Trump Pick for Pentagon Chief Is Bad For Military Families and Vets

Steve Early - Suzanne Gordon

 December 2, 2024
Faceboo

TwitterRedditEmail

Pete Hegseth, Youtube screengrab.

Much media coverage of Pete Hegseth’s nomination as Secretary of Defense has focused, understandably, on controversial things he has said or done, along with his complete lack of administrative experience relevant to running a federal government department with a $920 billion budget and a workforce of three million.

But anyone in charge of the Pentagon also gets to oversee the Military Health System (MHS), which provides either private health insurance coverage or direct care for over 9.5 million service members, military retirees, and their families. As Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin noted in a recent DOD National Defense Strategy report, the MHS mission is to ensure that active duty personnel and their dependents are well-served by a skilled cadre of “medical personnel in uniform,” who number nearly 170,000.

Hegseth served as an ROTC-trained Army officer deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay and is a longtime critic of “government healthcare,” claiming that it “doesn’t work.” So if Hegseth succeeds Austin, Pentagon officials trying to end a failed experiment with MHA privatization may find themselves ordered to march backward.

Rather than being upgraded and improved, the DOD’s network of military hospitals and clinics would remain under-resourced. And more of the MHA’s $61 billion annual budget would be spent on private insurance coverage that has failed to meet the needs of many service members and their dependents, particularly in rural areas.

A White House Advisor 

During the first Trump Administration, Hegseth was a White House advisor who pushed the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to expand care outsourcing for nine million former service members. Trump’s first VA Secretary, a hold-over from Barack Obama’s administration, dragged his feet on implementing this ill-advised policy.

As a result, Dr. David Shulkin, an experienced hospital system administrator in the private and public sectors, was fired by Trump in 2018 after keeping him around for over a year. In his memoir, It Shouldn’t Be This Hard to Serve Your Country, Shulkin blames his downfall on Hegseth, who “never worked at the VA, knew nothing about managing a healthcare system, and had little understanding of the clinical and financial impact of the policies he  was advocating.”

Hegseth does have a background as “a capable midgrade officer” who earned two Ivy League degrees and Bronze Stars, plus media experience ranging from writing for the Princeton Tory, a conservative undergraduate publication, to opining about military and veterans’ affairs on Fox & Friends Weekend where he’s a host. In any other Republican administration, this resume would qualify him as a Pentagon press secretary.

That Hegseth has instead risen to a cabinet pick is a testament to the continuing impact of the Koch Brothers-backed Concerned Veterans for America (CVA). After a failed bid to become the GOP nominee in a 2002 Republican primary race for a U.S. Senate seat in his native Minnesota, Hegseth became CVA’s first CEO and a leading advocate for turning veterans care over to private doctors and hospitals.

CVA was an astroturf upstart in veterans’ affairs and an outlier in pushing VA privatization. Traditional Veterans Services Organizations (VSOs)—like Veterans of Foreign Wars, American Legion, Disabled American Veterans, or Vietnam Veterans of America—represent millions of veterans. Their members pay dues and elect their leaders.  They have local chapters and national conventions. They have roots in the community and provide valuable services to individual veterans who need help filing disability claims for service-related conditions, which qualifies them for VA care.

VSO lobbying victories include the passage of the PACT Act of 2022. This legislation made VA benefits and related medical coverage easier to obtain for nearly a million veterans, including many whose health was damaged due to burn pit exposure during post-9/11 wars in the Middle East. (Hegseth initially applauded and then criticized the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a flip-flop characteristic of his career. As Iraq war veteran and VoteVets co-founder Jon Soltz says about him, “I have been debating Pete Hegseth for years, and I can’t tell you what he stands for other than himself and his own ambition.”

An Astro-Turf Group 

With few actual dues-payers, no VSO-style membership service programs, and a political agenda bankrolled by libertarian billionaires, CVA helped pass few bills that benefited the nation’s 19 million veterans. Instead, during the Obama era, the media-savvy group became a battering ram against tax-payer-funded healthcare in any form, a longtime bête noir of the Kochs.

Hegseth became their most visible and effective mouthpiece in a wide-ranging campaign to discredit VA care and the Affordable Care Act (ACA). In 2013, CVA ran video ads warning, in Hegseth’s words, that all Americans would soon “face long wait times, endless bureaucracy, and poor service” if Congress expanded health care access by subsidizing private insurance coverage. The result, he claimed, would be billions of dollars wasted on “a nationalized health care plan that will bring the same bureaucratic dysfunction to the larger U.S. healthcare market”–as if the VA were a model for “Obamacare,” which it certainly wasn’t.

A year later, this propaganda offensive, closely coordinated with right-wing Republicans on Capitol Hill, claimed the scalp of retired four-star General Eric Shinseki, the Vietnam veteran who was Barack Obama’s first VA Secretary. Shinseki became the fall guy for a localized scandal involving misconduct by a few VA hospital managers in Phoenix. Their doctoring of data on medical appointment wait times—to earn bonus payments—led to CVA-amplified false claims that 40 Phoenix area vets had died due to delayed care. The result was that mainstream media packed journalism at its worst, and there was growing pressure for more out-sourcing of VA care despite its higher quality, lower cost, and greater accessibility than private alternatives.

On Capitol Hill, bi-partisan majorities passed the VA Choice Act of 2014 and, four years later, the VA MISSION Act. Both opened the floodgates for increasingly costly and disastrous privatization of the nation’s most extensive public healthcare system. CVA helped engineer the passage of each measure. After stepping down as CEO of Concerned Veterans of America ten years ago and becoming a Fox News commentator, Hegseth continued to advise President Trump on veterans’ affairs; other CVA alums served in official positions at the White House or VA headquarters in Washington.

Hegseth’s return to the conservative media eco-system of his college years has paid handsome rewards; he has become a multi-millionaire (despite two divorces) as a Fox & Friends talking head, paid speaker, and bestselling author of The War on Warriors, a critique of what he calls a “woke military.” Like other high-paid former military officers, his benefit package in the private sector leaves Hegseth unlikely ever to need the VA, federally subsidized insurance coverage obtained through the ACA, or, when he retires, Medicare coverage. If confirmed, his pay as DOD Secretary will be a mere $246,000 per year, but with lucrative “revolving door” opportunities in the future, when and if he transitions back to the private sector from the Pentagon.

Pentagon Cost Savings?

Meanwhile, enlisted personnel and veterans from poor and working-class backgrounds bear the brunt of failed CVA-backed experiments with the privatization of the Military Health System and the VA. Under Trump and Biden, the DOD was flush with money for military aid, expensive new weapons systems, and base maintenance worldwide. Nevertheless, the Pentagon cut healthcare delivery costs for its workforce, retirees, and dependents.

Military hospitals were closed, staff positions cut, and several hundred thousand more patients were shifted to TRICARE, a federally funded form of private insurance. Newcomers to the private sector soon reported having greater difficulty getting timely medical appointments or accessing care in areas of the country with a shortage of primary care providers and specialists.

The Pentagon found that contracting out left its hospitals and clinics “chronically understaffed” and less able to “deliver timely care to beneficiaries or ensure sufficient workload to maintain and sustain critical skills. After reassessing the situation, the DOD launched an effort to “re-attract” patients back to the MHS. As studies have shown, in-house care produces better outcomes at lower cost, with fewer racial disparities—an essential advantage for a patient population of nearly 40 percent non-white.

If Hegseth becomes DOD Secretary by recess appointment or Senate confirmation, he will undoubtedly stop bringing TRICARE beneficiaries back into the MHS. He will also halt efforts to rebuild the DOD’s in-house healthcare delivery capacity..

And Hegseth will not be the only ideological foe of “government healthcare” in a high-level Trump Administration position. His fellow cabinet nominee, former Congressman Doug Collins, an Iraq War veteran from Georgia, will be eager to pick up where Robert Wilkie, Trump’s second VA secretary, left off with his privatization efforts in 2021. And, with the biggest impact, Dr. Mehmet Oz, the TV celebrity picked by Trump to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, will further undermine traditional Medicare by replacing it with for-profit Medicare Advantage plans, on a more universal basis.

On all three fronts, these Trump appointees will weaken the public provision of healthcare that currently benefits more than 80 million people, making expanding such programs even more difficult.

Canada to bolster border security following Trudeau's Mar-a-Lago meeting with Trump

Dec. 2, 2024 

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada (L) and Donald Trump pose for a photo Friday at the U.S. president-elect's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. Photo courtesy of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada/X

Dec. 2 (UPI) -- The Canadian government, led by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, will bolster border enforcement, a top official of his administration said, following the Liberal leader's meeting with Donald Trump in Florida last week.

Trudeau flew to the president-elect's Mar-a-Lago resort on Friday as the Canadian leader has been scrambling to find an answer to Trump's threat to impose 25% tariffs on Canadian exports unless Ottawa curbs the alleged flow of drugs and migrants into the United States via their shared border.

Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc, who attended the Friday meeting, told the CBC in a Sunday interview that Ottawa plans to add more drones and helicopter patrols, as well as increase personnel along the border.

Specifics will be announced in the days and weeks ahead, he said.

"We told the Americans, we said publicly, we're going to look to procure, for example, additional drones, additional police helicopters, we're going to redeploy personnel," LeBlanc said.

He described the new measures as a "reassurance exercise" as "we believe that the border is secure."

LeBlanc said the meeting was agreed to during Trudeau's call with Trump on Nov. 25, after Trump had issued his threat.

Trudeau had suggested during the call that they get together before Trump's inauguration on Jan. 20, and the president-elect the invited him to Mar-a-Lago for the Friday dinner, LeBlanc said.

During the meal, the two leaders discussed a wide range of topics from the border to global concerns, according to LeBlanc, who said Trump had asked Trudeau "a lot of questions" about various world leaders and global issues.

LeBlanc described the dinner as a "warm, sort of social evening," with the president-elect telling stories about his resort and his successful election campaign against Vice President Kamala Harris.

The dinner also provided the Trudeau government the opportunity to meet members of the incoming Trump administration. LeBlanc told CBC that over the weekend, he exchanged text messages with billionaire Howard Lutnick, who has been tapped to become the next U.S. Commerce secretary and was present at the Friday dinner.

He said Lutnick wants to meet again in the next few weeks to continue discussing shared border issues.

"So, that is very valuable, I think, in helping them understand the shared priorities that we have with their government," he said.

Following the dinner, Trump issued a statement saying he had "a very productive meeting" with Trudeau, where they discussed issues such as fentanyl, illegal immigration, trade and other topics.

"I made it very clear that the United States will no longer sit idly by as our Citizens become victims to the scourge of this Drug Epidemic, caused mainly by the Drug Cartels, and Fentanyl pouring in from China. Too much death and hardship! Prime Minister Trudeau has made a commitment to work with us to end this terrible devastation of U.S. Families," he said.

‘Italian’ purees likely to contain Chinese forced-labour tomatoes, BBC finds

Mike Rudin & Sarah Buckley
BBC Eye Investigations



“Italian” tomato purees sold by several UK supermarkets appear to contain tomatoes grown and picked in China using forced labour, the BBC has found.

Some have “Italian” in their name such as Tesco’s “Italian Tomato Purée”. Others have “Italian” in their description, such as Asda’s double concentrate which says it contains “Puréed Italian grown tomatoes” - and Waitrose’s “Essential Tomato Purée”, describing itself as “Italian tomato puree”.

A total of 17 products, most of them own-brands sold in UK and German retailers, are likely to contain Chinese tomatoes - testing commissioned by the BBC World Service shows.

Most Chinese tomatoes come from the Xinjiang region, where their production is linked to forced labour by Uyghur and other largely Muslim minorities. The UN accuses the Chinese state - which views these minorities as a security risk - of torture and abuse. China denies it forces people to work in the tomato industry and says workers’ rights are protected by law. It says the UN report is based on “disinformation and lies”.

All the supermarkets whose products we tested dispute our findings.
Advertisement

Alamy
China grows most of its tomatoes in the Xinjiang region


China grows about a third of the world’s tomatoes. The north-western region of Xinjiang has the perfect climate for growing the fruit.

It is also where China began a programme of mass detentions in 2017. Human rights groups allege more than a million Uyghurs have been detained in hundreds of facilities, which China has termed “re-education camps”.

The BBC has spoken to 14 people who say they endured or witnessed forced labour in Xinjiang’s tomato fields over the past 16 years. “[The prison authorities] told us the tomatoes would be exported overseas,” Ahmed (not his real name) said, adding that if the workers did not meet the quotas - as much as 650kg a day - they would be shocked with electric prods.

Mamutjan, a Uyghur teacher who was imprisoned in 2015 for an irregularity in his travel documentation, says he was beaten for failing to meet the high tomato quotas expected of him.

“In a dark prison cell, there were chains hanging from the ceiling. They hung me up there and said ‘Why can’t you finish the job?’ They beat my buttocks really hard, hit me in the ribs. I still have marks.”
Advertisement


Mamutjan, who picked tomatoes in detention, says he was hung from the ceiling of his cell as punishment for not picking enough of the fruit


It is hard to verify these accounts, but they are consistent, and echo evidence in a 2022 UN report which reported torture and forced labour in detention centres in Xinjiang.

By piecing together shipping data from around the world, the BBC discovered how most Xinjiang tomatoes are transported into Europe - by train through Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and into Georgia, from where they are shipped onwards to Italy.
Advertisement




One company name repeatedly appeared as a recipient in the data. This was Antonio Petti, part of a group of major tomato-processing firms in Italy. It received more than 36 million kg of tomato paste from the company Xinjiang Guannong and its subsidiaries between 2020 and 2023, the data showed.

The Petti group produces tomato goods under its own name, but also supplies others to supermarkets across Europe who sell them as their own branded products.

Our investigation tested 64 different tomato purees sold in the UK, Germany and the US - comparing them in a lab to samples from China and Italy. They included top Italian brands and supermarket own-brands, and many were produced by Petti.

We asked Source Certain, a world-renowned origin verification firm based in Australia, to investigate whether the origin claims on the purees’ labels were accurate. The company began by building what its CEO Cameron Scadding calls a “fingerprint” which is unique to a country of origin - analysing the trace elements which the tomatoes absorb from local water and rocks.

“The first objective for us was to establish what the underlying trace element profile would look like for China, and [what] a likely profile would look like for Italy. We found they were very distinct,” he said.

Source Certain then compared those country profiles with the 64 tomato purees we wanted to test - the majority of which claimed to contain Italian tomatoes or gave the impression they did - and a few which did not make any origin claim.

The lab results suggested many of these products did indeed contain Italian tomatoes - including all those sold in the US, top Italian brands including Mutti and Napolina, and some German and UK supermarket own-brands, including those sold by Sainsbury's and Marks & Spencer.

But 17 appeared to contain Chinese tomatoes, 10 of which are made by Petti - the Italian company we found listed repeatedly in international shipping records.

Of those 10 made by Petti, these were for sale in UK supermarkets at the time of testing from April-August 2024:
Advertisement




These were for sale in German supermarkets, during our testing period:
Advertisement




In response, all the supermarkets said they took these allegations very seriously and have carried out internal investigations which found no evidence of Chinese tomatoes. Many have also disputed the testing methodology used by our experts. Tesco suspended supply and Rewe immediately withdrew the products. Waitrose, Morrisons, Edeka and Rewe said they had run their own tests, and that the results contradicted ours and did not show the presence of Chinese tomatoes in the products.

But one major retailer has admitted to using Chinese tomatoes. Lidl told us they were in another version of its Baresa Tomatenmark - made by the Italian supplier Giaguaro - sold in Germany last year “for a short time” because of supply problems and that they are investigating this. Giaguaro said all its suppliers respected workers' rights and it is currently not using Chinese tomatoes in Lidl products. The BBC understands the tomatoes were supplied by the Xinjiang company Cofco Tunhe, which the US sanctioned in December last year for forced labour.

In 2021, one of the Petti group’s factories was raided by the Italian military police on suspicion of fraud - it was reported by the Italian press that Chinese and other foreign tomatoes were passed off as Italian.

But a year after the raid, the case was settled out of court. Petti denied the allegations about Chinese tomatoes and the issue was dropped.

As part of our investigation into Petti, a BBC undercover reporter posed as a businessman wanting to place a large order with the firm. Invited to tour a company factory in Tuscany by Pasquale Petti, the General Manager of Italian Food, part of the Petti group, our reporter asked him if Petti used Chinese tomatoes.

“Yes… In Europe no-one wants Chinese tomatoes. But if for you it’s OK, we will find a way to produce the best price possible, even using Chinese tomatoes,” he said.
Advertisement


Petti sent us what it said was its last invoice from Xinjiang Guannong (l) dated October 2020, but our undercover reporter spotted a label on a barrel sent to Petti dated August 2023


The reporter’s undercover camera also captured a crucial detail - a dozen blue barrels of tomato paste lined up inside the factory. A label visible on one of them read: “Xinjiang Guannong Tomato Products Co Ltd, prod date 2023-08-20.”

In its response to our investigation, the Petti group told us it had not bought from Xinjiang Guannong since that company was sanctioned by the US for using forced labour in 2020, but did say that it had regularly purchased tomato paste from a Chinese company called Bazhou Red Fruit.

This firm “did not engage in forced labour”, Petti told us. However our investigation has found that Bazhou Red Fruit shares a phone number with Xinjiang Guannong, and other evidence, including shipping data analysis, suggests that Bazhou is its shell company.

Petti added that: “In future we will not import tomato products from China and will enhance our monitoring of suppliers to ensure compliance with human and workers’ rights.”

While the US has introduced strict legislation to ban all Xinjiang exports, Europe and the UK take a softer approach, allowing companies simply to self-regulate to ensure forced labour is not used in supply chains.

This is now set to change in the EU, which has committed to stronger laws, says Chloe Cranston, from the NGO Anti-Slavery International. But she warns this will make it even more likely that the UK will become “a dumping ground” for forced labour products.

Outside the UK watch on YouTube from 00:01 Monday

“The UK Modern Slavery Act, sadly, is utterly not fit for purpose,” she says.

A spokesperson for the UK Department for Business and Trade told us: “We are clear that no company in the UK should have forced labour in its supply chain… We keep our approach to how the UK can best tackle forced labour and environmental harms in supply chains under continual review and work internationally to enhance global labour standards.”

Dario Dongo, journalist and food lawyer, says the findings expose a wider problem - “the true cost of food".

“So when we see [a] low price we have to question ourselves. What is behind that? What is the true cost of this product? Who is paying for that?”

UK
Air traffic shutdown sparks NATS homeworking change

Marcus White
BBC News

NATS
More than 2,000 flights were grounded in August 2023


Airport chaos caused by a computer shutdown has led to reduced homeworking at the UK's air traffic control service.

More than 700,000 passengers suffered cancellations and delays in August 2023.

An engineer was unable to correct the fault from home and arrived at work more than three hours after the incident began, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) previously reported.

NATS said it had rostered more engineers to work on site during busy periods.



A single flight from Los Angeles to Paris triggered the failure at 08:30 BST on Monday 28 August, the CAA previously said.

The air traffic control system was confused by a duplicate code - DVL - representing both Deauville in France and Devil's Lake in North Dakota, USA, the authority reported.

The senior engineer, who was working from home on the bank holiday, arrived at NATS headquarters in Swanwick, Hampshire, shortly before 12:00, the CAA said.

His efforts to resolve the problem on site were also unsuccessful. The system was eventually restored at 14:30 after its manufacturer, Frequentis Comsoft, found the fault.



In its final report on the incident, the CAA said NATS should have more engineers on site in the summer months.

It said the "significant cost... should be seen in the context of the overall cost to the industry and to passengers of the incident", which it put at between £75m and £100m.

PA Media
Passengers at Belfast International Airport were among those left in limbo

In a statement, NATS said: "We would like to apologise again for the inconvenience passengers suffered because of this very unusual technical incident.

"We fixed the specific issue that caused the problem last year as our first priority and it cannot reoccur."

NATS said the system had handled 15 million flights in five years without any problem.

It added that the number of Level 2 engineers based on site had been increased throughout 2024 during "high traffic periods".

The service said: "We will study the independent review report very carefully for any recommendations we have not already addressed and will support their industry-wide recommendations."

MRSA NOW THIS

Bed bugs blighted London’s hospitals more than 500 times over a 7-year period

Luke Alsford
Published December 1, 2024 

METRO UK

Hospitals in London have been blighted by bed bugs over the last seven years (Picture: Shutterstock)

Patients, including children, are potentially being exposed to bed bugs as London hospitals faced hundreds of infestations since 2018.

Nineteen NHS trusts across London said they had to call in pest control over 500 times to tackle bed bugs in the last seven years, costing some hospitals hundreds of pounds.

The Royal London Children’s Hospital, which is run by Barts Health NHS Trust, as well as King’s College Hospital, which sits under the King’s College Hospital NHS Trust, were among the worst affected by the pests.

The figures come despite the NHS’ own pest guidance warning, which says: ‘Pest activity can pose unacceptable risks to patients, staff and visitors, undermine reputation and public confidence, and damage the environment and food products.
The video player is currently playing an ad.
Continue watchingM25 traffic gridlocked for 2.5 miles after 'serious' van and car accidentafter the ad


‘Pest control and management is essential for safe and hygienic healthcare facilities.’

Trusts responsible for more than 40 London hospitals recorded at least 546 bed bug incidents since 2018, according to a Freedom of Information request lodged by Metro.

Out of the 35 trusts in London, 19 said they had to call in pest control, of which 17 said they were blighted by bed bug incidents.

Barts Health NHS Trust was revealed as the host of the highest number of bed bugs amongst the trusts that kept a record.

The trust has faced 177 bed bug infestations since 2018, with more than a third popping up in 2024 alone at 62 bed bug incidents.

The statistics have been collected from a Freedom of Information request by Metro (Picture: Metro Graphics)

The vast majority of Barts Health’s cases were found in The Royal London Hospital, which is an internationally renowned teaching hospital and home to one of the largest children’s hospitals in the UK, as well as London’s Air Ambulance, which is based at the Royal London.

The Royal London Hospital accounted for 105 of the 177 bed bug infestations in the trust, which also looks after St Bartholomew’s Hospital, Mile End Hospital, Whipps Cross Hospital and Newham Hospital.

Pest controllers tackled the second highest number of bed bugs in hospitals under King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.

To get the latest news from the capital visit Metro's London news hub.

Patients in King’s College Hospital’s major trauma centre and across the trust’s other hospitals were potentially exposed to bed bugs 86 times in the last seven years.

Most trusts have prepaid for pest control control contracts and so did not fork out extra to deal with the bed bug incidents.

However, data from a few hospitals reveals how expensive fumigation and treatment can be for the NHS.

South West London and St George’s Mental Health NHS Trust, which is the leading provider of mental health services in the capital’s south west, forked out a staggering £41,366.13 to manage just four bed bug incidents.

One case of bed bugs in an entire 19-bed ward in St Ann’s Hospital, run by Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health Trust, cost over £12,000 to resolve.

This dwarfs the amount spent by other trusts tackling similar levels of the bug, Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust paid £400 per their three call outs, whereas the for Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust has 10 incidents that cost £55 per call out.

A handful of trusts, such The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust and the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Trust, meanwhile reported no bed bug cases at all in the last seven years.

Saffron Cordery, deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, the membership organisation of NHS trusts in England, said: ‘It’s alarming that trusts across England have to spend millions on pest control on top of their rocketing, near-£14billion backlog of essential repairs to buildings and equipment which are in a very bad way.’

Cordery added: ‘Safety of patients and staff is the top priority.

‘Hospitals as well as mental health, community health and ambulance services need safe, efficient and reliable buildings, facilities and equipment to provide first-class care.’

An NHS Providers survey has found that almost seven in ten trusts said estate-related issues are having an impact on their ability to deliver a positive environment for patients, service users and staff.

Sarah Spratt, a bed bug exterminator who worked at Bed Bug Limited for six years, told Metro: ‘Hospitals are a common area to find bed bugs. The big thing to understand is the higher the footfall in a building, the higher the chance of getting bed bugs.

‘It is nothing that the hospitals are doing wrong, it is just statistics. All it takes is one doctor or one patient to bring them in.

‘There is a lack of understanding and a lack of preparedness. Maybe staff could be better training in spotting bed bugs and lead to earlier detection.’

In one year, she said treated the homes of three new mothers who all picked up bed bugs from hospital maternity units in London.

Spratt said: ‘They were horrified. Everybody has this shock when you tell them that a hospital is a common place to pick bed bugs up, because we always think of hospitals as sterile and clean.’

One job Sarah Spratt was called out to saw bed bugs covering a mattress. This image was taken at a separate job and not related to the hospital maternity units 

(Picture: Sarah Spratt)

David Cain, a molecular biologist and founder of Bed Bug Limited, added: ‘Mathematically you cannot have buildings with more than 100 people which don’t have bed bugs introduced to them on average every 10 days. Not all of them infestations will result in a colony of bed bugs.

‘Hospitals are no different from everywhere else, they will get bed bugs.’

Bed bugs are not known to spread diseases to humans. Last summer, Paris was blighted by a bed bug infestation, prompting fears that there would be an increased infestation in the UK due to the nations’ close transport links.

In September, French scientists unveiled they had found a remedy, a powdered clay which usually is used as a stain remover, could eradicate them in 24 hours.

How the hospitals responded to Metro's story
A spokesperson for Barts Health NHS trust said: ‘We take the health and safety of our patients, staff, and visitors extremely seriously and these figures demonstrate our proactive approach in reporting and tackling bed bug infestations. Once chemical treatment and deep cleans are completed the infected room only returns to patient use once it has been signed off as bed bug free.’

A spokesperson for King’s College Hospital NHS said: ‘We are committed to maintaining a clean and safe environment for patients and staff. We regularly monitor our estate and put preventative measures in place to reduce the risk of pest control incidents occurring. When they do occur, we take swift action to deal with them.’

West London NHS Trust said they ‘put the safety and wellbeing of our patients and staff first, and work to ensure our environments are hygienic and conducive to recovery.’

A spokesperson added: ‘We follow robust procedures to ensure we can address any infestations and concerns about our facilities as soon we become aware of them. This requires expenditure on pest control services across our 100+ sites – many of which were constructed before the foundation of the NHS and this is just one aspect we hope will improve in our strategy to bring facilities for mental health and community patients into the 21st century.’

Whittington Health NHS Trust said they were committed to maintaining high standards across its hospitals, and take ‘proactive measures’ to prevent pest issues arising and respond quickly if they happen.

A spokesperson from Hillingdon said: ‘We recognise the challenge of managing this issue in busy hospitals such as ours.

‘To support us, we have expert pest control contractors who respond immediately to any issues raised. In addition, our staff are trained to be constantly vigilant and to report any issues they find.’

Metro approached the other NHS Trusts for comment.

MORE: Expert shares the 65p household item that can get rid of bed bugs for good

MORE: Family claims holiday park caravan had ‘stained bedsheets and bugs in room’

MORE: Brits warned Paris Olympics could bring a fresh bedbug outbreak

Revitalising Nuclear: The UK Can Power AI and Lead the Clean-Energy Transition

Tony Blair Institute for Global ChangePaper

2nd December 2024

By multiple experts (7)

Chapter 1

Executive Summary


Artificial intelligence is ushering in a new era of infrastructure and energy.

As data centres and compute are built at scale, they are driving an unprecedented demand for energy. In turn, the world is witnessing a massive mobilisation of capital towards clean technology. Geothermal, solar, wind and new forms of ocean power are being developed. But one of the most significant implications is that nuclear is back. Countries such as the United States, South Korea, Canada, France and Japan have all committed to new nuclear programmes, while the US is moving at speed to fulfil its ambition to be the pre-eminent AI superpower. If the United Kingdom wants to remain competitive, it needs to build at pace.

On 20 September 2024, Microsoft announced it was paying to reopen the Three Mile Island Unit 1 nuclear reactor.

[1]Link to footnote It was a symbolic announcement. The partial meltdown of the reactor’s counterpart, Unit 2, in 1979 was the beginning of the decline of nuclear power. After the Chernobyl catastrophe that followed, the world witnessed a slowdown of nuclear. The price of this slowdown is now clear: if the world had not turned away from nuclear after Chernobyl, energy-related CO2 emissions could have been 6 per cent lower in 2023, the same as taking 450 million passenger vehicles off the road for a year.

Renewed interest in nuclear is being driven by giant AI companies seeking to build vast data centres – using hundreds of megawatts of clean, firm power – in one place. However, in most geographies, connections are constrained and access to reliable power has become one of the primary bottlenecks to future AI growth. To resolve AI’s energy problem, large hyperscalers are turning to nuclear energy. As a source of clean power with high energy density that is always available, nuclear power has the qualities that AI companies are looking for.

In addition to Microsoft’s announcement, Google has committed to buying seven new small modular reactors (SMRs) from Kairos Power; Amazon
[2]Link to footnote has signed three deals to deploy SMRs across the US; and Oracle has committed to building three SMRs to power a gigawatt-scale data centre.
[3]Link to footnote These announcements come just weeks after White House officials met with leaders from AI and associated infrastructure companies to “ensure the United States continues to lead the world in AI”
[4]Link to footnote and pushed to triple the country’s nuclear-power capacity by the middle of the 21st century.
[5]Link to footnote

This new dawn for nuclear energy represents a significant opportunity for the UK. The country was the first to split the atom, pioneered the development of civil nuclear technology and hosted the world’s first commercial nuclear-power station. In 1965, there were 21 nuclear reactors within the country’s borders, compared to 19 in the rest of the world combined.

But this is not a story of decline; the UK has maintained strong expertise that can provide hope for the future. Nuclear is the most cost-effective way for the country to deliver net zero and, with the right action, it can be a leader in the next era of the nuclear industry.

The UK can harness innovative nuclear technologies to power its AI future, help decarbonise its industries and deliver low-cost electricity for its grids. It could become a leader in nuclear technology and expertise, providing good jobs and economic growth across the country, and forming strategic geopolitical relationships with the US and beyond.

For the UK to benefit, it needs a bold new strategy – designed for the future of the nuclear industry – with action across three core areas.

First, the UK should create a modernised, streamlined and efficient planning and regulatory regime for new nuclear technologies. This would reduce delays and enhance the standardisation required to unlock new low-cost projects at scale.

Recommendations to achieve this include:

Introducing new “AI growth zones” around the country, with simplified planning and environmental permitting applied to new nuclear plants for AI data centres.

Recognising new design approvals for nuclear technology from trusted international regulators such as the US, Canada, France and South Korea, to enable faster approvals of new designs through the UK regulatory process.

Requiring the Office of Nuclear Regulation (ONR) to regard approval of a single reactor as the basis for fleet approval, to standardise design across deployment.

Introducing a two-year limit for the ONR and Environment Agency to license nuclear reactors that are similar to previously licensed designs.

Second, the UK government should use the conclusion of its ongoing SMR competition to help kick-start the SMR pipeline. This would create options for government procurement of SMR capacity for the grid or public compute.

Recommendations to achieve this include:

Having Great British Nuclear partner with AI hyperscalers to create a single entity that pools data-centre demand for a small fleet of Gen III and Gen IV reactors, and provides financing for their deployment.

Third, the government should deepen the UK-US partnership on SMR and the deployment of advanced modular reactors (AMRs), also known as Gen IV reactors, including cooperation on fuels, financing and supply-chain development.

Recommendations to achieve this include:

Developing a co-financing partnership with the US to drive an international orderbook of a particular SMR or AMR design or set of designs, expanding the potential pool of off-takers and investors, and aggregating a broader suite of private and public financing tools. Such cooperation can mitigate risk, pool sufficient capital to drive an orderbook and stimulate private investment in supply chains and workforce skills.

Establishing ways for the UK and US governments to work together to provide industry assurances of a robust transatlantic fuel supply chain, through trade agreements promoting procurement of fuel services.

READ ON

Revitalising Nuclear: The UK Can Power AI and Lead the Clean-Energy Transition

FAMILY FEUD; ASSASSINACION

Philippine groups to seek impeachment of Vice President Duterte


Philippine Vice-President Sara Duterte, the daughter of firebrand former President Rodrigo Duterte, has been embroiled in a bitter row with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and is the subject of a house enquiry into her spending. She denies wrongdoing. 

— Reuters pic

Monday, 02 Dec 2024 

MANILA, Dec 2 — An alliance of civil society groups in the Philippines will today file an impeachment complaint against Vice President Sara Duterte, according to parliamentary group Akbayan partylist, which said its lawmaker would endorse it.

Duterte, the daughter of firebrand former President Rodrigo Duterte, has been embroiled in a bitter row with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and is the subject of a house enquiry into her spending. She denies wrongdoing.

Akbayan in a statement said the “historic impeachment complaint” would be submitted to the lower house by civil society organizations, religious leaders, sectoral representatives and families of victims of her father’s bloody war on drugs, under which thousands were killed.

It did not elaborate on what the grounds for impeachment were. The vice president could not immediately be reached for comment.

The bid is the latest twist in a high-profile row being played out publicly between three of the Philippines highest office-holders following the collapse of a powerful alliance between their families that led to Marcos’ landslide win in the 2022 election.

Sara Duterte recently said she had contracted someone to kill Marcos, his wife and house speaker Martin Romualdez - the president’s cousin - if she herself were to be killed. She later said the remarks had been taken out of context.

Marcos on Friday said any impeachment complaint against his estranged vice president would only distract Congress and not help people, in remarks that drew criticism from some lawmakers.

REUTERS

GERMANY

Volkswagen workers hold strikes over proposed pay cuts and factory closures

2 December 2024

Germany Volkswagen. Picture: PA

Workers face the threat of the car giant’s first factory closures in its home country.

Volkswagen workers have launched rolling two-hour strikes at nine factories across Germany to underline their resistance to pay cuts and factory closures the company says are necessary to cope with a slack European car market.

The stoppages included the company’s base plant at Wolfsburg, where workers are due to rally against a cost-cutting drive by the carmaker’s management in which they face the threat of Volkswagen’s first factory closures in its home country.

The so-called warning strikes, a common tactic in German wage negotiations, are taking place as part of talks for a new labour agreement after a mandatory peace period that bars strikes expired on Sunday.

The IG Metall industrial union said any job actions beyond those occurring on Monday would be announced later.

Demos also took place outside the firm’s factory in Zwickau (Hendrik Schmidt/dpa via AP)

The company is demanding a 10% pay cut for 120,000 German workers and has said it cannot avoid shedding factory capacity that is no longer needed. Employees’ representatives say the company has proposed closing three of its German plants.

Thorsten Groger, the regional leader of the IG Metall industrial union in Lower Saxony, where Volkswagen is headquartered, said that the company won’t be able to “overlook” the walkouts.

“If necessary, this will be one of the toughest conflicts Volkswagen has ever seen.”

The company has not publicly detailed its plans but is facing a drop in demand in Europe, higher costs and increasing competition from Chinese carmakers.

Volkswagen employees have signalled further action (Hendrik Schmidt/dpa via AP)

Volkswagen built factories to supply a European car market of 16 million in annual vehicle sales, but now faces demand for around 14 million, Volkswagen brand head Thomas Schaefer was quoted as saying in the Welt am Sonntag newspaper.

Since Volkswagen has a quarter of the market, that represents a loss of 500,000 cars a year.

For years, strong profits in China helped cover higher costs but the changing environment now means that “it’s high time to address this,” Mr Schaefer said.

Volkswagen argues that it must lower costs in Germany to levels achieved by competitors and by Volkswagen plants in eastern Europe and South America.

Monday is the first day of the nationwide action (Hendrik Schmidt/dpa via AP)

Chief employee representative Daniela Cavallo has said employees should not shoulder the burden of management’s failures to develop attractive products and come up with a cheaper, entry-level electric vehicle.

The walkouts began in Zwickau in eastern Germany and were set to continue at plants in Braunschweig, Chemnitz, Dresden, Emden, Hanover, Kassel, and Salzgitter.

The next negotiations are slated for December 9.

By Press Association

Nine Volkswagen plants to strike as labor battle escalates

December 02, 2024 
By Reuters

Employees of Volkswagen AG march for higher wages in front of the Osnabrueck Volkswagen plant during a 'warning strike' of Germany's IG Metall metalworkers' union, in Osnabrueck, Germany, November 6, 2024.

BERLIN —

Workers at nine Volkswagen car and component plants across Germany will strike for several hours on Monday, IG Metall union said, bringing assembly lines to a halt as labor and management clash over the future of the carmaker's German operations.

Thousands are expected to gather at the carmaker's headquarters in Wolfsburg. Demonstrations are also expected at the Hanover plant, which employs around 14,000 people, and other component and auto plants including Emden, Salzgitter, and Brunswick.

The strikes, which could escalate into 24-hour or unlimited strikes if a deal is not struck in the next round of wage negotiations, will put a dent in Volkswagen's output at a time when the carmaker is already facing declining deliveries and plunging profit.

"How long and how intensive this confrontation needs to be is Volkswagen's responsibility at the negotiating table," Groeger said on Sunday.

A company spokesperson on Sunday said the carmaker respected workers' right to strike and had taken steps to ensure a basic level of supplies to customers and minimize the strike's impact.

The union last week proposed measures it said would save $1.6 billion, including forgoing bonuses for 2025 and 2026, which Europe's top carmaker dismissed.

Volkswagen has demanded a 10% wage cut, arguing it needs to slash costs and boost profit to defend market share.

The company is also threatening to close plants in Germany, a first in its 87-year history.

An agreement not to stage walkouts ended on Saturday, enabling workers to carry out strikes from Sunday across VW AG's German plants.

The labor union called on employees of the plants housed under subsidiary Volkswagen Sachsen GmbH, which include VW's EV-only plant Zwickau, to strike on both Monday and Tuesday.

Negotiations will continue on Dec. 9 over a new labor agreement, with unions vowing to resist any proposals that do not provide a long-term plan for every VW plant.

Volkswagen workers worry about future as they stage warning strikes

By Liv Stroud

Published on 02/12/2024 - 

Thousands of workers at Volkswagen's headquarters in Wolfsburg launched warning strikes on Monday, with the works council accusing shareholders of prioritising billions in profits while workers face job insecurity and potential layoffs.

The sounds of whistles and chants echoed through Wolfsburg, home to Germany’s Volkswagen's headquarters, on Monday as workers staged protests.

Tens of thousands of VW employees across Germany halted production every few hours, following failed negotiations between the carmaker and unions.

Volkswagen plans to close three plants, cut thousands of jobs, and slash wages by 10% to save costs, citing sluggish car demand, rising labour expenses, raw material shortages, and delays in the shift to electric vehicles.

The Wolfsburg strike began with the works council sharply criticising shareholders Porsche and Piëch, accusing them of making billions in profits over the past decade while workers now face the possibility of mass layoffs and wage cuts.

In Germany, works councils, which function similarly to employee councils, are elected bodies representing workers' interests directly to management and operate independently from trade unions.

The VW works council is urging the company to find a fair solution that avoids job losses and factory closures.

Volkswagen workers strikingLiv Stroud

Christian Koziol, a Volkswagen employee with over 40 years of service, is deeply concerned about the future of Wolfsburg.

"What about our children — where will they work in the future? It’s very unsettling," he told Euronews.

Commenting on the impact of political decisions on the car industry, Koziol acknowledged the importance of climate protection and said, "Looking back, we must admit that the emphasis on CO2 limits, compliance, and potential penalties likely constrained many companies in their decision-making."

Related

• Volkswagen workers on strike over proposed pay cuts and plant closures

"They had no other option but to move towards e-mobility to comply with these standards. This cuts across the entire industry," Koziol said.

He also questioned whether policies on subsidies were well-designed, adding: "Was it wrong to end the subsidies? Was it wrong to set the subsidies so high at first, only to abruptly stop them? All these factors impact the automotive industry."

Atmosphere remains tense

The mood in Wolfsburg is sombre, as talks between the union and VW are set to continue next Monday. The union is also threatening harder strikes if no agreement is reached.

With snap elections coming up in February, and the car industry very much the backbone of the German economy, it seems more likely that the country will vote to change leadership.

But declining demand is not just affecting Germany. Italy, France and Belgium are also facing a dramatic sales slump, posing a broader risk of economic instability across the eurozone.