As Slovakia's trust in democracy fades, its election frontrunner campaigns against aid to Ukraine

Former Slovak Prime Minister and head of leftist SMER - Social Democracy party Robert Fico arrives for an election rally in Michalovce, Slovakia, Wednesday, Sept. 6, 2023. Fico, who led Slovakia from 2006 to 2010 and again from 2012 to 2018, might reclaim the prime minister's office after the Sept. 30 election. He and his left-wing Direction ("Smer")-Social Democracy party have campaigned on a clear pro-Russian and anti-American message.

 (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

KAREL JANICEK

Sun, September 17, 2023 

MICHALOVCE, Slovakia (AP) — A populist former prime minister whose party is favored to win Slovakia’s early parliamentary election plans to reverse the country’s military and political support for neighboring Ukraine, in a direct challenge to the European Union and NATO, if he returns to power.

Robert Fico, who led Slovakia from 2006 to 2010 and again from 2012 to 2018, is the frontrunner to occupy the prime minister's office after the Sept. 30 election. He and his left-wing Direction, or Smer, party have campaigned on a clear pro-Russian and anti-American message.

His candidacy is part of a wider trend across Europe. Only Hungary has an openly pro-Russian government, but in other countries, including Germany, France, and Spain, populist parties skeptical of intervention in Ukraine command significant support. Many of these countries have national or regional elections coming up that could tip the balance of popular opinion away from Kyiv and towards Moscow.

“If Smer is part of the government, we won’t send any arms or ammunition to Ukraine anymore,” Fico, who currently holds a seat in Slovakia's parliament and is known for foul-mouthed tirades against journalists, said in an interview with The Associated Press before a recent campaign rally.

Fico, 59, also opposes EU sanctions on Russia, questions the Ukrainian military's ability to force out the invading Russian troops and wants to use Slovakia's membership in NATO to block Ukraine from joining. His return to power could lead Slovakia to abandon its democratic course in other ways, following the path of Hungary under Prime Minister Viktor Orban and to a lesser extent, Poland under the Law and Justice party.

The small Central European nation created in 1993 following the breakup of Czechoslovakia has been a staunch supporter of Ukraine since Russia invaded more than 18 months ago. Slovakia was the second NATO member to agree to give its fleet of Soviet-era MiG-29 fighter jets to Kyiv and also donated an S-300 air defense system.

But it also has seen public trust in liberal democracy and Western organizations decline to a greater extent than other parts of the region that shook off decades of Soviet domination.

According to a March survey commissioned by the Bratislava-based Globsec think tank, a majority of Slovak respondents, 51%, believe the West or Ukraine are responsible for the war. Half saw the United States as posing a security threat for their country, up from 39% in 2022. Of the eight nations surveyed, Slovaks were by far the most distrustful of the U.S.; Bulgaria was a distant second with 33% and Hungary third on 25%.

“We have a big problem,” Katarina Klingova, a senior research fellow at Globsec’s Center for Democracy and Resilience, said.

The survey was conducted in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia. Each of the eight Central and Eastern European countries had 1,000 respondents, and the survey findings had a margin of error of plus or minus 3%.

Only 48% of Slovaks consider liberal democracy good for their country, the second-lowest result after Lithuania (47%).

In February 2022, Slovakia opened its borders to Ukrainian refugees, as well as sending arms to Kyiv. Nonetheless, many Slovaks still have a soft spot for their Russian Slavonic brothers and sisters and are grateful for the Red Army for liberating the country at the end of WWII. Russian disinformation operations have also played their part: pro-Moscow propaganda is now widespread in the Slovak media.

The views reflected in the Globsec survey reflect frustration following the chaotic tenure of a center-right coalition government that collapsed in December and a pro-Russian disinformation campaign that intensified after the invasion of Ukraine, Klingova said.

“A number of local politicians have adopted the narratives and terminology of the Russian propaganda,” and amplified its impact, she said. Fico, whose party also campaigns against immigration and LGBTQ+ rights, is among them.

In his interview with the AP, he maintained that no amount of Western weapons going to Ukraine would change the course of the war. He said the European Union and the United States should use their influence to force Russia and Ukraine to strike a compromise peace deal.

“It’s naive to think that Russia would leave Crimea,’’ Fico said, referring to the peninsula that Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014. “It’s naive to think that Russia would ever abandon the territory it controls” in Ukraine.

Fico was speaking in Michalovce, a small town near Slovakia’s border with Ukraine. Not far away lies the city of Uzhhorod, one of the main border crossings for freight and individuals. In the spring of 2022, thousands of Ukrainian refugees entered Slovakia here, while humanitarian aid — and sometimes foreign fighters — flowed the other way.

More recently, shipments of Ukrainian grain have crossed the border, much to the unhappiness of local farmers, who say it’s undercutting their markets. When an EU deal to keep Ukrainian grain in transit and out of local markets lapsed earlier this month, Slovakia said it would extend its own ban on imports until the end of the year.

But at the same time as the war in Ukraine was driving down grain prices in Europe, it was pushing up the cost of energy. Until the invasion of Ukraine triggered EU sanctions, Russia supplied most of Slovakia's oil and gas.

In 2022, inflation rose to 12.13% percent, driven by soaring energy prices. In September 2022, thousands joined a protest organized by Fico's party at which he said the government's support for Ukraine was partially responsible for the rise in inflation.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, with backing from his country's Western supporters, has ruled out negotiating with Moscow until Russian troops withdraw from his country. He has also pressed NATO to provide a clear path for his country's membership.

At their summit in July, NATO leaders pledged to keep supplying arms and ammunition to Ukraine but offered no protection under the alliance’s security umbrella. Fico told the AP he opposes “on principle” putting Ukraine on a membership path, saying, “That would result in the Third World War.”

Fico's position could further complicate Ukraine's aspirations to join the alliance. At the summit, NATO allies said that “We will be in a position to extend an invitation to Ukraine to join the alliance when allies agree and conditions are met.”

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This story, supported by the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting, is the first part of an Associated Press series covering threats to democracy in Europe.

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The former prime minister and his party have shown pro-Russia tendencies during their on-off relationship with voters. In 2015, after Russia annexed Crimea, Fico was one of the few European leaders to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow to discuss business, despite EU sanctions.

However, Fico in office also took care to cultivate ties with the U.S. In 2018, he began negotiations on a defense treaty with Washington. The agreement was ratified last year, but not before Fico had organized a protest where he told a crowd of thousands that the treaty was “treason.” He said the pact would compromise Slovakia's sovereignty and provoke Russia - claims rejected by the Slovak and U.S. governments.

Now, Fico repeats the Russian narrative about the causes of the Ukraine war, including Putin's unsupported claim that the current Ukrainian government runs a Nazi state from which ethnic Russians living in the country's east needed protection.

“I say it loud and clear and will do so: The war in Ukraine didn’t start yesterday or last year. It began in 2014. when the Ukrainian Nazis and fascists started to murder the Russian citizens in Donbas and Luhansk,” Fico told a cheering crowd of supporters in his hometown of Topolcany on Aug 30.

Grigorij Meseznikov, president of the Institute for Public Affairs, a pro-democracy non-governmental organization based in Bratislava, said the Fico voters are seeing now is “the most authentic of all his career" as well as "the worst and the most radical.”

“The position of anti-system forces has never been so strong here since 1989,” Meseznikov said, referring to the year of Czechoslovakia's anti-communist Velvet Revolution.

Fico used to be more pragmatic. During his first four-year term as prime minister, Slovakia was accepted into the EU’s visa-free Schengen Area in 2007 and adopted the euro as the national currency in 2009. Following the fall of the government that replaced his, Fico returned to office in 2012.

He unsuccessfully ran for president in 2014 and reclaimed the premiership in 2016, but was forced to resign two years later after the slaying of an investigative journalist, Jan Kuciak, and his fiancée.

Shortly before his death, Kuciak had been writing about alleged ties between the Italian mafia and people close to Fico and about corruption scandals linked to Fico’s party. The killings prompted major street protests and led to the collapse of Fico's coalition government. Fico's deputy in Smer, Peter Pellegrini, took over as prime minister.

The scandal-tainted Smer, campaigning on a anti-migrant ticket, lost the 2020 election and ended up in opposition with Pellegrini leaving Fico to create a new leftist party, the Voice. The four-party coalition government that took over made fighting corruption a key focus.

Dozens of senior officials, police officers, judges, prosecutors, politicians and business people linked to Smer have been convicted of corruption and other crimes.

Fico himself faced criminal charges last year for creating a criminal group and misuse of power, but Slovakia's pro-Russian prosecutor general stepped in and threw out the indictment.

Almost all public polls predict Smer will place first in the snap parliamentary election, with about 20% of the vote. Fico would then need the support of other parties in order to form a government.

He said he hopes to join forces with the Voice.

Another option would be The Republic, a far-right group currently on 5-10% in the polls. The ultra-nationalist Slovak National Party is another possibility.

“His strong motivation is to avoid criminal investigation,” Meseznikov of the Institute for Public Affairs said, adding: “His return to power will be a problem for Slovakia in every aspect.”

Fico threatened to dismiss the investigators at the National Criminal Agency and special prosecutor Daniel Lipsic who investigate the most serious crimes and corruption after the election.

Fico vowed to “be more sovereign in expressing my views” but said it’s not his intention to lead his country out of the EU or NATO.

“The international public should know that NATO is currently extremely unpopular in Slovakia," he warned. "If we hold a referendum today, I can guarantee that people would say no to NATO.”

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Find more of AP's Europe coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/europe

The bizarre secret behind China's spy balloon

David Martin
Updated Sun, September 17, 2023 

It was surely the most bizarre crisis of the Biden administration: America's top-of-the-line jet fighters being sent up to shoot down, of all things, a balloon – a Chinese spy balloon that was floating across the United States, which had the nation and its politicians in a tizzy.

Now, seven months later, Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, tells "CBS News Sunday Morning" the balloon wasn't spying. "The intelligence community, their assessment – and it's a high-confidence assessment – [is] that there was no intelligence collection by that balloon," he said.

So, why was it over the United States? There are various theories, with at least one leading theory that it was blown off-track.

/ Credit: CBS News

The balloon had been headed toward Hawaii, but the winds at 60,000 feet apparently took over. "Those winds are very high," Milley said. "The particular motor on that aircraft can't go against those winds at that altitude."

The balloon floated over Alaska and Canada, and then down over the lower 48, to Billings, Montana, where photographer Chase Doak, who had studied photojournalism in college, recorded it from his driveway. "I just happened to notice, out of the corner of my eye, a white spot in the sky. I, of course, landed on the most logical explanation, that it was an extra-terrestrial craft!" he laughed. "Took a photo, took a quick video, and then I grabbed a few coworkers just to make sure that I wasn't seeing things, and had them take a look at it."

Martin said, "You'll probably never take a more famous picture."

"No, I don't think I ever will!" Doak said.

In January a Chinese balloon, possibly on an espionage mission, entered U.S. air space and floated across the continent, becoming an object of both media bemusement and diplomatic consternation. / Credit: Chase Doak/Reuters

He tipped off the Billings Gazette, which got its own picture, and he told anybody who asked they could use his free of charge. "I didn't want to make anything off it," Doak said. "I thought it was a national security issue, and all of America needed to know about it."

As a U-2 spy plane tracked the 200-foot balloon, Secretary of State Antony Blinken called off a crucial trip to China. On February 3 he called China's decision to fly a surveillance balloon over the Continental United States "both unacceptable and irresponsible."

A U.S. Air Force U-2 pilot looks down at the suspected Chinese surveillance balloon on February 3, 2023 as it hovers over the central Continental United States. / Credit: Department of Defense via Getty Images

President Joe Biden ordered the Air Force to shoot it down as soon as it reached the Atlantic Ocean.

Col. Brandon Tellez planned the February 4 operation, which was to shoot the balloon down once it was six miles off the coast.

Martin said, "On paper, it looks like this colossal mismatch – one of this country's most sophisticated jet fighters against a balloon with a putt-putt motor. Was it a sure thing?"

"It's a sure thing, no doubt," Tellez replied.

"It would have been an epic fail!"

"Yes sir, it would have been! But if you would've seen that, you know, first shot miss, there would've been three or four right behind it that ended the problem," Tellez said.

But it only took a single missile, which homed in on the heat of the sun reflected off the balloon.

An air-to-air missile made contact and ... Pop! / Credit: CBS News

After the Navy raised the wreckage from the bottom of the Atlantic, technical experts discovered the balloon's sensors had never been activated while over the Continental United States.

Wreckage from the Chinese balloon being collected from the Atlantic Ocean. / Credit: Department of Defense

But by then, the damage to U.S.-China relations had been done. On May 21, President Biden remarked, "This silly balloon that was carrying two freight cars' worth of spying equipment was flying over the United States, and it got shot down, and everything changed in terms of talking to one another."

So, Martin asked, "Bottom line, it was a spy balloon, but it wasn't spying?"

Milley replied, "I would say it was a spy balloon that we know with high degree of certainty got no intelligence, and didn't transmit any intelligence back to China."

Lots of indoor farms are shutting down as their businesses struggle. So why are more being built?

Workers use a lift to check produce plants at a vertical farm greenhouse in Cleburne, Texas, Aug. 29, 2023. Indoor farming brings growing inside in what experts sometimes call “controlled environment agriculture.” There are different methods; vertical farming involves stacking produce from floor to ceiling, often under artificial lights and with the plants growing in nutrient-enriched water. 

(AP Photo/LM Otero)

 

MELINA WALLING and KENDRIA LaFLEUR
Updated Sun, September 17, 2023 

CLEBURNE, Texas (AP) — Inside a bright greenhouse about an hour outside Dallas, workers in hairnets and gloves place plugs of lettuce and other greens into small plastic containers — hundreds of thousands of them — that stack up to the ceiling. A few weeks later, once the vegetables grow to full size, they’ll be picked, packaged and shipped out to local shelves within 48 hours.

This is Eden Green Technology, one of the latest crop of indoor farming companies seeking their fortunes with green factories meant to pump out harvests of fresh produce all year long. The company operates two greenhouses and has broken ground on two more at its Cleburne campus, where the indoor facilities are meant to shelter their portion of the food supply from climate change while using less water and land.

But that's if the concept works. And players in the industry are betting big even as rivals wobble and fail. California-based Plenty Unlimited this summer broke ground on a $300 million facility, while Kroger announced that it will be expanding its availability of vertically farmed produce. Meanwhile, two indoor farming companies that attracted strong startup money — New Jersey's AeroFarms and Kentucky's AppHarvest — filed for bankruptcy reorganization. And a five-year-old company in Detroit, Planted Detroit, shut its doors this summer, with the CEO citing financial problems just months after touting plans to open a second farm.

The industry churn doesn't bother Jacob Portillo, a grower with Eden Green who directs a plant health team and monitors irrigation, nutrients and other factors related to crop needs.

“The fact that other people are failing and other people are succeeding, that’s going to happen in any industry you go to, but specifically for us, I think that especially as sustainable as we’re trying to be, the sustainable competitors I think are going to start winning,” he said.

Indoor farming brings growing inside in what experts sometimes call “controlled environment agriculture.” There are different methods; vertical farming involves stacking produce from floor to ceiling, often under artificial lights and with the plants growing in nutrient-enriched water. Other growers are trying industrial-scale greenhouses, indoor beds of soil in massive warehouses and special robots to mechanize parts of the farming process.

Advocates say growing indoors uses less water and land and allows food to be grown closer to consumers, saving on transport. It's also a way to protect crops from increasingly extreme weather caused by climate change. The companies frequently tout their products as free of pesticides, though they’re not typically marketed as organic.

But skeptics question the sustainability of operations that can require energy-intensive artificial light. And they say paying for that light can make profitability impossible.

Tom Kimmerer, a plant physiologist who taught at the University of Kentucky, has tracked indoor farming alongside his research into the growth of plants both outdoors and inside. He said his first thought on vertical farm startups — especially those heavily reliant on artificial light — was, “Boy, this is a dumb idea" — mainly due to high energy costs.

The industry has acknowledged those high costs. Some companies are seeking to push those down by relying on solar, which they say also supports sustainability. Even the ones most heavily reliant on artificial light that doesn't come from renewables maintain they can be profitable by eventually producing a high volume of produce year-round.

But Kimmerer thinks there are better ways to provide food locally and extend the growing season — outdoors. He pointed to the organic farmstand-oriented Elmwood Stock Farm outside Lexington, Kentucky, which can grow tomatoes and greens the whole year using tools like high tunnels, also known as hoop houses — greenhouse-like arches that shelter crops while still being partially open to the outdoors.

He thinks investment flowing toward new versions of indoor farming would be better spent on practical solutions for outdoor farmers like weed-zapping robots, or even climate solutions like subsidizing farmers to adopt regenerative practices.

Moving farming indoors can solve some pest problems, but create new ones. Without their natural outdoor predators, tinier creatures like aphids, thrips and spider mites can become very difficult to control if not managed aggressively, said Hannah Burrack, an ecologist who specializes in pest management at Michigan State University.

“If you’re creating the perfect environment for plants, in many cases, you’re also creating a perfect growing environment for their pests,” Burrack said.

Indoor farming companies counter this by emphasizing high hygiene; for example, Eden Green touts “laboratory conditions” on its website and says workers closely monitor their greenhouses to immediately catch any pests. They also say vertical farms actually need fewer pesticides than outdoor farms do, reducing environmental impacts.

Evan Lucas, an associate professor of construction management at Northern Michigan University who teaches students about proper infrastructure design for indoor farms, said he's not concerned about the shakeout underway. He said some companies may be struggling to scale up, with problems that come from launching in spaces that aren't necessarily built specifically for indoor farming.

“My guess, based on what’s happening, is everyone saw the opportunity and started to try to do a lot really quickly," Lucas said.

Several of the companies say they're on the right track. Eden Green CEO Eddy Badrina says the company has figured out a way to rely mostly on natural light for their plants. Plenty CEO Arama Kukutai said the company's lighting system is efficient enough for the company to be profitable. And Soli Organic CEO Matt Ryan said growing in soil indoors gives the company a better product than companies that grow in water.

Plenty got a significant vote of confidence last year when Walmart joined in a $400 million round of investment also aimed at bringing the company's produce into its stores.

But Curt Covington, senior director of institutional business at AgAmerica Lending, a private investment manager and lender focused on agricultural land, isn't convinced that indoor farming operations can work — except maybe in cases where big retailers and greenhouses team up, like Walmart and Plenty, or where grants for urban and vertical farm operations that benefit communities could be made as a form of socially conscious venture capital.

“It's just hard, given the capital intensity of these types of businesses, to be very profitable,” Covington said.

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Walling reported from Chicago and from Georgetown, Kentucky. Associated Press journalist Joshua A. Bickel contributed from Georgetown.

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Follow Melina Walling on X, formerly known as Twitter: @MelinaWalling.

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Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

The $300 Trillion Question

Lucy White, Catarina Saraiva and Swati Pandey
Sun, September 17, 2023

(Bloomberg) -- Ligaya Kelly worries her pet boarding facility on the outskirts of Los Angeles won’t survive the winter if loan costs keep rising. Economist Diana Mousina says she’ll have to sell her Sydney investment property if interest rates remain higher. John Stanyer has cut back plans for his holiday park in the north of England after his mortgage repayments almost tripled.

Like millions of borrowers across the world, the aspirations of Kelly, Mousina and Stanyer have collided with the steepest monetary tightening campaign in a generation. They’ve done what they can to weather the storm – Kelly has cut workers, Mousina dines at home these days and Stanyer’s expansion plans are on hold -- but how long they can hold out will depend on factors beyond their control, such as deglobalization, aging and the cost of the energy transition.It’s arguably the biggest question in economics right now: Are these higher interest rates here to stay? In textbook jargon, it all comes down to R-Star (written as R* in economic models) -- the long-term neutral interest rate that keeps inflation steady at central bank’s preferred pace of around 2%.

In the decade or so after the 2008 financial crisis, the neutral rate dropped across developed economies as inflation remained generally subdued even as central banks kept interest rates at historically low levels. Deepening globalization meant cheap TVs and clothes, while memories of the crisis kept consumers subdued and held businesses back from investments, putting a lid on demand.

The post-Covid price spike shattered that calm, spurring a debate among economists, central bankers and bond traders about the future of inflation and interest rates – with very real implications for a world saddled with about $300 trillion in debt. If central banks conclude that R* is now higher, then they'll need to keep their benchmark rates more elevated too.

Anna Wong, chief U.S. economist for Bloomberg Economics, recently ran the numbers on what varying estimates of the neutral interest rate would mean for policy settings of the Federal Reserve, which meets later this week. She found a higher neutral rate would result in fewer interest-rate cuts in the next couple of years.

Kelly was paying about $7,000 a month in interest when she first took her Small Business Administration loan back in 2018 to expand a dog and cat kennel in Santa Clarita, California. The business had good prospects and pedigree — it was founded in the 1970s by the son of a famed trainer whose dog Terry starred alongside Judy Garland in the Wizard of Oz.

Now, after the Fed’s 5.25 percentage points of interest-rate hikes over the past year and a half, those repayments are almost $12,000 a month and the outlook is bleak.

"Rising interest rates are killing me," says Kelly, who runs the kennel with her husband and adult children. "I have to find ways to cut this because if we don’t, we’re not going to survive another winter."

Kelly has laid off two employees, reduced hours for others and dialed back on services like bookkeeping. A busy summer travel season has given a bit of a cushion, but looking ahead she’s worried interest rates will keep rising and is drafting next year's budget assuming higher payments, though she hopes they won't exceed $15,000 per month.

Some 2,300 miles east, at the austere Fed offices in Washington DC, officials aren’t ruling out more rates pain for Kelly and her kennel. In an August speech at the central bank's annual economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Chair Jerome Powell signaled that interest rates will likely stay high for some time, or even move higher, should inflation remain sticky.

Seared by the failure in analysis and communication that led to erroneous calls that inflation would prove transitory as prices spiked in 2021, Fed officials these days aren’t giving much away when it comes to their longer-term rates view. Powell has led officials in saying it’s too early to tell exactly where inflation and rates will settle once the economy normalizes.

As deputy chief economist at financial giant AMP Ltd., 35-year-old Mousina is doing OK for herself. In August 2016, with official interest rates recently cut to 1.5%, she jumped into the investment property game, buying a two-bedroom apartment near Maroubra beach in Sydney’s south.After 4 percentage points of interest-rate increases since May 2022, Mousina now says most of her income is going toward mortgage repayments on her home and the apartment, leaving little room for "fun expenses" such as holidaying and eating out.

"It's going to make it harder for me to keep it," if benchmark interest rates stay around 3-4% for an extended period, said Mousina of the Maroubra apartment. "If we're at a point where I can't continue to service the loan on it I will sell it off."

In contrast with America, where most home borrowers are on 30-year fixed rates, more than 70% of home loans in Australia are tied to variable rates that move largely in line with central bank levels. With household debt averaging about 190% of disposable incomes, each of the Reserve Bank of Australia’s interest-rate hikes has ratcheted up the pain on mortgagees.

Former Governor Philip Lowe, whose seven-year tenure wasn’t extended amid criticism of his communication failures as inflation surged, weighed in on the debate in his final speech as RBA chief on Sept. 7, saying it’ll be difficult to return to the days of low and steady inflation.

“The increased prevalence of supply shocks, deglobalisation, climate change, the energy transition and shifts in demographics mean either steeper supply curves or more variable supply curves,” he said. “While this doesn’t mean that the inflation target can’t be achieved on average, it does mean that inflation is likely to be more variable around that target.”

The debate is especially relevant in the UK, which has seen some of the highest rates of inflation among major economies in the wake of Covid.Holiday park owner Stanyer saw the first virus lockdown in 2020 as an opportunity to scale up his business. As the price of vacation lodges fell, he snapped up a couple more, adding to his collection nestled across a cluster of fields in the picturesque county of Cumbria.

Three years on, Stanyer thinks it could be some time before he’s able to invest in expansion again. He’s mortgaged his house and taken out a loan to generate the cash with which to build Wallace Lane Farm, and the cost of that debt has surged.

“A few years ago repayments were about £280 a month,” says Stanyer, 59, of his variable-rate mortgage. “Now they’ve almost trebled.”

A March speech at the London School of Economics by Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey may have given Stanyer some hope. Bailey said it wasn’t unreasonable to expect the UK’s neutral interest rate would “remain low” due to weak productivity and an aging population.

Older demographics lead to wealth being stored in the economy as people tend to save throughout their working life. At the same time, lower productivity has caused companies to invest less. This means “ageing households have sought to lend more at a time when less productive firms have sought to borrow less,” Bailey concluded, and the only way to “establish an equilibrium” is for “the price of those funds, the real interest rate, to fall.”

Yet other economists are using some of those same factors, including an aging population, to argue the exact opposite. In its recent midyear outlook, economists at asset management giant Blackrock reasoned that the demographic shift could be inflationary because there’ll be fewer people of working-age, causing a supply squeeze.

Economist Charles Goodhart has yet another theory, advanced in his 2020 book `The Great Demographic Reversal,’ co-authored with Manoj Pradhan. As the population gets older, he argues, saving rates will slow as fewer people hoard money into a pension. In order to incentivize saving to fund investment, interest rates will need to be higher, he says.

Back in Cumbria, Stanyer says he’s lived through periods of higher interest rates before, having worked in small and family-run businesses since the 1980s. But he’s worried that, this time round, the business environment will make it more difficult to cope with higher repayments.

Higher rates “makes expanding the business very much more difficult, very much more expensive, and very much more risky than it once was,” he says. “I, like many others, have cut back on my plans for expansion because I'm not willing to bet the company on the chance that the economy will do well in the next few years.”

Bloomberg Businessweek

DRESS CODES ARE REACTIONARY

A Black student was suspended for his hairstyle. The school says it wasn't discrimination

CHEYANNE MUMPHREY
Sun, September 17, 2023 










nIn this photo provided by Darresha George, her son Darryl George, 17, a junior at Barbers Hill High School in Mont Belvieu, Texas, sits for a photo showing his locs, at the family's home, Sept. 10, 2023. The same week a state law went into effect prohibiting discrimination on the basis of hair, George was suspended because his locs did not comply with the district's dress code.

 (Darresha George via AP)

The same week his state outlawed racial discrimination based on hairstyles, a Black high school student in Texas was suspended because school officials said his locs violated the district's dress code.

Darryl George, a junior at Barbers Hill High School in Mont Belvieu, received an in-school suspension after he was told his hair fell below his eyebrows and ear lobes. George, 17, wears his hair in thick twisted dreadlocks, tied on top of his head, said his mother, Darresha George.

George served the suspension last week. His mother said he plans to return to the Houston-area school Monday, wearing his dreadlocks in a ponytail, even if he is required to attend an alternative school as a result.

The incident recalls debates over hair discrimination in schools and the workplace and is already testing the state's newly enacted CROWN Act, which took effect Sept. 1.

The law, an acronym for “Create a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair,” is intended to prohibit race-based hair discrimination and bars employers and schools from penalizing people because of hair texture or protective hairstyles including Afros, braids, dreadlocks, twists or Bantu knots. Texas is one of 24 states that has enacted a version of the CROWN Act.

A federal version of the CROWN Act passed in the House of Representatives last year, but was not successful in the Senate.

For Black people, hairstyles are more than just a fashion statement. Hair has always played an important role across the Black diaspora, said Candice Matthews, national minister of politics for the New Black Panther Nation. (Her group is not affiliated with another New Black Panther organization widely considered antisemitic.)

“Dreadlocks are perceived as a connection to wisdom,” Matthews said. “This is not a fad, and this is not about getting attention. Hair is our connection to our soul, our heritage and our connection to God.”

In George's family, all the men have dreadlocks, going back generations. To them, the hairstyle has cultural and religious importance, his mother said.

“Our hair is where our strength is, that’s our roots,” Darresha George said. “He has his ancestors locked into his hair, and he knows that."

Historians say braids and other hairstyles served as methods of communication across African societies, including to identify tribal affiliation or marriage status, and as clues to safety and freedom for those who were captured and enslaved.

After slavery was abolished, Black American hair became political. Although the Civil Rights Act of 1964 banned discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex and national origin, Black people continued to face professional and social stigma for not adopting grooming habits that fit white, European beauty standards and norms.

The issue of race-based hair discrimination in the workplace has long existed alongside concerns in public and private schools. In 2018, a white referee in New Jersey told a Black high school wrestler to cut his dreadlocks or forfeit a match. Viral video of the wrestler having his hair cut with scissors as the crowd watched prompted the referee's suspension and spurred passage of the state's CROWN Act.

Darresha George said her son has been growing his dreadlocks for nearly 10 years and the family never received pushback or complaints until now. When let down, his dreadlocks hang above his shoulders. She said she couldn't understand how he violated the dress code when his hair was pinned up.

“I even had a discussion about the CROWN Act with the principal and vice principal," she said. “They said the act does not cover the length of his hair.”

Barbers Hill Independent School District prohibits male students from having hair extending below the eyebrows, ear lobes or top of a t-shirt collar, according to the student handbook. Additionally, hair on all students must be clean, well-groomed, geometrical and not an unnatural color or variation. The school does not require uniforms.

The school previously clashed with another Black male student over the dress code. Barbers Hill officials told a student he had to cut his dreadlocks to return to school or participate in graduation in 2020, which garnered national attention.

Greg Poole, who has been district superintendent since 2006, said the policy is legal and teaches students to conform as a sacrifice benefitting everyone.

“When you are asked to conform ... and give up something for the betterment of the whole, there is a psychological benefit," Poole said. "We need more teaching (of) sacrifice.”

Nearby districts have less stringent policies in place. For example, Poole noted others allow students to wear jeans with holes in them, while Barbers Hill does not. He said parents come to the district because of its strict standards and high expectations, which he credits for the district's academic success.

Attorney Allie Booker, who represents the family, said the school's argument doesn't hold up because length is considered part of a hairstyle, which is protected under the law.

“We are going to continue to fight, because you can't tell someone that hairstyles are protected and then be restrictive. If style is protected, then style is protected,” she said.

Darresha George said she and her son refuse to conform to a standard set by someone who is uncomfortable or ignorant.

“My son is well-groomed, and his hair is not distracting from anyone’s education,” Darresha George said. “This has everything to do with the administration being prejudiced toward Black hairstyles, toward Black culture.”

The district defends its dress code, which says its policies are meant to “teach grooming and hygiene, instill discipline, prevent disruption, avoid safety hazards and teach respect for authority.”

George's situation has drawn solidarity from young Black people around the nation, who say they have long dealt with discriminatory dress codes and comments from adults about their hair.

“When I was in fifth grade, I had a teacher tell me that my blue hair, my pink hair, was unnatural and too distracting for the other students in the class,” said Victoria Bradley, 19, who lives in Detroit. Michigan passed the CROWN Act into law this year.

Bradley, whose hair is braided and currently dyed multiple colors, said she attributes a lot of her hair confidence to her mother, Bernita Bradley, a longtime hair stylist and director of parent voice for the National Parents Union.

Bernita Bradley said her first introduction to the CROWN Act was in 2021, when a biracial, 7-year-old girl in Michigan had her hair cut by a school worker without her parents’ permission. The girl’s father, Jimmy Hoffmeyer, filed a $1 million lawsuit against the school district, alleging racial discrimination and ethnic intimidation. The lawsuit was settled earlier this year.

“That was modern-day scalping of this Black child,” Bradley said.

Darryl George completed his suspension Friday, but his mother is concerned about what will happen Monday when he returns to school with his dreadlocks in a ponytail.

“He will be up to dress code on Monday with his dreadlocks, which do not go past his eyebrows or ear lobes,” Darresha George said. School officials told her they planned to enroll her son in an alternative school if they believed he continued to violate the dress code.

After the suspension, “his grades are suffering, which also means he is not able to play football or participate in any extracurriculars," Darresha George said. “He was on track to graduate early, and now he is falling behind and will have to work double time just so he can still graduate.”

The family has considered switching school districts, she said. “That's a fight in its own right.”

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Mumphrey reported from Phoenix.

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The Associated Press education team receives support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

THE WAR ON HUMAN RIGHTS

2 years ago, the Taliban banned girls from school. It’s a worsening crisis for all Afghans

RIAZAT BUTT
Updated Mon, September 18, 2023 



Girls attend school on the first day of the new school year, in Kabul, Afghanistan, on March 25, 2023. Two years after the Taliban banned girls from school beyond sixth grade, Afghanistan is the only country in the world with restrictions on female education. Now, the rights of Afghan women and children are on the agenda of the United Nations General Assembly Monday, Sept. 18, 2023, in New York.

 (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi, File)

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Two years after the Taliban banned girls from school beyond sixth grade, Afghanistan is the only country in the world with restrictions on female education. Now, the rights of Afghan women and children are on the agenda of the United Nations General Assembly Monday in New York.

The U.N. children’s agency says more than 1 million girls are affected by the ban, although it estimates 5 million were out of school before the Taliban takeover due to a lack of facilities and other reasons.

The ban triggered global condemnation and remains the Taliban's biggest obstacle to gaining recognition as the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan. But the Taliban defied the backlash and went further, excluding women and girls from higher education, public spaces like parks, and most jobs.

Here’s a look at the ban on girls’ education:

WHY DID THE TALIBAN EXCLUDE GIRLS FROM HIGH SCHOOL?

The Taliban stopped girls’ education beyond sixth grade because they said it didn’t comply with their interpretation of Islamic law, or Sharia. They didn’t stop it for boys. In the past two years, they’ve shown no signs of progress in creating the conditions they say are needed for girls to return to class.

Their perspective on girls’ education partly comes from a specific school of 19th century Islamic thought and partly from rural areas where tribalism is entrenched, according to regional expert Hassan Abbas.

“The ones who went on to develop the (Taliban) movement opted for ideas that are restrictive, orthodox to the extreme, and tribal,” said Abbas, who writes extensively about the Taliban. The Taliban leadership believes women should not participate in anything social or public and should especially be kept away from education, said Abbas.

The Taliban also stopped girls’ education when they ruled Afghanistan in the late 1990s.

WHAT DO MUSLIM-MAJORITY COUNTRIES SAY ABOUT THE BAN?

There’s a consensus among clerics outside Afghanistan that Islam places equal emphasis on female and male education. “The Taliban have no basis or evidence to claim the contrary,” said Abbas. But pleas from individual countries and groups, like the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, have failed to sway the Taliban.

Syed Akbar Agha, a former Taliban front-line commander, said the insurgents espoused an Islamic system the day they entered Kabul in August 2021.

“They also gave Afghans and the outside world the idea that there would be an Islamic system in the country,” said Agha. “There is currently no (other) Islamic system in the world. The efforts of the international community are ongoing to implement democracy in Islamic countries and turn them away from the Islamic system.”

WHAT IS THE IMPACT OF THE BAN ON WOMEN?

Roza Otunbayeva, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres' special representative for Afghanistan and the head of the U.N. mission in Afghanistan, said one of the obvious impacts of an education ban is the lack of training of aspiring health care professionals.

Female medical students had their studies halted after last December’s Taliban edict banning higher education for women. Afghan women work in hospitals and clinics -- health care is one of the few sectors open to them — but the pipeline of qualified people will dry up. Afghan women cannot see male doctors, so children will also lose out on medical attention if women are their primary carers.

“Looking into the future and a scenario where nothing changes, where will the female doctors, midwives, gynecologists, or nurses come from?” Otunbayeva said in an email to The Associated Press. “In a strictly gender segregated society, how will Afghan women be able to get the most basic healthcare services if there are no female professionals to treat them?”

WHAT IS THE IMPACT ON AFGHANISTAN'S WIDER POPULATION?

The high school ban is not just about girls’ rights. It’s a worsening crisis for all Afghans.

Tens of thousands of teachers have lost their jobs. Support staff are also unemployed. Private institutions and businesses that benefited financially from girls’ education have been hit. Afghanistan has a shattered economy and people's incomes are plummeting. Excluding women from the job market hurts the country's GDP to the cost of billions of dollars, says UNICEF.

The Taliban are prioritizing Islamic knowledge over basic literacy and numeracy with their shift toward madrassas, or religious schools, paving the way for a generation of children with no contemporary or secular education to improve their or the country's economic future.

There are other consequences for the general population, like public health and child protection.

U.N. data says birth rates are higher among Afghan girls aged 15-19 who don't have secondary or higher education. A woman’s education can also determine if her children have basic immunization and if her daughters are married by the age of 18. The lack of women's education is among the major drivers of deprivation, says the U.N.

Aid groups say girls are at increased risk of child labor and child marriage because they're not at school, amid the growing hardships faced by families.

WILL THE TALIBAN CHANGE THEIR MINDS?

The Taliban waged a decades-long jihad to implement their vision of Sharia. They are not backing down easily. Sanctions, frozen assets, the lack of official recognition, and widespread condemnation has made little difference.

Countries that have a relationship with the Taliban could make an impact. But they have different priorities, reducing the prospects of a united front on girls’ education.

Pakistan has concerns about a resurgence of militant activity. Iran and Central Asian countries have grievances about water resources. China is eyeing investment and mineral extraction opportunities.

There's a bigger likelihood of pressure coming from within Afghanistan.

The Taliban rule of today is different from that of decades ago. Senior leaders, including the chief spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, rely on social media for key messaging to Afghans at home and abroad.

They point to their success in eradicating narcotics and cracking down on armed groups like the Islamic State. But improving security and wiping out poppy crops will only satisfy people to a point.

While Afghans are concerned about the loss of girls' education, they have more immediate worries like earning money, putting food on the table, keeping a roof over their heads, and surviving droughts and harsh winters.

There is a desire within Afghanistan for the Taliban to have some kind of international acceptance, even if it's not recognition, so the economy can thrive.

Public opinion is much more relevant and influential today than it was during Taliban rule in the 90s, said Abbas. “Internal pressure from ordinary Afghans is going to ultimately push Kandahar in the corner and make a difference."

But it could take years for the ban's consequences to hit Afghan men and trigger a groundswell of unrest. Right now, it only affects girls and it's mostly women who have protested the slew of restrictions.

Agha said Afghans will support the ban if the end goal is to enforce hijab, the Islamic headscarf, and finish gender mixing. But they won't if it's simply to end girls' education outright.

“I think only the nation can lead the way,” he said.

Did you have a severe case of COVID-19? Research suggests that Neanderthal genes could be to blame

Charles R. Davis
Sun, September 17, 2023

An employee of the Natural History Museum in London looks at model of a Neanderthal male in his twenties. Researchers say they've found a link between those with gene variations associated with Neanderthal ancestry and severe cases of COVID-19.

Will Oliver/PA Images/Getty

• Neanderthal genes could be to blame for severe cases of COVID-19, The Wall Street Journal reported.

• Scientists in Italy found people with Neanderthal gene variants were more likely to be hospitalized.

• The research suggests the variants are a "major genetic risk factor for severe COVID-19."

Researchers in Italy say their study of people infected with COVID-19 shows that those with certain genetic variations attributable to Neanderthal ancestry were far more likely to experience severe symptoms requiring hospitalization, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday.

Writing in the journal iScience, the researchers, associated with the nonprofit Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research, reported that they examined the DNA of nearly 1,200 volunteers in the Bergamo province, which was especially hard hit in the early days of the pandemic. What they found is that "Neanderthal haplotype," a set of genetic variants associated with the human ancestor, is "the major genetic risk factor for severe COVID-19."

In particular, they found that people with the Neanderthal haplotype were twice as likely to develop severe pneumonia, the Journal reported, and three times as likely to end up on a ventilator in an intensive-care unit.

The link between health and Neanderthal DNA has been suggested by other studies. A study published in June by the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution indicated a link between Neanderthal DNA and a genetic disorder known as Dupuytren's disease. And in March, a study published in Nature also found a connection between Neanderthal ancestry and an increased risk of an extreme immune response, or cytokine storm, from contracting COVID-19.