Opinion: Wall Street predators destroyed Toys 'R' Us. Now they're coming for Simon & Schuster

Aliya Sabharwal
Fri, August 11, 2023 

When new owners drove Toys 'R' Us into bankruptcy for a quick profit, they cost 33,000 workers their jobs.

The venerable publishing house Simon & Schuster will soon be owned by one of the nation’s biggest private equity firms, KKR. For a glimpse of their future — and tips on how to fight back — Simon & Schuster authors and employees might want to chat with the former workers of Toys ‘R’ Us. There are 33,000 of them, and their company was driven into bankruptcy five years ago by a clutch of Wall Street firms led by KKR.

That’s a common script. Private equity is a 40-year-old Wall Street creation that thrives on cost-cutting, wealth extraction, short time horizons, and financial engineering. It bought, sold, and liquidated its way through the American retail sector years ago, and is now jumping into traditional book publishing, a business that demands patience, an appetite for risky new authors and deft marketing. Can Simon & Schuster survive, as KKR is infamously known, the “barbarians at the gate”?

Read more: Op-Ed: How to stop hedge funds from wrecking local news

The private equity model is to loot and flip, not to invest or run companies well — an ominous history for any acquisition, but especially for a business requiring long-term commitments, like book publishing. That said, there are policy options for change, from Washington to Sacramento, and models for workers to fight back.

Private equity firms raise money from pension funds, endowments and wealthy individuals and use a slice of that money plus a lot of leverage to buy companies that are then saddled with the debt. The Simon & Schuster transaction will leave the publisher $1 billion in hock, ratcheting up pressure to repay the debt — and turn a profit.

Those former Toys ‘R’ Us employees can attest to how that goes. When a group led by KKR bought Toys ‘R’ Us for $6.6 billion in 2005, it used $5 billion in debt. Then it kept squeezing. The new owners eliminated positions and offloaded responsibilities onto other employees, while pressuring workers to sign up customers for high-margin sweeteners like credit cards and “payment protection plans.”

Read more: Opinion: Why do I hoard more books than I could possibly read? An investigation

KKR and its partners sold off Toys ‘R’ Us real estate, pocketed the money and forced the retailer to lease back its buildings. Along the way, KKR and the other firms paid themselves $250 million in “management fees” and big bonuses to hand-picked executives — right before Toys ‘R’ Us entered bankruptcy.

KKR’s story tracks the march of private equity through the American economy. Retail proved lucrative for KKR and other private equity firms, but 52,000 workers paid the price in California alone.

Healthcare has also proved a juicy target; KKR bankrupted Envision Healthcare, a staffing service for emergency rooms, with a heavy debt load. KKR, Blackstone and others have contributed to the housing crisis through their ownership of single-family homes, further excluding, especially, Black Americans from homeownership. An investigation of KKR ownership of care facilities for disabled people revealed appalling conditions, including at its California locations, part of a broader problem of private equity in the care economy.

Read more: Op-Ed: What do artists and their fans owe each other?

Wall Street is no stranger to the creative industries. Blackstone, a private equity rival to KKR, has wrangled with recording artists over its ownership of companies that pay royalties. If KKR seeks a bigger slice of the income pie at Simon & Schuster — as opposed to growing the pie with new authors and titles — pressure on authors could go the same way.

Because debt both lubricates the private equity machine and raises pressure to slash costs and curb investment, any solution must realign incentives so that executives who load up a company with debt end up responsible for it. The Stop Wall Street Looting Act, introduced in 2018, would pierce the liability shield between private equity firms and the companies they purchase, giving creditors recourse to recover debt from Wall Street dealmakers.

Other measures could curb the worst abuses. Proposals in Congress would eliminate tax deductions for big corporate landlords to reduce incentives to bid up the cost of housing. Measures by health industry regulators could limit reimbursements to private equity-owned providers to deter harmful ownership forms. More states could also pass mandatory severance laws — New Jersey has led the way — to cushion the impact of mass layoffs. Minnesota’s state attorney general, Keith Ellison, is suing a private equity-owned home rental company for failing to maintain its properties.

Read more: A map of 1,001 novels to show us where to find the real America

And workers can fight back. Former employees of Toys ‘R’ Us won a $20-million severance fund after its bankruptcy through an astute mix of people power and political pressure. Tenants are organizing in San Diego to combat abuses by Blackstone, which has tried to outflank rent stabilization laws by driving existing tenants out through eviction or neglect.

Don’t worry about the folks at KKR. Its founders, Henry Kravis and George Roberts, are each worth about $11 billion after long careers on Wall Street. But based on their track record, the outlook for Simon & Schuster, publisher of important authors like Ernest Hemingway, Siddhartha Mukherjee and Doris Lessing, darkened considerably this week.

Aliya Sabharwal is a campaigns manager for private equity at Americans for Financial Reform and a former organizer of laid-off Toys ‘R’ Us employees.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Paramount to sell Simon & Schuster to KKR for $1.62 billion


Toy figures of people are seen in front of the displayed Paramount + logo, in this illustration

Mon, August 7, 2023 
By Samrhitha A and Dawn Chmielewski

(Reuters) -Paramount Global said it would sell Simon & Schuster to private-equity firm KKR & Co for $1.62 billion in cash, ending a year-long attempt to sell the marquee book publisher.

Shares of the media company rose 4% in extended trading after Paramount also beat estimates for second-quarter earnings, riding on strong growth in its streaming business.

Paramount has been trying to offload Simon & Schuster, the publisher of authors such as Stephen King and Hillary Clinton, since a federal judge blocked its $2.2 billion sale to Penguin Random House last year.

"Simon Schuster is a fantastic asset, but ... it's not core," CEO Bob Bakish said on a post-earnings call.

Bakish did not provide an update on the sale of other company assets. The company is exploring the sale of a majority stake in BET Media Group, which includes the BET cable network.

Paramount will receive gross proceeds of $2.2 billion from the sale of Simon & Schuster, including a $200 million termination fee paid by Penguin Random House and the cash flow it received during the process. It expects to use the proceeds to pay down debt.

The move comes at a time when the company is striving to bolster its streaming service, Paramount+, in a fiercely competitive industry dominated by Netflix and Disney+.

Revenue in the direct-to-consumer unit, home to Paramount+ and PlutoTV, grew 39% in the second quarter, helping offset a 29% decline in the filmed entertainment business

Total revenue was $7.62 billion, above estimates of $7.43 billion, according to Refinitiv data. Adjusted profit of 10 cents per share was also better than expectations for the company to break even.

Finance chief Naveen Chopra promised "significant earnings improvement" in the streaming business next year and projected a 20% rise in average revenue per user on Paramount+ in 2024.

The company implemented the first price increase for Paramount+ and launched the integrated Paramount+-Showtime service during the quarter. Its streaming unit's operating loss narrowed to $424 million from $445 million a year ago.

Still, the company faces risks from the ongoing strikes by Hollywood writers and actors, which have disrupted the production of scripted series for the fall TV season and halted work on films.

As production of most scripted series has stopped, Bakish said CBS would fill its fall lineup with hits such as "Yellowstone" and streaming shows such as "SEAL Team."


It also licensed the rights to the U.K. version of "Ghosts," to pair with the U.S. version of the show.

"Strikes do present some marketing challenges, though the film slate for the rest of the year is stacked," Bakish said, adding that it was too soon to predict its impact on 2024 films.

Upcoming film releases include "Killers of the Flower Moon," which will be released in theaters in October before coming to Apple TV+, as well as "Mean Girls" the musical.

(Reporting by Samrhitha Arunasalam in Bengaluru and Dawn Chmielewski in Los Angeles; Editing by Anil D'Silva)

Belgium is celebrating flowers and surrealism. And nothing is what it seems



Fri, August 11, 2023

BRUSSELS (AP) — If elephants are really known for their sense of direction, what are nine of them doing in the heart of Brussels, seemingly lost between the gothic and baroque houses lining the UNESCO-protected Grand Place?

As of Friday, nothing is quite what it seems as the Belgian capital celebrates the nation's love of surrealism.

The nine life-sized wooden elephants were brought in from the Verbeke art center about an hour's drive north of Brussels to be the prime attraction of Flowertime, a biennial festival highlighting the nation's fling with flowers.


Only this time, surrealism adds a twist. And no symbol more potent than Rene Magritte's pipe, subtitled, “This is not a pipe.” It is a painting of a pipe, after all — and it has come to define Belgian surrealism ever since.

Now a similar non-pipe — a sculpture of a pipe — graces the interior yard of City Hall, which for the occasion has been renamed, “This is not a city hall.” On the pipe sculpture, flowers hang over the edges of the pipe's bowl, like smoke billowing out.

Back on the adjacent Grand Place, the elephants are to draw the visitors in. Their imaginary footprints on the cobblestones are made of white flowers.

“You don’t expect to find elephants here in the city center of Brussels on the Grand Place, it’s unbelievable. So that’s a bit surrealistic of course,” said artist Dennis Van Der Meer, who was busy giving the wooden animals a floral skin.

Flowers also run riot inside City Hall too. Leila Floral, her professional name, is taking care of the stairs and uses the surroundings as much as she can to produce a cascade. “My flowers will fall down like a waterfall,” she said.

Close by, under a sign reading, “This is not death,” florists have littered the floor of a marble corridor with coffins, and added flowered casks for good measure.

Even the mayor's personal office had a floral makeover. Stacks of unpaid bills and invoices are held together by an equally chaotic flower arrangement. The bills suggest that perhaps some realism did seep into the show.

One thing is sure about the show: Because flowers wilt, it will be over on Tuesday.

Raf Casert And Mark Carlson, The Associated Press

St. Louis activists praise Biden's support for compensation over Manhattan Project contamination


Fri, August 11, 2023 

ST. LOUIS (AP) — St. Louis-area activists have been fighting for years to get government compensation for people with cancer and other serious illnesses potentially connected to Manhattan Project nuclear contamination. This week marked a major victory, with support coming from the president.

Uranium was processed in St. Louis starting at the onset of World War II as America raced to develop nuclear bombs. In July, reporting as part of an ongoing collaboration between The Missouri Independent, the nonprofit newsroom MuckRock and The Associated Press cited thousands of pages of documents indicating decades of nonchalance and indifference for the risks posed by uranium contamination. The government documents were obtained by outside researchers through the Freedom of Information Act and shared with the news organizations.

Since the news reports, bipartisan support has emerged to compensate those in St. Louis and elsewhere whose illnesses may be tied to nuclear fallout and contamination. On Wednesday, that support extended to President Joe Biden.

“I’m prepared to help in terms of making sure that those folks are taken care of,” Biden said during a visit to New Mexico.

Dawn Chapman and Karen Nickel, who lead the activist group Just Moms STL, said they’re optimistic but not letting up.

“It’s a great day,” Chapman said. “We feel incredible. But we don’t take the time to celebrate it. For us, it’s like we have a strong wind at our back. Now who do we push? We don’t let up for a moment.”

The push for compensation has united politicians with virtually nothing else in common. Republican U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, of Missouri, is an ardent supporter. So is U.S. Rep. Cori Bush, a St. Louis Democrat.

Hawley introduced legislation last month to expand an existing compensation program for exposure victims. The Senate endorsed the amendment, but the proposed changes to the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act are not yet included in a House-approved defense bill amid negotiations toward final legislation.

St. Louis is far from alone in suffering the effects of the geographically scattered national nuclear program. Advocates have been trying for years to bring awareness to the lingering effects of radiation exposure on the Navajo Nation, where millions of tons of uranium ore were extracted over decades to support U.S. nuclear activities.

Months after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, Mallinckrodt Chemical Co. in St. Louis began processing uranium into a concentrated form that could be further refined elsewhere into the material that made it into weapons.

By the late-1940s, the government was trucking nuclear waste from the Mallinckrodt plant to a site near Lambert Airport. It was there that the waste was dumped into Coldwater Creek, contaminating a waterway that was a popular place for kids to play. Just last year, Jana Elementary School, which sits near the creek, was shut down over possible contamination, even though studies conducted by the Army Corps of Engineers found none.

In 1966, the Atomic Energy Commission demolished and buried buildings near the airport and moved the waste to another site, contaminating it, too. Documents cited by AP and the other news organizations showed that storage was haphazard and waste was spilled on roads but that mistakes were often ignored.

Uranium waste also was illegally dumped in West Lake Landfill, near the airport, in 1973. It's still there.

Cleanup in St. Louis County has topped $1 billion, and it's far from over.

Meanwhile, uranium was processed in neighboring St. Charles County starting in the 1950s, creating more contamination. The government built a 75-footmound, covered in rock, to serve as a permanent disposal cell, and the area is considered remediated.

Some experts are skeptical about the connection between diseases and the contamination. Tim Jorgensen, a professor of radiation medicine at Georgetown University, told the AP in July that the biggest risk factor for cancer is age and that local radiation’s contribution would be so low as to be hard to detect.

Still, in 2019, the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry issued a report that found people who regularly played in Coldwater Creek as children from the 1960s to the 1990s may have a slight increased risk of bone cancer, lung cancer and leukemia. The agency determined that those exposed daily to the creek starting in the 2000s, when cleanup began, could have a small increased risk of lung cancer.

Many of those with direct connections to illnesses are far more convinced. Kyle Hedgpeth's young daughter and niece both were diagnosed with cancer in 2020, within a month of each other. Both have since recovered.

Hedgpeth's wife and her brother grew up near a creek that flows from the St. Charles County site. He believes they picked up something from exposure to the creek and passed it down to their girls.

“It seems all too coincidental,” Hedgpeth said. “I just think there's too many red flags literally putting it in their backyard to ignore it.”

Jim Salter, The Associated Press

More than 1 million barrels of oil removed from deteriorating tanker moored off Yemen, UN says

The Canadian Press
Fri, August 11, 2023



NEW YORK (AP) — The transfer of more than a million barrels of oil from an aging tanker moored off the coast of war-torn Yemen has been completed, avoiding an environmental disaster, the United Nations said Friday.

In a statement, Farhan Haq, the deputy spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said the operation had prevented “monumental environmental and humanitarian catastrophe.”

An international team began siphoning the oil from the dilapidated vessel known as SOF Safer on July 25. All of the oil is now aboard a replacement tanker called MOST Yemen.

Before the transfer, the Safer carried four times as much oil as was spilled in the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster off Alaska, one of the world’s worst ecological catastrophes, according to the U.N.

International organizations and rights groups warned for years of the potential for a spill or an explosion involved the tanker, which has not been maintained and has seawater in its engine compartment and damaged pipes.

It is moored 6 kilometers (3.7 miles) from Yemen’s western Red Sea ports of Hodeida and Ras Issa, a strategic area controlled by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels who are at war with the internationally recognized Yemeni government.

The warring sides blamed each other for blocking a salvage operation to remove the oil until a U.N.-led initiative succeeded in accessing the ship and raising money from international donors.

The transfer marks a major milestone in a plan that needs additional funding to transport the oil away and to move the SOF Safer. The U.N. said a small amount of oil remains inside the Safer's hull and that the salvage team needs to install a secure system for mooring the replacement tanker in deep water.

“As much of the 1.14 million barrels has been extracted as possible,” the U.N. statement said. “However, less than 2% of the original oil cargo remains mixed in with sediment that will be removed during the final cleaning of the Safer.”

David Gressly, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator, said Friday that during the cleaning phase a sea water wash will be applied in a bid “to extract as much liquid oil as possible.” It remains unclear how long this next phase will take.

The United States welcomed the news of the operation's success and called on other countries to contribute to see the job through to the end.

“The U.N. urgently needs the international community and private sector’s financial support to fill the remaining $22 million funding gap needed to finish the job and address all remaining environmental threats,” U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said.

The tanker, a Japanese-made vessel built in the 1970s, was sold to the Yemeni government during the 1980s to store for export up to 3 million barrels pumped from oil fields in eastern Yemen's Marib province. The ship is 360 meters (1,181 feet) long with 34 storage tanks.

Peter Berdowski, CEO of maritime services company Boskalis, said the Safer's former cargo was now inside a “modern double-hulled tanker.” The U.N. contracted a Boskalis subsidiary, SMIT Salvage, to remove the oil.

He congratulated the company's salvage team for "carrying out the work under very challenging conditions in the Red Sea.”

Yemen’s ruinous civil war began in 2014 when the Houthis seized the capital of Sanaa and much of northern Yemen and forced the government into exile. A Saudi-led coalition, including the UAE, intervened the following year to try to restore the internationally recognized government to power.

“In the midst of a conflict zone, remarkable things become possible. Many thought this was an impossible salvage operation,” said Adam Steiner, chief of the U.N. Development Program.

Edith M. Lederer And Jack Jeffery, The Associated Press

Federal government releases new draft regulations on clean electricity


Thu, August 10, 2023

OTTAWA — Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault released draft regulations Thursday that are designed to clean Canada's electricity grid in an affordable way by 2035.

The regulations would drive up the cost of energy slightly, but federal officials say that would be offset by the savings expected to come from moving away from fossil fuels.

The government has set a target of making the electricity grid net-zero by 2035, and the regulationsare meant to help guide the way.


The Environment and Climate Change Department estimates the average household energy bill will increase by $35 to $61 per year by 2040 if the regulations are adopted, but only two per cent of that increase will come as a result of the regulations.

The government plans to cover up to half of the cost of the regulations through tax credits, low-cost financing and other funds, which could mean even less cost is passed on to consumers, Guilbeault said at a press conference in Toronto.

The minister also said he expects increases to be offset as people move away from fossil fuels to heat their homes, cook food or power vehicles.

Overall, Canadians are expected to spend 12 per cent less on energy by 2050, government estimates show.

"Shifting to clean electricity saves households on their energy bills, away from the shocks of yo-yo-ing gas and oil prices," Guilbeault said.

Conservatives are highly critical of the 2035 target and the potential cost it represents to consumers.

"This government has already increased the carbon tax and poured billions of dollars of fuel on the inflationary fire; now, they are going to ratchet up the cost of the electricity that is a necessity for families and businesses across Canada to literally keep the lights on," Conservative environment critic Gérard Deltell said in a written statement Thursday.

Electricity infrastructure expenses are expected to increase significantly over the next several decades. It's estimated infrastructure maintenance and increased demand will cost $400 billion by 2050.

The country's grid is already nearly 85 per cent clean, but demand is expected to double by 2050 as things like cars, buses and trains become electric, and homes and buildings switch away from fossil-fuel heating sources.

"Why not make sure that this build-out is clean and affordable?" Guilbeault posited.

The government expects the draft regulations would decrease greenhouse-gas emissions by 342 million tonnes between 2024 and 2050.

Provincial governments in Alberta and Saskatchewan say they can't meet the 2035 goal, preferring to set the target for 2050.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith called the draft regulations unconstitutional and irresponsible.

"They will not be implemented in our province – period," Smith vowed in a statement Thursday.

Alberta Environment Minister Rebecca Schulz said the rules set the stage for an astronomically expensive and ultimately unreliable power supply.

In an interview Thursday afternoon, Guilbeault said he believes the department struck a "good balance" after consulting with provinces, territories, private and public utilities, investors, sector experts and Indigenous groups.

The federal government has been seeking feedback on the regulatory framework for nearly a year and will consult on the draft regulations for 75 days, with a final version expected to be published in January 2025.

They won't come into effect until 2035, but given the long lead time needed to build new electricity infrastructure, Guilbeault said the government wants to give the industry plenty of notice.

"One thing we've heard from investors, from energy companies, is: 'Tell us what the rules are, and we will comply with them,'" he said of the consultations so far.

Guilbeault said the draft regulations are designed to be affordable and achievable with technology that is already being used across the country.

"Clean electricity is already the most cost-effective in Canada, even after accounting for its variability," said Jason Dion, senior research director with the Canadian Climate Institute.

"There are many ways to ensure the grid remains reliable as the share of wind and solar electricity grows, including flexible electricity demand, battery storage and greater provincial interconnection."

The regulations are also intended to show some flexibility, the minister said, and would allow electricity that doesn't meet the new net-zero standard to support the power grid during periods of peak demand.

Electricity Canada has asked for more information about how that will work, among other clarifications.

Schulz dismissed the proposal to allow gas-powered plants to backstop peak energy demand.

"Alberta's natural gas power plants cannot simply be kept in the cupboard and brought out to turn on and off whenever they're needed," Schulz told reporters in Calgary.

She also rejected a proposed regulation to allow power plants operating in 2025 to be exempt from greenhouse gas emissions caps for 20 years, in effect allowing some to go past the 2035 deadline.

"Who’s going to build that plant with a lifespan of 20 years?" she asked.

"It's a bait-and-switch. It's not going to work for Albertans or quite frankly, a number of other provinces across the country."

Guilbeault said the regulations are still a draft, and the consultations will continue.

"If there are things that aren't clear, if there are some clarifications that are needed, we will certainly provide that in the coming months," he said.

The regulations also exempt remote communities that aren't part of the power grid.

Federal and provincial governments are working together on plans and projects to reduce and eliminate the dependence on fossil fuels in remote communities, the minister said.

"We understand we're not there yet, which is why we've decided to ensure that the regulations wouldn't apply to them," he said.

He would not say if they have a timeline in mind to make clean electricity more accessible to those areas.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 10, 2023.

-- With files from Dean Bennett in Edmonton.

Laura Osman, The Canadian Press

Ontario premier refuses to back away from plans to build on protected Greenbelt

The Canadian Press
Fri, August 11, 2023 



MISSISSAUGA, Ont. — Ontario Premier Doug Ford says he will not back away from plans to build on the protected Greenbelt despite a damning auditor general report and experts saying his housing targets can be met by building elsewhere.

Ford says no one received preferential treatment in the process to open the Greenbelt to housing construction, despite Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk concluding the process was biased and favoured certain developers with ties to the housing minister.

Last year, the Ford government opened up 7,400 acres of the Greenbelt to development while adding about 9,400 acres elsewhere as part of its bid to build 1.5 million homes.

Local planners in the three regions where the land was removed along with the province's housing task force say the land is not needed to meet housing construction targets.

The Integrity Commissioner of Ontario is reviewing a request from Ford to look into Housing Minister Steve Clark's chief of staff, Ryan Amato.

Lysyk found that developers who had access to Amato at a housing conference dinner last September wound up with 92 per cent of the land that was removed from the Greenbelt.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 11, 2023.

The Canadian Press

Quebec power utility studies possible reopening of Gentilly-2 nuclear reactor

The Canadian Press
Thu, August 10, 2023 



MONTREAL — Quebec's hydroelectric utility is studying whether to reopen the province's only nuclear power generating station as a response to a growing demand for clean energy.

Hydro-Québec confirmed Thursday that it's looking into restarting the Gentilly-2 reactor in Bécancour, Que., on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River about halfway between Montreal and Quebec City. The plant opened in 1983 and closed in 2012.

"Concerning Gentilly-2, an assessment of the plant's current condition is underway, in order to evaluate our options and inform our thinking about Quebec's future energy supply," the utility said in a statement.

The Crown corporation expects demand for clean energy to increase "significantly" as efforts to reduce carbon emissions continue.

It would be "irresponsible" to exclude certain energy sources, such as nuclear power, amid this "immense challenge," it said, citing an "open mind" on the part of its new CEO, Michael Sabia.

But Pierre-Olivier Pineau, professor of energy sector management at the HEC Montréal business school, doubts reviving nuclear power would be profitable in Quebec.

In 2012, the provincial government under then-premier Pauline Marois accepted Hydro-Québec's recommendation to close Gentilly-2, in part because of the high cost of refurbishing the plant.

"More than 10 years later, costs can only go up because we've started dismantling the plant," Pineau explained in an interview. An increase in construction costs in the last decade means "the nuclear bill could turn out to be very high," he said.

The professor pointed to alternatives to expand the energy supply, such as increasing energy efficiency in homes, wind, solar and geothermal power. "All this can help us reduce our consumption" at a lower cost, he said. "And it would avoid the debates that are always difficult on technologies like nuclear, where there are risks (and) there is waste management that is never easy."

That doesn't mean nuclear power is inappropriate in all contexts, Pineau suggested.

"There are countries on Earth that need nuclear power because they have so much coal and no access to ... hydroelectricity or wind power," he acknowledged. In those cases, he continued, nuclear energy may be a healthier alternative to coal, which pollutes the atmosphere and whose extraction endangers the health of miners.

The announcement by Hydro-Québec comes at a time when the provincial Energy Department is conducting a consultation on the development of clean energy sources in Quebec. The ministry has pledged to table a bill on the subject this fall.

In its submission as part of the consultation, the Conseil du patronat du Québec, an organization that represents employers in the province, suggested nuclear power should not be excluded from consideration.

"Today, nuclear power generates waste. On the other hand, we know that science and technology are evolving," the organization's president, Karl Blackburn, said in an interview. "If we close the door now, we may be depriving ourselves of opportunities for tomorrow."

Greenpeace Canada spokesperson Patrick Bonin said nuclear power is an unnecessary risk for a province with many other options. "There's no doubt that if the government and Hydro-Québec want to go ahead with nuclear power again in Quebec, there will be an unprecedented outcry," Bonin said in an interview.

Quebec politicians also reacted sharply to Hydro-Québec's statement on Gentilly-2. Provincial Liberal Leader Marc Tangay called on the government to "launch a genuine national discussion on Quebec's energy future," saying in a press release that it's "unacceptable that our nation's energy future be decided behind closed doors."

Haroun Bouazzi, energy critic for left-leaning party Québec solidaire, called Hydro-Québec's position on Gentilly-2 "worrying," given the lack of evidence that nuclear power is "necessary to meet our ecological transition objectives."

Last June, Energy Minister Pierre Fitzgibbon said although he had an "intellectual" interest in nuclear power and the province would have to consider new energy sources, "today, in Quebec, we're not there."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 10, 2023.

-- With files from Stéphane Rolland

Coralie Laplante, The Canadian Press

India plans welfare measures for gig workers ahead of elections

Fri, August 11, 2023 
By Manoj Kumar

NEW DELHI, Aug 11 (Reuters) - India plans to roll out welfare measures for "gig" workers employed through platforms like Amazon, Uber and India's Zomato as Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government prepares for elections, government and trade union officials said.

The plan, part of the Social Security Code enacted in 2020, could include accident, health insurance and retirement benefits, said a senior government official with direct knowledge of the plan.

Ahead of the elections early next year, Modi's party is eager to announce steps after the northern state of Rajasthan, ruled by opposition Congress party, approved setting up a fund through a surcharge on sales at platforms.

"There is an urgency to announce relief measures for gig workers," said a government official, citing meetings with trade unions, gig platforms and state officials.

Gig workers need state protection, given rising exploitation by employers, said Ashwani Mahajan, an economic official at the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh group, which has close ties to Modi's government.

India's gig workers, those outside traditional employer-employee relationships, are rapidly becoming an important part of the world's fifth-biggest economy as the sector surged under COVID-19 restrictions and has been boosted by high unemployment.

BOOMING GIG ECONOMY

The labour ministry declined to comment on the plans. Labour Minister Bhupender Yadav told lawmakers this week any scheme for gig workers might be funded through contributions by federal and state governments, as well as the platforms.

An industry expert with direct knowledge of the discussions said the platforms unanimously agreed with the labour ministry's proposal about social security for gig workers and were ready to contribute to a "transparently" run welfare fund.

"We expect the announcement of federal measures in the next few months as players don't want to deal with multiple states."

Amazon, asked for comment on the proposed scheme and its potential costs, referred Reuters to a Thursday media statement that the company had created over 1.3 million jobs in India for delivery agents and sellers, including 140,000 in the past year, while boosting the retail business of small firms.

Uber and Zomato did not immediately respond to requests for comment.


In addition to the big-name companies, hundreds of other online platforms and the people they hire for piecemeal work would be affected, spanning services such as cab-sharing, retail, food, construction and finance.

There are no official figures for the size of India's gig economy, although private estimates put the number employed at 10 million to 15 million people. The Boston Consulting Group forecast in 2021 it had the potential to create 90 million jobs and annual transaction volumes over $250 billion.

By 2030, the government think tank NITI Aayog estimates, the gig economy could employ more than 23.5 million, about 7% of the non-farm workforce.

The government has not calculated the cost of the planned welfare measures as it must get data from the companies, said the sources, who asked not to be named because they were not authorised to speak to the media.

'WE SHOULD BE RECOGNISED'

The government could initially provide gig workers with state-funded medical and accident insurance and a mechanism to address complaints, one official said, while a setting mechanism for employers' contributions to the fund.

The measures propose employers contribute between 1% and 2% of their annual revenues to a security fund, up to 5% of the amount paid to workers, the sources said.

More than 290 million people have registered for an online government portal meant to issue identity cards to gig workers and other unorganised employees, while gathering such details as biometric data and their skills.

The government is worried about rising complaints by gig workers and social media campaign against platforms about cuts in commission and long working hours.

Blinkit, the grocery unit of food delivery platform Zomato, faced disruptions in operations in April when hundreds of workers protested over commission cuts.

"We have no channel to raise our complaints," said Uber driver Sheetal Kashyap, 47, adding women workers like her face safety risks and exploitation due to low bargaining power.

Shaik Salauddin, national general secretary of the Indian Federation of App-based Transport Workers representing over 45,000 cab drivers, said they were lobbying political parties for a package before the elections.

"We should be recognised as employees, eligible for all benefits under labour laws, including fixed working hours and decent working conditions."

(Reporting by Manoj Kumar; Additional reporting by Nigam Prusty; Editing by William Mallard)

ChatGPT fever spreads to US workplace, sounding alarm for some

ng alarm for some
FILE PHOTO: Illustration picture of ChatGPT




Fri, August 11, 2023 
By Richa Naidu, Martin Coulter and Jason Lange

LONDON/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Many workers across the U.S. are turning to ChatGPT to help with basic tasks, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found, despite fears that have led employers such as Microsoft and Google to curb its use.

Companies worldwide are considering how to best make use of ChatGPT, a chatbot programme that uses generative AI to hold conversations with users and answer myriad prompts. Security firms and companies have raised concerns, however, that it could result in intellectual property and strategy leaks.

Anecdotal examples of people using ChatGPT to help with their day-to-day work include drafting emails, summarising documents and doing preliminary research.


Some 28% of respondents to the online poll on artificial intelligence (AI) between July 11 and 17 said they regularly use ChatGPT at work, while only 22% said their employers explicitly allowed such external tools.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll of 2,625 adults across the United States had a credibility interval, a measure of precision, of about 2 percentage points.

Some 10% of those polled said their bosses explicitly banned external AI tools, while about 25% did not know if their company permitted use of the technology.

ChatGPT became the fastest-growing app in history after its launch in November. It has created both excitement and alarm, bringing its developer OpenAI into conflict with regulators, particularly in Europe, where the company's mass data-collecting has drawn criticism from privacy watchdogs.

Human reviewers from other companies may read any of the generated chats, and researchers found that similar artificial intelligence AI could reproduce data it absorbed during training, creating a potential risk for proprietary information.

"People do not understand how the data is used when they use generative AI services," said Ben King, VP of customer trust at corporate security firm Okta.

"For businesses this is critical, because users don't have a contract with many AIs - because they are a free service - so corporates won't have run the risk through their usual assessment process," King said.

OpenAI declined to comment when asked about the implications of individual employees using ChatGPT, but highlighted a recent company blog post assuring corporate partners that their data would not be used to train the chatbot further, unless they gave explicit permission.

When people use Google's Bard it collects data such as text, location, and other usage information. The company allows users to delete past activity from their accounts and request that content fed into the AI be removed. Alphabet-owned Google declined to comment when asked for further detail.

Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

'HARMLESS TASKS'

A U.S.-based employee of Tinder said workers at the dating app used ChatGPT for "harmless tasks" like writing emails even though the company does not officially allow it.

"It's regular emails. Very non-consequential, like making funny calendar invites for team events, farewell emails when someone is leaving ... We also use it for general research," said the employee, who declined to be named because they were not authorized to speak with reporters.

The employee said Tinder has a "no ChatGPT rule" but that employees still use it in a "generic way that doesn't reveal anything about us being at Tinder".

Reuters was not able independently confirm how employees at Tinder were using ChatGPT. Tinder said it provided "regular guidance to employees on best security and data practices".

In May, Samsung Electronics banned staff globally from using ChatGPT and similar AI tools after discovering an employee had uploaded sensitive code to the platform.

"We are reviewing measures to create a secure environment for generative AI usage that enhances employees' productivity and efficiency," Samsung said in a statement on Aug. 3.

"However, until these measures are ready, we are temporarily restricting the use of generative AI through company devices."

Reuters reported in June that Alphabet had cautioned employees about how they use chatbots including Google's Bard, at the same time as it markets the programme globally.

Google said although Bard can make undesired code suggestions, it helps programmers. It also said it aimed to be transparent about the limitations of its technology.

BLANKET BANS

Some companies told Reuters they are embracing ChatGPT and similar platforms, while keeping security in mind.

"We've started testing and learning about how AI can enhance operational effectiveness," said a Coca-Cola spokesperson in Atlanta, Georgia, adding that data stays within its firewall.

"Internally, we recently launched our enterprise version of Coca-Cola ChatGPT for productivity," the spokesperson said, adding that Coca-Cola plans to use AI to improve the effectiveness and productivity of its teams.

Tate & Lyle Chief Financial Officer Dawn Allen, meanwhile, told Reuters that the global ingredients maker was trialing ChatGPT, having "found a way to use it in a safe way".

"We've got different teams deciding how they want to use it through a series of experiments. Should we use it in investor relations? Should we use it in knowledge management? How can we use it to carry out tasks more efficiently?"

Some employees say they cannot access the platform on their company computers at all.

"It's completely banned on the office network, like it doesn't work," said a Procter & Gamble employee, who wished to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to speak to the press.

P&G declined to comment. Reuters was not able independently to confirm whether employees at P&G were unable to use ChatGPT.

Paul Lewis, chief information security officer at cyber security firm Nominet, said firms were right to be wary.

"Everybody gets the benefit of that increased capability, but the information isn't completely secure and it can be engineered out," he said, citing "malicious prompts" that can be used to get AI chatbots to disclose information.

"A blanket ban isn't warranted yet, but we need to tread carefully," Lewis said.

(Reporting by Richa Naidu, Martin Coulter and Jason Lange; Editing by Alexander Smith)

China salutes WWII American general Joe Stilwell in personal push to improve US ties


Thu, August 10, 2023 

China has rolled out the red carpet for the descendants of a second world war American general, commemorating the late officer as Beijing turns to informal personal contacts to improve ties between the two countries.

Yuan Jiajun, the Communist Party chief of Chongqing, met members of the family of Joseph Stilwell in the southwestern city on Wednesday.

The group included Susan Cole and Nancy Millward, the great-granddaughters of the general who was based in the city during the war and worked closely with Chinese leaders against Japanese forces.

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"[We] hope to take this visit as an opportunity ... to better promote people-to-people exchanges between China and the United States and contribute to the development of China-US relations," Chongqing Daily quoted Yuan as saying.

Members of the family have visited China before but previous commemorations have not attracted such attention.

Yuan is one of the 24 members of the Politburo, the party's inner circle, and his presence this time for the 140th anniversary of Stilwell's birth highlights Beijing's focus on informal contact with the United States.

Despite some resumption of senior-level official communication, relations with Washington remain in the doldrums and Beijing has opted to host a series of prominent American public figures to try to promote ties.

In June, Chinese President Xi Jinping told his "American friend" billionaire Bill Gates that people were the foundation of relations.

"We count on the American people, and hope for lasting friendship between the two peoples," Xi told the Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist, just days before meeting US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

In July, Xi met former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger, telling the centenarian that "we never forget our old friends".

Xi said he hoped that Kissinger and "other people of foresight" in the US could continue to play a constructive role in restoring relations between the two countries.

That theme continued on Wednesday when Yuan referred to Stilwell as "an old and good friend of the Chinese people".

"We will always remember his name," he said.

Stilwell's efforts were a key chapter in the history of US-China collaboration and he is the only high-ranking US military figure who has a museum dedicated to his memory in China.

As part of this week's events commemorating his 140th birthday, Cole and Millward planted a friendship tree at the museum in Chongqing on Tuesday together with Liu Ning and Liu Yinna, the great-grandson and great-granddaughter of Zhu De, the founder of the Chinese Red Army, which later became the People's Liberation Army.

When Stilwell died in 1946, Zhu said that not only had the US lost a great general but the Chinese people had lost a great friend.

The commemorative events also included a seminar on Tuesday, attended by more than 150 people, including representatives from the Chinese foreign ministry and the US embassy in Beijing.

China has previously saluted the legacy of the Chinese-American wartime friendship to foster relations.

In April last year, Qin Gang, then China's envoy to Washington, attended the 80th anniversary of the Flying Tigers, a group of American pilots who fought for China against Japanese forces during the second world war.

Qin addressed the event while wearing a Flying Tigers jacket sent by two US veterans.

During a trip to Chongqing in May, US ambassador to China Nicholas Burns visited the Stilwell museum and one dedicated to the Flying Tigers.

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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