CAPITALI$M BY ANY OTHER NAME
'Throwaway economy' thwarting climate goals: report

Researchers said national climate pledges to reduce emissions focus narrowly on fossil fuel use and ignore the mounting global appetite for stuff (AFP/CHARLY TRIBALLEAU)

Kelly MACNAMARA
Tue, January 18, 2022, 5:01 PM·3 min read


Countries are neglecting the massive impact of the "throwaway" economy on planet-warming emissions, according to research published Wednesday that calculated more than half a trillion tonnes of virgin materials have been consumed since the 2015 Paris climate deal.

From clothing to food, planes to buildings, research by the organisation Circle Economy estimates that 70 percent of greenhouse gas emissions are linked to the manufacturing and use of products.

But in its annual report on the state of the world's use of materials, researchers said national climate pledges to reduce emissions focus narrowly on fossil fuel use and ignore the mounting global appetite for stuff.


Matthew Fraser, head of research at Circle Economy, said the report aimed to look beyond just fossil fuel use and the transition to green energy and ask about the emissions implications of using fewer resources.

"What if we reimagine our relationship with stuff, what would that bring us? Actually, it is quite significant," he told AFP.

The report estimates that if the economy were more circular, reducing resource extraction and consumption by 28 percent, then the world could meet the Paris warming target of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

But only a third of nations' climate pledges mention the circular economy as part of their emissions goals, the report said.

It warns that humanity is consuming 70 percent more virgin materials than the world can safely replenish.

- Economic 'metabolism' -

The analysis looks at global material flows based on national import and export figures and translates them into estimates of materials used -- and reused.

It calculates annual resource use has grown from 89.8 billion tonnes in 2016 to more than 100 billion tonnes in 2019 and estimated it at 101.4 billion last year.

Circle Economy found that almost all of the materials extracted go to waste, with just 8.6 percent of materials recycled in 2020, what they call the circularity gap.

That is an even lower proportion than in 2018, when reused materials were 9.1 percent of the total, as the global demand for more things surges.

"Even though we are getting more efficient with how we use materials -- computers are getting smaller, cars are becoming lighter, recycling is getting better -- these micro gains in efficiency just aren't stacking up relative to the total increasing demand," said Fraser.

The report identified a number of practices across sectors from food production to transportation that it said could help rein in the ever-expanding use of virgin materials.

Fraser said the model that enables people in richer countries to buy products from all over the world to be delivered within hours and days "will inevitably have to change".

The report also weighed strategies like enabling electrical goods -- which contain critical raw materials including gold, silver and cobalt -- to be repaired, redesigning items to be easier to recycle, restricting single-use plastics and renting items like cars rather than buying them.

One sector it identified as having a significant opportunity to reduce its materials footprint was buildings and construction, where Fraser said current practices were far from sustainable.

He said government policy would be needed occasionally to reconfigure the economic incentives that make reusing resources more expensive than using new ones -- stressing that this should be seen as an integral part of efforts to curb global warming.

But Fraser said for now the issue remains a significant blind spot for governments, which he said do not pull together data of their countries' materials footprint.

He added that people in the future may ask tougher questions about whether materials can be recycled before they are even used.

"Could we become more strict about the metabolism of our economy? Just like you wouldn't eat junk food all the time," he said.

"I think in the future that could become more and more prominent."

klm/mh/imm

Chile's first lady elect to give role feminist makeover

Issued on: 18/01/2022 - 

Irina Karamanos (left) says the role of first lady needs to be remodeled to fit the 'times' Javier TORRES AFP/File

Santiago (Chile) (AFP) – Irina Karamanos, the partner of Chile's president elect Gabriel Boric, announced on Tuesday she would take on the official role of first lady but vowed to make it more feminist.

Boric was elected president a month ago and on March 11 will assume office as his country's youngest ever leader at just 35.

Social science graduate and political activist Karamanos, 32, has been in a relationship with Boric since 2019.

Karamanos said on Tuesday that after several weeks of reflection she has decided to "take on the role traditionally called first lady with a commitment to reform it."

The function of first lady is not an officially defined one but traditionally involves looking after several social organizations.

Karamanos said reforming the role would involve "adapting it to the times."

"Also, as a feminist I think this position -- and it seems contradictory to take it on as a feminist -- in reality is mostly a challenge that we can exploit to talk about different themes and display a new way of exercising power," she added.

Karamanos said transgender people and child migration would be two topics on her agenda.

She is currently in charge of the Feminist Front in the Social Convergence party led by Boric.

© 2022 AFP

Housing: Rethinking the space we need to live

Millions of homes will need to be built for booming city populations in the coming decades. The construction sector is a major greenhouse gas emitter, so what can the industry do to cut CO2?



Over 2 million new apartments were built in Germany in the past decade, but many people still struggle to find affordable housing


In Germany, construction projects are eating away 52 hectares (129 acres) of land — the equivalent of 73 soccer pitches — every day, according to the Environment Ministry.

A significant chunk of that is for building new homes, as well as industry and commerce facilities. This constant construction has implications for the environment — it can affect wildlife habitats, arable soils, carbon storage and floodwater drainage.

The government wants to limit the development of new land to 30 hectares a day by 2030. At the same time, it has pledged to build 400,000 new units every year to ease a severe shortage of affordable housing.

According to Anna Braune, director of research and development at the German Sustainable Building Council, tackling the climate crisis and meeting housing demands in cities will require a rethink of how space is used.

The average German has about eight times more living space than someone in Nigeria

"We have doubled our personal space in the last 50 years," she told DW's On the Green Fence podcast. "We still have the idea of having big spaces, building for the family, the nest that is only usually used for 20 years if you have kids ... and then everybody moves out and does something else. I don't think it's very attractive for the future."

In 1960, the average German had just 19 square meters (204.5 square feet) of living space. Three decades later that had grown to 34 square meters. And today, another 30 years on, it's 47 square meters. There are a number of reasons for that, such as higher levels of wealth, more and more people living alone, and an aging population — the proportion of people living alone rises with age. Senior citizen households usually include only one or two people, and the average living space per person (60 square meters) tends to be higher than in younger households (40 square meters).

More space usually means more CO2

The size of our homes is significant because generally, the larger the space, the more building materials that are needed for construction and the more energy that is needed for heating and cooling.

"Every square meter saved is half a ton of carbon emissions saved" over the building's life cycle, Braune said. To put that into perspective, half a ton of CO2 is about the same as a one-way flight from London to Singapore emits per passenger.

Buildings account for almost 40% of greenhouse gas emissions in Germany. And while improving energy efficiency and using climate-friendly materials can limit the carbon footprint of a home, Braune said there should be more awareness about the role of space.

Rather than 47 square meters, Braune said 20-30 square meters might be more reasonable for the average person.

Germans have slightly more living space than the European average. That's about eight times more than Nigerians. While people in the US claim almost twice as much living space as Europeans.

Building challenge of the future

Providing adequate housing for a growing global population while attempting to keep carbon emissions in check is going to be a mammoth challenge over the coming decades. Around half of the buildings projected to exist in 2060 haven't been built yet, according to the Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction.

In the next 30 years, 2.5 billion more people are expected to flock to cities, mainly in Africa and Asia.

"There is no doubt that we have to build spaces for all these people, but now the question is how we build it, and where do we provide not just houses but living conditions that are fair," Braune said.

One possibility to address the lack of city housing and space, she said, is sharing.
Reemergence of cohousing

Helen Jarvis, a professor of social geography engagement from the UK's University of Newcastle, has been researching cohousing setups in Australia, Britain and other countries. Cohousing is a type of community jointly owned and managed by multiple people or families. Individuals typically have their own private space, while also having access to common areas with shared facilities such as a laundry room, tool workshop or guest dining room.

"I do see the future as being far more about infrastructures of sharing, not private ownership, and that of course addresses affordability as well as ecological sustainability," Jarvis said.

Although collective living is as old as housing itself, she added, it is experiencing a reemergence today.

Using tiny spaces

Another trend that has gained traction in recent decades, partly in response to environmental and affordability concerns, is the tiny house movement. Berlin-based architect Van Bo Le-Mentzel founded the NGO Tiny House University in 2015 to create cheap, 10-square meter tiny houses with. While he thinks it's a good idea for people to downsize, even he stresses that tiny spaces are not the answer.

"If you're forced to live in a tiny space, you can get crazy after a while," Le-Mentzel said. Rather, he said tiny houses could be useful as an extension to a small home or as part of a community with access to a bigger shared house.

"But if you want to make sure that 7 billion people have access to a community space, of course the individual space needs to be smaller," Le-Mentzel said.

Berlin-based architect Van Bo Le-Mentzel came to Germany from Laos as a refugee in 1979

Smaller spaces might be cheaper and account for fewer CO2 emissions, but Le-Mentzel said the tiny house movement should be viewed critically: "The tiny house buyers often own not only one apartment, but two apartments and several homes. ... And, in addition to that, now they add a very nice tiny house to their belongings."

Repurposing existing buildings is another way to create homes without using undeveloped land. A study from Germany's Technical University of Darmstadt and Eduard Pestel Institute found that up to 2.7 million apartments could be created in Germany's inner city areas by converting or building stories on top of offices, administrative buildings, pharmacies and parking garages, for example.

Pandemic highlights problem of loneliness

The coronavirus pandemic caused a global drop in emissions from the building and construction sectors, reaching lows not seen since 2007, the Global Status Report for Buildings and Construction found. That lull isn't expected to last, however.

Professor Jarvis said the past two years also yielded other insights into the meaning of our homes.

"The pandemic has really shone a light on loneliness. People living alone, social isolation and an aging population is a big motivator for looking again at cohousing," she said.

"We shouldn't all be living in single family dwellings where inevitably one in four of us are going to be just one person living alone, for many, many decades," she added.

TINY HOUSES: IN SEARCH OF THE SIMPLE LIFE

The cabin at Walden Pond

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately." Such were the words of American writer and philosopher Henry David Thoreau, who lived in isolation in a small cabin at Walden Pond in the US state of Massachusetts from 1845 to 1847. Over a century later, his way of living became one of the inspirations for a new back-to-basics lifestyle — to become known as the tiny house movement.

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GUNRUNNER TO THE WORLD
German weapons exports hit record with bumper Egypt sales

Arms exports from Germany brought in record revenue during 2021, with just under half coming from Egypt. The ministry responsible said the new "traffic light coalition" government wants tighter regulation.


Weapons systems from Diehl Defense were among those approved for sale to Egypt

Arms sales to Egypt boosted Germany's weapons exports to record levels in 2021, according to government figures released on Monday.

Preliminary figures from the Economic Affairs and Climate Action Ministry show that Germany exported arms worth €9.35 billion euros ($10.65 billion) last year — 61% up on 2020.

The previous record was about €8 billion in 2019, with only €5.82 billion worth exported during 2020, as the coronavirus pandemic hit.
Where are the weapons going?

Arms exports with a volume of €3.4 billion had been made to EU countries, NATO partners and NATO-equivalent-status countries (Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland and Japan).

About €5.95 billion went to so-called third countries not included in that list. Of those, by far the highest spender was Egypt, to which some €4.34 billion of goods — principally air defense systems and maritime equipment — were exported.

Human rights activists accuse the Egyptian government of serious rights abuses and involvement in both the conflicts in Yemen and Libya.

The top 10 countries buying arms from Germany in 2021 are: Egypt (€4.33 billion), the United States (€1.01 billion), the Netherlands (€821 million), Singapore (€630 million), Australia (€264 million), the United Kingdom (€226 million), South Korea (€187 million), Austria (€170 million), Brazil (€144 million) and Switzerland (€137 million).

Watch video 46:38 Future wars — and how to prevent them

Stricter export controls planned

The Economy Ministry, which has been led by Green Party co-leader Robert Habeck since December, said the previous grand coalition government of the Social Democrats and Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives was principally responsible.

According to the ministry, a tougher line on where and which weapons would be exported was envisaged under the current government.

"This federal government sees a restrictive approach to arms exports and will, in accordance with the guiding principles in the coalition agreement, develop an export control law," the ministry said in a statement alongside the figures.

Since the new government took office on December 8, licenses worth about €309 million euros have been granted.
Last-minute granting of licenses

It was revealed in December that the previous government had approved arms exports worth €4.91 billion in its last nine days alone, including several with Egypt.

At that time, it was acting as a caretaker government and not required to make far-reaching political decisions.

Then Economy Minister Peter Altmaier sent a letter about the deals on December 7 to Bundestag President Bärbel Bas, one day before the swearing-in of Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

The weapons agreements disclosed in the letter include the delivery of three MEKO A-200 EN frigates to Egypt from Kiel-based Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems, along with 16 air defense systems from Diehl Defense, which is located in the southwestern German state of Baden-Württemberg.

A sale of a type 218 G submarine to Singapore from Twas also divulged in the letter.

Social Democrat Scholz, as then finance minister, would have been involved in the decision, alongside Merkel and six other leaders of departments responsible for approving sensitive arms exports.

Whether Scholz involved his current coalition partners — the Greens and the FDP — in the last-minute approvals was still unclear, the DPA news agency reported on Tuesday.

rc/wmr (dpa, AP)

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Hope for democracy in Iraq as political violence escalates

Iraq is at a crossroads as the losers of the country's recent elections are using violence in an attempt to overturn the results of the vote. At the same time, a genuine opposition is emerging for the first time.

A poster of al-Sadr, whose movement won the most seats in Iraq's federal elections

Over the past month, there has been an increase in political violence in Iraq again.

But, instead of the US bases or convoys that are often attacked, there were some less-usual targets. Last week, grenades were thrown at offices belonging to Sunni Muslim and Iraqi Kurdish political parties in Baghdad.

On Sunday, grenades were lobbed at two Kurdish-owned banks in the capital. 

On Monday, the house of a Shiite Muslim cleric in Muthanna province was attacked by gunmen.

And, earlier in January, a senior member of a Shiite paramilitary group was apparently assassinated in southeastern Maysan province.

Two were injured when assailants threw explosives at a Kurdish-owned bank in Baghdad

A common thread

As varied as they are, these targets all have something in common. They all did something to offend the losers in last October's federal elections.

The parties that lost the ballot in October have been gunning for power in the next government despite their loss. And, although nobody has claimed responsibility for the attacks, experts said it was likely that those parties were now turning to violence to override election results. The recent uptick in attacks is the result of rising tensions as the formation of the country's next government nears.

The winner of October's federal elections was the Sairoun, or Forwards, alliance. Although no single party dominated, Sairoun gained the most parliamentary seats in the election, winning 73 out of the total 329. Sairoun is the political arm of the movement led by prominent Shiite Muslim cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr.

Meanwhile, the Fatah, or Conquest, alliance were the losers in the election. This group is also Shiite Muslim but is mostly associated with Iraq's established paramilitaries, known as the Popular Mobilization Forces,or PMF. Fatah only managed to get 17 seats in parliament, where previously they had 48.

Misplaced loyalties

The PMF were first set up by mostly Shiite volunteers, who offered to defend the country against the extremist group known as the Islamic State (IS). At first, the PMF were seen as heroes but they have since become very unpopular among ordinary Iraqis.

This is partly because many PMF fighters still swear loyalty to neighboring Iran, rather than to their own country. Iran provided financial, logistical and even spiritual support during the fight against IS.

Since then, the Shiite paramilitaries themselves have also split between those known to be loyal to Iran and those who pledge allegiance to their own government. The latter group includes militias allied with al-Sadr.

Voters' clear dislike of the PMF, and Fatah by association, has left them at a big disadvantage when it comes to government formation.

The PMF have become an official part of Iraq's armed forces and are paid by the state

Rivalries among Shiites 

In the past, when it came to building governments in Iraq, sectarian allegiances usually trumped all other considerations. Shiite Muslim politicians would stick together to share power and form the biggest bloc, allowing them to choose a president, who would then select a prime minister. This is no longer the case.

Rivalries between Shiite groups have been "the chief threat to Iraq's Shia-dominated, ethno-sectarian political order for some time now," Fanar Haddad, an assistant professor at the University of Copenhagen and expert on Iraqi politics and sectarianism, told DW. "These rivalries are not new, but they have seldom been this acute."

The political landscape in Iraq has changed and can no longer "be managed through the prism of identity politics and appeals to communal solidarity," Haddad said.

Iraq's parliament held its first session of the year on January 9

In fact, al-Sadr, the behind-the-scenes leader of the victorious Sairoun alliance, has repeatedly said he wants to form a majority government that potentially excludes the Shiite Muslim parties associated with the Iran-loyalist paramilitaries. This includes Fatah.

Foreign influences

Earlier in January, al-Sadr's Sairoun party joined with Kurdish and Sunni politicians to take the first step toward forming a new government by reelecting Mohamed al-Halbousi, a senior Sunni politician, as speaker of parliament.

This week, al-Sadr made another telling comment. "Neither eastern nor western. A national majority government," he confirmed on his Twitter account,  referring toIranian influence from the east and the US from the west.

The attacks on various PMF leaders, such as those allied with al-Sadr, as well as Sunni and Kurdish politicians, parties, and banks, are assumed to be the result of Fatah's ongoing outrage at potentially being locked out of the next government.

"Even though nobody has claimed responsibility so far and although their [Fatah and PMF] leaders are condemning the attacks, I think the recent escalation in violence that we're seeing is very likely to be a negotiation strategy," said David Labude, a research associate at the Iraq and Syria field office of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, based in Lebanon. "Basically, Fatah didn't win the votes they needed and now they're playing hard ball with the government negotiators."

For example, one of the Sunni Muslim politicians who had a grenade thrown at his Baghdad office told media that he'd also received threats at home.

A message was left in an envelope on his doorstep. It said "a national majority government will carry many consequences for you" and advised him to withdraw from negotiations with al-Sadr and not to interfere in Shiite politics, he recounted.

This pressure to overturn the legitimate outcome of the election through intimidation and violence comes amid rising hope that Iraq's parliament might finally become more representative. A new electoral law means that, for the first time ever, there could be a genuine, independent opposition in Iraq's parliament.

Iraq at a crossroads

The question now is which way the country will turn: toward more violence and a potential civil war between the armed Shiite factions or toward more genuine democracy.

"I think the most likely outcome is somewhere between these two extremes," said Haddad, of Copenhagen University. "Political violence will continue and possibly escalate, but I think a deal is more likely than a descent into civil war. It is too costly to exclude any of the main players from the next government, and there is too much to lose for personal rivalries to get in the way of a deal."

Cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has made it clear that he wants to exclude politicians loyal to Iran

Labude also said the dueling Shiite parties would likely eventually arrive at an agreement. The new electoral rule means that, although Fatah lost many seats in October last year, they still got a lot of votes, he noted.

Fatah and its allies have almost the same number of votes as al-Sadr's Sairoun alliance. Additionally, if Sairoun enters a coalition with the Kurdish and Sunni parties, their MPs would ostensibly be outnumbered by the Kurdish and Sunni MPs, should they decide to unite against their Shiite partners.

"For the first time, the coming parliament seems likely to contain a formal opposition," Haddad said, no matter how Shiite parties eventually coalesce.

"This is a welcome precedent in Iraqi politics," Haddad said. "The size, integrity and effectiveness of this opposition remains to be seen. But, in the long term, it has the potential to challenge the intra-elite collusion that has defined post-2003 Iraqi politics."

Germany logged record number of politically motivated crimes in 2021: report

Politically motivated crimes in Germany in 2021 hit their highest rate since related statistics were introduced, according to media reports. But not all offenses could be attributed to a particular ideology.

Tensions amid the coronavirus pandemic are thought to be behind an uptick in politically motivated offenses

There were more politically motivated crimes in Germany in 2021 than in any year in the preceding two decades, the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) has said, according to a report by the dpa news agency.

The preliminary data, showing a rise of about 6% in such crimes compared with 2020, was released in response to a parliamentary question by a lawmaker from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, dpa reported.

What did the data show?

Altogether 47,303 crimes classed as politically motivated were committed in 2021, the data showed. The final figure could be even higher, as the answer was given to a query from January 5.

At the same time, violent crimes with a political motivation went down by about 6%, according to the data.

More than 19,000 of the offenses were attributed to suspects from the right-wing milieu, while about 9,000 were committed by people considered to hold left-wing views.

More than 17,000 of the politically motivated crimes could not be classified as left- or right-wing by police. Security officials say that tensions amid the coronavirus pandemic may have contributed to this increase.

For violent crimes that were politically motivated, police logged 1,047 cases in which suspects could not be classed as belonging to any particular part of the political spectrum or religious ideology. That compares with 591 violent crimes of uncertain political motivation in 2020.

Police in Germany are often faced by violence at protests against coronavirus measures

New category of social phenomena

Last year, in response to a rise in conspiracy theories and antisemitic ideologies amid the pandemic, the domestic intelligence agency, the BfV, began to focus on certain social phenomena related to a general "delegitimization of the state" that are seen as endangering the rule of law. 

German authorities began recording statistics on politically motivated crime only in 2001.

Edited by: Rebecca Staudenmaier

Colombia: 145 civil society leaders killed in 2021

A new report has said at least one rights advocate, community leader or environmental activist was killed in the country every 60 hours last year. They mostly fell victim to gangs and paramilitary groups

Colombian rights advocates continue to fall victim to armed criminal and paramilitary groups at an alarming rate

Colombia's human rights ombudsman, Carlos Camargo, late Monday announced that 145 civil society leaders were killed by criminals in the country in 2021.

This includes human rights activists, community leaders and environmental activists.

"We are deeply saddened by each case, because of the impact they have on the communities," Camargo said.

Colombia's government says leaders were killed by groups seeking to control drug trafficking networks and illegal mining operations mainly in the east of the country, where most of the country's marginalized Afro-Colombian population lives.

According to government statistics, the most dramatic spike in killings took place in Valle del Cauca, on Colombia's Pacific Coast. Last year, killings there almost doubled — from 10 in 2020, to 19 in 2021.

On Tuesday,  indigenous groups and officials said a 14-year-old environmental activist was shot dead in southwestern Colombia during a rural security patrol, in one of the latest incidents. 

Who were the victims?

The government says the people killed — 120 men and 25 women — represented Indigenous peoples, led farming collectives or were union organizers.

Rights and environmental advocates are targeted by groups looking to expand their influence

The government has blamed members of the National Liberation Army (ELN), a left-wing group; remnants of the left-wing group FARC; and criminal gangs, some made up of far-right paramilitaries, of having committed the crimes.

Though the number is down slightly compared with the 182 killings in 2020, Colombian President Ivan Duque still faces stiff international pressure to put an end to such killings.

The numbers also vary widely depending on source, with the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) listing 78 confirmed killings, whereas Indepaz, an advocacy group, says 171 leaders were murdered.

Although Colombia's recent history has been exceedingly violent, the government's 2016 peace deal with FARC offered some reprieve. Nevertheless, numerous armed groups — both criminal and paramilitary — have fought desperately for influence. According to Indepaz, last year more than 90 massacres were carried out on civilians in the country, killing more than 300 people.

Activision Blizzard: Troubled powerhouse in gaming world

Issued on: 18/01/2022 -

Activision Blizzard is a troubled star of the gaming world Ethan Miller GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File

Washington (AFP) – Activision Blizzard is a star developer of gaming hits like "Call of Duty", but the firm has been roiled by serious sex discrimination allegations that have led to lawsuits, firings and official scrutiny.

Microsoft's buyout deal values the company at a whopping $69 billion, despite the scandal that has put an unflattering spotlight on the "Candy Crush" maker's leadership and company culture.

Founded in 1979 by former Atari programmers unhappy with their pay, Activision had more than $8 billion in sales in 2020.

It relies on a few major franchises, namely "World of Warcraft", a multiplayer game that is still very popular almost 30 years after it launch, the first-person shooter "Call of Duty" and the "Candy Crush" puzzle game.

Yet since last year, the company has been hit by a major equality scandal.

Trouble began to surface with the launch, in late July, of a lawsuit by the state of California, which reported sexual harassment and discrimination against women, who represent about 20 percent of the firm's employees.

A nearly all white and male suite of executives, pay disparities and other markers of gender disparity have turned up in regulators allegations.
Bad behavior

The documents also report claims of a "frat boy" party culture of heavy drinking in which women workers were groped, had to fend off sexual advances and faced retaliation if they spoke up.

"Male employees proudly come into work hungover, play video games for long periods of time during work while delegating their responsibilities to female employees, engage in banter about their sexual encounters, talk openly about female bodies, and joke about rape," the California state suit says.

Activision Blizzard has reached an agreement with a US federal discrimination watchdog to create an $18 million fund to settle claims alleging sexual harassment and gender discrimination.

CEO Bobby Kotick apologized to employees and announced last year the implementation of a "zero tolerance" policy against harassment, as well as the creation of a $250 million envelope to allow the publisher to increase to 50 percent the proportion of women and non-binary people.

It has been a turbulent period for Kotick, who has been CEO for over three decades after entering the company with a group of investors and a personal $400,000 stake that would be worth $16 billion at Tuesday's price.

An old-fashioned entrepreneur, Kotick rebuilt Activision after its near bankruptcy in the 1990s before embarking on a run of acquisitions to negotiate the shift to multiplayer games and then to the smartphone revolution.

In 2008, he merged his firm with Vivendi Games, allowing Vivendi to take 52 percent of the group's capital in order to get "World of Warcraft".

Only five years later, he and a group of investors bought the bulk of the participation of Vivendi, then in financial difficulties.

Then in 2016, Activision Blizzard dropped $5.9 billion to acquire the British-Swedish King, creator of "Candy Crush", and positioned itself in the world of mobile games.

Kotick has been pressured to resign by many critics, investors and employees, as a Wall Street Journal investigation alleged in November that he had known about certain accusations for several years.

According to the Journal, the Long Island, New York, native told employees that he was ready to leave the company if anti-harassment measures did not bear fruit quickly enough.

© 2022 AFP

Microsoft to buy Call of Duty maker for $68.7 billion

In the biggest deal in the sector, the US tech giant said it will acquire videogame maker Activision Blizzard — which has been hit by allegations of misconduct and discrimination.

Microsoft's Xbox console makes it a major player in the gaming industry

Microsoft Corp. announced on Tuesday plans to buy the videogame giant Activision Blizzard for $95 (€84) per share.

The all-cash deal, valued at $68.7 billion, is thought to be the biggest ever in the gaming sector after Dell bought data-storage company EMC in 2016 for around $60 billion.

The acquisition includes blockbuster games like Call of Duty, World of Warcraft and Candy Crush— which could give Microsoft's Xbox gaming platform an edge over Sony's Playstation.

The merging will make Microsoft the third-largest gaming company by revenue, behind Tencent and Sony, Microsoft said.

Betting on the metaverse

Tuesday's announcement represents Microsoft's bet on the so-called metaverse, virtual online worlds where people can work, play and socialize.

"Gaming is the most dynamic and exciting category in entertainment across all platforms today and will play a key role in the development of metaverse platforms," Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in a statement.

"This is a significant deal for the consumer side of the business and more importantly, Microsoft acquiring Activision really starts the metaverse arms race," analyst David Wagner told Reuters news agency.

FROM ATARI TO XBOX SERIES X: THE EVOLUTION OF VIDEO GAME CONSOLES
Xbox Series X (2020)
Microsoft remained true to the established console design tradition for its Xbox Series X. Many social media critics felt it looked uninspired, and the console was ridiculed for resembling a computer tower or even a mini-fridge, which is why it earned the nickname "Xbox Fridge."
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'Toxic workplace'

California-based Activision has been hit by employee protests and departures.

Last year, Activision disclosed that it was being investigated by US authorities over complaints of workplace discrimination. It also faces a lawsuit alleging it enabled toxic workplace conditions and sexual harassment.

The company has received around 700 reports of employee concerns over sexual assault, harassment or other misconduct, according to the Wall Street Journal.

In a conference call with investors on Tuesday, Microsoft CEO Nadella said that "the culture of our organization is my number one priority'' and that "it's critical for Activision Blizzard to drive forward on its'' commitments to improve its workplace culture. "The success of this acquisition will depend on it."

Activision CEO Bobby Kotick is set to continue his role after the deal. Nearly 20% of Activision's 9,500 employees had signed a petition calling for Kotick to resign, according to media reports.
Regulators could come in the way

US and European lawmakers have been drafting regulations aimed at reining in Big Tech companies like Google and Facebook.

Analysts believe competition regulators will be skeptical of this transaction.

"We believe the deal will get done," Wagner told Reuters, but warned, "This will get a lot of looks from a regulatory standpoint."

fb/wmr (AFP, AP, dpa, Reuters)

Watch video 16:23 Margrethe Vestager: Big Tech's Fiercest Opponent

Dozens ‘exited’ Activision Blizzard over misconduct, CEO tried to keep departures quiet: report

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Thirty-seven employees have “exited” from Activision Blizzard amid the gaming publisher’s workplace misconduct scandals, according to The Wall Street Journal, citing internal documents.

A further 44 employees have been disciplined, Activision Blizzard spokesperson Helaine Klasky told the outlet.

Since last summer, the company has been facing a lawsuit from California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing alleging years of fostering a “frat boy culture” that led to sexual harassment, unfair hiring practices and other forms of mistreatment of women.

However, given the ambiguity surrounding the word “exited,” it’s unclear exactly how many of those 37 people left voluntarily versus being pushed out. Likewise, Activision Blizzard wouldn’t specify exactly what form of disciplinary action has been taken against the 44 other employees.

Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal reports that Activision Blizzard collected around 700 employee complaints who expressed concerns of workplace misconduct, although the company denied this to the outlet. Bobby Kotick, Activision Blizzard CEO, also reportedly shut down the release of a company report summarizing all of the above information to address the allegations. According to The Wall Street Journal, Kotick felt the report would make the company’s issues seem bigger than what has already been revealed.

Kotick himself has been the subject of immense scrutiny, especially following a November report from The Wall Street Journal alleging that he not only knew about the “frat boy culture,” but actively worked to keep it quiet. More than 1,000 Activision Blizzard employees quickly signed a petition calling for Kotick to resign, although the executive has said he would only consider doing so if the workplace issues aren’t fixed “with speed.”

Activision Blizzard is also facing a strike from dozens of developers at its Raven studio, which works on its massively popular Call of Duty: Warzone game. The workers were protesting the sudden termination of a dozen quality assurance (QA) contractors. The ABK Workers Alliance, which represents employees at Activision, Blizzard and King, has condemned the company for its “silence” over these protests.

All the while, Warzone players have been reporting numerous bugs in the game. Speaking to The Washington Post, multiple unnamed QA testers attributed these issues to the QA workers who were laid off from Raven. “You can’t just lose some of your hardest-working people and expect nothing to happen,” one of them told The Washington Post.

A GoFundMe has been set up to support the ABK Workers Alliance — you can check that out here.

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Activision fired dozens over harassment allegations: WSJ

By AFP
Published January 17, 2022

Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard, has defended his handling of harassment complaints, as some employees staged a walkout calling for him to go - Copyright AFP Daniel ROLAND

The video game giant Activision Blizzard has fired nearly 40 employees and disciplined about 40 others since July as it deals with allegations of sexual harassment and other misconduct, The Wall Street Journal said Monday.

The newspaper, which quoted people familiar with the situation, said that over the past seven months the company has also received about 700 reports of employee concerns over sexual assault or harassment or other misconduct, in some cases separate reports about the same incident.

A summary of the personnel action that the maker of “Call of Duty,” “World of Warcraft” and other blockbuster games has taken was scheduled to be released before the winter holidays, the Journal said.

But CEO Bobby Kotick delayed the release, arguing that it would make the company’s workplace problems look even bigger than they were known to be, the paper added.

Activision Blizzard did not immediately respond to an AFP request for comment.

In July, California state regulators accused the company of condoning a culture of harassment, a toxic work environment, and inequality.

In September the Securities and Exchange Commission launched a probe into the company over “disclosures regarding employment matters and related issues.”

And two months later the Journal reported that Kotick, accused of mishandling the harassment complaints, has signaled he would consider stepping down if he failed to quicky fix the company culture. He has led the company for more than three decades.

Nearly 20 percent of Activision Blizzard’s 9,500 employees have signed a petition calling for Kotick to resign.

The Journal said the company is under pressure from shareholders and business partners for more accountability over its handling of misconduct issues.

Late last year chief operating officer Daniel Alegre pledged a 50 percent increase in female and non-binary staff over the next five years so that they will account for more than a third of Activision’s workers.

Activision Blizzard continues to remove employees amid misconduct allegations

Kris Holt 

ENDGADGET

Since July, 37 Activision Blizzard employees have been fired or forced out and another 44 have been disciplined as the company attempts to address accusations of harassment and misconduct, a spokesperson told The Wall Street Journal. In October, the company said more than 20 people had departed and at least another 20 had been disciplined.

The game publisher was supposed to share a summary of that information publicly before the holidays, according to the report. However, embattled CEO Bobby Kotick is said to have pulled the plug on that over concerns it would make Activision's woes seem even worse.

The spokesperson denied "the assertion regarding Mr. Kotick," as well as claims that employees had filed around 700 reports of misconduct and other issues since July, when Activision was sued by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH). The agency alleged the company fostered a "frat boy" culture where discrimination and sexual harassment were rife.

Former Blizzard president J. Allen Brack, who was accused in the DFEH suit of taking "no effective remedial measures" to mitigate sexual harassment, left the company soon after the filing. Activision Blizzard's top HR executive Jesse Meschuk has departed, as have Diablo 4 game director Luis Barriga, lead designer Jesse McCree (after whom an Overwatch character was previously named) and World of Warcraft designer Jonathan LeCraft.

In November, the WSJreported that Kotick had known about many of the worst instances of abuse for years and that he may have protected some employees who were accused of harassment. Many Activision Blizzard employees staged a walkout in the wake of the report and around 2,000 signed a petition calling for him to step down. The Activision board has issued a statement of support for Kotick.

Along with employees, state treasurers and investors (the share price has dropped by almost 30% since July) have expressed concern about the issues at hand. Several Activision Blizzard partners have condemned the company or reassessed their relationships with it too.

PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo chiefs criticized the company in notes to their employees. Xbox head Phil Spencer said last week that Microsoft has "changed how we do certain things with" Activision, but didn't share details. Also this month, Lego postponed an Overwatch 2 set that was supposed to arrive in February while it evaluates its partnership with Activision Blizzard.