Poorest UK households face biggest jump in inflation

The poorest 10% of households were hit by a 12.5% rise in their living costs for October.

The poorest have faced the largest rise in inflation, according to the Office for National Statistics (Aaron Chown/PA)

By Henry Saker-Clark, 

PA Deputy Business Editor
November 16 2022

The poorest tenth of UK households witnessed the sharpest jump in the cost-of-living last month, according to official figures.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said that the gap between inflation faced by the poorest and wealthiest UK households widened to the largest since the financial crisis in 2009.

It came as statisticians revealed Consumer Prices Index (CPI) inflation of 11.1% in October for the country, jumping to a 41-year-high from 10.1% the previous month.





The jump was driven by higher energy bills and more expensive food, which essentials such as milk and pasta leaping in price.

In a separate report based on the data, the ONS said these increases were weighing particularly heavily on the poorest in society.

The poorest 10% of households were hit by a 12.5% rise in their living costs for the month.

Meanwhile, the richest 10% of households experienced inflation of 9.6% in October.

The ONS highlighted that the gap is largely driven by increases in energy and food costs as poorer households spent “a greater proportion of their expenditure” on these compared with the top tenth.



Jack Leslie, senior economist at the Resolution Foundation, said: “Everyone in Britain is affected by double digit inflation – which has caused pay packets to shrink at record rates.

“But some groups are more affected than others, and Britain now has a significant cost-of-living gap between rich and poor households.

“Rising energy bills and rapid food prices mean that low-income households now face an effective average inflation rate of around 12.5%, while in the cold winter months, the over-80s are already facing inflation rates of around 15.3%.

“This shows why the Chancellor needs to protect vulnerable households through the ongoing cost-of-living crisis when he sets out his autumn statement.”

THE SOLUTION 

UK

The Chancellor must not balance the Budget on the backs of the poor

(Alamy)

Patrick Watt

If you go into most churches across the United Kingdom – not just on a Sunday but on any day of the week – you’ll find people on the frontline of the response to the cost-of-living crisis.

Church congregations – in common with other local faith communities – are running food banks and debt crisis centres and, as winter approaches, acting as warm banks for the growing numbers of people struggling to heat their homes, as well as feed their families.

This is central to how many millions of people live out their faith. But putting faith into action doesn’t stop there. The people who volunteer for our food banks are often the same people who raise funds and take action to support people beyond our borders: people whose lives have been devastated by conflict, climate change and extreme poverty, in Ukraine, Pakistan and East Africa.


We expect a swift return to spending 0.7 per cent of national income on tackling poverty overseas

For many Christians there is no choice to be made between tackling poverty at home and abroad.

This isn’t just about generosity. It is about something much deeper – the answer to the question, “who is my neighbour?” – and the responsibility that we have for one another.

In the past year huge numbers of people in the UK and globally have been plunged into poverty on a scale not seen for decades. In the UK, nearly 10 million adults and 4 million children didn’t have enough to eat or skipped meals this September. Meanwhile, tens of millions of people in Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya face the looming threat of famine following the worst drought in 40 years.

This should be what the Prime Minister and Chancellor are focused on as they plan the government’s financial statement tomorrow.

That public finances are currently stretched hardly needs stating. However, what Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt must not do is to balance the budget on the backs of the poor. Not that they need to pursue austerity 2.0. Much more could be done to tax the vast profits of oil and gas companies, ensure that multinational companies systematically avoiding their fair share of taxes pay up and equalise tax on private wealth with income tax.

The worst possible response to the deepest cost of living crisis in a generation is to treat it as a zero-sum competition between the most disadvantaged people at home and abroad. So just as a fair society would expect welfare benefits to be protected on in the Budget, so too should we expect a swift return to spending 0.7 per cent of national income on tackling poverty overseas. As the COP27 summit focuses on the loss and damage caused by climate change, the UK should be joining Denmark, Belgium, Austria and others in looking at how to mobilise new sources of finance, rather than cannibalising a shrinking aid budget.

As the Prime Minister and Chancellor finalise their plans for the Autumn Statement, where will they draw inspiration? They may be looking at the record of Conservative predecessors, such as Margaret Thatcher, who famously once said: “No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions – he had money as well.”

But Margaret Thatcher missed the key point about Jesus’s best-known parable. The Good Samaritan is neither a story about good intentions nor money. It’s about how we should love our neighbours as ourselves. The people on our street are our neighbours. But so too are the people of South Sudan and Afghanistan.

Churches across the UK understand that. It’s time that the UK government did as well.


Patrick Watt, CEO of Christian Aid.

UK
Pictish stone discovered in Highland cemetery

Tue, November 15, 2022

A carved stone discovered in Caithness could help archaeologists shed new light on the development of Pictish symbols.

A woman researching her family history spotted the partly covered stone while looking at graves in a cemetery in Ulbster.

T he stone is thought to date from about the 6th Century and has been taken to a safe place to be cleaned and studied.

R oland Spencer Jones, of Yarrows Heritage Trust, said the stone could be carved with early examples of Pictish art.

S ome of the symbols, marked in red, on the stone

M r Spencer Jones said: "Pictish art is a bit like Egyptian hieroglyphs with its symbols and pictures of objects.

" Even now we don't really know what those symbols mean, and how they were used so this stone is really at the very beginning of that tradition of carving."

H e said the stone had symbols seen frequently in Pictish art and known to experts as a "mirror" and another as a "z rod".

M r Spencer Jones added: "Every now and then a new Pictish stone appears, sometimes a whole entire magnificent one, sometimes just a fragment.

" Each of them tells a story.

" For a Pictish art historian this adds yet another piece to the complicated jigsaw that is the world of Pictish art."

The Picts created intricately decorated standing stones and also constructed impressive hill forts to defend themselves against rival tribes and invaders.

They battled against the Romans, Angles and the Vikings.

I n 2019, another Pictish stone was found at a cemetery near Dingwall. The stone had been used as a grave marker in the 18th Century.

Robert Louis Stevenson

Heather Ale

A GALLOWAY LEGEND

From the bonny bells of heather
  They brewed a drink long-syne,
Was sweeter far then honey,
  Was stronger far than wine.
They brewed it and they drank it,
  And lay in a blessed swound
For days and days together
  In their dwellings underground.

There rose a king in Scotland,
  A fell man to his foes,
He smote the Picts in battle,
  He hunted them like roes.
Over miles of the red mountain
  He hunted as they fled,
And strewed the dwarfish bodies
  Of the dying and the dead.

Summer came in the country,
  Red was the heather bell;
But the manner of the brewing
  Was none alive to tell.
In graves that were like children's
  On many a mountain head,
The Brewsters of the Heather
  Lay numbered with the dead.

The king in the red moorland
  Rode on a summer's day;
And the bees hummed, and the curlews
  Cried beside the way.
The king rode, and was angry,
  Black was his brow and pale,
To rule in a land of heather
  And lack the Heather Ale.

It fortuned that his vassals,
  Riding free on the heath,
Came on a stone that was fallen
  And vermin hid beneath.
Rudely plucked from their hiding,
  Never a word they spoke;
A son and his aged father --
  Last of the dwarfish folk.

The king sat high on his charger,
  He looked on the little men;
And the dwarfish and swarthy couple
  Looked at the king again.
Down by the shore he had them;
  And there on the giddy brink --
"I will give you life, ye vermin,
  For the secret of the drink."

There stood the son and father,
  And they looked high and low;
The heather was red around them,
  The sea rumbled below.
And up and spoke the father,
  Shrill was his voice to hear:
"I have a word in private,
  A word for the royal ear.

"Life is dear to the aged,
  And honour a little thing;
I would gladly sell the secret,"
  Quoth the Pict to the king.
His voice was small as a sparrow's,
  And shrill and wonderful clear:
"I would gladly sell my secret,
  Only my son I fear.

"For life is a little matter,
  And death is nought to the young;
And I dare not sell my honour
  Under the eye of my son.
Take him, O king, and bind him,
  And cast him far in the deep;
And it's I will tell the secret
  That I have sworn to keep."

They took the son and bound him,
  Neck and heels in a thong,
And a lad took him and swung him,
  And flung him far and strong,
And the sea swallowed his body,
  Like that of a child of ten; --
And there on the cliff stood the father,
  Last of the dwarfish men.

"True was the word I told you:
  Only my son I feared;
For I doubt the sapling courage
  That goes without the beard.
But now in vain is the torture,
  Fire shall never avail:
Here dies in my bosom
  The secret of Heather Ale."

---

NOTE TO HEATHER ALE

Among the curiosities of human nature this legend claims a high place. It is needless to remind the reader that the Picts were never exterminated, and form to this day a large proportion of the folk of Scotland, occupying the eastern and the central parts, from the Firth of Forth, or perhaps the Lammermoors, upon the south, to the Ord of Caithness on the north. That the blundering guess of a dull chronicler should have inspired men with imaginary loathing for their own ancestors is already strange; that it should have begotten this wild legend seems incredible. Is it possible the chronicler's error was merely nominal? that what he told, and what the people proved themselves so ready to receive, about the Picts, was true or partly true of some anterior and perhaps Lappish savages, small of stature, black of hue, dwelling underground -- possibly also the distillers of some forgotten spirit? See Mr. Campbell's Tales of the West Highlands.

‘Rare’ gold coin found in Canada may break record and reshape history, officials say


Photo from the Newfoundland and Labrador government

Brendan Rascius
Tue, November 15, 2022 

A gold coin recently discovered along the Canadian coastline by a metal detectorist may be the oldest English coin ever found in the country.

Its discovery may call into question the commonly accepted timeline of European exploration of the continent.

The coin, which is warped and intricately embossed, was found during the summer of 2022, according to a Nov. 9 press release from the the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Edward Hynes was scanning the coast of Newfoundland, Canada’s easternmost province, with his metal detector when he heard a “thrilling” beep, according to Saltwire. He then dug a five-inch-deep hole and unearthed the shiny piece.

“It was so bright yellow and really thin, and I wasn’t thinking it was a gold coin. I was thinking it was almost like a tag from something or a button, or something like that,” he told the outlet.

Hynes later reported his disinterred treasure to the government, according to the release, and a currency expert determined the coin to be a Henry VI quarter noble. It was minted in London at some point between 1422 and 1427, meaning it is more than three times older than the nation of Canada, founded in 1867.

As to how the coin made the 2,000-plus mile journey from the old world to the new, experts aren’t sure, though they say it was likely not in circulation when it was lost.

A silver coin produced in Canterbury, England, in the 1490s was found in the same province last year and heralded as the oldest English coin ever discovered in Canada — and potentially in all of North America, according to a government release.

John Cabot, an Italian explorer, is credited with being the first European to travel to Newfoundland in 1497, according to the Royal Museums Greenwich.

However, the discovery of the Henry VI quarter noble, minted in the 1420s, in addition to unconfirmed accounts and new research, could challenge Cabot’s achievement.

According to one popular legend, Irish monks, led by Saint Brendan, sailed to Newfoundland in the 6th century A.D.

And a 2021 study published in Nature revealed evidence that vikings lived in Newfoundland in 1021 A.D.

“There’s been some knowledge of a pre-16th century European presence here for a while, you know, excluding Norse and so on,” provincial archaeologist Jamie Brake told the CBC. “The possibility of perhaps a pre-16th century occupation would be pretty amazing and highly significant in this part of the world.”

Building under construction collapses in Kenya's capital







Policemen patrol at the scene of a building collapse in the Kasarani neighborhood of Nairobi, Kenya Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2022. Workers at the multi-storey residential building that was under construction are feared trapped in the rubble and rescue operations have begun, but there was no immediate official word on any casualties. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)More

EVELYNE MUSAMBI
Tue, November 15, 2022

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — A multi-story residential building under construction collapsed Tuesday in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. There was no immediate official word on any casualties.

Construction workers are feared trapped under the rubble and rescue operations have begun.

A report in the local media cited residents of the Kasarani suburb who said the building was showing signs of weakness, with cracks visible.

A construction worker who spoke to the local Daily Nation newspaper said government officials earlier on Tuesday inspected the construction site and asked workers to leave. But the site foreman told the workers to continue, it reported.

Witnesses said several people who were injured during the collapse are being treated at a nearby hospital.

Building collapses are common in Nairobi, where housing is in high demand and unscrupulous developers often bypass regulations.

After eight buildings collapsed and killed 15 people in Kenya in 2015, the presidency ordered an audit of all the country’s buildings to see if they were up to code. The National Construction Authority found that 58% of the buildings in Nairobi were unfit for habitation.

Lula's COP27 visit seen as restoring Brazil's climate credibility


 Brazilian President-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva meets with members 

of the government transition team in Brasilia

Mon, November 14, 2022 
By Jake Spring

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (Reuters) - The election of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva as Brazil's next president is already boosting the country's credibility at this year's U.N. climate negotiations, with the left-wing leader to participate in COP27 in Egypt on Wednesday.

Lula defeated right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro, who presided over mounting destruction of the Amazon rainforest and refused to hold the 2019 climate summit originally planned for Brazil.

In his first international trip after being elected Oct. 31, Lula plans to deliver a speech with the message that "Brazil is back" as a leader confronting climate change, two of his advisors told Reuters.

Lula's sweeping plan promises to ramp up environmental law enforcement and create green jobs that do not come at the expense of the rainforest. Lula's team also worked to secure a jungle conservation alliance announced on Monday between the three largest rainforest nations - Brazil, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Three Brazilian diplomats told Reuters the country was in a stronger position to negotiate at the U.N. talks, being held this year in Egypt's Sharm el-Sheikh, since other countries know they will soon have a Lula government behind them.

"Now, with this perspective of a more favorable view of the issue by the next Brazilian government, we would be even more empowered to interact with different interlocutors," one diplomat said.

The diplomats spoke on condition of anonymity, as they were not authorized to speak with the media.

Brazil's negotiating positions have remained largely unchanged in recent decades, regardless of who has been president, and Lula is likely to make the same diplomatic demands as his predecessor, the diplomats said. That includes pushing for rich nations with high greenhouse gas emissions to pay poor nations for historic damage the climate.

Colombia's Environment Minister Susana Muhamad said Lula's election would allow for renewed regional cooperation among Amazon rainforest nations to tackle deforestation, a major contributor to climate change.

"There is a new political context in Latin America," Muhamad said. "We have to work on a communal policy in the Amazon."

She said Colombia and its own newly elected President Gustavo Petro support Lula's proposal for a summit of Amazon countries and developed nations interested in conservation.

Lula environmental advisor Izabella Teixeira said she felt the mood about Brazil has shifted at COP27 from previous summits.

"When I come to COP and meet people after the election of President Lula, there is hope," she said. "People are so happy because Brazil will be back."

Teixeira said Lula has received many requests for bilateral meetings, but none could be made public due to security concerns. A possible meeting with the U.S. delegation led by Climate Envoy John Kerry is under discussion.

Lula will also meet with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and has been invited to meet Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, she said.

Last week, sources told Reuters that, at COP27, Lula plans to offer to host a future U.N. climate summit and to announce creation of a national climate authority to oversee all government work to address global warming.

Lula also plans to work with state governments in Brazil to combat deforestation. His first meeting on Wednesday will be with six Brazilian state governors from the Amazon region who are also at COP27, according to his public schedule.

On Thursday, Lula will meet with Brazilian civil society groups and indigenous representatives. He departs on Friday for Portugal.

Marina Silva, a former environment minister under Lula and an advisor on his campaign, said his coming to COP shows the high importance he places on climate.

"The big message is his presence here," she told reporters at the summit.


(Reporting by Jake Spring; Additional reporting by Chiara Rodriquez in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, and Lisandra Paraguassu in Brasilia; Editing by Katy Daigle and David Gregorio)

At climate summit, Brazil's Lula says deforestation to stop
 

COP27 Climate SummitBrazilian President-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva waves as he leaves a session at the COP27 U.N. Climate Summit, Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2022, in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)More

PETER PRENGAMAN
Wed, November 16, 2022 

SHARM el-SHEIKH, Egypt (AP) — Six weeks before taking power, Brazilian President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Wednesday told a packed crowd at the U.N. climate summit in Egypt that his administration would crack down on illegal deforestation and thrust Latin America's largest and most populous nation to the forefront of climate leadership.

As da Silva arrived in a pavilion, hundreds of people gathered, with many cheering and chanting in Portuguese, “Lula,” the name widely used by Brazilians to refer to him. The appearance of da Silva, who in the last year made an extraordinary political comeback after being convicted of corruption and jailed a few years ago, was easily one of the events that brought the most energy at the conference known as COP27. That's because da Silva, who as president between 2003 and 2010 oversaw a large reduction in deforestation of the Brazilian rainforest, has promised to do so again.

After meeting with several Brazilian governors, including from important rainforest states like Amazonia and Para, da Silva addressed the crowd in a short speech.

“You all know that we are going to undertake a big fight against deforestation," said da Silva to cheers.

Da Silva said he would recommend that the U.N. put the 2025 climate conference in the Amazon, adding it was time that “people who defend the Amazon and defend the climate get to know the region close up.”

During his speech, da Silva took several swipes at President Jair Bolsonaro, who pushed development of the Amazon, both in his pro-business rhetoric and how his administration managed the forests. Da Silva beat Bolsonaro in October's elections and will assume power Jan. 1.

“Brazil can’t remain isolated like it was these last four years. (Officials from Brazil) didn’t travel to any other countries, and no other countries traveled to Brazil,” said da Silva.

Da Silva has several other meetings planned with ministers from various countries over the next days.

On Tuesday night, da Silva met with U.S. Climate Envoy John Kerry, who on Wednesday told reporters he was pleased that da Silva “talked about for once and for all getting it right, pulling people together in order to preserve the Amazon.”

Under Bolsonaro, elected in 2018, environmental agencies that regulate the Amazon were weakened. The former Army captain also appointed forest managers from the agribusiness sector, which opposes the creation of protected areas such as Indigenous territories and pushes for the legalization of land robbing. The deforested area in Brazil’s Amazon reached a 15-year high from August 2020 to July 2021, according to official figures. Satellite monitoring shows the trend this year is on track to surpass last year.

The Amazon rainforest, which overlaps with several nations in South America, is seen as crucial to combatting climate change because of the large amounts of carbon dioxide that it absorbs.

Da Silva did not address news reports in Brazil that have focused on a possible alliance between Brazil, the Congo and Indonesia, home to the largest tropical forests in the world. Given the moniker “OPEC of the Forests,” in reference to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and the way they regulate oil production, the general idea would be for these three countries to coordinate their negotiating positions and practices on forest management and biodiversity protection. The proposal was initially floated during last year’s climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, according to the reports.

Despite da Silva's lofty promises, the task in front of his incoming administration is huge. While many people, particularly environmentalists and officials at a climate conference like this one celebrate promises to protect the Amazon, Brazilian leaders have traditionally faced huge pressures to develop. Those pressures come from sectors like agriculture and mining, along with many people who live in the Amazon and feel that it's for them to decide how the vast area is managed.

There is also the reality that da Silva's environmental record as president was mixed. Deforestation dropped dramatically during the decade after da Silva took power, with Marina Silva, former childhood rubber-tapper who worked closely with murdered environmentalist Chico Mendes, as environmental minister. But in his second term, da Silva began catering to agribusiness interests, and in 2008 Marina Silva resigned. Marina Silva is also attending COP27 and is a contender for the top environmental job again.

Simone Karipuna, an activist from the Amazon who traveled to COP27 and attended da Silva's speech, was one of several Indigenous women who traveled to Egypt to participate in the summit. Between chants with several other women, Karipuna talked about her hope that challenges could be overcome because Indigenous communities living in the forest could work with the incoming administration.

“We had no dialogue at all with the current administration,” she said.

____

Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

 

‘I’m going to die in this factory’: Tesla Texas gigafactory construction workers are suing over wage theft and dangerous conditions


SUZANNE CORDEIRO—AFP/Getty Images

Alice Hearing
Tue, November 15, 2022

The opening of Tesla’s Texas gigafactory was celebrated with a huge party led by Elon Musk in a cowboy hat and sunglasses—but those who built it have reported dangerous and exploitative working conditions.

Construction workers are suing the company for labor violations and will file their complaints with the Federal Department of Labor on Tuesday.

Whistleblowers who worked on the 2,500-acre factory launched in April at Musk’s “Cyber Rodeo” event have brought to light a number of serious issues including wage theft, onsite accidents, and constant hazards.

One worker filing a complaint with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has said that they were never given the required training for health, safety and workers’ rights—including the right to refuse dangerous work—and instead the credentials were falsified by an unnamed subcontractor.

In specific examples of the dangerous working conditions, workers were told to work on the metal roof at night with no lights, on top of turbines that were blowing smoke without protective masks, and on a flooded first floor with live wiring and cords in the water, according to a report by the Guardian.

One worker reportedly remembered telling his wife: “I’m going to die in this factory.”

Other whistleblowers will complain that they were either not paid at all for their work, or were not given proper overtime compensation. Some who sacrificed their time to work over Thanksgiving say that they were never paid the promised double wage, according to the case referral.

One man allegedly was so desperate for money that he continued to work onsite with a brace having broken his arm.

History of poor labor standards

Musk’s new gigafactory for Tesla in Austin, designed to become the company’s central outpost in the U.S., was lauded as a construction worker’s dream amid the announcement in 2020, with the billionaire even tweeting that it could create 10,000 new jobs in the area—double the minimum initially established.

Located along the Colorado river, and close to the city’s airport, it drew excitement as the place where the long-awaited electric pickup “Cybertruck” would be manufactured.

However, Tesla appears to have continued a history of poor and dangerous working standards; between 2014 and 2018, the company incurred over $236,000 in fines for other OSHA violations.

Earlier this year workers at the auto manufacturer's gigafactory in China were reportedly made to sleep onsite, and work 12-hour shifts six days per week. In Reno, several injuries have been reported at a Tesla factory, including amputation

Tesla has also been accused of fostering a toxic workplace culture of discrimination and harassment, while in August the company violated labor law by restricting employees from wearing pro-union shirts.

Tesla did not immediately respond to request for comment.

Construction workers who helped build Tesla's gigafactory in Austin file complaints claiming unpaid wages and fake workplace safety certifications

Aaron Mok
Tue, November 15, 2022 

Construction site of the Tesla Gigafactory in Austin, Texas.Mike Blake/Reuters

Construction workers who helped build Tesla's gigafactory in Austin filed multiple workplace complaints on Tuesday.

Workers accused their subcontractors of withholding wages and failing to keep workers safe, documents say.

Workers at Tesla's factories have sued the company over working conditions in the past.

Construction workers who helped build Tesla's sprawling gigafactory in Austin, Texas filed multiple complaints to the US Department of Labor on Tuesday, alleging multiple labor violations they said they faced on the job.

The construction workers accused their subcontractors — those who employed and paid the workers — of withholding wages from some workers, according to a complaint sent by an attorney at the Workers Defense Project, the nonprofit that's representing the construction workers.


The letter redacted the names of the subcontractors for confidentially purposes in light of a potential investigation.

Some workers claimed that they were not paid a time-and-a-half overtime rate for working more than 40 hours a week. They also alleged that they were not compensated the double pay bonus they said they were promised for the extra days they spent working over Thanksgiving weekend in 2021.

Victor, a construction worker who performed carpentry work at the plant and whose name was redacted in his complaint, filed a separate complaint on Tuesday claiming that an undisclosed subcontractor sent him fabricated OSHA certificates without providing any workplace safety trainings. The Department of Labor requires construction industry employers to comply with OSHA standards to prevent their employees from potential injury.





Discussing the complaint, Victor told The Guardian that he and his team didn't have basic safety information, and feared for his safety every day.

Victor said he and his team experienced working conditions including working on a roof with no light to laboring on top of a turbine without face masks to deter the blowing smoke.

He said they were even expected to continue production on a floor filled loose wires and cords in the water after the factory flooded.

Following these incidents, he told The Guardian he remembered telling his wife that "I'm going to die in this factory."

Tesla did not respond to a request for comment ahead of publication.

Tesla opened the gigafactory in Texas in April, the manufacturer's fourth factory in the US, to ramp up production of its electric vehicles, including its long-delayed Cybertruck.

Even so, this isn't the first time that Tesla has faced complaints about its working conditions.

An investigation published earlier this year by Insider's Grace Kay and Áine Cain revealed that Tesla faced 46 lawsuits over the last 5 years from current and former Tesla workers alleging they were targeted over their race and gender. In the vast majority of the lawsuits, the carmaker has fought back and pushed for private arbitration.

Last year, Tesla paid $137 million in damages to a Black former Tesla employee after reporting that he was faced with racially-charged slurs such as the N-word on a daily basis.

In 2020, Insider reported that Tesla failed to disclose dozens of factory injuries to regulators in its safety reports to the state.

And in 2018, Tesla factory employees reportedly expressed concerns over worker safety, injury recording, and medical care at a factory in Fremont, California, according to an investigation led by Reveal.

The construction workers are seeking to recover their lost wages, according to the complaints.

80 years ago, Nazi Germany occupied Tunisia – but North Africans' experiences of World War II often go unheard

Sarah Abrevaya Stein, Professor of History, University of California, Los Angeles 

and Aomar Boum, Professor of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles

THE CONVERSATION
Tue, November 15, 2022 

German troops marching through Tunis in 1943.

Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images

Eighty years ago, in November 1942, the Nazis occupied Tunisia. For the next six months, Tunisian Jews and Muslims were subjected to the Third Reich’s reign of terror, as well as its antisemitic and racist legislation. Residents lived in fear – “under the Nazi boot,” as Tunisian Jewish lawyer Paul Ghez wrote in his diary during the occupation.

One of us is a historian; one of us is an anthropologist. Together, we have spent a decade gathering the voices of the diverse peoples who endured World War II in North Africa, across lines of race, class, language and region. Their letters, diaries, memoirs, poetry and oral histories are both defiant and broken. They express both faith and despair. All in all, they understood themselves to be trapped in a monstrous machine of fascism, occupation, violence and racism.

When most Americans think of the nightmares of the war or the Holocaust, they think strictly of Europe. Hate has a shifting color wheel, however – and we learn something new when we watch its spin in wartime North Africa.

Crossing the sea

The history of Jews settling in North Africa begins as early as the sixth century B.C., after the First Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed. Another significant wave of immigrants followed the Spanish Inquisition. At the start of World War II, a diverse North African Jewish population of roughly 500,000 coexisted with Muslim neighbors.

North Africa’s Jews spoke many languages, reflecting their many different cultures and ethnicities: Arabic, French, Tamazight – a Berber language – and Haketia, a form of Judeo-Spanish spoken in northern Morocco. While a large number of North African Jews, particularly in Algeria, enjoyed the privileges of French and other Western citizenship, the majority remained subjects of local leaders.

A group of Jewish girls in Debdou, Morocco, around 1915. 

D Millet E/Wikimedia Commons

During the Second World War, however, those who held French citizenship had it stripped away. Three European powers ruled North Africa during the war, all brutally.

Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia were, for most of the conflict, in the hands of Vichy France. This authoritarian government, which collaborated with Nazi Germany, was formed in July 1940 by armistice, after Germany’s successful invasion of France. It was ruled by Marshal Henri Philippe Pétain, a French hero of the First World War, out of the southern city of Vichy.

All antisemitic and racist laws and policies the Vichy regime imposed upon continental France were extended to its colonies in North and West Africa, pushing Jews out of professional sectors, stripping them of citizenship – if they had it to begin with – and seizing Jewish property, businesses and assets.

A Jewish family in Tangier, Morocco, in 1885.

LL/Roger Viollet via Getty Images

The Vichy regime also continued racist policies begun by France’s Third Republic, which pushed young Black men from the empire into forced military service – and the most dangerous wartime posts. These forced recruits included soldiers from Senegal, French Guinea, Ivory Coast, Niger and Mauritania; French territories in present-day Benin, Gambia and Burkina Faso; and Muslim men from Morocco and Algeria.

In these ways, the French carried on a wartime campaign of anti-Blackness and Islamophobia, pairing these forms of racialized hatred from the colonial era with antisemitism. Antisemitism had deep roots in French and colonial history, but it found new force in the era of fascism.

Antisemitic and anti-Black policy was also a bedrock of Benito Mussolini’s fascist Italian government, which ruled over Libya during the war. Italy first tested its racist policies in its colony of Italian East Africa, segregating local Black populations from Italian settlers. Mussolini’s regime then reshaped these policies of racialized hatred for Libya, where it pushed Jews out of the professions and the economy, seized property from thousands and deported them to labor and internment camps. Jewish children, women and men died from starvation, disease, hunger and forced labor.
Camps on African soil

Nazi Germany occupied Tunisia from November 1942 to May 1943. During this period, the SS – the elite guard of the Nazi regime – imprisoned some 5,000 Jewish men in roughly 40 forced labor and detention camps on the front lines and in cities like Tunis. German troops also terrorized Muslim and Jewish girls and women who remained behind.

The Third Reich did not set out to deport Jews from North Africa to its death camps in Eastern Europe, but hundreds of Jews of North African heritage and some Muslims who were living in France did meet this fate. They were deported first to the internment camp of Drancy, on the outskirts of Paris, and sent from there to concentration and death camps. Many died in Auschwitz.

There were camps in North Africa and West Africa, too. In addition to those the Italian fascists built in Libya, Vichy France and Nazi Germany ran penal camps, detention camps and labor camps.

Rosenthal, a German Jewish prisoner, pushes a cart in the stone quarry of the Im Fout labor camp in Morocco. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

The Vichy regime alone built nearly 70 such camps in the Sahara, breathing new life into a colonial ambition of building a trans-Saharan railway to connect the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts. The Vichy regime saw it as a conduit for supplying the front lines with forcibly recruited, Black Senegalese soldiers.

In these camps, as in the Nazi camps of Eastern Europe, the complex racist logic of Nazism and fascism took vivid form. Muslims arrested for anti-colonial activities were pressed into back-breaking labor alongside Jews and Christians who had fled war-torn Europe, only to find themselves arrested in North Africa.

These men broke bread with other forced workers from around the world, including fighters who had volunteered for Spain’s Republican Army during its civil war. These Ukrainians, Americans, Germans, Russian Jews and others had been arrested, deported and imprisoned by the Vichy regime after fleeing Franco’s Spain. There were political enemies of the Vichy and Nazi regimes, too, including socialists, communists, union members and North African nationalists. Children and women were imprisoned as well.

Among this hodgepodge of prisoners, many were refugees who fled Europe, whether because of their Jewishness or because they were political enemies of the Third Reich. Inmates were overseen by French Vichy soldiers as well as forcibly recruited indigenous Moroccan and Black Senegalese men, who were often little more than prisoners themselves. Sometimes the camp prisoners interacted with local populations: Saharan Muslims and Jews who provided them medical care, burial grounds, and food and sex for money.

Nazism in Europe was underlaid by an intricate matrix of racist, eugenicist and nationalist ideas. But the war – and the Holocaust – appears even more complex if historians take into account the racist and violent color wheel that spun in North Africa.

This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Sarah Abrevaya Stein, University of California, Los Angeles and Aomar Boum, University of California, Los Angeles. 

Read more:

Why we need to rethink how to teach the Holocaust

‘Je suis Ahmed,’ Charlie Hebdo, and France’s elephant in the room: race

'Triple threat' of viruses hit Ontario: 'All layers of protection' in form of masking strongly recommended for winter, top doctor says

Elisabetta Bianchini
Mon, November 14, 2022 

Dr. Kieran Moore, Ontario's chief medical officer of health, and Dr. Chris Simpson, executive vice-president medical with Ontario Health, stated Monday morning that the province is facing a "triple threat" of viruses, COVID-19, influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), contributing to "extraordinary pressure" on the pediatric healthcare system.

"Unusually high numbers of children are coming into hospital emergency departments for one or more of these viral illnesses and the total number of these children who require admission is uncommonly high," Simpson said.

Moore added that Ontarians need to get back to using "all layers of protection," including screening daily for signs of illness and staying home if sick, practicing good hand hygiene and regularly cleaning high-touch surfaces, staying up to date on both COVID-19 and influenza vaccinations, and masking.

In response to the worsening trends and existing challenges for our healthcare system, I’m strongly recommending that all Ontarians, not just those at high risk, wear a mask in indoor public settings, especially around our most vulnerable Ontarians.Dr. Kieran Moore, Ontario's chief medical officer of health

Why aren't officials mandating masking?

When asked why masking is only a recommendation and not a mandate in public settings, Ontario's chief medical officer of health stressed that the first step is education, adding that it's mostly children age four and under, who can't always mask, who are at high risk. Additionally, the protections need to be taken in personal social setting, including a parent wearing a mask if they wake up with cold and flu symptoms, which is missed by public masking mandates.

"If we had to mask up, we would do it based on best evidence and we would follow it through clearly as we go into the most social time of year, going indoors," Moore said. "I'm very concerned that the risk is going to go up for our children and we'll be monitoring that situation very closely."

"I don't think [mandatory masking] is inevitable."

Moore said that if there has to be a masking order around daycare workers, the province "will consider that."

He added that half of the children in ventilated at the Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) have influenza and the other half have RSV.

"I don't know if all parents realize that a common cold to them can be a serious and severe respiratory illness to someone four and under," he said.

The percentage of respiratory tests that are positive in Ontario are now at 14.5 per cent, up from 10.3 per cent one week ago. The current percent positivity for RSV is at 6.4 per cent, increasing over several weeks. COVID-19 percent positivity has been decreasing but it "remains high" at 14.2 per cent.

Simpson stressed that parents should not hesitate to bring their children to their local emergency department if necessary.

"All pediatric patients will be seen when they come to a hospital," he said. "If they require admission, then we will look after them but in order to do this, other parts of the health system will be impacted."

"We’re already seeing a reduction in scheduled surgeries and procedures and this will likely continue as we reallocate our resources to focus on pedeatircs."

Minks on the loose: Up to 40,000 minks released from fur farm in Northern Ohio

Victoria Moorwood, Cincinnati Enquirer
Tue, November 15, 2022 

Between 25,000 and 40,000 minks were released in Van Wert County, Ohio, after fencing around a fur facility was destroyed, police say.

Thousands of minks were released from a fur facility in Northern Ohio, police say.

In a Facebook post, the Van Wert County Sheriff's Office said fencing surrounding Lion Farms USA Mink Farm in Hoaglin Township was destroyed overnight on Tuesday, and 25,000 to 40,000 minks were released from their cages.

The sheriff's office is investigating the incident as a breaking and entering and vandalism complaint. Van Wert County is located in Northern Ohio southwest of Toledo, bordering Indiana.

According to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, minks are drawn to wooded areas and typically eat small mammals, like muskrats, birds, frogs, eggs, fish and crayfish. The Van Wert County Sherriff's Office warned on Facebook that the newly freed animals could be problematic for local poultry farmers and homeowners with ponds.

In the post, the office listed licensed trappers that locals can call if they need help trapping the minks.

The Ohio State Patrol, Paulding County Sheriff’s Office, Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Ohio Emergency Management Agency and Ohio Department of Transportation are assisting with the ongoing investigation.

On Nov. 8, the Animal Liberation Front, an animal rights group, posted on its website that a member had released 1,000 minks from a fur facility in Massillon, Ohio, which is about three hours east of Lion Farms.

However, Stark County Sheriff George T. Maier told The Enquirer that no farms in Massillon, or Stark County, have reported missing minks. He said his office has been checking in with nearby fur facilities since hearing about Animal Liberation Front's claim last week.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Up to 40,000 minks released from Northern Ohio fur facility

40,000 mink are running loose after someone broke into their facility, Ohio cops say


Jo-Anne McArthur via Unsplash.

Mitchell Willetts
Tue, November 15, 2022 

Officials are warning residents in northwest Ohio to be on the lookout after tens of thousands of mink were released from a facility in Van Wert County.

There was a break-in at Lion Farms USA Mink Farm, in Hoaglin, overnight on Nov. 15, the Van Wert sheriff’s office said in a news release.

The culprits destroyed fencing at the facility and freed between 25,000 to 40,000 mink from their cages, the sheriff’s office said.

While mink are small, they are predatory animals. Such a large number suddenly released into the area could cause significant problems.

“As a result, they can be a bothersome pest for homeowners, livestock owners, and property managers,” the release said. “Minks have proven to be especially costly and problematic for poultry ranchers as well as homeowners with ornamental ponds filled with koi and other fish.”

The sheriff’s office is investigating along with several other agencies including the Ohio State Patrol.

Anyone with information about the break-in is asked to contact the sheriff’s office at 419-238-3866.

Generally, mink are farmed for their fur and slaughtered in late fall when their coats are of optimal thickness and quality, National Geographic reported.

Animal rights groups across the globe have long spoken out against mink farming, lambasting their killing and the conditions they’re kept in. However, investigators did not say whether that was the motive behind the break-in.

Mink are semi-aquatic and found most often in the wild near streams and creeks, according to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.

They are territorial animals but also very vocal, communicating their mood to other mink by screeching, barking, hissing, as well as purring when pleased.

“The mink is prized by the trapper both for its pelt and for the great skill required to capture it,” according to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. “To the wildlife enthusiast, the sight of this elusive furbearer is a thrilling surprise that must be experienced quickly, before the dynamic creature can scurry away to a place of concealment.”

GREENWASHING

Big gas chiefs bill themselves as climate leaders at COP27


 A view shows a gas flare at Portovaya Bay in the Gulf of Finland

Mon, November 14, 2022 
By Shadia Nasralla

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (Reuters) - The heads of two big natural gas companies told Reuters on Monday they were seeking to use the setting of the COP27 international climate summit to bill their industry as a leader in the fight against global warming.

The charm offensive by gas producers EQT and NewMed Energy reflected the friendlier reception enjoyed by some fossil fuel companies at this year's U.N. climate negotiations in Egypt, following years in which they were ostracized as the chief villains of global warming.

"The most important thing is for people to see America’s largest natural gas producer here at COP27 as a symbol that we’re going to be a leader in energy transition," Toby Rice, EQT's chief Executive, told Reuters on the sidelines of COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh on Monday.

"We're meeting with some political leaders in different countries, we’re meeting with some environmental groups to talk about this plan," he said.

While gas emits far less carbon dioxide than coal when it is burned, producing it and getting it to market is known to lead to significant leaks of methane - a greenhouse gas far more potent than carbon dioxide.

GRAPHIC: Record high carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels - https://graphics.reuters.com/CLIMATE-UN/CARBON-BUDGET/gdpzqrzaqvw/chart.png

The United States and the EU are driving an international effort to crack down on oil and gas industry methane leaks, something they say is critical to reaching a global goal to limit planetary warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

The chief of NewMed Energy which owns a stake in Israel's huge Leviathan gasfield, said it was taking a similar approach to the conference, which was also visited by BP's and TotalEnergies' chief executives, the latter promoting an emissions cutting iniative for gas producers.

"The world has changed, people have better understanding that upstream (gas) companies are not the enemy. Emissions is the enemy," Yossi Abu said, referring to Israel using NewMed's gas to replace coal-fired coal production.

"We’re seeing globally people taking a much more realistic approach, developing renewables but also developing a lot of natural gas."

However, the research collaboration Climate Action Tracker said last week that countries scrambling to source more natural gas to replace supplies from Russia are risking years of emissions that could thwart climate goals.

"These fossil fuel companies are what have driven the climate to breaking point, with global heating now already at 1.2 Celsius. And yet their solution to this climate crisis is more fossil fuels," said Mohamed Adow, Director at climate and energy think tank Power Shift Africa.

Coal power plants produced a fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2021, more than any other single source, according to the International Energy Agency.

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