French Government Lays Out €4 Billion Spending Cut to Close Gap

AUSTERITY, AUSTERITY AND MORE AUSTERITY

Alan Katz
Sun, July 16, 2023

(Bloomberg) -- The French government sent a 2024 spending plan to parliament that calls for a €4.2 billion ($4.7 billion) cut in outlays as it pushes to reduce the deficit, even as it ramps up allocations for the green transition.

The decline in overall spending is 3.5% in real terms, once inflation is taken into account, a finance ministry official said. The biggest drop is in the amount dedicated to helping shield households and businesses from spiking fuel and energy costs.

France is targeting a budget deficit of 4.4% of gross domestic product for 2024, down from a goal of 4.9% this year. The aim is to bring that below 3%, the limit set under European Union rules, by the end of Emmanuel Macron’s second term as president in 2027.

Still, the government will allocate €7 billion next year to fund the green transition. The money will go toward renovating public office buildings and housing, cutting carbon emissions from industry and agriculture, and supporting railroad infrastructure, among other areas.

The government also will boost spending on security, the justice system, national education, and higher education and research.

At the same time, it plans to crack down on what it deems to be fraud. The budget bill will include a clause allowing the government to go after abuses in transfer pricing by multinationals, said the official, who declined to be cited by name ahead of the public release of the plan. Transfer pricing refers to transactions among units of the same company that are located in different countries.

 Bloomberg Businessweek

AUSTERITY FOR THEE NOT ME

Major Cuts to Social Security Are Back on the Table — What’s Being Proposed Now?

Vance Cariaga
Sun, July 16, 2023 

Shutterstock / Shutterstock

A group of Republican lawmakers aims to balance the federal budget and slash government spending by targeting programs like Social Security — and some seniors could see a major reduction in lifetime benefits if the plan makes it into law.

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The proposal was unveiled June 14 by U.S. House conservatives, Bloomberg reported. One of its main features is to raise the full retirement age (FRA) at which seniors are entitled to the full benefits they are due.

The 176-member House Republican Study Committee (RSC) approved a fiscal blueprint that would gradually increase the FRA to 69 years old for seniors who turn 62 in 2033. The current full retirement age is 66 or 67, depending on your birth year. For all Americans born in 1960 or later, the FRA is 67.

As Bloomberg noted, workers expecting an earlier retirement benefit will see lifetime payouts reduced if the full retirement age is raised. Those payouts could be drastically reduced for seniors who claim benefits at age 62, when you are first eligible.

Lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle have been working to come up with a fix for Social Security before the program’s Old Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) Trust Fund runs out of money. That could happen within the next decade or so. When it does, Social Security will be solely reliant on payroll taxes for funding — and those taxes only cover about 77% of current benefits.

While most Democrats want to boost Social Security through higher payroll taxes or reductions to benefits for wealthy Americans, the GOP has largely focused on paring down or privatizing the program.

As previously reported by GOBankingRates, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) recently told Fox News that this month’s debt limit bill was only “the first step” in a broader Republican agenda that includes further cuts.

“This isn’t the end,” McCarthy said. “This doesn’t solve all the problems. We only got to look at 11% of the budget to find these cuts. We have to look at the entire budget. … The majority driver of the budget is mandatory spending. It’s Medicare, Social Security, interest on the debt.”

As Bloomberg noted, Republicans argue that failing to change Social Security could lead to a 23% benefit cut once the trust fund is depleted. Raising the retirement age is a way to soften the immediate impact. The RSC said its proposal would balance the federal budget in seven years by cutting some $16 trillion in spending and $5 trillion in taxes.

“The RSC budget would implement common-sense policies to prevent the impending debt disaster, tame inflation, grow the economy, protect our national security, and defund [President Joe] Biden’s woke priorities,” U.S. Rep. Ben Cline (R-Va.), chairman of the group’s Budget and Spending Task Force, told Roll Call.

Democrats were quick to push back against the proposal.

“Budget Committee Democrats will make sure every American family knows that House Republicans want to force Americans to work longer for less, raise families’ costs, weaken our nation, and shrink our economy — all while wasting billions of dollars on more favors to special interests and handouts to the ultra-wealthy,” U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle, (D-Pa.), the Budget Committee’s top Democrat, said in a statement.

Meanwhile, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre issued a statement saying the RSC budget “amounts to a devastating attack on Medicare, Social Security, and Americans’ access to health coverage and prescription drugs.”

Although the proposal might make it through the GOP-led House, it’s unlikely to become law – at least while Biden is still president. Even if a bill somehow got approved by the Democrat-controlled Senate, Biden would almost certainly veto it.

2,000-year-old human skulls, oil lamps, and bronze daggers reveal possible necromancer's portal to the underworld in Jerusalem

Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert
Sun, July 16, 2023 

Israeli cave researcher Boaz Langford inspecting a cave August 2, 2009 in the Judean Hills, Israel, where 120 gold, silver and bronze coins were found.

Boaz Zissu/The Hebrew University via Getty Images

Israeli researchers discovered possible evidence of "ritual magic" in a deep cave in the Judaean hills.


Human skulls were arranged in patterns near oil lamps, with daggers and axe heads nearby.


The artifacts are thought to be necromancer tools, as caves were considered portals to the underworld.

Hidden deep in Te'omim Cave in Jerusalem, researchers have discovered evidence of ritual magic practices dating back to antiquity — with human skulls and daggers pointing to dark ceremonies where necromancers may have attempted to conjure the spirits of the dead.

In a new study for Harvard Theological Review published by Cambridge University Press, researchers from the Israel Antiquities Authority and Bar-Ilan University detailed the results of over a decade of study on 120 oil lamps that were found in the cave within the Judaean hills, which date back to the late Roman to early Byzantine period, or late second to fourth centuries CE.

"All of these lamps had been deliberately inserted in narrow, deep crevices in the main chamber walls or beneath the rubble," authors Eitan Klein and Boaz Zissu wrote in the study. "Some crevices contained groups of oil lamps mixed with weapons and pottery vessels from earlier periods or placed with human skulls."

The fact that the lamps were inserted so deeply into the hidden, hard-to-reach crevices "suggests that illuminating the dark cave was not their sole purpose," the academics theorized.

Klein and Zissu did not respond to Insider's request for comment.

In addition to the oil lamps, weapons including daggers and axe heads were located along with three human skulls. No additional human bones were found with the skulls.

These artifacts were likely used as part of necromancy ceremonies in the cave during the Late Roman period, the authors concluded after reviewing their discoveries and a library of ancient papyrus scrolls from the era, which detailed spells and customs honoring the cave.

"One spell explains how to restrain and seal the mouths of skulls so that they won't say or do anything. Another shows how to raise the spirit of the dead with a disinterred skull: a spell is written in black ink on a flax leaf, which is then placed on the skull," the research reads, indicating evidence of such rituals was found in the Te'omim Cave. "The purpose of another spell is to obtain assistance and protection from spirits by using the skull of Typhon (probably a donkey) on which a spell is written in the blood of a black dog."

At the time, the cave, with its deep pit and interior spring, was seen as a potential portal to the underworld, an oracle, and a physical representation of a Chthonic deity — to which witches dedicated their ritual magic. Oil lamps in particular, such as the 120 found within the cave's crevices, were used to lure spirits to the realm of the living.

One specific incantation, which calls upon the god Besas to reveal the future, contains the following chant to be said to an oil lamp, allowing the god to rise through the flame: "I call upon you, the headless god, the one who has his face upon his feet; you are the one who hurls lightning, who thunders, you are [the one whose] mouth continually pours on himself."

Rather than evidence of live sacrifices, the daggers and other weaponry found in the cave likely served as talismans to protect against the spirits, which were said to have feared metal — specifically bronze and iron.

Human sacrifice was outlawed in 97 BCE by the Roman Senate. By 357 CE, the researchers note, necromancy was outlawed by the emperor Constantius II, who, due to his fear of sorcery being used against him, prohibited "all forms of divination, communication with demons, disturbance of the spirits of the dead, and nocturnal sacrifices."

The punishment for violating the emperor's rule was certain death.

While specifics of the lives of those who practiced necromancy in the Te'omim Cave remain unclear — and will perhaps remain unknowable forever — the artifacts they left behind reveal clues about how they secretly used ritual magic to predict the future and conjure up the spirits of the dead.

Scientists concerned about ‘unheard of’ conditions off the coast of England: ‘We could see mass mortality’



Rick Kazmer
Sun, July 16, 2023

Scientists are worried that an El Niño–prolonged ocean heat-up off the coast of England and Ireland will result in massive death tolls for sea life, along with other terrible outcomes. That’s because temperatures in the North Sea are already 5 degrees above normal, according to the Guardian.

As conditions mount for continued ocean warming, the experts fear that sea life could be killed off like forest dwellers are destroyed during wildfires.

It’s all part of the fallout from an overheating planet.

What’s happening?

Ocean warming in the North Sea has been ongoing for decades, the Guardian reports. The mercury rose to a record high this spring, based on recordings dating to the 1850s. It’s part of a trend of ocean warmups during the past three decades.

Sea surface temperatures around the planet have been measured at all-time highs, peaking at 70.2 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the Guardian.

“While marine [heat waves] are found in warmer seas like the Mediterranean, such anomalous temperatures in this part of the north Atlantic are unheard of,” University of Bristol professor Daniela Schmidt told the Guardian.

Since water covers more than 70% of the Earth’s surface, the ocean catches a lot of solar energy. The sea can move that heat around the globe as part of the natural climate balance. But human-caused overheating is overloading the system, according to Climate.gov. Experts warn that more than 90% of excess heat is absorbed in the oceans.

“Heat … stresses marine organisms. In other parts of the world, we have seen several mass mortalities of marine plants and animals caused by ocean heat waves, which have caused … losses, in fisheries income, carbon storage, cultural values, and habitat loss,” Schmidt said in the Guardian’s report.

Kelp (which stores carbon), fish, and oysters are among species being monitored.

Why could it get worse?

A combination of factors, including planet-wide overheating and El Niño, are involved, experts report in a video shared by the Guardian. During an El Niño, weakened trade winds allow warm water to be pushed east, toward the west coast of the Americas, disrupting oceans around the world.

“But, as this is happening below the surface of the ocean, it will go unnoticed,” Schmidt said to the Guardian.

Droughts and floods are disasters mentioned in the clip as possible repercussions on land from the ocean’s warming.

What’s being done to help?

Piers Forster, a climate physics professor at the University of Leeds, told the Guardian that “human-induced” warming is a priority problem.

So, efforts to reduce air pollution are key to cooling our waters. Experts are monitoring Antarctic sea ice and other metrics to gauge the warming’s severity.

“If [ocean warming] carries on through summer, we could see mass mortality of kelp, seagrass, fish, and oysters,” Dan Smale, from the Marine Biological Association, said in the Guardian report.

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A LIBERAL DEFENSE OF NUCLEAR POWER

Abandoning nuclear power was a mistake. Germany must return to the future of energy

Nick O’Hara
Sun, July 16, 2023 

Neckarwestheim Nuclear Power Plant

Getty Images/fhm

A little over a decade ago I was living in Charlottenburg, a Berlin neighbourhood just a few kilometres to the west of the Brandenburg Gate, on the other side of the lush, tree-lined paths and bathing lawns of Tiergarten. One of things I admire so much about Germany is its particular brand of pragmatic long-termism, which sets it apart from its Anglo-Saxon peers. But when it comes to energy, Germany has uncharacteristically abandoned pragmatism and championed renewables under its Energiewende strategy. It's a failing energy policy that has been decades in the making.

Shortly after the reunification of Germany in the late 20th Century, British architect Norman Foster was commissioned to transform the neglected old Reichstag building. The structure he found had been cast adrift following the inferno of brutal war, and left largely abandoned during four decades of cold division. Whereas we rarely discover the secrets contained deep within most great offices of state, the Reichstag was opened up to reveal its soul. Foster uncovered a story of conflict, told in part through small details, including the Russian graffiti on crumbling walls marked by the scars of human misjudgement.

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In setting about designing the physical embodiment of a new nation, united and reborn in the early 1990s, Foster and his team prioritised four related considerations: the new Reichstag's significance as a democratic forum; an understanding of history; a commitment to accessibility; and a vigorous environmental agenda. By the end of the decade his vision for the Reichstag was realised and it became the seat of the Bundestag (German Parliament) which, in 1999, convened in its rejuvenated home for the first time. It marked a moment in history: a reinvigorated young nation ready to reintroduce itself to the world, stepping boldly and confidently into the 21st Century. The old building together with its new occupants – and the people they represented – were united. They were looking to the future, just as the architect had intended that they might.

With a climate emergency so real, so immediate and so pressing, it feels as though that simple vision for the future could be fading from view

Foster's design for the Reichstag was a model of sustainability and ahead of its time, using an on-site bio-fuel cogenerator to produce the building's electricity. This machine works by storing surplus heat in an underground aquifer, the hot water from which is pumped up to heat the building and to drive an absorption cooling plant to produce chilled water. The result was a dramatic reduction in CO2 emissions. Theoretically, the Reichstag has the ability to produce more energy than it consumes, allowing it to serve as a mini power station for the surrounding government quarter.

Nearly a quarter of a century on from the unveiling of the new Reichstag, most of us – from Germany's politicians to Norman Foster himself – want to see a more equitable world that operates sustainably, to ensure that future generations can inherit viable societies in a liveable planet. It may sound idealistic, but it's really a modest ambition. Yet with a climate emergency so real, so immediate and so pressing, it feels as though that simple vision for the future could be fading from view.

Those nuclear power plant closures were a purely political move and make no economic or climate sense

The fear-inducing warnings from those with good climate intentions don't seem to be working – they risk creating a sense of fatalism, especially if we keep being told that this is our last chance each time there is a Conference of the Parties summit on climate. Humanity must find a way to act with urgency to avert a climate catastrophe, and we can do so with a sense of optimism at the new possibilities and opportunities available to us if we seize this moment. We can look to the future.

But we aren't seizing the moment.

We need to change course on the issue underpinning so many others we face today, which is also the overriding driver for climate change: how we produce, distribute and consume energy. A famous German, Albert Einstein, is widely – perhaps falsely – credited as once saying, "the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." In the context of the current economic crisis accompanied by the climate emergency, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and striving for the same results.

When it comes to energy, there are two forms of insanity we are witnessing today. The first is sticking with CO2-emitting fossil fuels, which account for 82 percent of global energy, according to BP's Statistical Review of World Energy 2022. The second insanity is believing, as the prevailing forces within today's Reichstag do, that renewables alone are the best alternative.

***

Energiewende isn't working. The plan was to phase out nuclear energy, expand renewable sources and make its economy virtually carbon-neutral by the middle of the century. The only part of the plan that has had any clear "success" is regarding nuclear, which it recently discarded altogether, closing its final three nuclear plants in April this year.

Germany's emissions aren't reducing significantly, because the country remains dependent on fossil fuels for a more than half of its electricity

Those closures were a purely political move and make no economic or climate sense. No clear path to replacing them has been set out, other than to introduce a new set of gas plants which would only increase greenhouse gas emissions. The hope is that these would one day be converted to hydrogen, but it all amounts to a needlessly convoluted set of arrangements necessitated by abandoning nuclear power. Unsurprisingly, investors are not exactly champing at the bit to back costly transitional infrastructure and aspirations which are so clearly flawed.

Germany's emissions aren't reducing significantly, because the country remains dependent on fossil fuels for a more than half of its electricity, with coal – including dirty, heavily CO2-emitting lignite – the largest single source, providing almost one-third of all electricity. The problem is a refusal to acknowledge reality: renewables are variable and cannot continuously provide energy at all the times we need it.

Whatever its political aspirations, Germany's energy networks are no different to any other country in the most basic sense: energy supply must at all times be equal to energy demand. Germany's grid needs to meet the demands of consumers around the clock, including during peak times such as the coldest winter nights when solar is not producing.

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Germany is generating 43 percent of its electricity from renewables, but it is paying a heavy price for this. The cost is felt through the volatility that intermittent renewables introduce to the network. Renewables may appear cost-effective when viewed in isolation on sunny or windy days when they produce a lot of energy.

However, when the sun or wind disappears, there is no affordable battery technology system that can store unused surplus energy at the scale required to supply an entire grid, covering unproductive periods. Therefore, to plug the gaps at night, Germany – with its grid interconnected with the rest of continental Europe – either draws from neighbouring countries, or turns to its natural gas or coal-fired power plants to kick in. Firing those up adds considerable cost, in more ways than one, which ought to be added to any calculation of the true cost of renewables.

So, the inevitable shortfall from renewables needs to come from a reliable source. If that reliable source is not clean nuclear, it will be a dirty fossil fuel. Bafflingly, Germany is choosing the dirty option.

The Greens have unswervingly made scrapping nuclear energy a key demand in coalition negotiations, resulting in them holding sway on German energy policy

This is because Germany's political landscape is shaped by an electoral system of proportional representation. Federal elections consistently produce indecisive outcomes, which in turn require the establishment of cross-party coalitions to form a government. One of the main beneficiaries of this, down the years, has been Germany's Green Party, which grew out of the 1970s anti-nuclear movement. The Greens have unswervingly made scrapping nuclear energy a key demand in coalition negotiations, resulting in them holding sway on German energy policy.

The net effect is that anti-nuclear propaganda has persuaded Germany's politicians to oppose the safest, most reliable, concentrated, efficient and carbon-free energy source available to us. But already the plan is failing. In recent recognition that the Energiewende ambitions would not be met, Germany's Bundestag – today's occupants of the Reichstag – removed a target for 100 percent renewable electricity by 2035, instead requiring that electricity supply be 'nearly' climate neutral by 2035 and that 80 percent of electricity must come from renewables by 2030.

This rowing back of climate targets is the price for abandoning nuclear energy — for abandoning the carbon-free solution already staring us in the face, available and ready to be scaled-up now.

As with any parliamentary building, Norman Foster must have known that the competing ideas that would be contested underneath his iconic glass cupola redesign might not always lead to effective legislative instruments, delivering sensible policy outcomes. Perhaps nobody could have anticipated the extent to which Foster's fourth consideration in renovating the Reichstag – the vigorous environmental agenda – might one day go so badly awry that it risks echoing the past misjudgements that reverberate inside that building without secrets. As was the case before, the wider consequences for humanity are huge.

This rowing back of climate targets is the price for abandoning nuclear energy — for abandoning the carbon-free solution already staring us in the face

An almost unquestioning support for renewables has become the new orthodoxy in mainstream thinking. However, whether we look at safety, measured as deaths per unit (terawatt-hour) of electricity created, or look at emissions, measured as CO2 per gigawatt-hour of electricity over the cycle of a power plant, nuclear is as clean and safe an energy source as any alternative. The unit of one gigawatt-hour is equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of one hundred and fifty people in the European Union.

Nuclear's three tonnes per gigawatt-hour is cleaner than solar's five tonnes. In a head-to-head comparison, including greenhouse gas emissions from the full lifecycle of the power plant (construction, operation, maintenance, fuel, decommissioning), nuclear is as low carbon as wind and much lower than solar, hydro, geothermal and bio renewables. A 2014 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change working group paper had nuclear on 13 tonnes per gigawatt-hour and solar on 53 tonnes per gigawatt-hour, measured on a life-cycle basis.

The five European countries with the lowest greenhouse gas emissions per unit of electricity generation are Norway, France, Sweden, Switzerland and Finland. They have all achieved this through nuclear, hydro or both. By contrast, the five countries which have invested most in solar and wind – Germany, Denmark, Portugal, Spain and Ireland – all have much higher emissions.

Sweden looked to the future when it embraced nuclear energy in the early 1970s

Sweden looked to the future when it embraced nuclear energy in the early 1970s and within twenty years, according to World Bank data for the period 1970 to 1990, saw CO2 per capita reduce by fifty percent whilst GDP per capita increased by fifty percent. Fifty years on from that policy decision, Sweden has clean, secure and affordable energy and is emitting less greenhouse gas than any comparator nation.

In fact, Sweden is the least polluting country in Europe and of any major industrialised nation, emitting carbon dioxide at under four tonnes per capita. By contrast, Germany is emitting more than double that, at just over eight tonnes per capita. Sweden's use of nuclear as its reliable linchpin has enabled it to increase the share of renewables within its energy mix. Germany can only look on with envy.

Across the Atlantic, the United States emits almost 15 tonnes per capita – in large part because it chose to head in the opposite direction to Sweden over the same time period. Whereas the US had previously been intent on vigorously pursuing nuclear energy, and on course to a low carbon clean energy future, it changed track with disastrous consequences. President Eisenhower's "Atoms for Peace" vision descended back down to fossil fuels.

The United States turned back from the future by curtailing nuclear expansion and that one policy decision, above all others in living memory, almost certainly precipitated the climate crisis we now face. Reversing it is humanity's best hope of securing the simple ambition of gifting our children a future worth inheriting.

Related

Universities aren't doing enough for climate. Here's what a real sustainability plan would look like

As we look ahead to that future, we must look to the past for guidance. The clues are always there for us, if we pay attention to them. Norman Foster's work is currently being showcased at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. The 2,200 square-metre exhibition – which includes Foster's drawings and original models for more than one hundred projects – spans six decades of his achievements in reconceptualising the functions of architectural design and physical form, and runs until early August. The Retrospective provides an opportunity not only to celebrate his work, but to learn from past progress to inform how we look forward – something Foster's life has been dedicated to doing. Indeed, 'future' is one of seven themes explored in the Pompidou exhibition.

Humanity's future hangs in the balance, and much depends on the energy technologies we decide to prioritise in facing a climate emergency against the backdrop of increasing global demand for energy. Beyond European borders, the world requires an abundance of clean energy as billions of people rightly demand a rise in their living standards. This requires supposedly "climate conscious" Europeans to revisit our preferences for particular energy technologies. Indeed, it requires us to focus on achieving a carbon free future, rather than promoting one energy source at the expense of others.

The German Government has committed to phasing out fossil fuels, and pledged for Germany to become greenhouse gas-neutral across all sectors, by 2045. However, there is no combination of renewable energy technologies currently known to mankind that is capable of delivering this. So, in order to meet the climate change challenge, Germany should focus on maximising low-carbon electricity supply rather than slavishly aiming to increase the share of renewables. Wind and solar energy cannot fully cover demand, so it's difficult to see how Germany will avoid returning to nuclear eventually if it wants to decarbonise. Sooner or later, Germany and it's glorious Reichstag will, once again, have to go back to the future. The best time to do that is now.

We abandoned nuclear power. Now, Earth is paying the price

COLD WAR 2.0

Sanctioned Chinese Military Giant’s US Business Keeps Growing

Bruce Einhorn
Sun, July 16, 2023 



(Bloomberg) -- Cirrus Aircraft Ltd. is proud of its history in the US heartland: the private plane maker’s website includes details such as the company’s 1984 launch in a Wisconsin barn, the opening of a Minnesota R&D center and a North Dakota factory.

But there’s something missing from the company’s All-American timeline: Cirrus’s ownership by a sanctioned Chinese military manufacturer.

For more than a decade, Cirrus has been a subsidiary of Aviation Industry Corp. of China, a maker of fighter jets, helicopters and drones for the People’s Liberation Army. AVIC, as the parent company is known, is also one of the world’s largest military contractors and is subject to US sanctions.

Cirrus isn’t a military manufacturer — its main products are single-engine planes used by private citizens and charter services — but some of its technology and manufacturing expertise could be valuable to the PLA, according to several aviation and Chinese military experts interviewed by Bloomberg. In June, the company filed with the Hong Kong stock exchange for an initial public offering. Its expansion, despite deep tensions between Beijing and Washington, underscores the complex political calculations underlying US sanctions.

“There’s an imperfect, Swiss-cheese approach to this,” said Sarah Kreps, a professor of government at Cornell University. Policymakers “haven’t pulled all the threads to ensure there aren’t these blind spots in the sanctions regime that’s in place.”

Cirrus hasn’t been accused of any wrongdoing and there’s no sign the US is seeking to target the company. But its parent company is under a great deal of scrutiny. Starting in 2020, the US began flagging AVIC as a potential national security threat, imposing sanctions designed to hinder the growth of companies directly connected to China’s military.

“As the People’s Republic of China attempts to blur the lines between civil and military sectors, ‘knowing your supplier’ is critical,” then-Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said in June 2020.

The Trump administration started a process that would see AVIC added to a suite of federal lists that variously restricted exports to the company and banned purchases or sales of publicly traded securities. The Biden administration continued and refined that effort, citing the “threat posed by the military-industrial complex” of China.

Throughout that period, Duluth, Minnesota-based Cirrus and other AVIC affiliates in the US continued to grow.

During the pandemic, Cirrus expanded its Duluth facility and opened a flight training center in Scottsdale, Arizona. Last year, Cirrus announced new sales, maintenance and training centers at two airports in central Florida, and in May the company flagged it had started construction of a $13 million facility in McKinney, Texas, near Dallas.

“We just love being able to brag that you are here in this city,” McKinney Mayor George Fuller said at the ground-breaking ceremony, according to Community Impact, a local news outlet. In a call with Bloomberg, Fuller praised the company’s investments, including the hiring of highly paid engineers.

In an emailed statement, Cirrus said it “has a policy of full compliance with US sanctions, export controls and other investment restrictions, including as it relates to our relationship with our parent company and as to sales in all 36 countries in which we conduct business.”

AVIC didn’t respond to questions about its ownership of Cirrus.

At a time of heightened sensitivities over Chinese-owned companies in the US, when some states have sought to restrict or ban Chinese investments, Cirrus isn’t the only AVIC-backed company winning praise from politicians.

AVIC is the largest shareholder, with about 46%, of Continental Aerospace Technologies Holding Ltd., which makes piston aircraft engines and components in Mobile, Alabama. Last year it received Republican Governor Kay Ivey’s “Trade Excellence Award” for its contributions to the state economy. Ivey’s office didn’t respond to questions about the company’s Chinese shareholder.

In 2022, Michigan gave more than $25 million in Covid-relief funds to Nexteer Automotive Group, an AVIC-affiliated maker of car parts based near Detroit that had about 12,600 employees and $3.8 billion in revenue.

None of those subsidiaries faces accusations of wrongdoing.

The debate over how best to apply sanctions comes amid bipartisan scrutiny of Chinese investments and a Biden administration effort to ramp up restrictions on technology exports to China.

During a trip to Beijing this month, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said she emphasized to her counterparts that any measures would be “narrowly scoped” and clearly communicated. China has repeatedly said US restrictions are meant to stop the country’s rise.

With 2022 revenue of about $890 million, Cirrus is a small part of the AVIC empire. The state-owned group, which also makes commercial aircraft, has many closely-held subsidiaries as well as about two dozen affiliates traded in Hong Kong, China and Europe with a combined market capitalization of about $100 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

One reason Cirrus and other AVIC companies have avoided sanctions has to do with how officials targeted the group: They never added it to the most restrictive sanctions list, which is overseen by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.

Instead, Treasury created a new target list and said that list wouldn’t be subject to the department’s toughest restrictions, which would automatically apply sanctions to majority-owned subsidiaries.

“A lot of folks were scratching their heads a bit when the sanctions came out,” said Chase Kaniecki, who focuses on trade and national security issues as a partner at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton in Washington.

The move likely reflected concern that some Chinese companies had subsidiaries all over the world, he said, and the US government didn’t want to impact them inadvertently.

The US made just such a misstep in 2018, when sanctions against Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska resulted in an unintended spike in global aluminum prices.

Deripaska held a majority stake in United Co. Rusal International PJSC, at the time the world’s second-largest aluminum producer. Restrictions were never imposed on Rusal due to repeated waivers by Treasury, but the economic shock prompted a rethink on how the US should use its most powerful economic weapons.

In addition, some companies targeted for sanctions during the Trump administration successfully challenged the restrictions in court, and Biden’s team sought to bolster the legal justification for any listings.

AVIC, through its subsidiary China Aviation Industry General Aircraft, bought Cirrus more than a decade ago, when many American companies were struggling due to the Great Recession. The conglomerate spent around $210 million to acquire it, gaining access to small-plane manufacturing expertise.

The 2011 purchase was reviewed by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, a federal entity that can block foreign purchases of US companies and real estate, often on national security grounds. At the time however, US-China relations were less tense.

“There was a different risk tolerance,” said Emily Kilcrease, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security in Washington and former deputy assistant for foreign investment policy at the Office of the US Trade Representative.

Scrutiny on Cirrus could soon increase: The company’s prospectus with the Hong Kong stock exchange offers a look at its connections to other parts of the AVIC empire.

Cirrus Vice-Chairman Hui Wang is a director of AVIC Heavy Machinery Co., which is on one of Treasury’s sanctions lists and a Pentagon list of Chinese military companies. Another Cirrus director sits on the boards of two sanctioned AVIC subsidiaries.

The Hong Kong prospectus also says that since 2019, Cirrus has worked with AVIC-owned China Aviation Industry General Aircraft Zhejiang Institute Co. to make a training aircraft. The US in 2020 put that partner on a Commerce Department Military End User list, which means certain exports to it are restricted without a special license.

In its prospectus, Cirrus said it received US government approval for exports to China and has strictly complied with its export license from the Bureau of Industry and Security, an agency of the Commerce Department.

AVIC’s ownership isn’t an issue for Richard Kane, CEO of Verijet Holding Co., which leases point-to-point trips on Cirrus’s single-engine Vision Jet planes. Verijet, based near Miami, has about 20 Cirrus aircraft, which Kane praises as fuel efficient and safe.

“The Chinese have been pretty hands off,” Kane, who said he’s close to Cirrus’s management team, told Bloomberg. “So far, so good.”

But while there’s a big gap between producing general aviation, or GA, aircraft and weaponry such as AVIC’s sophisticated attack drones, the US subsidiary does potentially have expertise that could be valuable to military customers, said George Ferguson, senior aerospace and defense analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence.

“A small drone looks like a GA aircraft: small frames, long endurance, propeller driven,” said Ferguson. “It’s not totally without skills that are transferable.”

William Kim, a defense researcher at RAND Corp., agreed, saying that “while small private planes may lack military utility,” the technology that goes into them “could have some dual-use purposes.” He cited the use of composite materials in civilian planes and military drones as one example.

To build capabilities in small aircraft, AVIC would need access to the US market, Ferguson added, since restrictions on airspace use in China have kept the industry from developing there.

For now, sanctions experts say there’s probably little that policymakers can do about AVIC’s businesses in the US.

If it wanted to take a harsher approach, the government could attempt to force AVIC to divest its ownership of Cirrus and other US companies, just as the Trump administration tried to force Beijing-based ByteDance Ltd. to sell control of TikTok to a US buyer.

The US could also impose the most severe set of sanctions, putting AVIC on Treasury’s Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List. That would block its assets and ban US persons from doing business with it, but it would be an extreme measure, the Center for a New American Security’s Kilcrease said.

“It’s a very big escalatory step,” she said. “If we are ever in a serious shooting war with China, you want to have that in your back pocket.”

--With assistance from Thomas Black, Isabel Webb Carey and Rebecca Choong Wilkins.

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

DECRIMINALIZE DRUGS

AOC and Crenshaw form unlikely team in bid to give troops access to psychedelic drugs

Michael Lee

FAUX NEWS
Sun, July 16, 2023

Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. and Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, are forming an unlikely alliance, teaming up in a bid to allow troops access to psychedelic drugs.

"Psychedelics have shown so much promise," Ocasio-Cortez said of the effort, according to a report from the New York Daily News. "We desperately need the resources to treat PTSD, traumatic brain injury and depression. At least one in two PTSD patients cannot tolerate or do not respond adequately to existing treatments."

The progressive lawmaker's comments come as the military and Department of Veterans Affairs grapple with the growth of post-traumatic stress disorder in the ranks, an ailment that has doubled among veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan compared to Vietnam-era veterans. According to the VA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, over 450,000 combat veterans have suffered from a some sort of traumatic brain injury between 2000 and 2021.

Rep. Dan Crenshaw and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

But new data suggest that unorthodox treatments with psychedelics help, leading Crenshaw and Ocasio-Cortez to form an unlikely alliance.

"This is a real wild coalition," Crenshaw, a Navy SEAL veteran who lost an eye in Afghanistan, said of his partnership with Ocasio-Cortez, according to the New York Daily News.

Crenshaw said the issue has personally touched him, recounting the stories of friends who have returned from war and were not cured of their aliments until they gained access to psychedelics, which are typically illegal in the United States.

Rep. Dan Crenshaw

"I was turned on to this issue because I had so many friends… who were going down to a specific clinic and doing ibogaine – one treatment of ibogaine would cure them," Crenshaw said.

The duo targeted this year's National Defense Authorization Act to introduce their proposal, managing to get a "watered-down version" of the bill they authored into the massive yearly legislation.

Crenshaw said House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., has promised the lawmakers to get a comprehensive version of the bill, which will include funding and clinical trials, in the legislation during meetings with the Senate to combine the two chamber's versions of the bill.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Meanwhile, Ocasio-Cortez called on veterans to apply pressure to the Senate to make sure the provision gains approval.

"I know the power of this community to rise up and make itself heard," Ocasio-Cortez said.

SEE

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for LSD 

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for PSYCHEDELIC 

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for PSYCHEDELIC SASKATCHEWAN 

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for MAGIC MUSHROOMS 

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for MDMA 

DEALING WITH A DIKTATOR

Tunisia and EU sign pact to stem migration


NGO migrant rescue ships Sea-Watch 3 and Ocean Viking rescue 394 migrants in Mediterranean

Updated Sun, July 16, 2023 
By Tarek Amara

TUNIS (Reuters) -Tunisia and the European Union signed on Sunday a "strategic partnership" deal that includes combatting human traffickers and tightening borders during a sharp increase in boats leaving the North African nation for Europe.

The deal follow weeks of talks and Europe's pledge of major aid to Tunisia amounting to 1 billion euros ($1.12 billion) to help its battered economy, rescue state finances and deal with a migration crisis. Most funds are contingent on economic reforms.

"It contains agreements on disrupting the business model of people smugglers and human traffickers, strengthening border control and improving registration and return. All essential measures for bolstering efforts to stop irregular migration," Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said on Twitter.


The European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyens said the bloc will allocate 100 million euros to Tunisia to help it combat illegal migration. The deal promotes macro-economic stability, trade and investment, green energy transition and legal immigration.

Thousands of undocumented African migrants have flocked to the city of Sfax in recent months seeking to head for Europe in traffickers' boats, amounting to an unprecedented migration crisis for Tunisia.

"We are very pleased, it is a further important step towards creation of a true partnership between Tunisia and the EU, which can address in an integrated fashion the migration crisis," Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Miloni said.

Meloni, whose country has suffered a sharp increase in immigration boats, said that there would be an international conference on migration in Rome next Sunday with a number of heads of state, including Tunisian President Kais Saied.

Some 75,065 boat migrants had reached Italy by July 14 against 31,920 in the same period last year, official data showed. More than half left from Tunisia, overtaking Libya, which has traditionally been the main launchpad.

Saied said this month his country would not become a border guard for Europe.

(Reporting by Tarek Amara, Additional reporting by Crispian Balmer in Rome and Anthony Deutsch in Amesterdam, Writing by Tarek Amara and Hatem MaherEditing by Andrew Cawthorne)

EU, Tunisia sign 'strategic' deal on migration, economy

Francoise Kadri
Sun, July 16, 2023 

European Commission chief Ursula Von der Leyen shakes hands with Tunisian President Kais Saied after announcing a strategic deal with Tunis on economic development and irregular migration (-)

The European Union and Tunisia on Sunday signed a memorandum of understanding for a "strategic and comprehensive partnership" on irregular migration, economic development and renewable energy.

The deal, which includes financial assistance, came as Tunisia has been under fire over its treatment of migrants since February, after President Kais Saied accused "hordes" of migrants from sub-Saharan African countries of a "plot" to change the country's demographic makeup.

The cash-strapped North African country, a key route for migrants trying to make their way to Europe, has since seen a rise in racially motivated attacks.

Tensions came to a head after a Tunisian man was killed on July 3 in an clash between locals and migrants in the city of Sfax.

Since then, hundreds of migrants fled their homes in Tunisia or were forcibly evicted and driven to desert areas along the borders with Algeria and Libya, left to fend for themselves in searing heat.

Speaking at the Tunisian presidential palace, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Sunday's accord aims to "invest in shared prosperity".

"We need an effective cooperation, more than ever" on migration, von der Leyen said, announcing greater cooperation against "networks of smugglers and traffickers" and in search and rescue operations.

She was accompanied by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and her Dutch counterpart Mark Rutte, who were all in Tunisia in June for talks on ways to curb irregular migration.

- 'Unlimited generosity' -

Tunisia lies about 130 kilometres (80 miles) from the Italian island of Lampedusa, and has long been a departure point for migrants risking perilous sea journeys on makeshift boats in hopes of reaching Europe.

The International Organization for Migration has said 2,406 migrants died or disappeared in the Mediterranean in 2022, while at least 1,166 deaths or disappearance were recorded in the first half of 2023.

Meloni on Sunday welcomed "a new and important step to deal with the migration crisis", and invited Saied to an international conference on migration on July 23.

Rutte said both the European Union and "the Tunisian people" stand to benefit from the agreement, noting that the EU is Tunisia's biggest trading partner.

The deal also covers financial aid to schools in Tunisia and renewable energy initiatives.

Saied meanwhile called for a "collective agreement on inhuman immigration and (forced) displacements of people by criminal networks".

He insisted that Tunisia "gave the migrants everything it can offer with unlimited generosity".

Hours before the announcement, AFP correspondents at the Tunisian-Libyan border saw dozens of exhausted and dehydrated migrants in a desert area, claiming they were taken there by Tunisian authorities.

In June, von der Leyen had offered Tunisia 105 million euros (around $115 million) to support measure to curb irregular migration and 150 million euros in immediate support, as well as a long-term loan of around 900 million euros.

- IMF loan 'diktats' -

But the long-term loan would be contingent on approval of the nearly $2 billion loan currently with the International Monetary Fund, that has stalled over differences with Saied, who assumed near total governing powers since 2021.

Von der Leyen said the EU remains "ready to support Tunisia" and provide the funds "as soon as the necessary conditions are met".

But Saied has repeatedly rejected what he calls the "diktats" of the IMF before a loan is granted, even as the country struggles under crippling inflation and debt estimated at around 80 percent of its gross domestic product.

On Sunday, Saied stood his ground saying he rejects IMF demands to lift subsidies on basic products and services, namely oil and electricity, as well as the restructuring of 100 state-owned firms.

"We must find ways to cooperate outside the framework of monetary institutions that were set up after the second world war," he said.

- Stuck in the desert -

Earlier on Sunday, Libyan border agent Mohamad Abou Snenah told AFP near the Tunisian border that "the number of migrants (coming from Tunisian) keep rising every day," adding that his patrol had so far rescued 50 to 70 people.

Ibrahim, a Congolese migrant who used to live in the Tunisian city of Zarzis, told AFP he was stopped on the street on his way back from work.

"They dropped us in the desert," he said. "We've been in the desert for many days."

Tunisian rights groups said on Friday that between 100 and 150 migrants, including women and children, were still stuck on the border with Libya.

The Tunisian Red Crescent said it has provided shelter to more than 600 migrants who had been taken this month the militarised zone of Ras Jedir on the Mediterranean coast.

Moscow takes control of Russian subsidiary of Danone and Carlsberg's stake in brewer

Reuters
Sun, July 16, 2023

MOSCOW (Reuters) -The Russian state has taken control of French yoghurt maker Danone's Russian subsidiary along with beer company Carlsberg's stake in a local brewer, according to a decree signed by President Vladimir Putin on Sunday.

The decree said that foreign-owned stakes in Danone Russia and Baltika Breweries were being put under the "temporary management" of government property agency Rosimushchestvo.

It comes after the Russian subsidiaries of Germany's Uniper and Finland's Fortum were taken under state control in April.

The Kremlin warned at the time it could seize more Western assets on what it said was a temporary basis in retaliation for foreign moves against Russian companies abroad after Moscow sent thousands of its troops into Ukraine last year.

Carlsberg said in a statement late on Sunday it had "not received any official information from the Russian authorities regarding the presidential decree or the consequences for Baltika Breweries".

It added that the prospects for full disposal of its business in Russia were now highly uncertain. Carlsberg said in June it had signed an agreement to sell its Russian business, subject to regulatory approvals.

Danone said in a statement that it was investigating the issue, adding that the Kremlin's decision would have no impact on its financial guidance for 2023.

The French company said last October it was seeking a buyer for its dairy food business in Russia, in a deal that could lead to a write-off of up to 1 billion euros ($1.12 billion).

(Reporting by Caleb Davis and Darya Korsunskaya; Additional reporting by Louise Breusch Rasmussen in Copenhagen and Lavanya Sushil Ahire in Bengaluru; Editing by Andrew Osborn and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)

A timeline of China's 32-month Big Tech crackdown that killed the world's largest IPO and wiped out trillions in value

South China Morning Post
Sat, July 15, 2023

Chinese authorities initiated a regulatory storm against the country's Big Tech firms in late 2020 out of concerns that the country's major internet platforms were becoming too large and powerful.

Beijing's discipline of the tech sector wiped out trillions of dollars in market value from Chinese tech companies, kneecapped one of the most dynamic sectors in the world's second largest economy, and accelerated US-China decoupling. As a result, China's large tech companies, which once rivalled their US counterparts in size, are now much smaller.

Here are the major milestones of China's Big Tech crackdown that kicked off 32 months ago.

Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team.

November 2020

An initial public offering from Ant Group, which would have been the world's largest on record, was called off at the last minute in Shanghai and Hong Kong, sending shock waves through the global investment community. The IPO was quashed after a controversial speech the previous month from Alibaba Group Holding co-founder Jack Ma. Ant is the fintech affiliate of Alibaba, owner of the South China Morning Post.

China's financial watchdogs rushed to bring Ant's operations under the purview of conventional financial regulations, forcing the tech giant to undergo internal restructuring.

Later in the month, Chinese authorities summoned 27 major internet companies, including Tencent Holdings, food delivery giant Meituan, as well as TikTok owner ByteDance and Alibaba, lecturing them to correct alleged monopolistic practices, unfair competition and counterfeiting. China's antitrust watchdog, the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR), rushed an antitrust guideline to rein in internet-based monopolies.

December 2020

China's top leaders highlighted at the annual Central Economic Work Conference that the country must prevent the "disorderly expansion of capital", a goal used to curb the influence and size of Big Tech. The message to investors and entrepreneurs was that the "barbaric" growth of China's internet industry was over.

On Christmas Eve, the SAMR announced that it had officially launched an antitrust investigation into Alibaba.

In a speech at the Bund Summit in Shanghai on October 24, 2020, Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma Yun compared Chinese banks to pawnshops. Photo: WEIBO alt=In a speech at the Bund Summit in Shanghai on October 24, 2020, Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma Yun compared Chinese banks to pawnshops. Photo: WEIBO>


April 2021

China's market regulator fined Alibaba a record 18.2 billion yuan (US$2.8 billion), equivalent to 4 per cent of its 2019 revenue, for abusing "its dominant market position in China's online retail platform service market since 2015".

The antitrust authority then summoned 34 technology companies, including Alibaba, Tencent and Meituan, for a meeting and demanded they "pay full heed to the warning of Alibaba's case".

July 2021

China's market regulator started to look into merger cases dating back to the early 2000s and fined Big Tech firms for failing to report certain deals for an antitrust review. It issued at least 22 fines of 500,000 yuan each - the maximum penalty allowed under China's anti-monopoly law - against Alibaba, Tencent and ride-hailing giant Didi Global.

As a result, Big Tech mergers and acquisitions plummeted, and companies started to divest previous investments to downsize their balance sheets.

China's powerful internet regulator, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), also launched an unprecedented probe into Didi for violations of data and national security, two days after it launched a US$4.4 billion IPO on the New York Stock Exchange. The move opened a new front in the Big Tech crackdown, bringing Chinese IPOs in the US to a halt.

Didi was ordered to stop registering new users on its main app. Two months later, China's Data Security Law came into force.

Signage at the Didi Global offices in Hangzhou on August 2, 2022. Photo: Bloomberg alt=Signage at the Didi Global offices in Hangzhou on August 2, 2022. Photo: Bloomberg>

October 2021

China fined Meituan 3.4 billion yuan for abusing its dominant market position using what it referred to as a "pick one from two" practice that forced merchants into exclusive deals. The fine was equivalent to about 3 per cent of Meituan's total domestic revenue of 114.7 billion yuan in 2020.

January 2022

China's regulatory storm started to ebb when authorities released a guideline promoting the "healthy and sustainable development" of the platform economy. It reaffirmed Beijing's commitment to cracking down on monopolies, unfair competition and abuse of data, but the document also struck a more positive tone by recognising the role Big Tech firms play in the economy and encouraging their development.

May 2022

Vice-Premier Liu He told a few tech executives that the government would support the development of the sector and public listings, giving tech stocks a shot in the arm and raising hopes that the worst of Beijing's regulatory scrutiny was over.

July 2022

The CAC imposed a fine of 8 billion yuan on Didi Global for data violations, ending the year-long investigation.

December 2022

President Xi Jinping addressed the Central Economic Work Conference in Beijing. The meeting concluded that internet platforms will be supported to "fully display their capabilities" in boosting the economy, job creation and international competition.

January 2023

Didi Global said it had resumed new user registrations for its ride-hailing app, after getting approval from the CAC.

The same month, Ant Group and 13 other platform companies said they "have basically completed business rectification" under the guidance and supervision of financial regulators after being ordered to address various compliance issues in late 2020.

July 2023

Two-and-a-half years after the government killed Ant Group's IPO, financial regulators fined the fintech giant a total of 7.1 billion yuan for breaking rules related to "corporate governance and financial consumer protection". The move was seen by industry experts as the end of China's crackdown on the tech sector.

Chinese Premier Li Qiang later offered support to major tech companies at a symposium while China's powerful economic planning agency praised Alibaba, Tencent and Meituan for their contributions to the country's growth and technological progress.

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2023 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

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