Toxic wastewater from Ohio train derailment headed to Texas


This photo taken with a drone shows portions of a Norfolk Southern freight train that derailed Friday night in East Palestine, Ohio are still on fire at mid-day Saturday, Feb. 4, 2023. Toxic wastewater used to extinguish a fire following a train derailment in Ohio is headed to a Houston suburb for disposal. Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo says “firefighting water” from the East Palestine, Ohio train derailment is to be disposed of in the county and she is seeking more information.

(AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)More

Thu, February 23, 2023 at 7:46 AM MST·2 min read

DEER PARK, Texas (AP) — Toxic wastewater used to extinguish a fire following a train derailment in Ohio is headed to a Houston suburb for disposal.

“I and my office heard today that ‘firefighting water’ from the East Palestine, Ohio, train derailment is slated to be disposed of in our county," Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said in a Wednesday statement.

“Our Harris County Pollution Control Department and Harris County Attorney’s have reached out to the company and the Environmental Protection Agency to receive more information," Hidalgo wrote.

The wastewater is being sent to Texas Molecular, which injects hazardous waste into the ground for disposal.

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality told KTRK-TV that Texas Molecular “is authorized to accept and manage a variety of waste streams, including vinyl chloride, as part of their ... hazardous waste permit and underground injection control permit.”

The company told KHOU-TV it is experienced in managing this type of disposal.

“Our technology safely removes hazardous constituents from the biosphere. We are part of the solution to reduce risk and protect the environment, whether in our local area or other places that need the capabilities we offer to protect the environment,” the company said.

The fiery Feb. 3 derailment in Ohio prompted evacuations when toxic chemicals were burned after being released from five derailed tanker rail cars carrying vinyl choride that were in danger of exploding.

“It’s ... very, very toxic,” Dr. George Guillen, the executive director of the Environmental Institute of Houston, said, but the risk to the public is minimal.

“This injection, in some cases, is usually 4,000 or 5,000 feet down below any kind of drinking water aquifer,” said Guillen, who is also a professor of biology and environmental science at the University of Houston-Clear Lake.

Both Guillen and Deer Park resident Tammy Baxter said their greatest concerns are transporting the chemicals more than 1,300 miles (2,090 kilometers) from East Palestine, Ohio; to Deer Park, Texas.

“There has to be a closer deep well injection,” Baxter told KTRK. “It’s foolish to put it on the roadway. We have accidents on a regular basis ... It is silly to move it that far.”

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who visited the derailment site Thursday, has warned the railroad responsible for the derailment, Norfolk Southern, to fulfill its promises to clean up the mess just outside East Palestine, Ohio, and help the town recover.

Buttigieg has also announced a package of reforms intended to improve rail safety while regulators try to strengthen safety rules.

VERY COLD WAR 2.0

China is using spy buoys in the Arctic, says Canada

Sophia Yan
Thu, 23 February 2023 

A ball is seen on a beach in Hamamatsu, Japan earlier this month - REUTERS

The Canadian military has discovered Chinese spy buoys in the Arctic which are monitoring US submarines and melting ice sheets.

Such "activity is not new”, Canadian defence minister Anita Anand said in televised remarks, implying that China has been engaging in surveillance efforts in the region for some time.

Officials described the objects as “dual-purpose technologies” but they have been reported in Canadian media as buoys used for spying.

It is unclear whether the Chinese buoys floated into Canadian waters or were purposefully anchored into the waters.

Monitoring buoys can follow environmental and weather conditions, the salinity of water, and track fish.

Earlier this week, a giant mystery ball washed ashore in Japan, later found to be a buoy, though no owner has laid claim.

Daniel Le Bouthillier, from the Department of National Defence said the Canadian military found and retrieved the monitoring devices but gave no further information about the operation.

China has long been interested in building a presence in the Arctic which will allow it to secure a shorter trade route to Europe as glaciers melt.

But as China's presence expands globally, so have concerns over undue influence, surveillance and espionage.

Canada’s foreign minister Melanie Joly said that China is an increasingly disruptive power, in an interview with CNN.

“When it comes to China, we will challenge China when we ought to, and we will cooperate with China when we need to,” she said.

“When it comes to issues over the Arctic within our maritime borders, or any form of foreign interference, we will be clear, and that’s how we will address this issue.”

Earlier this month a suspected Chinese spy balloon flew over Canadian airspace into the US, before the American military shot it down into the Atlantic Ocean.

Beijing has denied that the balloon served any surveillance purposes, saying instead that it was a weather research “airship.”

The Canadian parliament is also currently investigating allegations of Chinese election interference.

SEE 

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2023/02/godzilla-egg-japan-baffled-by-large.html

AMERIKAN SOCIALISMUS
U.S. manufacturers see big boost from government subsidies and tax breaks


 Opening of automaker General Motors (GM) Brightdrop unit's CAMI EV Assembly, in Ingersoll

Thu, February 23, 2023 
By Timothy Aeppel

NEW PHILADELPHIA, Ohio (Reuters) - A 77-year-old factory in a hard-luck Ohio town sputtered into high gear to produce a new line of electric garbage trucks. A short drive away, construction began on a $20 billion plant that will take pizza-sized silicon wafers and make them into computer chips used in everything from data centers to cars.

The two Ohio factories – niche truck maker Battle Motors and global giant Intel Corp – show a new readiness by U.S. President Joe Biden's administration to offer subsidies and other incentives to strategic industries such as electric vehicles and semiconductors in a coordinated effort to help American businesses compete in a global economy.

Tesla Inc said Wednesday it would shift some vehicle battery production from Germany to the United States.

While the Biden administration push, described by economists as an industrial policy, has opened opportunities for some companies, significant hurdles remain.

Reuters toured both Ohio sites and spoke to over a dozen outside experts and political leaders about those challenges, which include potential worker shortages and a growing backlash from foreign governments rushing to boost competing companies.

Once criticized by conservatives as "picking winners and losers" and by progressives as corporate welfare, a U.S. industrial policy is enjoying a rare bipartisan consensus, even in staunchly Republican states like Ohio.

Projects like Intel are a chance to "hit the reset button" on the U.S. approach to fostering key industries, said Jon Husted, Ohio's Republican lieutenant governor, speaking as earth movers rumbled behind him at Intel's 1,000-acre site.

Eight out of 12 Republican representatives in Ohio’s congressional delegation voted in favor of federal subsidies for semiconductor production, including the funds that will go to Intel.

“Once you explain it and educate people about these issues, it becomes something that’s easier for you to get the buy-in across political lines,” Husted said.

The 2022 CHIPS and Science Act provides $52.7 billion in federal subsidies for semiconductor production and research.

How much of that goes to Intel remains unclear. Bruce Andrews, Intel’s Chief Government Affairs Officer, said in an interview that the company hoped the money is not spread too thinly over many projects, since that would diminish its impact.

For Battle, the Biden administration's industrial push means up to $40,000 in federal subsidies on the purchase of large electric trucks under the Inflation Reduction Act passed last year in addition to a $2.5 million tax credit from Ohio.

While both projects face immediate challenges in labor shortages and supply chain, Mark Muro, who studies industrial policy at the Brookings Institution, said a bigger issue is whether the United States will sustain this latest push.

"These programs now becoming visible have to be seen as part of a decade-long campaign to improve America’s standing in the global supply chain — as well as improving the distribution of production inside the United States," he said.

The United States started edging towards an industrial policy beginning with the trade wars launched under the Trump administration — which focused attention on the jobs lost to foreign producers by decades of globalization.

Growing concern over the rise of China and the pandemic underscored the risk of relying on imports for essential goods. Over the past two years, U.S. manufacturers struggled to produce everything from cars to washing machines due to semiconductor and other shortages, while many types of safety and health equipment needed to fight COVID were scarce.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine added to the anxiety, prompting the shutdown of European gas pipelines and the reduction of global grain exports from Ukraine.

PLANT TRIPLED IN SIZE

Sheer scale separates the two ventures: Intel, a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, employer of 121,000 people worldwide, annual sales: $79 billion. And Battle Motors, the new face of a decades-old niche maker of heavy vehicles, employer of 300, daily output: six vehicles.

One is aimed at helping the U.S. gain pre-eminence in domestic production of a product at the core of everyday life, the other a stab in the dark in applying an evolving technology to something as analog as a refuse truck.

For Battle, the federal and state incentives were a major draw in siting the factory in Ohio.

“The initial idea was that we could do this in Arizona or California,” said Michael Patterson, the company’s CEO, as he strolled through the plant.

Then he saw a key advantage in buying a factory that already made garbage trucks and adapting them to run on batteries. Other EV companies have struggled to produce vehicles from scratch.

The plant, which tripled in size after it was acquired in 2021 by Patterson’s California-based company, continues to focus on internal combustion and natural gas-powered trucks but has created a separate assembly line for electrics.

“When Battle Motors came into being, there was a little bit of skepticism (among local residents), because it was a company that produced electric vehicles and that’s something that’s brand new in this part of Ohio,” said Joel Day, mayor of the small town of New Philadelphia where Battle is located.

Many residents have since embraced green technology because it's part of a larger wave of advanced manufacturing that is giving hope for a broader industrial revival, Day said.

But the launch of the new EV garbage trucks has been hampered by a shortage of parts and glitches in developing charging infrastructure for the trucks' massive batteries.

Ron Cole, the fleet manager for Los Angeles’ sanitation department, which is about to begin testing five electric trucks from Battle and two other companies, said cities may in some cases need to build new power lines simply to bring in enough electricity.

The Intel factory is going up in a glistening industrial park minutes from the beltway that rings Columbus and close to other big tech companies, including Facebook, Amazon, and Google.

Creating a hub for semiconductor manufacturing far from U.S. chip hubs such as Arizona and Oregon will require developing a network of nearby suppliers and educational programs aimed at churning out workers with specialized skills.

When Asian countries were building up their semiconductor manufacturing industries decades ago, they benefited from coordinated government strategies that focused on building up production facilities as well as supply chain, Intel's Andrews said.

"They decided 30 years ago to build up their chip industry,” Andrews said, noting that governments introduced policies to attract production plants as well as the whole supply chain.

Industrial policy still has critics. Scott Lincicome, director of general economics at the libertarian Cato Institute, said industrial policy tends to crumble into failed projects and cost overruns.

"There's all sorts of more market-oriented reforms that could achieve the type of objectives our political class wants, without the unintended consequences of industrial policy," he said. “None of that comes with a ribbon cutting ceremony.”

Elizabeth Reynolds, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said the current effort aims to boost sectors, not individual companies. Until October, Reynolds served as Biden's special assistant for manufacturing and economic development.

In the case of zero emission vehicles, "any technology can access the tax credits for them — so we’re letting the market decide,” she said.

Andrews acknowledged that relying on government support carries risks. A future administration might pull back on projects that take years to build.

The rush to build new plants, in Ohio and elsewhere, could create a glut when these factories finally start producing.

"That’s something that all of us will have to manage," he said.

(Reporting by Timothy Aeppel; Editing by Daniel Burns and Suzanne Goldenberg)

England’s Forgotten Fertilizer Mine Is Finally Back Under Way


Thomas Biesheuvel
Thu, February 23, 2023 



(Bloomberg) -- A decade ago, a UK startup’s plan to build a $4 billion mine more than a mile under the North Sea caught the nation’s imagination. It became a retail shareholder sensation and promised riches for many landowners. But when the company failed to raise the last piece of financing, it all came crashing down.

For the last three years, the giant fertilizer project — which would be the UK’s biggest mine in more than four decades — has largely sat on ice, drifting from the public consciousness as its new owner Anglo American Plc figured out what to do with it.

Today it provided the answer. After taking a $1.7 billion writedown on the mine, Anglo unveiled its plans to spend almost $5 billion to bring the project into production by 2027, a decision that will likely secure thousands of jobs in one of the country’s poorest regions and become a major engine of growth for the company.

One of the world’s top mining companies, Anglo was attracted by the huge size of the deposit combined with the longer-term prospects for fertilizer demand. About 1.8 billion tons of a fertilizer called polyhalite are sitting more than 1.5 kilometers below the surface, and stretching out under the sea, which could be mined for more than 40 years. Demand for crop nutrients is expected to keep growing as a rising global population boosts food consumption.

“This resource is so unique, it’s one of a kind in terms of its size and shape,” Anglo Chief Executive Officer Duncan Wanblad said in a Bloomberg TV interview on Thursday. “We will be able to bring some very, very profitable fertilizer on to the market.”

Retail Interest

Sirius Minerals Plc, the mine’s previous owner, became a retail investor darling when it started fundraising for the project. Across the UK, regular people poured money into the company while the planned mine gained an almost cult-like following in North Yorkshire — in addition to buying shares, many locals saw the prospect of life-changing royalties on the mineral rights that fell on their land. Others simply hoped for jobs.

The overwhelming support helped Sirius win a license to build the project despite being in a National Park and overlooking the seaside town of Whitby, the setting for part of Bram Stoker’s “Dracula.”

But then Sirius ran out of money, and Anglo eventually stepped in with an offer.

While investors lost out — the takeover price was well below the heights at which many had bought their shares — Anglo’s decision to press ahead will be a major boon for the region and the wider UK. The project will likely employ more than 1,000 people once in full production and become a major exporter.

A $4 Billion Mine Was Meant to Lift Northern England. Instead Locals Lost Big

The investment in the Woodsmith project also forms part of a wider shift at the world’s biggest miners, as they retreat from fossil fuels and seek growth in commodities like fertilizers and metals that are needed for the green-energy transition.

Writedown

Anglo has written down the value of the project to reflect a change in the way it will be developed, compared with Sirius’s plans.

When Anglo bought Sirius in a half a billion dollar deal it was always likely the project would be delayed and changed. The smaller firm had been rushing to get into production as fast as possible, and Anglo has spent the last three years looking at ways to develop the project more strategically.

The result is that Anglo will now look to start production in 2027 after spending about $1 billion a year on top of the $2.6 billion it has already spent. That will allow it to target annual production of 5 million tons of fertilizer a year, with the capacity already built into crucial infrastructure such as the shafts, and to ultimately expand it to 13 million tons a year.

Polyhalite, or Poly4, is a type of potash found under the North Sea. It’s a relatively unknown type of fertilizer, so Anglo faces the additional challenge of proving how big the market will ultimately be.

Anglo’s plans also come at a time of massive volatility in global fertilizer markets. Prices spiked last year after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine threw the world’s crop-nutrient sector into disarray. While prices have since eased, the long-term outlook remains strong as the global population and its demand for food grows.

US to Pick Ex-Mastercard CEO Banga as World Bank President

US to Nominate Ajay Banga for World Bank President

Why is he the right person for the job?

Eric Martin
Thu, February 23, 2023 

(Bloomberg) -- President Joe Biden will nominate former Mastercard Inc. Chief Executive Officer Ajay Banga in a surprise pick to be the next president of the World Bank as Washington pushes the lender to expand its financial firepower and confront global issues such as climate change and public health.

Banga “has spent more than three decades building and managing successful, global companies that create jobs and bring investment to developing economies, and guiding organizations through periods of fundamental change,” Biden said in a statement Thursday.

The 63-year-old currently serves as vice chairman at US investment firm General Atlantic LP. Before that, he spent a decade as president and CEO of Mastercard. He also held various positions at Citigroup Inc., including as CEO of the Asia-Pacific region.

While the official nomination process to replace current President David Malpass opened earlier Thursday — and the bank has signaled that the final selection may not come until early May — Washington’s candidate has traditionally taken the top spot at the World Bank, where the US is the largest shareholder. Malpass, who was nominated by President Donald Trump, last week unexpectedly announced that he plans to leave by the end of June.

The nomination comes at a time when the World Bank and its twin Bretton Woods institution — the International Monetary Fund — face growing demand for their assistance, with 60% of low-income nations at or near debt distress, and countries owe their creditors hundreds of billions of dollars. It also comes as Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is pushing an evolution of the development lender from its traditional focus on country-specific lending to focus on global goods like fighting climate change and pandemics.

Raised in India, Banga has “a unique perspective on the opportunities and challenges facing developing countries and how the World Bank can deliver on its ambitious agenda to reduce poverty and expand prosperity,” Biden said.

Yet he wasn’t among a list mentioned by analysts in recent days, which included Samantha Power, head of the US Agency for International Development; and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the current head of the World Trade Organization, a dual Nigeria-US citizen. The World Bank board said Wednesday said that it would strongly encourage women nominees.

Banga’s nomination comes with Yellen in India for discussions among Group of 20 finance ministry and central bank leaders gathering this week in Bengaluru, India.

Regional Initiatives

Banga has co-led the Partnership for Central America, an initiative launched by Vice President Kamala Harris to marshal private-sector support for the region aimed at creating more economic activity and jobs, with contributions of more than $4.2 billion across about 50 companies and organizations.

The Biden administration is confident that Banga will have a strong commitment to gender equality and inclusion, and that his experience growing up and spending the early part of his career in India will help give him a global perspective, a senior administration official told reporters.

If appointed by the executive board, Banga would follow the early departure of David Malpass, who was tapped in 2019 by then-President Donald Trump and seen by critics as unfriendly to Biden and Yellen’s climate priorities.

The bank’s next president will be tasked with reforming the nearly 80 year-old institution, a process spurred along by a Group of 20 review released last year and promoted by Yellen.

Among other recommendations, the bank is urged to tackle global and transnational issues, particularly climate change, and expand its so-called capital adequacy, allowing it to share more funds and take on more risk, all while continuing its traditional role of poverty reduction and project finance.

Any effort, however, will need to be balanced against preserving the bank’s triple-A credit rating and preferred creditor status, which allows it to borrow cheaply and lend at below-market rates.

Malpass, whose term was set to run through April 2024, came under scrutiny in September after appearing to dodge questions over the man-made causes of climate change, raising calls for his replacement and for multilateral banks to stop funding fossil-fuel energy projects.

The selection of Banga “clearly signals a desire to focus on the financial model of the institution, and that there’s more to be exploited in terms of how much financing the World Bank can provide, on what terms,” said Scott Morris, a former US Treasury official now at the Center for Global Development. “This nomination suggests they really are serious about digging into the financial side.”

Treasury officials have signaled that while they want the bank to lend more, changes to use existing resources as efficiently as possible should be a prerequisite to any thinking about adding new resources to the bank.

The bank’s executive board said Wednesday that it will accept nominations through March 29, and then decide on a shortlist of up to three candidates and conduct formal interviews.

Yellen earlier this month called on the bank to implement changes by the time shareholders meet for its so-called Spring Meetings this April in Washington, and asked it to kick off a second phase of reforms by the time shareholders meet for its annual meetings in October.

Banga served as a member of President Barack Obama’s Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity, and is also a past member of the US President’s Advisory Committee for trade policy and negotiations.

--With assistance from Viktoria Dendrinou.

US nominates Ajay Banga for World Bank president

FATIMA HUSSEIN and PAUL WISEMAN
Thu, February 23, 2023 

MasterCard CEO Ajay Banga speaks to reporters in New York, April 6, 2011. Former Mastercard CEO Ajay Banga has been nominated by the U.S. to lead the World Bank, President Joe Biden announced on Thursday morning. The news comes days after Trump-appointee David Malpass announced plans to step down from his role leading the 189-nation agency. 

(AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File) 

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States is nominating former Mastercard CEO Ajay Banga to lead the World Bank, President Joe Biden announced on Thursday, crediting him with critical experience on global challenges including climate change.

The news comes days after Trump appointee David Malpass announced plans to step down in June from his role leading the 189-nation poverty reduction agency. His five-year term was due to expire in April 2024.

Addressing the impacts of climate change at the multilateral bank is a priority for the U.S. And leading climate figures have urged the Biden administration to use Malpass' early departure as an opening to overhaul the powerful financial institution, which has been increasingly criticized as hostile to less-wealthy nations and efforts to address climate change.

Malpass ran into criticism last year for seeming, in comments at a conference, to cast doubt on the science that says the burning of fossil fuels causes global warming. He later apologized and said he had misspoken, noting that the bank routinely relies on climate science.

Banga, currently vice chairman at private equity firm General Atlantic, has more than 30 years of business experience, having served in various roles at Mastercard and the boards of the American Red Cross, Kraft Foods and Dow Inc. He is the first Indian-born nominee to the World Bank president role.

“Ajay is uniquely equipped to lead the World Bank at this critical moment in history," Biden said in a statement, adding that Banga “has critical experience mobilizing public-private resources to tackle the most urgent challenges of our time, including climate change.”

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a statement that Banga's experience “will help him achieve the World Bank’s objectives of eliminating extreme poverty and expanding shared prosperity while pursuing the changes needed to effectively evolve the institution,” which include meeting “ambitious goals for climate adaptation and emissions reduction.”

Biden's climate envoy, John Kerry, said on Twitter that Banga was “the right choice."

“He can help put in place new policies that help deploy the large sums of money necessary to reduce global emissions and help developing and vulnerable countries adapt, build resilience, and mitigate the impact of greenhouse gases," Kerry tweeted.

The United States has traditionally picked the World Bank chief. The head of its sister agency, the International Monetary Fund, has traditionally come from Europe. But critics have called for an end to that arrangement and for developing countries to gain a bigger voice in the two organizations.

The World Bank has promised to conduct “an open, merit-based and transparent selection process″ and said it would accept nominations through March 29.

Eric LeCompte, executive director of the anti-poverty coalition Jubilee USA Network, said the United States was “looking to nominate people that will be supported by the developing world’’ and that it was “incredibly relevant’’ that Banga was born in India. “They want to be able to appoint people who have experience and roots with other economies,’’ LeCompte said.

“I can’t think of a more intense time for a person to be coming into this job,’’ said Clemence Landers, policy fellow at the Center for Global Development, a Washington think tank.

The bank is under pressure to expand its mandate — an effort that likely would require the next president to convince donor countries to provide more money.

Critics say the bank should be doing more to help poor countries finance projects to combat and prepare for climate change without saddling them with heavy debt burdens. And Landers said it needs to do a better job at tackling problems that cross borders such as providing pandemic surveillance and backing broad vaccination programs.

___

Ellen Knickmeyer and Paul Wiseman contributed to this story.

___

Follow the AP's coverage of the World Bank at https://apnews.com/hub/world-bank.

World Bank Opens Nominations for Malpass Successor Thursday

Eric Martin
Wed, February 22, 2023 


(Bloomberg) -- The World Bank on Thursday will open a five-week period for nominations to succeed President David Malpass, days after he announced his early departure from the anti-poverty lender, and expects to select a new chief by early May.

The executive board met Wednesday to discuss the selection process and will accept nominations through March 29, the institution said in a statement. Executive directors, who will decide on a shortlist of up to three candidates and conduct formal interviews, said they strongly encourage the nomination of women.

Candidates should have “a proven track record of leadership and accomplishment, particularly in development” and “experience of managing large organizations with international exposure,” among other qualifications, the board said.

Malpass’s decision last week to step down gives President Joe Biden’s administration an opening to pick someone to carry out its goal of overhauling the global development lender to focus more on fighting climate change. His five-year term was set to run through April 2024. The Washington-based institution lends tens of billions of dollars a year to low- and middle-income countries.

By tradition, the US nominates the Washington-based institution’s president. But the process has included non-US candidates in the past. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the current head of the World Trade Organization, and Colombian Finance Minister Jose Antonio Ocampo were both candidates in 2012, when the job went to Dartmouth College President Jim Yong Kim.

Malpass was the only candidate nominated in 2019, when he was put forward by US President Donald Trump.

The US is the World Bank’s largest shareholder, and its voice usually carries the biggest weight at the lender. Names mentioned by analysts as potential Biden administration picks include Samantha Power, head of the US Agency for International Development, and Rajiv Shah, the president of the Rockefeller Foundation and a former head of USAID.

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen last week said that the Biden administration looks forward to the World Bank’s executive board running a “transparent, merit-based and swift nomination process.” The US will put forward a candidate who will build on the bank’s longstanding work to fight extreme poverty, promote shared prosperity, and advance work to evolve the development bank to meet global challenges, Yellen said.

Yellen is in Bangalore, India, this week, where finance ministers and central bank governors from the Group of 20 rich countries are gathering, and she’s scheduled to speak at a news conference on Thursday.

Along with the International Monetary Fund and host India, the World Bank is organizing a sovereign debt roundtable in Bangalore with the hope of fixing the bottlenecks that have prevented quick restructuring of the debt of fragile nations.

World Bank Touts an ESG Bond It Says Is ‘Immune’ to Greenwashing

Caleb Mutua
Wed, February 22, 2023 

(Bloomberg) -- The World Bank raised $50 million through a bond structure it describes as unique and free from greenwashing — a growing concern among investors — and said it is lining up more of these deals for later this year.

The proceeds of the five-year bond will be used to support the World Bank’s sustainable development activities globally. Investors of this bond will forgo regular coupon payments. The money they would have received will instead be used to fund a project that will manufacture 300,000 water purifiers, with the aim of providing clean drinking water to about two million children in Vietnam.

The use of those purifiers is expected to reduce the amount of wood burned to boil drinking water, which would trim greenhouse gas emissions and generate verified carbon units — or VCUs. Instead of ordinary coupons, investors will receive semi-annual coupon payments linked to these VCUs. The outcome-based bond follows a rhino bond issued by the World Bank last year, which rewards investors more if the population of the animals grows.

The way the $50 million debt is structured gives bondholders the ability to invest in a specific project, which makes it appealing to investors focused on impact investing, according to Michael Bennett, head of derivatives and structured finance at the World Bank.

This makes it different from a green bond, the largest category of sustainable debt by amount issued, which gives issuers the room to allocate proceeds to a variety of projects. The World Bank had helped pioneer the green-bond market by issuing such a bond in 2008, after the European Investment Bank issued the first green bond in 2007.

“This structure is very immune from any greenwashing concern,” said Bennett in an interview. “We’re completely transparent where the foregone coupon is going, what the risk is and what the outcome measurement metric is.”

The structure will help provide funding to projects that otherwise wouldn’t get funded in the bond market, Bennett said, adding that the World Bank is planning another deal or two later this year. The deals may be larger in size, a spokesperson with the World Bank said.

The deal has piqued the interest of asset managers across the world, said Philip Brown, managing director and global head of sustainable debt financing at Citigroup Inc. The bank is the sole underwriter of the deal and has a pipeline of potential projects it’s planning to bring to the market after this one, Brown said.

“We talked to a number of large global asset managers whose response was, ‘this is really interesting, when you get to a billion dollars worth of transactions come back to me and I will raise funds against it as an asset class’,” Brown said. “We are in this early stage of development but it’s already very clear that there’s huge interest in carbon as an asset class.”

Bonds linking coupon payments to carbon offsets are rare, and this is the first transaction where bond investors are taking the project risk directly, essentially ascribing value to the voluntary carbon credits, he said.

Investor Feedback

If the project goes as planned and generates enough VCUs, bondholders will get a return of about 100 basis points above a typical World Bank five-year dollar bond, according to the issuer. The bond was issued slightly below par, providing investors with a minimum guaranteed return of 0.52%.

Nuveen and Danish pension fund Velliv Pension & Livsforsikring are among investors that bought the deal. Velliv prefers to invest in deals with specific and targeted impacts, which leads to a “higher quality of our sustainability portfolio with an even greater impact per dollar invest,” Asbjørn Purup Andersen, senior portfolio manager at Velliv, said in an emailed statement.

Carbon offsets, which allow companies to pay a small sum in exchange for removing carbon from their balance sheets, are facing mounting skepticism over whether they’re effective in reducing emissions. While the quality or the magnitude of carbon credits produced in the water-purification project in Vietnam can be debated, it’s clear that a reduction in carbon is occurring, according to Stephen Liberatore, head of ESG and Impact for Global Fixed Income at Nuveen.

“This sounds like what you’re supposed to be doing, at least from the concept of how a market should develop,” he said in an interview.

Citigroup has also committed to buying the credit units up to an agreed capped amount by volume, before re-distributing them to other markets. Proceeds from the sale to Citigroup will then be passed on to bond investors as coupon payments. Mobilizing voluntary capital markets could help emerging markets that didn’t have access to such funding, said Citigroup’s Brown.

“Now, can it grow? The green-bond market took seven years from the first private placements back in 2007 to get to a billion dollar bond,” Brown said. “I think we’ll see a billion dollar carbon bond well before 2030.”

MAKES LUMPY SPAGHETTI SAUCE

UK

Eat turnips instead of tomatoes during shortages, Therese Coffey suggests - 

Chris Price
Thu, February 23, 2023

Environment Secretary Therese Coffey said we would be 'eating turnips right now' if Britons ate seasonally - Jacob King/PA Wire

Shoppers should consider eating turnips as a shortage of fruit and vegetables leaves supermarket shelves bare, a minister has suggested.

Therese Coffey, the Environment Secretary, said people "would be eating turnips right now" if the UK was more focused on seasonal eating.

She was responding to an urgent question in the House of Commons on ongoing food shortages of some items including tomatoes.

Tesco, Asda, Aldi and Morrisons are rationing the number of peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers and other fresh food that people can buy.

Tory MP Selaine Saxby said that "we should be eating more seasonally and supporting our own British farmers" and "if we were actually to move to a seasonal line of eating, many of these problems would be avoided".

Ms Coffey replied: "It's important to make sure that we cherish the specialisms that we have in this country.

"A lot of people would be eating turnips right now rather than thinking necessarily about aspects of lettuce and tomatoes and similar, but I’m conscious that consumers want a year-round choice and that is what our supermarkets, food producers and growers around the world try to satisfy."

The shortage of fruit and vegetables has been blamed on poor harvests in southern Spain and Morocco due to inclement weather.

However, the former chief executive of Sainsbury’s Justin King, blamed Brexit as the UK was "uniquely exposed to imports at this time of year".

Blackadder the third - Baldrick : I'd get a great big turnip in the country.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Charles River Sinks After Getting DOJ Subpoena in Lab-Monkey Probe


Bre Bradham
Wed, February 22, 2023


(Bloomberg) -- Charles River Laboratories International Inc. shares sank by the most in more than 15 months after saying it received a subpoena from the Department of Justice regarding an investigation into the Cambodian supply chain it uses to import monkeys for medical research.

Shares dropped by 10%, the most since November 2021, making the medical-research contractor the second-worst performer in the S&P 500 Index on Wednesday. The supply-chain developments dented the company’s revenue growth guidance for 2023, it said. Its outlook for adjusted earnings per share was also lower than analyst consensus expectations.

“This is not the 2023 outlook we were looking for,” Evercore ISI analyst Elizabeth Anderson wrote in a note to clients.

Concerns around primate supply have intensified since Inotiv Inc. disclosed last year that the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida had criminally charged employees of its principal supplier.

The subpoena, which Charles River said it received last week, specifically relates to shipments received by the company from its Cambodian supplier. The Wilmington, Massachusetts company said it has voluntarily suspended planned future shipments.

“Once the Department of Justice concludes its investigation, we believe it will find that any concerns with respect to Charles River are without merit,” Chief Executive Officer James Foster said in the earnings presentation. “As we have stated before, we are committed to ensuring our operations are fully compliant with all US and international laws and regulations.”

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

A month after the Hindenburg jolt, Adani continues to bleed

Niharika Sharma
Wed, February 22, 2023 

Image: AMIR COHEN (Reuters)

It’s been nearly a month since the US-based Hindenburg Research published a report jolting one of India’s largest conglomerates. A $120-billion market rout and a major stock market U-turn later, the Adani group continues to bleed from the bruise it received. The business empire has desperately tried to fix things but mostly failed.

In the latest indication of its unending trouble, the Adani group has halted its investment in a coal-to-polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plant in Mundra in the western Indian state of Gujarat. The company was looking to spend $4 billion on the project.

“...we will review that commitment post-settlement of this volatility period. For the time being, we will not be making any commitments to new projects,” Jugeshinder Singh, the Adani group CFO, said about the Mundra plant during a post-earnings call on Feb. 15.

This is part of a course correction the group has made since Hindenburg’s Jan. 24 report accused it of stock manipulation and fraud. Its listed entities have lost 60% of their share value from Jan. 24 although the Gautam Adani-led group has denied all allegations.

Earlier, it abandoned an $850 million plan to buy a coal plant in India. State-run Indian Oil Corporation, meanwhile, has disputed its claim of having struck a deal around the use of a port in southern India for liquified petroleum gas supplies. French firm TotalEnergies, too, has paused its plan to join the group’s $50 billion bet on hydrogen.
No relief in sight for Adani

At the time of publishing today, most Adani group stocks were down nearly 5% from their earlier close. Its flagship entity, Adani Enterprises, had slipped 11%.
datawrapper-chart-HkomW

This nosedive has left Gautam Adani’s own net worth at $46.1 billion, down from $88.5 billion last February, according to the Bloomberg billionaire Index.

The embattled group has, meanwhile, hired New York-based legal firm Watchell to lead its legal battle in the US. It has also brought on board Kekst CNC as a communications advisor.

In India, market regulator Securities and Exchanges Board of India (Sebi) has sought details from credit rating firms of all ratings of the Adani group’s local loans and securities, Economic Times reported today.

This adds to the “fresh chill” in the environmental, social, and governance investing markets sent by reports that Adani was using stocks of its green companies as collateral to finance the Carmichael coal mine in Australia.

“Norway’s largest pension fund, KLP, recently dumped its entire holding of shares in Adani Green Energy Ltd., the renewables part of the empire, amid concerns that it might inadvertently have helped finance some of the world’s most polluting activities...” Bloomberg reported on Feb. 19.

In another setback to the group’s credibility, Wikipedia has alleged that over “40 later banned or blocked sockpuppets or undeclared paid editors created or revised nine related articles on the Adani family and family businesses.”

“Many of them edited several of the articles and added non-neutral material or puffery. A declared paid editor, using a company IP address, completely rewrote the Adani Group article. Others removed warnings about conflict-of-interest editing. Some created articles by unusual methods that circumvented Wikipedia’s quality control systems,” the user-interfaced online encyclopedia said in its Feb. 20 disinformation report.

Quartz

Adani Rout Has Room to Run as Charts Show 85% Call Still Valid



Akshay Chinchalkar
Thu, February 23, 2023 

(Bloomberg) -- The rout in Adani Group shares has room to run based on charts that show key stocks in Gautam Adani’s empire may still extend declines to the 85% downside flagged by Hindenburg Research.

The combined market value of the 10 listed companies in the group has slumped by $146 billion, or about 60%, since the US-based short seller released its report almost a month ago, alleging accounting fraud and stock manipulation. Adani has denied the allegations.

Hindenburg identified seven of the stocks as having potential to drop by 85%, based “purely on a fundamental basis owing to sky-high valuations,” according to its Jan. 24 report.

Four of those seven show a strong potential to be affected by technical levels, according to a Bloomberg analysis. Charts point to further declines for flagship Adani Enterprises Ltd., tests of support for Adani Transmission Ltd. and Adani Ports & Special Economic Zone Ltd., and a let up in losses for Adani Power Ltd.

Adani Enterprises: Support Distant

Adani Enterprises has slumped about 60% from its close on Jan. 24. It has room to decline another 26% before finding initial support at the Feb. 3 intraday low of 1,017 rupees, or 33% before touching support from multiple Fibonacci levels in the area between 910 rupees to 925 rupees. Just above that zone is the value level of 945 rupees per share ascribed to the stock by Aswath Damodaran, a New York University finance professor known for his expertise on valuation.

Adani Transmission: On the Brink

Adani Transmission, which has tumbled 73% since the Hindenburg report, is already testing the lower bound of support in a long-term parallel channel. Failure to arrest the decline here would open the shares to a further drop of about 20% before the next likely support around 600 rupees, where there is a cluster of Fibonacci levels. The stock has fallen by the 5% limit on every trading day since Feb. 9.

Adani Ports: Bounce Test

Adani Ports & Special Economic Zone has tumbled 44% from its September high, but has lost only 28% since the Hindenburg report was published Jan. 24. The share’s volatile history includes an 81% peak-to-trough plunge in 2008. Its rebound from a Feb. 3 low was assisted by a cluster of Fibonacci levels lying between 370 rupees and 410 rupees. Holding above this zone would open the way to pushing above 650 rupees, while a breach below would bring into play the pandemic crash lows of around 200 rupees.

Adani Power: Decline Stalls

Recent price action suggests some buyers are starting to see value in Adani Power after an almost 70% slump from its August highs through last week’s low. The shares are down about 43% from their Jan. 24 close. The formation of a doji candlestick pattern last week — in which opening and closing levels are closely aligned — occurred right at the lower line of a long-term rising channel. The odds of a larger rebound will increase only if the shares break above resistance at 191 rupees. Failure to do so would make the zone from 136 rupees to 141 rupees vulnerable, creating the risk of a drop to around 100 rupees.

Bloomberg Businessweek