CANADA
Study authorization extended for work permit holders
Local Journalism Initiative
Sun, July 2, 2023
The Canadian government recognizes the significant contributions of temporary foreign workers to the country's economy. It acknowledges the barriers they sometimes face in pursuing their educational aspirations. To address these challenges and unlock new opportunities, the Honourable Sean Fraser, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, has unveiled a groundbreaking temporary measure.
Effective immediately, the new measure eliminates the time limit on study programs that temporary foreign workers can undertake without requiring a study permit. This progressive step empowers foreign workers to pursue additional training and education that aligns with their career goals. By removing this restriction, the measure aims to enhance job prospects for foreign workers and expand their potential pathways to permanent residency.
Previously, foreign workers were permitted to study only in programs lasting six months or less. They were obligated to apply for a separate study permit for more extended programs, presenting a significant barrier for those seeking to advance their education, acquire additional skills, or validate their foreign credentials.
Under the newly implemented three-year temporary measure, foreign workers can now engage in full-time or part-time studies throughout the validity of their work permits or until the policy's expiration, with no limitations on the duration of the program.
This temporary measure specifically applies to individuals holding valid work permits or those who have submitted work permit renewal applications on or before June 7, 2023, and have received authorization to work. However, it is essential to note that if foreign workers intend to pursue a study program longer than their work permit, they will still need to apply for a separate study permit.
By enabling temporary foreign workers to access educational opportunities without the burden of time restrictions, the Canadian government aims to support their personal growth, professional development, and successful integration into the country's workforce. This forward-thinking measure demonstrates Canada's commitment to nurturing talent, fostering inclusivity, and harnessing the diverse skills of its temporary foreign worker community.
Concerning the temporary policy, Sean Fraser, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, said, "Temporary foreign workers are incredibly important for the Canadian economy, and many have aspirations that go far beyond the work that initially brings them to Canada."
"With this policy in place, we hope to empower foreign nationals to improve their skills in order to meet their career goals and achieve their dreams, while providing a future potential source of talent for our labour market. We also provide a path for construction labourers to become tradespersons, and strengthen our communities and build new homes. This immigration measure helps employers, workers, and our economy by addressing critical labour shortages," the Minister added.
Saeed Akhtar, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Milton Reporter, Milton Reporter
Wednesday, July 05, 2023
"A preoccupation with failure." Why the Titan submersible was doomed from the start
The Canadian Press
Mon, July 3, 2023
HALIFAX — The company behind the submersible that imploded during a recent dive to the Titanic ignored key principles that guide organizations working in high-risk environments, experts in emergency management say.
Jack Rozdilsky, a professor at York University in Toronto, says OceanGate's business — ferrying paying passengers to the floor of the North Atlantic — could be compared to the immensely risky work of companies that launch space flights, drill for offshore oil, fight wildfires or operate nuclear power plants.
"These are high-reliability organizations (HROs) that operate in complex, high-hazard domains for extended periods of time without serious accidents or catastrophic failures," Rozdilsky, a professor of disaster and emergency management, said in a recent interview. "OceanGate does not appear to have functioned as a high-reliability organization."
The professor cited three key attributes shared by HROs:
-- They are reluctant to simplify. They accept that tasks they are involved in are complex and have the potential to fail in unexpected ways.
-- They are preoccupied with failure. They do not view near-misses as proof of success.
-- They practise resilience. They provide backups for backups, or as Rozdilsky put it: "Suspenders for the suspenders."
There is evidence to suggest OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush — one of five people killed June 18 when the submersible Titan ruptured near the ocean floor — emphasized simplicity over complexity when it came to Titan's engineering. During an interview last year with CBS News, Rush showed off Titan's basic interior, which included one power button, two video screens and a gaming controller for steering the 6.7-metre vessel.
"This is to other submersibles what the iPhone was to the Blackberry," Rush said at the time, suggesting the simplicity of the vessel was a strength. "There's a lot of rules out there that didn't make engineering sense."
Rozdilsky questioned Rush's decision to simplify an otherwise complex deep-sea craft.
"It's not something we can make like an elevator," he said. "A high-reliability organization refuses to simplify to that extent. They welcome the complexity and realize that by attempting to interact with that complexity, it gives them routes to safety."
On another front, Rozdilsky said lessons learned from the space shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986 — a mid-air explosion that killed all seven astronauts aboard — remind us that organizations operating in high-risk environments can fall prey to risk-management errors and erosion of safety protocols.
In the case of Challenger, a presidential commission determined that NASA officials had responded to early warnings about design flaws by increasing levels of acceptable damage during flights. The commission concluded NASA justified the changes by saying, "We got away with it the last time."
Similarly, there have been multiple reports of problems and near-misses with Titan.
"One way to view those mishaps is proof of success," Rozdilsky said. "But successful, high-risk organizations look at that from a different perspective: they ... see these near misses as opportunities to improve .... There's a preoccupation with failure, not a preoccupation with success."
As for OceanGate, it has become clear in recent weeks that Titan experienced many problems before and during its 3,800-metre dives to the Titanic wreck site over the past three years.
Last month, German adventurer Arthur Loibl told The Canadian Press that his 2021 voyage to the doomed ocean liner was beset by snafus. The 60-year-old retired businessman said the submersible had problems with its battery and balancing weights, which led to a 90-minute repair job. But the trip went ahead anyway.
YouTube celebrity Jake Koehler also released a video describing how his trip aboard Titan was scrubbed earlier this year because of persistent computer problems. In the video released last month, Rush can be heard saying the computer's role was "up there with life support," but it was "not consistently communicating."
"Long story short: every day they did have some problems," Koehler added.
Even as Titan was being built in Everett, Wash., red flags were being raised. In January 2018, then-director of marine operations David Lochridge filed a report identifying serious safety concerns including improper testing of its carbon-fibre hull, according to court documents filed in Washington state.
Lochridge told Rush the vessel should be certified by a classification agency, such as the American Bureau of Shipping, but that never happened, the documents say. Instead, Lochridge was fired.
Meanwhile, a search and rescue expert says it appears Rush's company was not prepared to deal with emergencies.
Merv Wiseman, a retired search-and-rescue co-ordinator, said it remains unclear whether OceanGate filed a preparedness plan with the Marine Rescue Sub-Centre in St. John's, which is where Wiseman worked for 35 years.
"This is the highest of the high-risk areas we can think of," he said in an interview, adding that offshore operations like drilling platforms are required to submit detailed preparedness manuals to the Canadian Coast Guard. "If something were to happen at the Hibernia (offshore oil platform), I would go to their manual. They have a volume with alerting matrixes and all the technical items."
Wiseman said Transport Canada should have had jurisdiction over the OceanGate operation. The federal department said last week it would respond to a request for comment, but did not.
"I think this may have slipped through the cracks," Wiseman said.
Meanwhile, deep-diving experts have been issuing warnings about Titan's shoddy construction an lack of certification for years. And in 2018, a group of engineers wrote a letter warning that the company's "experimental" approach could have catastrophic consequences.
There were also warnings about Titan's lack of backup systems — another worrisome trait that stands in sharp contrast to the practices of high-reliability organizations.
"If you put one vehicle (into the deep ocean), you have a backup vehicle down there to help rescue the first vehicle in case it fails," Rozdilsky said.
That's what happened in 1991 when two Russian submersibles, known as Mir I and Mir II, were used to bring a camera crew to film Titanic. At one point, one of the vessels was snared on wires on Titanic's deck. But the pilot managed to free the craft once he received guidance from the pilot on the other submersible.
Wiseman said Titan should not have dived on its own.
"It is reasonable to expect that if this kind of voyage is going to be undertaken, with people's lives at stake, that there be a duplicate (submersible) available," Wiseman said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 3, 2023.
Michael MacDonald, The Canadian Press
The Canadian Press
Mon, July 3, 2023
HALIFAX — The company behind the submersible that imploded during a recent dive to the Titanic ignored key principles that guide organizations working in high-risk environments, experts in emergency management say.
Jack Rozdilsky, a professor at York University in Toronto, says OceanGate's business — ferrying paying passengers to the floor of the North Atlantic — could be compared to the immensely risky work of companies that launch space flights, drill for offshore oil, fight wildfires or operate nuclear power plants.
"These are high-reliability organizations (HROs) that operate in complex, high-hazard domains for extended periods of time without serious accidents or catastrophic failures," Rozdilsky, a professor of disaster and emergency management, said in a recent interview. "OceanGate does not appear to have functioned as a high-reliability organization."
The professor cited three key attributes shared by HROs:
-- They are reluctant to simplify. They accept that tasks they are involved in are complex and have the potential to fail in unexpected ways.
-- They are preoccupied with failure. They do not view near-misses as proof of success.
-- They practise resilience. They provide backups for backups, or as Rozdilsky put it: "Suspenders for the suspenders."
There is evidence to suggest OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush — one of five people killed June 18 when the submersible Titan ruptured near the ocean floor — emphasized simplicity over complexity when it came to Titan's engineering. During an interview last year with CBS News, Rush showed off Titan's basic interior, which included one power button, two video screens and a gaming controller for steering the 6.7-metre vessel.
"This is to other submersibles what the iPhone was to the Blackberry," Rush said at the time, suggesting the simplicity of the vessel was a strength. "There's a lot of rules out there that didn't make engineering sense."
Rozdilsky questioned Rush's decision to simplify an otherwise complex deep-sea craft.
"It's not something we can make like an elevator," he said. "A high-reliability organization refuses to simplify to that extent. They welcome the complexity and realize that by attempting to interact with that complexity, it gives them routes to safety."
On another front, Rozdilsky said lessons learned from the space shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986 — a mid-air explosion that killed all seven astronauts aboard — remind us that organizations operating in high-risk environments can fall prey to risk-management errors and erosion of safety protocols.
In the case of Challenger, a presidential commission determined that NASA officials had responded to early warnings about design flaws by increasing levels of acceptable damage during flights. The commission concluded NASA justified the changes by saying, "We got away with it the last time."
Similarly, there have been multiple reports of problems and near-misses with Titan.
"One way to view those mishaps is proof of success," Rozdilsky said. "But successful, high-risk organizations look at that from a different perspective: they ... see these near misses as opportunities to improve .... There's a preoccupation with failure, not a preoccupation with success."
As for OceanGate, it has become clear in recent weeks that Titan experienced many problems before and during its 3,800-metre dives to the Titanic wreck site over the past three years.
Last month, German adventurer Arthur Loibl told The Canadian Press that his 2021 voyage to the doomed ocean liner was beset by snafus. The 60-year-old retired businessman said the submersible had problems with its battery and balancing weights, which led to a 90-minute repair job. But the trip went ahead anyway.
YouTube celebrity Jake Koehler also released a video describing how his trip aboard Titan was scrubbed earlier this year because of persistent computer problems. In the video released last month, Rush can be heard saying the computer's role was "up there with life support," but it was "not consistently communicating."
"Long story short: every day they did have some problems," Koehler added.
Even as Titan was being built in Everett, Wash., red flags were being raised. In January 2018, then-director of marine operations David Lochridge filed a report identifying serious safety concerns including improper testing of its carbon-fibre hull, according to court documents filed in Washington state.
Lochridge told Rush the vessel should be certified by a classification agency, such as the American Bureau of Shipping, but that never happened, the documents say. Instead, Lochridge was fired.
Meanwhile, a search and rescue expert says it appears Rush's company was not prepared to deal with emergencies.
Merv Wiseman, a retired search-and-rescue co-ordinator, said it remains unclear whether OceanGate filed a preparedness plan with the Marine Rescue Sub-Centre in St. John's, which is where Wiseman worked for 35 years.
"This is the highest of the high-risk areas we can think of," he said in an interview, adding that offshore operations like drilling platforms are required to submit detailed preparedness manuals to the Canadian Coast Guard. "If something were to happen at the Hibernia (offshore oil platform), I would go to their manual. They have a volume with alerting matrixes and all the technical items."
Wiseman said Transport Canada should have had jurisdiction over the OceanGate operation. The federal department said last week it would respond to a request for comment, but did not.
"I think this may have slipped through the cracks," Wiseman said.
Meanwhile, deep-diving experts have been issuing warnings about Titan's shoddy construction an lack of certification for years. And in 2018, a group of engineers wrote a letter warning that the company's "experimental" approach could have catastrophic consequences.
There were also warnings about Titan's lack of backup systems — another worrisome trait that stands in sharp contrast to the practices of high-reliability organizations.
"If you put one vehicle (into the deep ocean), you have a backup vehicle down there to help rescue the first vehicle in case it fails," Rozdilsky said.
That's what happened in 1991 when two Russian submersibles, known as Mir I and Mir II, were used to bring a camera crew to film Titanic. At one point, one of the vessels was snared on wires on Titanic's deck. But the pilot managed to free the craft once he received guidance from the pilot on the other submersible.
Wiseman said Titan should not have dived on its own.
"It is reasonable to expect that if this kind of voyage is going to be undertaken, with people's lives at stake, that there be a duplicate (submersible) available," Wiseman said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 3, 2023.
Michael MacDonald, The Canadian Press
AOC proposes subpoenas and impeachment to limit SCOTUS justices’ power following landmark decisions
Dem Squad member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez slammed the U.S. Supreme Court and its "abuse of power" Sunday.
Haley Chi-Sing
Dem Squad member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez slammed the U.S. Supreme Court and its "abuse of power" Sunday.
Haley Chi-Sing
FOX
Sun, July 2, 2023
Democratic "Squad" member Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., slammed the U.S. Supreme Court for what she called an "abuse of power" Sunday, following landmark decisions this past week rejecting affirmative action and Biden's student loan debt plan. She proposed impeachment and subpoenas be put into play in order to limit the justices' power.
"The Supreme Court is far overreaching their authority," Ocasio-Cortez said on CNN's "State of the Union."
"And I believe, frankly, that we really need to be having conversations about judicial review as a check on the courts as well," she added.
The Supreme Court issued the last decisions of its term this past week, among them rejecting the use of race as a factor in admissions, ruling in favor of a Christian web designer who refuses to make a same-sex wedding websites, and striking down President Biden’s student loan debt cancellation plan. Democrats have considered the rulings to be attacks on the left, denouncing the court as "illegitimate."
"These are the types of rulings that signal a dangerous creep toward authoritarianism and centralization of power in the courts," Ocasio-Cortez said Sunday. "In fact, we have members of the court themselves with Justice Elena Kagan saying that the court is beginning to assume the power of a legislature."
Ocasio-Cortez has been a vocal proponent for court-packing and limiting the court's power, going as far as to tell CNN's Dana Bash that subpoenas and impeachment should be placed on the table for consideration.
"And so I believe that if Chief Justice Roberts will not come before Congress for an investigation voluntarily, I believe that we should be considering subpoenas," the Democrat representative said. "We should be considering investigations. We must pass much more binding and stringent ethics guidelines where we see members of the Supreme Court potentially breaking the law, as we saw in the refusal with Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from cases implicating his wife in Jan. 6."
"There also must be impeachment on the table. We have a broad level of tools to deal with misconduct, overreach and abuse of power, and the Supreme Court has not been receiving the adequate oversight necessary in order to preserve their own legitimacy," she continued. "And in the process, they themselves have been destroying the legitimacy of the court, which is profoundly dangerous for our entire democracy."
President Biden recently clarified his position against expanding the Supreme Court during an interview on MSNBC on Thursday.
Unlike Ocasio-Cortez, the president recently clarified his position against expanding the court during an interview on MSNBC on Thursday. Biden said progressive efforts to expand the Supreme Court would "politicize it maybe forever in a way that is not healthy."
"And I think, look, I think maybe it's just the optimist in me. I think that some of the court are beginning to realize their legitimacy is being questioned in ways that had not been questioned in the past," he continued.
AOC did, however, make headlines shortly after the Supreme Court's affirmative action ruling, after she suggested the high court isn't serious about its "ludicrous ‘colorblindness’ claims" or else it would have "abolished" legacy admissions.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said the Supreme Court isn't serious about its "ludicrous ‘colorblindness’ claims."
Ocasio-Cortez shared her thoughts on the ruling on Twitter, noting that "70% of Harvard’s legacy applicants are white" and that the Supreme Court "didn’t touch that – which would have impacted them and their patrons."
Many social media users were quick to call the congresswoman out, saying that the issue of legacy admissions – the practice of giving preference to children of alumni. - was not before the court.
Fox News' Brianna Herlihy and Kyle Morris contributed to this report.
Sun, July 2, 2023
Democratic "Squad" member Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., slammed the U.S. Supreme Court for what she called an "abuse of power" Sunday, following landmark decisions this past week rejecting affirmative action and Biden's student loan debt plan. She proposed impeachment and subpoenas be put into play in order to limit the justices' power.
"The Supreme Court is far overreaching their authority," Ocasio-Cortez said on CNN's "State of the Union."
"And I believe, frankly, that we really need to be having conversations about judicial review as a check on the courts as well," she added.
The Supreme Court issued the last decisions of its term this past week, among them rejecting the use of race as a factor in admissions, ruling in favor of a Christian web designer who refuses to make a same-sex wedding websites, and striking down President Biden’s student loan debt cancellation plan. Democrats have considered the rulings to be attacks on the left, denouncing the court as "illegitimate."
"These are the types of rulings that signal a dangerous creep toward authoritarianism and centralization of power in the courts," Ocasio-Cortez said Sunday. "In fact, we have members of the court themselves with Justice Elena Kagan saying that the court is beginning to assume the power of a legislature."
Ocasio-Cortez has been a vocal proponent for court-packing and limiting the court's power, going as far as to tell CNN's Dana Bash that subpoenas and impeachment should be placed on the table for consideration.
"And so I believe that if Chief Justice Roberts will not come before Congress for an investigation voluntarily, I believe that we should be considering subpoenas," the Democrat representative said. "We should be considering investigations. We must pass much more binding and stringent ethics guidelines where we see members of the Supreme Court potentially breaking the law, as we saw in the refusal with Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from cases implicating his wife in Jan. 6."
"There also must be impeachment on the table. We have a broad level of tools to deal with misconduct, overreach and abuse of power, and the Supreme Court has not been receiving the adequate oversight necessary in order to preserve their own legitimacy," she continued. "And in the process, they themselves have been destroying the legitimacy of the court, which is profoundly dangerous for our entire democracy."
President Biden recently clarified his position against expanding the Supreme Court during an interview on MSNBC on Thursday.
Unlike Ocasio-Cortez, the president recently clarified his position against expanding the court during an interview on MSNBC on Thursday. Biden said progressive efforts to expand the Supreme Court would "politicize it maybe forever in a way that is not healthy."
"And I think, look, I think maybe it's just the optimist in me. I think that some of the court are beginning to realize their legitimacy is being questioned in ways that had not been questioned in the past," he continued.
AOC did, however, make headlines shortly after the Supreme Court's affirmative action ruling, after she suggested the high court isn't serious about its "ludicrous ‘colorblindness’ claims" or else it would have "abolished" legacy admissions.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said the Supreme Court isn't serious about its "ludicrous ‘colorblindness’ claims."
Ocasio-Cortez shared her thoughts on the ruling on Twitter, noting that "70% of Harvard’s legacy applicants are white" and that the Supreme Court "didn’t touch that – which would have impacted them and their patrons."
Many social media users were quick to call the congresswoman out, saying that the issue of legacy admissions – the practice of giving preference to children of alumni. - was not before the court.
Fox News' Brianna Herlihy and Kyle Morris contributed to this report.
China is lining up a Harvard-trained economist as its next central bank chief
Laura He
Mon, July 3, 2023
China has named an economist who studied at Cambridge University and Harvard University to a key political post at its central bank that could position him to eventually replace governor Yi Gang.
Pan Gongsheng was appointed Saturday as the new Communist Party chief at the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), in a surprise move as Beijing bolsters its drive to arrest the country’s economic slowdown and stem a slide in its currency.
The announcement came just days before US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is expected to visit Beijing, and follows a series of downbeat economic data that has sent the yuan tumbling towards levels last seen 15 years ago.
Pan, who will turn 60 this week, is likely to be named governor of the PBOC following his promotion to the top party post at the bank, state-owned Securities Times reported, citing anonymous analysts.
If that happens, he will replace Yi, 65, who has been serving as the central bank’s governor for five years and is still in post.
CNN has reached out to the PBOC for comment, but didn’t immediately receive a response.
Pan currently serves as the deputy governor of the PBOC. He also holds a concurrent post as head of China’s foreign exchange regulator, managing the world’s largest foreign exchange reserves worth $3.18 trillion.
Pan speaks during an event in Shanghai in December 2017. - Imaginechina/AP
He replaced Guo Shuqing, who had been been the party boss at the central bank since 2018 and oversaw a regulatory crackdown on fintech conglomerates like Ant Group.
Neil Thomas, a fellow of Chinese Politics at Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis, described Pan’s elevation as a “shock,” as he wasn’t appointed to the Communist Party’s Central Committee, its top decision-making body, at the last congress in October.
In China’s political system, the Communist Party boss is usually the top official in the relevant organization, be it a level of government or a public institution. That person usually holds the ultimate decision making power on any major issue.
“My initial reaction is this suggests Xi [Jinping] is more concerned about China’s economy than before the 20th Party Congress,” Thomas said.
During the party congress last year, Xi secured a historic third term in power and stacked his top team with loyalists in a clean sweep not seen since the Mao Zedong era decades before.
A seasoned technocrat
Pan is a financial technocrat, not a Xi loyalist, Thomas said, which contributed to the surprise surrounding his promotion.
Following the party congress, China’s top leader strengthened the party’s control over the country’s economic institutions. Several of his loyalists had been tipped to take key positions running the economy, even though they are perceived to have little experience dealing with international financial organizations.
But as the country’s economic recovery began to lose steam in recent months, calls for more stimulus measures have intensified.
Top leaders eventually chose to promote Pan for his international background and expectations that he would have an easier time working with other central bank governors, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing anonymous sources.
Yellen will travel to Beijing later this week as part of ongoing efforts by the Biden administration to deepen communication between the United States and China, the Treasury Department announced Sunday evening.
A seasoned financial regulator with some training in the West, Pan received his doctorate in economics from the Renmin University of China in 1993. Since then, he has spent nearly two decades working at large state-owned banks, including the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) and the Agricultural Bank of China (ABC).
Pan was known in China’s financial world as the key person behind the stock market listings of ICBC and ABC in 2006 and 2010, which separately set records as the world’s largest IPOs at the time.
From 1997 to 1998, he was a visiting scholar at Cambridge University. In the first half of 2011, he studied at the Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.
After returning to China, he was promoted to deputy governor at the PBOC in 2012. Three years later, he added the role of party head of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange.
Pan was well regarded for voicing prescient concerns about China’s real estate bubble years before the sector took a dive in 2021.
“If citizens store their wealth by buying houses, it may cause the real estate bubble to burst or even [cause] an economic crisis,” he told an economic forum in June 2014.
He also repeatedly pledged to maintain the stability of the Chinese yuan, warning speculators against shorting the currency.
If Pan is also named PBOC governor, he would have the tough job of boosting the economy amid an uncertain global outlook, managing financial risks derived from a persistently weak housing market and preventing the yuan from sliding further.
Economic slowdown
China’s economy has taken a deep hit from three years of draconian Covid restrictions, which hammered consumer spending and disrupted factory production.
After Beijing ended its zero-Covid policy in December, the economy experienced an initial burst of activity, with GDP growing 4.5% in the first quarter from a year earlier. But momentum has since slowed.
On Monday, the Caixin/S&P Global manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI), a private sector survey, dropped to 50.5 in June from 50.9 in May, below market expectations. The index is a key indicator of factory activity among smaller, private firms.
That came on the heels of the official government PMI released on Friday, which showed the manufacturing sector was still contracting. The non-manufacturing PMI, an indicator of activity in the services and construction sectors, dropped to its weakest level since December.
The Chinese currency has also declined rapidly.
The yuan hit its lowest level in seven months on Friday, taking its losses this year to 5%. The currency is now a touch away from the 15-year low seen in November, just after Xi consolidated power and before the removal of Covid restrictions.
On Saturday, the PBOC vowed to stabilize the yuan at “a reasonable and balanced level.”
“[We will] resolutely prevent the risk of sharp fluctations in the exchange rate,” it said in its quarterly monetary policy report.
CNN.com
Laura He
Mon, July 3, 2023
China has named an economist who studied at Cambridge University and Harvard University to a key political post at its central bank that could position him to eventually replace governor Yi Gang.
Pan Gongsheng was appointed Saturday as the new Communist Party chief at the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), in a surprise move as Beijing bolsters its drive to arrest the country’s economic slowdown and stem a slide in its currency.
The announcement came just days before US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is expected to visit Beijing, and follows a series of downbeat economic data that has sent the yuan tumbling towards levels last seen 15 years ago.
Pan, who will turn 60 this week, is likely to be named governor of the PBOC following his promotion to the top party post at the bank, state-owned Securities Times reported, citing anonymous analysts.
If that happens, he will replace Yi, 65, who has been serving as the central bank’s governor for five years and is still in post.
CNN has reached out to the PBOC for comment, but didn’t immediately receive a response.
Pan currently serves as the deputy governor of the PBOC. He also holds a concurrent post as head of China’s foreign exchange regulator, managing the world’s largest foreign exchange reserves worth $3.18 trillion.
Pan speaks during an event in Shanghai in December 2017. - Imaginechina/AP
He replaced Guo Shuqing, who had been been the party boss at the central bank since 2018 and oversaw a regulatory crackdown on fintech conglomerates like Ant Group.
Neil Thomas, a fellow of Chinese Politics at Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis, described Pan’s elevation as a “shock,” as he wasn’t appointed to the Communist Party’s Central Committee, its top decision-making body, at the last congress in October.
In China’s political system, the Communist Party boss is usually the top official in the relevant organization, be it a level of government or a public institution. That person usually holds the ultimate decision making power on any major issue.
“My initial reaction is this suggests Xi [Jinping] is more concerned about China’s economy than before the 20th Party Congress,” Thomas said.
During the party congress last year, Xi secured a historic third term in power and stacked his top team with loyalists in a clean sweep not seen since the Mao Zedong era decades before.
A seasoned technocrat
Pan is a financial technocrat, not a Xi loyalist, Thomas said, which contributed to the surprise surrounding his promotion.
Following the party congress, China’s top leader strengthened the party’s control over the country’s economic institutions. Several of his loyalists had been tipped to take key positions running the economy, even though they are perceived to have little experience dealing with international financial organizations.
But as the country’s economic recovery began to lose steam in recent months, calls for more stimulus measures have intensified.
Top leaders eventually chose to promote Pan for his international background and expectations that he would have an easier time working with other central bank governors, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing anonymous sources.
Yellen will travel to Beijing later this week as part of ongoing efforts by the Biden administration to deepen communication between the United States and China, the Treasury Department announced Sunday evening.
A seasoned financial regulator with some training in the West, Pan received his doctorate in economics from the Renmin University of China in 1993. Since then, he has spent nearly two decades working at large state-owned banks, including the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) and the Agricultural Bank of China (ABC).
Pan was known in China’s financial world as the key person behind the stock market listings of ICBC and ABC in 2006 and 2010, which separately set records as the world’s largest IPOs at the time.
From 1997 to 1998, he was a visiting scholar at Cambridge University. In the first half of 2011, he studied at the Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.
After returning to China, he was promoted to deputy governor at the PBOC in 2012. Three years later, he added the role of party head of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange.
Pan was well regarded for voicing prescient concerns about China’s real estate bubble years before the sector took a dive in 2021.
“If citizens store their wealth by buying houses, it may cause the real estate bubble to burst or even [cause] an economic crisis,” he told an economic forum in June 2014.
He also repeatedly pledged to maintain the stability of the Chinese yuan, warning speculators against shorting the currency.
If Pan is also named PBOC governor, he would have the tough job of boosting the economy amid an uncertain global outlook, managing financial risks derived from a persistently weak housing market and preventing the yuan from sliding further.
Economic slowdown
China’s economy has taken a deep hit from three years of draconian Covid restrictions, which hammered consumer spending and disrupted factory production.
After Beijing ended its zero-Covid policy in December, the economy experienced an initial burst of activity, with GDP growing 4.5% in the first quarter from a year earlier. But momentum has since slowed.
On Monday, the Caixin/S&P Global manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI), a private sector survey, dropped to 50.5 in June from 50.9 in May, below market expectations. The index is a key indicator of factory activity among smaller, private firms.
That came on the heels of the official government PMI released on Friday, which showed the manufacturing sector was still contracting. The non-manufacturing PMI, an indicator of activity in the services and construction sectors, dropped to its weakest level since December.
The Chinese currency has also declined rapidly.
The yuan hit its lowest level in seven months on Friday, taking its losses this year to 5%. The currency is now a touch away from the 15-year low seen in November, just after Xi consolidated power and before the removal of Covid restrictions.
On Saturday, the PBOC vowed to stabilize the yuan at “a reasonable and balanced level.”
“[We will] resolutely prevent the risk of sharp fluctations in the exchange rate,” it said in its quarterly monetary policy report.
CNN.com
Attaching Massive Kites to Boats Will Help Slash Shipping Emissions
Angely Mercado
Mon, July 3, 2023
The Seawing seen in action, towing a boat along.
French company Airseas, has promised to help cargo ships reduce their fuel consumption, and cut their greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 20%. And they’re doing this with the Seawing—a 1,000 square meter kite that will fly 300 meters (984 feet) above the water’s surface. So the global shipping industry is apparently rediscovering the joy (and efficiency) of sails.
The large, ship-sized kite is currently being developed, and the company plans to open a factory to produce the Seawing in 2026. Once manufactured, Airseas has promised that launching and operating a Seawing on a cargo vessel will be automated, making it easy to use for crews. The kite and the equipment that launches it is mounted on a boat’s deck, and the crew can simply press some buttons and a large kite will ascend into the sky. That’s not to say that the cargo ships won’t use their engines at all, but the kite will take some pressure off of those engines and will reduce the need for fuel. The wind will move the ship, just like it did for hundreds of years in the ye olden days before industrialization
Lowering emissions by 20% may not seem like a big deal, but moving vast amounts of goods to and fro on the high seas creates 3% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. That’s more than the airline industry, which produced about 2% of the world’s emissions in 2021, according to the International Energy Agency. Shipping is also a massive industry, and one worth focusing on for lowering emissions. About 90% of the world’s traded goods are moved around via shipping vessels, according to the International Chamber of Shipping.
Some companies are betting that this new version of sails. Japanese shipping company, “K” Line has placed orders for the Seawing kite, and the European Union has also invested more than $2 million in funding, CNN reported.
Check out this very dramatic video of the large kite in action:
Angely Mercado
Mon, July 3, 2023
The Seawing seen in action, towing a boat along.
French company Airseas, has promised to help cargo ships reduce their fuel consumption, and cut their greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 20%. And they’re doing this with the Seawing—a 1,000 square meter kite that will fly 300 meters (984 feet) above the water’s surface. So the global shipping industry is apparently rediscovering the joy (and efficiency) of sails.
The large, ship-sized kite is currently being developed, and the company plans to open a factory to produce the Seawing in 2026. Once manufactured, Airseas has promised that launching and operating a Seawing on a cargo vessel will be automated, making it easy to use for crews. The kite and the equipment that launches it is mounted on a boat’s deck, and the crew can simply press some buttons and a large kite will ascend into the sky. That’s not to say that the cargo ships won’t use their engines at all, but the kite will take some pressure off of those engines and will reduce the need for fuel. The wind will move the ship, just like it did for hundreds of years in the ye olden days before industrialization
Lowering emissions by 20% may not seem like a big deal, but moving vast amounts of goods to and fro on the high seas creates 3% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. That’s more than the airline industry, which produced about 2% of the world’s emissions in 2021, according to the International Energy Agency. Shipping is also a massive industry, and one worth focusing on for lowering emissions. About 90% of the world’s traded goods are moved around via shipping vessels, according to the International Chamber of Shipping.
Some companies are betting that this new version of sails. Japanese shipping company, “K” Line has placed orders for the Seawing kite, and the European Union has also invested more than $2 million in funding, CNN reported.
Check out this very dramatic video of the large kite in action:
Thai opposition party struggles to take power after stunning election victory
In this May 17, 2023 photo, leader of Pheu Thai party Chonlanan Srikaew, left gestures with the leader of Move Forward Party Pita Limjaroenrat, in Bangkok, Thailand. Thailand Politics Newly elected lawmakers in Thailand gathered Monday for the opening session of Parliament, which is tasked with selecting a new prime minister after May's general election saw the country's progressive Move Forward Party unexpectedly come out on top. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)
JINTAMAS SAKSORNCHAI and GRANT PECK
Mon, July 3, 2023
BANGKOK (AP) — Thailand's new Parliament convened Monday nearly two months after a progressive opposition party won a stunning election victory, but there was still no clear sign that its leader will be able to become prime minister and end nine years of military-dominated rule.
To form a government, a party must have the backing of a combined majority of the elected House of Representatives and the military-appointed Senate, which represents the country's traditional conservative ruling class.
The Move Forward Party's unexpected election victory alarmed the ruling establishment, which regards it as a threat to the status quo and the monarchy. Some senators have already announced their opposition to party leader Pita Limjaroenrat, a 42-year-old Harvard-educated businessman.
Pita has formed an eight-party coalition holding 312 seats in the 500-seat lower house, which leaves it short of an overall majority without the support of a significant number of the 250 senators.
The election results showed that Move Forward’s progressive agenda resonated with a public weary of nine years of military-controlled rule under Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, who as army commander seized power in a 2014 coup and returned as prime minister after a 2019 general election.
But what made Move Forward popular with many voters was what alarmed royalist conservatives. The party pledged to reform many powerful institutions, including the monarchy and the military, which retain power and influence under a constitution written during Prayuth’s administration.
While the threats from Move Forward’s ideological foes are clear, what was less expected are the tensions between it and the biggest partner in its coalition, the Pheu Thai party.
Pheu Thai and its predecessor parties have won all national elections since 2001 until this past May. It is the latest in a string of parties linked to former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted by a military coup in 2006.
Royalist power holders have harbored enmity toward Thaksin — a billionaire populist now in exile — for a long time. Prayuth’s 2014 coup ousted a government formed by Thaksin’s sister, Yingluck Shinawatra.
Move Forward and Pheu Thai have been squabbling over which will get the post of House speaker, which is supposed to be chosen by Parliament on Tuesday.
“The position of the House speaker is essential because he will determine the agenda of Parliament, and so therefore the degree of political transformation,” said Tyrell Haberkorn, a Thai studies scholar at the University of Wisconsin.
The two parties announced a compromise after a meeting on Monday. The coalition will nominate Wan Muhamad Noor Matha, a veteran leader of the Prachachat Party, to be House speaker, and Move Forward and Pheu Thai will each have one deputy speaker. Pita said the decision was reached to strengthen unity among the coalition's allies to support his bid to be prime minister.
Attachak Sattayanurak, a professor of history at Chiang Mai University in northern Thailand, suggested that the apparent distrust between the two parties is potentially the biggest threat to Pita's possible prime ministership.
Pheu Thai leaders, almost as a matter of pride, could not be seen as ceding too much to their Move Forward partner, he said.
“The feelings of people in the Pheu Thai party, that it used to be a heavyweight, that had won many elections and was able to be an agenda setter," drove many of them to insist that Move Forward make the speaker's post part of Pheu Thai's share of the pie, he said.
However, if Pheu Thai fails to show an unbreakable bond with Move Forward, it “reduces the power of the group that calls itself a democracy bloc” and gives the senators and their conservative allies “more grounds not to choose Pita," Attachak said.
Aside from Move Forward's problems with the Senate and Pheu Thai, there are serious fears that Pita and his party will be blocked by legal challenges, a fate that has brought down previous parties that ran afoul of the conservative establishment.
Several Thaksin-backed governments and a party that was Move Forward's predecessor were victims of rulings by the Election Commission and the National Anti-Corruption Commission, both nominally independent agencies that are often seen as favoring the ruling elite, along with the Constitutional Court.
Pita has been accused of violating a constitutional prohibition on politicians holding shares in a media company. The media company is no longer operating, and Pita says the shares are part of his father's estate and don't belong to him. The prospect that he could be banned from politics and even jailed for what is widely seen at most as a minor technical violation has triggered fears that the political instability that has wracked Thailand on and off since 2006 could return with a vengeance.
In this May 17, 2023 photo, leader of Pheu Thai party Chonlanan Srikaew, left gestures with the leader of Move Forward Party Pita Limjaroenrat, in Bangkok, Thailand. Thailand Politics Newly elected lawmakers in Thailand gathered Monday for the opening session of Parliament, which is tasked with selecting a new prime minister after May's general election saw the country's progressive Move Forward Party unexpectedly come out on top. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)
JINTAMAS SAKSORNCHAI and GRANT PECK
Mon, July 3, 2023
BANGKOK (AP) — Thailand's new Parliament convened Monday nearly two months after a progressive opposition party won a stunning election victory, but there was still no clear sign that its leader will be able to become prime minister and end nine years of military-dominated rule.
To form a government, a party must have the backing of a combined majority of the elected House of Representatives and the military-appointed Senate, which represents the country's traditional conservative ruling class.
The Move Forward Party's unexpected election victory alarmed the ruling establishment, which regards it as a threat to the status quo and the monarchy. Some senators have already announced their opposition to party leader Pita Limjaroenrat, a 42-year-old Harvard-educated businessman.
Pita has formed an eight-party coalition holding 312 seats in the 500-seat lower house, which leaves it short of an overall majority without the support of a significant number of the 250 senators.
The election results showed that Move Forward’s progressive agenda resonated with a public weary of nine years of military-controlled rule under Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, who as army commander seized power in a 2014 coup and returned as prime minister after a 2019 general election.
But what made Move Forward popular with many voters was what alarmed royalist conservatives. The party pledged to reform many powerful institutions, including the monarchy and the military, which retain power and influence under a constitution written during Prayuth’s administration.
While the threats from Move Forward’s ideological foes are clear, what was less expected are the tensions between it and the biggest partner in its coalition, the Pheu Thai party.
Pheu Thai and its predecessor parties have won all national elections since 2001 until this past May. It is the latest in a string of parties linked to former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted by a military coup in 2006.
Royalist power holders have harbored enmity toward Thaksin — a billionaire populist now in exile — for a long time. Prayuth’s 2014 coup ousted a government formed by Thaksin’s sister, Yingluck Shinawatra.
Move Forward and Pheu Thai have been squabbling over which will get the post of House speaker, which is supposed to be chosen by Parliament on Tuesday.
“The position of the House speaker is essential because he will determine the agenda of Parliament, and so therefore the degree of political transformation,” said Tyrell Haberkorn, a Thai studies scholar at the University of Wisconsin.
The two parties announced a compromise after a meeting on Monday. The coalition will nominate Wan Muhamad Noor Matha, a veteran leader of the Prachachat Party, to be House speaker, and Move Forward and Pheu Thai will each have one deputy speaker. Pita said the decision was reached to strengthen unity among the coalition's allies to support his bid to be prime minister.
Attachak Sattayanurak, a professor of history at Chiang Mai University in northern Thailand, suggested that the apparent distrust between the two parties is potentially the biggest threat to Pita's possible prime ministership.
Pheu Thai leaders, almost as a matter of pride, could not be seen as ceding too much to their Move Forward partner, he said.
“The feelings of people in the Pheu Thai party, that it used to be a heavyweight, that had won many elections and was able to be an agenda setter," drove many of them to insist that Move Forward make the speaker's post part of Pheu Thai's share of the pie, he said.
However, if Pheu Thai fails to show an unbreakable bond with Move Forward, it “reduces the power of the group that calls itself a democracy bloc” and gives the senators and their conservative allies “more grounds not to choose Pita," Attachak said.
Aside from Move Forward's problems with the Senate and Pheu Thai, there are serious fears that Pita and his party will be blocked by legal challenges, a fate that has brought down previous parties that ran afoul of the conservative establishment.
Several Thaksin-backed governments and a party that was Move Forward's predecessor were victims of rulings by the Election Commission and the National Anti-Corruption Commission, both nominally independent agencies that are often seen as favoring the ruling elite, along with the Constitutional Court.
Pita has been accused of violating a constitutional prohibition on politicians holding shares in a media company. The media company is no longer operating, and Pita says the shares are part of his father's estate and don't belong to him. The prospect that he could be banned from politics and even jailed for what is widely seen at most as a minor technical violation has triggered fears that the political instability that has wracked Thailand on and off since 2006 could return with a vengeance.
Thai Coalition Settles Speaker Row as Prime Minister Vote Looms
Patpicha Tanakasempipat, Pathom Sangwongwanich and Napat Kongsawad
Mon, July 3, 2023
(Bloomberg) -- A coalition of Thai pro-democracy parties settled a dispute over the powerful parliament speaker’s position, edging closer to forming a new government as the parliament met for the first time after the May election.
Wan Muhamad Noor Matha, 79, a former speaker and leader of the Prachachat Party, was chosen as consensus candidate for the speaker’s job after Move Forward and Pheu Thai, the largest parties in the coalition, wrangled over the issue for weeks. The stage is now set for the first sitting of the 500-member lower chamber on Tuesday, where lawmakers are scheduled to elect the speaker and two deputies.
The coalition’s prime ministerial candidate Pita Limjaroenrat said the bloc was confident of securing enough support from lawmakers in a joint sitting of the parliament to be convened by the new speaker for the premier’s election. Talks with members of the 250-member Senate — stacked with allies of the pro-military royalist establishment — have progressed well, he said.
“The people’s mandate expressed on May 14 has a high possibility of becoming reality,” he told reporters late on Monday.
Although Pita’s coalition has the support of about 312 lawmakers, it’s still short of the 376 votes needed to ensure his win. Doubts remain over how the Senate will vote, with many opposing Pita’s bid as he has stuck to a campaign pledge to seek amendments to Article 112 of the criminal code. That law punishes criticism of the king and other top royals by as much as 15 years in prison.
Investors are counting on the premier appointment to end a political impasse that has unnerved markets and prompted foreign funds to dump the nation’s stocks and bonds since the May 14 polls.
The 42-year-old Pita is also facing a probe by the election body that may lead to his disqualification.
Earlier, King Maha Vajiralongkorn urged the newly elected lawmakers to maintain integrity and to accord top priority to national interests as he presided over the traditional opening ceremony at the parliament on Monday. The event was also attended by Queen Suthida, Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-Ocha and his cabinet, members of the military-appointed Senate and other dignitaries.
“How the nation will prosper depends on your intellect, capability and integrity as you perform your duties while holding the country’s and the people’s interests paramount,” King Vajiralongkorn said in a televised address.
Thailand’s benchmark stock index is the worst performer in Asia this year. with foreign investors offloading a net $3.1 billion since the end of 2022, the most among Asia’s emerging markets. The baht is the second-biggest loser in Southeast Asia since the May vote.
Most businesses have temporarily frozen new investment decisions until clearer directions from the new government emerge and as exports remain weak, Kriengkrai Thiennukul, chairman of the the Federation of Thai Industries, said last month.
The May polls saw a defeat of the military-backed, pro-royalist establishment in a country that has seen at least a dozen successful coups since 1932, when a revolution ended centuries of absolute monarchy. Prayuth, a former military chief, has ruled Southeast Asia’s second largest economy since he seized power in a coup in 2014.
Patpicha Tanakasempipat, Pathom Sangwongwanich and Napat Kongsawad
Mon, July 3, 2023
(Bloomberg) -- A coalition of Thai pro-democracy parties settled a dispute over the powerful parliament speaker’s position, edging closer to forming a new government as the parliament met for the first time after the May election.
Wan Muhamad Noor Matha, 79, a former speaker and leader of the Prachachat Party, was chosen as consensus candidate for the speaker’s job after Move Forward and Pheu Thai, the largest parties in the coalition, wrangled over the issue for weeks. The stage is now set for the first sitting of the 500-member lower chamber on Tuesday, where lawmakers are scheduled to elect the speaker and two deputies.
The coalition’s prime ministerial candidate Pita Limjaroenrat said the bloc was confident of securing enough support from lawmakers in a joint sitting of the parliament to be convened by the new speaker for the premier’s election. Talks with members of the 250-member Senate — stacked with allies of the pro-military royalist establishment — have progressed well, he said.
“The people’s mandate expressed on May 14 has a high possibility of becoming reality,” he told reporters late on Monday.
Although Pita’s coalition has the support of about 312 lawmakers, it’s still short of the 376 votes needed to ensure his win. Doubts remain over how the Senate will vote, with many opposing Pita’s bid as he has stuck to a campaign pledge to seek amendments to Article 112 of the criminal code. That law punishes criticism of the king and other top royals by as much as 15 years in prison.
Investors are counting on the premier appointment to end a political impasse that has unnerved markets and prompted foreign funds to dump the nation’s stocks and bonds since the May 14 polls.
The 42-year-old Pita is also facing a probe by the election body that may lead to his disqualification.
Earlier, King Maha Vajiralongkorn urged the newly elected lawmakers to maintain integrity and to accord top priority to national interests as he presided over the traditional opening ceremony at the parliament on Monday. The event was also attended by Queen Suthida, Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-Ocha and his cabinet, members of the military-appointed Senate and other dignitaries.
“How the nation will prosper depends on your intellect, capability and integrity as you perform your duties while holding the country’s and the people’s interests paramount,” King Vajiralongkorn said in a televised address.
Thailand’s benchmark stock index is the worst performer in Asia this year. with foreign investors offloading a net $3.1 billion since the end of 2022, the most among Asia’s emerging markets. The baht is the second-biggest loser in Southeast Asia since the May vote.
Most businesses have temporarily frozen new investment decisions until clearer directions from the new government emerge and as exports remain weak, Kriengkrai Thiennukul, chairman of the the Federation of Thai Industries, said last month.
The May polls saw a defeat of the military-backed, pro-royalist establishment in a country that has seen at least a dozen successful coups since 1932, when a revolution ended centuries of absolute monarchy. Prayuth, a former military chief, has ruled Southeast Asia’s second largest economy since he seized power in a coup in 2014.
Amazon Indigenous are leaving rainforest for cities, and finding urban poverty
Scores of Indigenous families have left their territory in the Javari Valley, for the impoverished city of Atalaia do Norte, some in pursuit of a better education and drawn by a federal benefit that can ensnare them in the city.
(AP Photo/Edmar Barros, File)
FABIANO MAISONNAVE
Mon, July 3, 2023
ATALAIA DO NORTE, Brazil (AP) — In 1976, Binan Tuku ventured to meet a Brazilian government's expedition on the banks of the Itui River in a remote area of the western Amazon rainforest. After some initial suspicion, he and his father accepted machetes and soap in what was the beginning of the Matis tribe's contact with the non-Indigenous world.
Nearly 50 years later, Tuku's own son Tumi is trying to carve out a living in the impoverished city of Atalaia do Norte. Instead of the traditional blowgun, Tumi held a pastry bag in his hands while working in a bakery, and his face bore none of the tattoos or piercings characteristic of the Matis.
“In the village, the quality of education is not as good as in the city,” said Tumi, 24, who hopes to go to college to study medicine or journalism. “I want to engage with non-Indigenous people, learn from the challenges I face, and perhaps one day return to my village to share my understanding of how the city functions with the elders.”
Thousands of Indigenous like Tumi are migrating to cities like Atalaia do Norte, some in pursuit of a better education and some drawn by a federal welfare benefit that can ensnare them in urban poverty. Their exodus is leaving villages to wither and raising concern that the world’s largest tropical rainforest — crucial to stemming the worst of climate change — will be left without its most effective guardians.
- ADVERTISEMENT -
About half of the 6,200 Indigenous people in the Javari Valley now live in urban centers, according to estimates by anthropologist Almério Alves Wadick. The Matis, one of several Indigenous peoples in the region, say almost half their 600 people now live in that city.
That number is likely to grow, said Binin Matis, who leads the Matis Indigenous Association and takes the name of his people as his surname. Binin Matis said he fears the loss of his people's language and their exposure to drugs.
“In the village, there are few people; it’s the older leaders. The youngsters are in the city,” he said. “No young Matis knows how to make a blowgun, an arrow. When the students go to the village for vacation, they don’t want to learn from the elders. They want to play soccer, have fun, and do things of the white man.”
Bushe Matis, president of Univaja, the main association for Indigenous peoples in the Javari Valley, worries that the migration will lead to cuts in health and education programs and the potential revocation of Indigenous territories that might then be opened for mining and drilling.
The Amazon came under heavy pressure under far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, who favored development. His single term saw a surge in illegal mining and deforestation hit a 15-year high.
Univaja recently established its own surveillance team to guard against illegal fishermen, miners and loggers — a duty previously carried out by the villages. The initiative is crucial to protect isolated Indigenous who could be imperiled by something as simple as flu carried by invaders, Bushe said.
Such tension appears to be behind last year’s killings of Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira and British journalist Dom Phillips. Pereira was in the Javari Valley assisting the creation of Univaja's surveillance system. Four fishermen and a businessman are under arrest in the killings.
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has sought to lessen pressure on the Amazon since defeating Bolsonaro in last year's election. He established a Ministry of Indigenous Affairs in part to safeguard Indigenous communities. A crucial part of that is improving education, a significant challenge in remote areas of the Amazon.
Indigenous families also face hostility from non-Indigenous residents who see them as competition for limited resources, especially fish.
“The Indians come here, the government doesn’t give them food, and they fish on our side,” said fisherman Antonio Alves, 46. “When one of us mistreats someone, it’s for our survival.”
The Indigenous migration is being driven in part by a federal program created 20 years ago in Lula's first term. The Bolsa Familia program was launched to provide cash to families if they immunize their children and keep them in school. Tens of thousands of Indigenous families started frequenting cities to withdraw the benefit from state bank branches.
There were dire consequences.
Indigenous people unaccustomed to handling money sometimes pay more than they should for long boat trips or have their debit cards illegally retained by unscrupulous merchants as collateral for installment or credit purchases. In the city, they stay in precarious conditions, vulnerable to alcohol and disease. Often, the Bolsa Familia payout isn't enough to get them back home.
“They conclude that it’s better to stay in the city, receiving this amount and putting it towards studying since there isn’t even a complete primary education in the village,” said Wadick, the anthropologist. Indigenous leaders say village schools are in shambles from poor maintenance and lack of oversight by governments. Many Indigenous teachers have been spending long periods in the city, neglecting their work.
But the money isn't enough to cover life in the city, either. The minimum payment is $125 per month, plus small additions for pregnant women and for children depending on age. Indigenous people often compete against each other for poorly paying jobs like collecting garbage or sweeping streets. Many endure hunger.
“We need clothing, to eat every day, to pay for electricity, and water bills. If all of that were free, we could sustain ourselves with $125,” said Tumi, who recently left the bakery to work for Univaja.
The Ministry of Indigenous Peoples is seeking to rework parts of the program so Indigenous peoples don't have to travel as often to collect payment. Proposals include extending the withdrawal period for the money and flexible payment dates.
Another major ministry goal is to improve education in Indigenous territories to reduce the incentive to leave. That's a daunting task with high costs for huge, remote and impoverished areas.
Nelly Marubo, an anthropologist who is Indigenous, said her ideal is culturally adapted village schools where students have access to both Indigenous and non-Indigenous knowledge without needing to be in the city. But she was shocked by what she found when, after a five-year absence, she recently visited her native region deep in the Javari Valley to film a documentary about her life.
“I always have in my mind lots of children and young people, but unfortunately, this time the visit was very sad," she said. "I found an abandoned village with only four elderly women.”
___
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.
FABIANO MAISONNAVE
Mon, July 3, 2023
ATALAIA DO NORTE, Brazil (AP) — In 1976, Binan Tuku ventured to meet a Brazilian government's expedition on the banks of the Itui River in a remote area of the western Amazon rainforest. After some initial suspicion, he and his father accepted machetes and soap in what was the beginning of the Matis tribe's contact with the non-Indigenous world.
Nearly 50 years later, Tuku's own son Tumi is trying to carve out a living in the impoverished city of Atalaia do Norte. Instead of the traditional blowgun, Tumi held a pastry bag in his hands while working in a bakery, and his face bore none of the tattoos or piercings characteristic of the Matis.
“In the village, the quality of education is not as good as in the city,” said Tumi, 24, who hopes to go to college to study medicine or journalism. “I want to engage with non-Indigenous people, learn from the challenges I face, and perhaps one day return to my village to share my understanding of how the city functions with the elders.”
Thousands of Indigenous like Tumi are migrating to cities like Atalaia do Norte, some in pursuit of a better education and some drawn by a federal welfare benefit that can ensnare them in urban poverty. Their exodus is leaving villages to wither and raising concern that the world’s largest tropical rainforest — crucial to stemming the worst of climate change — will be left without its most effective guardians.
- ADVERTISEMENT -
About half of the 6,200 Indigenous people in the Javari Valley now live in urban centers, according to estimates by anthropologist Almério Alves Wadick. The Matis, one of several Indigenous peoples in the region, say almost half their 600 people now live in that city.
That number is likely to grow, said Binin Matis, who leads the Matis Indigenous Association and takes the name of his people as his surname. Binin Matis said he fears the loss of his people's language and their exposure to drugs.
“In the village, there are few people; it’s the older leaders. The youngsters are in the city,” he said. “No young Matis knows how to make a blowgun, an arrow. When the students go to the village for vacation, they don’t want to learn from the elders. They want to play soccer, have fun, and do things of the white man.”
Bushe Matis, president of Univaja, the main association for Indigenous peoples in the Javari Valley, worries that the migration will lead to cuts in health and education programs and the potential revocation of Indigenous territories that might then be opened for mining and drilling.
The Amazon came under heavy pressure under far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, who favored development. His single term saw a surge in illegal mining and deforestation hit a 15-year high.
Univaja recently established its own surveillance team to guard against illegal fishermen, miners and loggers — a duty previously carried out by the villages. The initiative is crucial to protect isolated Indigenous who could be imperiled by something as simple as flu carried by invaders, Bushe said.
Such tension appears to be behind last year’s killings of Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira and British journalist Dom Phillips. Pereira was in the Javari Valley assisting the creation of Univaja's surveillance system. Four fishermen and a businessman are under arrest in the killings.
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has sought to lessen pressure on the Amazon since defeating Bolsonaro in last year's election. He established a Ministry of Indigenous Affairs in part to safeguard Indigenous communities. A crucial part of that is improving education, a significant challenge in remote areas of the Amazon.
Indigenous families also face hostility from non-Indigenous residents who see them as competition for limited resources, especially fish.
“The Indians come here, the government doesn’t give them food, and they fish on our side,” said fisherman Antonio Alves, 46. “When one of us mistreats someone, it’s for our survival.”
The Indigenous migration is being driven in part by a federal program created 20 years ago in Lula's first term. The Bolsa Familia program was launched to provide cash to families if they immunize their children and keep them in school. Tens of thousands of Indigenous families started frequenting cities to withdraw the benefit from state bank branches.
There were dire consequences.
Indigenous people unaccustomed to handling money sometimes pay more than they should for long boat trips or have their debit cards illegally retained by unscrupulous merchants as collateral for installment or credit purchases. In the city, they stay in precarious conditions, vulnerable to alcohol and disease. Often, the Bolsa Familia payout isn't enough to get them back home.
“They conclude that it’s better to stay in the city, receiving this amount and putting it towards studying since there isn’t even a complete primary education in the village,” said Wadick, the anthropologist. Indigenous leaders say village schools are in shambles from poor maintenance and lack of oversight by governments. Many Indigenous teachers have been spending long periods in the city, neglecting their work.
But the money isn't enough to cover life in the city, either. The minimum payment is $125 per month, plus small additions for pregnant women and for children depending on age. Indigenous people often compete against each other for poorly paying jobs like collecting garbage or sweeping streets. Many endure hunger.
“We need clothing, to eat every day, to pay for electricity, and water bills. If all of that were free, we could sustain ourselves with $125,” said Tumi, who recently left the bakery to work for Univaja.
The Ministry of Indigenous Peoples is seeking to rework parts of the program so Indigenous peoples don't have to travel as often to collect payment. Proposals include extending the withdrawal period for the money and flexible payment dates.
Another major ministry goal is to improve education in Indigenous territories to reduce the incentive to leave. That's a daunting task with high costs for huge, remote and impoverished areas.
Nelly Marubo, an anthropologist who is Indigenous, said her ideal is culturally adapted village schools where students have access to both Indigenous and non-Indigenous knowledge without needing to be in the city. But she was shocked by what she found when, after a five-year absence, she recently visited her native region deep in the Javari Valley to film a documentary about her life.
“I always have in my mind lots of children and young people, but unfortunately, this time the visit was very sad," she said. "I found an abandoned village with only four elderly women.”
___
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.
Unraveling the Mind of the Consumer
WHEN WE EARN WE ARE WORKERS, WHEN WE SPEND WE ARE CONSUMERS
Vicki M. Young
WHEN WE EARN WE ARE WORKERS, WHEN WE SPEND WE ARE CONSUMERS
Vicki M. Young
Sourcing Journal
Mon, July 3, 2023
One size does not fit all.
Data from Deloitte Service LP’s global consumer tracker indicates that the consumer is transforming to a complex mosaic of unique needs, wants and preferences.
An aging population, declining birth rates and increased diversity are contributing to the transformation of the consumer base. And these changes could present adaptation challenges for a retail industry that’s been “built for mass production, distribution and marketing,” according to Lupine Skelly, research leader for the retail, wholesale and distribution sector at Deloitte’s Consumer Industry Center.
The tracker surveys U.S. consumers every month and people in 23 countries every other month. Currently, there are indications that many consumers believe the worst economic uncertainty could be in the rearview mirror. But inflation remains top of mind, with 75 percent of global consumers concerned about rising prices, Skelly said.
Once consumers realized that inflation was going to be here for a while, discretionary spending took a nosedive as people focused on building up their savings and spending only on necessities.
“What’s encouraging today is that the [data] is indicating some stability in the last few months,” Skelly said, noting that discretionary spend is catching up. Even so, inflation is impacting how consumers spend their money.
Skelly noted that in September 2021, 56 percent of global respondents said they purchased sustainable goods. That number fell to 46 percent as inflation hung around. Even sentiment on climate change has seen a decline, with 68 percent now indicating that climate change is an emergency versus 72 percent last September.
“This tells us that people associate sustainable goods as being more expensive, and people are really having to do right by their wallet rather than what’s right for the planet,” Skelly said. “One way to look at this is that when push comes to shove, sustainability kind of goes out the window. I think you can also spin a story that despite record inflation, we still have four in 10 say that they’re prioritizing sustainable purchases.”
The tracker also found that despite the strain of inflationary pressures, consumers are figuring out ways to splurge on themselves. Seventy-seven percent of global consumers spend on some kind of indulgence in the past month. That amount is even higher—closer to 80 percent—across the U.S., Canada, Sweden and Australia. The trend is “pervasive across income groups and generations,” Skelly said, noting that the median spend is $32. Food and beverage is the most common treat, followed by apparel and footwear.
In addition, men and women splurge at about the same rate, but “globally, men spend almost 40 percent more on items compared to women when they splurge,” she said. Millennial men spend $20 more than their female counterparts.
Skelly pointed to “interesting opportunities for retailers who can tap into this need to treat ourselves to escape our economic realities.”
She noted that not all countries experienced strong inflation, although in the U.S., the consumer was hit pretty hard and hasn’t quite recovered.
Last year U.S. consumers burned through their savings at a rapid clip, and in December focused on saving money while cutting back on across-the-board spending. “Since February, U.S. consumers are having to make more trade offs and economize more to be able to purchase the groceries they need,” Skelly said, adding that one-third are purchasing lower-cost needs. In addition, private-label purchases rose 3 percent last month.
This summer, leisure and travel is taking a bigger share of wallet, which Skelly said could be good news for apparel and footwear spend. Of the respondents who plan to spend on travel, 69 percent said they were likely to spend on clothing and footwear, versus just 42 percent of those who didn’t plan to travel. “Leisure travelers tend to spend almost four times more than those not planning vacations. That’s averaging $169,” she said.
Data shows that the top 1 percent of Americans is wealthier than the entire U.S. middle class, while 30 percent of the nation’s wealth is held by 0.25 percent of U.S. households. In addition, the back-to-school market is shrinking, mostly because there are fewer students enrolled in schools thanks to falling birth rates.
And with more people spending at least part of their time working from home, consumers have also shifted how they do their shopping and where they eat as they move to digital from physical. “While we were stuck at home during the pandemic, many people were spending a lot of time online or trying to explore new technologies and looking for ways to entertain themselves,” Skelly said, concluding that as many of these behaviors and preferences stick, those producing goods are now competing with the increasing “threat” from digital enticements.
Mon, July 3, 2023
One size does not fit all.
Data from Deloitte Service LP’s global consumer tracker indicates that the consumer is transforming to a complex mosaic of unique needs, wants and preferences.
An aging population, declining birth rates and increased diversity are contributing to the transformation of the consumer base. And these changes could present adaptation challenges for a retail industry that’s been “built for mass production, distribution and marketing,” according to Lupine Skelly, research leader for the retail, wholesale and distribution sector at Deloitte’s Consumer Industry Center.
The tracker surveys U.S. consumers every month and people in 23 countries every other month. Currently, there are indications that many consumers believe the worst economic uncertainty could be in the rearview mirror. But inflation remains top of mind, with 75 percent of global consumers concerned about rising prices, Skelly said.
Once consumers realized that inflation was going to be here for a while, discretionary spending took a nosedive as people focused on building up their savings and spending only on necessities.
“What’s encouraging today is that the [data] is indicating some stability in the last few months,” Skelly said, noting that discretionary spend is catching up. Even so, inflation is impacting how consumers spend their money.
Skelly noted that in September 2021, 56 percent of global respondents said they purchased sustainable goods. That number fell to 46 percent as inflation hung around. Even sentiment on climate change has seen a decline, with 68 percent now indicating that climate change is an emergency versus 72 percent last September.
“This tells us that people associate sustainable goods as being more expensive, and people are really having to do right by their wallet rather than what’s right for the planet,” Skelly said. “One way to look at this is that when push comes to shove, sustainability kind of goes out the window. I think you can also spin a story that despite record inflation, we still have four in 10 say that they’re prioritizing sustainable purchases.”
The tracker also found that despite the strain of inflationary pressures, consumers are figuring out ways to splurge on themselves. Seventy-seven percent of global consumers spend on some kind of indulgence in the past month. That amount is even higher—closer to 80 percent—across the U.S., Canada, Sweden and Australia. The trend is “pervasive across income groups and generations,” Skelly said, noting that the median spend is $32. Food and beverage is the most common treat, followed by apparel and footwear.
In addition, men and women splurge at about the same rate, but “globally, men spend almost 40 percent more on items compared to women when they splurge,” she said. Millennial men spend $20 more than their female counterparts.
Skelly pointed to “interesting opportunities for retailers who can tap into this need to treat ourselves to escape our economic realities.”
She noted that not all countries experienced strong inflation, although in the U.S., the consumer was hit pretty hard and hasn’t quite recovered.
Last year U.S. consumers burned through their savings at a rapid clip, and in December focused on saving money while cutting back on across-the-board spending. “Since February, U.S. consumers are having to make more trade offs and economize more to be able to purchase the groceries they need,” Skelly said, adding that one-third are purchasing lower-cost needs. In addition, private-label purchases rose 3 percent last month.
This summer, leisure and travel is taking a bigger share of wallet, which Skelly said could be good news for apparel and footwear spend. Of the respondents who plan to spend on travel, 69 percent said they were likely to spend on clothing and footwear, versus just 42 percent of those who didn’t plan to travel. “Leisure travelers tend to spend almost four times more than those not planning vacations. That’s averaging $169,” she said.
Data shows that the top 1 percent of Americans is wealthier than the entire U.S. middle class, while 30 percent of the nation’s wealth is held by 0.25 percent of U.S. households. In addition, the back-to-school market is shrinking, mostly because there are fewer students enrolled in schools thanks to falling birth rates.
And with more people spending at least part of their time working from home, consumers have also shifted how they do their shopping and where they eat as they move to digital from physical. “While we were stuck at home during the pandemic, many people were spending a lot of time online or trying to explore new technologies and looking for ways to entertain themselves,” Skelly said, concluding that as many of these behaviors and preferences stick, those producing goods are now competing with the increasing “threat” from digital enticements.
ICYMI
Man denies making request cited in landmark Supreme Court LGBTQ case
Supreme Court rules in favor of Christian designer in gay wedding website case
Zach Schonfeld
Mon, July 3, 2023
As website designer Lorie Smith battled Colorado’s public accommodation law, she claimed that one day after filing her lawsuit, a man requested she design a website for his upcoming same-sex marriage.
But the man, identified in the request as “Stewart,” says he has been married to a woman for more than a decade and never submitted the inquiry.
The Supreme Court on Friday handed Smith a victory in her pre-enforcement lawsuit, ruling along ideological lines that Colorado could not compel the evangelical Christian to design same-sex wedding websites if she expanded her business to offer them for opposite-sex couples. The ruling was one of a handful of landmark cases the court considered this term – one that struck a significant blow to LGBTQ rights.”
The justices’ opinions made no reference to the supposed request, and Smith only briefly mentioned it in filings at the Supreme Court.
But the development has raised new scrutiny of Smith and her conservative lawyers’ years-long effort to claw back LGBTQ+ protections, as they had cited the request on multiple occasions in the lower courts while asserting that she had authority to challenge Colorado’s law.
“I’m just really disappointed in the ongoing and sustained attacks on the LGBTQ community in this country, and I’m also disappointed and concerned about the lack of rigor that’s been shown by the lawyers in this case,” said Stewart, who agreed to be interviewed by The Hill on the condition that his last name not be used.
“There’s some evidence there which is easily refutable and easily proven to be incorrect and has been in the case filings for the last five plus years,” he continued. “So it’s concerning that that could make it all the way to the Supreme Court without anybody checking.”
Two Democratic-appointed judges and one Republican-appointed judge on a lower appeals court panel all agreed that Smith had authority to bring her lawsuit regardless of the request.
The lower court went on to uphold Colorado’s law as constitutional in a divided ruling, leading Smith to appeal to the Supreme Court.
The high court’s justices did not weigh in on the legal standing issue, as they only agreed to hear Smith’s free speech claims. The court’s six conservatives sided with the web designer Friday, dealing a significant blow to LGBTQ protections in one of the biggest cases of the term.
Stewart said he only learned of his purported connection to the case when contacted last week by The New Republic, which first reported the man’s denial.
He confirmed the email and phone number listed on the supposed request belonged to him, but he said he has been married to a woman for more than a decade.
Like Smith, Stewart also runs a website and graphic design company. The request listed the sender’s IP address, which corresponds to the San Francisco area, where Stewart lives.
“I did not submit the request. I don’t know who did. I don’t know what their motivations would be,” said Stewart.
Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), the Christian legal organization that represented Smith, said in a statement that the designer doesn’t do background checks on incoming requests to determine if they are genuine, and that it doesn’t impact the outcome because her lawsuit was a pre-enforcement challenge.
“Whether Lorie received a legitimate request or whether someone lied to her is irrelevant,” the group said. “No one should have to wait to be punished by the government to challenge an unjust law. Moreover, Lorie has received other wedding requests and has been unable to respond to any request because that put her at risk of punishment for violating Colorado’s unjust law.”
Friday’s win was the latest and most significant development of ADF’s years-long fight against Colorado’s law, which prevents businesses that serve the public from discriminating on protected characteristics, including sexual orientation.
The group also represented cake baker Jack Phillips, whom Colorado investigated more than a decade ago when he refused to make a cake for a same-sex wedding, in violation of the law.
Phillips also brought his challenge to the Supreme Court in 2018, but the justices disposed of it on narrower grounds, ruling that the investigation had impermissibly shown hostility toward Phillips’s religious beliefs.
ADF had filed Smith’s pre-enforcement challenge to Colorado’s law roughly two years prior to that decision.
The designer had not yet offered wedding websites, but her lawsuit said she wanted to expand her business, 303 Creative, because she “believes that God is calling her to promote and celebrate His design for marriage.”
The purported request was sent to Smith’s company one day after she filed her lawsuit in September 2016, according to court filings.
“My wedding. My name is Stewart and my fiancee is Mike. We are getting married early next year and would love some design work done for our invites, placenames etc. We might also stretch to a website,” the request read.
Smith cited the supposed request as part of her argument that she had authority to sue, saying she faced a credible threat of enforcement.
Colorado contended that she had no legal standing and that the supposed request was irrelevant because it was sent after the lawsuit began. The 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals sided with Smith on the standing issue, but its reasoning did not depend on the request.
“Assuming Appellants offer wedding-related services to the public as they say they will, there is no reason to then conclude that Appellants will fail to attract customers. Nor is there reason to conclude that only customers celebrating opposite-sex marriages will request Appellants’ services. In short, we find nothing ‘imaginary or speculative’ about Appellants’ apprehensions that they may violate CADA if they offer wedding-based services in the manner that they intend,” wrote the two judges, who were appointed in the Clinton era.
At a Friday news conference following the Supreme Court’s ruling, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser (D) said he didn’t know any details about the man’s denial of sending the request.
“Our position in this case has been there is no website development happening, there is no business operating,” he said. “This was a made-up case without the benefit of any real facts or customers. The Supreme Court in our view should never have decided this case or address the merits without any basis in reality.”
The Hill.
Supreme Court rules in favor of Christian designer in gay wedding website case
Zach Schonfeld
Mon, July 3, 2023
As website designer Lorie Smith battled Colorado’s public accommodation law, she claimed that one day after filing her lawsuit, a man requested she design a website for his upcoming same-sex marriage.
But the man, identified in the request as “Stewart,” says he has been married to a woman for more than a decade and never submitted the inquiry.
The Supreme Court on Friday handed Smith a victory in her pre-enforcement lawsuit, ruling along ideological lines that Colorado could not compel the evangelical Christian to design same-sex wedding websites if she expanded her business to offer them for opposite-sex couples. The ruling was one of a handful of landmark cases the court considered this term – one that struck a significant blow to LGBTQ rights.”
The justices’ opinions made no reference to the supposed request, and Smith only briefly mentioned it in filings at the Supreme Court.
But the development has raised new scrutiny of Smith and her conservative lawyers’ years-long effort to claw back LGBTQ+ protections, as they had cited the request on multiple occasions in the lower courts while asserting that she had authority to challenge Colorado’s law.
“I’m just really disappointed in the ongoing and sustained attacks on the LGBTQ community in this country, and I’m also disappointed and concerned about the lack of rigor that’s been shown by the lawyers in this case,” said Stewart, who agreed to be interviewed by The Hill on the condition that his last name not be used.
“There’s some evidence there which is easily refutable and easily proven to be incorrect and has been in the case filings for the last five plus years,” he continued. “So it’s concerning that that could make it all the way to the Supreme Court without anybody checking.”
Two Democratic-appointed judges and one Republican-appointed judge on a lower appeals court panel all agreed that Smith had authority to bring her lawsuit regardless of the request.
The lower court went on to uphold Colorado’s law as constitutional in a divided ruling, leading Smith to appeal to the Supreme Court.
The high court’s justices did not weigh in on the legal standing issue, as they only agreed to hear Smith’s free speech claims. The court’s six conservatives sided with the web designer Friday, dealing a significant blow to LGBTQ protections in one of the biggest cases of the term.
Stewart said he only learned of his purported connection to the case when contacted last week by The New Republic, which first reported the man’s denial.
He confirmed the email and phone number listed on the supposed request belonged to him, but he said he has been married to a woman for more than a decade.
Like Smith, Stewart also runs a website and graphic design company. The request listed the sender’s IP address, which corresponds to the San Francisco area, where Stewart lives.
“I did not submit the request. I don’t know who did. I don’t know what their motivations would be,” said Stewart.
Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), the Christian legal organization that represented Smith, said in a statement that the designer doesn’t do background checks on incoming requests to determine if they are genuine, and that it doesn’t impact the outcome because her lawsuit was a pre-enforcement challenge.
“Whether Lorie received a legitimate request or whether someone lied to her is irrelevant,” the group said. “No one should have to wait to be punished by the government to challenge an unjust law. Moreover, Lorie has received other wedding requests and has been unable to respond to any request because that put her at risk of punishment for violating Colorado’s unjust law.”
Friday’s win was the latest and most significant development of ADF’s years-long fight against Colorado’s law, which prevents businesses that serve the public from discriminating on protected characteristics, including sexual orientation.
The group also represented cake baker Jack Phillips, whom Colorado investigated more than a decade ago when he refused to make a cake for a same-sex wedding, in violation of the law.
Phillips also brought his challenge to the Supreme Court in 2018, but the justices disposed of it on narrower grounds, ruling that the investigation had impermissibly shown hostility toward Phillips’s religious beliefs.
ADF had filed Smith’s pre-enforcement challenge to Colorado’s law roughly two years prior to that decision.
The designer had not yet offered wedding websites, but her lawsuit said she wanted to expand her business, 303 Creative, because she “believes that God is calling her to promote and celebrate His design for marriage.”
The purported request was sent to Smith’s company one day after she filed her lawsuit in September 2016, according to court filings.
“My wedding. My name is Stewart and my fiancee is Mike. We are getting married early next year and would love some design work done for our invites, placenames etc. We might also stretch to a website,” the request read.
Smith cited the supposed request as part of her argument that she had authority to sue, saying she faced a credible threat of enforcement.
Colorado contended that she had no legal standing and that the supposed request was irrelevant because it was sent after the lawsuit began. The 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals sided with Smith on the standing issue, but its reasoning did not depend on the request.
“Assuming Appellants offer wedding-related services to the public as they say they will, there is no reason to then conclude that Appellants will fail to attract customers. Nor is there reason to conclude that only customers celebrating opposite-sex marriages will request Appellants’ services. In short, we find nothing ‘imaginary or speculative’ about Appellants’ apprehensions that they may violate CADA if they offer wedding-based services in the manner that they intend,” wrote the two judges, who were appointed in the Clinton era.
At a Friday news conference following the Supreme Court’s ruling, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser (D) said he didn’t know any details about the man’s denial of sending the request.
“Our position in this case has been there is no website development happening, there is no business operating,” he said. “This was a made-up case without the benefit of any real facts or customers. The Supreme Court in our view should never have decided this case or address the merits without any basis in reality.”
The Hill.
Watsco, U.S. air conditioner leader, aims to keep people cool without warming the planet
Nicolás Rivero
Sun, July 2, 2023
On a hot June morning in Doral, the temperature is already in the upper 80s and a line of colorful trucks and vans has bellied up to a warehouse loading dock for Watsco, the leading South Florida distributor of air conditioners and heat pumps.
Inside the 89,000-square-foot warehouse, thousands of air conditioners and parts are stacked to the 30-foot ceiling. On a busy summer day, a crew of 10 workers might load more than 500 of the cooling machines into contractors’ trucks, destined for homes, skyscrapers, hospitals and office buildings around region.
This warehouse is part of a nationwide push to clean up the air and cut carbon emissions to avoid the worst consequences of climate change. That’s because decades of federal regulation have pushed HVAC manufacturers to use less polluting refrigerants and make more efficient machines that run on less energy.
Now, almost any time contractors replace an old air conditioner with a new one, they cut a significant chunk out of a home’s carbon emissions.
“I’ve been doing this for 11 years,” said Fernando Villacis, warehouse manager for this Watsco Gemaire location. “This industry has changed a lot.”
The Doral warehouse is one of more than 670 air conditioner and heat pump distribution locations for Gemaire’s Miami parent company, Watsco, the biggest HVAC distributor in the United States. One out of every five air conditioners and heaters sold in the nation comes from Watsco. To be sure, the company is on a mission to make those heating and cooling systems more efficient.
Chris Mejia uses a forklift to move commercial air conditioning units into the Watsco Gemaire warehouse in Doral, on June 30, 2023.
Roughly half of an average U.S. home’s energy goes toward heating and air conditioning, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That number fluctuates with the weather, but it means that, on average, half of your gas and electric bill — and at least half of your home’s carbon emissions — comes from your heater or air conditioner.
Last year, Watsco sold more than 510,000 high-efficiency air conditioners and heat pumps, which the company defines as any heating or cooling system that goes beyond the minimum efficiency standards required by the federal government. Those systems use less energy than the older units they replace, which means that over time, they put less carbon into the atmosphere.
Watsco estimated the high-efficiency heating and cooling systems it sold between January 2020 and May 2023 will prevent 17 million tons of carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere over the course of their 18-year lifespan. That’s like taking 200,000 cars off the road for every year these heaters and air conditioners operate.
“You can stop eating meat. You can drive an electric vehicle,” said Marisol Gomez-Melzi, Watsco’s director of sustainability. “But one of the most significant things you can do to cut your carbon footprint is getting a unit that is working efficiently to heat and cool your home.”
From Hialeah to Fortune 500 firm
Watsco started as a small air conditioner parts manufacturer in Hialeah in 1956, just as air conditioning was beginning to become common in Florida and, a few years later, across the U.S.
Over the decades, the company aggressively bought up other air conditioner manufacturers and distributors. Eventually, it ditched the manufacturing side of its business to focus on selling air conditioners and heaters made by other companies. By 1999, Watsco was the biggest HVAC distributor in the U.S. Earlier this year, it joined the ranks of the Fortune 500, a list of the biggest publicly owned companies in the U.S. by revenue. The company’s 2022 revenue was $7.3 billion, a nearly 16% jump from $6.3 billion the prior year.
When your A/C breaks down, you probably won’t call Watsco — but you might buy one of its products without realizing it. Watsco is the parent company of eight separate HVAC distributors, which each operate under their own brand name and even compete against each other in some areas. Those distributors sell air conditioners to contractors, who install the systems for homeowners and businesses.
Watsco, headquartered in a sleek office building in Coconut Grove, works with more than 100,000 contractors in 42 states, as well as Puerto Rico, Mexico and Canada. In addition to selling air conditioners and heat pumps, Watsco also has a tech startup arm, Watsco Ventures, which develops tools to help contractors manage their businesses and market air conditioners and heaters to customers.
For instance, Watsco developed an app called On Call Air that helps customers compare their options for air conditioners and heat pumps, with information about each unit’s efficiency and the expected cost to run it.
Marisol Gomez-Melzi, Watsco’s director of sustainability, took her current role after three years working as marketing director for Watsco Ventures, the company’s technology arm.
“We found that two-thirds of the equipment sold through the platform is high-efficiency because you’re giving the customer much more information,” Gomez-Melzi said.
“If we can influence contractors and provide these tools that make it easier to sell this type of [high-efficiency] equipment, we can lead the transition to the decarbonization of the industry.”
Efficiency standards improve
There’s one number that will tell you how efficient your air conditioner or heat pump is: the seasonal energy efficiency ratio (SEER) rating from the U.S. Department of Energy.
When Watsco executive vice president Paul Johnston got into the HVAC industry in 1984, no one was selling particularly efficient air conditioners. “We had a 6 SEER model and an 8 SEER model,” he recalled. But in 1992, the Energy Department started enforcing a minimum energy efficiency standard for the industry.
“The government came out and said hey, the minimum is going to be 10 SEER, and we all cried and moaned and said we couldn’t do it,” Johnston said. “And of course we were able to do it.”
Since then, the Energy Department has raised the standard every few years — including this year, when a new, higher efficiency floor took effect on Jan. 1. Now, all new air conditioners and heat pumps in southern states must have at least a 15 SEER rating. In the northern part of the country, where air conditioners get less use, the minimum efficiency for A/C is 14 SEER.
Earlier this year, the Energy Department also updated its methods for testing efficiency and switched over to a new rating system, dubbed SEER2. The 15 SEER minimum efficiency in southern states is equivalent to a 14.3 SEER2 rating under the new system.
“Each time, we’re incrementally changing to find a way to make the technology work to meet the minimum efficiency of the government,” Johnston said. “And each time that happened, what we saw was that the whole industry would compress around that minimum efficiency.”
Newer A/C units also use newer types of refrigerants that are less damaging to the ozone layer and the climate. Before it was banned in the 1990s, the most common form of freon, dubbed R-12, was a greenhouse gas 10,900 times more potent than carbon dioxide, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Since then, the industry has moved to refrigerants that are less harmful by comparison, like R-32, which is a greenhouse gas that is 675 times more potent than carbon dioxide.
“It’s the combination of improved efficiency plus reducing the impact of the refrigerant that I think is the big story,” Johnston said.
A lifetime effect
When Watsco sells a new air conditioner, it tends to replace a unit that’s more than a decade old, which means it probably lags current efficiency standards and might use older, more harmful refrigerants.
Similarly, Watsco sells electric heat pumps, which can heat buildings more efficiently than gas furnaces — and without burning fossil fuels directly — when the temperature is above freezing. Heat pumps run on electricity, which usually comes at least in part from power plants that burn fossil fuels. But as wind and solar power gradually replace coal- and gas-burning power plants, the electricity that powers heat pumps becomes cleaner over time.
In other words, every time Watsco sells a new heat pump or air conditioner, it tends to lower a building’s carbon emissions. While a new HVAC system can make a difference, it won’t wipe out a homeowner’s energy bill or slash their emissions down to zero by itself, said Steve Samenski, director of building performance for the green building consulting firm The Spinnaker Group, a division of SOCOTEC.
“If you replace 10-year-old technology with new technology that meets the energy code, then you’re definitely doing better,” Samenski said. “A homeowner can probably expect a 10% to 20% improvement if all else is the same.”
Manager Fernando Villacis walks through the Watsco Gemaire warehouse in Doral, on June 30, 2023.
The minimum SEER rating from 2006 to 2011 was 13 SEER, which means a lot of A/Cs being replaced right now are probably at that level. If you replace a 13 SEER system with a system at today’s minimum 15 SEER, you’d lower your electricity spending on air conditioning by about 13%, or roughly $150 a year for a 2,000 square foot house, according to utility FPL.
But if you sprang for a more efficient model — say, an 18 SEER A/C — you might cut your electricity spending on cooling by about 28%, or roughly $310 a year. But you’d probably also be spending a significant amount more to buy the unit, perhaps an additional $2,000 or higher, Gemaire’s Villacis said.
These changes are slow and incremental. Although Watsco sells more than half a million high-efficiency air conditioners and heat pumps a year, there are more than 100 million homes in the U.S. alone. It will take decades to slowly replace older units with highly efficient models. But bit by bit, the company is chipping away at the problem.
“In air conditioning, the average unit has a 12- to 14-year life. A gas furnace has a 25- to 30-year life. So if I make a change today, to see that final impact, I have to wait a generation,” Johnston said.
This climate report is funded by Florida International University, the Knight Foundation and the David and Christina Martin Family Foundation in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners. The Miami Herald retains editorial control of all content.”
Nicolás Rivero
Sun, July 2, 2023
On a hot June morning in Doral, the temperature is already in the upper 80s and a line of colorful trucks and vans has bellied up to a warehouse loading dock for Watsco, the leading South Florida distributor of air conditioners and heat pumps.
Inside the 89,000-square-foot warehouse, thousands of air conditioners and parts are stacked to the 30-foot ceiling. On a busy summer day, a crew of 10 workers might load more than 500 of the cooling machines into contractors’ trucks, destined for homes, skyscrapers, hospitals and office buildings around region.
This warehouse is part of a nationwide push to clean up the air and cut carbon emissions to avoid the worst consequences of climate change. That’s because decades of federal regulation have pushed HVAC manufacturers to use less polluting refrigerants and make more efficient machines that run on less energy.
Now, almost any time contractors replace an old air conditioner with a new one, they cut a significant chunk out of a home’s carbon emissions.
“I’ve been doing this for 11 years,” said Fernando Villacis, warehouse manager for this Watsco Gemaire location. “This industry has changed a lot.”
The Doral warehouse is one of more than 670 air conditioner and heat pump distribution locations for Gemaire’s Miami parent company, Watsco, the biggest HVAC distributor in the United States. One out of every five air conditioners and heaters sold in the nation comes from Watsco. To be sure, the company is on a mission to make those heating and cooling systems more efficient.
Chris Mejia uses a forklift to move commercial air conditioning units into the Watsco Gemaire warehouse in Doral, on June 30, 2023.
Roughly half of an average U.S. home’s energy goes toward heating and air conditioning, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That number fluctuates with the weather, but it means that, on average, half of your gas and electric bill — and at least half of your home’s carbon emissions — comes from your heater or air conditioner.
Last year, Watsco sold more than 510,000 high-efficiency air conditioners and heat pumps, which the company defines as any heating or cooling system that goes beyond the minimum efficiency standards required by the federal government. Those systems use less energy than the older units they replace, which means that over time, they put less carbon into the atmosphere.
Watsco estimated the high-efficiency heating and cooling systems it sold between January 2020 and May 2023 will prevent 17 million tons of carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere over the course of their 18-year lifespan. That’s like taking 200,000 cars off the road for every year these heaters and air conditioners operate.
“You can stop eating meat. You can drive an electric vehicle,” said Marisol Gomez-Melzi, Watsco’s director of sustainability. “But one of the most significant things you can do to cut your carbon footprint is getting a unit that is working efficiently to heat and cool your home.”
From Hialeah to Fortune 500 firm
Watsco started as a small air conditioner parts manufacturer in Hialeah in 1956, just as air conditioning was beginning to become common in Florida and, a few years later, across the U.S.
Over the decades, the company aggressively bought up other air conditioner manufacturers and distributors. Eventually, it ditched the manufacturing side of its business to focus on selling air conditioners and heaters made by other companies. By 1999, Watsco was the biggest HVAC distributor in the U.S. Earlier this year, it joined the ranks of the Fortune 500, a list of the biggest publicly owned companies in the U.S. by revenue. The company’s 2022 revenue was $7.3 billion, a nearly 16% jump from $6.3 billion the prior year.
When your A/C breaks down, you probably won’t call Watsco — but you might buy one of its products without realizing it. Watsco is the parent company of eight separate HVAC distributors, which each operate under their own brand name and even compete against each other in some areas. Those distributors sell air conditioners to contractors, who install the systems for homeowners and businesses.
Watsco, headquartered in a sleek office building in Coconut Grove, works with more than 100,000 contractors in 42 states, as well as Puerto Rico, Mexico and Canada. In addition to selling air conditioners and heat pumps, Watsco also has a tech startup arm, Watsco Ventures, which develops tools to help contractors manage their businesses and market air conditioners and heaters to customers.
For instance, Watsco developed an app called On Call Air that helps customers compare their options for air conditioners and heat pumps, with information about each unit’s efficiency and the expected cost to run it.
Marisol Gomez-Melzi, Watsco’s director of sustainability, took her current role after three years working as marketing director for Watsco Ventures, the company’s technology arm.
“We found that two-thirds of the equipment sold through the platform is high-efficiency because you’re giving the customer much more information,” Gomez-Melzi said.
“If we can influence contractors and provide these tools that make it easier to sell this type of [high-efficiency] equipment, we can lead the transition to the decarbonization of the industry.”
Efficiency standards improve
There’s one number that will tell you how efficient your air conditioner or heat pump is: the seasonal energy efficiency ratio (SEER) rating from the U.S. Department of Energy.
When Watsco executive vice president Paul Johnston got into the HVAC industry in 1984, no one was selling particularly efficient air conditioners. “We had a 6 SEER model and an 8 SEER model,” he recalled. But in 1992, the Energy Department started enforcing a minimum energy efficiency standard for the industry.
“The government came out and said hey, the minimum is going to be 10 SEER, and we all cried and moaned and said we couldn’t do it,” Johnston said. “And of course we were able to do it.”
Since then, the Energy Department has raised the standard every few years — including this year, when a new, higher efficiency floor took effect on Jan. 1. Now, all new air conditioners and heat pumps in southern states must have at least a 15 SEER rating. In the northern part of the country, where air conditioners get less use, the minimum efficiency for A/C is 14 SEER.
Earlier this year, the Energy Department also updated its methods for testing efficiency and switched over to a new rating system, dubbed SEER2. The 15 SEER minimum efficiency in southern states is equivalent to a 14.3 SEER2 rating under the new system.
“Each time, we’re incrementally changing to find a way to make the technology work to meet the minimum efficiency of the government,” Johnston said. “And each time that happened, what we saw was that the whole industry would compress around that minimum efficiency.”
Newer A/C units also use newer types of refrigerants that are less damaging to the ozone layer and the climate. Before it was banned in the 1990s, the most common form of freon, dubbed R-12, was a greenhouse gas 10,900 times more potent than carbon dioxide, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Since then, the industry has moved to refrigerants that are less harmful by comparison, like R-32, which is a greenhouse gas that is 675 times more potent than carbon dioxide.
“It’s the combination of improved efficiency plus reducing the impact of the refrigerant that I think is the big story,” Johnston said.
A lifetime effect
When Watsco sells a new air conditioner, it tends to replace a unit that’s more than a decade old, which means it probably lags current efficiency standards and might use older, more harmful refrigerants.
Similarly, Watsco sells electric heat pumps, which can heat buildings more efficiently than gas furnaces — and without burning fossil fuels directly — when the temperature is above freezing. Heat pumps run on electricity, which usually comes at least in part from power plants that burn fossil fuels. But as wind and solar power gradually replace coal- and gas-burning power plants, the electricity that powers heat pumps becomes cleaner over time.
In other words, every time Watsco sells a new heat pump or air conditioner, it tends to lower a building’s carbon emissions. While a new HVAC system can make a difference, it won’t wipe out a homeowner’s energy bill or slash their emissions down to zero by itself, said Steve Samenski, director of building performance for the green building consulting firm The Spinnaker Group, a division of SOCOTEC.
“If you replace 10-year-old technology with new technology that meets the energy code, then you’re definitely doing better,” Samenski said. “A homeowner can probably expect a 10% to 20% improvement if all else is the same.”
Manager Fernando Villacis walks through the Watsco Gemaire warehouse in Doral, on June 30, 2023.
The minimum SEER rating from 2006 to 2011 was 13 SEER, which means a lot of A/Cs being replaced right now are probably at that level. If you replace a 13 SEER system with a system at today’s minimum 15 SEER, you’d lower your electricity spending on air conditioning by about 13%, or roughly $150 a year for a 2,000 square foot house, according to utility FPL.
But if you sprang for a more efficient model — say, an 18 SEER A/C — you might cut your electricity spending on cooling by about 28%, or roughly $310 a year. But you’d probably also be spending a significant amount more to buy the unit, perhaps an additional $2,000 or higher, Gemaire’s Villacis said.
These changes are slow and incremental. Although Watsco sells more than half a million high-efficiency air conditioners and heat pumps a year, there are more than 100 million homes in the U.S. alone. It will take decades to slowly replace older units with highly efficient models. But bit by bit, the company is chipping away at the problem.
“In air conditioning, the average unit has a 12- to 14-year life. A gas furnace has a 25- to 30-year life. So if I make a change today, to see that final impact, I have to wait a generation,” Johnston said.
This climate report is funded by Florida International University, the Knight Foundation and the David and Christina Martin Family Foundation in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners. The Miami Herald retains editorial control of all content.”
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