It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
CNN host Fareed Zakaria on Sunday slammed Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito for what he called a “disgusting” and “scandalous” speech last week criticizing foreign leaders who disagreed with his ruling on Roe V. Wade.
Zakaria told Jim Acosta on CNN that Supreme Court justices are supposed to, at the very least, conduct themselves in a way that is above politics, given they are unelected members with life tenure who can decide crucial decisions shaping the lives of millions of Americans.
“The reason they have that legitimacy is, to put it very simply, that they behave themselves, that they behave in accordance with the kind of dignity and majesty of the court,” said Zakaria, who hosts CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS.”
“What Alito did, behaving like a cheap commentator, and not a particularly good one at that, was frankly disgusting. I mean I thought it was the most undignified performance by a Supreme Court justice that I have seen in my lifetime,” he said. “I don’t think any of his predecessors would have done it. I think it’s scandalous.”
Zakaria added that he did not expect formal punishment, but added: “If John Roberts wants to fulfill his role as chief justice, I think he should call Justice Alito in and try to explain to him why it damages not just Alito — who looks like an idiot — but it damages the court.”
All four leaders had sharply criticized the Supreme Court for overturning the nearly 50-year constitutional right to abortion, which Alito seemed to find amusing.
“I’ve had a few second thoughts over the last few weeks since I had the honor this term of writing I think the only Supreme Court decision in the history of that institution that has been lambasted by a whole string of foreign leaders who felt perfectly fine commenting on American law,” Alito said during his speech.
The Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe V. Wade has paved the way for many GOP-led states to ban or severely restrict abortion access across the country, despite around two-thirds of Americans supporting the right to an abortion in some cases.
Trust in the Supreme Court has never been lower, according to polling earlier this month, which found just a quarter of Americans hold confidence in the high court.
China's Nio to make power products for Europe at its first overseas plant
Yesterday
SHANGHAI (Reuters) -Chinese electric car maker Nio plans to open its first overseas plant in September to make power products for the European market as it accelerates expansion abroad.
The plant, in Pest, Hungary, will develop and manufacture power products such as battery-swapping stations to serve European users, Nio said in a statement late on Friday.
Nio will speed up construction of battery swapping stations in Europe with a view to expanding sales of its cars in countries including Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark in the second half of this year.
The company is also partnering with oil giant Shell PLC to build battery swapping stations globally, starting with China and Europe this year, according to a Nio statement on Monday. Shell will open its charging network in Europe to Nio users, it added.
Nio started shipping its ES8s to Norway in 2021 and has opened a showroom in Oslo.
The company has been touting its after-sales services with city-centre showrooms and battery service networks as important competitive advantages.
Nio has said it planned to establish 4,000 battery swapping stations worldwide, a quarter of them outside China.
More Chinese electric vehicle (EV) startups and battery makers are increasing their presence in global markets where EV and energy storage demand is taking off.
Chinese battery maker Gotion High Tech Co said in June it planned to locate a third of its production capacity outside China by 2025 with construction of its first overseas battery plant, in Gottingen, Germany, to begin by the end of the year.
(Reporting by Zhang Yan, Brenda Goh; Editing by Robert Birsel and Louise Heavens)
OF COURSE NOT
No reported damage in Philippines from Chinese rocket debris
By Associated Press August 1, 2022 at 12:50 a.m. EDT
FILE - In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, people gather at the beach side as they watch the Long March 5B Y3 carrier rocket, carrying Wentian lab module, lift off from the Wenchang Space Launch Center in Wenchang in southern China’s Hainan Province Sunday, July 24, 2022. There was no reported damage in a western Philippine region, where debris from a rocket that boosted part of China’s new space station reportedly fell, a Filipino official said Monday, Aug. 1. (Zhang Liyun/Xinhua via AP, File)
MANILA, Philippines — There was no reported damage in a western Philippine region where debris from a rocket that boosted part of China’s new space station reportedly fell, a Filipino official said Monday.
Philippine Space Agency official Marc Talampas said authorities have been advised to be on the lookout for the rocket debris, which may have splashed down into seawaters off Palawan province.
“We are monitoring the situation and have also issued an advisory to the public to be vigilant, avoid contact with any suspected floating debris and to report to local authorities immediately,” Talampas told The Associated Press.
The China Manned Space Agency reported Sunday that most of the final stage of the Long March-5B rocket burned up after entering the atmosphere. It said the booster would be allowed to fall unguided.
The Chinese agency announcement gave no details of whether remaining debris fell on land or sea but said the “landing area” was at 119 degrees east longitude and 9.1 degrees north latitude. That is in waters southeast of Palawan’s capital city of Puerto Princesa.
The Philippine Space Agency did not receive any notifications from its Chinese counterpart about the rocket debris.
China has faced criticism for allowing rocket stages to fall to Earth uncontrolled twice before. NASA accused Beijing last year of “failing to meet responsible standards regarding their space debris” after parts of a Chinese rocket landed in the Indian Ocean.
The country’s first space station, Tiangong-1, crashed into the Pacific Ocean in 2016 after Beijing confirmed it lost control. An 18-ton rocket fell uncontrolled in May 2020.
China also faced criticism after using a missile to destroy one of its defunct weather satellites in 2007, creating a field of debris that other governments said might jeopardize other satellites.
The July 24 launch of the Long March-5B, China’s most-powerful rocket, carried the Wentian laboratory into orbit. It was attached to the Tianhe main module, where three astronauts live.
The remains of a separate cargo spacecraft that serviced the station fell into a predetermined area of the South Pacific after most of it burned up on reentry, the Chinese government announced earlier.
The closing of the San Francisco Art Institute: “The artists can go hang themselves”
The announcement in mid-July that the San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) would cease operations, no longer offering courses or degrees, is a significant and telling event.
Whatever the concrete circumstances and whichever individuals or bodies may bear some degree of responsibility, the shuttering of the once renowned school is a further sign—in the broadest sense—that, in the eyes of the American ruling elite, as we noted in April 2021 in regard to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, “the artists can go hang themselves.”
The situation is extraordinary. Not only was the SFAI one of the oldest art academies in the US, and the oldest in its Western half, it was located in one of the most dynamic cultural centers in the country historically, the Bay Area. In fact, the institute was a focal point of various artistic trends and movements in the 20th century. Now it has disappeared, without substantial outcry or protest, certainly not from the city’s affluent upper echelons.
San Francisco Art Institute (Photo credit–Pax Ahimsa Gethen)
In their July 15 announcement, Art Institute officials explained that after “many years of austerity measures, challenging fundraising campaigns, and various on and off merger and acquisition negotiations … SFAI is no longer financially viable and has ceased its degree programs as of July 15, 2022. SFAI will remain a nonprofit organization to protect its name, archives, and legacy.”
The school’s press release, written with a degree of bitterness, noted that as of July 16 “no students or employees will fill SFAI’s historic landmark campus, a beautiful and unique spot in San Francisco with its glorious Diego Rivera fresco … Instead, a few contractors will manage security, regulatory, legal, and financial matters, and ensure that students and alumni can access their academic records.”
According to the SFAI’s own historical account, “During its first 60 years, influential artists associated with the school included Eadweard Muybridge, photographer and pioneer of motion graphics; Maynard Dixon, painter of San Francisco’s labor movement and of the landscape of the West; Henry Kiyama, whose Four Immigrants Manga was the first graphic novel published in the U.S.; Sargent Claude Johnson, one of the first African-American artists from California to achieve a national reputation; Louise Dahl-Wolfe, an innovative photographer whose work for Harper’s Bazaar in the 1930s defined a new American style of ‘environmental’ fashion photography; John Gutzon Borglum, the creator of the large-scale public sculpture known as Mt. Rushmore; and numerous others.”
Following World War II, “the school became a nucleus for Abstract Expressionism.” The first fine art photography department in the US was established at the SFAI in 1946. “By the early 1950s, San Francisco’s North Beach was the West Coast center of the Beat Movement, and music, poetry, and discourse were an intrinsic part of artists’ lives.”
SFAI faculty members have included photographers Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange and Minor White, painters Elmer Bischoff, Richard Diebenkorn, Clyfford Still, Ad Reinhardt and Mark Rothko and filmmakers Stan Brakhage and George Kuchar.
The closure places Mexican artist Rivera’s famed work, The Making of a Fresco Showing the Building of a City, painted at the school in May 1931, in a precarious position. The July 15 announcement explains that the SFAI owns the fresco in its Chestnut Street campus, while the “University of California owns the building. SFAI will lose possession of the fresco if it defaults on or loses its lease on the building. SFAI is actively working with local and international donor communities to protect the fresco.”
Diego Rivera's The Making of a Fresco Showing the Building of a City (1931)
The immediate circumstance that brought about the July 15 closing was the failure of the SFAI’s attempt to merge with the University of San Francisco (USF), a private Jesuit institution. The university signed a letter of intent in February 2022 pledging to investigate the possibility of “integrating operations and academic programs in the arts to elevate the next generation of artists.” However, in July USF officials indicated that after five months of “extensive exploration and discussion about a possible integration of arts education programs for undergraduate and graduate students,” the university had informed the art institute that “a full integration of the two universities is not feasible due to financial and other considerations.”
A combination of processes undermined the art school. The SFAI’s financial difficulties are not new. An April 2020 article by Sarah Hotchkiss at KQED commented that, depending “on who you talk to, SFAI’s problems stem from different causes. Some blame the first dot-com bust. Others, many others, point to the school’s [$19 million] expansion into Fort Mason. Still others blame the rise in San Francisco’s cost of living, or the difficulty of running a small school without an enormous endowment.”
Declining enrollment did not help matters. Various factors contributed to that, including, according to Hotchkiss, “the Bay Area’s prohibitive rents, the expense of a private college education, the fear of graduating with overwhelming debt.” Tuition for the 2020–21 school year amounted to approximately $46,000 for undergraduate students and nearly $48,000 for graduate students. As the same article pointed out, “Ninety percent of SFAI’s domestic students take out some form of loan to pursue their educations, loans that must one day be repaid. Amid the student debt crisis, a nearly $280,000 art degree [including graduate school] can be a hard sell.”
Moreover, as it has done in so many spheres, the pandemic had a “trigger effect” here too. The new and apparently insurmountable financial problems erupted in the spring of 2020, after the school was forced to close down its operations due to the health crisis. Pam Rorke Levy, chair of the SFAI board, told ARTnews at the time that over “the past 149 years, the San Francisco Art Institute has survived crises large and small … but the uncertainties and financial hardships resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic are threatening to take us under.”
Artnet observed in January 2021 that the “nation’s first art academy west of the Mississippi … where giants like Ansel Adams once taught, has suffered numerous financial crunches over its long history. But as Bay Area real estate prices and cost of living have skyrocketed, the financial situation at the school, which offers only fine-art degrees and no (generally more lucrative) design and architecture programs, has become especially precarious.”
Artnet reported at the time that the SFAI was considering selling off the Rivera mural, appraised at $50 million, and that one of the potential buyers was filmmaker George Lucas.
The demise of the San Francisco Art Institute is a disgraceful event, which speaks to the general decline of cultural life in crisis-ridden capitalist America. As we wrote after one year of the pandemic, as the disaster for art and artists unfolded, by and large, “global ruling elites view any activity not directly and immediately related to amassing profits or driving up share values as useless and counterproductive. Worse still, as social tensions mount, there is always the danger that artists may speak impermissible truths and gain a significant public hearing.”
A March 2021 US government report asserted that artists were “among the most severely affected workers by the pandemic.” The update estimated that 63 percent of artists or creative workers “became fully unemployed in 2020 and have lost an average of $37,430 each in creativity-based income since the pandemic’s onset.” Ninety-five percent of artists reported loss of income, while 78 percent had “no post-pandemic financial recovery plan,” 50 percent had been “unable to sell/distribute their creative product” and 74 percent had “had their events canceled.”
This, of course, came on top of pre-pandemic conditions for the vast majority of artists in the US that were already impossible.
In his book The Death of the Artist: How Creators Are Struggling to Survive in the Age of Billionaires and Big Tech (2020), William Deresiewicz took note of a study revealing that “only 10 percent of the two million arts graduates in the United States make their primary living as artists, that 85 percent of artists in New York City have day jobs unrelated to the arts, and that the other 15 percent have median incomes of $25,000.” Meanwhile, in 2018, “just twenty individuals accounted for 64 percent of total sales by living artists.”
Are there resources enough in the San Francisco Bay Area to sustain an art college? It seems so. As of April 2022, according to Forbes, the region was home to 116 billionaires, more than reside in any other single state, except New York. The six richest individuals in California alone, all of whom live in the Bay Area, have a collective net worth of more than a third of a trillion dollars, reports the magazine. What shall we call them then, “barbarians at the Golden Gate”?
Small Businesses Are Fighting to Get the Pentagon War Ready
MAG Aerospace, a longtime Pentagon partner, has grown from a small to a medium-sized contractor over the last ten years. The firm stands as an example of the kinds of defense companies in a position to deepen their internal research and development.
As the Pentagon explores new avenues of outreach to small and medium-sized businesses, several key entities, such as the Department of Defense-affiliated National Security Innovation Network (NSIN), are increasing partnerships with industry innovators to accelerate an often cumbersome development process.
This government-private sector integration is precisely what NSIN envisions as central to its core mission, which it refers to as a “collaboration portfolio.”
“The Collaboration Portfolio increases the intellectual diversity of the DoD by bringing together innovators from defense, academia, and the venture community to solve national security problems,” NSIN officials told The National Interest in a written statement.
MAG Aerospace, a longtime Pentagon partner, has grown from a small to a medium-sized contractor over the last ten years. The firm stands as an example of the kinds of defense companies in a position to deepen their internal research and development.
For instance, MAG has partnered with Pentagon developers to work on a national initiative aimed at standing up “innovation centers” with specific areas of scientific focus across the country. MAG’s New Jersey Innovation Center, for example, is focused on software development to create what MAG calls an “innovative Secure Software Development Life Cycle that combines Software Engineering, Cybersecurity, Risk Management, Quality Management, and Project Management Processes.”
A software emphasis is key given its significance to weapons upgrades and ability to improve guidance technology, targeting, energetics, or explosive effects. This has been in practice for quite some time. Former Air Force Acquisition Executive William Roper once said that software will likely determine who wins the next war. The importance of information management and communication has become so critical and ubiquitous across military operations, that there continues to be a growing imperative to include “information assurance” in the equation. This is something AASKI LABS, a MAG subsidiary, is specifically focused on.
“The MAG Innovation Team injects security-based requirements directly into the initial requirements gathering process to help identify what the applicable security reviews, tests, and implementations requirements are for any given release. This provides the most secure path and inherently increases security posture as the life cycle progresses,” Matt Bartlett, president of MAG Aerospace, told The National Interest.
Much of the focus is on networking or the process of finding and advancing new and secure methods of organizing and sharing information across a multi-domain joint force. This is the concept behind the Pentagon’s Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2) program, an interoperability initiative MAG innovation centers are designed to address. One of the centers is called a “mobile interoperability” center which includes a customized test vehicle with racks, LRU mounting trays, cabling, wiring, power systems, and satellite terminal equipment.
“The mobile innovation center enables Over-The-Air satellite testing in conjunction with the CONUS satellite network. Our interoperability innovation lab has a full suite of Ku-band, L-band, and modem test equipment. The innovation center also has test fixtures and troubleshooting tools supporting the repair of advanced communication products,” Bartlett said.
MAG developers say the innovation center houses an environmental chamber instrumented for Ku-band and L-band devices, which is used primarily for environmental screening and testing modems and antenna RF components using cold and heat cycles.
Satellite technologies also figure prominently in MAG’s Space Innovation Center, which maintains manufacturing, prototyping, advanced engineering, and technology integration areas designed to test paradigm-changing space technology. This is critical, particularly in light of the U.S. effort to launch a new space command, for deploying hundreds of new low (LEO) and medium-earth orbit satellites and developing new weapons and defenses for space. Large numbers of dispersed and securely networked LEO satellites could prove essential during efforts to develop a continuous “track” on an enemy hypersonic weapon between segregated radar apertures. Many of these satellites build in redundancy and seek to cover expansive and disconnected areas. But they are also specifically engineered with high-throughput technology and a growing artificial intelligence-enabled ability to process information at the point of collection.
Kris Osborn is the defense editor for the National Interest. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Master's Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.
US energy envoy in Beirut as Israel, Lebanon eye maritime border deal
Amos Hochstein's trip comes just days after media cited Israeli officials as saying that the longstanding border dispute was “on the verge of a solution.” An Israeli warship sails near one of Israel's offshore natural gas rigs.
Photo courtesy of the IDF Spokesperson's Unit.
(July 31, 2022 / JNS) U.S. Senior Adviser for Energy Security Amos Hochstein was due in Beirut on Sunday as part of an ongoing effort to mediate indirect talks between Israel and Lebanon aimed at resolving a longstanding maritime border dispute, according to a State Department statement.
During his visit, Hochstein will “discuss sustainable solutions to Lebanon’s energy crisis, including the Biden administration’s commitment to facilitating negotiations between Lebanon and Israel on the maritime boundary. Reaching a resolution is both necessary and possible, but can only be done through negotiations and diplomacy,” the statement read.
The trip comes just days after local media cited Israeli officials as saying that the dispute was “on the verge of a solution,” and that Hochstein would present a draft compromise proposal enabling both countries to drill for gas in the contested Karish field.
“In Israel, the declarations by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah are being viewed as an attempt to frame the latest development, so that if an agreement is reached on the maritime dispute, it will be [seen as being] due to his declarations and actions,” the officials told Kan.
Nasrallah last week threatened war if Israel begins extracting gas from its offshore Karish field in the absence of a deal with Beirut.
“If the extraction of oil and gas from Karish begins in September before Lebanon obtains its right, we would be heading to a ‘problem,’ and we’ll do anything to achieve our objective,” Nasrallah told the Hezbollah-affiliated Al-Mayadeen TV channel, according to Lebanese news site Naharnet.
Previous U.S.-mediated talks failed to produce an agreement, especially after Lebanon pushed its claim in the disputed maritime zone from a boundary known as “Line 23” further south to “Line 29,” adding around 1,400 square kilometers (540 square miles) to its claim, including part of Karish.
On July 2, the Israel Defense Forces shot down three unmanned aerial vehicles sent by Hezbollah from Lebanon towards the Karish platform, which is located some 80 kilometers (50 miles) off the coast of Haifa
Hezbollah airs video of Israeli barges in disputed gas field
By KAREEM CHEHAYEB FILE - An Israeli Navy vessel patrols in the Mediterranean Sea, while Lebanon and Israel are being called to resume indirect talks over their disputed maritime border with U.S. mediation, off the southern town of Naqoura, Monday, June 6, 2022. The Israeli military on Saturday, July 2, 2022 said it shot down three unmanned aircraft launched by the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah heading toward an area where an Israeli gas platform was recently installed in the Mediterranean Sea.
(AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari, File)
BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon’s Hezbollah on Sunday aired drone footage of Israeli ships in a disputed gas field in the Mediterranean Sea, highlighting the tension at the center of U.S.-mediated maritime border talks between Lebanon and Israel.
The footage was aired as the U.S. energy envoy, Amos Hochstein, was landing in Beirut to mediate ongoing talks between Lebanon and Israel over their sea borders. Lebanon claims the Karish gas field is disputed territory under ongoing maritime border negotiations, whereas Israel says it lies within its internationally recognized economic waters.
Caretaker Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib in a statement Friday said Hochstein will inform Lebanon of Israel’s response to Lebanon’s June proposal, adding that he was optimistic about reaching an agreement soon.
There was no immediate response to the video from Israel.
The footage aired on the Iran-backed party and militia’s Al-Manar television, showed barges from reconnaissance drones over the Karish gas field and their coordinates. It ended with footage of a rocket with the words “within range” in Arabic and Hebrew.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in an interview last week said that the militant group can locate and strike Karish and any other Israeli gas field.
Following his last visit in June, Hochstein told U.S.-funded Al-Hurra television that the Lebanese government took “a very strong step forward” by presenting a more united approach, and anticipated that there could be progress to reach a settlement.
The two countries, which have been officially at war since Israel’s creation in 1948, both claim some 860 square kilometers (330 square miles) of the Mediterranean Sea. Lebanon hopes to exploit offshore gas reserves as it grapples with the worst economic crisis in its modern history.
Manchin said he cut a last-minute deal on Biden agenda since Democrats might lose big in the November midterms Joseph Zeballos-Roig Jul 28, 2022,
Sen. Joe Manchin listens to President Joe Biden's first State of the Union.
J. Scott Applewhite-Pool/Getty Images Manchin said he cut a last-minute deal on Biden's agenda since Dems might lose control of Congress in November.
"We don't know what the future will bring," he told Politico.
Democrats are racing to send the $740 billion bill to Biden's desk within two weeks.
Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia opened up about his reasons for cutting a deal now to revive the Democratic agenda. The party might lose one or both chambers of Congress in the November midterms, which would deal a fatal blow to their domestic ambitions for the final two years of President Joe Biden's term.
"In any other environment [than] what we have right now, this would be a bipartisan bill. I really believe that. This is the only vehicle I have to work with right now," Manchin told Politico on Wednesday. "We don't know what the future will bring. But all indications, might be a little bit of a shake-up. And that changes the dynamics of getting something done."
The conservative Democrat on Thursday claimed ownership of the $740 billion spending deal that was revealed in a stunning announcement a day earlier. Manchin and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer struck an agreement on a broad healthcare, climate, and tax package that was bigger than many Democrats thought possible only two weeks ago when prior negotiations apparently collapsed.
The pair agreed to extend financial assistance for Americans to purchase health insurance through the Affordable Care Act for three years. It also included $370 billion for climate programs and set aside $300 billion to reduce the federal deficit.
"This is not a Democrat bill. It's not a Republican bill. This is an American bill," he told reporters in a press call on Thursday. He argued the package would make significant headway on denting inflation amid heightening fears of an economic slowdown.
Democrats hope to pass the bill in the 50-50 Senate next week, though a spate of COVID infections is threatening to upend that timeline. They're using budget reconciliation to approve it with a simple majority in the upper chamber, using a tie-breaking vote from Vice President Kamala Harris to skirt GOP resistance.
Most Democrats quickly threw their support behind the agreement, but there was one notable holdout: Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. Her spokesperson said in a statement that Sinema needed more time to review the legislation and wanted a top Senate official to ensure the bill complies with the strict rules of reconciliation.
Democrats are now racing to send the bill to Biden's desk within the next two weeks.
Referring to the deal's healthcare and climate initiatives, Schumer told Democratic senators, "we now have the opportunity to get those two hugely important priorities passed before the August recess," in a private caucus meeting on Thursday morning, per a Democrat in the room. "We will need to be disciplined in our messaging and focus. It will be hard. But I believe we can get this done."
Manchin Spending Deal Includes Billions in Taxes on Oil Sector
The climate and tax spending deal announced last week by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Joe Manchin could cost the oil industry $25 billion in new taxes.
The legislation, which may get a Senate vote as soon as next week, would reinstate and increase a long-lapsed tax on crude and imported petroleum products to 16.4 cents per gallon, according to a summary of the plan released Sunday by the Senate’s tax-writing committee.
A similar proposal, included in the House-passed Build Back Better Act, would have raised nearly $25 billion over a 10-year period, according to a congressional estimate.
The Superfund tax, which previously stood at 9.7 cents per barrel until it lapsed at the end of 1995, is paid by refiners and other importers to help fund the clean-up of hazardous waste sites. In addition to increasing the tax, the Senate proposal would index the fee to inflation.
The 725-page bill released last week would also impose other costs for the oil and gas industry. It places a new first-time fee on methane emissions rising to as much as $1,500 a ton and increases the royalty rate companies pay to the government for oil and gas produced on federal land.
The legislation, which includes some $370 billion in spending to help fight climate change, also has benefits for the oil and gas sector such as requiring more lease sales on federal land.
It remains to be seen whether the legislation will be backed by the full Democratic caucus in the 50-50 Senate. It would also have to pass the House, where progressives sought a much more expansive plan.
— With assistance by Erik Wasson
Brazilian city's homeless get incentive for going to shelter: Beds for their pets JULY 31, 2022PUBLISHED AT 8:37 PM A homeless man embraces his dog while resting in a shelter as low temperatures hit the streets, in Canoas, Brazil, on July 26, 2022.
CANOAS, Brazil - A small city in southern Brazil has found a way to attract more homeless people to one of its shelters on chilly winter nights: They now also take in people's pets.
Canoas -- a city with an estimated population of 348,000 in the state of Rio Grande do Sul -- came to the realization that many people living on the streets avoided staying at the city's 14 shelters during the Southern Hemisphere winter now taking place because their pets were not welcome, said the city's animal welfare special secretary, Fabiane Tomazi Borba.More from AsiaOneRead the condensed version of this story, and other top stories with NewsLite.
"Many times, they prefer not to stay in a shelter, so as not to abandon their pets," the animal care specialist said.
Homeless people and their pets can now sleep under a roof and find shelter from the low temperatures at the La Salle Sao Paulo school facilities, which can house up to 150 people per day.
Machado de Lima has been sleeping at the shelter with his dogs.
Homeless people sit inside a bus with their pets as they wait for transfer to a shelter during low temperatures in Canoas, Brazil, on July 26, 2022. PHOTO: Reuters
"If I couldn't stay at the shelter, I would take them (dogs) to sleep with me. They sleep with me in the street," he said.
Homeless people receive an amenity kit containing items like soap, towels, toothbrush and toothpaste, and are provided with breakfast and dinner. Their pets receive a veterinary checkup.
Animal care specialist Borba said pets are checked for parasites, vaccinated and castrated or spayed.
"They can live here with their parents, sleep warm, healthily and with the guarantee that they will not transmit any illness. So the perspective is to care for humans, but, also, for pets," she said.
From Singapore to Hong Kong and Japan, is a 4-day work week a pipe dream for Asia?
JULY 31, 2022
By AISYAH LLEWELLYN People wearing face masks cross a road amid the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) outbreak in Singapore, on May 14, 2021.
Reuters
New World Development, one of Hong Kong's largest employers, recently introduced a four-and-a-half day work week to support workers to "maintain a healthy work-life balance", making it the first major property developer in the city to reduce working hours without cutting pay.
South Korean tech firm Kakao, which has more than 10,000 employees, is planning a pilot programme for flexible and shorter working hours, while in Japan, Hitachi has introduced a system for some 15,000 workers to organise their schedules into a four-day work week.More from AsiaOneRead the condensed version of this story, and other top stories with NewsLite.
These are just some recent workplace initiatives being rolled out across Asia, as more companies worldwide seek to improve their employees' well-being and relook at what productivity means in the modern workplace.
But in a region notorious for working the longest hours in the world, some critics say such schemes are not likely to reap their intended benefits without governments and employers first addressing the factors behind such an entrenched work culture, and enacting more labour protection.
Anis Hidayah, head of Migrant Care, an Indonesian NGO promoting the rights of migrant workers, said the benefits of a four-day work week depended very much on its implementation and whether workers were expected to achieve the same output in less time.
"How this will affect workers and whether it will increase or decrease productivity is very important," she said, adding that while the idea was good in practice, it may be difficult to roll out across all forms of employment.
"Across many sectors, workers already work more than eight hours per day, especially in Southeast Asia in countries like Malaysia and Singapore," she noted. "Perhaps in sectors such as in factories, a four-day work week will be feasible, but I'm not sure about other [roles] such as domestic workers."
It doesn't help when long work hours are enshrined into law. In South Korea, it is legal for employers to make staff work 52 hours a week - a number reduced from 68 hours in 2018. In Malaysia, a working week should consist of 48 hours, but the reality is very different, activists say.
"Definitely a four-day work week will help workers to have some work-life balance," said Sivaranjani Manickam, head of the Workers Bureau at the Socialist Party of Malaysia
.
In Malaysia, many people face pressure to work overtime. PHOTO: Reuters
"Currently though, the law in Malaysia states that working hours means eight hours per day and 48 hours per week, but in reality, many workers are working 12 hours a day and 84 hours per week," she said. "So can a four-day work week really work in reality?"
Manickam added that people risked losing their jobs if they rejected overtime work. "The trend is, you only get employed if you are ready to work 12 hours per day. This is the situation in Malaysia."
A survey of 6,000 workers across Southeast Asia by Milieu Insight in February indicated that a majority would welcome a shorter work week.
About two-thirds (67 per cent) of respondents - who came from Singapore, Thailandm Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines and Indonesia - said a shorter work week would grant them greater work-life balance, while 64 per cent said they would have more time to spend with loved ones.
Almost half (48 per cent) said they would have more time to be creative and generate ideas, while 45 per cent said it would increase their productivity.
But some Asian professionals who have had experience working in Western workplaces and in high-intensity regional hubs like Hong Kong and Singapore say they are sceptical about the feasibility of a shortened work week without a sea change in attitudes towards labour rights.
Singaporean Adrianna Tan, a director of product management in San Francisco, said workers in the United States had more sense of their rights than those in Asia.
"The US is not a worker's paradise, and certainly nowhere as developed as workers' rights in Northern Europe, but it's still better than what I experienced working in Singapore," she said.
Tan observed that workers in the US had better knowledge of labour policies and they valued work-life balance more deeply than those in Singapore. Unions, which Tan had no experience in Singapore, were also stronger and more common in American work culture.
Still, the needle has begun to shift for some workers, especially since the rise of remote working during the Covid-19 pandemic has pushed companies to explore flexible modes of working.
PropertyGuru Group in Southeast Asia, which has more than 1,600 employees from 30 nationalities, last year rolled out its 'Future of work' programme in Malaysia and Singapore that allowed employees to work in a hybrid environment and choose their working hours. It will expand the scheme across its other Southeast Asian offices once each country has relaxed its coronavirus measures.
The programme also offers options such as a 'Compressed Work Week' that lets workers choose between working four days a week or nine days in a fortnight. Employees can work full hours over fewer days with no difference in pay, in accordance with their role requirements and in consultation with their managers. There is also a 'Part-Time Work' scheme that allows employees to work fewer days and hours during the week for prorated pay.
Lauren Huntington, Employee Experience Solution Strategist - Southeast Asia, at the US software firm Qualtrics, said employers ultimately needed to realise that "what employees really want and have come accustomed to is the flexibility to adjust their work schedules to fit the demands of their lives".
"Increasingly, we're seeing people make career decisions and finding fulfilment in their jobs by working for organisations that truly understand and respond to their needs, and where they feel they belong," Huntington was quoted as saying in a report accompanying Qualtric's survey of Singaporean attitudes towards a four-day work week.
The online poll of over 1,000 workers showed that 64 per cent of full-time employees in Singapore would prefer having flexibility in the workplace, much higher than 36 per cent who prefer having one less day to work.
SINGAPORE - Flexible work arrangements have become more common among organisations in Singapore despite the country's transition to living with Covid-19.
Many employers have chosen to continue riding the work-from-home momentum, allowing staff to operate remotely for part of the week.
Aside from large corporates, the public service has also been a leader in adopting flexible workplace arrangements, with the likes of the Auditor-General's Office and the Government Technology Agency allowing employees to work from home some days of the week.
While flexible work is most closely associated with work from home, it includes other arrangements, such as staggered work hours and job sharing.
Other than telecommuting, public service agencies also allow some staff to stagger their work hours, such as starting earlier or later than the usual time.
This flexibility is seen not only to benefit those with caregiving duties, but could also help to reduce peak-hour traffic congestion.
The broader adoption of hybrid work arrangements here mirrors the shifts seen globally.
Financial institutions such as Citi, HSBC and UBS have flexible work plans.
Citi Singapore, for one, will allow most staff to work remotely for up to two days a week by the third quarter of the year, with some teams already adopting such flexible arrangements. The American bank employs about 8,500 full-time and contract staff in Singapore.
Workers have noted that telecommuting has contributed to much better work-life harmony for them, said Dr Tan, adding that helping people achieve this harmony is one way in which employers can foster inclusive and progressive workplaces where employees feel valued and empowered.
The White Paper on women's development released earlier this year said that the Government may introduce a new set of guidelines by 2024 that will require employers to consider staff requests for flexible work arrangements fairly and properly.
The Ministry of Manpower has said that the guidelines will establish the norm that it is acceptable to request flexible work arrangements, while maintaining the employers' prerogative to decide, taking into account business needs.
Consultations are expected to be held before the guidelines are finalised.
In the meantime, the discourse on remote working and flexible work arrangements in Singapore remains fluid, with issues such as tax treatment, employers' obligations towards remote workers and employee mental health to be addressed.
Lufthansa faces more turmoil as pilots back possible strikes
The carrier last week cancelled around 1,000 flights at its Frankfurt and Munich hubs due to industrial action by ground staff
A strike last week by Lufthansa ground staff caused widespread disruption in Frankfurt and Munich
Photo credit: Sven Hoppe/dpa
Lufthansa may face further disruption after its pilots voted for strikes if they’re considered necessary to force a wage deal, a move that could unleash another wave of cancellations unless the airline’s negotiators and labour representatives can settle their differences.
The VC pilots union voted overwhelmingly on Sunday in favour of walkouts, meaning Lufthansa could be hit with stoppages as soon as next month. Strikes would trigger additional cancellations on top of the 7,000 flights the company has scratched this summer due to staffing shortages.
“This positive ballot does not yet necessarily lead to strike action,” the union said in an emailed statement. “But it is an unmistakable signal to Lufthansa to take the needs of cockpit staff seriously.”
A Lufthansa spokesperson said by email that the company respects the vote result and is continuing to rely on “constructive discussions” in order to resolve the conflict. Further talks with VC have been arranged, the spokesperson said, declining to specify when they will take place.
Pilot strikes at Europe’s biggest airline would add to a summer of chaos across the continent, where airports and airlines have struggled to accommodate a surge in bookings compared with the pandemic-induced slowdown.
Having initially avoided walkouts that have plagued rivals like Ryanair, Lufthansa’s management is facing action from its various labour unions. The carrier last week cancelled around 1,000 flights at its Frankfurt and Munich hubs due to industrial action by ground staff.
“We need a modern and fair, internationally competitive remuneration structure,” Marcel Groels, the VC’s chief negotiator, said on Sunday by email. “In the interest of our passengers, too, Lufthansa must show a serious willingness to find solutions.”
Surging German inflation is leading workers across the economy to demand higher pay, bringing the threat of strikes in several sectors. Lufthansa’s pilots are demanding wage increases to help offset the near double-digit rise in consumer prices.
After surviving a pandemic that pushed the carrier to the brink of insolvency, Lufthansa faces a swell of anger from employees who say they’ve borne the brunt of drastic cost cuts that they say put Lufthansa’s branding as a premium carrier at risk.
Chief Executive Officer Carsten Spohr has pledged to boost the airline’s earnings margin to a minimum of 8% by 2024, a move he said was needed to reduce debt. Disputes with worker representatives suggest Spohr might have trouble reaching those goals, as he tries to balance the need for more staff with a push to cut costs.
Still, the airline this month said it returned to profitability in the second quarter, benefiting from surging travel demand that’s forced the sector to raise fares and limit seat availability.
