As abortion ruling nears, U.S. Supreme Court erects barricades to the public

"They are trying to insulate themselves from the effects of their actions. Why else would you put a fence up?" 

Fri, June 17, 2022, 
By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Encircled by an ominous security fence and off-limits to the public since March 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court is poised in the coming weeks to issue a major ruling that could dramatically curtail abortion rights from behind closed doors with not a single justice in sight.

No members of the public have been allowed in the courthouse since COVID-19 pandemic precautions were implemented in March 2020. The scene at the court has become more tense following protests and threats against some of the nine justices prompted by the May leak of a draft opinion indicating they are set to overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion nationwide. The court has a 6-3 conservative majority.

The 8-foot (2.4 meters) tall fencing was erected in the days after the leak as the court ramped up security measures.

While the rest of official Washington, including other government buildings including the White House and Capitol, has reopened its doors to the public at least partially as the pandemic ebbs, the top U.S. judicial body remains in a form of lockdown with what appears to be siege mentality even as it wields huge influence over public policy.

For Guido Reichstadter, an abortion-rights protester camped out in front of the courthouse since the beginning of June, the fencing is a sign of how out of touch the justices - or at least the six conservative ones - are with public sentiment.

"They are trying to insulate themselves from the effects of their actions. Why else would you put a fence up?" Reichstadter asked.

Reichstadter was arrested on June 6 for locking himself to the fence by the neck and spent a night in jail.

"To me it sends a message that they are weak, they are afraid, they are isolated," Reichstadter said of the fence.

Emotions have run high since the Politico news organization published the draft abortion decision authored by conservative Justice Samuel Alito on May 2.

Since then, protesters have rallied outside the homes of some of the conservative justices. A California man named Nicholas Roske, carrying a handgun, ammunition, a crow bar and pepper spray, was charged with attempted murder after being arrested on June 8 near Justice Brett Kavanaugh's Maryland residence.

Congress on Tuesday passed legislation to bolster security for the nine justices, though lawmakers did not include protections for the families of clerks and other Supreme Court employees due to Republican opposition.

After the leak, conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, known for his criticism of the Roe ruling, said on May 6 at a legal conference in Atlanta that the court should not be "bullied into giving you just the outcomes you want."

Anti-abortion advocates are sympathetic to concerns about the safety of the justices, saying they also have received threats following the leak.

"I would say the court is protecting itself, protecting their employees," said Kristan Hawkins, president of the group Students for Life.

EMERGING SLOWLY

The abortion ruling will come in a case involving a Republican-backed Mississippi law banning abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy that was struck down by lower courts as a violation of the Roe precedent. The court also has 17 other cases to decide, with the term usually completed by the end of June, including rulings that could expand gun rights, favor Christian conservatives and limit the power of the federal government to combat climate change, among other issues.

The court has emerged slowly from the pandemic. It resumed in-person oral arguments last October after holding remote arguments by teleconference for 18 months, but let only court staff, lawyers and some reporters into the courtroom. Since the court completed oral arguments for the term on April 27, outsiders have been kept from the building.

One of the many changes in court practice instituted during the pandemic was issuing rulings only online, with no official court session. That means justices no longer read from the bench summaries of their rulings and dissenting opinions. It was previously an opportunity for justices who strongly disagreed with a ruling to passionately voice their views.

A court spokesperson did not respond to a question on why the justices have not resumed reading announcements from the bench. The court has not said when, or if, such sessions will resume. It has shown no signs of live-streaming audio of opinion announcements in the same way that audio of oral arguments has been provided.

Gabe Roth, executive director of Fix the Court, a group advocating for court reform, said there is no reason not to livestream decision announcements, noting it would be the equivalent of President Joe Biden holding a news conference in which he summarized a new executive order.

"It's infuriating they are so resistant to change, but that's kind of what they are known for," Roth said of the court.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham)

Guest Opinion: Abortion shouldn't be the government's call



James A. Morano

One sure way to perpetuate poverty, high welfare costs and high crime rates in this country is to make sure single women can’t get abortions. Then there will be a plentiful supply of single mothers who can’t work because they have to care for an unwanted child, a child who will grow up in desperate circumstances, drop out of school, get a minimum wage job and ultimately come to the conclusion that robbery, drug dealing and violent crime, pay better.

Some people argue that abortion is the murder of an innocent child and is a violation of “God’s law.” For those who believe, that is certainly a legitimate and sincere concern.

However, unlike some countries — most notably in the Middle East — the United States Constitution was developed, not to adhere to any one of the many understandings of “God’s law”. Its purpose was and is, to devise and implement a system of government that creates a just, free, stable and sustainable society of self-governed people.

Therefore, the laws of the country should be made and enforced with that as a goal and not be evaluated on whether or not they comply with one of the many and varied understandings of “God’s law”. Adherence to “God’s law” is an individual decision, based on one’s belief.

As a people, we have to decide which does more damage to our society: abortion or the cost, suffering, poverty and crime resulting from the prohibition of abortion. A woman has to decide whether or not to abort an unwanted child, based on her belief system, financial means, health, etc. This is never a decision taken lightly, for abortion is at best, unpleasant; at worst, abhorrent.

As in many real-life situations, the choice is not between black and white, good and evil. Sometimes one has to choose the lesser of two evils, a difficult decision to be sure, but a decision that should be made by the individual, not by the government.

James A. Morano lives in New Britain Township.

This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Guest Opinion: Abortion shouldn't be the government's call

Sun, June 12, 2022

Planned Parenthood builds staff network to help U.S. women navigate abortion hurdles


The Wider Image: With U.S. abortion access in jeopardy, this doctor travels to fill a void

Mon, June 13, 2022,
By Gabriella Borter

(Reuters) - Planned Parenthood and other abortion rights groups are expanding a network of staff to guide patients through what is expected to become an increasingly complex and expensive process to obtain abortions across much of the United States.

Regional affiliates of Planned Parenthood said they are hiring more "patient navigators," a role dedicated to helping women find abortion appointments and secure money to cover medical, travel and childcare costs.

A sharp increase in patients needing such support is likely should the U.S. Supreme Court strike down the federal right to an abortion, said abortion providers and funds that help cover abortion-related costs. Twenty-six states could move to quickly ban abortion, requiring women in those places to travel potentially hundreds of miles to the closest abortion clinic.

The prospect of a drastically changed U.S. abortion landscape has leading reproductive health organizations rethinking their approach.

"It’s really a big spider web that's being built throughout the country," said Angela Huntington in Missouri. She was hired in September as the first patient navigator at the Planned Parenthood Great Plains affiliate, which operates clinics in Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Kansas.

Clinics and funds in places that already limit abortion access have relied often on an informal system of coordination to help patients find the nearest and soonest appointment and cobble together financial aid.

Huntington said the Great Plains affiliate saw the need for a formalized network after Texas enacted a law in September that banned abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, resulting in more women traveling from Texas to other states for abortions.

Approximately 850 patients sought financial assistance for abortions through the affiliate in September, up from about 150 women in August, she said. The Great Plains organization has now expanded its patient navigation team to seven people, Huntington said.

Other Planned Parenthood affiliates have hired or are planning to hire more patient navigators to help with referrals and funding coordination, according to spokesperson Lauren Kokum.

Those include the South Atlantic affiliate, which currently has one navigator across Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina, and the Florida affiliates, which have hired three.

PREPARING FOR PATIENT INFLUX

Abortion funds, which have long played a role in helping patients with medical costs and practical support such as booking hotels, also are scrambling to prepare for the expected spike in women traveling for abortions.

The National Abortion Federation (NAF), an organization that represents U.S. abortion providers and offers financial assistance to patients, doubled the size of its case management team two years ago amid a wave of new state restrictions that complicated patients' access to abortion.

As of May, NAF was spending about 80% of its donation-based travel assistance fund on helping patients leave Texas to get abortions because of that state's six-week ban, according to Rachel Lachenauer, the director of patient experience.

With the threat of more state abortion bans that would affect women far beyond Texas, the organization is "in hyperdrive" as it assesses how it can most effectively distribute its travel resources, Lachenauer said.

“You can see how we are really, really quickly going to hit our capacity,” she said.

NAF is planning to concentrate the efforts of its 20 case managers on states such as Illinois, which protect abortion rights and will see an increase in patients from surrounding states with more restrictive laws, she said.

The Chicago Abortion Fund, similarly bracing for a wave of abortion seekers coming to Illinois, plans to expand its team of support coordinators to six from two by the end of June, said Megan Jeyifo, the fund's director.

The coordinators oversee the organization's volunteer case managers and handle patient support such as providing gas and food money for traveling patients, she said.

The Chicago Abortion Fund now communicates with patient navigators at Planned Parenthood's Illinois and St. Louis affiliates almost daily to discuss an increasing number of patient cases requiring assistance, Jeyifo said.

The fund also is building relationships with new abortion providers opening clinics in Illinois to accommodate the heavier patient load.

"We're going to need all of us in this kind of ecosystem to be able to make sure people get the care they want," Jeyifo said.

(Reporting by Gabriella Borter in New York; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Cynthia Osterman)

Galapagos 'fantastic giant tortoise' was believed to be extinct for 100 years — until the discovery of a lone 50-year-old female nicknamed Fernanda


Kelsey Vlamis
Sat, June 11, 2022

Fernanda, a more than 50-year-old "fantastic giant tortoise" of the Galápagos Islands.Lucas Bustamante/Galapagos Conservancy

For a century, biologists have been intrigued by a species of Galápagos tortoise thought extinct.

But a tortoise recently discovered on a volcanic island belonged to that species, a new paper says.

DNA analysis showed the newly found tortoise came from the same lineage as one found in 1906.

A single giant female tortoise was discovered in 2019 on Fernandina Island, an active volcano in the Galápagos Islands that's considered by some to be the largest pristine island on earth.

Scientists have confirmed the tortoise, nicknamed Fernanda, belongs to a species thought extinct for over a century, according to a paper published this week in the journal Communications Biology.

"The significance of the find is huge," Evelyn Jensen, a lecturer in molecular ecology at Newcastle University, told Insider.

Jensen was the co-first author of the paper along with Stephen Gaughran, a postdoctoral research fellow in ecology and evolutionary biology at Princeton University.

"To find that a species of Galápagos tortoise that was thought to be extinct for over 100 years is not in fact extinct, but lives on, was truly amazing," Jensen said.

The first specimen of Chelonoidis phantasticus, also called "the fantastic giant tortoise," was discovered on Fernandina Island in 1906 and collected by explorer Rollo Beck. The specimen differed from other Galápagos tortoises due to the shape of its shell, which flared out along the edge, and prominent "saddlebacking," or a raised, saddle-like shape, towards the front.

But another "fantastic giant tortoise" was never found, with the species long considered extinct — that is, until Fernanda.

Fernanda, who researchers believe is at least 50 years old, was discovered in 2019 on an isolated patch of vegetation that was cut off from the main vegetated area of the island by lava flows. Her growth was stunted, which the researchers said could explain why her physical traits weren't quite as pronounced as the specimen found in 1906.

Fernanda the "fantastic giant tortoise" at the Santa Cruz Giant Tortoise Breeding Center in Galapagos.Galapagos Conservancy

Fernanda was collected and placed in captivity at the Galápagos National Park Tortoise Center. Researchers sequenced the genomes of both Fernanda and the 1906 specimen, which was part of the California Academy of Sciences collection.

Their analysis indicated the two tortoises were genetically distinct from other species of Galápagos tortoises and are from the same lineage.

"That Fernanda was found at all was a huge surprise," Jensen said. "We really did not expect that there were any tortoises living on Fernandina Island, although there were rumors of signs of tortoises there over the decades."

Once she was found, researchers thought Fernanda may have been native to a different Galápagos island and somehow ended up on Fernandina. While tortoises don't swim, they can float or be transported during storms.

Though another "fantastic giant tortoise" has not been found since Fernanda, there have been encouraging signs, like tracks and feces, suggesting 2 to 3 other tortoises may be on the island.

There are believed to be 15 species of Galápagos tortoises, according to the nonprofit Galápagos Conservancy. The Galápagos Archipelago is well known for its distinct species, which were studied by Charles Darwin and helped contribute to his theory on evolution.

"This also shows the importance of using museum collections to understand the past," Adalgisa Caccone, the senior author of the study and a lecturer in ecology and evolutionary biology at Yale University, said in a statement.

"The finding of one alive specimen gives hope and also opens up new questions as many mysteries still remain," Caccone said, posing questions about whether there are more tortoises on Fernandina Island, whether they can be recovered through a breeding program, and how they got there in the first place.

Sky backs £100mn climate investment fund

Daniel Thomas in London

Sun, June 12, 2022, 

British media group Sky will back a £100mn investment fund set up by Brent Hoberman’s Founders Factory to support start-ups focused on climate-related technology. The new fund will be chaired by Sir Ian Cheshire, former Kingfisher boss and chair of Channel 4, and will bring together a board including climate scientists such as Professor Richard Templer and Professor Cameron Hepburn to help with its investment strategy. The group will raise £100mn to back early-stage climate start-ups but will be launched with an existing portfolio of stakes in about 25 start-ups that have been backed in the past by a previous Sky venture fund.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_UK

Sky UK - Wikipedia 

It is a subsidiary of Sky Group and from 2018 onwards – part of Comcast. It is the UK's largest pay-TV broadcaster with 12.7 million customers as of end of 2019 ...

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/sep/26/rupert-murdochs-sky-reign-to-end-as-fox-sells-all-shares-to-comcast

Rupert Murdoch's Sky reign to end as Fox sells all shares to Comcast 

Sep 26, 2018 ... Rupert Murdoch's three-decade reign at Sky TV is to end after his company 21st Century Fox announced it would sell all of its shares in the ...

Neo-Nazi Founder Among 31 Patriot Front Members Arrested Near Idaho Pride Event

LINDSAY WHITEHURST and SAM METZ / AP

After the arrest of more than two dozen members of a white supremacist group near a northern Idaho pride event, including one identified as its founder, LGBTQ advocates said Sunday that polarization and a fraught political climate are putting their community increasingly at risk.

The 31 Patriot Front members were arrested with riot gear after a tipster reported seeing people loading up into a U-Haul like “a little army” at a hotel parking lot in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, police said.

Among those booked into jail on misdemeanor charges of conspiracy to riot was Thomas Ryan Rousseau of Grapevine, Texas, who has been identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as the 23-year-old who founded the group after the deadly “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. No attorney was immediately listed for him and phone numbers associated with him went unanswered Sunday.

Also among the arrestees was Mitchell F. Wagner, 24, of Florissant, Missouri, who was previously charged with defacing a mural of famous Black Americans on a college campus in St. Louis last year.

Michael Kielty, Wagner’s attorney, said Sunday that he had not been provided information about the charges. He said Patriot Front did not have a reputation for violence and that the case could be a First Amendment issue. “Even if you don’t like the speech, they have the right to make it,” he said.

Patriot Front is a white supremacist neo-Nazi group whose members perceive Black Americans, Jews and LGBTQ people as enemies, said Jon Lewis, a George Washington University researcher who specializes in homegrown violent extremism.

Their playbook, Lewis said, involves identifying local grievances to exploit, organizing on platforms like the messaging app Telegram and ultimately showing up to events marching in neat columns, in blue- or white-collared-shirt uniforms, in a display of strength.

Though Pride celebrations have long been picketed by counterprotesters citing religious objections, they haven’t historically been a major focus for armed extremist groups. Still, it isn’t surprising, given how anti-LGBTQ rhetoric has increasingly become a potent rallying cry in the far-right online ecosystem, Lewis said.

“That set of grievances fits into their broader narratives and shows their ability to mobilize the same folks against ‘the enemy’ over and over and over again,” he said.

The arrests come amid a surge of charged rhetoric around LGBTQ issues and a wave of state legislation aimed at transgender youth, said John McCrostie, the first openly gay man elected to the Idaho Legislature. In Boise this week, dozens of Pride flags were stolen from city streets.

“Whenever we are confronted with attacks of hate, we must respond with the message from the community that we embrace all people with all of our differences,” McCrostie said in a text message.

Sunday also marked six years since the mass shooting that killed 49 people at the Orlando LGBTQ club Pulse, said Troy Williams with Equality Utah in Salt Lake City.

“Our nation is growing increasingly polarized, and the result has been tragic and deadly,” he said.

Authorities in the San Francisco Bay Area are investigating a possible hate crime after a group of men allegedly shouted homophobic and anti-LGBTQ slurs during a weekend Drag Queen Story Hour at the San Lorenzo Library on Saturday. No arrests have been made, no one was physically harmed, and authorities are investigating the incident as possible harassment of children.

In Coeur d’Alene on Saturday, police found riot gear, one smoke grenade, shin guards and shields inside the van after pulling it over near a park where the North Idaho Pride Alliance was holding a Pride in the Park event, Coeur d’Alene Police Chief Lee White said.

The group came to riot around the small northern Idaho city wearing Patriot Front patches and logos on their hats and some T-shirts reading “Reclaim America,” according to police and videos of the arrests posted on social media.

Those arrested came from at least 11 states, including Washington, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Colorado, South Dakota, Illinois, Wyoming, Virginia, and Arkansas.

Though there is a history of far-right extremism dating back decades in northern Idaho, White said only one of those arrested Saturday was from the state.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.
Sun, June 12, 2022

Fox News Regulars and the Far Right Freak Out Over Fox Trans Teen Segment

Zachary Petrizzo
Sat, June 11, 2022,

Fox News

A Fox News segment highlighting a California family’s story of accepting their son’s transgender transitioning story has caught the ire of some Fox News regulars as well as the far-right fever swamps.

“California transgender teen, family hope to be an inspiration to others,” read the title of the video report from correspondent Bryan Llenas, as posted to Fox’s website. Fox News anchor Dana Perino introduced the segment on-air during her Friday morning show as part of “America Together LGBTQ+ Pride Month.”

The freakout was almost immediate.

“I have appeared on Fox News many times. I appreciate the platform they’ve given me. If what I’m about to say ruins that relationship, so be it,” tweeted The Daily Wire podcaster Matt Walsh, a Fox News regular and right-wing firebrand behind an anti-trans documentary that attempted to dupe trans teens into participating under false pretenses. “We have to call this evil lunacy out wherever we see it. Especially on our own side.”

He continued his rant, claiming that “I know for a fact that many people at Fox do not approve of this and never would have agreed to air radical far left trans propaganda,” adding that “Everyone involved should be fired immediately.”

The Daily Wire honcho Ben Shapiro, also a Fox News regular who is often approvingly cited by the network’s opinion personalities, similarly whined with a tweet: “This would be absolute despicable insane lunacy if I saw it on CNN or MSNBC. To see it on Fox News is a complete betrayal of anything remotely resembling conservatism or decency.” He also called on Fox to “terminate whomever is responsible for this agitprop abomination.”

As of Saturday morning, Donald Trump’s Truth Social platform and Telegram were also buzzing with anger.

“Fox News is cool with toddlers taking hormones,” Gavin McInnes, a hate-group leader that founded the Proud Boys, wrote on Telegram. Elsewhere both Stew Peters, a far-right shock-jock, and Lauren Witzke, a failed Delaware Republican Senate candidate, encouraged followers to spam Fox News with emails over airing the segment and moreover being “disgusting,” “satanic,” and “demonic.” “Turn Fox News OFF,” the extremist social media platform Gab further wrote.

“Fox News is DONE!” former Trump administration official and ex-Fox News contributor Sebastian Gorka wrote on Truth Social. “Fox and Twitter joining forces,” The Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon added.

A Fox News spokesperson did not return The Daily Beast’s request for comment.

Filipino trans man Van Vincent Go documents his gender transition on YouTube to inspire others



Ryan General
June 10, 2022·3 min read

Van Vincent Go, a 29-year-old transgender man from the Philippines, is seeking to empower the local trans community by sharing details about his own transition on YouTube.

Go began detailing his transition on his YouTube channel VandomVincent back in 2014. His videos document the gradual changes in his body, including the surgical removal of his breasts, development of a more masculine chest, growth of facial hair and the deepening of his voice.

Go revealed in an interview with Rappler in January that he first learned the term “transgender” on YouTube as he was trying to discover more about himself.

“I’ve always seen myself as a boy, as early as 4 years old,” Go was quoted as saying. “It was only when I was about 18 years old when I realized that I was transgender all this time.”

Coming from an all-girls school where a number of his friends were “butch lesbians,” Go initially thought he was the same as them.

“As we grew older, I was getting really uncomfortable with my body, and I was asking myself why [I felt that way] when the rest of them didn’t have any issues with the changes during puberty.”

According to Go, he discovered that he was transgender after watching hundreds of YouTube videos on the transgender experience and SOGIE (sexual orientation, gender identity and expression).

That was when he decided to undergo the transition medically. While his mother “didn’t really take it well” when he first revealed the news, he said he was “already ready with whatever reaction she would give me.”

So far, Go has undergone top surgery and has been taking hormones through intramuscular injections.

Go highlighted the importance of finding the right medical professionals as such procedures aren’t widely supported in the Philippines.

In 2014, he co-founded the very first trans man support group in Visayas and Mindanao to address the issue by creating a directory of medical professionals who are trans-friendly.

He also advised people who are thinking about following in his footsteps to prepare for the processes both financially and mentally.

“Other people think that once they transition, they’d automatically be accepted by everyone else in their environment,” Go said. "That’s not really true. It depends on who you’re with. It’s not a guarantee that people are going to look at you differently, because you’re still the same person, and the people around you who do not really believe in these things are still the same people.”

In November last year, Go was selected to be part of YouTube’s NextUp program, which provided him and other creators with training and support in growing and improving their channels. He is now committed to using what he learned to continue inspiring others in the trans community by developing better content on the transgender experience.



“I’m working on making a series of educational videos about our trans community – with updated information,” Go shared. “Our experts find new information every now and then, and our politically correct terms keep evolving, so it’s nice to be aware of all these things.”

Featured Image via VandomVincent

Dubai and UAE should be blacklisted and face sanctions for sheltering oligarchs and 'dirty money', activists say: report


Jyoti Mann

BUSINESS INSIDER

Oligarchs have put assets such as superyachts in Dubai.

Getty Images

A growing number of politicians and activists are calling for Dubai to be blacklisted: The Observer.

8 European Parliament members signed an open letter to a European Commissioner demanding sanctions.

The Financial Action Task Force watchdog put Dubai on its 'gray' earlier this year.

Politicians and activists are calling for Dubai and the United Arab Emirates to be blacklisted over its failure to observe sanctions against Russian oligarchs and stem the flow of dirty money flowing through the UAE.

Western countries including the US and UK hit Russia with stringent sanctions in February after Russia invaded Ukraine. This prompted some oligarchs to flee to Dubai and buy properties in the UAE.

"Dubai has long been a safe place for dirty money. It should now be put on financial blacklists and its leaders shouldn't be welcome [in Britain]," Bill Browder, a campaigner and critic of Vladimir Putin, told Britain's The Observer newspaper.

Browder joins a growing list of politicians and activists who have called for sanctions against the UAE. Last month a group of European Parliament members signed an open letter to European Commissioner Mairead McGuinness calling for the UAE to be blacklisted.

"How many scandals will it take before Dubai gets on the EU money laundering list?" asked Kira Peter-Hansen, one of the MEPs to sign the open letter, in a tweet on May 11.

The letter came after news reports that the UAE is a safe haven for Russian oligarchs who took their private jets and yachts to places such as Dubai in an attempt to escape western sanctions.

"It is clear that the UAE facilitates money laundering at a grand scale," the letter stated. "This is highly damaging to the EU and cannot be tolerated."

The Financial Action Task Force, a global financial crime watchdog, placed the UAE on a "gray" list in March to monitor its activities and encourage stronger action against money laundering.

An investigation and data leak in Mayt from the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) in May exposed how sanctioned individuals have poured money into Dubai.

The Dubai Financial Services Authority did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

BOURGEOIS ECONOMICS WITHOUT BOURGEOIS DEMOCRACY

The rise and fall of Secoo: how China's top luxury retailer fell off the catwalk after glory days of US$140 million Nasdaq IPO

Sun, June 12, 2022

The spectacular fall from grace of China's top luxury retailer Secoo offers a cautionary tale about how many companies which were once seen as rising stars in a high-growth market are now facing the harsh reality of increased competition and weak consumer spending in a slowing economy.

Secoo, started by Chinese entrepreneur Richard Rixue Li and enthusiastically backed by private equity capital, rose from a second-hand handbag shop into China's largest luxury goods exchange for individuals with a 2017 initial public offering on Nasdaq raising US$140 million.

However, since then the luxury platform has lost its way. Although its main digital app remains in operation, a plethora of complaints from consumers and vendors on social media, combined with a now-withdrawn bankruptcy filing, have crippled the company's public image.

In a 17-year-old shopping centre in Shanghai, Secoo's brand new offline store can be seen perched on the fourth floor, with sections including menswear, womenswear, children's clothing, handbags, authentication services and others.

But few customers could be seen when the South China Morning Post visited the store on two separate occasions earlier this year, before Covid-19 lockdowns hit large swathes of Shanghai. The outlet is one of 300 offline spaces that were planned by the company in the country through direct franchises and joint partnerships in late 2021. So far, only two of them - in Shanghai and Chongqing - have materialised.

A customer service reply to a question sent via the company's app said that the Shanghai outlet is currently undergoing a "refurbishment upgrade" whereas the Chongqing space is undergoing an "adjustment".

Secoo's new store in Shanghai opened its doors last October. Photo: Yaling Jiang 

A review section for one of its stores on a third-party app is filled with customer complaints. "It doesn't deliver, doesn't return, when I called, it always says 'system upgrade', what a con company", one of the negative reviews states.

Multiple calls to Secoo by the Post to get its comment on questions raised in this article were unanswered as of publication.

Long Zheqing, a consumer based in China's central Changsha city, has been waiting for a refund from the e-tailer, which sells both new and used luxury goods, for more than half a year.

After paying over 30,000 yuan (US$4,466) for a total of eight items during China's Singles' Day shopping festival around November 11 last year, she waited for her delivery for a month before complaining and asking for a refund. The average speed for China's e-commerce deliveries is typically one to three days.

"Victims who are close to the Beijing headquarters may have gone there in person to get their refunds much faster, but it's hard for people like me who are far away," Long told the Post via messaging platform WeChat. Even though she is still waiting for the refund, Secoo's customer service continues to call her up for promotional seasons, she said.

In another sign of trouble for Secoo, the Beijing parent firm was forced to pay up to 17.4 million yuan (US$2.6 million) of debt to Shanghai Secoo E-commerce, one of its subsidiaries, by a Beijing court in May 2022, according to business intelligence platform Tianyancha.

The current state of affairs is a dramatic turnaround for a company that once rode the crest of China's e-commerce and second-hand luxury sales wave. Founded in 2008 by Li and Huang Zhaohui as a trading company, it pivoted towards luxury e-tailing in 2011, attracting an array of well-heeled investors in its early years, including IDG Capital and Bertelsmann Asia Investments.

Li said that with strong partners Secoo would be able to "expand and deepen its market presence not only in China, but across the globe", in a statement in 2018.

Former employees the Post spoke with for this article, talked about their experiences with the company in terms of "before" and "after" the Nasdaq IPO.

One former employee, who did not want to be identified for fear of reprisals, who joined Secoo's Italy office a few months before it went public, said the team in Italy grew to around 40 people at its largest. "The company was growing at high-speed in 2018, we had money, people and know-how," she said, adding that they built a platform for European vendors to support the buyers boutique business and helped over 100 boutiques sell on Secoo.

According to Secoo's financial results, the company as a whole experienced high growth in revenue and the number of active customers doubled almost every quarter in mid 2018 and early 2019 until the growth gradually slowed in late 2019.

By the end of 2019, although the number of orders remained largely the same, the Italy team felt that it was proving tough for Secoo's China team to prove it could deliver payments to European vendors and brands, the employee said.

Another former employee of the Italy office, who also requested anonymity for fear of retaliation, said Secoo still owes her around 9,000 euros (US$9,500) representing two months' salary, severance pay and meal ticket subsidies from last year. She quit and took up a new job offer after Secoo stopped paying her.

Meanwhile, a third former employee who was part of Secoo's branding team based in Beijing who also requested anonymity due to fear of reprisals, said he felt issues in 2019 over "management and inventory matters".

Compared to fellow e-tailers like Farfetch and Net-a-Porter, Secoo had fewer direct partners, and goods sourcing mainly relied on parallel imports and a large network of buyers, which meant expenses were higher.

The anonymous former Beijing employee said Secoo relied on physical stores in Beijing, Shanghai and Chengdu, for stable cash flows, but the sudden disruption caused by the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic across China in early 2020 hindered operations. The three physical stores have all since closed.

In the first quarter of 2020, growth in active customers and gross merchandise value both dropped from over 50 per cent to 12 per cent, according to exchange filings. Growth further declined to single digits until 2021, when after publishing first half results, the company stopped releasing any financial records at all.


Under its 180-day grace period, which ends on June 15, the company will be officially delisted if its closing bid price is not above US$1 per share or higher for at least 10 consecutive business days. As of publication, the company has not yet met this requirement.

Meanwhile, after several domestic media outlets in January reported that the company had filed for bankruptcy in Beijing, Secoo retracted the petition, according to information on China's national enterprise bankruptcy information disclosure platform. Secoo also announced in January a plan by its founder to take the firm private at a price of US$3.27 per share. The proposal was withdrawn on May 20, according to an exchange filing.

But how did it come to this? Analysts attribute the company's problems to several factors, some beyond its control and some not.

Secoo enjoyed rapid growth before global luxury e-commerce platforms Farfetch and Net-a-Porter entered the market in 2017 and 2019 respectively, and before global luxury brands such as Louis Vuitton and Gucci opened up official e-commerce channels via WeChat mini-programs and Tmall. Secoo also launched before home-grown luxury resellers such as Ponhu and Red Plum were founded. Alibaba Group Holding, which operates Tmall, also owns the Post.

After the pandemic further reduced physical shopping, reluctant luxury brands finally caved in to the e-commerce surge. For example, Gucci chief executive Marco Bizzarri, who once warned that the Kering-owned brand did not want to "certify counterfeiting" in a reference to e-commerce channels, changed course. Domestic competition also increased.

"In recent years, tech giants including Alibaba and JD.com have doubled down on the luxury sector, and with the further digitalisation of luxury brands, the market change has taken a heavy toll on luxury e-tailers like Secoo," said Mo Daiqing, director of the online retail department of e-commerce consulting firm 100ec.cn.

Covid-19 has hastened the convergence of the online-to-offline sales model, said Cai Jinfeng, executive director at Frost & Sullivan's Greater China office. "Due to Covid-19, many physical stores could not operate, which pushed brands to develop online channels to reach consumers," said Cai.

A luxury store in Shanghai, China, on Wednesday, June 1, 2022. Photo: Bloomberg

But Secoo has also made several business decisions that deviated from its original mission, which was to sell second-hand luxury online.

It invested heavily in live streaming (with a 7,000-square-metre facility and a dedicated team), it tapped into the Hainan duty-free gold rush, vowed to disrupt the luxury resale sector with blockchain-empowered authentication services, and expanded into categories outside fashion, such as its partnership with high-end liquor brand Kweichow Moutai.

Moving from a low capital intensive model to a higher-cost one has meant that Secoo has struggled to meet payments to vendors and consumers, according to analysts.

Despite owning what it called "first-in-the-industry" blockchain-empowered authentication services since 2018, Secoo has been accused of selling counterfeit goods. Secoo has either denied these allegations or declined to comment on the matter when speaking to local media.

"For luxury e-tailers, counterfeit and trust issues have always been the industry's pain points, once controversies over products occur, it can cause huge harm to the credibility of the platform," said 100EC.com's Mo. "With the fierce market competition and many other challenges, it will be hard for it to bounce back."

In March, Shanghai's social retail sales dropped 20 per cent amid the city's lockdowns, while wearable goods sales plunged 30 per cent, the lowest of all categories. In April social retail sales for the same category fell 38 per cent. Although Shanghai is gradually reopening after a two-month citywide lockdown, a recovery in consumer sentiment is uncertain.

Secoo's shares closed at about 26 US cents on Friday, meaning the company only has a few days left to avoid a delisting after June 15. Over the past month, Secoo's stock has dropped over 20 per cent, and it is now around 97 per cent below its highest point in 2018.

A Beijing-based customer using the handle Yuanyuanlian on social e-commerce platform Xiaohongshu who requested a refund from Secoo after running into a similar problem as Long, is certain that she is not going back.

Despite securing a refund from Secoo after calling 315, China's official consumer complaint hotline, Beijing's resident service line, the municipal consumer association, online complaint platform Black Cat and the science and technology commission of Miyun County, she remains upset.

"I will not use the platform again, credibility is very important in online shopping," she said in a message via the social e-commerce app. "I would trust official websites and physical stores more."

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2022 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

Copyright (c) 2022. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

 Crypto traders turn against each other in a collapsing market

Olga Kharif, Bloomberg News

With crypto prices tumbling precipitously, traders have begun increasingly turning against one another to eke out ever-elusive profits.

Many shark traders scour blockchains -- digital ledgers for recording transactions -- seeking information on other traders, particularly those with highly leveraged positions, an anonymous user known as Omakase, a contributor to the Sushi decentralized exchange, said in an interview. 

The sharks then attack the positions by trying to push them into liquidation, and earning liquidation bonuses that are common in decentralized finance (DeFi), where people trade, lend and borrow from each other without intermediaries like banks.

Related strategies may have contributed to the collapse of the TerraUSD stablecoin, with shark traders making money off price arbitrage between the Curve decentralized exchange and centralized exchanges, according to Nansen, a blockchain analytics firm. 

Recent troubles at crypto lender Celsius Network were exacerbated by arbitragers as well. The price of stETh token that Celsius has a large position in started trading at a large discount from Ether, to which it’s tied. 

“As stETH goes down, arbitragers buy stETH and short ETH against it, sending ETH lower, which again lowers collateral values across DeFi,” effectively worsening Celsius’s position, according to a recent Arca note.

As Omakase put it, “In a downtrend environment, where yields are harder to access, what we are going to see is some actors utilize some more aggressive strategies, and that may not be necessarily good for the community.”  

“The environment has become more player vs player,” Omakase added.

With crypto prices under pressure, taking on leverage has presented an even greater peril. Last year, Sushi launched a margin-trading and lending platform. Most crypto exchanges offer margin trading, and in the past it has been as high as 100X, meaning that people were able to borrow 100 times what they put down as collateral. 

Most DeFi apps require traders to overcollateralize, however -- effectively taking out less in loans than they put in.

DRIVING DOWN THE PRICE

A trader may find out that others could get liquidated when a coin’s price drops to, say, US$100. The trader could then build up a sufficient position in the coin, then sell in order to pull the price below US$100, while also collecting the reward for liquidating the trader that most DeFi apps offer. 

“Most protocols offer a 10-15 per cent liquidation fee,” Omakase said. “Triggering enough liquidations would cause a liquidation cascade where a motivated actor could simply hold a short position in order to profit for the subsequent secondary decrease.”

Other traders are simply profiting off liquidations they don’t trigger. Nathan Worsley runs a slew of bots -- software programs -- that search for traders who are about to get liquidated and gets paid a commission for liquidating them. 

“Recently the amount of liquidations has been huge,” Worsley said in emails. “However, liquidations is not a continuous strategy, you sometimes go for a week or more without any significant liquidations. However, when liquidations happen there are usually a lot at once. You basically have to work a long time while making US$0 profit, in order to be ready for the big day or two when you might be able to make a million dollars at once.” 

His bots continuously scour blockchains, keeping a list of all the borrowers using a particular app and scrutinizing the health of their accounts. Once positions are ready for liquidation, “it’s usually a battle to be the quickest and perform the liquidation,” Worsley explained. 

“I would push back on classifying this as an ‘attack,’” he added. “The reason is because without liquidations, you can’t have a lending market. So even though no one enjoys being liquidated, it’s essential that people do get liquidated in order to make the market and protect the protocol from insolvency.”

Liquidations can be triggered after traders borrow from apps like Aave or Compound, and put up collateral -- say, in Ether -- that’s typically greater than what they borrow, perhaps 120 per cent of the borrowed funds. If Ether’s price drops, that collateral may now be worth only 110 per cent of what the trader borrowed.

'PROTECT THE PROTOCOL'

“My job as the liquidator is to protect the protocol by closing your position,” Worsley said. “The protocol gives me a reward for being a liquidator to encourage this activity, because blockchains cannot move by themselves. You have borrowed US$1,000 of Bitcoin, so I repay the US$1,000 of Bitcoin you owe the protocol. In return, the protocol gives me US$1000 of your Ethereum collateral, plus a US$100 ‘liquidation bonus’ from your excess collateral. I have made a profit, you have been liquidated and your position is closed, and the protocol itself has been protected from bad debt.”

With liquidation targets becoming more and more tempting in a tumultuous market, Omakase offers this advice: “Generally everyone should stay safe, everyone should avoid the use of leverage.”

Bloomberg Businessweek: Ethereum mining is about to disappear, miners are not happy

CoinYuppie • 2022-06-17 10:23 • Ethereum News

The shift from “Proof of Work” to “Proof of Stake” will drastically reduce power consumption and allow some expensive technology to find new uses.

Mikel-Angelo Chalfoun, an ethereum miner, stores his graphics cards in a warehouse in Dubai.

The Ethereum mining community is a diverse group, both geographically and demographically. A 28-year-old translator in Ukraine runs some computing hardware on his balcony to earn cryptocurrency so he can buy clothes and other necessities. In Argentina, a retiree used her gaming computer to double her monthly pension. A college student in Canada has dug up enough money to buy a BMW motorcycle and a modified 2006 Dodge Charger SRT – and pay for gas every month.

Even many outside the blockchain world know that the collapse of the cryptocurrency market has made the past few months quite painful for anyone whose financial situation is tied to a currency. The price of ethereum is down about 70% this year as of June 15. At the same time, a little-known factor (a tectonic shift known as the Ethereum “merger”) will end Ethereum mining entirely, cutting off the income of as many as 1 million people. “It would be a huge economic blow, almost completely depriving the original miners of a good source of income,” the Ukrainian translator said. (He asked to remain anonymous for fear of being robbed.)

Bitcoin and Ethereum, the two largest cryptocurrency networks by market capitalization, both use a procedure known as “proof of work” to record transactions, in which so-called miners use computer resources to solve difficult mathematical problems, converting transactions Blocks are added to the public ledger. Miners receive payment in cryptocurrency as a reward. Bitcoin mining, which usually involves specialized equipment, has been industrialized; as mining has moved to data centers, the participation of ordinary people has largely been eliminated. But Ethereum mining relies on the kind of graphics card found in a typical gaming computer, and many ordinary people can still do it.

Proof-of-work is just a competition to make a computer work hard, which means it uses a lot of energy. The environmental damage it causes is a major criticism of cryptocurrencies by environmentalists. Since the inception of Ethereum, its developers have been preparing to move to an alternative model known as proof-of-stake. Under this system, people would reserve or “stake” a certain amount of ether, the cryptocurrency of the ethereum blockchain, to win rewards for running software that correctly batches transactions into new blocks and checks The work of other validators. Proof of stake can reduce the power consumption of the Ethereum network by about 99%. It would also put miners out of work, which is a major blow given the capital investment to build the business. According to Bitpro Consulting, ethereum miners have already spent about $15 billion on graphics processing units (GPUs), not including ancillary costs such as wiring and transformers.

Prices of Selected Used Graphics Processing Units for Sale on eBay

Average for the previous week??

The ethereum merger is expected to take place in August, although no official date has been given. It has been pushed back many times, and many miners hope this will happen again. “I don’t think they’ll be able to get it done anytime soon,” said Aydin Kilic, chief operating officer of ethereum industrial miner Hive. But others associated with ethereum see a merger as inevitable. “The odds of not happening this year are very low (from 1% to 10%),” said Tim Becco, a computer scientist who coordinates ethereum developers. What I’d like to avoid is someone buys a GPU for mining today, but merges it in Happening this summer, it will make it almost worthless.”

Despite this, miners are actually expanding their operations. GPU prices have more than halved since the start of the year, leading to a surge in purchases. According to data from tracker Etherscan, Ethereum’s hashrate, a measure of the mining power that powers the network, has nearly doubled in the last year. Even with the current depressed cryptocurrency prices, mining Ethereum is more profitable than backing any other major coin, including Bitcoin. “I guess people are trying to get as much as possible before it’s over,” said Slava Karpenko, chief technology officer at 2Miners. The organization helps small miners pool their resources to support Ethereum. The group’s active user count has climbed 70 percent since November, to about 120,000, he said.

However, recovering costs has become more difficult due to the fall in the price of ether. Mike Lam, a 38-year-old engineer from Ontario who has been mining for a year, only made about $5,000 worth of cryptocurrency on his initial $30,000 investment in hardware; he also paid about $650 each. monthly electricity bill. Aaron Petzold, 24, a recent college student who mines ether at his parents’ house in Wisconsin, said he has four months to recoup his investment of more than $28,000. “I want to keep mining until it’s over,” he said. “It’s a big uncertainty. No one really knows what’s going to happen. There’s a lot of people who think I’m obsessed.”

The ethereum merger will likely settle after August.

Miners don’t get nothing. After the merger, their mining rigs will remain powerful computing devices that can be used elsewhere, and some are planning to mine other coins or find other uses for those rigs. After the merger, Petzold is considering using his device as a piece of hardware for digital video production, primarily responsible for rendering, which requires a lot of computing resources. “There are other uses for these cards,” he said. “You can turn it into a render farm, and you can do different machine learning options. They’re just not going to be as profitable as mining.”

Canadian mining pool operator Flexpool is looking to add more tokens for its members to mine and plans to deploy its developers to program other cryptocurrency projects, said a director who asked not to be named for fear of being robbed: “It’s like a company Typewriter companies. When nobody buys typewriters anymore, so you have to use the capital you make on typewriters to move to other businesses.”

Others, like Ivan Zhang, 35, and Karol Przybytkowski, 36, plan to sell their stable of graphics cards and use their facilities in upstate New York to host other miners’ gear for a fee. But GPU prices are expected to drop further as many ethereum miners are likely to rush to sell immediately after the merger. Bitpro plans to stop buying graphics cards within a few weeks, and its CEO Mark D’Aria said: “My view is that no matter how much we pay today, we’re going to make a lot less after this event. We’re just going to sit there and watch Let that happen and pick up the pieces.”

Some miners hope to do better by moving to mining other GPU-requiring coins like Ethereum Classic or Ravencoin. The more miners flocking to any coin, the harder it will be to make a profit. But cryptocurrency breeds optimists, and miners are building for what their business will be a reason to survive. Mikel-Angelo Chalfoun, 30, pays $9,000 a year for a warehouse in Dubai to house and power his 76 graphics cards. He said he would be able to compete with miners at a higher cost. “No matter how cheap crypto gets, no matter how harsh crypto winter gets, I’m fine, I’ll never mine at a loss,” he said.

Other miners just feel betrayed. Canadian engineer Lin said: “They need miners until they merge! It’s a little weird. Ethereum needs us miners until they deprecate us.” (He runs 50 graphics cards in his basement)

Posted by:CoinYuppie，Reprinted with attribution to:https://coinyuppie.com/bloomberg-businessweek-ethereum-mining-is-about-to-disappear-miners-are-not-happy/
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Fertilizer stockpiles swell as farmers shun high prices, easing harvest worries

Tarso Veloso Ribeiro and Elizabeth Elkin, Bloomberg News

The fertilizer shortage that threw the agricultural sector into disarray and pushed food costs higher globally may be fading.

Crops across the world are dependent on nutrients from Russia, one of the biggest exporters, and the invasion of Ukraine four months ago roiled markets for the crucial chemicals. Ultimately, prices soared so high that farmers halted buying — and now the market has flipped. Fertilizer supplies are piling up from Florida to South America. Ships are waiting to unload and companies are struggling to reduce stocks in ports and warehouses, according to people familiar with the matter. 

In Brazil, warehouses are approaching maximum capacity because farmers are betting prices have farther to fall. As far back as March — just weeks after Russia invaded — North American potash reserves were at a six-year high, according to Bloomberg’s Green Markets and The Fertilizer Institute, as prices soared and farmers skipped applications. 

Meanwhile, concerns that fertilizer supplies from Russia would be completely shut off haven’t panned out. Russian fertilizer sales are exempt from the sanctions imposed by US and EU in response to the war on Ukraine, and some shipments are entering the US, according to cargo data tracked by Bloomberg. A ship carrying 12,000 metric tons of granular urea, a common nitrogen fertilizer, arrived from Russia with a bill of lading dated June 8. While the amount is relatively small, it confirms that the product has found a pathway to American shores.

The US government is even encouraging agricultural and shipping companies to buy and carry more Russian fertilizer.

Wholesale fertilizer prices are declining after soaring to multi-year highs. North American prices are the lowest they’ve been since January and a closely watched index for the continent is down 35 per cent since touching a record in late March, according to Green Markets. Farmers are still awaiting lower prices as grains trend higher, expanding the arbitrage of delayed nutrient purchases.

Green Market’s North American weekly fertilizer price index dropped 4 per cent this week, compounding last week’s 3 per cent decline. Wholesale New Orleans urea fell to the lowest since August, while New Orleans ammonia inched higher by 2 per cent amid rising overseas demand.

The slide in fertilizer prices -- if it continues -- may ease some of the concerns that farmers would skip applications of synthetic nutrients to save money, reducing crop yields and worsening food inflation and hunger in parts of the world. Still, it's too early to tell whether prices will rebound if the war in Ukraine persists into a period when demand is seasonally higher.

“Fertilizer prices softened through the spring season as delayed plantings, ample supply, and near record per-ton prices pushed farmers to pull back on fertilizer applications,” said Alexis Maxwell, an analyst at Green Markets. Fertilizer-to-crop price ratios, a key affordability metric, have sunk, “reflecting a potential buying opportunity for corn farmers who need product today.”