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EBRD and EU support upgrade of Georgia’s largest hydropower plant
Bruxelles, businessmedia - February 19, 2024 - The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is providing a €28 million sovereign loan to modernise and rehabilitate the Enguri hydropower plant, Georgia’s largest electricity plant. The financing extended to the plant’s operating company, Engurhesi LTD will be complemented by a grant of €7.05 million from the European Union (EU).
This financing package will fund long-term structural stability works of the Enguri dam, repairs to the underground tunnel and penstock to ensure a more reliable power generation and grid system. In addition, the investment will reduce water leakages in the headrace tunnel and enable additional renewable energy production. The funds will also be used to construct vital infrastructure, such as roads to monitor the dam, improve the safety and reliability of the electricity grid and energy generation, as well as create a fish passage downstream of the Enguri dam.
Built in the 1970s, an energy complex comprising the Enguri hydropower plant and the Vardnili hydropower plants, meets approximately 30 per cent of the nation's electricity needs and are key to the country’s energy infrastructure, providing a steady supply of power and stimulating economic growth.
The EBRD has been involved in the rehabilitation of the Enguri hydropower plant since 1998, helping to reduce reliance on electricity imports, improve energy security, and support the country’s commitment to a greener and more sustainable future.
The latest financing expands on previous rehabilitation phases, which were also backed by the EU and are in line with the EU’s Global Gateway Strategy, implemented through the Economic and Investment Plan to boost energy, digital and transport connectivity in the Eastern Neighbourhood region and especially in Georgia. Overall, the EBRD and its donors have supported the Enguri plant with financing totalling €205 million since 1998.
To date, the EBRD has invested around €5 billion in 290 projects in the financial, corporate, infrastructure and energy sectors in Georgia, with 83 per cent of those investments in the private sector.
Poll: Business climate in Bulgaria improved in January
THE BUSINESS CLIMATE IN BULGARIA IMPROVED IN JANUARY 2024, ACCORDING TO A REGULAR MONTHLY POLL BY THE NATIONAL STATISTICAL INSTITUTE (NSI), THE RESULTS OF WHICH WERE RELEASED ON JANUARY 30
Sofia, sofieglobe - January 30, 2024 - The business climate indicator was up by three percentage points compared with December 2023, with increases in all four sectors polled, the NSI said.
“The uncertain economic environment, shortage of labour, competition in the branch, insufficient demand and costs of materials continue to be the main factors limiting the business development in the sectors,” the institute said.
Previous polls by the NSI in recent months saw improvements in business sentiment in April and in May, followed by it being largely unchanged in June and July, with a slight decline in August and again largely unchanged in September, a drop in October, largely unchanged in November compared with October, followed by a decline in December.
In January 2024, the indicator in Bulgaria’s industry sector was up by 2.6 percentage points, with managers taking a more positive view of the business situation, and having favourable forecasts about production activity in the next three months.
In the construction sector, the indicator was up by 4.6 percentage points, with managers optimistic about the business situation.
The indicator in the retail trade sector was up by 2.9 percentage points, with managers holding improved views about the coming six months, though their forecasts about the volume of sales and orders placed with suppliers over the next three months had worsened.
The services sector indicator was up by 2.4 percentage points as a result of managers’ optimistic managers’ assessments and expectations about the business situation of their enterprises. Their opinions about the present and expected demand for services were also positive, the NSI said.
Adani Group plans to raise $350 million to prepay Dec 2024 bonds
Mumbai, economictimes - December 02, 2023 - The Adani Group is working on a plan to raise $350 million through dollar bonds next year, primarily to refinance a $500 million RG1 (restricted group 1) bond due to mature in December 2024. RG1 is restricted group with solar generation capacity of 930 MW and includes three subsidiaries of Adani Green - Adani Green Energy (UP) Limited, Parampujya Solar Energy Private Limited (PSEPL) and Prayatna Developer Private Limited.
Singh said the group has prepared for both private placement and bond issues to refinance the paper maturing in December 2024. Addressing the funding requirements for a $750 million bond due in September 2024, Singh said the target is to complete this by December 10-11, adding that the company already has arranged the necessary funds for this particular bond by way of internal accruals.
Singh also spoke about the group looking to invest Rs 7 lakh crore in infrastructure in the coming decade. He expressed confidence in Adani's ability to manage upcoming financial debt obligations and debt-raising. "We have a lot of demand for USD bonds at Adani Group" he added. "Our companies are ready for Reg D and Reg S 144 issuances. The issue (launch) will depend on the specific demand. Reg D bond will have a tenure of 18 years plus."
Reg S bonds are sold to non-US investors, while Reg D bonds are offerings within the US, usually to investors without full public registration.
In all Adani Group has raised $9 billion debt from global markets through the issuance of 17 bonds. Among these bonds, Adani Green Energy's $750-million, 4.375% bond maturing in September 2024 has seen the most volatility.
In response, the management had put in place a financial plan by July this year, assuring investors that funds would be placed in escrow one year ahead of maturity. Adani Green Energy's 2024 dollar notes rebounded after dropping to the 60s following the Hindenburg report, which accused the group of stock price manipulation and accounting fraud. Adani Group has strongly refuted these allegations.
On selling non-core businesses, Singh said the group wants to be in the top 3 in any sector it is in. On Adani Wilmar, he said that the group is currently studying whether to retain or divest the Adani Wilmar stake, and the company will take a decision within the next three months.
CEO Pulpan: decarbonisation is fine today with SAF but only for tomorrow with HYDROGEN
Rotterdam Airport accelerates SAF implementation with Shell Aviation
Rotterdam, biofuels - November 27, 2023 - CEO Pulpan is pleased to hear that decarbonisation is also happening in the aviation sector, as Shell and Rotterdam The Hague Airport (RTHA) have signed a long-term agreement to blend sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) on all aircraft fueled at the airport starting next year. Pulpan says she is convinced that the world is ready for long-distance zero-emission flights, because the step towards hydrogen is now a must, so both ranges and payloads can be increased, the mission has begun fundamental to the decarbonisation of commercial aviation and HPP would also be able to guarantee hydrogen supplies for aircraft in the future.
In addition to the European blending mandate of 6%, the airport will accelerate its efforts by setting itself an additional minimum target of 8% to reach the Dutch aviation sector's more ambitious target of 14% by 2030. The use of SAF is among the few measures currently available to reduce emissions from international aviation. “Sustainable fuel is essential for the future of aviation,” said Wilma van Dijk, CEO of RTHA. “This long-term agreement allows Shell to invest in production facilities while allowing airlines to gradually adapt to a new reality.”
“It is great to support Rotterdam The Hague Airport in decarbonising flights through the use of SAF,” added Jan Toschka, president of Shell Aviation.
Pulpan in defense of hydrogen and with the aim of decarbonisation specifies that only currently are SAFs considered the best solution for reducing polluting emissions in the short-medium term, because they are treated as bio-fuels that can be mixed safely with kerosene and which, over their life cycle, would emit up to 80% less carbon than traditional kerosene. But the costs of this solution: for example, an investment of 1,300 billion dollars for the production of sustainable fuel could satisfy only 20% of the expected demand by 2050, which is very different with hydrogen.
However, “it is particularly encouraging to see an airport engaging in long-term SAF agreements, for volumes above the levels required by EU mandates. This type of ambition helps play an important role in providing the strong and stable demand needed to increase the supply and use of SAF.”
The additional portion of sustainable fuel could lead to an average CO₂ reduction of 80% across the chain compared to regular jet fuel. In addition to this, sustainable fuel leads to a reduction in emissions of soot and ultrafine particles, which at higher blending percentages improves air quality, Pulpan states that the raw materials most used to produce SAFs are animal fats, used vegetable oils, corn and soya, with the risk of encouraging deforestation or diverting agriculture towards industrial purposes (rather than food) and in any case with SAF there will still be pollution whereas with hydrogen there will no longer be any no emissions of soot and ultrafine particles or pollution. Shell is building an 820,000 tonne per year biofuel plant at the Shell Energy and Chemicals Park in Rotterdam, which will produce SAF and renewable diesel made from waste, oils and fats.
HPP with valid partners is committed to creating zero-emission plants to begin the production of hydrogen from 1,000,000 (1 million) tons per year also obtained from industrial and hospital waste, sewage sludge and oily sludge, solving pollution problems for a true Ecological Revolution asserts the Pulpan CEO.
As a result of the European blending mandate, the aviation sector must blend 2% of SAF across the board by 2025. The target for 2030 is 6%.
However, this is not enough to reach the Dutch aviation sector's more ambitious target of 14% SAF by 2030, as set out in the Sustainable Aviation Agreement.
The RTHA therefore wants to speed up the process by raising the target for 2024 by another 2 percentage points.
In addition to satisfying Governments' requests to reduce pollution, HPP intends to speed up the phases of construction of structures and hydrogen production with partners chosen by CEO Pulpan to begin to respond to increasingly growing market demands.
Italy is the first country in Europe to introduce this ban
OK FROM THE HOUSE TO THE BAN ON CULTURED MEAT, IT IS LAW
Rome, ansa/sky – November 16, 2023 - Final green light from the Chamber of Deputies for the ban on the production and sale of cultivated meat in Italy. The bill passed with 159 yes votes, 53 no votes and 34 abstentions
The Montecitorio Assembly approved with 159 yes, 53 no and 34 abstentions the bill presented by the Minister of Agriculture Francesco Lollobrigida which prohibits the production and placing on the market of food and feed consisting of, isolated or produced from crops cells or tissues derived from vertebrate animals as well as a ban on the denomination of meat for processed products containing vegetable proteins.
The text was voted by the majority. The Democratic Party abstained, while the M5S and Avs voted against the measure.
"Europe follow us, no step backwards"
From the Minister of Agriculture Lollobrigida Francesco: "We believe that this law is important and that Italy can be the first nation free from this risk, hoping that Europe will then follow us; - said the minister - no step backwards compared to the ban on the importation, marketing and production of things that have nothing to do with quality food and which in our opinion do not even have the criteria to guarantee public health. This is the reason why we have strongly regulated, at the request of thousands of municipal councils of all the Italian regions who invited us to do so, a law strongly supported by our institutional base and by our people, largely approved in Parliament with the vote in favor of the entire centre-right, which went well beyond the majority in numerical terms but which saw the abstention of the main opposition party. I also remember that among the signatories of the petition to achieve this there were also important exponents of parties who then took different positions in Parliament ".
The race
to host the EU's anti-money laundering watchdog heats up
Brussels, euronews - 13 November, 2023 - Clout, geopolitics and money laundering prowess come into play as cities from Madrid to Vilnius vie for a new agency. The battle to host the EU's anti-money laundering agency is intensifying as nine rivals face off after applications close. It is a bitter fight that pits East against West, the small against the big, and the founding members among the newcomers to the bloc, according to numerous sources Euronews spoke to.
The EU wants to tighten its rules on dirty money after a series of banking scandals, but first faces a dilemma over where to place the 400 or so staff who will oversee it and the 10,000 square meters of office space they will need. Nominations closed last week and the candidates include Paris, Frankfurt, Rome, Madrid, Brussels, Vienna, Riga, Vilnius and Dublin. While the bloc's main institutions are located in Brussels, Luxembourg and Strasbourg, its 40 or so specialized agencies are spread across the 27 member states and cover everything from space exploration to gender equality – and the opportunity to host these institutions is appreciated by all the countries of the bloc. Villages. The battle to house the EU's pharmaceutical and banking authorities, forced to flee London after Brexit, was so close that the winners had to be selected by lucky draw. Now there is a similar spat going on over the yet-to-be-created EU Anti-Money Laundering Authority, AMLA, which, under plans drawn up by lawmakers, will directly oversee dirty money checks at around 40 of the riskiest cross-border financial institutions, and keep an eye on high-risk sectors like precious metals and art dealers.
German practicality
The EU's largest member, Germany, framed its AMLA proposal based on practicality, saying the new agency should be in Frankfurt so it can function effectively from day one. “AMLA should be in a banking centre,” German Finance Minister Christian Lindner told a Brussels audience on Thursday, championing the location that already hosts European Central Bank supervisors. “No city is more uniquely positioned to foster this type of collaboration.” But if Germany is touting its current clout, its rivals argue the opposite – and say it is unfair that the EU's oldest and largest members have to see all the bloc's largesse. “Ireland is at the heart of Europe in terms of our participation… despite being an island on its periphery,” Jennifer Carroll MacNeill, minister of state in the Irish Department of Finance, told Euronews. Despite being a member of the EU for more than 50 years, Ireland is home to only one, “very small”, EU institution, the labor market agency Eurofound, he said, although he recognizes that his call to introduce the AMLA in Dublin put her at loggerheads with Lindner.
The German minister “is presenting me with a different case, a diametrically opposed case,” he said. “He is saying: let's concentrate further in the heart of Europe.”
Who is the most attractive?
Bids to host the agency closed last Friday and politicians said the winning candidate must attract top-notch staff. This attention could be good news for candidates like Vienna, consistently rated the most livable city in the world. But potential AMLA chapters will also be scrutinized for their track record of fighting illicit finance. Placing the agency in a money laundering hotspot would be, at the very least, bad for the bloc's reputation.
This has forced candidates like Lithuania onto the defensive. A 2022 report by the Council of Europe's anti-money laundering unit Moneyval threatened to issue a formal warning to the Baltic nation, after finding it was not registering accountants and estate agents in line with international standards. But this is not the whole story, Finance Minister Gintarė Skaistė told Euronews. He says the green, digital and talent-filled city of Vilnius is the ideal home for AMLA. Lithuania has already dusted off its rules for cryptocurrencies and has an additional anti-money laundering bill that will be presented in this parliamentary session, the minister told Euronews, meaning that Moneyval's advice could soon be obsolete. It also cites a rival study by the Basel Institute on Governance think tank that places Lithuania among the ten lowest-risk AML countries in the world, along with Denmark and Andorra. Neighboring countries have been implicated in recent money laundering scandals. A few years ago, Latvian bank ABLV was liquidated after the US Treasury labeled it a money laundering concern, while Danske Bank pleaded guilty and agreed to forfeit $2 billion in payments torts in Estonia. Skaistė has distanced himself from these neighbors, but thinks there is a geopolitical reason to choose a Baltic country in the face of Russian aggression. “A strong institution, working mainly in the field of anti-money laundering, would be a strong signal for Europe's neighboring countries,” he said. “It would be a sign of solidarity and trust in the region: we are part of Europe.”
Political influence
Final decisions on the location of the AMLA must be taken jointly by the Council, which brings together the EU member states, and legislators in the European Parliament. If EU funding shifts to the constituencies of those lawmakers who wield the most influence, it could favor the bid put forward by another big EU beast, Spain. The country currently chairs the Council as the EU presidency and also boasts one of the two MEPs leading parliament's work on the new agency, Eva-Maria Poptcheva. Yet Spanish officials deny any bias against their choice, Madrid, and say they are simply honest intermediaries in negotiations over the AMLA law.
“I don't think that at this stage being in the rotating presidency would provide an additional advantage,” Carlos Cuerpo, secretary general of the Treasury in Spain, told Euronews. “There will be a clear separation on our part when we examine Madrid's candidacy.” Cuerpo said that Madrid's candidacy is the "strongest proposal ever", which implies that it can stand on its own merits - but he also says that the "time has come" for the great capital to finally equip itself with a European institution. The process of narrowing down options will be complex and ferocious. And this is just one of many ongoing controversies related to cronyism in the financial sector. Finance ministers are also locked in a totemic battle over fiscal rules and who should run the European Investment Bank – a position for which Spain's Nadia Calviño is a leading candidate.
Big deal
Yet both Cuerpo and Lindner deny that there is any overlap between these already complex negotiations.
“It shouldn't be part of any kind of bargaining, which member state could host AMLA,” Lindner said. “There are arguments for Frankfurt that are not connected to any other decisions we will have to make in the coming weeks and months.” Whoever takes the AMLA crown, there will be many losers and many showcase office spaces will remain empty. Some are speculating, if only jokingly, about what might happen to him.
If AMLA doesn't want to use the buildings earmarked for Frankfurt, Lindner thinks they could become a suitable new home for his ministry.
Putin visits Kazakhstan,
part of his efforts to cement ties with ex-Soviet neighbors
Astana, apnews - November 09, 2023 - Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Kazakhstan on Thursday, part of his efforts to cement ties with the ex-Soviet neighbor and major economic partner in the midst of tensions with the West over Ukraine.
Putin’s talks in Kazakhstan’s capital of Astana follow his trip last month to Kyrgyzstan for a summit of ex-Soviet nations and a visit to China.
Speaking at the start of his talks with Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Putin hailed “multi-faceted” ties between the countries and said they would determine new areas of “strategic” cooperation.
Oil-rich Kazakhstan and other Central Asian nations have maintained a delicate balancing act, preserving strong economic ties with Moscow but refusing to recognize its annexation of Ukrainian regions.
Speaking after the talks, Tokayev noted that Russia has been Kazakhstan’s largest trading partner, with bilateral trade reaching a record $27 billion last year. “We have large opportunities for further expansion of the trade volume,” he said.
Russian and Kazakh officials signed several agreements on energy, customs and labor issues.
Putin said the two countries set “really ambitious tasks for further strengthening of the comprehensive strategic partnership.”
The Russian leader has made few foreign trips since he sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. The International Criminal Court’s move to indict Putin in March for alleged war crimes connected to the deportation of children from Ukraine has affected his travel as any country that is party to the court is obliged to arrest him on its soil. Kazakstan isn’t part of the agreement that created the tribunal.
Putin’s trip to Kazakhstan comes days after French President Emmanuel Macron visited Astana and hailed Tokayev for withstanding geopolitical “pressures,” in a hint at Moscow’s efforts to keep the neighbor in its orbit.
Relations with Kazakhstan and other former Soviet republics in Central Asia have become increasingly important for Russia as it has sought new import routes to bypass bruising Western sanctions over its actions in Ukraine.
The U.S. and its allies have closely monitored Kazakhstan and other Central Asian nations to make sure they don’t serve as conduits for Russia to import Western high-tech products, bypassing the restrictions. Officials in Kazakstan and other countries in the region have repeatedly pledged to comply with the sanctions.
Russian officials, meanwhile, have voiced concern about what they describe as Western efforts to pull Moscow’s allies away from its orbit.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov noted last month that the West was aggressively courting Central Asian nations, offering them trade and economic benefits in order to discourage them from maintaining strong ties with Moscow.
He added that while countries of the region are free to choose their partners, Russia will try to protect Central Asian nations from “unscrupulous” overtures by the West.
Sharp decline in cereal production in 2022
France harvested 59.9 million tonnes of cereals in 2022; it was the largest cereal producer in the EU, contributing 22% of the EU's total production. Germany harvested 43.5 million tonnes of cereals (16% of the EU total), Poland 35.0 million tonnes (13%), Spain 19.3 million tonnes (7%) and Romania 18.9 million tonnes (also 7% of the EU total).
The overall decline in the EU’s harvested production of cereals in 2022 was driven by developments in drought-affected Romania (-32%: a decline of 8.9 million tonnes), France (-10%: a decline of 7.0 million tonnes), Spain (-24%: a decline of 6.2 million tonnes) and Hungary (-35%: a decline of 4.9 million tonnes). There were very few countries where the overall cereals harvest increased but they included, among others, Germany (+3%, an increase of 1.1 million tonnes), Finland (+39%, a rebound of 1.0 million tonnes after a poor harvest in 2021) and Poland (+3%, an increase of 1.0 million tonnes).
Declines in wheat and spelt, grain maize and rye production in 2022
The EU harvested 126.7 million tonnes of common wheat and spelt in 2022, 3.2 million tonnes less than in 2021, a decrease of 2%. The harvested production of grain maize and corn-cob-mix slumped to 53.0 million tonnes in 2022, 20.0 million tonnes less than in 2021 and equivalent to a decline of 27%. This sharp fall principally reflected the adverse effects of widespread droughts within the EU.
The EU’s harvested production of barley in 2022 was almost unchanged at 52.0 million tonnes as was the production of oats at 7.5 million tonnes. By contrast, rye production fell by 8% to 7.8 million tonnes in 2022.
Widespread drought and heat stress impacted overall cereal production levels
Crop production is highly sensitive to weather conditions, both during the growing season and at harvest. In many regions in Europe, maximum daily temperatures during the summer of 2022 were the warmest or second warmest recorded during the period since 1991. Heat stress, caused by these high temperatures, and drought were contributing factors to the lower harvested production of some cereals, most particularly grain maize, in a number of regions of the EU.
Bruxelles, eurostat - November 08, 2023 - In 2022, an estimated 270.9 million tonnes of cereals were harvested across the EU. This was 26.7 million tonnes less than in 2021, the equivalent of a 9% decrease.
This information comes from recently published data on 2022 crop production from arable land. It reflects just some of the information available in a more detailed Statistics explained article on crops. The article covers the harvested production and agricultural price statistics for cereals, potatoes, sugar beet, oilseeds, fruit, vegetables, grapes for wine and olives for oil.
Developing countries owe China at least $1.1 trillion
and the debts are due
Hong Kong, cnn - November 07, 2023 - Developing countries owe Chinese lenders at least $1.1 trillion, according to a new data analysis published Monday, which says more than half of the thousands of loans China has doled out over two decades are due as many borrowers struggle financially.
Overdue loan repayments to Chinese lenders are soaring, according to AidData, a university research lab at William & Mary in Virginia, which found that nearly 80% of China’s lending portfolio in the developing world is currently supporting countries in financial distress. For years, Beijing marshalled its finances toward funding infrastructure across poorer countries – including under an effort that Chinese leader Xi Jinping branded as his flagship “Belt and Road Initiative,” which launched a decade ago this fall. That funding flowed liberally into roads, airports, railways and power plants from Latin America to Southeast Asia and helped power economic growth among borrowing countries. Along the way, it drew many governments closer to Beijing and made China the world’s largest creditor, while also sparking accusations of irresponsible lending. Now, 55% of China’s official sector loans to developing countries have entered their repayment periods, according to the analysis of more than two decades of China’s overseas funding across 165 countries released by AidData. Those debts are coming due during a new and challenging financial climate of high interest rates, struggling local currencies and slowing global growth. “A lot of these loans were issued during [the Belt and Road period starting in 2013] and they came with five- or six- or seven-year grace periods … and then [international debt suspension efforts during the pandemic] tacked on two additional years of grace where borrowers didn’t have to repay,” AidData executive director and report author Brad Parks told CNN. “Now the story is changing … for the last decade or so China was the world’s largest official creditor, and now we’re at this pivot point where it’s really about (China) as the world’s largest official debt collector,” he said. AidData’s figures are based on its database tracking what amounts to $1.34 trillion in loan and grant commitments from China’s government and state-owned creditors to public and private sector borrowers in low- and middle-income countries between 2000 and 2021. That dataset, built through collecting official and public source information about the individual loans and grants, provides one of the widest windows available into what are notoriously opaque Chinese funding activities. The researchers also cited data reported by lenders to the Switzerland-headquartered Bank of International Settlements, which they said indicates developing country borrowers owe Chinese lenders at least $1.1 trillion and up to $1.5 trillion as of 2021.
‘International crisis manager’
AidData says Beijing never had to deal with more than 10 financially-distressed countries with unpaid debts until 2008. But, by 2021, there were at least 57 countries with outstanding debt to Chinese state-owned creditors that were in financial distress, its data shows. This appears to be a factor changing how China is lending. Funding for the big-ticket infrastructure projects that had earned Beijing goodwill across the developing world are in sharp retreat. Instead, China is providing substantial numbers of emergency rescue loans, according to AidData. Chinese lending isn’t bottoming out though. China remains the world’s single largest official source of development finance and continues to out-fund any single Group of Seven (G7) developed economy as well as multilateral lenders, the researchers say. That’s even as the United States and its G7 partners have ramped up their rival efforts. Together, they outspent China by some $84 billion in 2021.
Overall funding commitments from China to the developing world declined at the start of the pandemic, according to AidData. They fell from a peak that was approaching $150 billion in 2016 and dipped below $100 billion in 2020 for the first time since 2014. But financing is still in the tens of billions, according to the most recent data from AidData, which documented $79 billion in commitments for 2021, including grants and loans, up $5 billion from the previous year. By comparison, financing commitments from the World Bank totaled around $53 million in 2021. Chinese infrastructure project lending as a share of total commitments to low- and middle-income country borrowers, however, fell from 65% in 2014 to 50% in 2017, and again from 49% in 2018 to 31% in 2021. That year, 58% of lending was emergency rescue loans, which help distressed countries stay afloat by shoring up foreign reserves and credit ratings or helping them make debt payments to other international lenders. This means China is increasingly acting as an “international crisis manager,” according to AidData, which pointed out that which borrowers get bailed out depends on their risks to the Chinese banking sector. “It’s very telling that not everybody who’s in debt distress gets an emergency rescue loan from China – what we find is that they really only channel these loans to the biggest Belt and Road borrowers where Chinese banks have the most balance sheet exposure,” Parks said. “At a superficial level, China is bailing out the borrowers, but at a deeper level it’s bailing out its own banks.”
‘Muscling in’
The impact these troubled loans could have on China’s own banking sector, which is burdened by mounting issues with domestic debt, is not clear. China has joined other lenders in joint negotiations on debt relief for troubled borrowers such as Zambia and Ghana, but AidData researchers suggest it may have also undermined efforts for coordinated relief by “muscling its way to the front of the repayment line by demanding that borrowers provide recourse to cash collateral that others lack.” It has also been issuing stronger penalties for late repayments, they said. China has consistently defended its debt relief record, saying it has played a “positive” and “constructive” role in multilateral efforts, noting last month that “debt sustainability has continued to improve” for the Belt and Road program. Looking ahead, it has also moved toward syndicated loan arrangements, in which China works with Western commercial banks and multilateral institutions to vet projects and reduce future risk, according to AidData findings. Half of China’s non-emergency lending portfolio to developing countries is now provided via syndicated loan arrangements, with more than 80% of these arrangements involving those Western or multilateral partners, they said. In recent years China has also moved to recalibrate the Belt and Road Initiative with an eye to bolstering oversight and reducing risk, amid backlash over environmental, social and labor concerns about projects. Chinese officials have defended the initiative’s impact. At a forum in Beijing last month focused on its Belt and Road drive, they hailed what they said was a new phase of the project focusing on “high-quality” development. Meanwhile, for those countries already in debt and seeking to refinance with Beijing’s emergency rescue loans, the AidData researchers warned that they “must be mindful of the danger of swapping less expensive debt for more expensive debt.”
How Russia Games Oil Sanctions for Big Profits
MOSCOW CIRCUMVENTS THE G-7 OIL-PRICE CAP BY MOVING CRUDE ON A FLEET OF AGING TANKERS ON WHICH SANCTIONS HAVE LIMITED TRACTION
EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT:
WHO VOTED "NO"
TO CONDEMN
RUSSIAN AGGRESSION
AGAINST NATO
AGAINST WAR:
VERONA FOR FREEDOM
ANNOUNCES A NEW DEMONSTRATION
Bruxelles, euronews – From march 03, 2022 - Some MEPs explain why they voted against the resolution condemning Russian aggression and closeness to Ukraine.
On Tuesday, from a television screen above the European Parliament's plenary chamber, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made an impassioned plea for Europe to show support for his invaded country.
Earlier, MPs had applauded Ukraine and worn blue and yellow flags.
Outside parliament, Ukrainians and their supporters kept a noisy vigil.
Sitting at a table wearing a T-shirt, Zelensky's speech was so moving that even the parliament's translator choked with tears.
After a debate, MEPs were then asked to vote on a resolution calling on Russia to stop the violence and condemning the war started by Vladimir Putin.
An overwhelming majority - 637 MEPs - from the far left to the far right, from Romania to Portugal to Finland, united and voted yes. Mick Wallace (Irish, from the left group) voted no.
“Much of the resolution is important and necessary,” Wallace told Euronews.
“The resolution correctly condemns Russian aggression and calls for humanitarian support for Ukraine and Ukrainian refugees.
These are terms we wholeheartedly support.”
But much of it, Wallace said, is not.
He called for strengthening NATO's forward military presence, a dramatic increase in defense spending and strengthening the European pillar within NATO.
He calls for the replacement of Russian oil with American oil, extracted through fracking. “We tried to remove these elements from the resolution, but the majority in the European Parliament voted to keep them.
We are now asked to vote on the text as a whole, which contains these provisions.
We are against the war and we are against this resolution."
Wallace was not the only one to oppose the resolution on Tuesday, six other members of the left group of parliament also voted no: Clare Daly, Özlem Demirel, Sandra Pereira, João Pimenta Lopes, Martin Schirdewan, Miguel Urban Crespo. But equally, it was not a party platform, French MEP Manon Aubry, and co-president of the Left, was one of the sponsors of the bill.
Aubry told Euronews that six amendments to the bill "significantly improved the text", including the addition of a call for an immediate ceasefire, greater UN and OSCE involvement, and the acceptance of refugees.
“I co-signed the initial text and voted on the final text as co-chair of the group because I wanted to send a clear political message denouncing Putin's irresponsible aggression and supporting the Ukrainian people,” he said.
"Other delegations decided to abstain or vote against the text because they wanted to insist on the risk of global war on the continent if the EU entered the vicious circle of military escalation."
Irish MEP Daly said she voted against the resolution because it calls for an increase in the supply of weapons to Ukraine, something that "will only make the situation worse".
"The only way the conflict can be ended is through peace talks and negotiations.
Putting more weapons into the situation simply adds fuel to the fire," Daly told Euronews.
“It is truly regrettable that NATO, the US and the EU do not support the idea of an internationally mediated peace agreement.
This is the only solution. Ironically, now it's only the Chinese who present it, but that's the only way."
German MEP Demirel also told Euronews that the resolution would only "pour oil on the fire" of the conflict and accused European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen of using the situation - including Zelensky's speech - as an excuse to bring forward a broader agenda: transforming the EU "into a tangible and powerful military union", he said.
“I think it is cynical to abuse the suffering of Ukrainians for something like this. The people in Ukraine, Europe and the world want to live in peace and social security."
Spanish MEP Crespo said that while he "totally condemns Putin's invasion of Ukraine", the resolution would only aggravate the situation. “Faced with two giants who are putting more and more weapons on the table, more missiles and starting to threaten with nuclear weapons, the only way out is to ask to go all the way for peace. Otherwise, it will only lead to death and destruction,” he said.
Schirdewan responded through a spokesperson with a statement from the German delegation Die Linke, in which he said that although he condemned Russia's invasions as a "blatant violation of international law", he was against sending weapons to Ukraine.
"An imperialist war"
Some who were against the resolution, however, went further.
In a statement, two of the non-aligned members of parliament who voted no, Kostas Papadakis and Lefteris Nikolaou-Alavanos said that the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) condemned "imperialist war, which is the result of imperialist competition for spheres of influence and wealth-producing resources.
“It is moving in the dangerous direction of escalating imperialist competition with EU-NATO military equipment and sanctions,” they said.
Lopes and Pereira, who responded to Euronews through a spokesperson, reiterated this opinion.
In their statement, members of the Portuguese Communist Party accused the European Union and NATO of supporting a coup in Ukraine in 2014, described the Russian invasion as a "military intervention" and echoed the Kremlin line that Ukraine was controlled by fascist forces. He accused NATO and the EU – though notably not Moscow – of “warmongering”.
Wallace told Euronews that the vote on the issue had been misrepresented and, although he voted against the resolution, he and fellow Irishman Daly consistently condemned the war, wherever it was.
“We will continue to oppose both Russian aggression and the militarization of Europe, which are not in the interests of Ukrainians, Russians, Europeans or anyone else,” he said.
New York, wsj - November 06, 2023 The ceiling on the price of Russian oil imposed by the West to curb Moscow's war spending is increasingly losing its effectiveness.
The latest evidence shows that oil and gas tax revenues for the Russian budget more than doubled in October compared to September and increased by more than a quarter compared to the same month last year, according to data published on Friday 3; this represents a clear reversal compared to the beginning of the year, when energy revenues had collapsed.
The price cap, imposed last December, was supposed to achieve a dual objective: ensuring the flow of Russian crude to world markets, thus keeping gasoline prices low, and at the same time reducing Moscow's revenue per barrel sold.
Because sanctions don't work
The sanctions initially worked as intended. However, Moscow has found ways around them, moving the oil onto a fleet of aging tankers over which the restrictions have limited influence. The discount at which Russia sells oil to global prices has narrowed, adding to the country's war chest.
US officials are seeking to strengthen experimental intervention in global oil markets. Last month, for the first time, the US Treasury Department imposed sanctions on two oil tankers for violating sanctions rules, and the country is preparing other ways to ensure traders comply with the rules, people familiar with the matter said. the resolutions. Since much of Russia's oil trade now takes place outside their jurisdictions, the United States and its allies are also discussing how to make it more costly for Russia to raise and operate the flotilla of ships it uses to evade sanctions. The US Department of Justice is waging a broad effort to crack down on violations of Russian energy sanctions. Some analysts argue that the size of Russia's naval fleet has meant that most of its exports are not subject to the cap. “The price cap worked as intended, but it is now obsolete,” said Natasha Kaneva, head of commodity strategy at JPMorgan Chase.
This reduces the deficit/GDP ratio
The recent influx of oil revenues is helping to reduce Russia's budget deficit. Economists now believe it is possible that the Government will reach its deficit target of 2% of GDP. In the spring, some economists expected a deficit of 5-6% this year. Deficit reduction partially eases the government's financing needs by reducing the need to accumulate savings and issue expensive bonds. As exports increase, Russia's improving trade position helps reduce downward pressure on the ruble, which has stabilized against the dollar in recent weeks. Rising Russian oil prices suggest the cap is increasingly less enforceable, the World Bank said in a recent report. The large oil earnings help Moscow finance the war in Ukraine and support the sanctions-hit economy, according to the World Bank and other economists. Next year, in fact, the Government plans to increase military spending by almost 70%, thus reaching the post-Soviet record of over 100 billion dollars. “It appears that the energy gain will allow the country to ramp up the war effort without further financing difficulties,” said Liam Peach, senior emerging markets economist at Capital Economics. Russian officials are already doing a lap of honor for the winners. “I hope that now everyone is convinced that the [G-7] instrument is simply useless and that end consumers suffer from it,” Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said in October, according to the Russian news agency Interfax. Even as Russian revenues have started to rise again, Treasury officials argue that the price cap has taken resources away from Moscow's war effort, forcing Russia to build its own transportation infrastructure outside the net of Western sanctions. “Buying tankers makes it much harder for the Kremlin to buy tanks,” said Eric Van Nostrand, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy, at a recent Brookings Institution event. More vigorous enforcement of sanctions would force Moscow to sell more oil under the roof or spend more on the logistics system needed to evade them, according to Van Nostrand. Russian officials are already doing a lap of honor for the winners. “I hope that now everyone is convinced that the [G-7] instrument is simply useless and that end consumers suffer from it,” Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said in October, according to the Russian news agency Interfax. The United States has proposed a list of recommendations to port managers that could increase costs for Russia, including requiring vessels to demonstrate that they have adequately capitalized insurance to sail in their waters, even if it is not It's unclear whether foreign shipping company officials will follow U.S. suggestions. The price cap works by allowing Western companies to transport, trade or insure Russian oil only if it is sold at or below $60 a barrel or face sanctions from the United States and its allies.
The shadow flotilla
Russian oil companies and their trading partners responded by assembling their own transportation network. According to research by the Kyiv School of Economics, as of September Russia had a shadow fleet transporting oil and petroleum products from Russian ports, consisting of 180 tankers. Its largest customers, China, India and Turkey, do not comply with the Western price ceiling. Currently, more than half of Russian crude exports are shipped with non-G-7 insurance, up from about 35% in January, according to data from S&P Global. Argus Media, a commodity data provider, estimates that the main variety of Russian crude, Urals, recently traded around $74 a barrel; This is still a discount to Brent, the global benchmark, which trades at around $88, although the gap between the two has narrowed significantly in recent months. According to analysts at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, traders got around the oil price cap in part by artificially inflating shipping costs, adding that the documentation on which the sanctions are based, a document called an attestation, which guarantees that a trade complies with the maximum limit, it is difficult to enforce. “The effectiveness of the price cap has decreased, but this does not mean that it is irrecoverable,” said Maria Shagina, a researcher at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Western officials should improve enforcement by introducing strict liability for price cap violations, tightening documentation requirements to prevent claims fraud, and investigating inflated shipping and insurance costs, she said.
Verona, veronasera - From february 01, 2023 - for Freedom returns to the streets to reiterate its "NO" to the war that the people do not want."
The group that supported Alberto Zelger's candidacy for mayor in the municipal elections of the Scaliger capital returns in the heart of the city.
A series of interventions therefore on the topic of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, the economic sanctions inflicted on the latter and the support offered by the NATO nations to the nation presided over by Zelensky.
«Verona was the first city in Italy in which, already in May 2022, a march against NATO was held and today, with the same determination, we express our firm opposition to the war policies implemented in this country.
AUSTRIA
DIVIDED OVER SANCTIONS ON RUSSIA
Vienna, euractiv - From february 27, 2023 - The Austrian far-right party FPÖ continues to be against sanctions on Russia. Polls show that Austrians are generally in favor of sanctions, except far-right voters. In general, Austrian citizens consider the sanctions against Russia to be important punitive measures. The country currently continues to remain neutral and maintains strong historical ties with Russia. The far right, which stands at 28% according to a February 23 poll, continues to oppose the sanctions. “Only 46 of the 193 UN member states have imposed sanctions on Russia, 27 of which belong to the EU,” FPÖ Secretary General Christian Hafenecker told Parliament on Friday. The European Union should stop supplying weapons to Ukraine, while Austria should return to "true" neutrality, he added. The far right's push against sanctions returns a deeply divided country, where support for Ukraine is becoming increasingly fragile. According to a recent poll by the tabloid Heute, 65% of Austrians would like Ukraine to cede its territory to Russia to stop the fighting (a percentage that rises to 86% for FPÖ voters). In the latest Eurobarometer, 60% of Austrians expressed their support for the sanctions imposed on Russia, while the EU average stands at 74%. A poll by the private television channel ATV found that 44% support the sanctions or want to tighten them, while 34% would like to ease them or eliminate them altogether. Again, 59% of FPÖ voters would lift sanctions against Russia if they had the chance, while around 20% would ease them. Sanctions against Russia appear to have further polarized a population already divided over the government's handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.
NO MORE SANCTIONS ON RUSSIA. THEY COST US 1 BILLION. AWARENESS OF THE USELESSNESS OF PUNITIVE DUTIES IS GROWING IN EUROPE
Roma, italiaoggi - From april 17, 2018 - Lorenzo Fontana, vice-president of the chamber and deputy secretary of the League, is one of Matteo Salvini's closest collaborators with whom he shared the benches of the European Parliament for many years. He is convinced that awareness of the futility of sanctions against Russia is growing. And he says this in an interview given to La Stampa of Turin just as US President Donald Trump's envoy to Ukraine, Kurt Volker, asks for them to be maintained and recalls that it is only the European Union, given that these are European measures, the authority entitled to decide whether or not to remove trade tariffs against Moscow. Duties which according to Fontana, and therefore also according to the Northern League leader Salvini, must be canceled as soon as possible because they have cost the Italian economy over a billion euros a year: "It is a decision to be taken on the European table, but we have to go there convinced, determined. The belief has developed that the sanctions have achieved nothing. However, they have damaged our businesses, costing us around a billion euros a year. These are the serious consequences, and now we must ask ourselves whether the same economic damage has taken its toll on other European countries that are opposed to lifting sanctions on Russia. Italy must make itself heard, raise its voice." Fontana explains that it is not about banging your fists on the table, but about "making it clear that Italy has interests to defend. Trump rightly says 'America first' and we in the League say 'Italians first'. Now I don't understand which America Volker is talking about, is it still Obama's? His words surprise me, the president of the USA has the same positions as us on many issues, from immigration to identity nationalism: this is what Volker criticizes."
Fontana adds that if Volker intends to include the League in the list of bad guys who benefited from Russian funds for the electoral campaign, he is on the wrong track. “I know well how we ran the election campaign: almost without a euro. I also followed the American campaign and saw that Trump wanted to get closer to Russia and today he is accused of having been helped by Russia", underlines the deputy secretary of the League. “ It is the same accusation that is made against European nationalist movements. Volker and many others say that Moscow is trying to destabilize the West but I ask a rhetorical question: aren't there other world powers trying to do the same thing? Don't China and the United States themselves engage in destabilization policies in other political scenarios in the world? It's not about being friends with Trump or Putin, but the most sensible thing is for there to be dialogue between them. Italy and Europe should be the link between the USA and Russia." If we are partners and allies in Europe we must be equal. For too long we have suffered the subjection of Germany and France in the European institutions. In Europe our positions are spreading. Identity movements are growing and we will see it next year at the European elections: if we manage to form an alliance, we will be, if not the first, then the second group in Strasbourg. It is the same political trend that made Trump win in the United States and Salvini in Italy."
EU proposal may accelerate pharma innovation decline,
industry group says
Bruxelles, marketscreener - November 05, 2023 - A major pharmaceutical rules overhaul, proposed by the European Commission in April, could see Europe's share in global research and development contract by a third to 21% by 2040 translating to 2 billion euros ($2.15 billion) per year in lost investment, industry group EFPIA said on Monday.
The European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) says the Commission has not conducted a competitiveness impact assessment and if the new rules become law, they would accelerate the negative innovation trend in the EU and hit small and medium-sized enterprises the hardest.
"Any changes to our incentives system would equally affect EU-based and foreign-based companies which bring medicines to the EU and, therefore, it would not put EU firms at a disadvantage," an EU Commission spokesperson said.
Medication was the single biggest contributor to the EU's trade surplus, with 235 billion euro ($252.13 billion) worth of exports in 2021.
The EFPIA said small biotech companies have already moved to the United States and China.
The Commission has proposed shortening the time a new medicine remains patented in a bid to reduce the cost of medicines for its citizens with a faster shift to cheaper generics. The Commission said its proposal would reduce new medicine approval times to 180 days from 400 days. It also includes boosts for small and medium-sized enterprises such a longer period to get data protection in all 27 member states as well as fee reductions or waivers schemes and favourable regulation for rare disease medicines.
Lars Fruergaard Jorgensen, CEO of Novo Nordisk , said that the reduction would not allow a pharmaceutical company to recoup the investment in development as well as the cost of marketing.
"If you chop off, one or two or three years of exclusivity, it's the peak sales that you take away. When you launch a product, you have a negative profit contribution because you invest more in marketing, sales...it's really easy the last few years that you recoup your investment," Jorgensen said.
Novo Nordisk, a Danish firm, has become the Europe's most valuable listed company since it launched game-changing weight loss and diabetes drugs, Wegovy and Ozempic. Jorgensen added that Novo Nordisk has already invested more in its Boston presence.
"Everyone, going forward, will start conducting trials in the U.S....In some cases, they (the medicines) are not going to developed in Europe," Jorgensen said, adding that the U.S. offers a major market after one approval process versus country-by-country in the EU.
Germany, Belgium and France would be the hardest hit by the proposed rules, the EFPIA said citing research by Dolon that it commissioned.
EU pro-nuclear alliance
on 7 November in Bratislava
Bruxelless, ansa - November 4, 2023 - Highlights: EU pro-nuclear alliance on 7 November in Bratislava, says French Ministry of Ecological Transition. Italy will also take part in the alliance meeting as an observer, as has happened in previous meetings. The European Nuclear Energy Forum, explains the French ministry, "will be an opportunity to recall the centrality of nuclear power for decarbonisation and the sovereignty of the EU economy" The forum should pave the way for "a new industrial coalition for small modular reactors", adds the French Ministry.
EU pro-nuclear countries will meet again on Tuesday 7 November in Bratislava, on the sidelines of the European Nuclear Energy Forum (ENEF). This was announced by the French Ministry of Ecological Transition, at the head of the initiative. Italy will also take part in the alliance meeting as an observer, as has happened in previous meetings.
The European Nuclear Energy Forum, explains the French ministry, "will be an opportunity to recall the centrality of nuclear power for decarbonisation and the sovereignty of the EU economy" and should pave the way for "a new industrial coalition for small modular reactors".
WIRELESS CHARGING OF ELECTRIC CARS
'COSTS 1 MILLION EUROS for KM AND 'HURTS' PASSERS-BY'
Roma, everyeye - November 03, 2023 - It was December two years ago when Stellantis opened a stretch of motorway with wireless charging for electric cars, also known as induction charging. This is a revolutionary technology that could effectively clear the way for the spread of EVs in Italy and around the world, but all that glitters is not gold. This type of charging, in fact, presents two important problems, as explained to Corriere.it, on the occasion of the new episode of the podcast "Electric car trial", by Gianluca Bertazzoli, director of E-mob.
«The “Arena del Futuro” (arena of the future) project has also been launched in Italy - explains the expert regarding wireless charging for electric cars - at the center of which is positioned the induction charging technology for electric cars, which allows you to recharge a car at battery running. However, this technology presents two problems. The first is that the installation costs one million euros per kilometre, and since a car absorbs little electricity, it would be necessary to infrastructure practically the entire road network".
The second problem is a healthy one: «The other problem is connected to the absorption of electromagnetic waves by passers-by, especially in densely populated urban areas». But there is also another type of induction charging, the one that is installed directly in garages: «It has been tested for 10 years and the cost of the charging kit, the emitter on the ground and the reception on the car, it is at least 20 times more than the normal intake. The technology exists - underlines Bertazzoli - the market does not exist, because at the moment it is not economically sustainable".
Another type of charging is based on "changing the battery" in a very short time, a technology in which the company NIO strongly believes, which opened the first Battery Swap station in Germany a year ago.
Even in this case, however, according to the expert it is an impractical option: «It was attempted in 2010 by an Israeli company, taking advantage of the fact that in that period there were only two best-selling cars and that they represented approximately 70% of the market, but after two years they had to give up. Now we consider it impossible due to the fragmentation of the market and above all due to the diversity of the batteries used. We think it is easier to organize it for the motorcycles of a single company."
WHAT IS CYBER REVIEW?
Cyber Week
in Review:
November 2023
Buckinghamshire, cfr - November 02, 2023 - A cyber security review provides an independent and in-depth assessment of the ability of an organisation to protect its information assets from the impact of cyber threats. The cyber security review aims to establish and validate the effectiveness of cyber security measures.
from Net Politics and Digital and Cyberspace Policy Program
BIDEN SIGNS EXECUTIVE ORDER ON AI
SEC SUES SOLARWINDS OVER 2020 HACK, INVOKING EXPANDED CYBERSECURITY REGULATIONS
UNITED KINGDOM AI SAFETY SUMMIT HOSTS GLOBAL LEADERS, BUSINESS OWNERS IN REGULATORY DISCUSSIONS
FORTY NINE COUNTRIES PLEDGE TO NOT PAY RANSOMS IN RANSOMWARE ATTACKS
President Biden signed a new executive order on regulating artificial intelligence on Monday. The order will impact a range of departments and targets what policymakers see as the short and long term risks of AI. The Biden administration has previously laid out a number of initiatives on AI, including the AI Bill of Rights and the National Institute of Standards and Technology AI Risk Framework [PDF], and the newly released executive order builds on and expands the administration’s previous work. The order takes a number of steps to address AI across numerous sectors of society; it implements the Defense Production Act to force developers of frontier models to conduct safety tests and share those tests with the government; it will also direct departments to develop new methods of mitigating algorithmic discrimination across a number of different areas, including housing, federal benefits programs, and the criminal justice system, and will create a reporting system for the unsafe use of AI in healthcare and the developments of drugs. The administration will create the National AI Research Resource, which will be used to provide researchers and students data on AI development and will provide grants for cross-cutting research on AI and other issues, such as climate change and healthcare. The order doesn’t only deal with AI risk, but also directs agencies and departments to find a ways to use AI to create positive change. Agencies are instructed to find ways to use AI to make software more secure and providing small businesses, developers, and entrepreneurs with access to technical assistance and resources to further their use and development of AI.
On Monday, the United States and forty eight other countries, along with the European Union and Interpol, signed a pledge to no longer pay ransoms for ransomware attacks after the third annual International Counter Ransomware Initiative.
The United States had reportedly been leading the charge to release such a measure in the months leading up to the summit.
However, not everyone agrees with the pledge, and an FBI official came forward on Tuesday to note that banning ransom payments may create worse alternative opportunities for extortion and ransom.
Participants also agreed to create an information-sharing platform to blacklist cryptocurrency wallets associated with ransomware gangs and plan to create a mechanism for members to request assistance after a ransomware incident takes place.
Law enforcement has made some notable progress against criminal hacking groups in 2023, gaining access to the network of the Hive ransomware group and providing decryption keys to its victims and seizing the Genesis Market, where hackers had often gone to see stolen personal data.
On Monday, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced that it is suing software company SolarWinds and its chief information security officer (CISO) for misleading investors and the public over cybersecurity failures surrounding a 2020 hack of SolarWinds, which appears to mark the first time the SEC has sued a company or individual for misleading statements on their cybersecurity practices.
The hack in question occurred three years ago, when a Russia-affiliated hacker group, known as The Dukes, compromised SolarWinds’ Orion platform systems and embedded malicious code in Orion updates. This allowed The Dukes to access the systems of a wide range of organizations, including the U.S. State Department, Homeland Security Department, cybersecurity company FireEye, and Microsoft, among others.
The SEC’s allegations against SolarWinds claim that the firm misled investors for years, touting strong cybersecurity policies while failing to follow those policies internally.
SolarWinds said that it would fight the suit, and its CISO, Sudhakar Ramakrishna said the company “maintained appropriate cybersecurity controls” before the attack.
The SEC recently released stricter cybersecurity regulations due to the impact of hacks on investor support, and Monday’s suit represents the first action taken by the Commission regarding stricter cybersecurity practices.
Throughout this week, the United Kingdom hosted the AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park. The event was attended by many global officials and business leaders, including U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, and China’s Vice Minister of Science and Technology Wu Zhaohui.
The primary goal for the summit was to improve international coordination on principles of frontier AI development and regulation, which comes as calls for regulation on artificial intelligence have increased throughout the past year.
Critics of the event argue that the summit’s focus on frontier AI models is too limited and that it did not adequately include independent AI researchers.
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak hopes that the summit will foster collaboration and allow the UK to act as an intermediary between the United States, the EU, and China on AI regulation.
Despite this approach, the UK Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden said that it wasn’t appropriate for China to attend all the sessions at the event, although it was unclear which sessions Dowden was referring to.
Participants appeared to agree on a number of steps toward regulation. Both the United States and UK said they would launch AI safety institutes, and participants agreed that AI-driven disinformation remained one of the most important and immediate threats posed by AI.
Indian opposition politicians among those targeted with Pegasus spyware
On Monday and Tuesday, Apple warned at least twenty prominent Indians, including journalists and several members of Parliament, that they had been targeted with Pegasus spyware.
Those targeted include politicians from several opposition parties, including the Indian National Congress (INC), and journalists from the Wire and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project; both outlets have been critical of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the past.
Apple did not attribute the breaches to any actor, but opposition politicians in India, including INC leader Rahul Gandhi, quickly blamed the BJP for the hacks, while IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, a BJP member, called the notifications “vague and non-specific.”
The Indian government had previously purchased the spyware from NSO Group, but reportedly began looking for new spyware vendors earlier this year, after the U.S. Commerce Department added NSO Group to its Entity List.
It’s a spooky Halloween for markets. Here’s why
New York, cnn - November 01, 2023 - Markets soared on Monday, just one day after the S&P 500 index landed in correction territory, ending the prior week 10% off its July zenith. But Monday’s optimism could be short lived. Traders face a multitude of potentially scary market surprises lurking in the shadows this Halloween week. Wall Street is clearly spooked: The S&P 500 is still down by about 2.9% for October, and pacing toward its third negative month in a row. It would be the longest losing streak since the start of the pandemic in 2020.
The Dow is also on pace to end the month 1.6% lower. The Nasdaq Composite is 2.7% lower.
CNN’s Fear and Greed Index, which tracks seven indicators of market sentiment in the United States, remained in the “fear” zone despite Monday’s market rally.
HERE’S WHAT’S CAUSING THE MARKET FEARS:
High bond yields
Surging yields have contributed to one of the worst periods for bond market performance in history and pressured equity markets. 10-year Treasury yields are flirting with 5% for the first time since 2007, before the global financial crisis. Although rates have retreated a bit from recent highs, it’s clear that we’re in the middle of a paradigm shift, said Rob Almeida at MFS Investment Management. It’s unlikely that yields will return to pre-pandemic lows, he said. For American consumers, an elevated 10-year Treasury yield means financial pain, because it serves as a benchmark rate for a variety of consumer borrowing. That means more costly car loans, credit card rates and even student debt. It also means more expensive mortgage rates. Like an evil witch, yields have mounted “a broom to the moon,” said Jason Pride, chief of investment strategy & research at Glenmede. Higher yields on Treasuries put pressure on equity markets. Additionally, he wrote, “elevated yields are economically restrictive for businesses, as returns on new projects and expansions must be sufficient to cover the increased cost of funding.”
The Fed
The Federal Reserve will announce its next interest rate decision Wednesday, Nov 1. Inflation has begun to stabilize, with annual consumer price growth falling to 3.7% from the 9.1% high it hit last year, but the labor market has remained stubbornly resilient. The majority of investors don’t believe the Fed will raise rates this week, but until the labor market has cooled considerably more and inflation rates drop back to the Fed’s 2% target, the option of future rate hikes remains on the table, haunting investors. Mixed economic data has left the Fed in a holding pattern, said Erik Weisman, chief economist at MFS Investment Management, and so it’s unlikely investors will hear anything this week that leaves them satisfied. “While the market would be delighted to learn something new concerning the expected timing and scope of future rate cuts or the ‘end-game’ for quantitative tightening,” he said, “this meeting is unlikely to provide much illumination on these fronts.”
Geopolitical strife
The Israel-Hamas war, which began in early October, initially rattled global financial markets, sending stocks tumbling, the Israeli shekel sliding and oil prices climbing. Although immediate worries appear to have subsided, investors remain on edge. A prolonged war could drive prices higher and hurt the global economy. “While geopolitics typically has a short-lived direct market impact, the indirect impacts via inflation and economic growth can be more persistent,” said Seema Shah, chief global strategist at Principal Asset Management. Continuing war between Russia and Ukraine and growing tensions between the US and China are also spurring fear among investors. Oil prices fell on Monday but analysts at LPL Research wrote in a note on the same day that “the current geopolitical landscape is as dangerous as it has been in decades, and the risk of a spike in oil prices has increased.” The note echoes the warnings issued by JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon during his company’s earnings call earlier this month. “Now may be the most dangerous time the world has seen in decades,” he said.
Mixed tech earnings
Investors will pore over Apple’s third-quarter earnings report on Thursday for any information about the outlook for Big Tech, especially after tech stocks have had a decidedly mixed bag of earnings so far this quarter. Amazon was a huge winner. The e-commerce giant reported revenue last week of $143.1 billion for the quarter ending in September, marking a 13% increase from the same period last year and beating analysts’ estimates. The company reported quarterly profits of $9.9 billion, also beating estimates.
But others weren’t so lucky:
SHARES OF META SLID LAST WEEK AFTER THE FACEBOOK PARENT COMPANY
CVS AND WALGREENS PHARMACY STAFF BEGIN 3-DAY WALKOUT.
APPLE UNVEILS ITS FASTEST IMAC AND MACBOOK PRO MODELS YET.
Employees at some of the largest drugstore chains in the United States staged a new series of walkouts across the country Monday to demand the companies fix what employees say are harsh working conditions that make it difficult for them to safely fill prescriptions, and which could put the health of their customers at risk. Walgreens and CVS employees are mostly not unionized, which makes a largescale walkout difficult to execute. Staff and organizers in multiple states confirmed to CNN that the walkouts have begun and will take place through November 1, but it remains unclear how widespread the action is. Workers at Walgreens and CVS have previously staged walkouts in Arizona, Washington, Massachusetts and Oregon in September and early October. Those work actions closed a handful of pharmacies briefly, and slowed business at several others. At the time, Walgreens told CNN the impact has been “minimal.” Shane Jerominski, an independent pharmacist in Southern California who used to work for Walgreens and is one of the walkout’s organizers, told CNN on Monday that organizers are already overwhelmed by calls about closed pharmacies. During prior walkouts, pharmacy staff feared retaliation from their bosses and corporate leadership, said Jerominski. But there was no reported reprisal from leadership, which, he says, has emboldened more staff to participate. Jerominski told CNN that there have been at least 25 store closures. Fraser Engerman, a Walgreens spokesperson, told CNN that just two stores closed on Monday and no more than 12 pharmacists walked out across the entire country. He did not immediately clarify whether that included pharmacy staff. Jerominski said that many employees who may still be concerned about a company reprisal are calling out sick instead of walking out, and those absences wouldn’t be counted as official walkouts by Walgreens. He expects momentum to build over the next three days and culminate Wednesday with a planned demonstration outside Walgreens’ headquarters in the Chicago suburb of Deerfield. Jerominski also said that a GoFundMe page, initially started to help unionization efforts among pharmacy staff, had raised more than $60,000 and was being used as an emergency relief fund for workers who needed financial help in order to participate in the walkout.
Apple’s MacBook Pro lineup and colorful iMacs just got even faster. At an event livestreamed on Monday night, the company introduced its next-generation family of custom-made processors — the M3, M3 Pro and M3 Pro Max — and along with it, a handful of new computers. The event’s tagline — “scary fast” — was an apparent nod to the unveiling of the next-generation silicon chip series, as well as the Halloween holiday Tuesday. In the beginning of the pre-recorded presentation, CEO Tim Cook appeared wearing all black within a dimly lit spot inside Apple’s Cupertino, California-based headquarters, standing in front of an apparent smoke machine. Although unveiling a new processor may not sound sexy, it will serve as the backbone to Apple’s latest products, enabling faster speeds and more capabilities than ever. For example, Apple said the M3 speeds are now up to 2.5x faster than on the M1 family of chips, and its core processing performance is up to 50% faster. The chips are built with 3 nanometer technology, which can support advanced graphics and artificial intelligence. “It will bring a whole new level of graphics to the Mac,” an Apple executive said during the event. “They are the most advanced chips ever built for a personal computer.”
reported that advertising revenue had been soft this quarter.
While Meta beat expectations and posted significant year-over-year quarterly revenue gains of 23%, Wall Street worried about its Reality Labs division, which lost $3.7 billion.
GOOGLE-PARENT ALPHABET
reported last week that it fell short in its cloud business, causing shares of the company to drop precipitously. Alphabet notched its largest stock decline since March 2020 on the news.
AI Expert Claims Big Tech Using Fear of AI To Scare Up Profits
THEY’RE CREATING FEAR OF AI LEADING TO HUMAN EXTINCTION
Sidney, technewsworld - October 31, 2023 - Big Tech leaders are exaggerating the existential threat AI poses to humanity to solidify their market shares through government regulation, a leading figure in artificial intelligence told an Australian financial publication Monday.
“There are definitely large tech companies that would rather not have to try to compete with open source, so they’re creating fear of AI leading to human extinction,” Andrew Ng, co-founder of Google Brain (now DeepMind) and an adjunct professor at Stanford University, told John Davidson, of the Australian Financial Review.
“It’s been a weapon for lobbyists to argue for legislation that would be very damaging to the open-source community,” he added.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has been outspoken about the need for government regulation of AI. In May, Altman, along with DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, signed a statement from the Center for AI Safety that compared the risks of AI to humanity to those of nuclear wars and pandemics.
“The notion that AI systems will spiral out of control and make humans extinct is a compelling plotline in sci-fi thrillers, but in the real world, the fear is more an exaggeration than a likely scenario,” said Aswin Prabhakar, a policy analyst for the Center for Data Innovation, a think tank studying the intersection of data, technology, and public policy, in Washington, D.C. Prabhakar explained that the journey towards creating artificial general intelligence (AGI), a form of AI that surpasses human intellect across all fields, still has a long, uncertain road ahead.
“Even if AGI were realized, which is by no means certain, for it to pose an existential threat, it would have to go rogue and break free from the control of its human creators, which is still an incredibly speculative scenario,” he told TechNewsWorld.
He added that contemplating an AI-induced apocalypse unfairly sidelines the technology’s immense and concrete benefits. “The gains from AI in fields like health care, education, and economic productivity are enormous and could significantly uplift global living standards,” he asserted.
Posing Challenges to Open-Source AI
Ala Shaabana, co-founder of the Opentensor Foundation, an organization committed to developing AI technologies that are open and accessible to the public, said of the Big Tech AI leaders: “They are definitely using scare tactics. There are a lot more things that we should be more closely concerned with than the risk of humanity becoming extinct. That’s a tad exaggerated. It’s all PR.”
“Creating artificial general intelligence — AI with consciousness that can think for itself and do for itself without human intervention — is the holy grail of AI,” he told TechNewsWorld. “But how can we develop something that’s conscious when we don’t understand consciousness ourselves?”
Government regulation could pose a threat to the open-source AI community, noted Rob Enderle, president and principal analyst with the Enderle Group, an advisory services firm in Bend, Ore. “It depends on how the laws and regulations are written,” he told TechNewsWorld. “But governments often do more harm than good, particularly in areas not yet well understood.” Prabhakar added that overly broad government rules on AI could pose challenges for the open-source community.
“Such regulations, especially if they place responsibility on developers of open-source AI systems for how their tools are used, could discourage contributors,” he said. “They might fear legal issues if their open-source AI tools are misused, making them less likely to share their work freely.”
Choking Open Source With Red Tape
Prabhakar recommended the government take a tailored approach to AI oversight. “Recognizing that open-source projects have different incentives compared to commercial ones and creating exceptions in the regulations for open-source models might be a solution,” he explained. “By adjusting the rules to better fit the open-source spirit, we can aim for a scenario where regulation and open-source innovation coexist and thrive,” he reasoned. Shaabana maintained that the Executive Order on Artificial Intelligence released by the White House Monday contained provisions favoring Big Tech AI companies over open-source developers.
“The Executive Order is extremely manual,” he explained. “It requires a lot of resources to comply with if you’re a small company or small researcher.”
“One requirement is that any company developing artificial intelligence models will have to start reporting the training of that model and getting it approved by the U.S. government,” he said. “Unless you’re a big-time researcher or a Meta, OpenAI, or Google, you’re not going to make it through that red tape. Those companies will have their own divisions to get through that.” The open-source community won’t be the only community that could be harmed by government regulation of AI, he continued. “The scientific community will also be affected,” he contended. “In the last two years, researchers in climate change, biology, astronomy, and linguistics have used open-source AI to do their research. If those open-source models weren’t available, that research would be unavailable now.”
Hidden Costs of AI Regulation
While regulations can hurt small, open-source AI players, they can benefit the current AI establishment. “Strict regulation on AI creates significant barriers to entry, particularly for emerging ventures lacking the requisite capital or expertise to navigate the many regulatory mandates,” Prabhakar explained.
“The upfront costs associated with adhering to stringent regulations could potentially stifle the emergence of innovative startups, thereby consolidating the market around well-established players,” he continued. “Big Tech firms are better poised to comply with and absorb the costs associated with a rigorous regulatory framework,” he said. “Unlike their SME counterparts, they have the capital, expertise, and infrastructure necessary to navigate the regulatory maze. This disparity creates a moat around the established players, potentially shielding them from the brunt of competition.” The absence of a moat to stave off open-source competition was the subject of a memo attributed to a Google researcher that caused quite a stir when it was leaked online in May. In it, the researcher argued that “a third faction has been quietly eating our lunch” — open-source AI models that are “faster, more customizable, more private, and pound-for-pound more capable” than those of Google and OpenAI. Shaabana praised President Biden’s Executive Order for aiming to integrate AI into government but added, “A lot of it looks like Big Tech trying to close the door behind them.” “They’ve created this fancy AI, and they really don’t want any competition or just competition among a handful of companies that can get through the government process,” he continued. “Ironically,” he said, “a lot of the government’s fears about bias, transparency, and anti-competitiveness can all be resolved with open source AI and without regulation.”
“What’s going to happen if we let this slide, and we let these companies control everything? They will continue to create their own AI and continue to make themselves richer from our data,” he predicted.
Statue of Unity-sized asteroid to pass Earth today, reveals NASA
NASA HAS REVEALED DETAILS OF A CLOSE ENCOUNTER WITH AN ASTEROID THAT IS NEARLY 620 FEET WIDE! KNOW ITS SPEED, DISTANCE OF APPROACH, AND MORE.
Houston, hindustantimes – October 30, 2023 - There have been several close calls with asteroids in history. But did you know that not all asteroids have the same composition? According to NASA, the three primary classifications of asteroids are C-type, S-type, and M-type. Ctype asteroids, which are composed primarily of carbon-rich substances, are the most frequent. S-type asteroids, which are made up mainly of silicate minerals, are less common. M-type asteroids, which are primarily composed of metal, are the least prevalent. One rare asteroid has recently piqued the interest of scientists as it is reportedly made of gold, silver and nickel deposits!
In a new development, NASA, using its advanced space and ground-based telescopes, has revealed that an asteroid is set to pass Earth today. Know all about its close approach.
Asteroid 2004 UU1: Speed, size, distance, and more
An asteroid, given the designation of Asteroid 2004 UU1, is on its way towards Earth and could pass the planet today, October 30. As per the details, Asteroid 2004 UU1 is expected to pass Earth at a distance of approximately 4 million kilometers. It is already travelling towards Earth in its orbit at 62739 kilometers per hour which is almost as fast as a space shuttle!
This space rock belongs to the Apollo group of Near-Earth Asteroids, which are Earth-crossing space rocks with semimajor axes larger than Earth's. These asteroids are named after the humongous 1862 Apollo asteroid, discovered by German astronomer Karl Reinmuth in the 1930s.
According to NASA, this asteroid was discovered on October 23, 2004, by the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) project. Despite its discovery in the 21st century, the asteroid made its first-ever close approach to Earth on May 9, 1909, at a distance of about 34 million kilometers. After today, it will come close to the planet on November 17, 2027, when it will pass by at a distance of approximately 66 million kilometers.
How big is it?
Asteroid 2004 UU1 is almost 620 feet wide and is even bigger than the Statue of Unity, the tallest statue in the world! Due to this big size, it has been declared as a Potentially Hazardous Object. For the unaware, only celestial bodies bigger than 492 feet and which pass Earth closer than 7.5 million kilometers are classified as such.
Due to such close calls, NASA, ESA, and other space agencies have developed technology to track asteroids in their orbits, and even deflect them in case a potential impact scenario develops.
When Idiot Savants Do Climate Economics
HOW AN ELITE CLIQUE OF MATH-ADDLED ECONOMISTS HIJACKED CLIMATE POLICY.
London, theintercept - October 29, 2023 - WILLIAM NORDHAUS, WHO turned 82 this year, was the first economist in our time to attempt to quantify the cost of climate change. His climate-modeling wizardry, which won him the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2018, has made him one of the world’s most consequential thinkers. His ideas have been adopted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, global risk managers, the financial services industry, and universities worldwide that teach climate economics. Nordhaus’s work literally could affect the lives of billions of people. This is because his quantification of the immediate costs of climate action — as balanced against the long-term economic harms of not acting — is the basis of key proposals to mitigate carbon emissions. It’s not an exaggeration to suggest that the fate of nations and a sizable portion of humanity depends on whether his projections are correct.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has assumed Nordhaus is to be trusted. The integrated assessment models used at the IPCC are based on Nordhausian visions of adaptation to warming that only marginally reduces global gross domestic product. If future GDP is barely affected by rising temperatures, there’s less incentive for world governments to act now to reduce emissions.
Nordhaus’s models tell us that at a temperature rise somewhere between 2.7 and 3.5 degrees Celsius, the global economy reaches “optimal” adaptation. What’s optimal in this scenario is that fossil fuels can continue to be burned late into the 21st century, powering economic growth, jobs, and innovation. Humanity, asserts Nordhaus, can adapt to such warming with modest infrastructure investments, gradual social change, and, in wealthy developed countries, little sacrifice. All the while, the world economy expands with the spewing of more carbon.
His models, it turns out, are fatally flawed, and a growing number of Nordhaus’s colleagues are repudiating his work. Joseph Stiglitz, former World Bank chief economist and professor of economics at Columbia University, told me recently that Nordhaus’s projections are “wildly wrong.” Stiglitz singled out as especially bizarre the idea that optimization of the world economy would occur at 3.5 C warming, which physical scientists say would produce global chaos and a kind of climate genocide in the poorest and most vulnerable nations.
In a journal article published last year, Stiglitz and co-authors Nicholas Stern and Charlotte Taylor, of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science, declared that Nordhausian integrated assessment models are “inadequate to capture deep uncertainty and extreme risk.” They fail to incorporate “potential loss of lives and livelihoods on immense scale and fundamental transformation and destruction of our natural environment.”
Climate change is one of the instances, Stiglitz and Stern told me in an email, in which “it is generally agreed there is extreme risk — we know there are some really extreme events that could occur — and we know we cannot pretend (i.e., act as if) we know the probabilities. Nordhaus’s work doesn’t appropriately take into account either extreme risk or deep uncertainty.”
In other words, the economist who has been embraced as a guiding light by the global institution tasked with shepherding humanity through the climate crisis, who has been awarded a Nobel for climate costing, who is widely feted as the doyen of his field, doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
AMONG MOST SCIENTISTS, it’s lunacy to discuss optimization of anything anywhere when the globe hits even 2 C warming. Climate researchers Yangyang Xu and Veerabhadran Ramanathan, in a widely cited 2017 paper, defined 1.5 C warming as “dangerous” and 3 C or greater as “catastrophic,” while above 5 C was “beyond catastrophic,” with consequences that include “existential threats.” The late Will Steffen, a pioneering Earth systems thinker, warned alongside many of his colleagues that 2 C was a critical marker. At 2 C warming, we could “activate other tipping elements in a domino-like cascade that could take the Earth system to even higher temperatures.” Such “tipping cascades” could lead quickly to “conditions that would be inhospitable to current human societies,” a scenario known as hothouse Earth.
But the path to hothouse Earth will be long and tortured. When I interviewed him in 2021, Steffen, who died last January at age 75, was concerned about “near-term collapse” of the global food system. Drought and heat have already reduced global cereal production by as much as 10 percent in recent years, according to Steffen. “Food shocks are likely to get much worse,” he wrote in a 2019 piece co-authored with Aled Jones, director of the Global Sustainability Institute at Anglia Ruskin University. “The risk of multi-breadbasket failure is increasing, and rises much faster beyond 1.5 C of global heating. … Such shocks pose grave threats — rocketing food prices, civil unrest, major financial losses, starvation, and death.”
In a 2022 report titled “Climate Endgame: Exploring Catastrophic Climate Change Scenarios,” 11 leading Earth systems and climate scientists, Steffen among them, concluded there is “ample evidence that climate change could become catastrophic … at even modest levels of warming.” According to the report:
Climate change could exacerbate vulnerabilities and cause multiple, indirect stresses (such as economic damage, loss of land, and water and food insecurity) that coalesce into system-wide synchronous failures. … It is plausible that a sudden shift in climate could trigger systems failures that unravel societies across the globe.
What these scientists are describing is global civilizational collapse, possibly in the lifetime of a young or even middle-aged reader of this article.
According to the “Climate Endgame” report, the current trajectory of carbon emissions puts the world on track for a temperature rise between 2.1 C and 3.9 C by 2100. This is a horrific prospect. Earth systems analysts tell us that habitable and cultivable land in a 3 C to 4 C warming regime would be so reduced and ecosystem services so battered that the deaths of billions of people could occur in the next eight decades or less.
Terrible numbers get thrown around. But scientists mean what they say. Kevin Anderson, professor of energy and climate change at the University of Manchester in the U.K. and Uppsala University in Sweden, asserts that “something like 10 percent of the planet’s population — around half a billion people — will survive if global temperatures rise by 4 C.” He notes, with a modicum of hopefulness, that we “will not make all human beings extinct as a few people with the right sort of resources may put themselves in the right parts of the world and survive. But I think it’s extremely unlikely that we wouldn’t have mass death at 4 C.”
Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany and a leading researcher on climate tipping points and “safe boundaries” for humanity, projects that in a 4 C warmer world, “it’s difficult to see how we could accommodate a billion people or even half of that.” Global population today stands at 7.6 billion, with 80 million people added every year.
By contrast, when Nordhaus looked at the effects of 6 C warming, he did not forecast horror. Instead, we should expect “damages” of between 8.5 percent and 12.5 percent of world GDP over the course of the 21st century. Writing in the Economic Journal, Stern set Nordhaus straight in the harshest terms: “We could see deaths on a huge scale, migration of billions of people, and severe conflicts around the world,” he wrote. “It is profoundly implausible that numbers around 10 percent of GDP offer a sensible description of the kind of disruption and catastrophe that 6 C of warming could cause.”
In an email to The Intercept, Nordhaus characterized his colleagues’ critiques as “a distorted and inaccurate description of the work and my views. I have long supported carbon pricing and climate-focused [research and development], which are key to slowing climate change. The proposals in my writings have pointed to targets that are FAR more ambitious than current policies.” He declined to elaborate on any distortions or inaccuracies.
TO UNDERSTAND THE gap between climate scientists and climate economists, one must first understand that most economists — the folks we call mainstream or neoclassical economists — have little knowledge of or interest in how things really work on planet Earth. The problem of their ecological benightedness starts as a matter of training at university, where a typical undergraduate course in economics prepares students for a lifetime of abject ignorance about the complex underpinnings of the thing called the “market.”
Start with your typical textbook for the dismal science — say, the definitive one by Paul Samuelson, co-written with Nordhaus, titled “Economics.” The book is considered “the standard-bearer” of “modern economics principles.” You’ll find in its pages a circular flow diagram that shows “households” and “firms” exchanging money and goods. This is called the market. Households are the owners of land, labor, and capital, which they sell to firms for the manufacture of goods. Households then buy the goods, enriching firms, which allows the firms to buy more land, labor, and capital, enriching households. The quantity in the flow diagram, in ideal circumstances, is ever expanding: The profits of firms grow and so does the income of households.
A simple, imperturbable closed system that’s also ludicrous, fantastical, a fairy tale. In the circular flow diagram of standard economics, nothing enters from the outside to keep it flowing, and nothing exits as a result of the flow. There are no resource inputs from the environment: no oil, coal, or natural gas, no minerals and metals, no water, soil, or food. There are no outputs into the ecosphere: no garbage, no pollution, no greenhouse gasses. That’s because in the circular flow diagram, there is no ecosphere, no environment. The economy is seen as a self-renewing, perpetual-motion merry-go-round set in a vacuum.
The economy is seen as a self-renewing, perpetual-motion merry-go-round set in a vacuum.
“I taught that foolish little diagram to undergraduates at Louisiana State University for 30 years,” the late Herman Daly, one of the 20th century’s great dissenters from standard economics, told me in an interview before his death at age 84 last year. “I thought it was just great. I was well beyond a Ph.D. before it came crashing in on my head that this is a very bad paradigm.”
In the 1970s, working at the University of Maryland, Daly pioneered the field of ecological economics, which models the biophysical reality that delimits all economies. “The human economy,” wrote Daly, “is a fully contained wholly dependent growing subsystem of the non-growing ecosphere” — a commonsense observation that amounted to heresy in mainstream economics. Daly emphasized that the economy depends on nonrenewable resources that are always subject to depletion and a functioning biosphere whose limits need to be respected. His most important contribution to the literature of this renegade economics was his famous (in some circles, infamous) “steady state” model that accounts for biophysical limits to growth. Daly paid the price of heterodoxy. His fellow economists declared him an apostate.
E.F. Schumacher arrived at similar conclusions about mainstream economics in his 1973 book “Small Is Beautiful,” which became a bestseller. “It is inherent in the methodology of economics to ignore man’s dependence on the natural world,” Schumacher wrote, the emphasis his. Economics, said Schumacher, only touches the “surface of society.” It has no capacity to probe the depths of the systemic interactions between civilization and the planet. Faced with the “pressing problems of the times” — the negative environmental effects of growth — economics acts “as a most effective barrier against the understanding of these problems, owing to its addiction to purely quantitative analysis and its timorous refusal to look into the real nature of things.”
Purely quantitative analysis is the amphetamine of the mainstream economist. The steady dosing keeps his pencil sharp and his eyes blind. It has not gone unnoticed that graduate schools produce a kind of ingenious hollowness in economists who race to the finish on the schools’ assembly line. As early as 1991, a report from a commission on “graduate education in economics” warned that the university system in the United States was churning out “too many idiot savants,” economists “skilled in technique but innocent of real economic issues” — unable, that is, to look into the real nature of things.
BY WHAT MATHEMAGICAL sorcery has Nordhaus, celebrated member of the Ivy League elite, arrived at projections that are so out of line with those of climate scientists?
The answer is in something called DICE, the mother of integrated assessment models for climate costing. It stands for dynamic integrated climate-economy. Nordhaus formulated DICE for the first time in 1992 and updated it most recently last year.
In DICE, the effect of a warmed climate is measured solely as a percentage loss (or gain) in GDP. Growth of GDP is assumed to be “exogenously determined,” in the language of economics theory, meaning it will persist at a set rate over time regardless of climate shocks. Earth systems scientists will tell you that to assume exogenously determined growth is the height of hubristic arrogance. By contrast, Nordhaus assures us in his DICE model that growth continues like a cruising Cadillac on the California coast with an occasional pothole. But the reality is rainstorms, mudslides, earthquakes, and other drivers on the road.
This blithe presumption of constant growth in a climate-damaged future is the first of Nordhaus’s errors, as Stern and Stiglitz point out. “Nordhaus’s model doesn’t fully take into account the fact that if we don’t do more to avert climate change, climate change will affect growth rates,” they told me in an email. “We will have to spend more and more repairing damage, leaving us less and less to spend on growth-enhancing investments.” And, they add, some outcomes arising from weak climate action could profoundly alter what is possible in terms of economic activity. Extreme heat, submergence, desertification, hurricanes, and so on: Such weather events and broad climatic shifts could render large areas of the world low productivity, unproductive, or uninhabitable.
The second of Nordhaus’s errors is the use of reductionist mathematical formulas. He employs something called a quadratic to calculate the relationship between rising temperatures and economic outcomes. Among the properties of a quadratic is that it permits no discontinuities; there are no points at which the relationship implied by the function breaks down. But smooth functions chart smooth progressions, and climate change will be anything but smooth. Such calculations do not account for extreme weather, vector-borne diseases, displacement and migration, international and local conflict, mass morbidity and mortality, biodiversity crash, state fragility, or food, fuel, and water shortages. There’s no measurement of amplifying feedbacks and tipping points such as Arctic sea ice loss, shutdown of vital ocean currents, collapse of the Amazon, and the like.
The third of Nordhaus’s errors is related to similarly simplistic formulas. Nordhaus calculates GDP of a particular location as fundamentally related to the temperature of that place. So, if in 2023 it’s a certain temperature in London, and the GDP in London is such-and-such, it’s reasonable to assume that when latitudes north of London rise in temperature in the future, GDP will rise to be the same as London’s today. Make of this what you will — it’s foolishness on a grand scale, and yet it’s central to the Nordhaus model.
The fourth fatal error Nordhaus makes is the most farcical. In a 1991 paper that became a touchstone for all his later work, he assumed that, because 87 percent of GDP occurs in what he called “carefully controlled environments” — otherwise known as “indoors” — it will not be affected by climate. Nordhaus’s list of the indoor activities free of any effects from climate disruption include manufacturing, mining, transportation, communication, finance, insurance, real estate, trade, private sector services, and government services. Nordhaus appears to be conflating weather with climate. The one can make trouble for outdoor dining plans on your yacht. The other sinks the yacht.
Ignorance of systems has its way of plowing forward, juggernaut-like. Nordhaus has opined that agriculture is “the part of the economy that is sensitive to climate change,” but because it accounts for just 3 percent of national output, climate disruption of food production cannot produce a “very large effect on the U.S. economy.” It is unfortunate for his calculations that agriculture is the foundation on which the other 97 percent of GDP depends. Without food — strange that one needs to reiterate this — there is no economy, no society, no civilization. Yet Nordhaus treats agriculture as indifferently fungible.
This crude mess of a model is what won him the Nobel. “It shows how little quality control goes into selecting a winner in economics that he was even nominated for the prize,” Steve Keen, a research fellow at University College London and self-described renegade economist, told me. Keen has authored numerous books that question the orthodoxy of mainstream economics. He was an early critic of the integrated assessment models at the IPCC that owe their optimistic sheen to Nordhaus’s methodology. His caustic 2021 essay, “The Appallingly Bad Neoclassical Economics of Climate Change,” delved into the problems of Nordhausian models.
“When it comes to climate, the guy is an idiot: an idiot savant, but still fundamentally an idiot.”
“Any investigative journalist who overcame a fear of equations and simply read Nordhaus’s texts would have known that his work was nonsense,” Keen told me. “Assuming that 87 percent of the economy would be ‘negligibly affected by climate change’ because it takes place in ‘carefully controlled environments’?”
“When it comes to climate,” Keen said, “the guy is an idiot: an idiot savant, but still fundamentally an idiot.”
And it’s not just Nordhaus. Climate economists have followed dutifully in his footsteps and come up with cost models that appear to have no relationship with known laws of physics, the dynamics of climate, or the complexities of Earth systems.
A 2016 study by economists David Anthoff of University of California, Berkeley; Francisco Estrada of the Institute for Environmental Studies in Amsterdam; and Richard Tol of the University of Sussex offers one of the more egregious examples of Nordhausian nonsense. (Tol is one of Nordhaus’s protégés, and Nordhaus is listed as a reviewer of the paper.) The three academics boldly assert that shutdown of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, or AMOC — a pivotally important Earth system that loops warm equatorial water toward the Arctic and cold water back south — could have beneficial effects on the European economy.
Over the last several thousand years, the AMOC, also known as the thermohaline circulation, has functioned to keep Europe relatively warm in winter because of the warm water it draws northward from the equator. The slowing and eventual shutdown of this system could plunge Europe and broad parts of the Northern Hemisphere into extreme cold. Such a shutdown is a growing likelihood as glacial melt pours into the North Atlantic and alters the delicate balance of salt water and fresh water that drives the looping current.
For Tol, Anthoff, and Estrada, however, collapse of one of the Earth systems that undergirds the climatic stability of the Holocene might be a good thing. “If the [AMOC] slows down a little, the global impact is a positive 0.2-0.3 percent of income,” they concluded. “This goes up to 1.3 percent for a more pronounced slowdown.” They argued that while climate heating cooks the rest of the world, European countries will benefit from a cooling effect of the current’s collapse.
This sunny assessment comes as a surprise to James Hansen, father of climate science, who has calculated that a massive temperature differential between the poles and the equator would occur with an AMOC shutdown, producing superstorms of immense fury across the Atlantic Ocean. According to Hansen, the last time Earth experienced those kinds of temperature differentials, during the interglacial Eemian era roughly 120,000 years ago, raging tempests deposited house-sized boulders on coastlines in Europe and the Caribbean. Waves from the storms were estimated to have surged inland to 40 meters above sea level.
Under these extreme conditions, what would happen to shipping lanes, coastal cities and ports, and trans-Atlantic traffic of all kinds? For the climate simpletons Tol, Anthoff, and Estrada, the question doesn’t come up. “It will be a helluva lot stormier on the North Atlantic, especially for Europeans,” Hansen told me in an email. His study team concluded that shutdown of AMOC “is in the cards this century, possibly by mid-century, with continued high emissions.”
It gets worse. Simon Dietz, at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and his fellow economists James Rising, Thomas Stoerk, and Gernot Wagner have offered some of the most ignorant visions of our climate future, using Nordhausian math models. They examined the consequences to GDP of hitting eight Earth system tipping points that climate scientists have identified as existential threats to industrial civilization. The tipping points are as familiar as a funeral litany to anybody schooled in climate literature: loss of Arctic summer ice; loss of the Amazon rainforest; loss of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets; release of ocean methane hydrates; release of carbon in permafrost; collapse of the AMOC; and collapse of the Indian monsoon.
Dietz and friends came to the astounding conclusion that if all eight were tipped, the economic cost by 2100 would amount to an additional 1.4 percent of lost GDP on top of the roughly 8 to 12 percent that Nordhaus projected.
Think of this projection in commonsense terms: A negligible effect on world affairs when the Arctic during summer is deep blue rather than white; when the jungle of the Amazon is no longer green but brown savannah or desert; when in Greenland and the West Antarctic, white ice is barren rock. A transformation of immense proportions on the Earth’s surface, in the atmosphere, and in terrestrial biotic communities. Ocean methane hydrates have an energy content that exceeds that of all other fossil fuel deposits. Permafrost holds an amount of carbon roughly twice the current carbon content of the atmosphere. With the weakening or collapse of the AMOC, Europe could be plunged into conditions akin to the Little Ice Age, with drastic reduction of the land area suitable for wheat and corn farming. Increased variability of the Indian monsoon would jeopardize the lives of over a billion people.
“The claim that these changes would have effectively zero impact upon the human economy is extraordinary,” wrote Keen. The reality is that if all eight Earth system tipping points were reached, humanity would be in terrible trouble.
AN UNCHARITABLE VIEW of the work of climate economists in the Nordhaus school is that they offer a kind of sociopathy as policy prescription. Nordhaus estimates that as economic activity heads poleward with warming, the massive reduction in GDP in the tropics will be offset by optimal adaptation in the Global North. “Massive reduction in GDP,” of course, is not explicitly understood by Nordhaus as food system collapse across the equator, followed by social collapse, mass death, wars, and biblical exoduses that produce cascading nonlinear effects drawing the world into a nexus of unknowns.
Nothing to worry about, assures Nordhaus: The violent extinction of low-GDP nations will hardly affect the outlook for economic growth because things will improve in the cold Global North. This is an embrace of imagined silver linings in a climate genocide.
This is an embrace of imagined silver linings in a climate genocide.
Do governments, policymakers, and the public have any clue that the message from climate economist elites is unhinged? So far, we have followed along in the belief that all is well. One of the better indicators of this lemming-like fealty to a narrative of delusory optimism is in the financial sector.
Keen authored a report for investors this year in which he noted that pension funds have swallowed whole the Nordhausian projections of our sunny future as the climate system collapses. “Following the advice of investment consultants, pension funds have informed their members that global warming of 2-4.3 C will have only a minimal impact upon their portfolios,” Keen wrote. “This results in a huge disconnect between what scientists expect from global warming, and what pensioners/investors/financial systems are prepared for.” Keen does not expect things to end well for investors.
When I asked him what needed to be done to alter policy at the IPCC, Keen replied, “We need everyone to be as angry as I am.” Negligence by economists like Nordhaus, he said, “will end up killing billions of people.”
Andrew Glikson, who teaches at Australian National University in Canberra and advises the IPCC, has written about the coming era of mass human death, what he calls the Plutocene, the natural successor to the Anthropocene. Global governments, he charges, are “criminals” for ushering in the Plutocene in pursuit of short-term political and economic gain. I first reached out to him during the black summer of bushfires that raged across Australia in 2020. Glikson’s mood was foul then, and it has not gotten better since.
“The governing classes have given up on the survival of numerous species and future generations,” he told me, “and their inaction constitutes the ultimate crime against life on Earth.” Part of the reason for inaction is the false cheer that Nordhaus has spread with his math-genius, climate-idiot models.
Some will see a partial lunar eclipse tonight
VISITA LO STORE
Wisconsin, earthsky - October 28, 2023 - During a lunar eclipse, Earth’s shadow falls on the moon. So if the moon passes through the dark central shadow of Earth – the umbra – a partial or total lunar eclipse takes place. But if the moon only passes through the outer part of the shadow (the penumbra), a subtle penumbral eclipse occurs. Diagram via Fred Espenak’s Lunar Eclipses for Beginners. Used with permission.
At this eclipse, only a small fraction of the moon will enter Earth’s dark umbral shadow. For the most part, the October 28-29, 2023, lunar eclipse will appear as a penumbral eclipse of the moon. In other words, as the eclipse progresses, you should notice a dark shading on the moon (Earth’s penumbral shadow), followed by the barest of dark bites (Earth’s dark umbral shadow) taken from one edge of the moon.
And don’t forget Jupiter! It’s the very bright object near the moon on October 28.
Jupiter closest to Earth for 2023 on November 1-2
Earth will fly between the sun and Jupiter – bringing Jupiter to its yearly opposition – on November 2-3, 2023. That’s one day after Jupiter will reach perigee, its closest point to Earth.
Jupiter in 2023: Maybe you’ve noticed Jupiter. It’s been the very bright object ascending in the east earlier each evening. Brighter than all the stars!
It’ll reach opposition on the night of November 2-3, actually at 5 UTC (12 a.m. CDT) on November 3. That’s when Jupiter will be most opposite the sun in our sky. Jupiter will be shining overhead. And the sun will be below our feet. It’ll all happen as Earth flies between the sun and Jupiter.
Jupiter is generally closest to Earth around opposition. And it’s precisely closest one day before opposition, overnight (by American clocks) on November 1-2. At that time, its distance will be 4 astronomical units (Earth-sun units, aka AU)/ 370 million miles/ 595 million km/ 33.11 light-minutes from Earth.
Opposition constellation: Aries the Ram.
Brightness at opposition: Magnitude -2.9. Jupiter will shine as the 4th-brightest object in the sky, after the sun, the moon and the planet Venus. It’ll be the brightest starlike object visible for most of the night (until Venus rises before dawn).
Size at opposition (as seen through a telescope): 49.45 arcseconds across.
Through binoculars (anytime): Jupiter reveals a bright disk. If you look closely, you’ll see several of its four Galilean moons appearing as pinpoints of light, arrayed in a line that bisects the giant planet.
Lunar eclipse details
Penumbral eclipse begins at 18:01 UTC (2:01 p.m. EDT) on October 28. Earth’s lighter penumbral shadow will begin crossing the moon’s face. You probably won’t notice it at first. But, as the eclipse progresses, you should see a subtle shading on the moon.
Partial eclipse begins at 19:34 UTC (3:34 p.m. EDT) on October 28. Now it’ll appear as if a tiny, but dark, bite is taken from one edge of the moon.
Greatest eclipse at 20:14 UTC (4:14 p.m. EDT) on October 28. Only a small portion of the moon – about 6% – will be eclipsed by Earth’s dark shadow.
Partial eclipse ends at 20:52 UTC on October 28 (4:52 p.m. EDT).
Penumbral eclipse ends at 22:26 UTC on October 28 (6:26 p.m. EDT).
Note: A bright “star” will appear near the eclipsed moon. It’s really a planet, the biggest one in our solar system and the 2nd-brightest planet visible from Earth, Jupiter.
How long will it last?
From start to finish, the eclipse will last 285 minutes. And the moon will be in Earth’s dark shadow – for the partial eclipse – for only 78 minutes.
Who can see lunar eclipses?
A full moon is up only at night. And a total lunar eclipse is visible from all parts of Earth that are experiencing night while the eclipse is taking place. But some will see the eclipse more clearly, or more thoroughly, than others, depending on location. For example, some will see it at moonrise or moonset, when the moon is low in the sky.
Euro Summit, 27 October 2023
THE EURO SUMMIT WAS HELD IN INCLUSIVE FORMAT, FOCUSING ON THE ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SITUATION IN THE EU.
EU LEADERS ALSO DISCUSSED THE COORDINATION OF FISCAL POLICIES, THE BANKING UNION AND THE DIGITAL EURO.
Bruxelles, consiliumeuropa – October 27, 2023 - Statement of the Euro Summit, meeting in inclusive format 1. We discussed the economic and financial situation. Our economies have shown remarkable resilience in the face of numerous economic shocks and continue to grow, albeit with reduced momentum. Inflation remains a key concern and it is essential that the disinflation process continues. We remain united in our steadfast determination to increase the resilience and competitiveness of our economies. 2. Taking note of the letter of the President of the Eurogroup of 20 October 2023, we restate our invitation to the Eurogroup to closely monitor economic developments. Continued close coordination of our economic policies remains of the essence, with the objective of firmly establishing sustainable and more inclusive growth. 3. Rules for the coordination of national fiscal policies are essential for effective policy coordination in our Economic and Monetary Union and for supporting the resilience and stability of the euro area economy and of the European Union as a whole. 4. We take note of the Eurogroup’s ongoing work in inclusive format on the future of European capital and financial markets, to renew and enhance private sector investment, unlock funding for common challenges and allow the European Union to demonstrate leadership on the green and digital transitions. We will review progress at our meeting in March 2024. 5. The Banking Union has significantly strengthened the resilience of the EU banking system. The EU banking sector is resilient, with strong capital and liquidity positions. We call for continued efforts towards completing the Banking Union in line with the Eurogroup statement of 16 June 2022. 6. We take note of the Single Currency Package presented by the Commission and of the European Central Bank’s decision of 18 October 2023 to move to the next phase of its exploratory work on the digital euro. We will review progress regularly.
Economic outlook
We remain united in our steadfast determination to increase the resilience and competitiveness of our economies
Statement of Euro Summit, meeting in inclusive format
In the face of numerous economic shocks, EU leaders stated that our economies have shown remarkable resilience and continued to grow, albeit with reduced momentum. Leaders underlined that:
• inflation is a key concern
• the continuation of the disinflation process is essential
They also stressed that rules for coordinating national fiscal policies are central for Economic and Monetary Union and to supporting the resilience and stability of the euro area and the EU as a whole. Leaders took note of the letter sent by Paschal Donohoe, President of the Eurogroup, on 20 October 2023 and invited the Eurogroup to continue to closely monitor economic developments. Eurogroup President Paschal Donohoe's report to the Euro Summit President ahead of the Euro Summit meeting of 27 October 2023. The President of the Eurogroup, Paschal Donohoe, has sent a letter to the President of the Euro Summit, Charles Michel, reporting on ongoing and future work of the Eurogroup. The letter will inform the discussion that leaders will hold at the Euro Summit of 27 October 2023.
The letter highlights the remarkable resilience of the euro area economy in an economic context which is increasingly more challenging. The overall resilience is supported by the strong labour market conditions and many good reforms implemented. It refers to the need for determined, gradual and realistic fiscal consolidation to strengthen fiscal sustainability and rebuild fiscal buffers, while continuing to implement structural reforms and safeguarding and increasing investment to deliver higher sustainable growth. In addition, it underlines the need for a swift agreement on the fiscal rules as essential for the credibility and the smooth functioning of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). It reports in detail on the work the Eurogroup has been undertaking in the last months on what measures are necessary to take forward the Capital Markets Union and ensure that European capital markets can renew and enhance private sector investment, unlock funding for common challenges, and allow the EU to demonstrate leadership on green and digital transitions. It refers to the political anchor the Eurogroup has provided to the digital euro project and the two important milestones this year – the Commission proposal setting out the legal framework and essential elements of the digital euro in June and the decision by the ECB Governing Council in October to move to the preparatory phase, which will involve further analysis on design and functionalities. It also highlights the resilience of the banking sector despite turmoil in the global banking system this year and the need for the work to complete the Banking Union to continue, including concluding the negotiations on the Commission’s legislative package on the crisis management and deposit insurance framework within this institutional cycle as well as finalising the reform of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM).
Capital and financial markets
The leaders took note of the Eurogroup’s ongoing work on the future of European capital and financial markets, including:
• enhancing private sector investments
• unlocking funding for common challenges
• demonstrating leadership on the green and digital transitions
They will review progress at the next Euro Summit meeting in March 2024.
The future of European capital and financial markets
The EU is working to develop its financial and capital markets even further to meet its evolving economic needs, channel private funding towards investment, foster innovation, and improve access to capital funding for EU companies.
What is the future of European capital and financial markets?
The Eurogroup is undertaking a strategic initiative which aims to agree the main medium- and longer-term priorities for enhancing and deepening Europe's capital and financial markets to address various economic challenges and opportunities.
A fully developed and integrated European capital market would:
• increase funding for innovation and growth, including financing the green and digital transitions
• strengthen resilience and cross-border risk sharing across member states
• reduce financing costs for businesses
• create more choices for savers and real investors and boost returns on savings
• Ensuring well-functioning European capital markets is key to unlocking the private capital necessary to fund Europe’s major investment needs. It will allow investments and savings to move smoothly across all EU countries. Consumers, investors, and businesses will benefit regardless of where they are located.
• Complementing the ongoing legislative work towards a capital markets union
• The Eurogroup’s work on the future of European capital and financial markets will complement the ongoing legislative work on the capital markets union (CMU), with a focus on where further efforts need to be directed in the medium- and longer-term.
• The ambition of the Eurogroup’s current work is to go beyond this, looking ahead to consider what additional measures are required to create a thriving capital markets ecosystem within the EU, commensurate with its position as the world’s largest single market.
Why is developing European capital markets important?
The urgency behind work in this area has grown due to various factors, including a challenging budgetary context, increased borrowing costs due to the changes in global interest rates, and the need to fund upcoming policy priorities, especially those related to the digital and green transformations. Despite significant progress in the growth of EU capital markets in the past few years, approaching nearly 50% relative to GDP since 2014, there remains a notable gap in their development. Europe’s capital markets remain fragmented across national borders, with their financial integration in Europe lagging behind pre-global financial crisis levels. IMF research shows that this fragmentation is also reflected in the difference in funding costs for firms in different European countries. For instance, Spanish and Italian firms pay more for funding than their German or French counterparts, despite being identical in size, profitability, leverage, assets, and sector. The current under-development of EU capital markets means that European citizens and businesses are not able to fully benefit from the funding and investment that European capital markets could offer. This also weighs on the attractiveness of the EU as an investment location, on firms’ decisions to scale up and be listed in the EU, and limits the choices available to savers and investors.
What is the role of the Eurogroup?
In response to a call from EU leaders at the Euro Summit in March 2023, the Eurogroup has committed to further working on the single market for capital in Europe.
Work on a number of legislative proposals on different aspects of deepening the capital markets union is ongoing in the Council. In addition, EU finance ministers have committed to responding to the Euro Summit call by considering the longer-term future of European capital and financial markets. I believe that deepening and strengthening our capital markets is vital for how we can enhance our ability to invest in a better future for our citizens. We need more private funding for EU companies to innovate, be competitive, and have the capacity to invest in the twin transitions. Now is the time to proceed (Paschal Donohoe, President of the Eurogroup). The Eurogroup will identify areas of political consensus for the next Commission to take forward, while at the same time adopting a more bottom-up approach and facilitating the exchange of best practices. The first phase of work has been completed. The Eurogroup took stock of the current situation across EU members states and in the broader international context, informed by analysis from the EU institutions and the IMF. The second phase is underway, in which the Eurogroup will engage with market participants on their experience with institutional investment and venture capital within the EU, the availability of funding for high-growth companies within the EU market, financial literacy and retail participation, and pension funds and markets as a source of long-term financing. In January 2024, the third phase will commence, with the aim of reaching a shared agreement on a set of political priorities to inform the mandate of the next Commission.
Banking union
The EU banking sector is resilient, with strong capital and liquidity positions, and the banking union has significantly strengthened the resilience of the banking system. Against this background, the leaders called for continued efforts to complete the banking union in line with the Eurogroup statement of 16 June 2022.
Digital euro
The leaders took note of recent work on the progress of the digital euro, including the European Commission’s proposal on a single currency package and the European Central Bank’s decision to move forward to the next phase of exploratory work. Leaders will regularly review progress on the digital euro. The European Commission has today put forward two proposals to ensure that citizens and businesses can continue to access and pay with euro banknotes and coins across the euro area, and to set out a framework for a possible new digital form of the euro that the European Central Bank may issue in the future, as a complement to cash. The euro continues to be a symbol of Europe's unity and strength. Across the euro area and beyond, for more than two decades, people and businesses have been accustomed to paying with euro coins and banknotes. While 60% of people surveyed would like to continue to have the option to use cash, an increasing number of people are choosing to pay digitally, using cards and applications issued by banks and other digital and financial firms. This trend was accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. To reflect these trends, the Commission has today proposed two mutually supportive sets of measures to ensure that people have both payment options, cash and digital when they want to pay with central bank money:
• A legislative proposal on the legal tender of euro cash to safeguard the role of cash, ensure it is widely accepted as a means of payment and remains easily accessible for people and businesses across the euro area.
• A legislative proposal establishing the legal framework for a possible digital euro as a complement to euro banknotes and coins. It would ensure that people and businesses have an additional choice – on top of current private options – that allows them to pay digitally with a widely accepted, cheap, secure and resilient form of public money in the euro area (complementing the private solutions that exist today). While today's proposal – once adopted by the European Parliament and Council – would establish the legal framework for the digital euro, it will ultimately be for the European Central Bank to decide if and when to issue the digital euro.
The Package in detail
Legal tender of euro banknotes and coins Euro cash is ‘legal tender' in the euro area. This proposal aims to set out in legislation what that actually means, with a focus on two ‘A's: acceptance and access. Although acceptance of cash is high on average across the euro area, issues have emerged in some Member States and sectors. Meanwhile, some people have difficulties in accessing cash, for example as a result of closures of ATMs and bank branches. Today's proposal aims to safeguard the continued and widespread acceptance of cash throughout the euro area and will also ensure that people have sufficient access to cash to be able to pay in cash if they so wish. Member States will need to ensure widespread acceptance of cash payments, as well as sufficient and effective access to cash. They will need to monitor and report on the situation and take measures to address any problems identified. The Commission could step in to specify measures if needed. The proposal will ensure that everyone in the euro area is free to choose their preferred payment method and has access to basic cash services. It will ensure the financial inclusion of vulnerable groups who tend to rely more on cash payments, such as older people.
Digital euro
To adjust to the increasing digitalisation of the economy, the European Central Bank (ECB) – like many other central banks around the world – is investigating the possibility of introducing a digital euro, as a complement to cash. The digital euro would give consumers an alternative European-wide payment solution, in addition to the options that exist today. This means more choice for consumers and a stronger international role for the euro. Like cash today, the digital euro would be available alongside existing national and international private means of payment, such as cards or applications. It would work like a digital wallet. People and businesses could pay with the digital euro anytime and anywhere in the euro area. Significantly, it would be available for payments both online and offline, i.e. payments could be made from device to device without an internet connection, from a remote area or underground car park. While online transactions would offer the same level of data privacy as existing digital means of payments, offline payments would ensure a high degree of privacy and data protection for users: they would allow users to make digital payments while disclosing less personal data than they do today when making card payments, just like when paying with cash, and the same as what they disclose when they take cash out of an ATM. Nobody would be able to see what people are paying for when using the digital euro offline. Banks and other payment service providers across the EU would distribute the digital euro to people and businesses. Basic digital euro services would be provided free of charge to individuals. To foster financial inclusion, individuals who do not have a bank account would be able to open and hold an account with a post office or another public entity, such as a local authority. It would also be easy to use, including for persons with disabilities. Merchants across the euro area would be required to accept the digital euro, except very small merchants who choose not to accept digital payments (as the cost to set up new infrastructure to accept payments in digital euro would be disproportionate). The digital euro could also be a solid basis for further innovation, allowing banks to provide innovative solutions to their clients, for example. The wide availability and use of digital central bank money would also be important for the EU's monetary sovereignty – particularly if other central banks around the world start developing digital currencies. It is also important against the backdrop of the developing crypto currency market. Today's proposal sets out the legal framework and essential elements of the digital euro, which would enable – once adopted by the European Parliament and Council – the European Central Bank to eventually introduce a digital euro that is widely usable and available. It will be for the ECB to decide if and when to issue the digital euro. This project will require significant further technical work by the ECB.
Eurosystem proceeds to next phase of digital euro project
18 October 2023
• Governing Council to start digital euro preparation phase following conclusion of two-year investigation phase on design and distribution of a digital euro
• Preparation phase will lay foundations for a potential digital euro, with work to include finalising rulebook and selecting providers to develop platform and infrastructure
• Preparation phase will pave way for potential future decision on issuing a digital euro.
The Governing Council of the European Central Bank (ECB) decided today to move to the next phase of the digital euro project: the preparation phase. This decision follows the completion of the investigation phase launched by the Eurosystem in October 2021 to explore possible design and distribution models for a digital euro. Based on the findings from this phase, detailed in a report published today, the ECB has designed a digital euro that would be widely accessible to citizens and businesses through distribution by supervised intermediaries, such as banks. The design envisages the digital euro as a digital form of cash that could be used for all digital payments throughout the euro area. It would be widely accessible, free for basic use and available both online and offline. It would offer the highest level of privacy and allow users to settle payments instantly in central bank money. It could be used from person to person, at the point of sale, in e-commerce and in government transactions. No digital payment instrument offers all these features. The digital euro would fill that gap. The next phase of the digital euro project – the preparation phase – will start on 1 November 2023 and will initially last two years. It will involve finalising the digital euro rulebook and selecting providers that could develop a digital euro platform and infrastructure. It will also include testing and experimentation to develop a digital euro that meets both the Eurosystem’s requirements and user needs, for example in terms of user experience, privacy, financial inclusion and environmental footprint. The ECB will continue to engage with the public and all stakeholders during this phase. After two years, the Governing Council will decide whether to move to the next stage of preparations, to pave the way for the possible future issuance and roll-out of a digital euro. The launch of the preparation phase is not a decision on whether to issue a digital euro. That decision will only be considered by the Governing Council once the European Union’s legislative process has been completed. The ECB will take into account any adjustments to the design of the digital euro that may become necessary as a result of the legislative deliberations. “We need to prepare our currency for the future,” said Christine Lagarde, President of the ECB. “We envisage a digital euro as a digital form of cash that can be used for all digital payments, free of charge, and that meets the highest privacy standards. It would coexist alongside physical cash, which will always be available, leaving no one behind.” The digital euro would make data protection a priority. The Eurosystem would not be able to see users’ personal data or link payment information to individuals. The digital euro would also achieve a cash-like level of privacy for offline payments. The digital euro would promote resilience, competition and innovation in the European payments sector. It would ensure that there is a pan-European payment solution for the euro area under European governance. It would rely on its own infrastructure, thereby strengthening resilience. And it would provide a platform on which European supervised intermediaries could build pan-European services for their customers, increasing efficiency, reducing costs and fostering innovation. “As people increasingly choose to pay digitally, we should be ready to issue a digital euro alongside cash,” said Fabio Panetta, ECB Executive Board member and Chair of the High-Level Task Force on a digital euro. “A digital euro would increase the efficiency of European payments and contribute to Europe’s strategic autonomy.”
Digital euro distribution
Users could access digital euro services via their payment service provider’s proprietary app and online interface, or via a digital euro app provided by the Eurosystem. People without access to a bank account or digital devices would also be able to pay with digital euro, for example by using a card provided by a public body such as a post office. Users would also be able to exchange digital euro for cash or vice versa at cash machines. The Eurosystem envisions a digital euro that would be free for basic use for individuals. A compensation model between intermediaries and merchants would ensure that there are incentives for intermediaries to distribute digital euro, as is the case for other electronic payment instruments, and that there are adequate safeguards against excessive service charges for merchants. The Eurosystem would bear its own costs, including those related to scheme management and settlement processing.
Transparency and close cooperation with stakeholders remain key pillars of the project. The Eurosystem has benefited greatly from feedback from European decision-makers, market participants and potential users, and will continue to engage actively with a wide range of stakeholders. We will also continue to cooperate closely with EU legislators.
Women's participation in international peace and security:
from theory to practice - Security Council
San Francisco, unitednations – October 26, 2023 - The Security Council opened a debate on "Women's participation in international peace and security: from theory to practice" under the agenda item "Women, peace and security ".
Obiectjves
The annual open debate will provide an opportunity to reflect on the possible bias of implementation efforts, reaffirm the importance of resolution 1325 (2000) and set objectives in preparation for its twenty-fifth year, in 2025, in particular regarding some of its main commitments, namely:
The full, equal and meaningful participation of women in peace processes and decision-making in conflict situations and the systematic use of a gender perspective in the negotiation and implementation of peace agreements at the United Nations and at international and national levels
Respect for international law applicable to the rights and protection of women and girls by parties to armed conflict, including special measures to support survivors and end impunity, as well as accountability for sexual exploitation, harassment and abuse
Efforts to ensure that Security Council deliberations and decisions take into account gender issues and women's rights, including consultation with local and international women's groups.
Expected Council Action
On 26 October, the Security Council is scheduled to hold its annual open debate on women, peace and security (WPS), which will be titled: “Women’s participation in international peace and security: from theory to practice”. UN Women Executive Director Sima Sami Bahous and a high-level representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross are the anticipated briefers. A civil society representative is also expected to brief. One of the signature events of Brazil’s presidency, the open debate will be chaired by Brazilian Minister of Foreign Affairs Mauro Vieira. It appears that Brazil intends to focus the open debate on the origins of the WPS agenda and on the role of civil society in its inception.
Key Recent Developments
The Secretary-General’s annual report on WPS—expected ahead of the open debate—will provide an update on the implementation of the agenda over the past year. The focus of this year’s report is expected to be on achieving a radical shift in women’s meaningful participation in peacemaking, peacekeeping, and peacebuilding. (This is one of the “five goals for the decade” set out in the Secretary-General’s 2020 WPS annual report.)
At the 7 March Security Council open debate on “Women, Peace and Security: Towards the 25th Anniversary of Resolution 1325”, Bahous noted that although “we have witnessed some historic firsts for gender equality” since the adoption of resolution 1325 in 2000, “we should also remember that we have significantly changed neither the composition of the people who sit at peace negotiation tables nor the impunity enjoyed by those who commit atrocities against women and girls”. In recent months, women civil society representatives have highlighted these and other challenges in their briefings on various situations on the Council’s agenda, including Afghanistan, Colombia, Libya, and Iraq.
Council members retained WPS-related language in several resolutions and were at times able to strengthen it, such as in resolution 2677 of 15 March, which renewed the mandate of the UN Mission in South Sudan, and resolution 2674, which in January extended the mandate of the UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus. In April, the Council adopted resolution 2681 condemning the Taliban’s decision to ban Afghan women from working for the UN in Afghanistan, while resolution 2679—which in March requested an independent assessment to provide recommendations for an integrated approach in the international community to address the challenges facing Afghanistan—mandated for consultations with, among other actors, Afghan women and civil society, and identified the rights of women and girls as one of the challenges that the assessment’s recommendations should focus on. More generally, in recent years members have paid increasing attention to the gendered effects of conflict on children. At the same time, at a recent event on innovations in implementing the WPS agenda, UN Women Deputy Executive Director a.i. Sarah Hendriks noted that, if current trends continue, the percentage of Council resolutions adopted this year containing WPS provisions will drop to about 50 percent, the lowest in the past seven years. Neither of the two press statements that directly addressed developments since fighting erupted in April between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces includes language on WPS, nor did a presidential statement on Israeli settlements adopted in February. In a likely reference to the fact that the listing criteria for the Security Council’s 1988 Afghanistan Sanctions Committee have not been updated since the Taliban’s takeover in August 2021, Bahous recently recommended updating the criteria in the context of a dedicated session of the Committee on the role it can play in responding to violations of women’s rights in Afghanistan. Reprisals against individuals and groups cooperating with the UN, including women civil society representatives briefing the Council, remain a source of concern. Last year’s annual WPS report said that nine women civil society representatives who briefed the Council from January 2021 to May 2022 reported having faced reprisals. This year’s report is expected to provide an update on this issue, which is also highlighted in a recent Secretary-General’s report on “Cooperation with the United Nations, its representatives and mechanisms in the field of human rights”. This report covers the case of Aminata Dicko, who faced intimidation and reprisals after briefing at the 27 January Council meeting on Mali—including a criminal complaint against her that featured as evidence the video of her Council statement. (For more, see our What’s in Blue story of 7 February.)
Council members Albania, Brazil, Ecuador, France, Gabon, Japan, Malta, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and the UK have given continuity to the WPS presidencies initiative started in late 2021 by Ireland, Kenya, and Mexico. In July, the US, too, signed on to the 1 December 2021 Statement of Shared Commitments on WPS. (For background, see our Golden Threads and Persisting Challenges research report.) Engagement on the commitments was uneven, however.
Malta, the UAE, and Albania gave a WPS focus to three mandated country-specific meetings during their presidencies, respectively on Somalia in February, the Central African Republic in June, and Afghanistan in September. In July, the UK hosted the annual open debate on conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) as one of the signature events of its presidency. Council members who have signed on to the shared commitments also held several WPS-focused press stakeouts, including, for the first time under this initiative, two in which women civil society representatives delivered remarks immediately after the members participating in the initiative. While the period from September 2021 to September 2022 saw a high number of women civil society representatives briefing the Council during some of the participating presidencies—with Ireland setting a record of 16 such briefers in September 2021—none of the participating presidencies invited ten or more women civil society briefers during the period from October 2022 to August 2023. One of the commitments is to draw attention to, and follow up on, “the recommendations and priority issues raised by civil society briefers in Council meetings”, but it appears that participants in the initiative have yet to develop systematic processes to do this. Nonetheless, in the first such effort, Switzerland sent a letter to the Security Council listing the briefings delivered by women civil society representatives during its May presidency to draw attention to their statements. Since January, the Informal Experts Group (IEG) on WPS has met six times, with recent meetings focusing on Colombia, Haiti and Syria. The IEG is expected to hold its fourth meeting with women’s protection advisers from several UN missions in November. In July, Secretary-General António Guterres released A New Agenda for Peace. Among other issues, this document speaks of the “growing backlash against women’s rights, including on sexual and reproductive health” and argues for dismantling “the patriarchy and oppressive power structures which stand in the way of progress on gender equality or women’s full, equal and meaningful participation in political and public life”. Analysts have noted, however, that the recommendations offered by the Secretary-General on this issue do not match the depth of the challenges described in the report. Similarly, Reaching Critical Will, the disarmament programme of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, has argued that although A New Agenda for Peace includes “bold recommendations on several disarmament issues” and provides “a solid analysis of the geopolitical competition and military spending”, it fails to adequately link “patriarchy to militarism; nor does it address at all the relationship between militarism and the climate and ecological crises”.
Peacebuilding Commission Developments
The recently published second assessment of the Gender Strategy Action Plan, which the Peacebuilding Commission (PBC) adopted in February 2021, found that 92 percent of the PBC’s advice, briefings and submissions to the General Assembly, Security Council and the Economic and Social Council during 2022 included gender-responsive recommendations, while the rate of participation of women peacebuilders at the PBC last year—that is, the number of women briefers as a percentage of the number of PBC meetings—was 87.5 percent. The assessment noted shortcomings, however, including the fact that only 19 of the PBC’s 65 outcome documents contained references to information provided by women peacebuilders. It also flagged that despite “consistent references to women” in PBC outcome documents, messaging was often generic, for example, referring to “the full, equal, and meaningful participation of women in peacebuilding”, but without analysis or specific recommendations. The assessment recommended, among other things, improving follow-up to the PBC’s engagement with women peacebuilders and strengthening the integration of gender analysis based on sex-disaggregated data.
Key Issues and Options
The pivotal issue for the Security Council remains the full implementation of the WPS agenda and its impact on the ground. A key issue for Council members supportive of the agenda is to preserve and strengthen WPS language in upcoming mandate renewals and follow up on the implementation of these decisions. These members could also strengthen coordination ahead of key Council negotiations and meetings and use the information from IEG meetings to address specific issues. Asking UN briefers to provide substantive updates to the Council on issues relevant to the WPS agenda is a further option. In line with resolution 2242 on WPS and the 1 December 2021 Statement of Shared Commitments on WPS, members should continue to invite diverse women civil society representatives to brief the Council regularly and follow up on their information and recommendations. It is essential that members and the UN take all possible measures to keep briefers safe, in consultation with the briefer, including carrying out risk assessments, developing protection plans, and responding to any reprisals. Members could also convene a closed Arria-formula meeting with Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders Mary Lawlor, the representatives of relevant UN entities, and NGO coalitions to discuss ways to reinforce the prevention and response to reprisals against human rights defenders, including women human rights defenders (WHRDs). In a recent report, Lawlor recommended that UN missions in conflict, post-conflict or crisis-affected situations be mandated to monitor and report on violations targeting WHRDs.
Members interested in maintaining the momentum of the shared commitments initiative as a tool to advance the implementation of the WPS agenda may consider strategies to strengthen the clear and substantive implementation of the commitments across participating members. While the purview of the agenda is wider than the shared commitments initiative, these pledges also require signatories to uphold, and advocate for, the full implementation of “the provisions of all previous Council resolutions” pertaining to the WPS agenda and to “ensur[e] that Security Council products integrate strong WPS language”.
Council Dynamics
While notable implementation gaps persist, Council members are generally supportive of the WPS agenda. Nevertheless, Council dynamics on WPS remain difficult and have been further complicated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. During the recent negotiations on the mandate renewal for the UN Interim Force in Lebanon, none of the proposals for new WPS-related language was accommodated, apparently in order to avoid making transactional concessions to China and Russia on contentious aspects of the resolution.
Furthermore, Russia has objected to briefings by Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict Pramila Patten in sanctions committee meetings and opposed her participation at the annual open debate on CRSV in July. (Patten was last invited to brief one of the Security Council’s sanctions committees in December 2021—the committee established pursuant to resolution 2140 on Yemen.)
The UK is the penholder on WPS, and the US is the penholder on CRSV. The UAE and Switzerland are the co-chairs of the IEG on WPS.
Observations
In this regard, among the many women who are distinguishing themselves in the world, particular interest should be paid to President Izabela Pulpan who has been fighting for years to defend human rights and the rights of women and children, but the astonishing thing is that she he fights above all for others and beyond borders. In 2011 he presented the Mama Romania initiative to resolve one of the major plagues afflicting Romania, and on which silence has always reigned, concerning the so-called "white orphans". Children left behind in their homeland, who often believe themselves abandoned, allow themselves to die because they are deprived of the presence of their parents, who emigrated in search of work. In 2013 he met the President of Romania and presented the book Children forced into silence and Mothers persecuted by justice, in which he recounts the persecution of Romanian citizens across the border and the 40,000 forced removals of children from their families. In 2014 he presented himself to the European Community with the Sports Citizenship Petition to point out the shortcomings in the world of sport to which young people were forced. Thanks to the Sports Citizenship project created by Izabela Pulpan, Sport in 2015 issued a law to eliminate forms of discrimination to help foreign children beyond their borders to be able to participate in sports competitions without being forced to change their citizenship. Izabela Pulpan denounces and brings the Prime Minister of Italy into line because in 2017 he offends the Romanian nation and its people. In 2018 in Italy he presented a proposal for a Child and Family Defense law to all Italian parliamentarians to draw their attention to the serious situation faced by foreign minors in Italy, as well as by Italian families themselves. Since 2020, it has been working hard to find solutions to stop pollution and guarantee work for everyone with the production of zero-emission energy with a healthy energy/circular economy project where a better future can be guaranteed for children all over the world. Women, peace and security: Izabela Pulpan, seems like an excellent resource among women.
Listing Act Package: Easier access to finance for SMEs
Brussell, aldeparty - October 25, 2023 - On Tuesday, Renew Europe welcomed the adoption of the Listing Act Package by the European Parliament Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON).
The draft text aims to ease access to finance for companies by facilitating listing on stock exchanges and alleviating the administrative burden, essential to support their growth and resilience.
European companies, especially SMEs, face a structural challenge of access to finance and the stock markets play a pivotal role in solving this problem.
“Our SMEs need easier access to capital market financing in order to grow and compete internationally. With this report, the European Parliament sends a strong message: we need to cut red-tape and complete the Capital Markets Union,” said Eva Poptcheva MEP (Ciudadanos, ES), Vice-Chair of the ECON Committee and Renew Europe shadow rapporteur on the Listing Act Package.
The endorsed text ensures a reduction in costs for companies wishing to list on stock exchanges, alongside protection for investors. In addition, competent authorities will be able to investigate any potential market abuse more effectively.
The final compromise grants SMEs enhanced visibility to investors and introduces the possibility of adopting multiple-vote share structures everywhere in the EU.
Epidemic and emerging disease alerts in the Pacific
as of 24 October 2023
New Caledonia, reliefweb - October 24, 2023 - Highlights/updates since the last map was sent on PacNet on 17 October 2023:
Influenza A & B:
Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas (CNMI): In week 41, there was a decrease in ILI cases, with a total of 96 cases compared to 172 cases in week 40. Among these cases, laboratory testing confirmed 26 cases of influenza A, 26 cases of influenza B, 3 cases of COVID-19 and the remaining cases were upper respiratory infections, Pneumonia, Streptococcus, Otitis Media, and Bronchitis. –Source: Epi Week 41 Weekly Surveillance Report Situational Update for Epi Week 41 (October 08 – October 14, 2023).
Diarrhoea:
Federated States of Micronesia – Pohnpei State: As of 15 October 2023, 314 diarrhoeal encounters were seen at the Pohnpei State hospital, with 16 admissions and no deaths reported. PCR testing on the Biofire Array confirmed Rotavirus A, Campylobacter, and pathogenic E. coli. Considering that cases were mostly among children under 5 years of age, it is likely that Rotavirus A is the causative agent, however more stool samples are needed to verify this finding. – Source: Communicable Disease Weekly Bulleting – Pohnpei State Department of Health and Social Services, report for Epiweek 42 (Oct 9 – 15, 2023).
Other information:
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)
Due to the evolving nature of COVID-19 testing, vaccination and reporting strategies across the Pacific region, the data reported might not reflect the true situation in country.
Australia: Over the past week, Australia reported a total of 5,300 COVID-19 cases, with an average of 757 cases per day. Seven out of the eight states show an increase in average cases compared to previous week with South Australia (+23.5%), Tasmania (+19.7%), and Victoria (+19.6%) reporting the highest increases. Additionally, on the 20th October 2023, Australia’s Chief Medical Officer declared that COVID-19 is no longer a Communicable Disease Incident of National Significance following the end of winter in Australia. – Source: Weekly COVID-19 reporting | Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care & AHPPC statement – End of COVID-19 emergency response | Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Careaccessed on 24 October 2023.
Ciguatera:
Vanuatu: From the 1st of January 2023 to 15th October 2023, a total of 46 ciguatera fish poisoning cases were recorded by the Vanuatu Ministry of Health. The majority of the cases were reported in Epiweeks 4, 5, 8, 11 and 22. In week 40 and 41, 5 cases were reported in Shefa province. – Source: Ciguatera Fish Poisoning in Vanuatu – Situation Update 04 (report date: 19 October; covering period from 1st January to 15th October 2023).
Influenza A & B:
Federated States of Micronesia – Pohnpei State: As of October 15, 2023, ILI cases reported increased above threshholds. The EpiNet team is closely monitoring this surge and advising the general public to get vaccinated to prevent influenza infection. – Source: Communicable Disease Weekly Bulleting – Pohnpei State Department of Health and Social Services, report for Epiweek 42 (Oct 9 – 15, 2023).
Malaria:
Hawai’i: The Hawai’i Department of Health (DOH) has received one report of a travel-related malaria case in Honolulu County. The individual diagnosed with malaria had recent travel to a country where malaria is commonly found. Anopheles mosquitoes are not found in Hawaii according to the DOH. – Source: News Releases from Department of Health | Department of Health reports travel-related malaria case in Hawai‘i (hawaii.gov)accessed on 24 October 2023.
Meningococcal:
Australia: Over the past week, 3 children were diagnosed with meningococcal infection. These cases are unrelated to one another, with one meningococcal case serogroup B in Western Australia, and one in Queensland reported on the 17 October 2023. One meningococcal case from serogroup Y in South Australia was reported on the 19 October 2023. – Source: https://www.health.wa.gov.au/Media-releases/2023/October/Child-with-meningococcal-disease; https://7news.com.au/lifestyle/health-wellbeing/girl-4-recovering-from-meningococcal-in-queensland-c...; https://www.sahealth.sa.gov.au/wps/wcm/connect/public+content/sa+health+internet/about+us/news+and+m... on 24 October 2023.
Monkeypox:
Hawai’i: The Hawai’i Department of Health (DOH) repoted two additional cases of Mpox in O’ahu residents. These are the second and third cases diagnosed in Hawai’I in 2023. – Source: two additional cases of Mpox in O’ahu residentsaccessed on 24 October 2023.
China sees fruitful outcomes in international space cooperation
Pechino, people - October 23, 2023 - Through in-depth space cooperation, China and many countries in the world have jointly built a broad and magnificent "space silk road," contributing to the development and utilization of space resources and the progress of human civilization.
The constellation of the Beidou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) is working around the clock in the space. Since the system's commissioning more than three years ago, the application models of the BDS have been enriched, with its fields of application getting wider and wider.
According to statistics, the BDS-3 has provided accelerated positioning and high-precision service to more than 1.5 billion users in more than 230 countries and regions, winning more and more recognition from the international community.
In Xai-Xai, Gaza Province of Mozambique, there is a 20,000-hectare rice farm, the largest rice planting cooperation project in Africa. To plough the fields, and plant, manage and harvest crops on such a huge farmland was once a big challenge for local rice growers.
It was the innovation in agricultural technologies utilizing the BDS that benefited local rice growers. They can now control sprayer drones via mobile applications, thanks to the geographical positioning enabled by the Chinese positioning system.
Obtaining real-time geographical information through the BDS, sprayer drones are able to apply pesticides according to preset flight paths. Compared with traditional spraying methods, which rely on manual effort and can only cover a couple mu (667 square meters) each hour, BDS-enabled sprayer drones can treat over 100 mu of land every hour. Moreover, the drones can operate at night, dramatically improving efficiency.
The Sarez Lake in eastern Tajikistan is the world's highest quake lake. It houses the highest and biggest natural dam in the world. Monitoring the deformation of the dam situated in a seismically active zone and thus protecting the safety of local residents remains an important issue.
A Chinese research team developed a deformation monitoring service platform for the dam based on the BDS, with a millimeter-level precision. With this platform, researchers can remotely monitor the deformation of the dam and send science-based warnings. The system has also been employed to monitor expressway side slopes in Kyrgyzstan and snow slides in Tajikistan.
According to Chen Gucang, deputy director of the China Satellite Navigation Office, the BDS is applied in a wide range of fields, and has played a significant role in the construction of the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan highway as well as the operation of China-Kazakhstan crude oil pipeline and the China-Europe freight trains.
Two China-funded prototype satellites of the MisrSat II satellite project were delivered to the Egyptian side in June this year, making Egypt the first African country with the capacity to assemble, integrate and test satellites.
In December 2014, China and Egypt signed an agreement to carry out cooperation on the development of remote-sensing satellites. According to the agreement, China would build Egypt's first satellite assembly, integration and test center.
The two countries signed an agreement for the MisrSat II satellite project in January 2019, based on which China would provide the Egyptian side with a small remote-sensing satellite, a ground measurement and control station and a ground application system. Besides, China would also train Egyptian aerospace experts.
Prior to that, Egypt did not have its own satellite assembly, integration and test center, nor satellite development capabilities. It could only import complete foreign satellites. The completion of the China-funded center has provided Egypt with world-leading aerospace infrastructure.
Egyptian Minister of International Cooperation Rania Al-Mashat noted that these advanced technologies and equipment are important to not only Egypt, but also entire Africa.
China has established cooperation with many countries and regions in jointly developing and launching communication or remote-sensing satellites, as well as constructing satellite ground receiving stations and other space infrastructure. These efforts have played a positive role in the development of local sectors such as communication, agriculture, culture, environmental protection, and meteorology.
The China National Space Administration said that China is committed to promoting global technological progress and the sharing of innovative achievements, with an aim to enhance the capabilities of people around the world to explore and utilize space.
China always follows the principles of "peaceful use, equality, mutual benefit and common development." It is committed to transforming the Chinese space station into an open platform for international scientific and technological cooperation and exchanges.
Lin Xiqiang, a spokesperson and deputy director of the China Manned Space Agency, stated that the first batch of China's international cooperation projects in collaboration with the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs will soon conduct experiments on the space station. Additionally, the implementation of 10 space application projects in collaboration with the European Space Agency is also progressing in an orderly manner.
China's lunar exploration program has opened up opportunities for international cooperation on Chang'e-8 to the international community. It welcomes countries and international organizations to join and carry out multilevel collaboration together to achieve more major original scientific discoveries.
ISRO chief Somnath says space agency
prefers woman fighter test pilots
for its manned mission, possible in future
The ISRO chief’s statement came a day after the ISRO successfully launched its TV-D1 test vehicle ahead of the human space flight mission Gaganyaan
Thiruvananthapuram, timesofindia - October 22, 2023 - ISRO prefers woman fighter test pilots or female scientists for its much-awaited human space flight programme Gaganyaan mission and it is possible to send them in the future, the space agency chief S. Somanath said on Sunday.
No doubt about it...but we have to find out such possible (women) candidates in the future," Somanath told PTI over phone in response to a query.
His statement came a day after the ISRO successfully launched its TV-D1 test vehicle ahead of the human space flight mission Gaganyaan.
He said the manned mission is expected by 2025 and that it will be a short duration mission.
"Right now, the initial candidates are to be from Air Force fighter test pilots...they are a bit different category. Right now, we are not having women fighter test pilots. So, once they come, that is one route," the Chairman said.
The second option was when there would be more scientific activity, he said.
"Then, scientists will come as astronauts. So, at that time, I believe that more possibilities for women are there. Currently, possibilities are lesser because there are no women fighter test pilots," Mr. Somanath explained.
To a question, he said the ISRO's target is to put a fully operational space station by 2035.
ISRO had successfully launched TV-D1 test vehicle ahead of the human space flight mission Gaganyaan on Saturday.
After overcoming initial hiccups including delays, the space agency successfully launched the test vehicle with payloads related to the country's ambitious Gaganyaan programme.
Scientists simulated an abort situation for the Crew Escape System to carry the Crew Module of the test vehicle out as they made a splash into the Bay of Bengal with planned precision.
Egypt’s summit for peace
Opportunity to change course of events in Gaza, end violence
Cairo, egypttoday - October 21, 2023 - The New administrative Capital will host on Saturday Egypt’s Summit for peace with an expected wide international participation to reaching a solution for the ongoing violence in Gaza that started 13 days ago and resulted so far in killing more than 4,137 Palestinian and injuring 13,000 others.
Who will attend?
The call that was made by President Abdel Fattah al Sisi on October 15 during a meeting of Egypt’s National Security Council was praised and welcomes internationally, especially with the continuing escalations in the Gaza strip and the ongoing suffering of the Palestinian people.
Up to 31 counties along with three other international organizations have confirmed their participation at the summit including: Qatar, Greece, Palestine, the UAE, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Italy, Britain, Spain, Cyprus, Turkey, Brazil, China, America, Morocco, South Africa, Norway, Russia, the European Council, in addition to the Secretary-General of the United Nations.
The beginning
Since the beginning of the crises, October 7, Egypt has been calling for de-escalations and negotiations, however, Israel continued bombing different targets inside Gaza including a hospital and a church where hundreds of civilians Palestinians, women and children took refuge.
Israel also never responded to any attempts or negotiations for entering humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people and imposed a siege, cutting off water, food, fuel, electricity, and the Internet from the entire stripe.
Israel asked Palestinians to move from the northern part of Gaza, heading south, and threated with starting a ground attack on the Gaza Strip.
Forcible displacement schemes
Egypt described the ‘forcible displacement’ of the Palestinian people as an ‘attempt to the liquidation of the Palestinian cause’ and said this scenario is ‘unthinkable’.
In a press conference with French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna in Cairo, Egyptian Minister Sameh Shoukry affirmed Egypt's refusal to ‘liquidate the Palestinian issue’ and stressed the need ‘for an immediate end to violence and escalation’ and allowing the aid to pass for civilians, along with working on a comprehensive political solution that guarantees the rights of the Palestinians to establish their state on the 1976 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.
Regarding the Rafah border crossing, Shoukry said that Egypt has been seeking to have the crossing permanently operational for the entry of aid, normal movement and the passage of foreigners since the beginning of the crisis outbreak; however, the Israeli government has not taken any steps that allows the crossing opening from the other side.
Colonna welcomed Egypt’s call for the peace summit during the conference and said that she thinks the summit is important call and the whole world leaders should come and participate.
The French Foreign Minister also affirmed that “There is no doubt that the siege on Gaza is considered violation of international law, and therefore we demand the opening of the crossings. The Palestinian people must be protected, and their needs must be meet.”
On October 18th, President Sisi stressed that Egypt is a sovereign state and it rejects attempts to push civilians to seek refuge in Egypt., adding that “if necessary, I can ask the Egyptians to come out and express their rejection to the refuge idea, and then you will see millions of Egyptians are ready to demonstrate as an expression of their rejection of the displacement of Palestinians from Gaza.”
President Sisi added during a joint press conference with the German Chancellor Ulf Schulz at the presidential headquarters that “Egypt rejects the military solution to the Palestinian cause or any attempts to forcibly displace the Palestinians from their land, or for this to come at the expense of the region,” pointing out that Egypt will remain in its position in support of the legitimate Palestinian right to its land.
“We do not justify any violent action against a civilian,” he added.
“Over the past years since the peace agreement with Israel, we were keen to make this path a strategic choice, and we seek for this path to be supported by other countries,” he said.
Extensive communications
Egypt was keen since the beginning of the crises to intensify its calls with the world leaders to search for a negotiating path towards peace in Gaza.
President Sisi made phone calls with leaders of France, Turkey, South Africa, Japan, Spain, Cyprus, Italy, Canada, Russia, Greece, Norway, Brazil and the UN Secretary-General António Guterres.
A quadripartite summit between Egypt, Jourdan, Palestine and the US was suppose to take place on October 18th, hut it was canceled following the Israeli aggregation on Gaza’s Baptist Hospital killing nearly 500 civilians.
Egypt strongly condemned the bombing.
On October 19, Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and US President Joe Biden have agreed during a phone call on sustainable delivery of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip through the Rafah border crossing.
Biden voiced appreciation for the Egyptian leadership’s efforts to achieve peace and stability in the region.
Mass protests
On Friday, cores of Egyptians in all governorates took to the streets to voice rejection of the Israeli aggression and schemes to relocate Gazans to Sinai.
Protesters voiced support to President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi in taking measures to protect national security amid the Israeli schemes to displace Palestinians to Sinai.
The protests conceded with the UN secretary-general arrival at Al-Arish Airport, to inspect the humanitarian aid that should be delivered to the civilians of besieged Gaza.
And with hundreds of tons of aid awaiting by the Rafah border crossing, waiting to move to the people in Gaza on the other side, fingers are crossed for Egypt’s peace summit in reaching solution that will end violence in Gaza.Protesters voiced support to President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi in taking measures to protect national security amid the Israeli schemes to displace Palestinians to Sinai.
The protests conceded with the UN secretary-general arrival at Al-Arish Airport, to inspect the humanitarian aid that should be delivered to the civilians of besieged Gaza.
And with hundreds of tons of aid awaiting by the Rafah border crossing, waiting to move to the people in Gaza on the other side, fingers are crossed for Egypt’s peace summit in reaching solution that will end violence in Gaza.