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Robots, big data as Gulf nations bet on AI
Wednesday, 17 Nov 2021


Visitors walk past a robot outside the Dutch pavilion at the Expo 2020, in Dubai, a sign of things to come for the Gulf, where new cities are being built from scratch with AI at their core. — AFP

Robots puttering around Dubai's hi-tech Expo site could be a sign of things to come for the Gulf, where new cities are being built from scratch with artificial intelligence at their core.

The 5G-enabled Expo, covering an area twice the size of Monaco, will remain as a "city of the future" and tech industry hub, Expo's chief told AFP before its grand opening last month.

But the US$7bil (RM29.21bil) project, featuring robots that greet visitors and can be used to order food, is not alone in the wealthy Gulf, where petro-dollars are being invested heavily in a post-oil future.

Neighbouring Saudi Arabia is lavishing US$500bil (RM2.08tril) on NEOM, a brand new, next-generation Red Sea tech centre that will offer ultra-connectivity to its planned population of one million-plus, and is trialling airborne taxis.

AI is also at the heart of other Saudi developments including the Red Sea Project, a new tourist area that will use smart systems to monitor environmental impacts and visitor movements.

Analysts say the Gulf monarchies are willing to bet big on AI, knowing they must move away from their reliance on fossil fuel industries and become more active in tech, tourism and other areas.

"You've got very forward (-looking), somewhat risk-loving leadership that sees the need to transform," said Kaveh Vessali, a partner at consultancy firm PwC Middle East.

"I think that's just completely the opposite of what I see in the rest of the world."

Automated transport

Artificial intelligence courses in Bahrain primary schools, the UAE's plans for automated delivery drones and Dubai's ambition to have 25% of all transport automated by 2030 offer further evidence of the Gulf's tech aspirations.

The Middle East is predicted to receive only 2% of the estimated US$15.7tril (RM65.52tril) global AI economy by 2030, according to PwC.

But analysts say the Gulf countries – Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and UAE – are playing the long game, positioning themselves to leapfrog global players.

The annual growth rate of the Middle East AI market is about 20-34%, led by the UAE and then Saudi Arabia, PwC said in a report, predicting that more than 10% of each of the two countries' GDP will come from AI by 2030.

"Governments have the luxury of being more strategic," said Vessali, citing the 20 and 50-year plans which are a hallmark of Gulf governments.

"This is unheard of a) in the private sector, and b) in the West," he adds.

Vessali said most AI companies in Gulf states are fully, or at least semi, governmental, with comparatively low pressure to generate short-term returns.

However, the region has a history of investing in companies which did not become particularly profitable, outside a few core industries such as oil and gas, he warned.

'Streamlined' decision-making

While the region might be known as culturally conservative, its AI strategies are better characterised as liberal and aggressive, according to some local players.

In 2017, the UAE appointed its first minister of state for artificial intelligence, Omar bin Sultan al-Olama, to spearhead the country's AI strategy, launched that same year.

The UAE has said it aims to become one of the leading nations in AI by 2031, creating new economic and business opportunities, and generate up to 335 billion dirhams ($91 billion) in extra growth.

"The region seems to classify being left behind on new technologies as a bigger risk than anything else," said Cesar Lopez, the CEO of Datumcon.

"Taking the risk to do what others aren't has attracted and built business," he told AFP.

The data and AI solutions company based in the UAE and Saudi Arabia is using computer vision to scan and identify damaged containers at Jebel Ali port in Dubai, one of the world's busiest, operated by logistics company DP World.

But despite the Gulf's AI investments, the lack of reliable and accessible data sets, which are at the core of these systems, remain a barrier.

"It's going to take a few years to get there because the data isn't mature enough for it yet (in the region)," said Stephen Rawson, an associate at American consulting firm Oliver Wyman.

While Gulf countries have been better at centralising data across different governmental platforms, other leading countries have managed better data sets for longer.

But being newer to data collection has its advantages, said Rawson, as Gulf countries can generate cleaner data to create more streamlined AI systems.

"They are empowered to do this more than they would be in the West," said Rawson, because with private enterprises, "getting them to work and play nice will only work if there's a profit margin incentive for all of them." 

– AFP

Northern American businesses are ordering robots to meet consumer demands amid a labour shortage in the country. But are robots coming after the jobs of humans? Palki Sharma tells you more.

VIDEO

Gravitas: US companies hire robots to fill jobs amid labour shortage, Gravitas News | wionews.com

The labor crunch is helping to feed the 

rise of the robots: Morning Brief

Javier E. David

·Editor focused on markets and the economy

Tue, November 16, 2021,

Tuesday, November 16, 2021

How ‘I quit' is leading to 'I, Robot'

Last week, two separate but related labor market themes caught my attention.

After Thursday’s news that employees walking off the job hit yet another record in September, a report from Reuters showed that North American companies added a record number of robots this year to bolster assembly lines, in a bid to alleviate the well-chronicled labor crunch (a hat tip on this article goes to economic commentator James Pethokoukis, who runs one of my favorite reads on the global economy).

Citing data from the Association for Advancing Automation, Reuters pointed out that industrial firms rang up nearly $1.5 billion worth of robots (29,000 to be exact) — a whopping 37% more than the comparable period in 2020. Separately, Google Cloud research in June showed that two-thirds of manufacturers using artificial intelligence (AI) are relying more heavily on it.

The Morning Brief has ruminated about the impact of the labor shortage and its close blood relative, the Great Resignation. Connecting the seemingly disparate threads, it poses a burning question: Are workers reluctant to fill open jobs — or stay put in them, for that matter — sowing the seeds of humanity’s eventual demise in the labor force?

However irrational, the theme that human workers should fear the dawn of our robot overlords is hardly a novel one. Yet like everything else in the pandemic-era, the fallout from COVID-19 has poured accelerant on an already raging fire. With conditions worsening, we cannot help but wonder if workers are hastening the rise of automation in a way that displaces human labor — but in a more permanent way?

Earlier this year, Yahoo Finance’s Dani Romero reported how stressed out restaurants, which have raised pay to little avail, are leaning on technology to meet heavy demand, and fill the gaps left by a shortage of employees.

By all indications, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that the worker shortage is hastening the rise of robotics and advanced technology to address demand that has mostly defied a slowing economy and the dramatic supply crunch.

In an appearance on Yahoo Finance Live last week, Brooklyn Dumpling Shop founder Stratis Morfogen waxed eloquent about his establishment’s use of self-ordering kiosks, powered by a smartphone app that lets the consumer grab and go in a creation he calls the “Automat.”

The centerpiece of the Automat is a contraption Morfogen described to The New Yorker as “The Monster.” The founder likened it to the conveyor belt that once bedeviled Lucille Ball in a classic episode of “I Love Lucy.”

For those who haven’t read, The Monster is a machine that can crank out tens of thousands of gourmet dumplings... in an HOUR. Chances are the machine won’t demand time off, ask for a raise — or be reluctant about getting vaccinated.

In fact, Morfogen is expanding the format to drive thrus, where tricked-out order technology will allow clients to “come in and out of our drive-thru [while] having zero communication with our staff. It’ll all be remote control, phone operated and with QR codes,” Morfogen told Yahoo Finance.

“COVID exposed a lot of [the restaurant industry]... we didn’t even have an online platform for ordering, we didn’t even have a social media presence, and I think hospitality learned their lesson, we have to embrace technology to make a model here,” the entrepreneur said.

“If we can get our payroll down to 15-20% instead of the industry normal of 32%, we’re not just saving one restaurant... we’re really changing the game on the industry for making it a more efficient model,” Morfogen added.

Along with previously stagnant wages, the idea that robots are coming for all of our jobs has been a major labor market theme for at least a decade — and is at least one reason behind why people found that viral video of a Boston Dynamics robot so frightening.

None of this obviates the need to pay workers fair wages, or treat them better. And there’s only so much a robot can do, given that there’s simply no equivalent for uniquely human qualities like empathy and situational judgment.

However, the longer workers quit, hold out, or put upward pressure on wages in ways that aren’t sustainable, the more we can expect employer desperation to grow in the face of resilient demand. And the more we can expect to see unsettling headlines about how the robot revolution — think Amazon’s recently-announced Alexa-powered automaton, Astro — is upon us.

You heard it here first.

By Javier E. David, editor at Yahoo Finance. Follow him at @Teflongeek

Did Karl Marx Predict Artificial Intelligence 170 Years ...

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zolaist.org/wiki/images/a/a8/Marx_and_the_Machine.pdf · PDF file

Marx and the Machine. As an aside in a discussion of the status of the concepts of economics, Karl Marx wrote: "The handmill gives you society with the feudal lord; the steam-mill, society with the industrial capitalist. 

Chile's Senate declines to impeach president over business deal revealed in Pandora Papers


Issued on: 17/11/2021 - 

Chilean President Sebastian Pinera will not face impeachment after opponents failed to rally enough votes in the Senate

MARTIN BERNETTI AFP/File

Santiago (AFP) – Chile's Senate declined Tuesday to impeach President Sebastian Pinera over a business deal revealed in the Pandora Papers leaks, refusing to go along with the lower chamber of Congress in opening proceedings against him.

The vote was 24 in favor of impeachment, 18 against and one abstention. Those voting to charge the billionaire president with corruption needed at least 29 votes to pass the measure.

"The defense has forcefully disproven each one of the facts that are presented as causes of this impeachment," Senator Francisco Chahuan, from Pinera's center-right National Renewal party.

This means the case is closed, with no punishment of Pinera over the controversial sale of a mining company in 2010 when he was serving the first of two non-consecutive terms.

If impeached, Pinera could have risked up to five years in jail.

Applause could be heard coming from the presidential headquarters of the Palacio de La Moneda after it became mathematically clear that lawmakers had summoned enough support for the president to avoid impeachment, even though a dozen senators still had to add their own votes.

Pandora Papers

The Pandora Papers highlighted offshore transactions involving major political figures around the world.

They linked Pinera to the sale of a mining company called Dominga, through a company owned by his children, to businessman Carlos Delano, a close friend of the president, for $152 million.

The papers said a large part of the operation was carried out in the British Virgin Islands, a tax haven.

Chile's opposition has said Pinera benefitted himself and his family with the sale through information he had in the exercise of his office.

It says Pinera's involvement pushed up the sale price.

The Chamber of Deputies voted last week to open impeachment proceedings.

"Acting as president, he benefited (himself) and his family in a direct way, with information that he had in the exercise of his office," opposition lawmaker Jaime Naranjo said at the time.

The call for the impeachment of Pinera -- who is in the final stretch of a second term that began in March 2018 -- was presented in early October by members of the opposition, who took 15 hours last week to read the charges against the president, apparently to allow one lawmaker to complete a quarantine period and still be allowed to vote.

Pinera, one of the richest men in Chile, has denied any wrongdoing and said he was cleared in a 2017 investigation of the transaction.

When the new investigation was opened last month, Pinera said he had "full confidence that the courts, as they have already done, will confirm there were no irregularities and also my total innocence."

It is the second impeachment case brought against Pinera, after an unsuccessful attempt to remove him from office in 2019 over an at-times brutal crackdown on protesters angry over the yawning gap between rich and poor in Chile.

Chileans are set to head to the polls November 21 to elect Pinera's successor and a new congress before the president's term ends in March.

© 2021 AFP

Reports from the land: N.W.T. hunters and trappers describe unusually warm fall

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Temperatures in October were, on average, 4.2 C warmer

 than last year

Liny Lamberink · CBC News · Posted: Nov 16, 2021 

Allen Kogiak stands in front of a snowmobile that he raised off the ground in May 2021, to prepare for flooding in Aklavik, N.W.T. The fall brings different climate change concerns. He's worried about people travelling on ice that is late to freeze, and what the future will look like for his grandchildren. (Kate Kyle/CBC)

Our planet is changing. So is our journalism. This story is part of a CBC News initiative entitled Our Changing Planet to show and explain the effects of climate change and what is being done about it.

---

A member of the Aklavik Hunters and Trappers Committee, who describes his job as being the "eyes and ears of the land," says the late arrival of cold weather in the N.W.T. is "going to have effects, down the line." 

Allen Kogiak told CBC News a little more than a week ago that ice on the Peel Channel was taking a "long time" to form because of the mild fall temperatures — and that the river was still open in various places. 

But people were already using the "young ice" for travel by snowmobile.

"In my opinion, right now, it's kind of scary because of all that open water," he said. "In the past there's been a lot of drowning, because of people … driving right into the water. Hoping that doesn't happen this year." 

Throughout October, the daily minimum temperature in Yellowknife (reflected by the top-most line on the graph below, in red) was on average 4.2 C warmer each day than it was last year (reflected by the line that drops the lowest, in green).

The minimum temperatures were also several degrees warmer than the most recent 30-year average (the straight line, in blue) for each day, as calculated by Environment Canada, from 1981 to 2010.

The Great Slave Snowmobile Association posted its first ice thickness assessment for bodies of water around Yellowknife on Sunday. It said no body of water had reached a thickness of six inches yet — which is the measurement at which the City of Yellowknife says people can walk on it.  

By Nov. 15 last year, all those bodies of water had ice that was more than six inches thick.

• 'Fatal things can happen:' Yellowknife locals, experts warn of thin ice

 

The late start to the freeze up has been noticed across the territory. 

"Around here like, the water should be frozen," said Arthur Elleze, 50, from Fort Providence on Nov. 7. "It's still flowing, probably still good to go for a boat ride. And that's really, like, unusual." 

'Everybody shot a moose'

Elleze, who hunts and traps for his parents and regularly eats harvested meat, said he's noticed a change in animal behaviour too. 

"Was a lot of moose this year," he remarked. "Everybody shot a moose." 

A woman works on a piece of moose hide. Members of the Dene Nation, including Dene artist Melaw Nakehk'o, travelled to Nain, N.L., to teach members of Nunatsiavut how to work with moose hide in 2019. (Submitted by Melaw Nakehk'o)

Warmer temperatures in northern regions of Canada, brought about by climate change, mean more moose are migrating further north.

Bob Norwegian, a Fort Simpson resident who has helped the territory's environment and natural resources department with moose counts in the past, has noticed the change too. He said the presence of moose used to follow a pattern, and there would be lots of them every seven years or so. 

"But the last few years ... every year, they seem like they're plentiful."

Temperatures impact pelt quality

If an unusually warm fall across the territory is the signal for a warm winter, Elleze said it would also impact pelts that are harvested by trappers like himself. A short, warm winter leads to lesser quality pelts. 

"You need the cold weather for the fur to really change," he explained.

For example, a beaver fur harvested now would be in a state of transition, with a mix of red and brown colour, he said. In the dead of winter though, it would be "really dark, dark brown." 

Furs from the N.W.T.'s Genuine Mackenzie Valley Furs program on display in the office of Francois Rossouw, a furbearer biologist with the territory's Department of Environment and Natural Resources. (John Last/CBC)

Norwegian, who said he does a "little trapping" for marten in the winter, said if you were to skin a marten in September, the inside of the hide would be black and you would almost be able to pluck out its fur. 

"And then, as it gets really cold and wintry, when you skin the hide, on the inside it's pure white and when you're trying to pull on the hair, it's really, really tight," he explained. 

"That's the way they like them."

Trappers are given a base price for a pelt by a local game warden. Then, if it sells for higher at the fur auction in Ontario, the trapper is reimbursed the difference. Norwegian said a marten pelt would automatically earn a trapper $65 last year. 

Fewer cold days

Norwegian has been keeping a journal every day since the 1970s, where he records temperatures, "how the ice is behaving, and all that sort of thing."

He's noticed a change in the climate over the past few decades, and said temperatures seldom got down to -50 F in the 70s. At the time, he said weather temperatures were discussed in Fahrenheit. Canada switched to the Celsius temperature scale in 1975. 

Norwegian said his uncles and his dad were born back in the 1920s, and "they used to get to about 62 or 65 below zero in this neck of the woods." A temperature of -65 F is the equivalent of -53.9 C. 

CBC News looked at Environment Canada records in Fort Simpson as far back as 1920, and found that the coldest temperature on record was -56.2 C on Feb 1, 1947. 

Here's how many days temperatures hit -50 C or below in Fort Simpson, by year: 

• Two days in 1933.
• Three days in 1934.
• Two days in 1935.
• Three days in 1936.
• One day in 1939.
• Six days in 1947.
• One day in 1968.
• Two days in 1975.

According to Environment Canada's data, no day has hit -50 C or below in Fort Simpson since 1975.

"[You're] lucky if you see -42 anymore, for just a couple of days, and then it's back up to about -35," said Norwegian. "People figure that's really, really cold. But it isn't." 

A look-out spot from a frosty trail outside Yellowknife on Nov. 3. (Liny Lamberink/CBC)

Although science points to greenhouse gas emissions as the source of a warming climate, Norwegian doesn't believe the changes he's seeing are a human-made problem. Elleze and Kogiak, however, certainly do.  

"I think we're starting to see the effects of our damage to the Earth," said Elleze. Pointing to temperatures that are getting "warmer and warmer," he said "it's not the way I grew up in the bush ... it's not the same."

• Anxious about your impact? This N.W.T. man says he's been carbon neutral for 15 years

• How the North is doing when it comes to Canada's climate targets

Kogiak, meanwhile, worries about what the future will look like for his five grandchildren. 

"It's already going full speed with climate change," he said. 

"The only way we can mitigate it is trying to reduce our footprint."

CLIMATE CYNIC

Terry Glavin: The scale of the disaster unfolding in B.C. is unprecedented

The sheer damage to basic infrastructure caused by the flooding is catching everyone unprepared

Author of the article:Terry Glavin
Publishing date:Nov 16, 2021 

 

Abandoned transport trucks are seen on the Trans-Canada Highway in a flooded area of Abbotsford, British Columbia, on Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2021. 

PHOTO BY DARRYL DYCK /Canadian Press


VICTORIA — At some point in the coming days the penny will drop, and we’ll all be seized of the implications attending to the ongoing disaster on Canada’s west coast. First the rain, then the wind, and soon, everything will be freezing. For starters, if you think the Canadian economy is beset by global “supply chain” bottlenecks now, you just wait.

The Port of Vancouver, North Fraser, Fraser-Surrey Docks and Deltaport are now cut off from the rest of Canada, by road and by rail. Both CN Rail and CP Rail are assessing the extent of the damage to their rail lines in the Fraser Valley and Fraser Canyon districts. Neither company knows when the trains will be moving again.

The worst rail disruptions may last only a few days, but the Coquihalla Highway — the main road route connecting Metro Vancouver with British Columbia’s southern interior and points east, with roughly three-quarters of a million commercial truck transits every year — is gone. Deputy British Columbia Premier Mike Farnsworth says it may take “several weeks or months” to re-open the highway.

Owing to several washouts and mudslides, the old southerly route — Highway 3, snaking through the Cascades, Monashees and Selkirk mountains to the Crowsnest Pass in the Rockies — is impassable. The Fraser Canyon route, northward from Hope, about 130 kilometres east of Vancouver, has been smashed by rockslides and waterfalls that burst out of nowhere from the Coast mountains over the weekend.

CP Rail is looking to divert shipping traffic via Portland, Oregon, but restoring east-west overland connections by American routes won’t be easy. Washington State is a mess, too. Floodwaters from the Nooksack River have poured across the Canada-U.S. border into the Fraser Valley. Sumas Lake, an ancient waterbody drained to create farmland back in the 1920s, is a lake again today. Thousands of people have been evacuated.

About 280 kilometres east of Vancouver by a now non-functioning road, the Tulameen and Similkameen Rivers broke their dykes and burst their banks on Monday, and the rivers are now flowing through much of the town of Princeton. The temperature is dropping below freezing, the natural gas line that heats local homes is broken, the town’s water systems are wrecked, and nobody knows when things will be “normal” again.

While Princeton was drowning, the Coldwater River was venting its rage on the town of Merritt, 90 kilometres north of Princeton, and the entire community has been shut down because of the “immediate danger to public health and safety.” Roughly 7,000 people have been ordered to make their way to emergency centres in Kamloops and Kelowna.

And that’s just a snapshot of the misery British Columbians are enduring.

The devastation from last summer’s heat wave and its wildfires disrupted rail and road transport too, and while the immediate human cost was far greater, it was nothing like this, in terms of damage to basic infrastructure and transportation capacity. Five months ago the province was on fire and everybody prayed for the healing rain, but B.C.’s provincial authorities appear to have been as unprepared for the shock of the “atmospheric river” that has deluged British Columbia as they were for the “heat dome” that hovered over the province for those six brutal days in June.

The heat broke dozens of temperature records. The town of Lytton was quickly incinerated following several days of killing heat. At one point Lytton was 49.6 C, hotter than anywhere on any day in Canadian history, hotter than Death Valley that day, hotter than anything ever recorded above the 45th parallel anywhere on the planet. And yes, of course what happened last summer, and what is happening now, are catastrophes consistent with models developed by the International Panel on Climate Change, going back decades, that predicted extreme weather events set in motion by global warming.

And yes, the just-concluded COP26 extravaganza in Glasgow was seized of all this, despite the chasm that persists between what the world’s presidents, prime ministers, strongmen and supreme leaders say they’re prepared to do, and what the loudest activist voices say we all need to do. But we could do with a lot less of the punditry making the rounds to the effect that the crisis on Canada’s west coast is a teachable moment, or some sort of consciousness-raising opportunity, to the effect that Canadians need to wake up about the reality of climate change. We’re awake, already. Only one in ten Canadians subscribe to the notion that human activities have no meaningful impact on global climate. British Columbians, perhaps particularly, have been awake for years.

The fact remains that Canada’s contribution to the loading of greenhouse gases in the upper atmosphere is less than two per cent, and while we owe it to the planet, to humanity and to ourselves to scale back the damage we’re doing, what is needed more than anything is preparedness, armouring, hunkering down a bit. And Canada is doing a lousy job of that. British Columbia is clearly doing a lousy job of that. Canada is warming at twice the global rate, and in the interior and the north, it’s more like three times the global rate. Bicycle lanes and electric cars aren’t going to do much about that.

Last summer, B.C.’s Emergency Health Services didn’t get the province’s emergency operations centre up and running to coordinate the response to the killing heat dome until things started to cool down. And now we have Mike Farnworth, who is supposed to be B.C.’s public safety minister, shrugging off the province’s latest excesses of unpreparedness by pointing his finger at local municipalities.

The B.C. Alert system that’s supposed to send text messages to British Columbians in harm’s way wasn’t activated, and it should come as cold comfort to the hundreds of British Columbians trapped overnight between highway mudslides that Farnsworth says the problem was with local communities and their local emergency plans.

At least Environment Canada issued a warning last Friday that the atmospheric river was headed towards the coast. That’s something, you could say. But it took hours on Sunday for Emergency Info B.C. to start issuing notices, and they sounded a lot like the sort of thing everybody on the B.C. coast is accustomed to in any November.

This isn’t any November. The world has changed. The climate has changed. There are things we can do, and there are things beyond our control. One thing we can do is hold off on the hectoring “we told you so” global-warming taunts, and spend more time focusing on how to take care of one another. We should be getting ready for the worse that’s bound to come.

Let’s start there.

AH A KUMBAYA ENDING DUCK AND COVER WITH A BIG HUG ALL AROUND

WITH NARY A WORD ABOUT LACK OF INFRASTRUCTURE FUNDING UNDER AUSTERITY BUDGETS PROVINCIAL AND MUNICIPAL OVER THE PAST DECADE OR MORE

Humanitarian activists to face criminal charges in Greece

AFP

November 17, 2021
 

JOHN MACDOUGALL / AFP

German-Irish volunteer Sean Binder and Syrian refugee Sarah Mardini, who was held in Greece on migrant smuggling charges, give a press conference in Berlin, Germany, on December 12, 2018.

Human Rights Watch said the activists provided 'life-saving aid to migrants and asylum seekers'

Two dozen humanitarian activists who helped migrants reach Greece three years ago face charges including espionage and criminal membership in a trial opening Thursday on Greece’s island of Lesbos.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) this week said the activists provided "life-saving aid to migrants and asylum seekers,” and accused Greek authorities of "criminalizing rescuers.”

Two of the defendants, Syrian refugee Sarah Mardini and Irish national Sean Binder, already spent over three months in police custody and face five-year prison sentences over the incident, their lawyer Haris Petsikos told AFP.

But the pair - who were conditionally released in December 2018 and immediately left Greece - are also in line for a related felony investigation which will be tried separately.

Overall, 24 activists are on trial for their alleged affiliation with Emergency Response Centre International, a non-profit search-and-rescue group that operated on Lesbos and in Greek waters from 2016 to 2018.

Mardini, who now lives in Berlin, has a seven-year ban on returning to Greece and will not attend Thursday's trial.

She told HRW that she was "scared" to volunteer again.

"At least we’re out of detention now, but we want this to be over. You get so exhausted. This has been a dark three years," the Syrian refugee said.

Mardini traveled by boat from Turkey to Greece in 2015 as an asylum seeker from Syria.

When the engine failed, she and her younger sister helped save others on board by swimming and keeping the boat afloat until it reached Lesbos.

China silent on tennis star Peng Shuai despite growing concern, Djokovic 'shocked'

Issued on: 16/11/2021 
Video by: FRANCE 24

Novak Djokovic expressed his shock Monday at the 'disappearance' of Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai, who has not been heard from since accusing a powerful politician of sexual assault. Peng claimed earlier this month that former vice-premier Zhang Gaoli had assaulted her, the first time the #MeToo movement has struck at the top echelons of the ruling Communist Party. Chinese officials have refused to answer questions on the fate of the former world number one doubles player.

Naomi Osaka 'shock' adds to growing calls over fate of Peng Shuai

Tue, 16 November 2021

Naomi Osaka added her voice to growing concern about Peng Shuai

 (AFP/William WEST)

Four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka said that she was in "shock" about fellow tennis star Peng Shuai, who has not been heard from since alleging that a powerful Chinese politician sexually assaulted her.

Osaka added her voice to growing concern within tennis about Peng's fate, with men's number one Novak Djokovic and numerous other players in recent days saying they were deeply worried about her.

The 24-year-old Osaka wrote a short statement on Twitter, where she has 1.1 million followers, accompanied by #WhereIsPengShuai -- a hashtag which has been widely used on social media.

"Censorship is never ok at any cost, I hope Peng Shuai and her family are safe and ok," the Japanese former world number one wrote.

"I'm in shock of the current situation and I'm sending love and light her way."

Pressure is growing on Chinese authorities to clarify the status of the 35-year-old Peng, a former Wimbledon and French Open doubles champion.

Peng alleged on the Twitter-like Weibo earlier this month that former vice-premier Zhang Gaoli had "forced" her into sex during a long-term on-off relationship.

It was the first time the #MeToo movement has struck at the top echelons of China's ruling Communist Party, but the post was swiftly deleted and nothing has been heard from Peng since.

The Women's Tennis Association called Sunday for Peng's claims to be "investigated fully, fairly, transparently and without censorship".

WTA chairman Steve Simon told The New York Times that they had information that she "is safe and not under any physical threat".

China has remained quiet about Peng and its national tennis association did not respond to AFP requests for comment.

Details of Peng's accusations have been scrubbed from China's heavily censored Internet.

pst/dh

COMMUNIST ART AS LUXURY MCM

New York auction smashes record for Frida Kahlo work


Issued on: 17/11/2021 

A Sotheby's worker arranges the Frida Kahlo self-portrait "Diego y yo," in New York on November 15, 2021 ANGELA WEISS AFP

New York (AFP) – A rare painting by Frida Kahlo sold in a New York auction house Tuesday for almost $35 million, a record price for a work by the iconic Mexican artist.

At the same sale, a painting by French artist Pierre Soulages also broke a record for his work by reaching $20.2 million dollars.

As expected, the self-portrait of Kahlo entitled "Diego y yo" ("Diego and me," 1949), where the face of the painter's husband Diego Rivera appears on her forehead, smashed the former record of $8 million set by a Kahlo in 2016.

That made it the most expensive Latin American work of art in history sold at auction, the previous record having gone to a painting by Diego Rivera himself,
whose work "Los Rivales" (1931) sold for $9.76 million in 2018.

"Diego y yo" is emblematic of Kahlo's self-portraits, known for their intense and enigmatic gaze that made the Mexican painter, a feminist icon, famous around the world.

In the painting, Rivera's face appears on Frida's forehead, above her distinctive eyebrows and dark eyes from which a few teardrops fall.

The depiction of Rivera, who at the time was close to Mexican actress Maria Felix, as a third eye symbolizes the extent to which he tormented her thoughts, art experts say.

Kahlo and Rivera married each other twice. She died aged just 47 in 1954.

"Diego y yo" last sold at Sotheby's for $1.4 million in 1990.

Soulages' painting, which had spent more than 30 years in a private collection, corresponds to the red period of the century-old French artist.

It sold for $20.2 million after a heated battle between several bidders, some of them in Sotheby's auction room and others on the phone, greatly exceeding the previous record reached in 2019 of $9.6 million euros in Paris.

© 2021 AFP

Record-Setting Frida Kahlo Portrait Tops Sotheby’s $282 M. Modern Art Evening Sale

BY ANGELICA VILLA

ART NEWS
November 16, 2021 

Frida Kahlo "Diego y yo" during the press preview for Sotheby's Marquee Evening Sales starring the Macklowe Collection, New York, NY, November 5, 2021.SIPA USA VIA AP

Following its record-high $676 million sale of the widely anticipated Macklowe collection in New York on Monday night, Sotheby’s staged a modern art evening sale the following evening that brought in a collective $282 million with fees.

This sale achieved a near perfect sell-through rate, with 46 out of the 47 lots offered finding buyers. More than half of the lots were secured with financial backing; 25 works from the sale had irrevocable bids, meaning 78 percent of the works would sell for at least their pre-sale low estimate. Before the sale, three lots were withdrawn, including a 1932 Georgia O’Keefe painting (estimated at $8 million) and a Henry Moore sculpture. Overall, the lots that went to auction Tuesday night hammered at $240.5 million, landing solidly within its pre-sale expectation of $192.2 million–$266.9 million.

Sotheby’s European chairman, Oliver Barker, returned to the auction podium at the house’s York Avenue headquarters in New York to lead the two-hour evening sale, the second of its four marquee sales this week. Attendees filled the audience of the house’s revamped salesroom, accompanied by new digital frills which were sponsored by electronics company Samsung.

Claude Monet, Coin Du Bassin Aux Nympheas, 1889.

SIPA USA VIA AP

The sale’s top lot was Claude Monet’s Coin du bassin aux nymphéas (1918), a water lilies still-life scene that sold for $50.8 million. Coming to the sale with an irrevocable bid, it hammered at $44 million, healthily above its low $40 million estimate. It went to a bidder on the phone with Sotheby’s Mexico City office representative Lulu de Creel, who triumphed over two bidders in Hong Kong to win it. According to Artnet News, the work was being sold by engineer and MIT Museum board member Ronald Cordover, who lent it a 2020 exhibition devoted to the French painter that traveled to the Denver Art Museum and the Museum Barberini in Potsdam, Germany. He purchased it at auction in 1997 for $6.7 million.

But it was a 1949 self-portrait by Frida Kahlo that stole the show. Held in a private collection for some 30 years, it sold for a record-setting $34.9 million. The painting depicts the artist gazing tearfully at the viewer with an image of her husband, Mexican painter Diego Rivera, superimposed on her forehead, serving as a kind of third eye. Blitzing past Kahlo’s $8 million auction record, the work hammered on a bid of $31 million (just above its low estimate) to a client on the phone with Sotheby’s New York private sales representative Ana di Stasi.

Sotheby’s revealed after the sale that the winning bidder was Argentine financier Eduardo F. Costantini. One of the world’s top collectors and the founder of the private museum MALBA in Buenos Aires, Costantini is no stranger to breaking auction records for Latin American art.

Kahlo’s painting, a response to Rivera’s infidelity, also bested the previous auction record for a work by a Latin American artist, held since 2019 when one of Rivera’s works sold for $9.8 million. In a statement following the sale, di Stasis said, “You could call tonight’s result the ultimate revenge, but in fact, it is the ultimate validation of Kahlo’s extraordinary talent and global appeal.”

Another new auction record was set for French centenarian Pierre Soulages. His 1961 black-and-red abstract canvas for $20.1 million with fees, after a protracted bidding spar between Sotheby’s chairman in Switzerland, Caroline Lang ,and Sotheby’s chairman of Europe, Helena Newman. When it hammered for hammered for $17.3 million to Newman’s client, the salesroom broke into applause. More than doubling its estimate of $8 million, the result exceeded the artist’s previous auction record of $10.6 million set in in November 2018 when a 1959 painting sold at Christie’s in New York.

Sotheby’s specialists bidding during a modern art evening sale in New York on November 16, 2021.SOTHEBY'S

Another big-ticket item that outpaced expectations was an untitled hanging mobile sculpture made of painted metal sheet and wire by Alexander Calder. Three bidders between New York and London, including one in the auction room, drove the hammer price up to $16.9 million, well past its $10 million estimate. The piece sold for a final price of $19.7 million. The current seller purchased it at Christie’s two decades ago for $1 million.

Salvador Dali’s L’Angelus (1934-35), a minuscule painting of two male and female silhouetted figures divided by a blue body of water, also surpassed its estimate, going for a final price of $10.7 million. The lot, which has been held in the same collection for three decades, more than doubled its estimate of $4 million.

Other noteworthy sales came throughout the auction. A 1933 portrait of a child holding a stuffed teddy bear, titled Portrait de Mademoiselle Poum Rachou, by Art Deco darling Tamara de Lempicka sold for $7.8 million, against an estimate of $3.5 million. The seller purchased it at auction in 2009 for $2.9 million. A vibrant abstract canvas titled Berkley #6 (1953) by Richard Diebenkorn was sold by the family of developer Jay I. Kislak for $5 million to raise funds for the collector’s family foundation.

Following the record sale of the Kahlo, lots by female Latin American surrealists also found success on Tuesday. Leonor Fini’s Les Aveugles (1968), which depicts two floor-bound women in an embrace that was exhibited in Fini’s 2018-2019 retrospective at the Museum of Sex in New York, sold for $867,000, more than three times its estimate of $200,000. A Remedios Varo painting of two figures in a dream-like interior scene, Les feuilles mortes (1956), sold for $2.8 million, exceeding its high estimate of $2 million.

Unlike others sales this week and last at Christie’s and Sotheby’s, tonight’s modern art auction fielded far more bidding from the U.S. and Europe, than it did from Asia. Though the sale was highly managed with behind-the-scenes financial deals that typically hamper bidding, competition among buyers was still spirited and many of the sale’s lots met expectations after all.

The Macklowe Collection Delivers an Eye-Popping $676 Million at Sotheby’s, Making It the Most Valuable Sale in Company History

The 35-lot sale, the result of the couple's bitter divorce, was the biggest test of the high-end art market since March 2020.

Katya Kazakina, 

November 15, 2021

The Macklowe Collection sale. Photo courtesy of Sotheby's.


The high-end art market breathed a sigh of relief as trophies from the Macklowe Collection by artists including Mark Rothko, Alberto Giacometti, and Jackson Pollock generated an eye-watering $676.1 million at auction on Monday.


The highly anticipated event was ordered by the court as part of the bitter divorce between real-estate developer Harry Macklowe and his museum trustee ex-wife Linda. The 35 lots offered on Monday were expected to bring $444 million to $619 million. Every single one sold and Sotheby’s heralded the results as the most valuable sale in its history. More Macklowe material will be offered in May.

“I am very, very pleased and happy,” Harry Macklowe said after the auction. “I feel very privileged.”

Both warring exes attended the event, though Linda—who has been credited as the lead architect of the collection, and who fought unsuccessfully to keep the works from hitting the auction block—watched from a skybox and did not speak to the press. Harry, sporting a long, richly patterned scarf around his neck, said he is as proud of the collection he built with his ex-wife over six decades as he is of any of his buildings.

Sotheby’s billionaire owner Patrick Drahi and Harry Macklowe in front of Jackson Pollock’s Number 17, 1951. Photo: Katya Kazakina

The sale was the biggest test of the high-end art market since the world went into lockdown 19 months ago. While the mood in the room was subdued and competition for many of the lots was relatively sparse, international bidding from 25 countries boosted the results. Four artworks fetched more than $50 million—twice as many as sold in all of 2020. The average lot price was, astoundingly, $19.3 million.

Like at Christie’s 21st century auction last week, the lion’s share of the offerings—almost 80 percent of the sale’s estimated value—was backed by irrevocable bids, meaning those works were essentially presold. While a necessary part of financial wizardry, such arrangements often dampen live bidding, as was the case with several key lots at Sotheby’s.

“Financing is part of the competitive landscape,” said Evan Beard, head of private business services at Bank of America. “They are managing risk like an investment bank does.” Sotheby’s won the consignment in part by guaranteeing the former couple a minimum price no matter what happened at the auction.


Mark Rothko, No. 7 (1951). Photo courtesy of Sotheby’s.

The top lot of the night was Rothko’s No. 7 (1951), snapped up by a client of the chairman of Sotheby’s Asia for $82.5 million. The eight-foot-tall canvas featuring horizontal bands of pink, yellow, and orange, which had never before appeared at auction, was expected to bring in $70 million to $90 million. It fell just short of setting a new auction record for the Abstract Expressionist, whose top price is $86.9 million. (Final prices include buyer’s premium unless otherwise noted; pre-sale estimates do not.)


Giacometti’s Le Nez (1947), a haunting post-World War II sculpture of a bronze head with an extremely long, pointy nose, hammered for $68 million, below the low estimate of $70 million. The final price with fees came to $78.4 million, smack in the middle of expectations. After the sale, Justin Sun, the BitTorrent CEO and Chinese cryptocurrency investor who was the underbidder for Beeple’s $69.3 million NFT, tweeted that he was the buyer of the sculpture. Sotheby’s had previously confirmed the buyer came from Asia.

Out in force, Asian bidders also pursued works by Willem de Kooning, Agnes Martin, and Gerhard Richter.


Giacometti’s Le Nez and Warhol’s Nine Marilyns. Courtesy of Sotheby’s.

Not every high price was orchestrated in advance. Pollock’s Number 17, 1951, a painting of inky black swirls that resemble a very complex Rorschach test, was a surprise success. It sold for $61.6 million, smashing its $35 million high estimate and surpassing the artist’s previous record of $58.3 million, set for a more characteristic drip painting in 2013.

Martin’s Untitled #44 was another less expected hit. Estimated at $6 million to $8 million, the 1974 Minimalist canvas was acquired by the Macklowes the year it was made. It ended up selling for $17.7 million, a record for the artist, after being chased by five bidders.

Cy Twombly’s 18-foot-wide untitled painting of dripping red flowers on a light green background sold for $58.8 million, on the upper end of its $40 million-to-$60 million estimate. The Macklowes also acquired it the year it was made, in 2007, from Gagosian gallery in New York. Each work in the show was priced at $5 million, according to Matthew Armstrong, the former curator of Donald Marron’s collection, which bought another piece from the series. (“Ours was the best of the bunch,” he added.)


Cy Twombly, Untitled (2007). Image courtesy Sotheby’s.

Two paintings by Andy Warhol also landed among the top 10 lots. Nine Marilyns (1962) sold to its guarantor for $47.4 million, against the estimated range of $40 million to $60 million. It was initially bought by art advisor Jude Hess, but Sotheby’s reopened the lot later in the sale; it ultimately sold for $1 million less than she had bid. It was unclear whether the unusual move was due to a case of buyer’s remorse; Sotheby’s couldn’t immediately explain what happened.


While some experts had worried in the run-up to the sale that the top-quality collection might fail to attract the same level of excitement as hot, in-demand emerging artists have in recent months, the heavyweight prices proved that the top of the market has emerged from lockdown strong, even if the air up there is comparatively thin.

Sotheby’s worked hard to ensure it would deliver. In addition to lining up a phalanx of guarantees, the auction house sent the works on tour to Taipei, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Shanghai, London, Los Angeles, and Paris before they arrived in New York. (Once they got there, the company also invited music stars and social-media influencers for a private tour.) More than 27,000 people attended the previews around the world.


The scene at Sotheby’s Macklowe Collection sale. Photo: Katya Kazakina.

Sotheby’s has six more auctions to go this week, offering over $400 million worth of art. Rival Christie’s generated $1.1 billion from its series of sales last week.

But it’s the Macklowe auction for which this season will be remembered. The sheer number of masterpieces offered at once was unprecedented, according to Oliver Barker, the evening’s auctioneer.

“Tonight was the kind of sale auctioneers dream about,” he said after the event. “It’s probably a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”

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