Peregrine falcon chicks hatched in Edmonton now learning to hunt prey in the wild

CBC
Sun, August 20, 2023

The peregrine falcon family, two parents and three fledglings, at the Cabrini Centre nesting box before the young ones got their flying feathers. (Submitted by Janice Hurlburt - image credit)

Three peregrine falcon chicks who have been residing on top of a hospital building in west Edmonton have spread their wings.

Two of the fledglings, a male and a female, had to be rescued and are currently at a site overlooking the Pembina River where they will learn how to hunt prey.

The fledglings were hatched at a nesting site on top of the Cabrini Centre, a building on the Misericordia Hospital grounds near West Edmonton Mall.

They were taken to the Pembina River location, known as a hacking site, earlier this month. That's where they are taking their early flights in nature, surrounded by trees and water.

"It's much safer for them and it also imprints them out in the rural area as opposed to the city so that they're going to migrate south for the winter," said Janice Hurlburt, a volunteer for Falcon Watch, a group dedicated to monitoring nesting peregrine falcons in the Edmonton region.

The third fledgling, a male, came out of the nest on July 29 and ended up falling nine metres down a boiler chimney which is part of the Misericordia emergency department construction, according to Hurlburt.

The male fledging wasn't seen for five days before he was rescued and checked by WildNorth animal shelter in Edmonton.

Janice Hurlburt holding a three week old Peregrine falcon chick. She has been volunteering for Falcon Watch for eight years.

Janice Hurlburt holding a three-week-old peregrine falcon chick. Hurlburt has been volunteering for Falcon Watch for eight years. (Submitted by Janice Hurlburt)

Since then, he has fledged — grown his flying feathers — and is now flying around with his parents.

"Right from the start I referred to that male as No. 1," said Hurlburt. "He just seemed more outgoing and stronger. He was the first one to fledge, he fledged pretty well and then now he's doing super well."

Last month, volunteers from Falcon Watch put up notices at the Misericordia, the Cabrini Centre, West Edmonton Mall and surrounding areas asking people who encounter the birds at ground level to not touch them and to call someone on the volunteer team.

The volunteers took shifts, sometimes lasting up to 12 hours, to watch the fledglings.

There are a number of nesting boxes under video surveillance in the Edmonton area, including the University of Alberta, the Bell Tower downtown, and the Shell Scotford site near Fort Saskatchewan.

On the left, the female fledgling after being rescued in the Cabrini parking lot. On the right, out at the hack site on the Pembina River.

On the left, the female fledgling after being rescued in the Cabrini Centre parking lot. On the right, the same bird at the hacking site on the Pembina River. (Submitted by Janice Hurlburt)

While the nesting box at the Cabrini Centre isn't video monitored, dedicated volunteers watch and rescue the birds.

"These birds really don't go any length of time at all without somebody knowing what's going on," said Dale Gienow, WildNorth's executive director.

Falcons are natural cliff-dwellers and do well on tall buildings in urban environments because they simulate the rock ledges. But urban locations can be dangerous for peregrine falcon chicks.

"They're inexperienced flyers and they can sometimes collide with buildings or get into trouble and end up in places that aren't really great," Gienow said.

Dale Gienow is the executive director of WildNorth rescue and rehabilitation center in Edmonton.

Dale Gienow is the executive director of WildNorth rescue and rehabilitation centre in Edmonton. (David Bajer/CBC)

In the 1970s, peregrine falcons were on the brink of extinction in most provinces because of pollution from DDT, an insecticide developed to protect crops and prevent the spread of disease.

Thanks to the likes of local volunteers and conservation groups, the peregrine population in Alberta has gone from one productive pair in 1970 to an estimated 80 pairs today, according to the Alberta Conservation Association.

For people who come across an injured peregrine falcon, the best route would be to contact a wildlife conservation group or a local veterinarian who then could take the bird to WildNorth, said Gienow.

"We would assess them and then we connect them with the folks from Alberta Environment and protected areas and get them back out into the wild where they belong."

Tropical moisture seeps into Canada, but little help for B.C. fires

Digital Writers
Sun, August 20, 2023 

Tropical moisture seeps into Canada, but little help for B.C. fires

Flash flood warnings cover tens of millions of people in the southwestern United States—including Los Angeles—as Tropical Storm Hilary leaves a historic mark on the region.

The storm’s prolific moisture will flow north into Canada through the week, fuelling rain chances from British Columbia to Quebec.

Unfortunately, the rain won’t be enough to stifle the fires raging throughout B.C., which have forced thousands to flee their homes and sent air quality plummeting to dangerous levels.

BCAQ

RELATED: Canada next in line for Hilary’s rains after historic U.S. impacts

Thick wildfire smoke hugging the surface throughout southern British Columbia won’t improve much heading into Monday.

Significant fires burning near Kelowna and Kamloops have contributed to atrocious air quality readings throughout the region, forcing residents to stay inside or wear quality masks to avoid harm from the air pollution. We'll see these hazardous conditions persist through Monday.

BCSmoke
Looking ahead at Hilary’s remnants

We’ve seen some clouds and rain push into Western Canada during the day Sunday as the far-reaching outflow from Tropical Storm Hilary vents over the region.

A strong jet stream swooping over the western half of North America is giving the storm a boost, helping extend its reach from Mexico to Alberta and beyond.

Heat Dome Hilary

The storm’s tropical moisture will continue flowing north long after the system itself falls apart over California on Monday. This plume of moisture aloft will meet with a disturbance over Western Canada by the middle of the week, bringing a chance for thunderstorms and steady rainfall to portions of central B.C. and Alberta.

BCPrecip

While some areas will see 20-40 mm of rain through the coming week, the bulk of the rain will miss communities where crews are struggling to get a leg up on out-of-control fires burning through B.C.’s Interior.

Stay tuned for the latest forecast update for Western Canada.
WATCH: The best time to prepare for a hurricane is well before one forms

Click here to view the video

Two large wildfires merge to form one huge blaze in Canada as thousands more evacuated

Stuti Mishra

The Independent
Mon, 21 August 2023 

Smoke from wildfires fills the air as motorists travel on a road on the side of a mountain, in Kelowna, British Columbia (AP)

Two large wildfires raging in western Canada have combined to form one huge blaze that destroyed houses and vast swathes of land, and prompted the evacuations of thousands in the area.

British Columbia declared a state of emergency and imposed a ban on non-essential travel to free up accommodations for evacuees and firefighters, as 35,000 people were ordered to evacuate over the weekend with hundreds of wildfires continuing to burn in the state.

Government officials urged residents in evacuation order zones to leave immediately to save their lives and prevent firefighters from dying trying to rescue them.


On Sunday, prime minister Justin Trudeau announced that his government has cleared the request of the provincial government to deploy the military to tackle fast-spreading infernos.

Mr Trudeau said in a tweet that the federal government will offer support from the Canadian military “to help with evacuations, staging” and other logistical tasks, in response to a request from the British Columbia government.

At least 400 fires continue to burn in the province as strong northern winds continued to fan the flames and hundreds of firefighters struggled to control them for weeks.

In some cities in British Columbia, smoke from the wildfires plunged the air quality index (AQI) to “hazardous” levels, showed IQAir, a real-time air-quality information platform.

At midnight (0400 GMT), Salmon Arm was recording the nation’s worst air quality index, with an AQI reading of 470. Among other cities, Kelowna College and Sicamous both had the AQI at 423.

West Kelowna fire chief Jason Brolund said he saw some hope after battling “epic” fires for the past four days as he said conditions have improved, helping firefighters to put “boots on the ground” and dump water on flames that threatened the town of 150,000.

“We are finally feeling like we are moving forward rather than moving backwards, and that’s a great feeling,” Mr Brolund told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.

A map of the wildfires currently raging in British Columbia, Canada

 (The Independent/Datawrapper)

The Pacific coast province could get some rains this week from the moisture of tropical Storm Hilary, which made its historic arrival in California on Sunday, bringing some relief to the province which is in the grip of a severe drought.

Forest fires are not uncommon in Canada but this year, the country has seen its worst wildfire season on record, on the heels of record-shattering global temperatures driven by the climate crisis.

About 140,000 square km (54,054 square miles) of land, roughly the size of New York state, has been scorched nationwide, with smoky haze extending as far as the US East Coast.

Government officials project the fire season could stretch into autumn because of widespread drought-like conditions.

Additional reporting by agencies

Firefighters curb blazes threatening 2 cities in western Canada but are 'not out of the woods yet'

Evacuations have begun in the city of Yellowknife, located in the Canadian Northwest Territories. The fire had moved to within 9 miles from the city as of August 18, 2023. 

(AP Digital Embed)

DAVID SHARP, JIM MORRIS and MARTHA BELLISLE
Updated Sun, August 20, 2023

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) — Firefighters kept wildfires at bay near the capital of Canada's Northwest Territories as well as a threatened city in British Columbia, though no one claimed victory as forecasters warned that drier and windier weather was coming.

For Saturday at least, the weather was milder, providing some help for fire teams battling to contain the flames of Canada's worst fire season on record that destroyed structures, fouled the air with thick smoke and prompted evacuation orders for tens of thousands of residents.

Officials said a huge wildfire again had been kept from advancing closer than 15 kilometers (9 miles) to Yellowknife, the capital of the Northwest Territories that was left virtually empty when nearly all of its 20,000 residents fled for safety.

“We’re by no means out of the woods yet,” Mike Westwick, wildfire information officer for the city, told The Associated Press. “We still have a serious situation. It’s not safe to return.”

To the south, in British Columbia, raging flames were also kept away from Kelowna, a city of some 150,000 people about 150 kilometers (90 miles) north of the United States border.

The Kelowna fire is among more than 380 blazes across the province, with 150 burning out of control. The blaze near Yellowknife is one of 237 wildfires burning in the Northwest Territories.

At a Saturday evening news conference, Shane Thompson, the minister of environment and climate change for the Northwest Territories, said the fires near Yellowknife had not grown very much in the past few days thanks to breaks in the weather.

“But I want to be clear, a little bit of rain doesn’t mean it’s safe to come back home,” he said. Others warned that incoming hot weather would make the battle more challenging.

Yellowknife Mayor Rebecca Alty encouraged residents to stay away to ensure their safety and help with firefighting efforts. She assured people that patrols were monitoring streets and homes to protect against looting.

The city has become a virtual ghost town since residents fled following an evacuation order issued Wednesday evening. Long caravans of cars choked the main highway and people lined up for emergency flights to escape the blaze. The last 39 hospital patients were flown out Friday night on a Canadian Forces plane, officials said.

On Saturday, officials said the escape route out of Yellowknife was safe, for the time being. About 2,600 people remained in town, including emergency teams, firefighters, utility workers and police officers, along with some residents who refused to leave.

Charlotte Morritt was among those who left Thursday, reaching that decision because of the unbearable smoke that she feared would be unhealthy for her 4-month-old son.

Morritt, a journalist with the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, and her son took an evacuation flight some 1,500 kilometers (950 miles) west to safety in Whitehorse, Yukon, while her partner stayed behind to monitor their property and help create firebreaks and fight fires.

“We knew it was only a matter of time,” said Morritt, who had been following media updates and satellite images of the approaching wildfires.

Air tankers dropped water and fire retardant to keep the flames from Yellowknife. A 10-kilometer (6-mile) fire line was dug, and firefighters deployed 20 kilometers (12 miles) of hose and a plethora of pumps.

Canada has seen a record number of wildfires this year that have caused choking smoke in parts of the U.S. All told, there have been more than 5,700 fires, which have burned more than 137,000 square kilometers (53,000 square miles) from one end of Canada to the other, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre.

All of British Columbia was under a state of emergency Saturday. About 35,000 people had been ordered to evacuate wildfire zones across the province and an additional 30,000 people were under an evacuation alert, meaning they should be prepared to leave, Premier David Eby announced.

Eby told reporters Saturday that the situation was “grim” and warned that the “situation changes very quickly.”

He said he was restricting non-essential travel to fire-affected areas to free up accommodations such as hotels, motels and campgrounds for displaced residents and firefighters.

Ian Stewart and his wife made the “anxiety-producing” decision Friday to evacuate Kelowna with their 4-year-old border collie and drive 335 kilometers (210 miles) to the British Columbia town of Clearwater.

“The smoke was really oppressive and there were big chunks of ash falling everywhere,” he said Saturday. They packed a couple of suitcases, passports, laptop computers and dog food, and drove in bumper-to-bumper traffic to escape.

A shift in the wind carried smoke and haze from British Columbia into the Seattle area on Saturday, said Dustin Guy, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. The Puget Sound region was just recovering from record heat, and air quality could reach unhealthy levels Saturday night through Monday, Guy said.

___

Sharp reported from Portland, Maine, and Bellisle reported from Seattle. Associated Press journalist Andrea Thomas in Chicago contributed to this report.

A front-row seat to devastation on the shores of Lake Okanagan

The Canadian Press
Sat, August 19, 2023 



KELOWNA — The eerie calm on the Kelowna waterfront Saturday morning was broken by the faint percussive chops of helicopter blades in the distance.

There were semblances of normality — people walking their dogs or cycling down the path along the lakefront.

But hanging over Okanagan Lake was a pall of putrid wildfire smoke, and the threat posed by fires on both sides of the lake.

Dale Simpson and Steve Smith were out walking their dogs near a marina, where dozens of boats and jet skis sat idle on the docks, the water mostly free of boats due to aerial firefighting craft needing a wide berth to do their work.

Simpson, along with hundreds of others, had gone up a hillside on Thursday night to watch the McDougall Creek wildfire across the lake when embers began blowing across the lake, sparking a spot fire nearby.

The crowd had a “front-row seat” to the devastation unfolding across the water.

“You saw fire going up hundreds of feet in the air,” he said. “The whole massive mountainside hillside was ablaze.”

But when the spot fire broke out, Simpson said, people had to flee their vantage point and get in their cars, causing a “big traffic jam getting out of there.”

Evacuee Claire Blaker came out to the Kelowna waterfront on Saturday morning, shading her eyes as she squinted through the smoke in hopes of seeing if her house was still standing.

She lives in West Kelowna and watched her neighbourhood burning on Friday night as house after house went “candling” up in flames.

She thought the part she lives in might still be OK, but she was “waiting for the smoke to lift.”

Waking up Saturday morning was “pretty tough,” she said, but she feels lucky that she had the time to pack up and get out of her home before things took a turn for the worse.

“People in Maui and Lahaina had no time,” she said, referencing victims of the deadly wildfire that devastated parts of Hawaii last week. “At least we did get that time, so I'm appreciative of that.”

For Dan Teahan, going for a walk on the waterfront gave him a bit of exercise. He was offering masks to people amid the smoke.

Teahan uses a walker and has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, so he was slowing his usual pace to get some relief from the smoke.

He said he watched the fire on Thursday night. He pointed across the water, struggling to see the faint hillside through the haze.

“As far as you could see was a wall of flames on that hillside, and it was just candling,” he said. “It was like end of times, man. You know, the apocalypse is coming or something, right? It just kept going and going.”

Teahen said he has lived in Kelowna for more than 20 years and is currently worried about the city’s less fortunate rather than those at the Kelowna Yacht Club nearby.

“Those guys can take care of themselves,” he said. “They got plenty of dough.”

But Teahan said the city had been through fire crises before, and it brought out the best in people.

“The community spirit really shows in a crisis in this town. People really pull together,” he said. “There's a bunch of people here with really, really big hearts that step up to the plate when there's trouble like this.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 19, 2023.

Darryl Greer, The Canadian Press

   

Worms that secrete a dangerous paralyzing toxin spreading in Montreal

The Canadian Press
Sat, August 19, 2023



MONTREAL — An invasive worm species from Asia that secretes a dangerous, paralyzing toxin has been spotted in the Montreal area.

Lisa Osterland, a retired teacher, found some twenty hammerhead flatworms earlier this week while removing slugs that were eating flowers in her garden in Westmount, Que., a municipality on Montreal Island.

She didn’t recognize the invertebrate until she came across a CNN report a few days later indicating that hammerhead flatworms were spreading across the state of New York.

"The shape of the worm was the same as what I saw" in the garden, Osterland told The Canadian Press.

The retiree said she collected the worms at night, when they seemed to be most active, and then handed them over to a team of entomologists at the Université de Montréal. Among them was Étienne Normandin, who said the team received about 20 specimens from Osterland.

"There's a rule among biologists that when you find a specimen of an invasive species, you can multiply it by 100 to estimate the population," he said. "We're up to around forty specimens observed in recent years in Quebec, if not more. So we can estimate that the hammerhead flatworm population is in good health."

A few sightings of hammerhead flatworms have been recorded in Gatineau and Montreal in recent years, but this is the first time that so many individuals have been reported in Quebec.

Normandin described their proliferation as a cause for concern, not least because they secrete a paralyzing toxin, tetrodotoxin, "one of the most powerful molecules in the biological world" and "the same molecule produced by pufferfish."

"If a young child puts soil in his mouth and ingests a flatworm or two or more, there's a real risk of damage,” he warned. “If ingested, it's a toxin that will first attack the perioral region, i.e. the face, the tongue and everything in the esophagus."

"In such a case, the child needs to be hospitalized very quickly.”

Hammerhead flatworms are also a danger to birds, dogs and other animals that frequent gardens, as well as to soil biodiversity.

The invasive species has no local predator and preys on slugs, snails and millipedes, Normandin explained — species that, he said, "provide a very important service, which is the recycling of organic matter." The worm can therefore threaten ecological balance.

Its "negative impact on soil invertebrate communities" has already been observed in France, the entomologist noted.

"We're slowly seeing the long-term effects of this," he said. "We can expect similar damage to our soil fauna over the years."

The worm originated in Asia and was probably transported to North America on cargo ships carrying plants, Normandin said.

"Often it's found in well-off neighbourhoods," he said, citing Westmount as an example. "In these neighbourhoods, we often have a lot of landscaping, we have exotic species of plants that are beautiful" and imported from other countries.

The hammerhead flatworm was first observed in Montreal in 2018 by a member of the Université de Montréal entomology team, but Normandin theorized it may "already have been established in the neighbourhoods around Mount Royal," the large wooded hill in the heart of the city.

According to Environment and Climate Change Canada, invasive species can cost the global economy billions of dollars every year through negative impacts on forest productivity, agriculture and fisheries, as well as through measures to control their spread.

Such species represent an "emerging threat to northern Canadian ecosystems as climate warms and species intolerant of current northern climatic conditions expand their ranges," Environment and Climate Change Canada states on its website.

Traditionally, when an invasive species arrives from Asia, "the Quebec winter will kill it," Normandin said. But now, higher average temperatures due to climate change "(offer) a species like the hammerhead flatworm an extra chance to develop."

In an email exchange with The Canadian Press, Quebec’s Environment Department indicated that because, "at present, (it) is not tracking this species," its "potential to establish itself sustainably in Quebec and the impacts it could have have not been assessed."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 19, 2023.

Stéphane Blais, The Canadian Press

GENDERFUCK

'He didn't want to be pinned down': Layton Williams will perform in a dress on Strictly Come Dancing


BANG Showbiz
Sun, 20 August 2023 

Layton Williams will perform in a dress on 'Strictly Come Dancing' credit:Bang Showbiz

Layton Williams will become the first male 'Strictly Come Dancing' contestant to dance in a dress.

The 28-year-old star is planning to break new ground on the hit BBC show and has asked to be partnered with a male professional when the programme launches next month.

A source told the Sunday Mirror newspaper: "Layton made it clear very early on that he didn't want to be pinned down to just wearing male costumes.

"He wanted his Strictly outfits to reflect different sides of his personality and everyone fully supports him on that. So he will have a chance to wear Strictly dresses, as well as the men's sharp suits, when he performs. There are some really exciting looks in there. Layton can't wait to get started."

The 'Bad Education' star feels that he can "go the distance" on the show after previous same-sex couples - including Nicola Adams and Katya Jones as well as Richie Anderson and Giovanni Pernice - were voted off in the early weeks.

An insider told the Daily Mirror newspaper: "This year, everyone is hoping for a same-sex couple who can go the distance.

"Layton is a phenomenal performer and the pros will probably queue up to work with him."

The West End star's participation on 'Strictly' is said to have "ruffled a few feathers" as he is "professionally trained" in dance and was cast in the stage version of ‘Billy Elliot’ at the age of 12.

A source told the MailOnline: “He is professionally trained and has extensive experience with learning difficult choreography, which many of the contestants, especially those from a sporting or political background, will at first find impossible.

"The show has been criticised in the past for recruiting contestants with a background in dance and this year will be no different as Layton is a star in his own right and known for being an impeccable dancer on stage."

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for METROSEXUAL 

Caster Semenya wins appeal over ‘discrimination’ at European Court of Human Rights


Tom Davidson and Jeremy Ullmann
Fri, 18 August 2023

Caster Semenya was discriminated against by the introduction of rules forcing her to lower her testosterone levels in order to continue competing, according to a judgment from the European Court of Human Rights.

The 32-year-old, a two-time 800 metres Olympic champion, was legally identified as female at birth but has a condition which means her body naturally produces higher levels of testosterone than women without the condition.

She has been unable to compete at her favoured distance since the introduction of limits on testosterone levels which would have forced her to use medication.

Previous legal challenges to the Court of Arbitration for Sport and the Swiss Federal Supreme Court were rejected, but the ECHR found her human rights had been violated.

A release issued by the court stated: “The Court found in particular that the applicant had not been afforded sufficient institutional and procedural safeguards in Switzerland to allow her to have her complaints examined effectively, especially since her complaints concerned substantiated and credible claims of discrimination as a result of her increased testosterone level caused by differences of sex development (DSD).”

The release on the judgement said the ECHR chamber was a majority decision, with four of the seven representatives finding that Semenya’s rights under Articles 13 and 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights had been violated.

The chamber judgement is not final and can be referred to a Grand Chamber of the court for further consideration if a request is made.

A statement from World Athletics read: “World Athletics notes the judgment of the deeply divided Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

“We remain of the view that the DSD regulations are a necessary, reasonable and proportionate means of protecting fair competition in the female category as the Court of Arbitration for Sport and Swiss Federal Tribunal both found, after a detailed and expert assessment of the evidence.

“The case was filed against the state of Switzerland, rather than World Athletics.

“We will liaise with the Swiss Government on the next steps and, given the strong dissenting views in the decision, we will be encouraging them to seek referral of the case to the ECHR Grand Chamber for a final and definitive decision.

“In the meantime, the current DSD regulations, approved by the World Athletics Council in March 2023, will remain in place.”

George Soros foundation’s retreat from Europe could ‘turn off the lights’ for human rights

Philip Oltermann in Berlin

THE GUARDIAN
Sat, 19 August 2023 



He survived the Nazi occupation of his native Hungary, made a fortune on Wall Street and became one of the most steadfast backers of democracy and human rights in the eastern bloc.

But human rights activists and independent media fear the legacy of billionaire philanthropist George Soros, 93, could be about to be undone in his homelands, as his donor network announced it will curb its activities across the EU from 2024.

Several beneficiaries of Soros’s Open Society Foundations (OSF), chaired since the start of this year by his son Alex, told the Observer they would struggle without its support amid an authoritarian rollback.


“When the Open Society Foundations left Budapest under severe political pressure in 2018, they said they would lose their physical presence but not their focus on the region,” said Márta Pardavi, co-chair of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, a Budapest human rights NGO supported by the foundations.

But she added: “Has there really been such a positive shift in Europe over the last five years that that promise has become less relevant?”

In a July email to staff, the OSF management announced a “radical redesign to help us deliver more effectively on our mission”. “Ultimately, the new approved strategic direction provides for withdrawal and termination of large parts of our current work within the European Union, shifting our focus and allocation of resources to other parts of the world,” it said.

While 40% of the charity’s global staff will be laid off, cuts will be severest in Europe, with the 180 headcount at its Berlin headquarters cut by 80%. Staff remaining in the German capital will mainly administer the foundation’s funds in Switzerland.

Its Brussels offices will be downsized, while a branch in Barcelona will be closed by the end of the year. Of an erstwhile seven branches in the post-Soviet area only three remain in Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine and Moldova.

Soros emigrated to Britain in 1947 and later the US. As a hedge fund tycoon, he became known as “the man who broke the Bank of England” in 1992 after making $1bn betting against the pound.

In 1984, Soros started channelling his immense fortune into foundations that advanced the idea of the “open society”, with an initial focus on Hungary and other totalitarian societies in the Soviet sphere of influence.

Many European NGOs, thinktanks and research groups working on issues ranging from media freedom and migrants’ rights to state surveillance and digital regulation rely on the foundations, which spent $1.5bn on philanthropic causes in 2021.

As traditional European media outlets have struggled to live up to their role amid a drop in advertising revenue, OSF has stepped in to support independent news projects including the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism and Forbidden Stories, an encrypted online platform that allows threatened journalists to securely upload their work and be continued by others.

Soros-backed funds swooped when independent media institutions were under threat from state-linked takeovers, buying an 11.2% share in the publisher of Gazeta Wyborcza after Poland’s governing PiS party launched legal proceedings against the centre-left newspaper and ordered state-owned companies to cancel their advertising. The Guardian too receives OSF funding on specific reporting projects.

But as the OSF influence has grown, so has their unwieldy bureaucratic structure. Under the leadership of Alex Soros, 37, elected to take over as chair from his father George last December, the foundations want to shift their focus to grants “organised around specific opportunities for impact”, a spokesperson said.

Alex Soros, who grew up and was educated in the US, said: “The Open Society Foundations is changing the way we work, but my family and OSF have long supported, and remain steadfastly committed to the European project.”

The foundations say they will continue support for European Roma communities. Even critical employees expressed confidence the foundations could commit more to longer-term projects, just fewer of them.

Yet while a profound change to the structure of the organisation has long been signalled by Soros senior, the decision to achieve this via drastically reducing its headcount seems to have only emerged has been a priority under its new board of directors. Once jokingly referred to by employees as Soros’s “reading group”, the board has been slimmed down to a tighter unit dominated by family members since the baton was passed to Soros junior.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Alex Soros said that while he shared his father’s values, he was “more political”. Staffers and grantees said they have been left guessing what that means for the organisation.

Eyebrows have been raised at the Berkeley history PhD’s Instagram account, which shows him with the Pope, Bill Clinton, Kamala Harris or his “brother from another [mother]”, Edi Rama, Albania’s prime minister.

“I am ignoring it for the sake of my own sanity,” said a foundations official, who asked to remain anonymous. Another staffer invited comparisons to Succession’s Roman Roy.

While western European grantees, such as the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, are used to juggling donors on a project-by-project basis, organisations in eastern Europe have fewer options.

NGOs working in areas where human rights and technology overlap, such as digital surveillance, cannot rely on funding from governments that may have a conflict of interest.

“The OSF is one of the few bodies that hand out unrestricted core funding,” said one grantee, who asked to remain anonymous amid uncertainty over the foundation’s future strategy. “It’s what keeps the light on for human rights defenders in Europe.”

Berlin has been the hub of the foundations’ European operations after the 2018 closure of the Budapest branch under pressure from the government of strongman Viktor Orbán, once a recipient of Soros’s support.

Last week the Hungarian prime minister’s political director Balázs Orbán (no relation) posted a message on social network X, formerly known as Twitter, in which he called the Open Society Foundation “the Soros empire”. “We only truly believe that the occupying troops are leaving the continent when the last Soros soldier has left Europe and Hungary,” he said.

“If you invest in democracy, you can never expect it to yield quick returns,” Márta Pardavi said. “The need for democracy-building never really goes away. And I think George Soros knew that.”

NOT GREEN BUT BLUE H2

Ex-SAS mercenary to chair start-up turning plastic into hydrogen

Jonathan Leake
Sun, 20 August 2023

After a long history in the oil and gas industry, Simon Mann says that he has ‘turned green’ - Geoff Pugh

A former SAS mercenary once jailed for participating in a failed African coup has been appointed to lead a green energy start-up.

Simon Mann is to become chairman of Hydrogen Utopia International (HUI), a UK company that plans to create a European network of plants that will turn waste plastic into hydrogen.

It marks a turnaround for Mr Mann, who after a long history in the oil and gas industry, has said he has “turned green”.

However, his past outside the City is far more colourful.

Back in 2004, Mr Mann tried to lead a team of 60 battle-hardened mercenaries into oil-rich Equatorial Guinea to overthrow its president.

The attempted coup ended when he and his team were arrested as they transited through Zimbabwe’s Harare airport.

Mr Mann, an Old Etonian, initially said he was providing security for a mining operation in the Democratic Republic of Congo but later confirmed plans to depose the president of Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Obiang Nguema.

The failed regime change became known as the “wonga coup” for its hugely lucrative ambitions. Mann allegedly stood to gain £9m if the coup had succeeded.

Simon Mann, accused of masterminding a failed coup plot, is escorted by a guard as he arrives for the start of his trial - Matias Esono/AP

Also implicated was Sir Mark Thatcher, son of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who was subsequently given a suspended sentence and fined $500,000 (£392,000) by a South African court.

Mr Mann was jailed in Zimbabwe, then extradited to Equatorial Guinea and sentenced to another 34 years in prison. He was pardoned in 2009 by President Obiang.

Now 71, Mr Mann has since built a City career focused on companies involved in mining, oil and gas.

However, in his new role, Mr Mann will be promoting HUI’s “pyrolysis” technology, which uses heat to break plastics down into hydrogen and methane.

Mr Mann said that, given his background in oil and gas, it may seem surprising he has “now turned green”.

“However, HUI is part of that same cycle,” he said. “Waste plastics, with which the world is awash, come from oil in the first place. Our technology will turn that waste plastic back into usable fuel.”

Waging war on plastic waste is a huge but potentially profitable challenge. In 2020, Europe produced 55 million tonnes of plastics of which only a third was recycled.

The rest was sent to landfill, or burnt for energy recovery.

Some plastics are hard to recycle, including thin films, black plastics and anything contaminated with food. These are the plastics HUI’s technology will target.

It uses pyrolysis, a known technology where substances are heated to temperatures as high as 900C.

The process is oxygen-free so the plastics cannot burn. Instead, they break down to produce a mix of gases, mainly methane and hydrogen, known as syngas.

The hydrogen can then be purified and sold as fuel while the remaining syngas can be used for heating or making chemicals.

Howard White, executive director of Hydrogen Utopia International, said: “Hydrogen is already powering buses and other vehicles across the world and we believe it is the fuel of the future.”

Our technology turns plastics and other waste materials that are currently incinerated or placed in landfill sites into an energy source that is environmentally friendly and efficient.”

Meanwhile, in Equatorial Guinea, President Obiang, now 81, remains in the post he has held since 1979. Last November he won a sixth term of office in non-competitive elections – making him the world’s longest-serving ruler.

Rudderless EY gripped by soul searching as private equity circles

FORMERLY KNOWN AS ERNST AND YOUNG

Matt Oliver
Sun, 20 August 2023 

EY

EY’s staff could reasonably ask: who’s steering this ship?

Having tumbled from the lofty heights of “Project Everest” – a plan to break the business in two that collapsed after internal disagreement – bosses at Ernst & Young (EY) are asking searching questions about their future.

“We will inevitably, in the next year or so, go through a strategic review,” says Hywel Ball, chairman of EY’s UK arm and a partner of more than 25 years.


“One of the things they’ll look at is the dynamics that made us think about this transaction [Project Everest], what’s right, what’s wrong, and what lessons we need to learn… because we’ve obviously learned a lot.”

The soul searching must be put on hold for now. The Big Four consultant has been forced to fend off interest from private equity and must contend with a global downturn that has seen fees dry up just as the bill for its costly break-up plan comes due.

It has triggered a fresh round of belt-tightening, with British staff told this week that some jobs are at risk. Those who stay will see their bonuses shrink.

The gloomy outlook is par for the course as a weak global economy dents fees across the industry. But the situation at EY is more challenging given its botched demerger has left it rudderless in the storm.

Carmine Di Sibio, EY’s global chair who unsuccessfully spearheaded Project Everest, is preparing to retire next year, creating a power vacuum and an extended succession battle.

Carmine Di Sibio is set to leave the firm after his plan to split its consulting and accountancy arms fell apart - News Scan

At the same time, EY now faces a bill that reportedly runs to hundreds of millions of dollars for the work done on the abandoned deal.

Insiders are questioning which direction the business should go in next and how it should tackle everything from artificial intelligence (AI) to more humdrum regulatory issues.

Project Everest was a plan to split its consulting business from its auditing operations. A major aim was to unleash the full potential of EY’s consulting and other non-audit services, which are the most profitable and fastest-growing parts of the business.

Fast growth in the firm’s consulting businesses helped boost average pay for UK partners to a record £803,000 in 2022.

However, conflict of interest regulations in many countries prevent EY from providing both audit and non-audit services to the same client.

This means a multinational company doing a global IT project may want to work with the firm’s consultants across the world – but cannot do in certain jurisdictions if it already uses EY’s auditors there.

The rules are in place to remove the incentive for auditors to “go easy” on clients that a firm wants to sell further non-audit services to.

EY’s complicated global structure – a network of affiliated partnerships, rather than a single, unified corporate structure – also makes working on international projects more complicated than bosses would like.

To address these issues, Project Everest would have completely separated the operations into a standalone audit business and a new consultancy business that would have been listed on the stock market – potentially with a value north of $100bn (£79bn).

The consulting “Newco” would have boasted $25bn in annual sales and 7,000 partners, with the auditing side representing $20bn and 6,000 partners.

Their separation would have cleared the way for consultants to take on more work, unencumbered by worries about conflicts.

Partners also stood to make large gains. Under the scheme, partners who stayed at the audit business would receive payouts for their shares in the advisory business worth up to four times their annual salary.

At the same time, the newly-separated advisory business would be listed on the stock market and partners handed equity worth up to nine times their salaries.

But the offer met stiff resistance from EY’s US office, led by Julie Boland, which represents 40pc of the firm’s global revenues.

Julia Boland abruptly announced in April that she was shelving Project Everest following opposition from other US partners - LinkedIn

The Americans were concerned that the split would leave either one side or the other with less in-house expertise on a vitally important (and highly lucrative) topic: tax.

Boland abruptly announced in April that she was shelving work on the demerger, following opposition from other US partners, in a move that stunned international colleagues and eventually forced Di Sibio to follow suit – killing off the deal.

But with the split plans abandoned, EY still faces the same dilemmas.

“You have challenged the status quo, you can’t stay the same, so what is your plan B?” one partner told Financial News earlier this year.

Somewhat understatedly, Ball says: “Once a global chairman gets elected, they need to review the global strategy.”

There is continuing debate about whether to pursue a separation by other means. Supporters argue that the rationale for the deal still holds.

TPG, a private equity firm, recently offered to take a stake in a separated consulting business, the Financial Times reported last week. EY’s bosses have so far rebuffed the bid.

For now, the most pressing question is who will take charge and set the tone for the sprawling giant.

Having dealt the fatal blow to Project Everest – a move that reportedly left some colleagues “livid” – Boland is not expected to put herself forward as Di Sibio’s replacement though she may play a kingmaker role.

That could prove troublesome for Andy Baldwin, EY’s global managing partner and a Brit, who is seen as the leading candidate to take on the global chairman position but may be seen as tarnished by his prominent role pushing the demerger plan.

EY Canadian chairman Jad Shimaly is seen as a potential unity candidate. Marie-Laure Delarue, who leads the global assurance practice, has also been touted as a contender.

Other names floated as potential runners include Janet Truncale, boss of EY’s American financial services business, Ryan Burke, its head of private client business, and Julie Teigland, the firm’s head of Europe, the Middle East, India, and Africa, according to reports.

Ball, EY’s UK chairman, rules himself out but says the potential candidates “are all great alternatives, and they are very talented people”.

For now, the most pressing question is who will take charge and set the tone for the sprawling giant - Simon Dawson/Bloomberg

Whoever emerges victorious, the process will take time. Ball says: “Partnerships are all about collaboration… We don’t just anoint leaders. We have to go through a process to make sure that there’s broad backing.”

EY’s network structure also means the new leader will not be able to decisively push through big changes without building broad support first, something that eluded Di Sibio to his cost.

For UK chairman Ball, an urgent issue the new global chief will have to address is what to do about circle private equity funds.

San Francisco-based TPG’s recent approach – which did not put a value on EY’s consultancy business – may have been rejected but it is unlikely to dampen broader interest in the sector.

Ball says that his rivals will “be getting similar approaches for some of their businesses and, as you know, private equity can be quite a big disrupter of a sector once they think there are opportunities there”.

“We’ll need to come to a view now – what will this private equity interest mean?”

KPMG and Deloitte have both sold restructuring businesses to private equity, while PwC offloaded its global mobility business.

In the background, the issue of what to do about conflicts between auditing and far more lucrative consulting work remains.

“In some ways, what we were trying to do with [Project Everest] was address some of these questions upfront, to be in control of our own destiny,” Ball argues.

“They do need to be addressed, in some shape or form. I think everyone agrees it doesn’t have to be now.

“But that will need to be addressed at some point. And that’s probably a challenge not just for EY but for the whole profession.”

With Di Sipio’s successor not expected to be chosen until November, however, partners across EY’s offices face an uncertain few months yet.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Sec.gov

https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2021-144

SEC Charges Ernst & Young, Three Audit Partners, and For... 

Aug 2, 2021 ... The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged accounting firm Ernst & Young LLP (EY), one of its partners, and two of its former ...

World’s first wind-powered freighter sets off on maiden voyage


Sarah Knapton
Mon, 21 August 2023 

Pyxis Ocean left Singapore en route to Paranagua in Brazil in first major test to see if technology will work on a real voyage

It may not have the romance of the billowing multi-masted clippers, but the world’s first wind-powered freighter has embarked on her maiden voyage.

Mitsubishi’s Pyxis Ocean bulk carrier has been fitted with giant “wings” ushering in a new era of cargo-ladened sailing boats, borne to their destination on favourable tradewinds.

Although the sails are designed to work alongside the engine, engineers were delighted to find that during initial sea trials, the bulk carrier began to sail on wind power alone – reaching more than five and a half knots, before the crew intervened to bring her back under engine control.


Last week Pyxis Ocean – chartered by Cargill – left Singapore en route to the port of Paranagua in Brazil in the first major test to see if the technology will work on a real voyage.

If successful hundreds more ships will be retrofitted with the wings.

The revolutionary fibreglass aerofoils – which loom 123ft above deck – have been designed by engineers at BAR Technologies, a spin-off of Ben Ainslie Racing, the British team formed by the Olympic gold medalist.

Digital projections show they should deliver enough propulsion to cut the ship’s fuel use by at least three tonnes per day – about 30 per cent – helping to decarbonize the shipping industry without having to scrap existing vessels.

WindWings being retrofitted on Pyxis Ocean at the COSCO shipyard in Shanghai, China.

“I’m super excited about this,” said Jan Dieleman, president of Cargill’s Ocean transportation business. “We’re finally at the point where this ship is going to be on the water.

“We need to find out if everything is going to function. Is it safe? Is it going to work? Are the wings able to move as they should, can they fold? Does this actually work in port and then are we actually getting the fuel savings?

“It’s a huge project. This has never been done before. But you have to be willing to take some risks otherwise everything continues to be a theoretical exercise, so it’s time to showcase what is possible.”

The technology could change current shipping routes, making it more profitable to follow the old trading routes with favourable winds, rather than travelling in the straight lines most cargo ships do today.

Mr Dielman added: “We’ve always been working on the assumption that going from A to B is the quickest way, but we might need to deviate because there is more wind in certain areas, or you might get better returns at different times of year.

“We need to think differently to what we’ve done traditionally.”

Getting to the first voyage has not been easy. Cargill initially trialled kites but found they simply did not work and subsequently joined forces with Portsmouth-based BAR Technologies for the WindWings project.

That too has not been plain sailing.

Hampered visibility from the bridge

Placing the huge cambered aerofoils on the deck hampered visibility from the bridge, forcing the team to install cameras to see ahead. They also needed to build in a tilting mechanism that enabled the sails to be stowed during dockside operations, when passing under structures, or in stormy sea conditions.

In yachting, the size of the sail can be made smaller to cope with heavy weather, so engineers had to come up with a similar way of depowering the wings in case of a sudden storm.

As well as being able to pivot, each wing has three moveable elements that can be adjusted to spill the wind or exploit its power, in the same way that an aircraft wing changes its shape during take-off and landing.

Wind sensors on board pick up wind angle and speed, automatically reorienting the sail in the event of unexpected gusts. Above 40 knots – gale force conditions – the wings can be folded onto the deck.

There are also sensors which detect the lean – or heel – of the ship, how far it is drifting off the set course and the rudder angle.

“We don’t have Ben on board, so it has to be automatic,” said John Cooper, the CEO of BAR Technologies.

“If we see excess rudder angle, or leeway or heel, then the wings start, taking them out of a camber shape and pushing them into the wind angle.”
‘Sail away without the engine on’

So far, early sea trials have surpassed all expectations.

Mr Cooper added: “My senior engineer, who is normally very serious, phoned me up on the sea trials giggling like a 10-year-old and actually explaining they had just free-sailed.

“We’re all about wind-assisted propulsion, but it was super cool to lift the anchor and sail away without the engine on.

“And that’s only with two sails, we’ve got one right behind it with four sails on. They are still calculating it but we were well over five and half knots before we decided to stop acceleration, that was not terminal velocity, and we had an 18 knot wind not the strongest, so we know we can free-sail pretty damn well.”

The whole project was tested on a “digital twin” inside a computer before the wings were built by Yara Marine Technologies.

If the Pyxis Ocean’s journey is a success the team plan to test the wings on a Newcastlemax bulk carrier – one of the world’s largest cargo ships which is used to transport coal, iron ore, and grain across the world’s oceans.