21ST CENTURY ROBBER BARON

Elon Musk said working from home during the pandemic 'tricked' people into thinking they don't need to work hard. He's dead wrong, economists say.

Isobel Asher Hamilton

Wed, June 1, 2022,

Elon Musk at the 2022 Met Gala.Andrew Kelly/Reuters

• Elon Musk said COVID-19 "tricked people into thinking that you don't actually need to work hard."

• Working from home didn't make workers less productive, three economists told Insider.

• The only constraint on productivity was when workers had children at home they needed to look after.

Elon Musk is not a fan of remote work.

In the early hours of Wednesday, Musk commented on a tweet which appeared to be an email from him to Tesla executive staff, saying: "Anyone who wishes to do remote work must be in the office for a minimum (and I mean *minimum*) of 40 hours per week or depart Tesla."

Although Musk didn't confirm the authenticity of the email, when asked whether such a strict in-office policy could be considered antiquated by some, he replied: "They should pretend to work somewhere else."

The tweets were not completely out of the blue.

Musk previously expressed distaste for American workers "trying to avoid going to work at all" in a May interview with The Financial Times — although he was contrasting them with workers in China, rather than comparing in-office and remote workers.

And he tweeted last month: "All the Covid stay-at-home stuff has tricked people into thinking that you don't actually need to work hard."

Musk, who railed against lockdown mandates and defied shelter-in-place orders to send workers back to his California Tesla factory in May 2020, might have the wrong idea about remote work. Insider spoke to three economists, all of whom said remote work during the pandemic did not damage worker productivity.

"Most of the evidence shows that productivity has increased while people stayed at home," Natacha Postel-Vinay, an economic and financial historian at the London School of Economics, told Insider.

"People spent less time commuting so could use some of that time to work, and they also got to spend more time with their family and sleeping, which meant they were happier and ended up more productive," she added.

Musk did not immediately reply when contacted by Insider outside of usual working hours.

Data shared with Bloomberg in February 2021 by VPN provider NordVPN Teams suggested that in many economies, working from home meant people worked longer hours.

Albrecht Ritschl, an professor of economic history, also said cutting out commuting was a bonus to worker productivity, and added that working from home led to fewer hours spent in "pointless meetings."

"Time spent at the office is not the same thing as working hard," Ritschl said.

Almarina Gramozi, a lecturer in economics at King's College London, said the largest surveys of workers in the US and the UK found workers were at least as productive at home as in the office — although she said a similar study in Japan found workers did report lower productivity working from home.

All three experts said productivity occasionally dipped in some cases, but not because people were shirking.

People with children at home during the pandemic often had to split their attention between work and childcare, leading to a decrease in productivity, Postel-Vinay and Ritschl said.

Gramozi also added productivity isn't just down to individual employees.

"Productivity levels depend substantially on the support that employers offer, technology adoption, and on the type of work that would allow it to be easily conducted remotely," she told Insider.

Elon Musk says recession is 'a good thing,' billionaires make people 'happy'



Bryan Ke
Mon, May 30, 2022

Elon Musk said in a series of tweets last week that it is “morally wrong and dumb” to use the word “billionaire” as a pejorative and that a possible recession is “a good thing” because it could affect unproductive work-from-home employees.

The comment about billionaires came after Musk, 50, opened a poll on Twitter on Friday and asked his 95.7 million followers who they trust less: politicians or billionaires. The results of the poll, which 3,399,953 people participated in, showed that 75.7% of respondents trust politicians less, while 24.3% of respondents trust billionaires less.

Who do you trust less? Real question.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 26, 2022

In another tweet on Friday, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO said it is “morally wrong and dumb” to use the word “billionaire” as a pejorative, adding, “If the reason for it is building products that make millions of people happy.”



Musk also tagged Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY, 14) in one of the replies to his poll, daring the politician to start her own poll with her followers. The New York representative reportedly told Bloomberg earlier this month that she would like to replace her Tesla with an electric vehicle manufactured by workers who push for unionization, a process that Musk has expressed great disapproval of in the past.

“A union is just another corporation,” Musk tweeted on Friday. “Far better for many companies to compete for your skills, so that you have maximum optionality.”

In addition to his pro-billionaire thread, Musk expressed his thoughts about the country heading for a recession, claiming that “this is actually a good thing.”

“It has been raining money on fools for too long. Some bankruptcies need to happen,” Musk added. “Also, all the Covid stay-at-home stuff has tricked people into thinking that you don’t actually need to work hard. Rude awakening inbound!”

Replying to another Twitter user who asked how long the recession would last, Musk wrote, “Based on past experience, about 12 to 18 months. Companies that are inherently negative cash flow (i.e. value destroyers) need to die so that they stop consuming resources.”


Musk’s tweets came right after the World Economic Forum occurred in Davos, Switzerland, from May 22 to 26. During the event, several world leaders, CEOS, journalists, investors and others gather to discuss wide-ranging problems, from economy-related issues to climate change.

Rich Nations’ Toxic Habits Bring African Refugees to Their Doors



Antony Sguazzin, Katarina Hoije and Maya Averbuch
Tue, May 31, 2022

(Bloomberg) -- Osman Ali grew up near southern Somalia’s Shabelle river that was once deep enough for him to dive in for a swim. But in the last three years, droughts have thinned it into a dirty stream, wilting his corn and sesame crops and reducing his sheep and goats to skin and bones. Left at the mercy of armed extortionists he couldn’t pay, the 29-year-old sold his family’s land and bought a ticket to Brazil. A two-month-long trudge through jungles, rivers and cities brought him to Tapachula in Mexico, with hopes of heading to the US southern border.

Like him, Ibrahima Coulibaly waited in the sweltering heat on a sidewalk outside Tapachula’s immigration office in a yellow Lakers basketball jersey. He left his home near Tambacounda in eastern Senegal after a series of droughts destroyed his millet, peanut and bean crops, leaving his family with little to eat. He sold his 32 head of cattle and embarked on a long journey to the Americas. Arriving in Brazil earlier this year and robbed in the Darien Gap — the dense jungle between Colombia and Panama infested with poisonous snakes and bandits — Coulibaly was desperate for a permit to continue crossing Mexico to get to the US border.

“At some point leaving is better than staying; you can walk until you drop dead, but you can’t just sit still until you die from hunger,” the 37-year-old said in an interview in April. “Every year is worse than the previous one.”

The number of Africans trying to make it to the US southern border is on track to hit a potential record this year. Coming from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, Senegal, Ghana, Somalia and elsewhere, many are escaping livelihood-destroying climate events. The continent they’re fleeing is facing natural disasters at a faster rate than the rest of the planet, and is largely unprepared to deal with them. Africa, which has done the least to cause the global climate crisis — producing just 4% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions — is being hit by record storms, floods and droughts as the earth heats up.

By 2050, 86 million Africans, or about 6.6% of the region’s 1.3 billion people, will be forced to migrate by climate change, the World Bank estimates. That’s on top of those fleeing conflicts and persecution — often linked to climate-related skirmishes over scarce resources. And with Africa’s population expected to double by 2050, those numbers can only rise.

The vast majority of climate victims migrate to other parts of their own country — mostly to urban slums — or spill into a neighboring nation, but those who can scrape together some funds venture farther afield. With over 4,500 Africans crossing the Colombia-Panama border between January and April this year, according to the International Organization for Migration, they have become the second-largest group — after Latin Americans — to try to get to the US border. And although Europe has tightened controls, in the first two months this year, over 89,000 people crossed the Sahara desert in northern Niger, according to the IOM. Most were on their way to — or returning from — Algeria and Libya, the well-worn path to Europe, with nine out of 10 people the IOM spoke to citing climate change as one of the reasons for why they were leaving.

“People are like ‘OK, I can’t live here, I may as well die trying to get somewhere else,’” said Ayaan Adam, chief executive officer of AFC Capital Partners, the unit of the infrastructure-focused Africa Finance Corp. that’s raising $500 million for a climate-resilience fund this year. “This is happening now. We are seeing a preview of the movie that will unroll and that will be increasing in intensity.”

Helping Africans stay home by making the continent sustainable carries a hefty price tag — $1 trillion to “climate-proof” the infrastructure it needs, which itself would cost $2.3 trillion, Adam estimates. China, the US and Europe, which collectively produce more than 50% of the world’s emissions, need to help finance this effort, African leaders say.

“This is not a donation, this is a cleaning fee,” Malawi’s President Lazarus Chakwera said at COP26 in Glasgow in November.

Richer countries can limit refugees at their borders by helping the continent adapt to climate change, said Lisa Lim Ah Ken, a migration and climate change specialist for east Africa at the IOM.

“Developed nations spend huge national budgets on building walls and creating and policing immigration policies that prevent migration, yet if those budgets were invested in the nations and communities who are suffering from the effects of climate change, supporting their sustainable development, then perhaps forced migration would be reduced,” Lim Ah Ken said.

It’s been more than a decade since rich countries committed to help the world’s poorer nations cut emissions and adapt to climate change with up to $100 billion a year. They have yet to meet that target.

African leaders estimate that adapting to climate change — by fortifying coastlines against rising sea levels, fighting desertification and building climate-resilient roads and bridges — would require an annual $33 billion, Patrick Verkooijen, chief executive officer of the Global Center on Adaptation, or GCA, said in an interview from Rotterdam. While the countries can raise $6 billion themselves, they’re only getting another $6 billion in aid, he said.

“This is a must have, not a nice to have, for Africa,” Verkooijen said, adding that adaptation finance will be a key focus of the COP27 climate summit in November in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt.

The climate-adaptation money currently flowing in is too insignificant to make a difference. The African Development Bank has a fund with contributions from Europe and Canada, but has disbursed just $8 million for small operations in 16 countries. One ambitious project — the Great Green Wall initiative aimed at halting desertification by planting trees across the width of Africa — has received pledges of over $19 billion from organizations across the globe. But progress has been slow.

Extreme weather events have exploded in Africa. The Horn of Africa is currently dealing with the worst drought in at least four decades, putting 16 million people across Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia at risk and raising the specter of a famine. In May, South Africa’s deadliest floods in almost three decades triggered landslides that killed 435 people and destroyed thousands of dwellings.

The number of floods in Africa has jumped five-fold since the 1990s, according to GCA. In 2020, the most severe flood in Sudan in 60 years displaced more than 500,000 people. In 2019, two of the strongest cyclones ever recorded hit east Africa. Cyclone Idai destroyed 90% of the homes in the city of Beira in Mozambique and damaged 1.4 million hectares (3.6 million acres) of arable land in Zimbabwe. That was followed by Cyclone Kenneth. Together, they killed 1,300 people and affected the lives of 3.5 million more.

The floods that followed the cyclones provoked the worst locust infestation in a quarter century, leaving 9.6 million people in Sudan without enough food and driving thousands of farmers in Somalia to migrate. Africa loses 4 million hectares of forest each year to land degradation, Lake Chad has shrunk by 90% in the last 40 years and the glaciers on Mount Kilimanjaro are melting.

“Climate change impacts are costing African economies between 3% and 5% of their GDPs,” South African President Cyril Ramaphosa told the African Union on Feb. 6. “Despite not being responsible for causing climate change, it is Africans who are bearing both the brunt and the cost. The necessary financial flows to enable developing-economy countries in particular to mitigate and adapt to the impacts of climate change remain vastly inadequate.”

African leaders haven’t helped, treating climate-driven problems as a “peripheral issue,” said Saliem Fakir, executive director of the African Climate Foundation. “Governments treat it as an environmental issue largely to be supported by donor assistance and not really integrated into the economic debate.” Poor planning, deforestation and the misuse of developmental funds have made matters worse.

In an index of 182 countries assessed by the Notre Dame Global Adaptation Initiative for climate-change vulnerability, the bottom seven are African. That comes from the continent’s overwhelming dependence on subsistence farming. About half of Africa’s population relies on agriculture. In the eastern parts of the continent, that number rises to 70%. There’s little irrigation, leaving farmers at the mercy of rain.

For many potential climate refugees, poor crops are where their migration journeys start. Mouhoumoudane Mohamed, 34, from a village in the Agadez region in Niger, left for Algeria in 2019, hoping to make it to Europe.

“One bad harvest followed another; the meager crops that you could squeeze from the soil weren’t enough,” Mohamed said. “The problem in Agadez is the lack of water. When it rains, it’s never enough. Or it’s too heavy and destroys the crops.”

He failed, and is back in Agadez, holding off trying again — for now.

A record 4.3 million people were displaced in 2020 in Sub-Saharan Africa alone due to weather events and conflicts, GCA estimates. Migration within the continent creates problems of its own. Desperate farmers moving to greener pastures cause conflict with communities already there. Also, with few opportunities, youths are joining Islamist militants — providing fodder for groups that Europe and the US are trying to fight.

Africa’s rapidly growing cities, to which many of the continent’s poor gravitate, are seeing climate-related problems of their own. About half of Africans now live in cities, and the urban population is expected to nearly triple by 2050, according to GCA. Seventy-nine African cities, including 15 national capitals, are at extreme risk of climate change, according to Catlyne Haddaoui, a global policy and research manager at the Washington-based Coalition for Urban Transitions.

“An increase of 2 degrees Celsius in average world temperature doesn’t have the same effect in Nigeria as it does in the US where you have air conditioning from your car to your office to your house and everywhere,” Haddaoui said. “It would be way more difficult to deal with in Africa and way more deadly.”

With extreme weather only likely to intensify and drive more people to migrate, “developed countries have both a responsibility and an interest in helping some of the most vulnerable countries,” said Taylor Dimsdale, director for Risk and Resilience at E3G, a climate think-tank.

It might stop migrants like Ali from knocking at their doors. The Somali farmer waited in Tapachula, about 900 miles from the nearest US border, to make the final stretch of his journey to America. With climate change destroying his livelihood, he’s keen to start over elsewhere.

“We depend on the rain and the river, but there was no water,” said Ali. “We lost everything.”

Why India is the big winner as EU’s Russia oil ban redraws energy trade map

‘We have a growing suspicion that India is becoming the de facto refining hub for Europe’: RBC’s Tran

May 31, 2022 

William Watts

David Hecker/Getty Images

In an unexpected twist, the European Union’s plan to ban imports of Russian crude in response to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine appears to be transforming India’s role in the global oil trade.

“As the EU weans from Russian refined product, we have a growing suspicion that India is becoming the de facto refining hub for Europe,” said Michael Tran, global energy strategist at RBC Capital Markets, in a Tuesday note.

It’s all part of the seismic displacements taking place across the physical market for crude and products in the aftermath of Russia’s late-February invasion and the resulting rounds of sanctions placed on Moscow.

EU leaders agreed Monday to embargo most Russian oil imports into the bloc by year-end as part of new sanctions agreed at a summit. While the agreement marks a hard-fought policy victory for the West, the reshuffling of global trade flows are set to prove economically inflationary for all nations involved as long as the war drags on, Tran said.

That will make sourcing barrels more expensive and keep upward pressure on oil pricing, the analyst said. The U.S. oil benchmark CL.1, +2.90% CLN22, +2.90% ended the day lower on Tuesday after earlier trading near a three-month high just shy of $120, but ended may with a strong gain. Brent crude BRN00, +1.14%, the global benchmark, ended higher and was also up for the month.

Meanwhile, India’s new role comes as it loads up on discounted Russian crude, which it has been refining at a torrid pace and then exporting refined products (see chart below).

RBC CAPITAL MARKETS

Here’s how the puzzle pieces fit together, according to Tran:
India is buying record amounts of severely discounted Russian crude, running its refiners above nameplate capacity, and capturing the economic rent of sky-high crack spreads and exporting gasoline and diesel to Europe. In short, the EU policy of tightening the screws on Russia is a policy win, but the unintended consequence is that Europe is effectively importing inflation to its own citizens. This is not only an economic boon for India, but it also serves as an accelerator for India’s place in the new geopolitically rewritten oil trade map. What we mean is that the EU policy effectively makes India an increasingly vital energy source for Europe. This was historically never the case, and it is why Indian product exports have been clocking in at all-time-high levels over recent months.

So does India’s example mean that Russian crude no longer bound for Europe will just end up elsewhere? That’s unlikely, according to Tran.

He expects the EU ban to back out around 1.2 million to 1.5 million barrels a day (mbd) of Russian exports. They will have to find a home elsewhere, particularly Asia.

So far, China has yet to increase imports, let alone Russian barrels, but scope for India, which has “already been backing up the truck and buying discounted Russian barrels in size,” to further boost purchases appears limited. Over time, Russian storage will fill and production will begin to falter, Tran said.

He noted that Russian floating crude storage now stand near 2 million barrels, down from 3.5 million a month ago, while refined products remain unchanged near 4 million barrels.

“This implies that barrels have continued to move in a relatively fluid state and storage levels have yet to be stressed, for now, but given the ban, the directional arrows of process would suggest that the wheels are in motion,” he said.

RUSSIA JUSTIFIES WAR WITH POLAND
Putin's Security Council says that Poland is "moving to seize" Ukraine



Ukrayinska Pravda
Tue, May 31, 2022
"EUROPEAN PRAVDA" — TUESDAY, MAY 31, 2022
NIKOLAY PATRUSHEV, PHOTO BY RIA NOVOSTI

Secretary of the Russian Security Council Nikolai Patrushev said that Poland is moving to seize territories in western Ukraine.

He said this on Tuesday at a meeting on national security in the Volga region."European Pravda" with reference to the Russian agency "Interfax".

He said that the partners of the "Kyiv regime" are not averse to taking advantage of the current situation to further their own interests and have special plans for Ukrainian lands.

"Apparently, Poland is already making moves to seize Western Ukrainian territories," Patrushev said.

According to him, this was confirmed by the visit of Polish President Andrzej Duda to Kyiv and his words that "soon the Polish-Ukrainian border will cease to exist."

Earlier in May, Duda proposed to conclude a new agreement on the friendship between Poland and Ukraine and also said that the border between these two countries should unite, not divide.

Patrushev also said that "a number of states are already actively working on the dismemberment of Ukraine."

Earlier in Russia, they came up with a scenario according to which Poland, in collusion with the United States, seizes western Ukraine.

During the visit of President Andrzej Duda to Kyiv, Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced his intentions to simplify the border crossing between Ukraine and Poland.

For more information, see the article Approaching Schengen: what will give Ukraine joint control over the border with Poland.

Analysis: Russians feel little economic pain now, long-term outlook darkens

Mon, May 30, 2022, 

By Jake Cordell

LONDON (Reuters) - For Oleg Kechin, owner of a chain of barbershops, forecasts that Russia will be plunged into its deepest economic crisis in a generation feel overdone.

U.S. President Joe Biden may have promised that Western sanctions would wreak economic havoc in Russia, but Kechin's business is still drawing in customers in the town of Saransk, which lies 510 km (320 miles) southeast of Moscow.

"There's no deep crisis. In general, everything's fine," he said. "Everyone's talking about a decrease in purchasing power, but I haven't noticed it."

Yet, such confidence may not be entirely well placed, if some indicators are to be believed. Trade with the outside world has plunged, consumers are reluctant to spend and rising prices on basic items are starting to squeeze household budgets.

Russian officials insist the economy is holding up. The central bank slashed interest rates by three percentage points to 11% on Thursday and expects to cut its forecast for inflation for this year from the current prediction of 18-23%.

Under capital controls and orders that exporters sell half their hard currency earnings, the rouble has rallied and, at about 66 to the U.S. dollar, is stronger than before Russia sent its armed forces into Ukraine on Feb. 24. [RU/RUB]

President Vladimir Putin, who has welcomed the departure of foreign firms which have sold up or just dumped Russian assets, said Russia could not be isolated from global trade.

But not everyone is convinced the economy will escape unscathed. Roman, a 25-year-old in Moscow, who asked not to be identified by his full name, said middle class life was not "drastically different" than before but he saw worrying signs.

"One thing that bothers me ... is constant price rises for everyday goods and even vegetables. I think that signals the worst is yet to come." he said. "The situation with the labour market in my sphere doesn't make me very optimistic either."

'DEMAND CRISIS'

Some indicators justify his concerns. VAT receipts, which reflect consumer spending, fell 54% in April year on year, the Kommersant daily said, citing preliminary finance ministry data.

Economy Minister Maxim Reshetnikov said on Friday there was a "demand crisis" in business and consumer spending.

Russia has stopped publishing most data on financial flows, but figures compiled by the Bank of Finland based on local customs data show imports have plunged - and not just from the West.

Chinese exports to Russia were down by a quarter in April and shipments from Vietnam, South Korea, Malaysia and Taiwan more than halved, the bank said.

The economy minister said manufacturers were re-establishing supply chains broken by sanctions and said 2,000 "backbone companies" could access preferential lending programmes.

But inflation is still at its highest in two decades at more than 17%. That means a 10% hike in pensions and the minimum wage announced by Putin still leaves many facing a cut in household incomes in real terms.

Rising prices may not be Russia's biggest problem. The strong rouble has already brought down weekly inflation sharply, but it won't fend off a broader threat to economic output from Russia's increasing isolation.

Reshetnikov said there were "fears that we could break into a deflationary spiral, when a reduction in money in the economy leads to a reduction in production, lower prices, and so on."

Meanwhile, financing a military campaign in Ukraine will put pressure on the budget. Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said on Friday that Moscow required "huge financial resources" for what Moscow calls its "special military operation".

STIMULUS

Russia has already dipped into its National Wealth Fund, which has about $110 billion of liquid assets, to support spending, which is up 22% this year, the economy minister said.

The finance minister said Moscow had earmarked 8 trillion roubles ($123 billion) of stimulus for "the current circumstances", although it was not clear how much of that was new money and over what period.

The full impact on economic output and jobs from the withdrawal of Western firms, ranging from carmakers to banks, has yet to seen.

Sergei Guriev, economics professor at France's Sciences Po, expected the impact to be felt more sharply in the next few months.

"The real pain has not started yet as some exiting companies are still paying wages and some companies continue production using their inventories of imported parts," said Guriev, who is also a former chief economist at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

Morgan Stanley economists see a 13% drop in household consumption in 2022 and a 23% fall in investment. The bank's chief regional economist, Alina Slyusarchuk, said in a note that Russia's potential long-term growth rate was now just 1%.

The outlook appears to be dimming for smaller Russian firms, although there is little way to gauge it precisely with so little official data now being published and businesses no longer required to report results.

"Very few companies want to create a strategy or plan long-term, large-scale contracts right now," said Anastasia Kiseleva, a partner at a small public relations firm in Moscow.

"Businesses - especially small ones - will be engaged in pure survival, not developing or creating anything new."

Survival-mode, however, is nothing new to many Russians, who have lived through several deep crises since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

"The worst is ahead of us," said Yevgeniy Sheremetov, who runs a tour company near Lake Baikal in Siberia. "But residents of this country are used to difficulties. I have my summer house, with potatoes and cucumbers. After the 1990s, nothing can scare me."

(Additional reporting by Marc Jones in London; Editing by Kevin Liffey and Edmund Blair)

Ukraine's 'unicorn' LGBTQ soldiers head for war





Couple leave for the frontline to serve the Territorial Defence army, in Kyiv

Tue, May 31, 2022,
By Horaci Garcia

KYIV (Reuters) - As volunteer fighters Oleksandr Zhuhan and Antonina Romanova pack for a return to active duty, they contemplate the unicorn insignia that gives their uniform a rare distinction - a symbol of their status as an LGBTQ couple who are Ukrainian soldiers.

Members of Ukraine's LGBTQ community who sign up for the war have taken to sewing the image of the mythical beast into their standard-issue epaulettes just below the national flag.

The practice harks back to the 2014 conflict when Russia invaded then annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine, "when lots of people said there are no gay people in the army," actor, director and drama teacher Zhuhan told Reuters as he and Romanova dressed in their apartment for their second three-month combat rotation.

"So they (the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community) chose the unicorn because it is like a fantastic 'non-existent' creature."

Zhuhan and Romanova, who identifies as a non-binary person with she/her pronouns and moved to the capital from Crimea after being displaced in 2014, met through their theatre work.

Neither was trained in the use of weapons but, after spending a couple of days hiding in their bathroom at the start of the war, decided they had to do more.

"I just remember that at a certain point it became obvious that we only had three options: either hide in a bomb shelter, run away and escape, or join the Territorial Defence (volunteers). We chose the third option," Romanova said.

Russia says its forces are on a "special operation" to demilitarise Ukraine and rid it of radical anti-Russian nationalists. Ukraine and its allies call that a false pretext for a war of aggression.

For Zhuhan and Romanova, their vocation gives them an added sense of responsibility.

"Because what Russia does is they don't just take our territories and kill our people. They want to destroy our culture and... we can't allow this to happen," Zhuhan said.

'NO BULLYING'

Their first tour of duty around Mykolaiv in southern Ukraine, about 135 km (80 miles) from the port of Odesa, changed their lives. They fought in the same unit and found it terrifying, Zhuhan contracted pneumonia, but, the couple says, their fellow fighters accepted them.

"There was no aggression, no bullying... It was a little unusual for the others. But, over time, people started calling me Antonina, some even used my she pronoun," Romanova said.

There was much back-slapping as they joined their new unit at Kyiv's central station for a second three-month stint. Some of the team Zhuhan and Romanova knew but the commanders were not at the station.

"I'm a little worried about that," he said, the mood becoming more sombre as the unit headed towards their train as dusk fell. "I know that in some units, the rules are more strict... It wasn't like that in our (first) unit."

Zhuhan's unease lifts as one commander makes clear his refusal to tolerate homophobia, and a more senior officer says the only important thing on the front line is to be a good fighter, he subsequently tells Reuters by phone.

But one overriding fear, voiced back in their apartment, remains.

"The thing I'm worried about is that in case I get killed during this war, they won't allow Antonina to bury me the way I want to be buried," Zhuhan said.

"They'd rather let my mum bury me with the priest reading silly prayers... But I am an atheist and I don't want that."

(Reporting by Horaci Garcia; Writing by Eleanor Biles and John Stonestreet; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

LET THERE BE CONSPIRACY THEORIES

This American Married Into Royalty—Now She’s Dead

Barbie Latza Nadeau
Tue, May 31, 2022,

Instagram

An American-born princess whose fairy tale life turned into a modern horror story has died in her home in Spain.

Kasia Gallanio, 45, was born to Polish parents in Los Angeles, but spent the last years of her troubled life fighting for custody of the three daughters she had with the Prince of Qatar, Abdelaziz bin Khalifa Al-Thani, who is 30 years her senior and the uncle of the emir of Qatar.

Al-Thani moved to Paris in 1992 after he was cast out of the royal family for allegedly trying to overthrown the emir. He met Gallanio, who would ultimately become his third wife, there and convinced her to convert to Islam. Gallanio was involved in a $65 million lawsuit after discovering that someone had fraudulently been siphoning funds out of Al-Thani’s Barclay’s bank account, which made headlines across France in the late 1990s.

Gallanio left her husband over allegations that her husband sexually abused one of her three daughters when she was between 9 and 15 years old, and the two had been in a bitter custody battle that exposed plenty of family secrets of the Qatar royal family, with allegations that ran the gamut from infidelity to corruption.

Al-Thani denies all allegations and maintained custody off all three girls at his home in Paris while Gallanio lived in a palace in Marbella, Spain, where French media reported she was battling depression and addictions to drugs and alcohol.

Galliano had fled with her daughters from that palatial Parisian flat, but Al-Thani had recently regained custody of the girls, and they had moved back with him to Paris, according to French and Spanish media reports. If they attempted to visit their mother, the prince reportedly made them sleep in the servants quarters until they repented, according to French media reports.

A full autopsy is being carried out on Tuesday, but first responders said that they suspect her death was a drug overdose. Police went to the Costa del Sol beach home after she had not responded to her children’s telephone calls for several days. They have now opened an investigation into any circumstances around her death, including whether it was inspired by the bitter custody battle.

Rediscovered footage of Empress Teimei, Crown Prince Hirohito give rare glimpse into 1920s Japan



Jane Nam
Tue, May 31, 2022, 6:52 PM·1 min read

Century-old footage of Empress Teimei and Crown Prince Hirohito was recently discovered at a university in Ise, giving modern viewers an ultra-rare glimpse into an early 20th century Japan.

The eight-minute, black and white, silent clip was found at Kogakkan University of Japan, and dates back approximately 100 years to the Taisho era (1912-1926).

The first half of the video shows Empress Teimei visiting Jingu Kogakkan University and later the Ise Jingu shrine on November 5, 1922. The second half is of a then-24-year-old crown prince visiting the mausoleum on February 27, 1924.

The footage shows a modernized Japan with horse-drawn carriages and men and women in Western-inspired attire. The men sporting formal suits and top hats and the women in floor-length dresses with plume-adorned hats stand in stark contrast to the traditional buildings of the time period.

Soldiers are also shown marching in the rigidly postured style of British soldiers, moving forward with even steps in a straight file line.

Jingushicho, which manages the Ise Jingu shrine, commented, “We’re surprised to hear that footage from the Taisho era remains. We imagine that the sight of Empress Teimei at Ise Jingu shrine must be very valuable."

Honesty about hate: America must be truthful about the sources of Anti-Asian violence


Gardiner Anderson/New York Daily News/TNS

Daily News Editorial Board, New York Daily News
Tue, May 31, 2022

Today, the final day of Asian-American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, President Biden is set to address the sharp rise in anti-Asian-American hate crimes and discuss the importance of inclusion and fair representation. But the event will likely be incomplete, filled with vague entreaties for everyone to get along and perhaps a few suggestions that the last president is singularly responsible for opening a Pandora’s Box of bias-related violence.

While Donald Trump did indeed give implicit permission for racists to come out of their hidey-holes, including by gleefully labeling COVID the “Chinese virus,” we in New York City, where anti-Asian-American violence has grown more than anywhere, are fighting off a virus of hate that is more complex than that.

There is no indication that the perpetrators of anti-Asian-American violence here have commonality or affinity with the red-hatted MAGA hordes. That doesn’t accurately describe the man who pushed Michelle Go to her death, or the man who stabbed Christina Lee more than 40 times, or the man who chased down an Asian woman and pushing her to the ground late last month, or the man who struck a woman more than 40 times in a Yonkers vestibule while calling her an “Asian b---h,” or the man who attacked a man with a hammer on a Manhattan subway platform. Nor does it describe the man arrested for a two-hour spree of attacks on seven Asian women in late February.

Those first five incidents happened to be allegedly committed by mentally unstable men or otherwise hardened criminals who are Black, the last by a mentally unstable white man. None had known histories of political advocacy.

That’s an admittedly partial picture of the facts in America’s largest city, where anti-Asian hate and other forms of street violence rearing their heads appear to be deeply intertwined, and where untreated psychosis is a big part of the problem.

It does no one any good to pretend that some politically convenient disembodied force of hate is hurting people. Accurately describe the problem or it can never be set right.

Asian Americans are typecast as successful students, but new report finds troubling gaps


Teresa Watanabe
Tue, May 31, 2022

People on campus at UCLA. (Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

Asian Americans are often seen as successful students, but the stereotype masks "incredibly disconcerting" gaps in college outcomes among the multiple ethnic groups who make up the larger community in California, according to a new report released Tuesday.

Among the first-year, full-time students who entered the University of California in 2013, six-year graduation rates vary from about 90% for those of Chinese, Vietnamese and Indian descent to about 70% for Samoans and Hmong undergraduates, according to the report by the Campaign for College Opportunity. At California State University, about 85% of transfer students of Japanese and Filipino ancestry graduate in four to six years compared with less than 70% for Native Hawaiian, Bangladeshi and Tongan students.

The 95-page report details other stark differences in academic achievement among California's Asian American and Pacific Islander subgroups, including qualification for UC and Cal State admission, completion of community college degree or certificate programs and attainment of bachelor's degrees. Data on 30 subgroups were examined.

"The Asian American community in California is incredibly diverse and there are huge differences in terms of college preparation, college going and college success," said Michele Siqueiros, president of the college advocacy organization. "It's really harmful to lump all of the groups into a broad Asian American category together when we know that sort of model minority myth is absolutely harmful for subgroups that are not getting the kind of support or experiencing the kind of success ... that some groups are experiencing."

California is home to about 6.8 million Asian Americans, the largest concentration in the nation, and about 332,000 Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders. The vast majority trace their heritage to China, the Philippines, India, Vietnam, Korea and Japan, but dozens of other groups also reside in the state. All told, they make up about 15% of the state's population, the second largest racial/ethnic minority after Latinos.

The report notes some bright spots: 59% of Asian Americans between the ages of 25 and 64 have bachelor's degrees, the state's highest rate among racial or ethnic groups. Their overall six-year graduation rate of 88% is the highest in the UC system, and their enrollment at UC and Cal State held steady between 2019 and 2021, despite the COVID-19 pandemic.

But there was also disconcerting news: Only 22% of Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander Californians have bachelor's degrees, one of the lowest rates in the state. And, although 82% of Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Californians who entered high school in 2017 graduated, less than half completed the college prep coursework required for UC and Cal State admission.

The report highlighted other nuances masked by lumping all Asian, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Americans into one category. In 2020, nearly half of Cal State first-year students from that broad community reported incomes low enough to receive a federal Pell Grant, a smaller proportion than the systemwide average of 59%. But the rate varied dramatically by subgroup, from 11% for students of Japanese ancestry to 80% for Hmong Californians.

The broad community shared common struggles, however, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. Anti-Asian hate surged, small businesses shut down at disproportionately high rates, long-term unemployment rates rose, and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander residents had the highest rates of COVID-19 infections and related deaths among all racial and ethnic groups in the state.

The myriad stresses affected students. Leila Tamale said financial instability triggered by the pandemic drove her to save money by attending a community college instead of a four-year university. But she ultimately thrived at the College of San Mateo, she said, after joining a learning community there designed for Pacific Islander students like her — called Mana — that provides academic support, personal development and cultural connections.

Such targeted programs are critical to boost the success of the community's underserved subgroups, Tamale said Tuesday at a Campaign for College Opportunity webinar.

The failure to recognize the various challenges faced by subgroups has led to an assumption that they have few problems and to their "invisibility" in many equity conversations, Siqueiros said.

The report notes, for instance, that Asian American and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander faculty members are underrepresented compared with white counterparts in all three of the state's public higher education systems. Yet a current UC initiative to diversify the faculty is focusing on Black, Latino and Native American scholars, overlooking Asian Americans.

And although Asian Americans make up the UC system's largest group of undergraduates — 35% in fall 2021 — only one of 13 appointed Board of Regents members shares that racial background (five of the 18 board seats filled by gubernatorial appointment are currently vacant). The lack of Asian American regents is regarded as a big problem — and top priority to fix — by the California Asian Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus, according to Assemblyman Phil Ting (D-San Francisco).

The report recommends greater representation for Asian American and Pacific Islanders on public higher education governing boards and more robust efforts to recruit faculty from those groups. In addition, the report calls for changes to widen access, increase financial aid and close achievement gaps among subgroups.

"Asian Americans and NHPIs have a reputation for being successful students, with data on academic outcomes often painting the portrait of a high-performing group, especially for East and South Asian Americans," the report says. "These perceptions, however, stem from group averages that mask the variation in both access to higher education and success after college enrollment ... giving rise to a common misconception that Asian Americans and NHPIs attending our nation’s colleges and universities are universally succeeding without a need for better or more targeted support.

"Not only does this model minority myth harm students, but it also hamstrings college leaders and policymakers in ensuring practice and policy decisions reflect their constituents’ needs," the report concludes.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.