Cosentino, senior vice-president of original programming Cornelia Coe and vice-president of regulatory affairs, content and distribution Kevin Goldstein.

The changes come as Bell Media puts greater priority on growing its streaming platforms.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 2, 2021.

Companies in this story: (TSX:BCE)

Dan Healing, The Canadian Press

REST IN POWER

Former AFL-CIO President; Brother John Sweeney dies at age 86

© Provided by The Canadian Press

WASHINGTON — John Sweeney, who spent 14 years steering the AFL-CIO through a time of declining union membership and rising internal dissent, has died. He was 86.

He died on Monday at his home in Bethesda, Maryland, AFL-CIO communications deputy director Carolyn Bobb said. The cause of his death wasn't immediately disclosed.

Sweeney was credited with transforming the nation’s largest labour federation into a political powerhouse more firmly aligned with the Democratic Party, as well as with civil rights, environmental and anti-poverty groups.

After stepping down as president of the labour federation in 2009, Sweeney served as the AFL-CIO’s president emeritus, offering advice to the group’s executive council, delivering speeches and taking on other discrete assignments.

The AFL-CIO's current president, Richard Trumka, said of Sweeney in a statement: “John was a great leader and true innovator, driving the labour movement forward. We stand on that foundation today as we take on the challenges of inequality, systemic racism and much more.”

Born in New York City, Sweeney was the son of working-class Irish immigrants, his father a bus driver and his mother a maid. His mother’s job cleaning houses made him sympathetic to the plight of low-wage workers, while his interest in organized labour grew during trips to union meetings with his father.

“Growing up, I saw what the union meant for my father,” Sweeney said in a 2013 speech. “The union won him the wage increases that let him save up $5,000 to buy a home — outside the city, in a promised land called Yonkers.”

After graduating from Iona College in New Rochelle, New York, Sweeney started work as a clerk for IBM. But he soon took a pay cut to become a researcher at the International Ladies Garment Workers Union.

Sweeney later moved to the Service Employees International Union, becoming the head of a 70,000-member New York City local. He became president of the entire union in 1980, nearly doubling its membership over the next 15 years from 625,000 to 1.1 million. His successes included the rowdy Justice for Janitors organizing campaign, though much of the SEIU’s growth came through mergers with smaller unions.

In 1995, Sweeney and several other union presidents unhappy with what they saw as the AFL-CIO’s lacklustre leadership forced the resignation of AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland. Sweeney later ran for the post and defeated Kirkland’s hand-picked successor, Thomas Donahue, in the federation’s first contested election.

“I have deep suspicions that we are becoming irrelevant to many of our own members,” Sweeney complained in surprisingly blunt terms during a 1995 speech.

When he came into the office, union membership had already shrunk to about 15% of the nation’s workforce. He pledged to beef up organizing and rebuild unions into the force they were in the 1950s, when about 1 in 3 workers was in a union.

Sweeney did build up the AFL-CIO’s political arm into a more effective machine for electing union-friendly officials at the federal, state and local level. The federation launched voter registration drives and expanded get-out-the vote efforts. Sweeney also started Working America, an AFL-CIO affiliate for people who didn't have a union at work. It now boasts more than 3 million members.

But overall union membership continued to decline on Sweeney’s watch, as the nation lost millions of manufacturing jobs and employers grew more resistant to union organizers. The losses led to more frustration by leaders who believed politics had become paramount at the expense of organizing new workers. The discontent boiled over after President George W. Bush was reelected in 2004, despite the millions of dollars unions had spent trying to help Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.

In 2005, several unions, led by the Teamsters and Service Employees, left the AFL-CIO to form a rival federation called Change to Win. The move damaged the AFL-CIO’s political heft and sapped millions of dollars in dues from its budget.

Despite the rift, Sweeney was reelected to another four-year term as president of the AFL-CIO. He was seen as a stabilizing force for the federation of 57 unions representing about 9 million workers.

“I loved what I did,” he said in a 2011 interview upon being awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honour. “I told my kids all the time how happy I was with my work. And, sure, there was a strike once in a while or something. That was really troubling. But, for the most part, satisfying working people was a mission that I had.”

Sweeney is survived by his wife, Maureen Sweeney; his son, John Sweeney Jr.; his daughter, Patricia Sweeney; a granddaughter, Kennedy Moore; and two sisters, Cathy Hammill and Peggy King. A brother, James Sweeney, died before him.

___

Biographical material in this story was written by former Associated Press writer Sam Hananel.

Dino Hazell, The Associated Press

 

Dolphins and whales play together in a rare moment

Nancy Black, who works for Monterey Bay Whale Watch, said that it was the first time she'd seen Pacific white-sided dolphin playing with gray whales

#Accelerate
The Accelerationist Reader
Robin Mackay
Armen Avanessian
(Editors)

ORIGINAL EDITION
£20.00 / $24.95
Paperback
175×115mm
536pp
E-book also available
Published with Merve Verlag
Cover Design: Leaky Studio
Type: Norm

FIND THIS BOOK AT:
Book Depository
Bookshop.org (US)
Blackwells (UK)
Waterstones (UK)
Barnes and Noble (US)
Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk
To support independent alternatives, try the Ethical Book Search.

E-book available direct from Urbanomic

Accelerationism
Artificial Intelligence
Capitalism
CCRU
Cyberpunk
Singularity
Technology

An engaging, eccentric anthology…it’s refreshing to encounter a ‘left’ project for the future that wants to reclaim the idea of technology, industry and planet-scale thinking.
—JJ Charlesworth, ArtReview

Accelerationism is the name of a contemporary political heresy: the insistence that the only radical political response to capitalism is not to protest, disrupt, critique, or détourne it, but to accelerate and exacerbate its uprooting, alienating, decoding, abstractive tendencies.

#Accelerate presents a genealogy of accelerationism, tracking the impulse through 90s UK darkside cyberculture and the theory-fictions of Nick Land, Sadie Plant, Iain Grant, and CCRU, across the cultural underground of the 80s (rave, acid house, SF cinema) and back to its sources in delirious post-68 ferment, in texts whose searing nihilistic jouissance would later be disavowed by their authors and the marxist and academic establishment alike.

On either side of this central sequence, the book includes texts by Marx that call attention to his own ‘Prometheanism’, and key works from recent years document the recent extraordinary emergence of new accelerationisms steeled against the onslaughts of neoliberal capitalist realism, and retooled for the twenty-first century.

At the forefront of the energetic contemporary debate around this disputed, problematic term, #Accelerate activates a historical conversation about futurality, technology, politics, enjoyment and capital. This is a legacy shot through with contradictions, yet urgently galvanized today by the poverty of ‘reasonable’ contemporary political alternatives.

CONTENTS
REVIEWS/PRESS
Introduction Robin Mackay Armen Avanessian PDF
Anticipations
Fragment on Machines Karl Marx
The Book of the Machines Samuel Butler
The Common Task Nicolai Fedorov
The Machine Process and the Natural Decay of the Business Enterprise Thorstein Veblen
Ferment
The Two Modes of Cultural History Shulamith Firestone
Decline of the Capitalist Mode of Production or Decline of Humanity? Jacques Camatte
The Civilized Capitalist Machine Gilles Deleuze Félix Guattari
Energumen Capitalism Jean-François Lyotard
Every Political Economy is Libidinal Jean-François Lyotard
Power of Repetition Gilles Lipovetsky
Fictions of Every Kind J.G. Ballard
Desirevolution Jean-François Lyotard
Cyberculture
Circuitries Nick Land
LA 2019 Iain Hamilton Grant
Cyberpositive Sadie Plant Nick Land
Cybernetic Culture CCRU
Swarmachines CCRU
Acceleration
Terminator vs Avatar Mark Fisher
#Accelerate Alex Williams Nick Srnicek
Some Reflections on the #Accelerate Manifesto Antonio Negri
Red Stack Attack! Tiziana Terranova
Automated Architecture Luciana Parisi
The Labor of the Inhuman Reza Negarestani
Prometheanism and its Critics Ray Brassier
Maximum Jailbreak Benedict Singleton
Teleoplexy Nick Land
Seven Prescriptions for Accelerationism Patricia Reed

Harnessing the Bay of Fundy: 

New platform has turbines like a boat's outboard motor

METEGHAN, N.S. — A large floating platform with six underwater turbines was launched Monday near the mouth of the Bay of Fundy, marking the latest high-tech bid to generate electricity by harnessing the bay's powerful tides.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Sustainable Marine Energy Canada started testing a smaller but similar catamaran-style platform near Nova Scotia's Brier Island in 2018. The bigger, second-generation platform is expected to undergo testing this winter and spring in the same area, known as Grand Passage.


It will be towed later this year to the bay's Minas Passage, near Cape Sharp, N.S., where it will be permanently installed in a test area that experiences the world's highest tides. The company describes the 420-kilowatt PLAT-I 6.40 platform as Canada's first floating tidal energy array. It is expected to produce 50 per cent more power than its predecessor.

The turbines look like inverted windmills and are designed to flip up for maintenance like a boat's outboard motor. The platform includes a turret that will allow it to align itself with the tidal flow. It was built by A.F. Theriault and Son Ltd. in Meteghan, N.S., the site of Monday's launch.

Sustainable Marine, whose Canadian office is located in Dartmouth, N.S., says its Pempa'q In-stream Tidal Energy Project will eventually include two other platforms, which will produce a total of nine megawatts of electricity — enough energy to supply 3,000 homes. Pempa'q is the Mi'kmaq word for "rise of the tide."

The federal government contributed $28.5 million to the project in November. Sustainable Marine's parent company is based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Its major shareholders include the Canadian government, Schottel GmbH of Germany and Scottish Enterprise, based in Glasgow.

"This tidal technology is the result of a tremendous international effort combining world-class scientific and engineering expertise from our German, Scottish and Canadian teams," Jason Hayman, CEO of Sustainable Marine Canada, said in a statement released Monday. "(It) is the culmination of a decade of research and development."

The Bay of Fundy has been the site for several tidal turbine demonstration projects over the years. In 2009, an in-stream prototype turbine that sat on the bottom of the Minas Passage was torn apart by the bay's powerful currents, which can move at 18 kilometres per hour.

In November 2016, a larger turbine built by Cape Sharp Tidal was hooked up to Nova Scotia's electric grid — a historic first — but the turbine was later removed for inspections and servicing in June 2017.

In July 2018, Cape Sharp Tidal successfully connected a massive, two megawatt in-stream tidal turbine to the grid. But the venture collapsed a day later when one of its owners, Dublin-based OpenHydro, was forced into bankruptcy proceedings.

In November 2018, court documents revealed the turbine had been damaged beyond repair only two months after it had been deployed on July 24, 2018. The inoperable turbine is still sitting on the floor of the bay.

— By Michael MacDonald in Halifax.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 1, 2021.

The Canadian Press

SEE

The Fragment on Machines

Opinion: My great-grandmother exposed lynchings. This is what she would say about the Capitol riot


The mob action that took place at the US Capitol two weeks before the inauguration was a reminder that most White and Black Americans live in different worlds with vastly different realities.

© Courtesy National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution Ida Bell Wells-Barnett

Most White people in America have the privilege to express their anger, to have their humanity recognized and their grievances heard even when they are loud, rowdy or destructive. There is a privilege to being able to scream at police officers and be met with compassion and patience.

There is a privilege in feeling free enough to assemble in large numbers armed with assault weapons, to storm federal buildings, crash through windows, roam around a seat of power, take selfies, brandish flags with racist symbols -- and leave unharmed. There is a privilege in being considered an individual making personal choices versus an example of an entire race.

This feeling of freedom to take a violent approach to express feelings of being wronged is an extension of the unbridled barbarism and oppression my great-grandmother Ida B. Wells lived through over 100 years ago. Born into slavery in 1862, Wells came of age during Reconstruction.

The progress of Black people was met with rage and violence then, too. Hate groups formed and reigns of terror were unleashed. Black people were murdered with impunity for minor infractions or accusations of crimes. Mob rule ran rampant and more often than not, no White person involved in the murder of a Black person was ever held accountable. The idea that they were "taking their country back" was the motivation for rolling back the gains achieved by Black Americans back then -- and it echoed in 2021.

Every Black person I know who watched the insurrectionists storm the Capitol on January 6 saw America's disparate racial realities in the in-your-face exhibition of White privilege on steroids. A deeply wounding reminder of all we cannot do.

For us, it is not about wanting the freedom to commit violent acts. It is about wanting to see people prosecuted for those acts rather than feel they can commit them without consequences. It is about wanting Black people to receive the same grace by police as those who were gently escorted out of the capitol after breaking, entering, and desecrating it.

Black people know from 400 years of experience in this country that we do not have the freedom to express anger without being considered threatening -- and sometimes shot or killed. We do not have the freedom to brazenly enter the halls of power shirtless with painted bodies and headdresses and be regarded as individuals who are legitimately expressing ourselves. Then, be served organic food upon request once arrested days later.

This is the reality Black Americans have known all along. Emboldened White people feel they have to right to question the presence of Black people in school dormitories, in coffee shops, in parks, in parking lots while listening to music. Police officers shot and killed Botham Jean and Breonna Taylor in their own homes. And then of course the murder of George Floyd, broadcast for the world to see, showed how police response to Black people's minor transgressions can result in death.

As I watched the mob of so-called "patriots" storm the Capitol with minimal law enforcement present, the fact that some of the vigilantes had plastic zip ties and weapons and walked away unharmed was mind-boggling. It reminded me of how mobs in the late 19th and early 20th centuries gathered to participate in and watch lynchings of Black people, take pictures of each other's gleeful faces and convert them into postcards, and absolutely no one was arrested for murder.

In fact, Wells concluded there were times that law enforcement officers were either part of the mob or did nothing to stop them. She wrote in the 1893 "The Reason Why" pamphlet: "The mob spirit had increased with alarming frequency and violence. Over a thousand black men, women and children have been thus sacrificed the past ten years. Masks have long since been thrown aside and the lynchings of the present day take place in broad daylight." My great-grandmother would have probably been disappointed but not surprised that lawless White men today are met with a wink and a nod.

The history of White citizens policing Black people and railing against Black progress is centuries-long -- from slave patrols, Black codes and sundown towns to today's harassment of people in driveways of their own homes. Wells documented hundreds of lynchings that took place during her time.

When Black people have expressed anger and wanted to fight for the right to be free in the nation of their birth, the response has often been one of brutal militarized force. The entire summer of 2020 was an example of that. And the summer of 2014, the spring of 1968, the summer of 1919 and more. Time and time again, when Black people have shown up and expressed their pain and rage, we are treated as threatening criminals who need to be oppressed and controlled.

Meanwhile, on January 6 the Capitol mob proudly displayed nooses and a Confederate flag while the whole nation watched. Federal prosecutors have charged over 100 defendants in connection with the Capitol riot. And yet, during the January 13 impeachment hearings dramatic false equivalencies were made between those who protested police brutality and social oppression during the summer to those who tried to violently overturn an election result they did not like. Again, conflating Black anger and hurt with criminality, while shrugging off White mayhem and destruction.

So, in the midst of the joy and pride I felt on Inauguration Day watching Kamala Harris take the oath to assume the second most powerful political position in the land, my elation was tempered by the fact that huge swaths of this country's population resent her being there. Resent us being here. I can celebrate the fact that her achievement was made possible by the work of thousands of women, including Wells, in the suffrage movement and all of the freedom fighters who endured indignities over the decades. On January 20 there was a sense of hope that the dreams of our ancestors can come true.

We have experienced a century of laws that made way for racial progress -- however morality and human decency cannot be legislated. My great-grandmother spent her life fighting for justice and equality so the next generations could enjoy the benefits of being treated as first-class citizens in this country. Black parents today want the same for their children and subsequent generations. We can take pride and joy in the milestone of a Black/South Asian woman breaking social and political barriers, while also acknowledging the unfinished work toward racial equality and justice that lies ahead.

© Courtesy Women's Suffrage Centennial Commission A mosaic of Ida B. Wells designed by artist Helen Marshall pictured on August 24, 2020 in Washington, DC.

© Philip Dembinski Michelle Duster

Opinion: Even in dead of winter, appreciate our life-giving wetlands


During the cold, short days of winter on the Prairies, we rarely think about wetlands. They are frozen and covered with snow, there are few obvious signs of wildlife activity, and our thoughts are elsewhere at this time of year, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. But as the days get noticeably longer and we look forward to spring, we can also recognize and celebrate World Wetlands Day.

© Provided by Leader Post Saskatchewan's wetlands are a precious resource.

World Wetlands Day is celebrated around the world each year on Feb. 2 in recognition of the anniversary of the signing of the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance in Ramsar, Iran, in 1971. This year is the 50th anniversary of this historic signing and the theme for 2021 couldn’t be more fitting: Wetlands and Water, Inseparable and Vital to Life.

Over the decades, Saskatchewan has seen many landscape changes and, unfortunately, many of these have resulted in lost wetland benefits. Saskatchewan does not have a wetland inventory and is the only Prairie province without a wetland policy.

There have been positive developments of late, and signs are favourable that Saskatchewan is moving in a direction that identifies the importance of these vital resources to the people of our province.

The formation of the Global Water Futures Program (GWF) is one promising example. GWF is a University of Saskatchewan-led research program that will deliver risk management solutions to manage water futures in Canada and other cold regions where landscapes, ecosystems and the water environments are changing as a result of global warming.

Under the GWF umbrella, Prairie Water works to address pressing concerns specific to the Canadian prairies, such as water availability, aquatic ecosystem health, and water management practice and governance. Results from ongoing research efforts of GWF and Prairie Water will be important to the people of Saskatchewan and will help with efforts to develop a provincial wetland policy.

The value of water to all living things is recognized, but other aspects of prairie wetlands are also worthy of our appreciation. Wetland plants provide homes and feeding places for many species. Wetlands filter and purify water and fight climate change by storing carbon in the soil. Wetlands also reduce the impacts of flood and drought.

To this end, Ducks Unlimited Canada maintains that we need wetlands now more than ever. Developments resulting in the loss of wetland benefits should follow a true mitigation sequence to avoid harm to wetlands where possible, reduce impacts to wetlands if avoidance cannot be achieved, and finally, as a last resort, compensate for wetland loss. Compensation includes restoration to capture lost environmental benefits; wetlands must be replaced with wetlands.

As recent initiatives in Saskatchewan promise to help move our province toward the implementation of a wetland policy, there is cause for hope; hope that by truly mitigating for development and conserving remaining wetlands, we can help address the impacts of climate change, enhance biodiversity and prosper from the positive economic spinoffs of sustainability, resulting in improved public trust and increased market access.

With hope and anticipation, we look forward to celebrating a beneficial wetland policy for Saskatchewan on World Wetlands Day 2022.

Michael Champion is head of industry and government relations for Ducks Unlimited Canada’s Saskatchewan division.

Russian Fabergé exhibition contains 'at least 20 fakes', expert says

A Russian museum has been asked to end a Fabergé exhibition, which contains items loaned from the personal collection of a billionaire, after a prominent expert said it contained more than a dozen fakes.

© Provided by The Guardian Photograph: Alexander Demianchuk/Tass

In a letter, the art dealer Andre Ruzhnikov accused the Hermitage Museum’s director, Mikhail Piotrovsky, of “destroying the authority of the museum” by hosting the Fabergé: Jeweller to the Imperial Court show, which runs until 14 March.

Ruzhnikov told the Guardian that the exhibition included at least 20 fakes, and that he thought the exhibition, which is the first big Fabergé event at the St Petersburg institution since 1993, should close immediately.

He said: “I want the shame to end. I want this show to be closed and forgotten, and that’s it. You cannot subject the Hermitage to such shame.”

The Hermitage and Ivanov have denied the claims and the billionaire produced documents that support the authenticity of the items that were loaned from the Fabergé Museum in Baden-Baden, which he established in 2009.

Piotrovsky and the Hermitage did not respond to a request for comment.

Earlier Piotrovsky directed press to the show’s catalogue preface, which says: “The authenticity of each fresh item that appears on the market can always be challenged and disputed … the consensus of the expert community is not easy to obtain and is often lacking.”

One of the items at the centre of the Hermitage dispute is a Wedding Anniversary Egg that was purportedly gifted by Czar Nicholas II to Empress Alexandra on their 10th wedding anniversary in 1904.

Last year a Fabergé researcher DeeAnn Hoff raised discrepancies with the item, including the claim that some of the portraits on the egg were based on recently colourised photographs taken after 1904.

Hoff also said that the portrait of the Czar seemed to come from an outdated photograph from 1894 that pictured him with four rather than five medals that he wore on his uniform from 1896 onwards.

Related: Kneel before the bus! Soviet roadside wonders – in pictures

Russian interest in Peter Carl Fabergé, the St Petersburg-based jeweller whose workshop officially supplied the Russian imperial court from 1885 until the revolution in 1917, has boomed in recent years, fuelled partly by patriotism with about 80% of buyers in the market estimated to be Russian speakers.

© Photograph: Alexander Demianchuk/Tass The Hermitage museum and Ivanov have denied the claims.

As interest has risen, Ivanov has become a leading intermediary – connecting collectors with Fabergé items. “There’s always a queue of people who want to buy things for me,” he told the Independent in 2010. “If I’ve bought it, people know it’s worth something.”

Ivanov rose to prominence in Europe after making several high-profile Fabergé acquisitions, including a £9m purchase of an egg that once belonged to the Rothschild banking dynasty and was the subject to a dispute over a missing VAT payment.

Ivanov served in the Soviet navy before starting business enterprises – including selling Amstrad computers at significant markups to Soviet factories – before becoming one of Russia’s most prominent Fabergé buyers alongside oil billionaire Viktor Vekselberg, who opened a rival Fabergé museum.

 

Thai villagers worship termite's nest that looks like a young boy

Duration: 00:51 

Superstitious villagers are worshiping a termite's nest believed to be the ghost of a young boy. The 60cm high nest made from dried mud baffled locals when it was found in the middle of a forest in Surin, Thailand on January 27.