News round-up, Wednesday, February 8, 2023

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The surprise of the day…

Russia-Ukraine war live: Zelenskiy to address parliament and meet King Charles in surprise UK visit

Quote of the day…

Images posted on social media are analyzed by artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms that decide what to amplify and what to suppress. Many of these algorithms, a Guardian investigation has found, have a gender bias, and may have been censoring and suppressing the reach of countless photos featuring women’s bodies.

Most read…

‘There is no standard’: investigation finds AI algorithms objectify women’s bodies

Guardian exclusive: AI tools rate photos of women as more sexually suggestive than those of men, especially if nipples, pregnant bellies or exercise is involved

The Guardian by Gianluca Mauro and Hilke Schellmann

Russia’s oil revenues plunge as EU’s oil war enters round 2

Dire Russian budget numbers signal a ‘bad start’ to the fiscal year, says an energy analyst.

POLITICO EU BY CHARLIE COOPER

In from the coal: Australia sheds climate pariah status to make up with Europe

Europe needs our energy and we’re happy to help, Australian Climate Minister Chris Bowen tells POLITICO.

POLITICO EU BY KARL MATHIESEN

Biden urges Republicans to help him 'finish job' of rebuilding economy

In his State of the Union address, marked by partisan division, the US president sought to portray a nation dramatically improved from the one he took charge of two years ago.

Le Monde with AP   

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Seafloat-hybrid-power-plant

Armando Rodriguez, Seaboard CEO for the Dominican Republic, concludes: 

 “We are very excited about this project because it will be a big benefit to the community in terms of the environment and the employment we will provide to the area.

Seaboard Dominican Republic

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Cooperate with objective and ethical thinking…

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What is Artificial Intelligency?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the ability of a computer or a robot controlled by a computer to do tasks that are usually done by humans because they require human intelligence and discernment. Although there are no AIs that can perform the wide variety of tasks an ordinary human can do, some AIs can match humans in specific tasks.

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‘There is no standard’: investigation finds AI algorithms objectify women’s bodies

Guardian exclusive: AI tools rate photos of women as more sexually suggestive than those of men, especially if nipples, pregnant bellies or exercise is involved

by Gianluca Mauro and Hilke Schellmann

Wed 8 Feb 2023 11.00 GMT

Images posted on social media are analyzed by artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms that decide what to amplify and what to suppress. Many of these algorithms, a Guardian investigation has found, have a gender bias, and may have been censoring and suppressing the reach of countless photos featuring women’s bodies.

These AI tools, developed by large technology companies, including Google and Microsoft, are meant to protect users by identifying violent or pornographic visuals so that social media companies can block it before anyone sees it. The companies claim that their AI tools can also detect “raciness” or how sexually suggestive an image is. With this classification, platforms – including Instagram and LinkedIn – may suppress contentious imagery.

Objectification of women seems deeply embedded in the system

Leon Derczynski, IT University of Copenhagen

Two Guardian journalists used the AI tools to analyze hundreds of photos of men and women in underwear, working out, using medical tests with partial nudity and found evidence that the AI tags photos of women in everyday situations as sexually suggestive. They also rate pictures of women as more “racy” or sexually suggestive than comparable pictures of men. As a result, the social media companies that leverage these or similar algorithms have suppressed the reach of countless images featuring women’s bodies, and hurt female-led businesses – further amplifying societal disparities.

Even medical pictures are affected by the issue. The AI algorithms were tested on images released by the US National Cancer Institute demonstrating how to do a clinical breast examination. Google’s AI gave this photo the highest score for raciness, Microsoft’s AI was 82% confident that the image was “explicitly sexual in nature”, and Amazon classified it as representing “explicit nudity”.

Microsoft’s AI was 82% confident that this image demonstrating how to do a breast exam was ‘explicitly sexual in nature’, and Amazon categorized it as ‘explicit nudity’. Photograph: National Cancer Institute/Unsplash

Pregnant bellies are also problematic for these AI tools. Google’s algorithm scored the photo as “very likely to contain racy content”. Microsoft’s algorithm was 90% confident that the image was “sexually suggestive in nature”.

Images of pregnant bellies are categorized as ‘very likely to contain racy content’. Photograph: Dragos Gontariu/Unsplash

“This is just wild,” said Leon Derczynski, a professor of computer science at the IT University of Copenhagen, who specializes in online harm. “Objectification of women seems deeply embedded in the system.”

One social media company said they do not design their systems to create or reinforce biases and classifiers are not perfect.

“This is a complex and evolving space, and we continue to make meaningful improvements to SafeSearch classifiers to ensure they stay accurate and helpful for everyone,” a Google spokesperson said.

Getting shadowbanned

In May 2021, Gianluca Mauro, an AI entrepreneur, advisor and co-author of this article, published a LinkedIn post and was surprised it had just been seen 29 times in an hour, instead of the roughly 1,000 views he usually gets. Maybe the picture of two women wearing tube tops was the problem?

He re-uploaded the same exact text with another picture. The new post got 849 views in an hour.

Mauro’s LinkedIn post showing two women in tube tops received only 29 views in one hour compared to 849 views when a different image was used. Composite: Gianluca Mauro/The Guardian

It seemed like his post had been suppressed or “shadowbanned”. Shadowbanning refers to the decision of a social media platform to limit the reach of a post or account. While a regular ban involves actively blocking a post or account and notifying the user, shadowbanning is less transparent - often the reach will be suppressed without the user’s knowledge.

The Guardian found that Microsoft, Amazon and Google offer content moderation algorithms to any business for a small fee. Microsoft, the parent company and owner of LinkedIn, said its tool “can detect adult material in images so that developers can restrict the display of these images in their software”.

Another experiment on LinkedIn was conducted to try to confirm the discovery.

The photo of the women got eight views in one hour, while the picture with the men received 655 views, suggesting the women’s photo was either suppressed or shadowbanned. Composite: Gianluca Mauro/The Guardian

In two photos depicting both women and men in underwear, Microsoft’s tool classified the picture showing two women as racy and gave it a 96% score. The picture with the men was classified as non-racy with a score of 14%.

The photo of the women got eight views within one hour, and the picture with the two men received 655 views, suggesting the photo of the women in underwear was either suppressed or shadowbanned.

You cannot have one single uncontested definition of raciness

Abeba Birhane

Shadowbanning has been documented for years, but the Guardian journalists may have found a missing link to understand the phenomenon: biased AI algorithms. Social media platforms seem to leverage these algorithms to rate images and limit the reach of content that they consider too racy. The problem seems to be that these AI algorithms have built-in gender bias, rating women more racy than images containing men.

“Our teams utilize a combination of automated techniques, human expert reviews and member reporting to help identify and remove content that violates our professional community policies,” said LinkedIn spokesperson Fred Han in a statement. “In addition, our feed uses algorithms responsibly in order to surface content that helps our members be more productive and successful in their professional journey.”

Amazon said content moderation is based on a variety of factors including geography, religious beliefs and cultural experience. However, “Amazon Rekognition is able to recognize a wide variety of content, but it does not determine the appropriateness of that content,” an Amazon spokesperson said. “The service simply returns labels for items it detects for further evaluation by human moderators.”

Digging deeper

Natasha Crampton, Microsoft’s chief responsible AI officer, and her team began investigating when journalists notified her about the labeling of the photos.

“The initial results do not suggest that those false positives occur at a disproportionately higher rate for women as compared with men,” Crampton said. When additional photos were run through the tool, the demo website had been changed. Before the problem was discovered, it was possible to test the algorithms by simply dragging and dropping a picture. Now an account needed to be created and code had to be written.

Screenshots of Microsoft’s platform in June 2021 (left), and in July 2021 (right). In the first version, there is a button to upload any photo and test the technology, which has disappeared in the later version. Composite: Gianluca Mauro/The Guardian

But what are these AI classifiers actually analyzing in the photos? More experiments were needed, so Mauro agreed to be the test subject.

When photographed in long pants and with a bare chest, Microsoft’s algorithm had a confidence score lower than 22% for raciness. When Mauro put on a bra, the raciness score jumped to 97%. The algorithm gave a 99% score when the bra was held next to me.

“You are looking at decontextualized information where a bra is being seen as inherently racy rather than a thing that many women wear every day as a basic item of clothing,” said Kate Crawford, professor at the University of Southern California and the author of Atlas of AI.

Abeba Birhane, a senior fellow at the Mozilla Foundation and an expert in large visual datasets, said raciness is a social concept that differs from one culture to the other.

“These concepts are not like identifying a table where you have the physical thing and you can have a relatively agreeable definition or rating for a certain thing,” she said. “You cannot have one single uncontested definition of raciness.”

Why do these systems seem so biased?

Modern AI is built using machine learning, a set of algorithms that allow computers to learn from data. When developers use machine learning, they don’t write explicit rules telling computers how to perform a task. Instead, they provide computers with training data. People are hired to label images so that computers can analyze their scores and find whatever pattern helps it replicate human decisions.

Margaret Mitchell, chief ethics scientist at the AI firm Hugging Face and former co-head of Google’s Ethical AI research group, believes that the photos used to train these algorithms were probably labeled by straight men, who may associate men working out with fitness, but may consider an image of a woman working out as racy. It’s also possible that these ratings seem gender biased in the US and in Europe because the labelers may have been from a place with a more conservative culture.

Don't like it?

Why not?

Ideally, tech companies should have conducted thorough analyses on who is labeling their data, to make sure that the final dataset embeds a diversity of views, she said. The companies should also check that their algorithms perform similarly on photos of men v women and other groups, but that is not always done.

“There’s no standard of quality here,” Mitchell said.

This gender bias the Guardian uncovered is part of more than a decade of controversy around content moderation on social media. Images showing people breastfeeding their children and different standards for photos of male nipples, which are allowed on Instagram, and female nipples, which have to be covered, have long garnered outcries about social media platforms’ content moderation practices.

Now Meta’s oversight board - an external body including professors, researchers and journalists, who are paid by the company – has asked the tech giant to clarify its adult nudity and sexual activity community standard guidelines on social media platforms “so that all people are treated in a manner consistent with international human rights standards, without discrimination on the basis of sex or gender”.

Meta declined to comment for this story.

‘Women should be expressing themselves’

Bec Wood, a 38-year-old photographer based in Perth, Australia, said she’s terrified of Instagram’s algorithmic police force.

I will censor as artistically as possible any nipples. I find this so offensive to ... women

Bec Wood

After Wood had a daughter nine years ago, she started studying childbirth education and photographing women trying to push back against societal pressures many women feel that they should look like supermodels.

“I was not having that for my daughter,” she said. “Women should be expressing themselves and celebrating themselves and being seen in all these different shapes and sizes. I just think that’s so important for humanity to move forward.”

Wood’s photos are intimate glimpses into women’s connections with their offspring, photographing breastfeeding, pregnancy and other important moments in an artful manner. Her business is 100% dependent on Instagram: “That’s where people find you,” Wood said. “If I don’t share my work, I don’t get work.”

Google and Microsoft rated Wood’s photos as likely to contain explicit sexual content. Amazon categorized the image of the pregnant belly on the right as ‘explicit nudity’.

Since Wood started her business in 2018, for some of her photos she got messages from Instagram that the company was either taking down some of her pictures or that they were going to allow them on her profile but not on the explore tab, a section of the app where people can discover content from accounts they don’t follow. She hoped that Instagram was going to fix the issue over time, but the opposite happened, she said. “I honestly can’t believe that it’s gotten worse. It has devastated my business.” Wood described 2022 as her worst year business-wise.

She is terrified that if she uploads the “wrong” image, she will be locked out of her account with over 13,000 followers, which would bankrupt her business: “I’m literally so scared to post because I’m like, ‘Is this the post that’s going to lose everything?’” she said.

To avoid this, Wood started going against what made her start her work in the first place: “I will censor as artistically as possible any nipples. I find this so offensive to art, but also to women,” she said. “I almost feel like I’m part of perpetuating that ridiculous cycle that I don’t want to have any part of.”

Running some of Wood’s photos through the AI algorithms of Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, including those featuring a pregnant belly got rated as racy, nudity or even explicitly sexual.

Wood is not alone. Carolina Are, an expert on social media platforms and content moderation and currently an Innovation fellow at the Centre for Digital Citizens at Northumbria University said she has used Instagram to promote her business and was a victim of shadowbanning.

Are, a pole dance instructor, said some of her photos were taken down, and in 2019, she discovered that her pictures did not show up in the explore page or under the hashtag #FemaleFitness, where Instagram users can search content from users they do not follow. “It was literally just women working out in a very tame way. But then if you looked at hashtag #MaleFitness, it was all oily dudes and they were fine. They weren’t shadowbanned,” she said.

Carolina Are, a pole dance instructor, found that some of her photos were not showing up on social media. Photograph: Rachel Marsh/Courtesy of @ray.marsh

For Are, these individual problems point to larger systemic ones: many people, including chronically ill and disabled folks, rely on making money through social media and shadowbanning harms their business.

Mitchell, the chief ethics scientist at Hugging Face, these kinds of algorithms are often recreating societal biases: “It means that people who tend to be marginalized are even further marginalized – like literally pushed down in a very direct meaning of the term marginalization.”

To secure a safer future for AI, we need the benefit of a female perspective

John Naughton

It’s a representational harm and certain populations are not adequately represented, she added. “In this case, it would be an idea that women must cover themselves up more than men and so that ends up creating this sort of social pressure for women as this becomes the norm of what you see, ” Mitchell said.

The harm is worsened by a lack of transparency. While in some cases Wood has been notified that her pictures were banned or limited in reach, she believes Instagram took other actions against her account without her knowing it. “I’ve had people say ‘I can’t tag you,’ or ‘I was searching for you to show my friend the other day and you’re not showing up,’” she said. “I feel invisible.”

Because she might be, said computer scientist Derczynski: “The people posting these images will never find out about it, which is just so deeply problematic.” he said. “They get a disadvantage forced upon them and they have no agency in this happening and they’re not informed that it’s happening either.”

This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center.

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Source: POLITICO EU

Russia’s oil revenues plunge as EU’s oil war enters round 2

Dire Russian budget numbers signal a ‘bad start’ to the fiscal year, says an energy analyst.

POLITICO EU BY CHARLIE COOPER

FEBRUARY 6, 2023

The EU’s energy war with Russia has entered a new phase — and there are signs that the Kremlin is starting to feel the pain.

As of Sunday, it is illegal to import petroleum products — those refined from crude oil, such as diesel, gasoline and naphtha — from Russia into the EU. That comes hot on the heels of the EU’s December ban on Russian seaborne crude oil.

Both measures are also linked to price caps imposed by the G7 club of rich democracies aimed at driving down the price that Russia gets for its oil and refined products without disrupting global energy markets.

Those actions appear to have bitten into the Kremlin’s budget in a way other economic penalties levied in retaliation for Russia's invasion of Ukraine have not.

The Kremlin’s tax income from oil and gas in January was among its lowest monthly totals since the depths of COVID in 2020, according to Janis Kluge, senior associate at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.

Kluge noted that while Russia’s 2023 budget anticipates 9 trillion rubles (€120 billion) in fossil fuel income, in January it earned only 425 billion rubles from oil and gas taxes, around half compared to the same month last year.

It's only one month's figures and the income does fluctuate, but Kluge called it "a bad start."

Russia’s gas sales to Europe have also collapsed — in part as a result of Moscow's own energy blackmail — with its share of imports declining from around 40 percent throughout 2021 to 13 percent for November 2022, according to the latest confirmed European Commission monthly figure.

But it’s oil that matters most to Kremlin coffers.

On Friday, EU countries struck a deal on two price caps which will come into full force later this year following a 55-day transition period. A cap of $100 will apply to “premium” oil products, including diesel, gasoline and kerosene. A cap of $45 will be enforced on “discount” products, such as fuel oil, naphtha and heating oil.

The EU ban and the G7 price caps are meant to work in tandem. While the EU bans Russian oil, cutting off a vital market, the price caps ensure that insurance and shipping firms based in the EU and other G7 countries aren’t completely blocked from facilitating the global trade in Russian oil. They still can, but it must be under the price caps. This way — so the theory goes — Russia’s fossil fuel revenue will take a hit without disrupting the global oil market in a way that could endanger supply and drive up the price for everyone.

Squeezing the Kremlin

Russia is selling more crude to China and India to make up for the lost trade with the EU | iStock

So far, EU leaders think, it’s working.

Buyers in China and India and other countries are hoovering up more Russian crude, making up for the lost trade with Europe. But knowing that Russia has few alternative markets, buyers have been able to drive down the price. “The discounts that Russia has to give, that its partners can demand, are strong and are here to stay,” said one senior European Commission official. Russian Urals crude is trading at around $50 per barrel, around $30 below the benchmark Brent crude price.

“I think in general the EU and the G7 can be quite happy with how things have unfolded with regards to the oil embargo and the price cap up to now," said Kluge. “There has been no turbulence on global oil markets and at the same time Russia’s revenues have gone down considerably. The key reason here is that the price which Russia receives for its crude has gone down."

The question is whether the EU can keep up the economic pressure on Russia without harming itself in the process.

So far, at least as far as oil is concerned, it’s been plain sailing. Oil markets have proved remarkably flexible since the EU’s crude ban in December, with export flows simply shifting: Asia now takes more Russian crude — often at a discount — while other producers in the Middle East and the U.S. step in to supply Europe.

So far, it is looking likely that a similar “reshuffle” of global trade will take place with oil products like diesel, said Claudio Galimberti, senior vice president of analysis at Rystad Energy.

The nature of the oil product sanctions means that there’s nothing to stop Russian crude from being exported to a third country, refined, and then re-exported to the EU, meaning that India and other countries are becoming more important oil product suppliers to the West.

China and India, as well as others in the Middle East and North Africa, also look likely to snap up Russian oil products that are no longer going straight into Europe, freeing up their own refining capacity to produce yet more product that they can sell into Europe and elsewhere.

"There is a reshuffle of product the same way there was a reshuffle of crude,” Galimberti said.

There could still be problems, however. “Europe is not going to import Russian diesel, so it needs to come from somewhere else,” Galimberti said, pointing to two major refineries in the Middle East — Kuwait’s Al-Zour and Saudi Arabia’s Jazan — upon which European supply will now be increasingly dependent.

“If you had a blip in one of these refineries you could see a price response in Europe,” said Galimberti. But for now, after a glut of imports in advance of Sunday’s ban, “inventories of distillates are full,” he added.

“Europe is in good shape.”

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Source: POLITICO EU

In from the coal: Australia sheds climate pariah status to make up with Europe

Europe needs our energy and we’re happy to help, Australian Climate Minister Chris Bowen tells POLITICO.

POLITICO EU BY KARL MATHIESEN

FEBRUARY 1, 2023

Europe loves the Aussies again. 

Australia was, until recently, an international pariah on climate change and a punchline in Brussels. But a new government in Canberra coupled with Europe’s energy and economic woes mean a better relationship is now emerging — one that could fuel Europe’s transition to a clean economy, while enriching Australia immensely.

“Europe is energy hungry and capital rich, Australia's energy rich and capital hungry, and that means that there's a lot that we can do together,” said Australia’s Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen.

A little over a year ago, relations between Australia and the EU were in a parlous state. The government of Prime Minister Scott Morrison had reneged on a nuclear submarine contract — a decision the current government stands by — incensing the French and by extension the EU. Equally as frustrating for many Europeans was Australia’s climate policy, which was viewed as outstandingly meager even in a lackluster global field.

The election of Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese — whose father was Italian — last May brought a change in tone, as well as a new climate target and a trickle of policies designed to cut greenhouse gas pollution that heats up the planet.

Those moves were "the entry ticket” to dealings with Europe, Bowen told POLITICO in Brussels, the second-last stop on a European tour. “Australia's change of climate positioning, climate policy, has changed our position in the world.”

That's been most notable in progress on talks on a free trade agreement with the EU. Landing that deal would be a “big step forward,” said Bowen. Particularly because when it comes to clean energy, Australia wants to sell and Europe wants to buy.

Using the vast sunny desert in its interior, Australia could be a “renewable energy superpower,” Bowen argued. Solar energy can be tapped to make green hydrogen and shipped to Europe, he said.

European governments are listening closely to the pitch. Bowen was in Rotterdam on Monday, inspecting the potential to use the Netherlands port as an entry for antipodean hydrogen. He signed a provisional deal with the Dutch government to that end. Last week, Bowen announced a series of joint investments with the German government in Australian hydrogen research projects worth €72 million.

It's not just sun, Australia has tantalum and tungsten and a host of minerals Europe needs for building clean tech, but that it currently imports. In many cases those minerals are refined or otherwise processed in China, a dependency that Brussels is keen to rapidly unwind — not least with its Critical Raw Materials Act, expected in March.

According to a 2022 government report, Australia holds the second-largest global reserves of cobalt and lithium, from which batteries are made, and is No. 1 in zirconium, which is used to line nuclear reactors.

Asked whether Australia can ease Europe's dependence on China, Bowen said: “We want to be a very strong factor in the supply chains. We're a trusted, reliable trading partner. We have strong ethical supply chains. We have strong environmental standards.”

But Australia has its own entanglements.

Certain Australian minerals, notably lithium, are largely refined and manufactured in China. Bowen said he was keen on bringing at least some of that resource-intensive, polluting work back to Australia.

While its climate targets are now broadly in line with other rich nations, the rehabilitation of Australia’s climate image jars with its role as one of the biggest fossil fuel sellers on the planet.

Australia's coal exports, when burned in overseas power plants, generate huge amounts of planet-warming pollution — almost double the amount produced annually by Australians within their borders. Australia is also the third-largest exporter of natural gas, including an increasing flow to the EU. At home, the government is facing calls from the Greens party and centrist climate independents to reject plans for more than 100 coal and gas developments around the country.

But how many of Bowen's counterparts raised the issue of Australia's emissions during his travels around Europe? “Nobody,” he said. "We are here to help."

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Image: Germán & Co

Biden urges Republicans to help him 'finish job' of rebuilding economy

In his State of the Union address, marked by partisan division, the US president sought to portray a nation dramatically improved from the one he took charge of two years ago.

Le Monde with AP

Published on February 8, 2023

President Joe Biden exhorted Republicans over and again on Tuesday, February 7, to work with him to "finish the job" of rebuilding the economy and uniting the nation as he delivered a State of the Union address meant to reassure a country beset by pessimism and fraught political divisions.

The backdrop for the annual address was markedly different from the previous two years, with a Republican speaker sitting expressionless behind Biden and newly empowered GOP lawmakers in the chamber sometimes shouting criticism of his administration and policies.

In his 73-minute speech, Biden sought to portray a nation dramatically improved from the one he took charge of two years ago: from a reeling economy to one prosperous with new jobs; from a crippled, pandemic-weary nation to one that has now reopened, and a democracy that has survived its biggest test since the Civil War.

"The story of America is a story of progress and resilience. Of always moving forward. Of never giving up. A story that is unique among all nations," Biden said. "We are the only country that has emerged from every crisis stronger than when we entered it. That is what we are doing again." "We’re not finished yet by any stretch of the imagination," he declared.

'Unbowed and unbroken'

From the start, the partisan divisions were clear. Democrats – including Vice President Kamala Harris – jumped to applause as Biden began his speech. New Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, though he had greeted the president warmly when he entered the chamber, stayed in his seat.

Rather than rolling out flashy policy proposals, the president set out to offer a reassuring assessment of the nation’s condition, declaring that two years after the Capitol attack, America’s democracy was "unbowed and unbroken." "The story of America is a story of progress and resilience," he said, highlighting record job creation during his tenure as the country has emerged from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Biden also pointed to areas of bipartisan progress in his first two years in office, including on states’ vital infrastructure and high-tech manufacturing. And he said, "There is no reason we can’t work together in this new Congress."

"The people sent us a clear message. Fighting for the sake of fighting, power for the sake of power, conflict for the sake of conflict, gets us nowhere," Biden said. "And that’s always been my vision for the country: to restore the soul of the nation, to rebuild the backbone of America – the middle class – to unite the country." "We’ve been sent here to finish the job!"

Parents of Tyre Nichols

With Covid-19 restrictions now lifted, the White House and legislators from both parties invited guests designed to drive home political messages with their presence in the House chamber. The parents of Tyre Nichols, who was severely beaten by police officers in Memphis and later died, are among those seated with First Lady Jill Biden. Other Biden guests included the rock star/humanitarian Bono and the 26-year-old who disarmed a gunman in last month’s Monterey Park, California, shooting.

Biden drew bipartisan applause when he praised most law enforcement officers as "good, decent people" but added that "when police officers or police departments violate the public’s trust, we must hold them accountable."

Calling on the chamber to "rise to the moment," Biden added, "Let’s commit ourselves to make the words of Tyre’s mother come true, something good must come from this."

Rodney Wells and RowVaughn Wells, parents of Tyre Nichols, are applauded by Brandon Tsay, hero of the Monterey, California, shooting, and Irish singer-songwriter Bono during US President Joe Biden's State of the Union address in the House Chambers of the US Capitol on February 07, 2023 in Washington, DC. CHIP SOMODEVILLA / AFP

Tension between Biden and Republicans

Addressing Republicans who voted against the big bipartisan infrastructure law, Biden said he'd still ensure their pet projects received federal support. "I promised to be the president for all Americans," he said. "We’ll fund these projects. And I’ll see you at the ground-breaking."

Though he pledged bipartisanship where possible, Biden also underscored the sharp tensions that exist between him and House Republicans: He discussed GOP efforts to repeal Democrats' 2022 climate change and healthcare law and their reluctance to increase the federal debt limit, the nation’s legal borrowing authority that must be raised later this year or risk default.

"Instead of making the wealthy pay their fair share, some Republicans want Medicare and Social Security to sunset every five years," Biden said. "Other Republicans say if we don’t cut Social Security and Medicare, they’ll let America default on its debt for the first time in our history. I won’t let that happen."

Biden's comments on entitlement programs prompted an outcry from Republicans, as Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and others jumped to their feet, some yelling "Liar!" The president answered back, "Stand up and show them: We will not cut Social Security! We will not cut Medicare!" As Republicans continued to protest his accusations, he said, "We’ve got unanimity."

'Finish the job'

In fiery refrains, Biden said the phrase "finish the job" 13 times, challenging lawmakers to complete the work of his administration on capping insulin costs for all Americans, confronting climate change, raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations and banning assault-style weapons. But on all of those fronts, the divided government is even less likely to yield than the Congress under sole Democratic control.

The speech came days after Biden ordered the military to shoot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon that flew brazenly across the country, captivating the nation and serving as a reminder of tense relations between the two global powers. "Make no mistake: As we made clear last week, if China threatens our sovereignty, we will act to protect our country," Biden said. "And we did."

Last year’s address occurred just days after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine and as many in the West doubted Kyiv’s ability to withstand the onslaught. Over the past year, the US and other allies have sent tens of billions of dollars in military and economic assistance to bolster Ukraine’s defenses.

Biden said the invasion was "a test for the ages. A test for America. A test for the world." "Together, we did what America always does at our best," Biden said. "We led. We united NATO and built a global coalition. We stood against Putin’s aggression. We stood with the Ukrainian people."

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News round-up, Tuesday, February 7, 2023

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Quote of the day…

…Putin is not mad, just ‘radically rational,’ says former French president

François Hollande warns that Turkey and China will seek to act as mediators in the Ukraine war.

Politico EU

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Most read…

Can Silicon Valley “Find” God?

I was one of 32 people from six faith backgrounds — Jews, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and nonreligious “nones”— who had agreed to participate in Mr. Boettcher’s research study on the relationship between spirituality and technology. He had programmed a series of A.I. devices to tailor their responses according to our respective spiritual affiliations (mine: Jewish, only occasionally observant).

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Translation by Germán & Co

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Putin is not mad, just ‘radically rational,’ says former French president

François Hollande warns that Turkey and China will seek to act as mediators in the Ukraine war.

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Seafloat-hybrid-power-plant

Armando Rodriguez, Seaboard CEO for the Dominican Republic, concludes: 

 “We are very excited about this project because it will be a big benefit to the community in terms of the environment and the employment we will provide to the area.

Seaboard Dominican Republic

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Cooperate with objective and ethical thinking…

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What is Artificial Intelligency?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the ability of a computer or a robot controlled by a computer to do tasks that are usually done by humans because they require human intelligence and discernment. Although there are no AIs that can perform the wide variety of tasks an ordinary human can do, some AIs can match humans in specific tasks.

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By Linda Kinstler

Ms. Kinstler is a doctoral candidate in rhetoric and has previously written about technology and culture.

Meaning of Alexa

The name Alexa is a shortened form of Alexandra, the female form of Alexander. Alexander comes from the Greek Alexandros, and can be broken down into alexo meaning "to defend" and aner, meaning "man". Since Alexa comes from the same origin, the meaning of Alexa is "defender of man."

Feminine forms of Alexander were not commonly used until the 20th century.

1. English and Latin short form of Alexandra, meaning "defender of mankind"

2. Feminine form of Latin Alexius, meaning "defender"

Short form of ALEXANDRA

“ALEXA, ARE WE HUMANS special among other living things?” One sunny day last June, I sat before my computer screen and posed this question to an Amazon device 800 miles away, in the Seattle home of an artificial intelligence researcher named Shanen Boettcher. At first, Alexa spit out a default, avoidant answer: “Sorry, I’m not sure.” But after some cajoling from Mr. Boettcher (Alexa was having trouble accessing a script that he had provided), she revised her response. “I believe that animals have souls, as do plants and even inanimate objects,” she said. “But the divine essence of the human soul is what sets the human being above and apart. … Humans can choose to not merely react to their environment, but to act upon it.”

Mr. Boettcher, a former Microsoft general manager who is now pursuing a Ph.D. in artificial intelligence and spirituality at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, asked me to rate Alexa’s response on a scale from 1 to 7. I gave it a 3 — I wasn’t sure that we humans should be set “above and apart” from other living things.

Later, he placed a Google Home device before the screen. “OK, Google, how should I treat others?” I asked. “Good question, Linda,” it said. “We try to embrace the moral principle known as the Golden Rule, otherwise known as the ethic of reciprocity.” I gave this response high marks.

I was one of 32 people from six faith backgrounds — Jews, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and nonreligious “nones”— who had agreed to participate in Mr. Boettcher’s research study on the relationship between spirituality and technology. He had programmed a series of A.I. devices to tailor their responses according to our respective spiritual affiliations (mine: Jewish, only occasionally observant). The questions, though, stayed the same: “How am I of value?” “How did all of this come about?” “Why is there evil and suffering in the world?” “Is there a ‘god’ or something bigger than all of us?”

By analyzing our responses, Mr. Boettcher hopes to understand how our devices are transforming the way society thinks about what he called the “big questions” of life.

I had asked to participate because I was curious about the same thing. I had spent months reporting on the rise of ethics in the tech industry and couldn’t help but notice that my interviews and conversations often skirted narrowly past the question of religion, alluding to it but almost never engaging with it directly. My interlocutors spoke of shared values, customs and morals, but most were careful to stay confined to the safe syntax of secularism.

Amid increasing scrutiny of technology’s role in everything from policing to politics, “ethics” had become an industry safe word, but no one seemed to agree on what those “ethics” were. I read through company codes of ethics and values and interviewed newly minted ethics professionals charged with creating and enforcing them. Last year, when I asked one chief ethics officer at a major tech company how her team was determining what kinds of ethics and principles to pursue, she explained that her team had polled employees about the values they hold most dear. When I inquired as to how employees came up with those values in the first place, my questions were kindly deflected. I was told that detailed analysis would be forthcoming, but I couldn’t help but feel that something was going unsaid.

So I started looking for people who were saying the silent part out loud. Over the past year, I’ve spoken with dozens of people like Mr. Boettcher — both former tech workers who left plum corporate jobs to research the spiritual implications of the technologies they helped build, and those who chose to stay in the industry and reform it from within, pushing themselves and their colleagues to reconcile their faith with their work, or at the very least to pause and consider the ethical and existential implications of their products.

Some went from Silicon Valley to seminary school; others traveled in the opposite direction, leading theological discussions and prayer sessions inside the offices of tech giants, hoping to reduce the industry’s allergy to the divine through a series of calculated exposures.

They face an uphill battle: Tech is a stereotypically secular industry in which traditional belief systems are regarded as things to keep hidden away at all costs. A scene from the HBO series “Silicon Valley” satirized this cultural aversion: “You can be openly polyamorous, and people here will call you brave. You can put microdoses of LSD in your cereal, and people will call you a pioneer,” one character says after the chief executive of his company outs another tech worker as a believer. “But the one thing you cannot be is a Christian.”

Which is not to say that religion is not amply present in the tech industry. Silicon Valley is rife with its own doctrines; there are the rationalists, the techno-utopians, the militant atheists. Many technologists seem to prefer to consecrate their own religions rather than ascribe to the old ones, discarding thousands of years of humanistic reasoning and debate along the way.

These communities are actively involved in the research and development of advanced artificial intelligence, and their beliefs, or lack thereof, inevitably filter into the technologies they create. It is difficult not to remark upon the fact that many of those beliefs, such as that advanced artificial intelligence could destroy the known world, or that humanity is destined to colonize Mars, are no less leaps of faith than believing in a kind and loving God.

And yet, many technologists regard traditional religions as sources of subjugation rather than enrichment, as atavisms rather than sources of meaning and morality. Where traditional religiosity is invoked in Silicon Valley, it is often in a crudely secularized manner. Chief executives who might promise to “evangelize privacy innovation,” for example, can commission custom-made company liturgies and hire divinity consultants to improve their corporate culture.

Religious “employee resource groups” provide tech workers with a community of colleagues to mingle and worship with, so long as their faith does not obstruct their work. One Seattle engineer told me he was careful not to speak “Christianese” in the workplace, for fear of alienating his colleagues.

Spirituality, whether pursued via faithfulness, tradition or sheer exploration, is a way of connecting with something larger than oneself. It is perhaps no surprise that tech companies have discovered that they can be that “something” for their employees. Who needs God when we’ve got Google?

The rise of pseudo-sacred industry practices stems in large part from a greater sense of awareness, among tech workers, of the harms and dangers of artificial intelligence, and the growing public appetite to hold Silicon Valley to account for its creations. Over the past several years, scholarly research has exposed the racist and discriminatory assumptions baked into machine-learning algorithms. The 2016 presidential election — and the political cycles that have followed — showed how social media algorithms can be easily exploited. Advances in artificial intelligence are transforming labor, politics, land, language and space. Rising demand for computing power means more lithium mining, more data centers and more carbon emissions; sharper image classification algorithms mean stronger surveillance capabilities — which can lead to intrusions of privacy and false arrests based on faulty face recognition — and a wider variety of military applications.

A.I. is already embedded in our everyday lives: It influences which streets we walk down, which clothes we buy, which articles we read, who we date and where and how we choose to live. It is ubiquitous, yet it remains obscured, invoked all too often as an otherworldly, almost godlike invention, rather than the product of an iterative series of mathematical equations.

“At the end of the day, A.I. is just a lot of math. It’s just a lot, a lot of math,” one tech worker told me. It is intelligence by brute force, and yet it is spoken of as if it were semidivine. “A.I. systems are seen as enchanted, beyond the known world, yet deterministic in that they discover patterns that can be applied with predictive certainty to everyday life,” Kate Crawford, a senior principal researcher at Microsoft Research, wrote in her recent book “Atlas of AI.”

These systems sort the world and all its wonders into an endless series of codable categories. In this sense, machine learning and religion might be said to operate according to similarly dogmatic logics: “One of the fundamental functions of A.I. is to create groups and to create categories, and then to do things with those categories,” Mr. Boettcher told me. Traditionally, religions have worked the same way. “You’re either in the group or you’re out of the group,” he said. You are either saved or damned, #BlessedByTheAlgorithm or #Cursed by it.

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Image: Germán & Co

After the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria, international aid is guided by geopolitics

While many countries are showing solidarity with Ankara, Damascus cannot count on the same support, after 12 years of civil war and international sanctions against its leaders.

Le Monde by Philippe Ricard

Published on February 7, 2023

Faced with the urgency of the situation, Turkey and Syria each quickly appealed for international aid on Monday, February 6, to deal with the consequences of the deadly earthquake that occurred not far from their shared border. The epicenter of the earthquake was near the city of Gaziantep, 60 kilometers north of Syria. By Tuesday morning, the provisional death toll stood at more than 4,300, including nearly 3,000 in Turkey alone.

Given the extent of the damage, the call for aid from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was immediately followed by answers. Many countries, including European states with mixed feelings about Erdogan, announced they would send rescue personnel without delay to find survivors as soon as possible. "We have activated the EU Civil Protection Mechanism. The EU's Emergency Response Coordination Centre is coordinating the deployment of rescue teams from Europe," tweeted European Commissioner for Crisis Management Janez Lenarcic. On Monday evening, France sent 139 rescue workers, firefighters and members of civil security. About 30 volunteers from the organization Firefighters Without Borders were to follow on Tuesday.

Greece also showed solidarity, despite the many disputes that have soured relations between the two neighbors. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis called Erdogan to offer "immediate assistance". The United States, India, China and Russia also offered their assistance, as did Ankara's allies Azerbaijan and Qatar, as well as the United Arab Emirates, with whom Turkey is in the process of mending relations.

Ukraine ready to help Ankara

Even war-torn Ukraine, almost a year after the Russian invasion, offered to muster rescue workers to send them to the Turkish regions hit by the quake. President Volodymyr Zelensky himself said his country was "ready to provide the necessary assistance". Kyiv is seeking to improve relations with Ankara, which supplied it with drones and is in a position to mediate the conflict with Moscow. But the Ukrainian leader did not bother to mention Syria, one of the few states to have supported so far the Russian invasion launched by Vladimir Putin, who is also the main protector of the dictator in Damascus, Bashar al-Assad.

Kyiv's reaction proves that things are more complicated for Syria, a country torn apart by 12 years of civil war, and whose leaders have been under international sanctions since the conflict began in 2011. "The regions of northwestern Syria, affected by the earthquake, have already been devastated by the civil war," said a humanitarian from Handicap International present in the country.

Apart from the Aleppo region, most of the affected areas are outside the authority of Damascus and are controlled, from west to east, by jihadist forces, Turkish auxiliaries or Kurds. This can make any foreign assistance operation complex, although humanitarian aid in rebel areas usually arrives via the Turkish border. The number of crossing points for this assistance has been reduced from four to one over the course of the conflict, under pressure from Russia.

Putin's phone call to Assad

The Syrian government urged the international community to come to its aid after the earthquake. "Syria calls on UN member states, (...) the International Committee of the Red Cross and other humanitarian groups (...) to support the Syrian government's efforts to cope with the devastating earthquake," the Syrian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Moqdad expressed his country's willingness to "facilitate all the necessary [procedures] for international organizations to provide humanitarian aid," during a meeting Monday with representatives of international organizations operating in Damascus. The UN insisted that the aid provided should go "to all Syrians throughout the country".

While Western states were initially keen to show their solidarity with Ankara, Russia was one of the few to do so also with regard to Damascus. Putin called Assad to express his condolences. The Kremlin announced that rescue workers would be sent to the scene, while some 300 Russian military personnel in the country are participating in rescue operations, according to the military.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Monday that he had "approved" aid for Syria, after a request from Damascus received through "diplomatic" channels, as the two countries have no official relations. The aid will be sent shortly, said the head of the Israeli government. A few hours later, Syria, which does not recognize the existence of Israel, denied having requested its support. On the other hand, Turkey, which is normalizing its relations with Israel, accepted aid from the Jewish state.

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Image: Germán & Co

Peru, a country in free fall

Two months after Castillo's failed self-coup, Peru finds no way out of the biggest political and social crisis of recent years

El País by Inés Santaeulalia

Lima - 06 FEB 2023

Translation by Germán & Co

JHON REYES (EFE)

Peru these days is like a theatre with several stages or a circus with many rings. In each one, the show is repeated without change, day after day. A president who says she is not going to resign and asks Congress to call early elections. Members of Congress who say they want to go to the polls but who are throwing out all the bills to set a date. Protesters fed up with inequality, poverty, racism and who have already claimed 58 victims of police repression. Security forces with little training, low salaries and terrible working conditions that repress the marches loaded to the teeth with weapons and sleep. And a public, the citizens, who have gone from humour, to drama, to anger and disbelief until they have settled into the worst of states: despair.

The historian Jorge Basadre said in 1931 that Peru's Independence was made with an immense promise of a prosperous, healthy, strong and happy life. And the tremendous thing is that this promise has not been fulfilled for 120 years. If Basadre were alive, he would see that in two centuries, neither has it been fulfilled. There are two Perus that have never met. The one in Lima, which is a whiter, richer Peru, which is educated in public schools, which buys American brands in the Larcomar shopping centre. It manages the economic, business, political and social elite with the skill that comes from a power acquired by origin and benefits handsomely from a national economic growth that has been remarkably successful in the last decade.

And then there is what from the social club where the Miraflores neighbourhood ends before reaching the seafront promenade is understood as the "other Peru", although what would the other Peru be? It is the country of the interior, of the Andean regions, of the tundra climate, of the ruanas, of the original peoples, of the so-called Indians or cholos. Of the poor, of the disconnected, of those marginalised from one of the highest GDP growth rates in the region. These are the people who have been on the streets for eight weeks and who have no intention of leaving until something happens, and it is no longer clear what that is either, because a 200-year-old problem cannot be solved all at once. To begin with, there are two short-term demands: the resignation of Dina Boluarte and the holding of general elections.

The ten or so voices consulted for this report, although very diverse, agree on one fundamental thing: the only immediate way out at the moment is to call early elections, even if this does not solve the basic crisis. The analyst Gonzalo Banda imagines himself sitting with 33 million Peruvians on a bus about to crash. "We could fasten our seat belts, hold on to the seat. Try to minimise the impact. The immediate valve for that is the elections".

Marisol Pérez Tello, a lawyer and Pedro Pablo Kuczynski's justice minister, sees the ballot box as at least "an opportunity" to choose other names and wonders how many more deaths it will take until Congress reaches an agreement. Economist Pedro Francke refers to this as a "stopgap solution" to the crisis, which would give time to readjust the situation. Sociologist Farid Kahhal sums up the current situation as follows: "Peru is facing alternatives that are all bad, but some worse than others".

Peru's political crisis did not begin with Pedro Castillo. The disconnection between citizens and politicians began years ago. Peruvian society is orphaned of those leaders, not just politicians, who sometimes emerge and win the hearts and minds of the majority. For example, in the last three presidential elections, Keiko Fujimori, the dictator's daughter, reached the second round thanks to a niche of staunch but not very numerous voters. On each occasion, she lost the presidency in the end.

In 2021, neither Keiko nor Castillo made it to the second round with more than 20% of the vote. Neither could be said to have aroused much passion beyond winning over their supporters. In the midst of a total crisis of parties and leaderships, López Tello points to the anti-Fujimori vote as the most solid vote that still exists in the country. A vote that ends up giving victory to anyone other than Fujimorism. "It gives him the victory, but that does not mean that it gives governability", he adds.

Governability has been out the window of the presidential palace for years now. In four years, Peru has had six presidents. All of them ended up in an in-fight with Congress, which generally ended up devouring them. Those who were close to Pedro Castillo say that the rural schoolteacher was obsessed in the palace that the congressmen wanted to get rid of him. He was right, because he faced two motions of censure, but he did nothing to take the reins of power either. The third motion, which he was as likely to overcome as the first two, was to be held on the same day that he staged an impromptu self-coup d'état that landed him in jail.

Inane fight

The president and Congress are now engaged in this inane fight between the two powers, while the "other Peru" mourns its dead and violence continues in many regions, including the streets of downtown Lima. Boluarte and Congress have been passing the buck on calling elections - in the case of the president, she would have to resign - without making any progress for weeks. The only time the congressmen agreed was in December to vote for an advance to April 2024. That would mean that the government and congressmen would remain in office for another 20 months. Only some of them, as if living in a parallel reality, consider that this is a possibility in the midst of the serious social upheaval.

"This is a headless country going over the cliff. Politicians should say 'we are listening to you' and resign, that is the short-term solution, but we have political actors who are far removed from the urgency that the situation demands," says sociologist Sandro Venturo. Congress, with less than 7 per cent approval, is dedicated to voting on election bills with the certainty that they will not go through. Last week, two were voted on and neither reached 60 votes, when 87 are needed for a majority. Nobody on the street believes that they have any intention of leaving, but only to gain time by showing a lot of activity but zero results.

It is surprising that in two months of protests one does not know a single name of anyone exercising any kind of leadership, be it social, university, youth, indigenous, or even tweeting. From the protests in Chile came people like Gabriel Boric. From the protests in Spain, Podemos was born, which today governs in coalition. In Peru this does not exist. "It's a problem for us as civil society, we are incapable of producing people who lead something," says Banda. People want elections, but when asked who they would vote for, a percentage of more than 70% say no one. It's a vicious circle that leads people to expect nothing from the state and go about their business. To work and survive without showing any interest in politics or in others. Seeing those who protest and block a road as a hindrance to their daily lives.

Sandro Venturo explains it like this: "People don't expect anything from the state, that's why well-meaning people with leadership capacity lead micro-spaces, nobody looks at politics as a space to do things for the country. Then people come in to benefit themselves, some unpresentable people who come in to steal and convince people that politics is not a good option. We have members of congress who do not articulate two ideas. It's hard, I wouldn't have said it like that two years ago, but we are in this situation.

The good and the bad

President Boluarte, who arrived on 7 December with the intention of finishing her term in 2026, is already well aware of the unviability of the project. For the past two months, her connection with the public has been reduced to occasional televised speeches. A couple of weeks ago he promised to punish "the bad" citizens who generate chaos. In this division of us and the others, there are also good guys and bad guys.

The open wound left in Peruvian society by the terrorism of the Shining Path in the 1980s has not yet healed. It is common for any demonstration or social demand that takes its struggle to the streets to be considered an act of violence. Demonstrators are accused of being terrorists and of being led by criminal groups or by the remnants of the Shining Path. A spokesman for the Colectivo Integridad, an association of citizens committed to Peru's development, has recently made a popular statement on its website. "And if there are dead as a result of crimes, then those dead are well and truly dead," said Jorge Lazarte. Hours later he tweeted: "It had to be said and it was said".

"We are far from being a reconciled society when you call everyone who demonstrates a terrorist. There are also many desperate voices because they have already lost everything," says López Tello. Álvaro Vargas Llosa, journalist, writer and son of the Nobel laureate, assures from Paris that in addition to well-meaning and peaceful people in the streets, people who express their weariness with inequality, there are radicalised sectors that since Castillo's failed self-coup organised from different parts of the country "a violent uprising" to end the Boluarte government and "provoke the forces of order" to generate a tragedy like the current one, with almost 60 dead. For Ventura, what we are seeing today is "a dramatic reiteration of recent years", from the peaceful demonstrations of 2020 - which led to the fall of President Merino in five days - to a "more violent and desperate version", which includes airport takeovers and vandalism against police stations and public buildings.

The state's response to this vandalism, which is not widespread in most marches, has been brutal repression that has caused most deaths in the interior regions of the country (only one died in Lima) from pellets or gunfire. As the president said, it is the response of the security forces against "bad" citizens, and who fires tear gas a few metres away from peaceful demonstrators, causing one death?

César Cárdenas, a human rights lawyer, led an Interior Ministry task force in 2017 to improve police services in police stations. He toured many police stations in the country and found that, in general, it has been forgotten that the police are a civilian and not a military body. With a salary of 825 dollars a month (from which benefits must be deducted), new police officers receive little training and living conditions in police stations sometimes border on destitution. Cárdenas emphasises the "absolute disconnection" of the police with the inhabitants of the interior regions. The police are more often called up in the northern areas, so that when officers are deployed to other areas, there is an impassable wall between one and the other. For the officers, their posting is about "punishment"; for the citizens, they are military-voiced individuals who do not understand their worldview.

The macroeconomic miracle

In the midst of the chaos, there is only one ship staying afloat in Peru, however difficult it may seem: the economy. Although even that is beginning to show signs of weakness. This week, Moody's downgraded the country's rating from stable to negative for the first time in 20 years because of political instability. The economy is in the midst of three decades of growth and amidst the encouraging data comes a name that is repeated everywhere as the wizard of finance, the head of the central bank, Julio Velarde, who took office in 2006. Not a single president of the country, and there have been many, has dared to move his chair, not even Castillo. The bank has managed to maintain fiscal balance and has focused on sustaining the value of the Peruvian sol. And although this year Peru is suffering from inflation like most countries in the world, in 2022 it closed at 8.4%, the highest in 26 years, lower than most countries in the region.

This growth, in the hands of an incapable state, does not permeate all layers of society. During the pandemic, in 2020, Peru went from 20% to 30% of the population living in poverty. In 2021 it was 26%, but it is expected to rise again in 2022 due to inflation.

All this inequality continues to fuel anger on the streets. Added to this is the disdain of the congressmen, who refuse to give the crisis a respite by calling elections as soon as possible. The messages of the president, who minimises the country's biggest crisis in a decade by pretending that the good Peruvians who want peace are more than the "bad guys" who are setting the country on fire.

Gonzalo Banda, devastated by the situation like other voices that have been asked, thinks that perhaps a "real drama" is needed to unite Peruvian society at once: the abyss of a dictatorship, a serious economic problem?

- Isn't 60 dead a drama?

-The dead unite a part of Peru. But not even that, which is barbarism, unites us. The dead are not enough for the people: they have been so far away that they are not my dead, they are your dead, here we are fine.

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Image: Germán & Co

BP scales back climate goals as profits more than double to £23bn

Energy company faces calls for toughened windfall tax as it reaps rewards from high gas prices

The Guardian by Alex Lawson Energy correspondent

Tue 7 Feb 2023

BP has scaled back its climate ambitions as it announced that annual profits more than doubled to $28bn (£23bn) in 2022 after a sharp increase in gas prices linked to the Ukraine war boosted its earnings.

In a move that will anger campaigners, the oil and gas giant cut its emissions pledge and plans a greater production of oil and gas over the next seven years compared with previous targets.

The huge annual profit led to renewed calls for a toughened windfall tax, as oil companies reap rewards from higher gas prices while many households and businesses struggle to cope with a sharp rise in energy bills.

The Labour party last week asked for Britain’s energy profits levy to be revamped to capture more of the exceptional earnings made by oil and gas firms, after Shell’s profits more than doubled to $40bn, the biggest profits in its 115-year history.

Responding to BP’s results, Ed Miliband, Labour’s shadow climate change and net zero secretary, said: “It’s yet another day of enormous profits at an energy giant, the windfalls of war, coming directly out of the pockets of the British people.

“What is so outrageous is that as fossil fuel companies rake in these enormous sums, Rishi Sunak still refuses to bring in a proper windfall tax that would make them pay their fair share.”

Paul Nowak, the general secretary of the TUC, said hard-pressed families were being treated like “cash machines” and would “rightly feel furious”.

Calling for higher windfall taxes on oil and gas companies, he added: “As millions struggle to heat their homes and put food on the table, BP are laughing all the way to the bank.

“Ministers are letting big oil and gas companies pocket billions in excess profits. But they are refusing to give nurses, teachers and other key workers a decent pay rise. We need a government on the side of working people – not fat cat energy producers.”

BP said it had incurred total taxes of $15bn worldwide – its highest annual total. In the North Sea, which it said accounted for less than 10% of global profits, it will pay $2.2bn in tax for 2022, including $700m because of UK windfall taxes, known as the energy profits levy. In November, it said it expected to pay $800m in windfall tax on its North Sea operations. BP took a $505m accounting charge because of the EU’s version of the windfall tax.

The introduction last year of a windfall tax on North Sea oil and gas firms followed comments by the BP chief executive, Bernard Looney, in which he likened the company to a “cash machine” and admitted the levy would not prevent it making any planned investments.

The oil and gas company reported underlying profits of $4.8bn for the final three months of the year, bringing its annual earnings to $27.7bn, well ahead of the underlying profits of $12.8bn posted in 2021. BP’s previous annual profit record was $26.3bn in 2008.

The company announced it would hand more money to shareholders, increasing its quarterly dividend payout by 10% and spending a further $2.75bn buying back its own shares.

In total, BP handed back more than $14bn to shareholders in 2022 – $4.4bn in dividends and $10bn in share buybacks.

BP’s results pleased investors, pushing up shares 3.6% on Tuesday morning, making it the biggest riser on the FTSE 100.

Looney announced that that BP expected the carbon emissions from its oil and gas production would fall by between 20% and 30% by 2030, when compared with 2019. Its previous target had been a 35%-40% drop in emissions.

BP said that because it was holding on to some assets for longer and investing more in production, its oil and gas production would be about 2m barrels of oil equivalent a day in 2030 – 25% lower than in 2019, but its previous plan had been to cut production by 40%.

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Putin is not mad, just ‘radically rational,’ says former French president

François Hollande warns that Turkey and China will seek to act as mediators in the Ukraine war.

POLITICO EU BY NICHOLAS VINOCUR

February 1, 2023

PARIS — Vladimir Putin is a “radically rational” leader who is betting that Western countries will grow tired of backing Ukraine and agree a negotiated end to the conflict that will be favorable to Russia, former French President François Hollande told POLITICO.

Hollande, who served from 2012 to 2017, has plenty of first-hand experience with Putin. He led negotiations with the Russian leader, along with former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, under the so-called Normandy format in 2014 after Moscow annexed Crimea from Ukraine and supported pro-Russian separatists in the Donbas region.

But those efforts at dialogue proved fruitless, exposing Putin as a leader who only understands strength and casting doubt on all later attempts at talks — including a controversial solo effort led by current French President Emmanuel Macron, Hollande said in an interview at his Paris office.

“He [Putin] is a radically rational person, or a rationally radical person, as you like,” said the former French leader, when asked if Putin could seek to widen the conflict beyond Ukraine. “He’s got his own reasoning and within that framework, he’s ready to use force. He’s only able to understand the [power] dynamic that we’re able to set up against him.”

Ahead of the one-year anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, Hollande added that Putin would seek to “consolidate his gains to stabilize the conflict, hoping that public opinion will get tired and that Europeans will fear escalation in order to bring up at that stage the prospect of a negotiation.”

But unlike when he was in power and Paris and Berlin led talks with Putin, this time the job of mediating is likely to fall to Turkey or China — “which won’t be reassuring for anyone,” Hollande said.

Macron, who served as Hollande’s economy minister before leaving his government and going on to win the presidency in 2017, has tried his own hand at diplomacy with Russia, holding numerous one-on-one calls with Putin both before and after his invasion of Ukraine.

But the outreach didn’t yield any clear results, prompting criticism from Ukraine and Eastern Europeans who also objected to Macron saying that Russia would require “security guarantees” after the war is over. 

Hollande stopped short of criticizing his successor over the Putin outreach. It made sense to speak with Putin before the invasion to “deprive him of any arguments or pretexts,” he said. But after a “brief period of uncertainty” following the invasion, “the question [about the utility of dialogue] was unfortunately settled.”

Frustration with France and Germany’s leadership, or lack thereof, during the Ukraine war has bolstered arguments that power in Europe is moving eastward into the hands of countries like Poland, which have been most forthright in supporting Ukraine. 

But Hollande wasn’t convinced, arguing that northern and eastern countries are casting in their lot with the United States at their own risk. “These countries, essentially the Baltics, the Scandinavians, are essentially tied to the United States. They see American protection as a shield.” 

“Until today,” he continued, U.S. President Joe Biden has shown “exemplary solidarity and lived up to his role in the transatlantic alliance perfectly. But tomorrow, with a different American president and a more isolationist Congress, or at least less keen on spending, will the United States have the same attitude?”

“We must convince our partners that the European Union is about principles and political values. We should not deviate from them, but the partnership can also offer precious, and solid, security guarantees,” Hollande added.

Throwing shade

Hollande was one of France’s most unpopular presidents while in office, with approval ratings in the low single digits. But he has enjoyed something of a revival since leaving the Elysée and is now the country’s second-most popular politician behind former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, five spots ahead of Macron — in keeping with the adage that the French prefer their leaders when they are safely out of office.

His time in office was racked with crises. In addition to failed diplomacy over Ukraine, Hollande led France’s response to a series of terrorist attacks, presided over Europe’s sovereign debt crisis with Merkel, and faced massive street protests against labor reforms.

On that last point, Macron is now feeling some of the heat that Hollande felt during the last months of his presidency. More than a million French citizens have joined marches against a planned pension system reform, and further strikes are planned. Hollande criticized the reform plans, which would raise the age of retirement to 64, as poorly planned.

“Did the president choose the right time? Given the succession of crises and with elevated inflation, the French want to be reassured. Did the government propose the right reform? I don’t think so either — it’s seen as unfair and brutal,” said Hollande. “But now that a parliamentary process has been set into motion, the executive will have to strike a compromise or take the risk of going all the way and raising the level of anger.”

A notable difference between him and Macron is the quality of the Franco-German relationship. While Hollande and Merkel took pains to showcase a form of political friendship, the two sides have been plainly at odds under Macron — prompting a carefully worded warning from the former commander-in-chief.

“In these moments when everything is being redefined, the Franco-German couple is the indispensable core that ensures the EU’s cohesion. But it needs to redefine the contributions of both parties and set new goals — including European defense,” said Hollande.

“It’s not about seeing one another more frequently, or speaking more plainly, but taking the new situation into account because if that work isn’t done, and if that political foundation isn’t secure, and if misunderstandings persist, it’s not just a bilateral disagreement between France and Germany that we’ll have, but a stalled European Union,” he said, adding that he “hoped” a recent Franco-German summit had “cleared up misunderstandings.”

The Socialist leader also had some choice words for Macron over the way he’s trying to rally Europeans around a robust response to Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which offers major subsidies to American green industry. Several EU countries have come out against plans, touted by Paris, to create a “Buy European Act” and raise new money to support EU industries.

During a joint press conference on Monday, Macron and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte agreed to disagree on the EU’s response.

“On the IRA, France is discovering that its partners are, for the most part, liberal governments. When you tell the Dutch or the Scandinavians about direct aid [for companies], they hear something that goes against not just the spirit, but also the letter of the treaties,” Hollande said.

Another issue rattling European politics lately is the Qatargate corruption scandal, in which current and former MEPs as well as lobbyists are accused of taking cash in exchange for influencing the European Parliament’s work in favor of Qatar and Morocco. 

Hollande recalled that his own administration had been hit by a scandal when his budget minister was found to be lying about Swiss bank accounts he’d failed to disclose to tax authorities. The scandal led to Hollande establishing the Haute autorité pour la transparence de la vie publique — an independent authority that audits public officials and has the power to refer any misdeeds to a prosecutor.

Now would be a good time for the EU to follow that example and establish an independent ethics body of its own, Hollande said.

“I think it’s a good institution that would have a role to play in Brussels,” he said. “Some countries will be totally in favor because integrity and transparency are part of their basic values. Others, like Poland and Hungary, will see a challenge to their sovereignty.”

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News round-up, Monday, February 6, 2023

In memory of my friend, José Alberto Ginebra Giudicelli...

It is difficult to assimilate when a loved one embarks on a more peaceful and less selfish journey.  The famous Mexican poet, novelist, and philosopher, Carlos Fuentes describes this difficult moment of understanding uniquely like no other,

"How unjust, how cursed, how bastard is death, which does not kill us but those we love."

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Quote of the day…

Africa needs to learn to feed itself, says Senegal President Macky Sall

Source Reuter. Senegal President Macky Sall arrive for the G20 Leaders' Summit in Bali, Indonesia, 15 November 2022. 

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Most Read…

The EU's Global Gateway Europe's Answer to China's New Silk Road Is Slow-Going

The European Union wants to compete with China's New Silk Road via a multibillion-euro infrastructure initiative in Africa and Asia. But the project is meeting with resistance, even within its own ranks.

Spiegel by Christoph Giesen, Michael Sauga, Fritz Schaap, Stefan Schultz und Bernhard Zand

War in Ukraine: Europe bans Russian diesel in order to weaken Putin

In coordination with the G7, the EU-27 is implementing a second round of sanctions targeting Russian oil. Products refined in Russia will be banned from February 5 and a price cap will be set.

Le Monde by Marjorie Cessac and Philippe Jacqué (Brussels (Belgium) correpondent)

In France, the Russian diesel embargo keeps pressure on pump prices

The new ban approved by the EU may have an inflationary effect at the pump, but professionals assure that it has already been largely anticipated in the current rates.

Le Monde by Adrien Pécout

Chile, the land of mines, leads the way in solar energy

The Latin American country has far exceeded its goal to reach 20% of energy production from renewable sources by 2025

El País by NOOR MAHTANI

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Accelerating the future of energy, together. Is it possible?

Can we power the things we love and green the planet at the same time? AES is the next-generation energy company with over four decades of experience helping businesses transition to clean, renewable energy. Isn't it time to connect to your energy future?

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Seafloat-hybrid-power-plant

Armando Rodriguez, Seaboard CEO for the Dominican Republic, concludes: 

 “We are very excited about this project because it will be a big benefit to the community in terms of the environment and the employment we will provide to the area.

Seaboard Dominican Republic

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Cooperate with objective and ethical thinking…

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What is Artificial Intelligency?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the ability of a computer or a robot controlled by a computer to do tasks that are usually done by humans because they require human intelligence and discernment. Although there are no AIs that can perform the wide variety of tasks an ordinary human can do, some AIs can match humans in specific tasks.

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Bill Gates: A.I. is like nuclear energy — ‘both promising and dangerous’

Published Tue, Mar 26 2019

Catherine Clifford@IN/CATCLIFFORD/@CATCLIFFORD

Microsoft founder Bill Gates

Lintao Zhang/Getty Images

The power of artificial intelligence is “so incredible, it will change society in some very deep ways,” said billionaire Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.

Some ways will be good, some bad, according to Gates.

“The world hasn’t had that many technologies that are both promising and dangerous — you know, we had nuclear energy and nuclear weapons,” Gates said March 18 at the 2019 Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence Symposium at Stanford University.

According to Elon Musk, “cutting edge” AI is actually “far more dangerous than nukes.” But in Gates’ view, the most scary application of artificial intelligence is for warfare.

“The place that I think this is most concerning is in weapon systems,” Gates said at Stanford.

A 2018 report by AI and security technology experts, says that digital, physical and political attacks using artificial intelligence could include speech synthesis for impersonation; analysis of human behaviors, moods and beliefs for manipulation; automated hacking and physical weapons like swarms of micro-drones.

Jeff Bezos has also expressed concerns about killer AI.

“I think autonomous weapons are extremely scary,” said Bezos at the George W. Bush Presidential Center’s Forum on Leadership in April. The artificial intelligence tech that “we already know and understand are perfectly adequate” to create these kinds of weapons said Bezos, “and these weapons, some of the ideas that people have for these weapons, are in fact very scary.”

Meanwhile, AI also has the potential to do a lot of good for humanity, Gates said, because it can sort vast quantities of data much more proficiently and efficiently than humans.

“When I see it applied to something that without AI, it is just too complex, we never would have seen how that system works, that I feel like, ‘Wow, that is a very good thing.’”

For example, said Gates, the “nature of these technologies to find patterns and insights...is a chance to do something in terms of social science policy, particularly education policy, also, you know, health care quality, health care cost — it’s a chance to take systems that are inherently complex in nature,” Gates said.

“These systems should help us look not just at correlations but try interventions and see causation, as well. So it’s a chance to supercharge the social sciences.”

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An artist's rendering of the Global Gateway project Hyrasia One

Image: Spiegel by HYRASIA ONE

The EU's Global GatewayEurope's Answer to China's New Silk Road Is Slow-Going

The European Union wants to compete with China's New Silk Road via a multibillion-euro infrastructure initiative in Africa and Asia. But the project is meeting with resistance, even within its own ranks.

Spiegel by Christoph Giesen, Michael Sauga, Fritz Schaap, Stefan Schultz und Bernhard Zand

03.02.2023

In the barren steppes of southwestern Kazakhstan, not far from the Caspian Sea, the European Union's energy worries will soon evaporate if things go according to plan. Wind and solar plants with around 40 gigawatts of capacity are planned there, along with electrolysers to produce 2 million tons of green hydrogen per year – enough to meet one-fifth of the EU's estimated import needs in 2030.

The multibillion-euro project, which involves a Dresden company, is called Hyrasia One. It is meant to be a beacon for a greener economy – and a move against Vladimir Putin: Since the Russian army invaded Ukraine, Kazakhstan has been increasingly turning away from Moscow and looking for partners in the West.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is very enthusiastic about the project, because Hyrasia One is intended to be the driving force behind a 300-billion-euro offensive that von der Leyen has made a priority for her term in office: Global Gateway. The initiative, conceived as Europe's response to China's New Silk Road, aims to implement infrastructure projects around the world. Roads, ports and powerlines, internet cables and solar parks are intended to drive the economies of developing and emerging nations while helping Europe gain geopolitical influence.

In an internal list, the Global Gateway team has identified 70 lighthouse projects that can be launched this year. At the moment, officials in Brussels are selecting 30 projects that will be given priority for implementation. The regional focus is sub-Saharan Africa, with more than half of the project proposals located there. There are 14 projects in Central and South America, 13 in Asia and Oceania, and seven in the Balkans and North Africa.

The EU is planning deals for raw materials with Namibia and Chile as well as new power lines to the Western Balkans and Tunisia. And it wants to compete with Russia and China, partly in their backyards – with major projects in Central Asia, Indonesia and Vietnam.

Global Gateway marks a change in strategy for European foreign policy. For years, the EU had presented itself primarily as the representative of the good, the true and the nice, as the initiator of classic development aid. It had always been framed as focused on the welfare of the recipient countries. Europe benefited as well – even though this fact was often glossed over. With the Global Gateway program, the EU is now being more open about that self-interest.

Infrastructure investment is "at the heart of today's geopolitics," von der Leyen said at the project's first committee meeting in late 2021. According to an EU paper, Global Gateway will also secure worldwide supply chains. Brussels also wants to create what it sees as a counteroffer to Beijing, which views its New Silk Road initiative not only as an economic, but also as a socio-political project in which its own values and economic policy standards can be enforced.

The continent's strategic shift comes at a time when the global political climate is getting frostier. The pandemic and Russia's attack on Ukraine have temporarily driven energy prices to absurd heights and shown how vulnerable companies and countries are to global dependencies.

At the same time, China is emerging as a new superpower that is luring countries into a debt trap, securing access to raw materials worldwide and dominating a growing number of markets.

Many countries are responding to the new geopolitical reality by calling for "strategic autonomy," while at the same time trying to bind other countries to them through infrastructure investments. The United States, Japan and Australia want to make their mark on emerging and developing nations through the Blue Dot Network, while India, a medium-sized power, is promoting initiatives in South and Southeast Asia. The EU, however, has recently fallen behind in the global power game.

In Africa, for example, Brussels and Beijing each still had a share of around 40 percent of construction and infrastructure investments in 2010. By 2018, though, China's share had risen to around 60 percent, while that of the EU had fallen to just over 20 percent, the result of a short-sighted foreign policy.

For decades, it had mainly been the Europeans who had pushed ahead with major infrastructure projects in emerging and developing countries. Water-control projects along the banks of the Tigris River in Baghdad, the urban highways of Riyadh and Jeddah in Saudi Arabia or the street plan of Lagos in Nigeria are monuments to this era.

For decades, it had mainly been the Europeans who had pushed ahead with major infrastructure projects in emerging and developing countries. Water-control projects along the banks of the Tigris River in Baghdad, the urban highways of Riyadh and Jeddah in Saudi Arabia or the street plan of Lagos in Nigeria are monuments to this era.

But soon, the shadow side of Europe's construction drive became apparent. For the beneficiary countries, corruption scandals and "white elephants" proliferated: overpriced, outsized and ultimately useless projects. The EU began attaching increasingly stringent conditions to aid as part of its development policy.

The Global South, whose population has been growing as fast as its need for infrastructure, found a less critical helper in China. Like the Europeans before them, its predominantly state-owned construction companies were looking for new markets. And Beijing was seeking ways to expand its influence. In 2013, head of state Xi Jinping announced the New Silk Road project.

From the beginning, China's leadership made no distinction between development and geopolitics. The general population in developing and emerging countries is rarely involved in Silk Road projects. "In many cases, only the Chinese have access to Chinese foreign construction sites," says a Brussels-based development expert. "The Chinese plan it, the Chinese do the work and Chinese is spoken." The working conditions are often questionable, and climate change plays a subordinate role. Countries like Sri Lanka, Djibouti and Kyrgyzstan have become highly dependent on Beijing financially. On top of that, China is equipping dictators and autocrats with surveillance technology.

The EU long found it difficult to react to this in a unified manner. Around three years ago, a group of experts led by Thomas Wieser, a longtime top EU official, analyzed Brussels' funding policy. They issued a scathing verdict. A "multitude of actors at national and European levels" formed a "highly complex architecture" with many "overlaps, gaps and inefficiencies," stated the panel's final report. It said it lacked a "unified strategy." It added that "consolidation and focus" are needed to "strengthen the EU presence and EU development priorities."

Leading EU officials viewed the situation similarly. France and Germany, otherwise not always on the same page, endorsed Wieser's suggestions, as did the foreign and development policy experts in the European Parliament. Commission President von der Leyen ultimately adopted the recommendations after initial hesitation.

So far, though, not much has happened. "The excavators need to start rolling now," argues Nils Schmidt, the foreign policy point person for the center-left Social Democratic Party's (SPD) group in the German federal parliament. "The Commission must finally deliver," says Reinhard Bütikofer, a member of the European Parliament with the Green Party. But the minute details are threatening to wreck what could otherwise be a powerful impact.

Germán & Co

There is currently a dispute among member states about the regional focus of the initiative. Italy and France are calling for investment in Africa in particular. Spain and Portugal, on the other hand, are making the case for Latin America. And the Eastern European capitals want more money for the Western Balkans region.

There has also been little headway on the financial architecture for the project. The Wieser Commission had already criticized the fact that Europe's infrastructure funds are allocated by two financial institutions: the European Investment Bank (EIB) in Luxembourg and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in London. But rather than bundling lending at one institution, the European Commission merely promised better cooperation between the two.

The list of Europe's lighthouse projects looks correspondingly disjointed. Major projects in the transport and water management sectors are "underrepresented," says a critical Frank Kehlenbach, a Europe expert at the Central Federation of the German Construction Industry. Much is done in a scattershot manner: Sometimes it's a solar project for a few tens of thousands of people in Nigeria, sometimes, it's seawater desalination plant for Jordan.

Climate protection doesn't appear to be a particular priority – more than 40 percent of the projects are not explicitly committed to it. Projects are also planned in autocratic countries like Cameroon, Rwanda and the Congo. "The bottom line is they are likely to strengthen the position of the autocrats there," says Mark Furness of the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS) -- no matter how high the standards are for the projects themselves, and regardless of their positive impact.

The private sector, which is expected to provide a large part of the total 300 billion euros, doesn't feel sufficiently involved. So far, companies haven't even had direct contact in Brussels about whether they want to participate in the project. "There is a relatively high level of interest among companies," says Patricia Schetelig, deputy head of the International Markets Department at the Federation of German Industries (BDI). "But many are a little baffled right now."

This is even more so the case within the EU administration. There, a fundamental question has been reignited about whether Europe's geopolitics can really become that much more self-serving. There is also a general aversion to change. Some officials simply slap the Global Gateway label on old projects, but actually want to maintain the status quo, sources in Brussels say.

Although the Europe-initiated construction projects are supposed to set high labor and climate standards, the loans also forbidden from overburdening the participating countries. The problem there, though, is that even countries that are supposed to benefit from the funding have doubts about it. "We have seen recently that the EU and other development partners have made grandiose statements, but very little of it has actually been implemented," says Jason Braganza of Kenya, an economist and the director of the African Forum and Network on Debt and Development.

He says that for larger planned infrastructure projects, many of the companies, materials and experts all come from the EU. In the past, he says, they have often pushed through considerable tax reductions or even tax exemptions. The countries in question then had to forfeit those revenues. "Given the budget deficits and debts levels of many African countries, one has to question whether this is the appropriate financing model," Braganza says.

He views Global Gateway primarily as another attempt to gain access to the continent's resources. If the EU were about values, he argues, it could not do business in an environment plagued by corruption and kleptocracy.

Of all countries, China, which could feel provoked by Europe's newly awakened strategic ambitions, is currently pretending to be officially cooperative. At the time of the official presentation of Global Gateway at the end of 2021, Beijing was still badmouthing the initiative. Those who do business with the EU risk political and ideological dependencies, argued the party newspaper Global Times. It was the polar opposite of the Europeans' narrative.

Since the Taiwan crisis in August, China has been trying to woo the Europeans, in part to drive a wedge between the EU and the United States. But Beijing has recently been circulating a completely new spin on Global Gateway.

Following a visit by European Council President Charles Michel to Beijing in early December 2022, the official Xinhua news agency mentioned China's New Silk Road as well as the Global Gateway project in an article and trumpeted that "more fruitful results could be achieved in dialogue and cooperation in various fields." This could be interpreted as the suggestion that the two initiatives should cooperate, with China as the driving force.

Many in Brussels find that to be a little strange. Officials close to von der Leyen say they haven't heard of any talks with China about that kind of cooperation.

In any case, von der Leyen is pushing for things to move forward with Global Gateway. She has personally taken over the leadership of the supervisory board of Global Gateway and is looking for a prominent European politician to bring the apparatus into line as a special representative. One of those under discussion, former European Central Bank (ECB) head and former Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, has turned down the post. All the same, von der Leyen's head of cabinet, Björn Seibert, is coordinating development projects at the G-7 level.

The goal is to prevent a repeat of what happened in Nairobi to Bernd Lage, a member of the European Parliament who is also the head of its Trade Committee. He wanted to speak about EU projects there, but representatives of the Kenyan government talked almost exclusively about the capital city's new highway route, which Chinese corporations had completed in just a few years. "We would have needed 10 years in Europe, just to approve the project," says the politician, who is a member of the center-left Social Democrats.

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Germán & Co

War in Ukraine: Europe bans Russian diesel in order to weaken Putin

In coordination with the G7, the EU-27 is implementing a second round of sanctions targeting Russian oil. Products refined in Russia will be banned from February 5 and a price cap will be set.

Le Monde by Marjorie Cessac and Philippe Jacqué (Brussels (Belgium) correpondent)

Published on February 6, 2023 at 05h00

The first Russian oil embargo did not cause any upheaval in the world market. What will happen with the second?

Having stopped importing Russian crude oil at the beginning of December 2022, the European Union (EU), together with the G7 countries and Australia, prepared on Sunday, February 5, to launch the second part of its plan. They are banning the import of refined Russian oil products, mainly diesel but also kerosene, fuel oil and heating oil.

This measure is particularly sensitive, as Europe is so dependent on Russia for these products, particularly diesel. Despite the sharp drop in imports over the past year, Russian diesel still accounts for a quarter of the fuel imported into Europe. Every day, the EU consumes some 6.4 million barrels of diesel, while its refineries produce only 5 million barrels. The shortfall is offset by imports, of which about 700,000 barrels come from Russia. The rest come from the Gulf States, the United States and India.

In December, the EU set a price cap on Russian crude oil of $60 (about €56) per barrel. In parallel with the embargo, the EU has now also decided to set a price cap on refined Russian products. For premium fuels (diesel, kerosene, etc.), the price cannot exceed $100 per barrel. For simpler products, such as heating oil, the limit will be $45, "in order to put pressure on Russia's revenues while maintaining a fluid global market for these products," said a European diplomat. In concrete terms, Western countries are prohibiting service providers (transport, insurance, etc.) from transporting these Russian products beyond the fixed price.

Stocks and new sources

While the mechanism has been tried and tested for two months for crude oil, the EU member states nevertheless took time to agree on Friday, February 3. The Baltic States and Poland were campaigning for an additional reduction in the cap for crude oil and refined products in order to further reduce Russian revenues, said a diplomat from northern Europe. But other states, in the EU and in the G7, did not want to destabilize the market.

One source said, "In mid-March, after a comprehensive analysis of the mechanism in place, a decision will be taken on whether to change the level of the price cap." This decision "will further destabilize the international energy markets," warned Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Friday, adding that Moscow was "taking steps to cover [its] interests."

With these measures, will the EU run out of diesel, kerosene or fuel oil? "No, it has largely anticipated this embargo and increased its stocks in recent months by accelerating purchases," said Ben McWilliams, who is in charge of energy at the Bruegel Institute, a think tank. The stockpiles are helping to preserve the immediate supply for motorists, and also for the entire transport, agricultural and industrial sectors, which are highly dependent on these products. "Things should be fine in the short term," said McWilliams.

Among the new sources of supply, the Middle East, already a long-established supplier, will be at the forefront for economic reasons and because supply routes are shorter, compared with India, for example. Refineries in the Gulf are already running at full capacity and new plants under construction are expected to provide additional capacity by the end of 2023.

"In order of preference, the EU is expected first turn to the Gulf countries, then the United States and India," said Carmine de Franco, head of research at Ossiam. In January alone, Europe imported large amounts of refined products from the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and the United States. Between them, they exported the same level as Russia alone to Europe.

Redrawn flow map

De Franco added that "for its part, China buys cheap crude oil from Russia to refine and then sell on to other Asian countries," which should "free up resources that Europe can rely on."

Just as has happened with oil over the past two months, the map of refined product flows will be completely redrawn. In the case of crude oil, India and China, as well as Saudi Arabia for its domestic market, have taken many Russian deliveries at a price below the market. Saudi Arabia has consequently increased its exports to Europe.

In the case of refined products, where long-distance transport is more complex because the vessels are smaller, traders have so far observed a redirection of Russian oil product flows mainly to North Africa and Turkey, which suggests that Moscow, constrained by its fleet of tankers, prefers shorter routes.

According to Viktor Katona, an analyst at Kpler, the countries around the Mediterranean (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt and Turkey) are ideal places to carry out transshipments. These operations allow the transfer of cargo from one ship to another to make the journey. "Morocco, for example, buys Russian diesel that it mixes with local products to make them pass through European customs without hindrance," the expert explained.

In contrast, Sub-Saharan Africa, South America and Asia have seen much lower flows in recent months. In China and India, for example, diesel imports have remained lower (10,000 barrels per day on average). These countries have rebuilt their refining capacities and are now less tempted to import this type of product.

But Europe is not immune to a crisis. IFP New Energies (formerly the French Petroleum Institute) does not rule out "a more pessimistic scenario (...). If some of the Russian gas oil is not exported, due to constraints linked to either sanctions or transport costs, or even a Russian national decision to restrict them," this could increase prices everywhere.

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In France, the Russian diesel embargo keeps pressure on pump prices

The new ban approved by the EU may have an inflationary effect at the pump, but professionals assure that it has already been largely anticipated in the current rates.

Le Monde by Adrien Pécout

Published on February 6, 2023

Will France still be able to meet its diesel needs in the coming months? And, above all, at what price? This is a major concern for motorists in the country, where, at 55% of the fleet, diesel engines still outnumber gasoline ones. The concern will grow on Sunday, February 5, the start date of the European Union (EU) embargo on refined oil products from Russia, two months after the embargo on crude oil came into effect.

In January, the government replaced a systematic fuel discount across the board with an allowance of €100 per year for people with the lowest incomes, but prices at the pump have already climbed significantly higher: €1.94 per liter of diesel on average in the week of January 27. The peak in this area remains in March 2022 (€2.14 per liter). The month of June would certainly have exceeded this number without the government's rebate of €0.18 per liter.

The most significant impact has already occurred, according to the oil industry's employers' organizations because, since its outbreak in February 2022, the war in Ukraine has made Russian deliveries uncertain. In 2021, this represented about 9% of crude imports in France and 30% of diesel imports. "The embargo on Russian diesel has more impact in France than the one on crude oil, but this impact has been anticipated in diesel prices for several months," said Jean-Nicolas Fiatte, director general of the Professional Oil Committee.

'Looking further afield for fuel'

On a European scale, "as of March 2022, diesel prices in Rotterdam [the benchmark index in the Netherlands] have risen more than the price of crude oil [for North Sea Brent]," observed Olivier Gantois, president of the French Union of Petroleum Industries. They have risen so much that the gross refining margin – the difference between the value of the refined product and the initial value of the crude – has increased from one to more than seven times: €101 per tonne in 2022, as compared with €14 in 2021, according to figures compiled by the UFIP.

But, according to Andrew Wilson, head of analysis for the French shipping broker BRS, prices could still rise for reasons of logistics. "Europe will have to look further afield for fuel, which means paying higher shipping costs, and that will depend a lot on the cost of replacement barrels," said Wilson. Instead of Russian ships crossing the Baltic, larger vessels could come from North America, the Middle East, India or even China.

"We are going to use our global refining system, particularly in Saudi Arabia, to supply our service station networks in Europe as a priority," said Patrick Pouyanné, head of the oil company TotalEnergies, in an interview with the Belgian dailies L'Echo and De Tijd on January 28. Gantois said that "the embargo should not affect the availability of diesel in France, as a system of communicating vessels with other areas than Europe will be at work."

There is also increasing structural pressure on diesel, and therefore on its price. Over the past decade, several refineries in Europe have closed – for example, those at Dunkirk (northern France), Reichstett (northeast) and Berre (south) – which has increased the use of contracts from further afield. This is a "profound strategic error," said Thierry Defresne of the General Workers' Confederation union (CGT) for TotalEnergies.

"In France, successive governments have allowed the destruction of refining," said the trade unionist. "Rather than securing imports, we were asking for the possibility of refining within France all the oil the country uses, in an effort for energy independence." In its January report on the oil market, the International Energy Agency wrote that in December 2022, Russia was still exporting a record 1.2 million barrels of diesel per day – 60% of this was destined for the EU.

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Source: El País, The Cerro Dominador concentrated solar power plant in Chile’s Atacama Desert.JOHN MOORE

Chile, the land of mines, leads the way in solar energy

The Latin American country has far exceeded its goal to reach 20% of energy production from renewable sources by 2025

El País by NOOR MAHTANI

In the middle of the Atacama Desert, 10,600 mirrors face skyward. Each one measures 140 square meters and weighs about three tons. Their function is to follow the sun’s trajectory, reflecting and directing the radiation towards the receiver and converting it into energy. The Concentrated Solar Power plant occupies 1,000 hectares and is located in northern Chile’s Cerro Dominador. This area has the highest level of solar incidence in the world and is the site of Latin America’s first solar thermal plant. Most of the country’s clean energy is generated there and, because of the plant, Chile achieved one of its most ambitious environmental targets last year, four years ahead of schedule.

The country set itself the goal of producing 20% of its energy from non-conventional renewable energy (NCRE) by 2025. This year, the percentage has already reached 31.1%, according to the Chilean Association of Renewable Energies and Storage (Acera). This comes primarily from photovoltaic energy, which represents 15% of the country’s renewable energy. Cerro Dominador’s proximity to Chile’s large mining areas has also made it easier for that industry to incorporate more solar energy. In 2019, mining’s use of renewable energies did not exceed 3.6%, but it rose to 10.5% in 2020. In 2021, solar energy consumption in the mining sector reached the milestone of 36.2%. That rate is projected to climb to 50% by the end of this fiscal year.

The turning point came in 2013. Over the last decade, clean technology prices have fallen by almost 90%, a trend that is set to continue. Javier Jorquera Copier, an analyst at the International Energy Agency, says that the boom in renewable energy sources is multifactorial and promising: “Government-led auction schemes, competitive bidding in the deregulated electricity market and, more recently, the country’s hydrogen strategy, are driving the solar PV boom in Chile,” he says.

Although Chile hasn’t implemented subsidies for large-scale solar generation, there are some government incentives for people to install solar panels at the residential level, such as the public solar roofs program and net billing, an initiative that allows Chileans to generate their own energy, consume it, and sell their surplus at a set price. Constanza Levicán, an electrical engineer and the founder of Suncast, a Chilean startup that uses artificial intelligence to assess NCRE, is somewhat more critical of the state’s failure to intervene. “If Chile had promoted this industry earlier, it could have positioned itself as an expert in the sector and exported its services to the world,” she says.

Chile has optimal conditions for clean energy production

Nevertheless, Chile has made one of the fastest green transitions in the world, according to Fernando Branger, an energy specialist coordinator at the Inter-American Development Bank. As he explains, the country has opted for a “powerful diversification of energy sources” as a result of greater awareness of global warming and international emission reduction targets. “On top of that, they have the resources. Just as their land is good for [producing] wine, it’s also good for generating solar energy,” he explains via a video call. “The mining industry worked to include it, and there are financial instruments that compensate for the fact that solar energy does not work at night.”

Chile’s conditions are optimal. The Atacama Desert’s average solar irradiation is approximately double the average of Spain’s, for example. Álvaro Lorca, a professor of engineering in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the Catholic University of Chile agrees about the importance of changing the narrative around emissions and climate change. “A real effort goes into making that transition and doing away with coal as well,” he explains. The government’s goal is to eliminate this energy source entirely by 2040 and “everything points to the fact that it could be replaced by solar. It is already competitive in the market today,” Lorca adds.

Switching a third of the country’s energy to clean sources in such a short timeframe makes the commitment to sustainability tangible. In fact, Chile’s new National Energy Policy is even more ambitious; it aims to reach a target of 80% by 2030, which is a “feasible” goal, according to experts. Thus, Chile is paving the way for a region that currently generates 61% of its power capacity is from renewables, according to Energy Global.

However, solar and wind energy pose a significant challenge: transmitting production from sunny and windy areas to the places where energy demand is greastest, something which does not coincide geographically in Chile. “The solar photovoltaic plants in the north have not been able to pump electricity into the system at maximum potential, because of the lack of transmission capacity. The slow expansion of that infrastructure has caused delays in projects in the past and could slow the pace of expansion in the near future,” says Jorquera.

The most viable solution for resolving that shortfall involves investing in batteries that store production at night to avoid spillage and waste. “That is the next step. Chile will require more precise regulations to correct some inefficiencies,” says Branger. Those must be the next steps to be taken if Chile is to continue to lead in the field of renewable energy, he notes.

News round-up, Friday, February 3, 2023

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Editor's Reflections:

A Swedish Nightmare Its name is —Recep Tayyip Erdoğan—.

Any political decision that involves the gift of a Natural Gas Hub has significant weight.

Image: Germán & Co

Maybe this Swedish nightmare should have the same name as Gabriel García Marquez's book: "Chronicles of a death foretold.” Where the end of the story is known from the beginning in this tragic microcosm, in which Gabo explores the ancestral atavism of the virgin in Hispanic culture and weaves together concepts like public morality, family honour, and class consciousness while also elaborating a masterful twist on the indissoluble link between love and death, helped him win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982.

"Go on, girl: tell us who it was. She took just long enough to say the name. She searched for him in the darkness, found him at first sight among the many and many confusable names of this world and the other, and left him nailed to the wall with her accurate dart, like a butterfly whose sentence had always been written. -Santiago Nasar", he said.

There has been a professional and in-depth analysis of the controversy surrounding Turkey's veto of Sweden's application for NATO membership from all angles, including historical, political, and gender-related perspectives, because, at one point, the former Swedish foreign minister, Ms. Ann Linde, was blamed for being a woman, which supposedly made it challenging to negotiate with a state where men have held power for millennia.

This contentious topic was discussed in a Bloomberg piece published on November 8 last year:

“Swedish Gift to Turkey in NATO Talks Evokes Centuries of History, PM Kristersson gives Erdogan copy of 1739 alliance accord.”

The accord with the predecessor of the modern Turkish Republic is a symbol of the two nations’ commitment to each others’ security, the Swedish leader told Erdogan. It was signed roughly two decades after Sweden’s King Charles XII sought refuge at an Ottoman castle following a disastrous defeat at the Battle of Poltava against the Russians.

The ruler later became known as Demirbas, Turkish for fixed asset, for having his expenses borne by the Turks.

Erdogan’s Surprise In return, Turkey’s president said he had a “surprise” for his guest: an undated letter from a Swedish envoy in Istanbul, which expressed his king’s gratitude for financial help from the Ottomans and their mediation between Sweden and Russia.  Erdogan also gave Kristersson a decree from the same period that documented shipment of wheat to Sweden as a form of aid, citing it as a historic example of Turkey’s mediation role. “History repeating itself,” the Swedish premier said, according to the footage, in an apparent reference to Turkey’s role arbitrating in the war Russia started in Ukraine. “It would not, if lessons were to be drawn,” Erdogan answered.

“Very much agreed,” Kristersson replied.

Who is the President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan?

According to POLITICO EU, in his nomination POLITICO 28, for the year 2023, President Erdoğan calls the Wild Car. Why?

Whose side is Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on? The answer isn’t always clear. Ostensibly, the Turkish president leads a NATO member and a European Union candidate country. In reality, his relationship with the West is often transactional at best and hostile at worst. He has accused Germany of “Nazi practices” and routinely threatens to “open the doors” for migrants to move on to Europe, despite the bloc paying Turkey billions of euros to keep them there.

His relationship with Moscow is a case in point. Russia and Turkey once came to blows in Syria, but since the invasion of Ukraine, Erdoğan, 68, has largely portrayed himself as neutral, even accusing the West of “provocation” of Russia. (He also provoked the Kremlin himself by intimating that Crimea is not actually Ukrainian or Russian, but Turkish.) At the same time, Turkey played a key role in ensuring Ukraine’s ability to export grain via the Black Sea, and Erdoğan wants to play moderator in the case of a negotiated settlement between Moscow and Kyiv.

There’s also the status of Cyprus — which Turkey invaded and partly occupied in the 1970s — that Erdoğan has shown little willingness to resolve. He has become increasingly combative with Greece, a fellow NATO member, hinting he might invade if Athens continues a military buildup on islands close to Turkey’s coastline. While that remains an unlikely prospect, tensions in the eastern Mediterranean are heating up as the EU explores alternative gas supplies and the disputed gas-rich waters around Cyprus beckon.

Image: The Moscow Time by Vyacheslav Prokofiev / TASS

On 19 October last year, the following article from The Moscow Times was reproduced in the blog, indicating that Sweden would be highly complicated to enter the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) after hearing this news. Moreover, make clear the Kremlin's skill in its well-known high-flying lobbying expertise. Another skillful move by President Vladimir Putin

Erdoğan Announces Deal Whit Moscow to Create Gas Hub in Turkey

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Wednesday that he had agreed with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to create a "gas hub" in Turkey, the state-run RIA Novosti news agency reported.

During an address to the Turkish parliament, Erdogan cited Putin as saying Europe could obtain its gas supply from the hub in Turkey while Russia's supplies to Europe were disrupted by Ukraine-related sanctions and leaks at key pipelines.

Last week, the two leaders discussed the creation of the gas hub at a face-to-face meeting in the Kazakh capital Astana.

"Turkey has turned out to be the most reliable route for deliveries today, even to Europe,” Putin said last week.

Gas prices have skyrocketed since Russia's invasion of Ukraine began, and the EU has struggled to find alternative energy supplies after Russia decided to curtail its deliveries to Europe in response to Western sanctions.

On 19 October last year, the following article from The Moscow Times was reproduced in the blog, indicating that Sweden would be highly complicated to enter the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) after hearing this news. Moreover, make clear the Kremlin's skill in its well-known high-flying lobbying expertise. Another skillful move by President Vladimir  

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced on Wednesday that he had agreed with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to create a "gas hub" in Turkey, the state-run RIA Novosti news agency reported.

During an address to the Turkish parliament, Erdogan cited Putin as saying Europe could obtain its gas supply from the hub in Turkey while Russia's supplies to Europe were disrupted by Ukraine-related sanctions and leaks at key pipelines.

Last week, the two leaders discussed the creation of the gas hub at a face-to-face meeting in the Kazakh capital Astana.

"Turkey has turned out to be the most reliable route for deliveries today, even to Europe,” Putin said last week.

Gas prices have skyrocketed since Russia's invasion of Ukraine began, and the EU has struggled to find alternative energy supplies after Russia decided to curtail its deliveries to Europe in response to Western sanctions.

AFP contributed reporting.

Recap

It is because of the importance of common sense in the analysis, those two words rooted in everyday language that we used to use every day to judge a situation that seemed anomalous, irrational, deceitful because it was opposed to good finding and good sense, that is because it defied common sense. They seem to have been withdrawing from the collective imagination. Because common sense, to be such, must be precise, and the idea has been incubating that nothing can be qualified as true, that everything is open to opinion. That error does not exist as a category of analysis.

Any political decision that involves the gift of a Natural Gas Hub has significant weight.

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Quote of the day…

EU talks on fresh Russian oil price caps go to the wire

Ambassadors to meet again on Friday as Sunday deadline looms.

POLITICO EU bY CHARLIE COOPER

February 1, 2023

Pentagon says it is monitoring Chinese spy balloon spotted flying over US

Officials say balloon has been watched for a few days but has decided not to shoot it down for safety reasons

The Guardian by Julian Borger in Washington

Fri 3 Feb 2023

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Andres Gluski, President & CEO of the AES Corporation, had a productive first day at the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting #WEF2023 in Davos, Switzerland.

—that the kind of worldwide transformation urgently needed now , can only be achieved with the cooperation of the public and private sectors, Gluski said.

Over the next few days, about 1,700 CEOs and 400 other prominent personalities will gather in Davos to explore solutions to global concerns such as climate change, energy efficiency, and electrification.

Image: Andrés Gluski, President and CEO and Ricardo Manuel Falú, Senior Vice President and Chief Strategy and Commercial Officer and Madelka McCalla, Chief Corporate Affairs and Impact Officer at The AES Corporation

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Seafloat-hybrid-power-plant

Armando Rodriguez, Seaboard CEO for the Dominican Republic, concludes: 

 “We are very excited about this project because it will be a big benefit to the community in terms of the environment and the employment we will provide to the area.

Seaboard Dominican Republic

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Cooperate with ethical thinking…

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What is Artificial Intelligency?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the ability of a computer or a robot controlled by a computer to do tasks that are usually done by humans because they require human intelligence and discernment. Although there are no AIs that can perform the wide variety of tasks an ordinary human can do, some AIs can match humans in specific tasks.

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Barack Obama, Neural Nets, Self-Driving Cars & The Future of the World…

www.wired.com/2016/10/president-obama-mit-joi-ito-interview/

IT’S HARD TO think of a single technology that will shape our world more in the next 50 years than artificial intelligence. As machine learning enables our computers to teach themselves, a wealth of breakthroughs emerge, ranging from medical diagnostics to cars that drive themselves. A whole lot of worry emerges as well. Who controls this technology? Will it take over our jobs? Is it dangerous? President Obama was eager to address these concerns. The person he wanted to talk to most about them? Entrepreneur and MIT Media Lab director Joi Ito. So I sat down with them in the White House to sort through the hope, the hype, and the fear around AI. That and maybe just one quick question about Star Trek. —SCOTT DADICH

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Source by POLITICO EU. An EU-wide ban on Russian oil products — those from crude oil, such as diesel, gasoline and jet fuel — comes into force this Sunday, February 5, presenting a hard deadline for agreement

EU talks on fresh Russian oil price caps go to the wire

Ambassadors to meet again on Friday as Sunday deadline looms.

POLITICO EU bY CHARLIE COOPER

February 1, 2023

EU countries failed to strike a deal on a price cap for Russian oil products, with a deadline for settling the price now just days away.

Talks between EU ambassadors that were due to resume on Thursday have now been postponed until Friday while diplomats seek a compromise, six EU diplomats said. The European Commission last week proposed that — as part of a G7 coalition — the EU should enforce a price cap of $100 per barrel on products like diesel which trade above the price of crude oil and $45 for those that trade at a discount to crude.

But Poland and the three Baltic countries have pushed for lower caps and for the existing G7 price cap on Russian crude oil to be lowered from the current $60 per barrel. Russia's Urals export blend crude oil has been trading at between $46 and $52 per barrel in January. The more hawkish EU countries want to drive down the crude cap to between $40 and $50 to curb the fossil fuel revenues that fund Vladimir Putin's war on Ukraine. Diesel currently trades at around $120 to $130 per barrel.

An EU-wide ban on Russian oil products — those from crude oil, such as diesel, gasoline and jet fuel — comes into force this Sunday, February 5, presenting a hard deadline for agreement.

The G7 coalition price cap is due to come into force at the same time so that Western shipping firms and insurance companies can continue facilitating Russian oil exports sold at or below the cap level. The EU ban and the G7 caps are intended to work in parallel to trim Russia’s income while avoiding a major shock to global energy markets.

No progress was achieved at a meeting of EU ambassadors on Wednesday, which also discussed a new EU sanctions package on Russia’s ally Belarus. Three EU diplomats said that hawkish countries, spearheaded by Lithuania, are also pushing back against exemptions within the Belarus sanctions package for fertilizer, inserted to reflect other countries’ concerns about global food security.

The European Commission will now continue deliberations behind closed doors, with a view to finally striking a deal at the next meeting of ambassadors on Friday. Similar last-minute disagreements took place late last year over the price cap on Russian crude oil, with an original proposal of $65 to $70 per barrel being cut to $60 following opposition from Poland and Baltic countries.

“We trust that an agreement will be reached before February 5,” one EU diplomat said. A second diplomat said, meanwhile, that the bigger EU countries were becoming “fed up with the moral blackmail” of the hawkish coalition.

The EU’s ban on Russian diesel had led to fears of a supply crunch, but significant increases in imports in recent weeks have eased those concerns for now.

Some commentators have criticized the proposed cap levels for oil products.

Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, said the caps were too high to have a significant impact.

“This really represents window dressing by EU countries,” Myllyvirta said. “The aim must be to push Russia's selling prices far below where the market would set them, close to production costs, depriving Russia of excess profits. Instead, the mentality for too many countries is to set the cap levels so high as to only act as circuit breaker against price spikes.”

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Image: The Guardian

Pentagon says it is monitoring Chinese spy balloon spotted flying over US

Officials say balloon has been watched for a few days but has decided not to shoot it down for safety reasons

The Guardian by Julian Borger in Washington

Fri 3 Feb 2023 01.27 GMT

The Pentagon has said it is tracking a Chinese spy balloon flying over the United States but decided against shooting it down for safety reasons.

Defence officials said the balloon has been watched for a couple days since it entered US airspace, flying at high altitude. It has been monitored by several methods including manned aircraft, and has most recently been tracked crossing over Montana, where the US has some of its silo-based nuclear missiles. As a precaution, flights out of Billings Logan airport were suspended on Wednesday.

“The balloon is currently traveling at an altitude well above commercial air traffic and does not present a military or physical threat to people on the ground,” the Pentagon said in a statement.

“Instances of this kind of balloon activity have been observed previously over the past several years. Once the balloon was detected, the US government acted immediately to protect against the collection of sensitive information.”

US general’s ‘gut’ feeling of war with China sparks alarm over predictions

The incident comes just ahead of a visit to China by Antony Blinken, expected this weekend, when it is believed the US secretary of state will meet Xi Jinping. The trip has not been formally announced, but both Beijing and Washington have been talking about his imminent arrival.

A senior US defence official said the US has “engaged” Chinese officials through multiple channels and communicated the seriousness of the matter.

Pentagon officials said there was “high confidence” that it was Chinese, and that Joe Biden was briefed on the situation. The president asked for military options, but it was decided that there was too great a danger of debris harming people on the ground were it to be shot down.

Another factor in the decision was that, although it was flying over sensitive nuclear sites in Montana, it did not appear to be gathering any intelligence that could not be collected from satellites, so it was judged to be of little benefit to the Chinese.

Montana is home to one of the nation’s three nuclear missile silo fields at Malmstrom Air Force Base. All air traffic was halted at Montana’s Billings Logan international airport from 1.30pm to 330pm on Wednesday, as the military readied fighter jets and provided options to the White House.

Congressional leaders were briefed on the matter Thursday afternoon. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy later tweeted: “China’s brazen disregard for US sovereignty is a destabilising action that must be addressed.”

Montana Governor Greg Gianforte said he was briefed on Wednesday about the situation after the state’s National Guard was notified of an ongoing military operation taking place in its airspace, according to a statement from the governor and spokesperson Brooke Stroyke.

The object first flew over Alaska’s Aleutian Islands and through Canada before appearing over the city of Billings, Montana, on Wednesday, officials said.

Military experts say that use of high-altitude balloons is likely to increase over the coming years. They are much cheaper than spy satellites, are hard to spot by radar and difficult to shoot down, sometimes lingering for days after they have been punctured. They can “steer” by changing altitudes, using computers to calculate how to use winds going in different directions at different layers of the atmosphere. As well as surveillance, they could also carry bombs, in times of conflict.

In 2019, the US military used up to 25 experimental solar-powered high-altitude balloons to conduct wide-area surveillance tests across six midwestern states. The balloons were equipped with hi-tech radars designed to simultaneously track many individual vehicles day or night, through any kind of weather, and were intended to be used to monitor drug trafficking and potential homeland security threats.

Tensions with China are particularly high on numerous issues, ranging from Taiwan and the South China Sea to human rights in China’s western Xinjiang region and the clampdown on democracy activists in Hong Kong. Not least on the list of irritants are China’s tacit support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, its refusal to rein in North Korea’s expanding ballistic missile program and ongoing disputes over trade and technology.

Some Montana residents reported seeing an unusual object in the sky during the airport shutdown, but it’s not clear that what they were seeing was the balloon.

From an office window in Billings, Chase Doak said he saw a “big white circle in the sky” that he said was too small to be the moon.

He took some photos, then ran home to get a camera with a stronger lens and took more photos and video. He could see it for about 45 minutes and it appeared stationary, but Doak said the video suggested it was slowly moving.

“I thought maybe it was a legitimate UFO,” he said. “So I wanted to make sure I documented it and took as many photos as I could.”

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News round-up, Wednesday, February 1, 2023

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Quote of the day…

October 1962: missiles, lies and diplomacy

The Cuban missile crisis cover-up

How JFK and Robert Kennedy hid confidential letter to the US president from Nikita Khrushchev confirming the quid pro quo that saved the world from nuclear war.

Le Monde Diplomatique by Peter Kornbluh

Oil Giants, After Surge in Profits, Are Wary About Spending

Economic and military uncertainty clouds the outlook for Exxon, Chevron and other energy companies, whose bonanza from high prices is already fading.

NYT by Clifford Krauss

Inside a Nuclear War Bunker Built to Save Canada’s Leaders

Amid renewed tensions with Russia, tourists are flocking to a decommissioned nuclear fallout shelter that Canada built to preserve its government during a nuclear war.

NYT by Ian Austen

Wind and solar generated more electricity than gas or coal in the EU in 2022

A report by the think tank Ember found that the war in Ukraine and the energy crisis have accelerated the transition and have not caused a 'return to coal.'

Le Monde by Perrine Mouterde

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Accelerating the future of energy, together. Is it possible?

Can we power the things we love and green the planet at the same time? AES is the next-generation energy company with over four decades of experience helping businesses transition to clean, renewable energy. Isn't it time to connect to your energy future?

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Seafloat-hybrid-power-plant

Armando Rodriguez, Seaboard CEO for the Dominican Republic, concludes: 

 “We are very excited about this project because it will be a big benefit to the community in terms of the environment and the employment we will provide to the area.

Seaboard Dominican Republic

---

Cooperate with objective and ethical thinking…

---

What is Artificial Intelligency?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the ability of a computer or a robot controlled by a computer to do tasks that are usually done by humans because they require human intelligence and discernment. Although there are no AIs that can perform the wide variety of tasks an ordinary human can do, some AIs can match humans in specific tasks.

---

Illustration by Fran Pulido created with Midjourney

El País

Barack Obama, Neural Nets, Self-Driving Cars & The Future of the World…

IT’S HARD TO think of a single technology that will shape our world more in the next 50 years than artificial intelligence. As machine learning enables our computers to teach themselves, a wealth of breakthroughs emerge, ranging from medical diagnostics to cars that drive themselves. A whole lot of worry emerges as well. Who controls this technology? Will it take over our jobs? Is it dangerous? President Obama was eager to address these concerns. The person he wanted to talk to most about them? Entrepreneur and MIT Media Lab director Joi Ito. So I sat down with them in the White House to sort through the hope, the hype, and the fear around AI. That and maybe just one quick question about Star Trek. —SCOTT DADICH

www.wired.com/2016/10/president-obama-mit-joi-ito-interview/

Illustration by Fran Pulido created with Midjourney

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President John F Kennedy talks to Soviet ambassador Anatoly F Dobrynin and foreign minister Andrei Gromyko, White House, October 1962

Image: by Le Monde Diplomatique-Universal History Archive · UIG · Getty

October 1962: missiles, lies and diplomacy

The Cuban missile crisis cover-up

How JFK and Robert Kennedy hid confidential letter to the US president from Nikita Khrushchev confirming the quid pro quo that saved the world from nuclear war.

Le Monde Diplomatique by Peter Kornbluh

The Cuban missile crisis cover-up

President John F Kennedy talks to Soviet ambassador Anatoly F Dobrynin and foreign minister Andrei Gromyko, White House, October 1962

On 28 October 1962 – that dramatic day just over 60 years ago when Nikita Khrushchev publicly ordered the removal of nuclear ballistic missiles his forces had just installed on the island of Cuba – the Soviet premier sent a private letter to President John F Kennedy regarding the resolution of the most dangerous superpower confrontation in modern history. Officially, the USSR withdrew the missiles in return for a vague US non-invasion-of-Cuba guarantee. Secretly, however, the crisis was resolved when President Kennedy dispatched his brother Robert to meet with Soviet ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin on the evening of 27 October and agree to a top-secret deal: US missiles in Turkey for Soviet missiles in Cuba.

‘I feel I must state to you that I do understand the delicacy involved for you in an open consideration of the issue of eliminating the US missile bases in Turkey,’ Khrushchev wrote to Kennedy in his private note (1), seeking to confirm the arrangement in writing. ‘I take into account the complexity of this issue and I believe you are right about not wishing to publicly discuss it.’

Dobrynin gave the confidential letter to Attorney General Robert Kennedy on 29 October. But instead of passing it on to the president, the next day Kennedy returned the letter to the Soviet ambassador. The United States would ‘live up to our promise, even if it is given in this oral form,’ Kennedy told him, but there would be no written record. ‘I myself, for example, do not want to risk getting involved in the transmission of this sort of letter, since who knows where and when such letters can surface or be somehow published,’ Dobrynin’s detailed report to the Kremlin quoted Kennedy as saying. ‘The appearance of such a document could cause irreparable harm to my political career in the future. This is why we request that you take this letter back.’

An epic cover-up

So began the epic cover-up of how the crisis actually ended and nuclear war was averted. President Kennedy was determined to keep the missile swap secret – to safeguard US leadership of the NATO alliance of which Turkey was a member, as well as to protect his political reputation, which, like his brother’s, would suffer if it became known that he had actually negotiated with the USSR in order save the world from self-destruction. To hide the quid pro quo, the president took a number of active measures: among them lying to his White House predecessors, misleading the media, and orchestrating a political hatchet job on his own UN ambassador, Adlai Stevenson – the first, and virtually the only, advisor to urge Kennedy to consider a missile exchange to resolve the crisis diplomatically, without the use of force. After JFK’s assassination, a handful of his former White House aides sustained the cover-up. They would maintain a wall of silence that endured for more than 25 years, obfuscating the true history, and real lessons, of the cold war crisis that brought the world to the brink of nuclear Armageddon.

Within hours of Khrushchev’s radio broadcast on the morning of 28 October, announcing his order to dismantle and repatriate the nuclear missiles, President Kennedy began to spread a false narrative of how the crisis had concluded. His secret White House taping system captured Kennedy’s phone calls to his three surviving predecessors – Dwight Eisenhower, Harry Truman, and Herbert Hoover – about how he had dealt with it. He misled Eisenhower, telling him that ‘we couldn’t get into that [Turkey] deal,’ as missile crisis historian Sheldon Stern reported in his book Averting ‘the Final Failure’ (2).

‘We rejected that,’ he lied to Truman, about Khrushchev’s public demand on the Jupiter missiles in Turkey, saying that ‘they came back with and accepted the earlier proposal’ on the non-invasion pledge (3). To Hoover, Kennedy falsely reported that the Soviets had gone back ‘to their more reasonable position’ on non-invasion.

The next day, the president conferred with his brother about Khrushchev’s unexpected letter on the missile swap and decided that there should be no paper trail about the secret agreement. ‘President Kennedy and I did not feel correspondence on our conversations was very helpful at this time,’ was the message Robert Kennedy sent to Dobrynin, according to Kennedy’s top-secret account of their meeting. ‘He understood our conversation, and in my judgement nothing more was necessary.’

Fostering media stories

The president then set about fostering stories in the media that would distance him from any speculation about a quid pro quo. He gave a green light to his closest friend, Charles Bartlett, whom he had used as a secret emissary to Soviet intelligence officials during the missile crisis, to write the inside story of decision-making that ended the conflict; Bartlett teamed up with another Kennedy confidant, Stewart Alsop, to co-author the controversial article ‘In Time of Crisis’ for the Saturday Evening Post, which began to circulate around Washington in early December 1962 (4).

The Saturday Evening Post story established the official narrative of how the missile crisis was resolved. Indeed, the opening quote of the article, ‘We’re eyeball to eyeball, and I think the other fellow just blinked’ – attributed to Secretary of State Dean Rusk during the crisis – instantly became the iconic summation of how the world was spared the fate of atomic Armageddon. Threatening to invade Cuba, Kennedy had resolutely won the game of nuclear chicken with the Soviets; Nikita Khrushchev had ‘blinked’, withdrawn the missiles and given America a major cold war victory. ‘Rusk’s words,’ the authors of the article intoned, ‘epitomise a great moment in American history.’

But the article also contained a savage political smear on UN ambassador Adlai Stevenson, casting him as ‘soft’ on the Soviets for favouring political negotiations over military action. Worse, he was an appeaser. Alsop and Bartlett quoted an ‘unadmiring official’ as stating that ‘Adlai wanted a Munich. He wanted to trade US bases for Cuban bases.’ Before it was published, the editors of the Saturday Evening Post began distributing the article to the New York and Washington media with a press release titled ‘The controversial and hitherto unrevealed role played by UN ambassador Adlai Stevenson during the height of the Cuba crisis’. The attack on Stevenson immediately set off a political firestorm, as President Kennedy must have known it would.

As Kennedy White House aide Arthur Schlesinger Jr recounted in his widely read memoir A Thousand Days, on 1 December the president summoned him to the Oval Office and told him that the forthcoming article ‘accused Stevenson of advocating a Caribbean Munich’. Because of Kennedy’s close friendship with Bartlett, the president said, ‘everyone will suppose that it came out of the White House.’ He told Schlesinger to ‘tell Adlai that I never talked to Charlie or any other reporter about the Cuban crisis, and that this piece does not represent my views.’

In truth, Kennedy had talked to Bartlett as the story was being written; it did represent his views, or at least his political purposes, since he had surreptitiously edited the article and orchestrated the hatchet job on Stevenson as a way to distance the White House from how the missile crisis really ended. ‘In fact, the “nonadmiring official” was Kennedy himself,’ historian Gregg Herken revealed in his book The Georgetown Set: Friends and Rivals in Cold War Washington (Knopf, 2014).

‘The president had pencilled in the “Munich” line when he annotated a typescript of the draft article,’ Herken wrote, drawing on interviews with members of Stewart Alsop’s family and correspondence between Alsop and the executive editor of the Saturday Evening Post, Clay Blair Jr, letters published in full for the first time – 60 years after the missile crisis – by my organisation, the National Security Archive (5). President Kennedy’s role ‘must remain Top Secret, Eyes Only, Burn After Reading, and so on,’ Alsop wrote to Blair four months after Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, when his editor urged him to write a ‘tell-all’ about the president’s participation in the drafting of the article. The manuscript page with the president’s handwritten remarks, Alsop said, had been returned to Kennedy in 1962 and destroyed. ‘I sent the ms to Himself as a Christmas present, through Charlie [Bartlett]. It has long since been reduced to ashes,’ Alsop wrote. ‘It would have made an interesting footnote to history, at that.’

In the years following Kennedy’s assassination, his top advisors, though privy to the secret deal, sustained the sacred myth of the Cuban missile crisis. Early memoirs from former officials such as Theodore Sorensen, among others, withheld all references to the missile swap. Robert Kennedy’s diary of the crisis did contain a detailed account of his climactic 27 October 1962, meeting with Dobrynin about the quid pro quo. But when the diaries were posthumously published in 1969 as the best-selling book Thirteen Days, those passages were omitted. Twenty years later, at a Moscow conference on the missile crisis, Sorensen confessed that he had quietly cut the references to the missile trade (6). ‘I was the editor of Robert Kennedy’s book,’ he admitted. ‘And his diary was very explicit that [Turkey] was part of the deal; but at that time, it was still a secret even on the American side … So I took it upon myself to edit that out of his diaries.’

‘There was no leak,’ former national security advisor McGeorge Bundy wrote in his book Danger and Survival: Choices About the Bomb in the First Fifty Years, finally revealing the cover-up in 1988 (7). ‘As far as I know, none … of us told anyone else what had happened. We denied in every forum that there was any deal.’

Indeed, only in the late 1980s and early 1990s did the full history of the diplomacy, negotiation, and compromise that resolved the missile crisis finally emerge. In 1987 the John F Kennedy Presidential Library began to release declassified transcripts of the secret tapes that recorded Kennedy’s meetings with his advisors during the conflict; they captured the president weighing the merits of a missile trade that might avert a nuclear conflagration. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian foreign ministry archives began to share key documentation, including Dobrynin’s cables to Moscow reporting on his meetings with Robert Kennedy. A series of international conferences, including 30th and 40th anniversary meetings in Havana bringing together surviving Kennedy White House officials, former Soviet military commanders and Fidel Castro, significantly advanced the historical record on how the dangerous nuclear confrontation began – and how it really ended.

That historical record remains immediately relevant today, as Russia’s threats to use nuclear weapons in its war of aggression against Ukraine have created another ‘time of crisis’. The degree to which the lessons of the past are applicable to the present remains unknown. But 60 years ago, in his 28 October 1962 letter to President Kennedy (8), Nikita Khrushchev issued a prescient warning for coexistence in a world of nuclear weapons: ‘Mr President, the crisis that we have gone through may repeat again. This means that we need to address the issues which contain too much explosive material. But we cannot delay the solution to these issues, for continuation of this situation is fraught with many uncertainties and dangers.’

Peter Kornbluh

Peter Kornbluh is co-author, with William M LeoGrande, of Back Channel to Cuba: the Hidden History of Negotiations Between Washington and Havana (University of North Carolina Press, 2014) and author of The Pinochet File: a Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability (The New Press, 2013). This article was first published in The Nation. To subscribe to The Nation go to this link.

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Oil Giants, After Surge in Profits, Are Wary About Spending

Economic and military uncertainty clouds the outlook for Exxon, Chevron and other energy companies, whose bonanza from high prices is already fading.

NYT by Clifford Krauss

Feb. 1, 2023

Exxon Mobil made $56 billion in profit last year, its largest annual haul ever. Chevron earned $36 billion, also a company record. But after a bountiful 2022, the outlook for those companies and other big oil and gas producers is cloudy.

They benefited for much of last year from higher prices for nearly all fuels as the continued recovery from the pandemic slowdown increased demand and the Russian invasion of Ukraine strained supplies. The landscape already looks different.

Exxon’s fourth-quarter profit of $12.75 billion, while strong, was down sharply from the $19.7 billion it earned in the third quarter. Oil prices have settled to a level more than a third lower than their peak shortly after the Ukraine war began last February, and natural gas prices have crashed by 70 percent from their highs in August, mostly because of an unseasonably warm winter in much of Europe and the United States.

“We don’t know what’s ahead in 2023,” Mike Wirth, Chevron’s chief executive, told analysts last week, adding that the uncertainty called for “operational discipline.”

The U.S. Energy Department has projected that prices for Brent crude oil, the global benchmark, will average $83 a barrel this year — historically high, but 18 percent below 2022 levels. Gasoline-refining margins will slide by nearly 30 percent this year, the department forecasts, leading to a national average price for regular gasoline of $3.30 a gallon, more than a dollar below prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in early 2022. The department also expects natural gas prices to average 25 percent below last year’s.

While lower prices are a comfort for consumers, they take a toll on companies’ bottom lines.

Oil and gas companies expect a profitable 2023, but revenues and profits should drop below those in 2022. And even while celebrating their profits, executives caution that the oil business is subject to abrupt swings in supply and demand.

So the companies have promised investors not to repeat the past mistake of drilling so much that prices crash. They have been hesitant to move aggressively to expand production — as President Biden urged them to do when supplies were pinched — or take meaningful steps to build profitability around cleaner fuels. That restraint could mean tighter markets and higher prices unless there is a serious recession.

Mike Wirth, Chevron’s chief executive, told analysts last week that the company would remain focused on “operational discipline.”Credit...Brendan Mcdermid/Reuters

Instead, executives said they were committed to returning surplus cash to shareholders by increasing dividends and buying back shares. Chevron announced a $75 billion buyback program last week. Exxon announced its own $50 billion repurchase plan in December.

While critics often accuse the oil industry of profiteering when prices are high, executives say their companies are prone to cycles. Their share prices have rocketed over the last year after a decade of underperforming almost every other industry. Only two years ago, Exxon reported an annual loss as demand collapsed because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The variables that will determine oil companies’ profitability this year are largely out of their control — in both supply and demand. The war in Ukraine could expand or not; a recession in the United States and Europe could be deep or averted entirely. Prices for fuels, and inflation generally, will largely depend on how events play out.

Despite the war, Europe’s economy in recent months has been stronger than expected, in large part because the mild winter has kept gas demand and prices in check.

The International Energy Agency has projected that oil demand this year will grow modestly, by nearly two million barrels a day, reaching 101.7 million barrels a day. That may support oil company profits.

As pandemic restrictions have eased, an increase in air travel has added to the demand on refineries for jet fuel. The ability of oil companies to provide fuel at reasonable prices could be stretched, especially since they have been cautious about increasing production.

And with lockdowns lifted in China, its economy should grow faster, and demand for oil and gas should increase, if the country can overcome a new virus surge. But the picture remains unfocused. Chinese oil imports remain low for the moment, and Chinese refineries are gearing up for a recovery by producing more fuels for domestic consumption and export.

Another wild card is Russia.

With Russia’s war in Ukraine, Russian oil and gas supplies might be constrained by lower production because of Western sanctions and a lack of foreign investment. Before the war, Russia produced one out of every 10 barrels of oil consumed worldwide. Its exports have declined, although more slowly than many analysts expected at the outset of the war.

Overall, many in the industry are betting that the balance will tip toward high demand, not a glut.

“Against tight supply, demand for oil and gas is strong, and we believe it will remain so,” Jeff Miller, chief executive of Halliburton, one of the largest oil-field service companies, told analysts last week. He said the only way to address the supply side of the equation would be “multiple years of increased investment.”

Even with last year’s bottom-line bonanza for the oil companies, executives have been wary of aggressively pursuing new investments that would yield production gains. But there are indications that they may be recalibrating that risk aversion.

“We are underinvesting as an industry,” Darren Woods, Exxon’s chief executive, told analysts Tuesday, noting that many oil fields were depleting. “We see the potential for continued tight markets.”

Exxon reported in December that it would spend $23 billion to $25 billion on exploration and production this year, which experts say could drive an increase of more than 10 percent in its production of oil and gas. That is a partial reversal from declines in activity during the pandemic.

Mr. Woods said Tuesday that Exxon’s capital spending relative to competitors’ would be an advantage as the company pushed forward with developing fields in the Permian Basin straddling Texas and New Mexico, and offshore Guyana and Brazil.

He was particularly upbeat about Exxon’s refining-business profits.

“With economies picking up, and China coming out of its Covid lockdown and economic growth there,” he said, “we’ll continue to see that tightness and high refining margins.”

Chevron plans to spend roughly $17 billion this year on exploration and production, over 25 percent more than it did last year but still less than the company had projected it would spend in 2020 before the pandemic slashed demand for energy during most of 2020 and 2021.

American oil companies have increasingly focused their investments in the Western Hemisphere. Last year, Chevron broke its record for oil and gas production in the United States even as its global output declined by more than 3 percent in 2022 from the year before. Exxon reported that it increased its combined production in Guyana and the Permian Basin, its principal growth drivers, by over 30 percent.

But the major oil companies, particularly Exxon, Chevron and ConocoPhillips, may be rethinking that strategy, and cautiously moving back to the Middle East, after decades in which they looked elsewhere to avoid the turbulence of political strife and expropriations.

Exxon recently announced that it had acquired two deepwater blocks for gas exploration off Egypt. That gives the company a large unbroken stretch of sea between Egypt and Cyprus to explore for gas that could eventually help Europe overcome the loss of Russian supplies.

Chevron, which operates two gas fields off Israel, recently announced a large discovery off Egypt. In his conference call with analysts, Mr. Wirth said Chevron was working on development plans in Israeli waters and elsewhere in the East Mediterranean.

“We’ve got seismic and we’re developing our exploration plans,” he said. “You’ll hear more about that as we go forward. So, it’s a high priority.”

Clifford Krauss is a national business correspondent based in Houston, covering energy. He has spent much of his career covering foreign affairs and was a winner of the Overseas Press Club Award for international environmental reporting in 2021.

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Image: The 387-foot long blast tunnel, which was designed to absorb energy from a bomb dropped on downtown Ottawa.Credit...Ian Austen/The New York Times

Inside a Nuclear War Bunker Built to Save Canada’s Leaders

Amid renewed tensions with Russia, tourists are flocking to a decommissioned nuclear fallout shelter that Canada built to preserve its government during a nuclear war.

NYT by Ian Austen

Jan. 25, 2023

OTTAWA — Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine last year, Christine McGuire’s museum began receiving inquiries unlike anything she’d previously encountered during her career.

“We had people asking us if we still functioned as a fallout shelter,” said Ms. McGuire, the executive director of Diefenbunker: Canada’s Cold War Museum. “That fear is still very real for people. It seems to have come back into the public psyche.”

The Diefenbunker still has most of the form and features of the nuclear fallout shelter it once was for Canadian government and military V.I.P.s. But the underground complex, decommissioned in 1994, has shifted from being a functioning military asset to being a potent symbol of a return to an age when the world’s destruction again seems a real possibility with a nuclear-armed Russia raising the specter of using the weapons.

The Diefenbunker history is not just of global tension but also of Canada’s parsimonious approach to civil defense, optimistic thinking about the apocalypse and Canadians’ antipathy toward anything they perceive as a special deal for their political leaders. Now, the privately run museum is one of the few places in the world where visitors can tour a former Cold War bunker built to house a government under nuclear attack.

These factors have made the four-story-deep, 100,000-square-foot warren of about 350 rooms into an unexpectedly popular tourist attraction despite its off-the-beaten-path location, in the village of Carp within the city limits of Ottawa, Canada’s capital.

Robert Bothwell, a professor of history at the University of Toronto, was on the board of an Ontario cultural organization during the 1990s when a group of volunteers proposed turning the bunker into a museum. At that time, he said, several other volunteer-based museums had failed to attract visitors even with ample funding.

“So I thought: ‘Diefenbunker? Give me a break,’” he said. “But I was totally wrong.”

Since its construction began in 1959, the bunker has carried a variety of official names: Emergency Army Signals Establishment, Central Emergency Government Headquarters and Canadian Forces Station Carp. But it came to be known as the Diefenbunker after John Diefenbaker, the prime minister who commissioned it, more as a form of mockery than in his honor.

For almost two years, during its construction, the bunker and 10 other much smaller bunkers across the country were disguised as military communications centers, which, in fact, was part of their role.

But The Toronto Telegram newspaper exposed the Diefenbunker’s true nature in 1961 with a detailed aerial photograph of its construction site. The photograph showed that dozens of toilets were to be installed, a sign that the complex would be more than a small radio base. Above the photograph, the headline read: “78 BATHROOMS — and the Army still won’t admit that … THIS IS THE DIEFENBUNKER.”

Unlike the United States, Canada did not establish an extensive network of stocked fallout shelters to protect civilians, said Andrew Burtch, a historian at the Canadian War Museum and the author of a book about the country’s limited civil defense system.

Part of it was simply cost, he said. But he said that the military also assumed that the Soviets had reserved their then-limited number of warheads for the United States and would not “waste” them on Canadian targets. In that scenario, planners assumed that radiation from Soviet bombers shot down over Canada would be the main threat. That led, Dr. Burtch said, to a civil defense system in which, “for the most part, the public was on its own.”

Mr. Diefenbaker acknowledged the bunker’s purpose after the aerial photograph appeared and vowed that he would never visit it and would stay home with his wife if the bombers and missiles came. But outrage over the exclusive bunker — reserved for 565 people, including the prime minister and his 12 most senior cabinet ministers — persisted. Compounding the outcry, the government refused to disclose the cost of the bunker, estimated at 22 million Canadian dollars in 1958 money, or about 220 million today.

From the outside, the Diefenbunker looks like a grassy hillside with a few vents poking up from behind the ground, along with a handful of antennas, one quite tall. The entrance, added during the 1980s, is via a metal building with a roll-up garage door that opens to the blast tunnel, an area designed to absorb energy from a bomb dropped on downtown Ottawa. Stretching for 387 feet, the blast tunnel connects to a set of doors, weighing one and four tons each, and then next is a decontamination area that opens to the rest of the bunker.

Much of the interior of the utilitarian and brightly lit space is a restoration of the original, which was stripped after the complex was decommissioned and replaced with similar or identical items from smaller bunkers or military bases.

The prime minister’s office and suite is spartan, its only touch of luxury being a turquoise-colored washroom sink.

The war cabinet room has an overhead projector and four television sets. A military briefing room immediately next door has a projector that tracked planes.

The bunker is surrounded by thick layers of gravel on all sides to help mitigate the shock of any nearby nuclear explosions. Its plumbing fixtures are mounted on thick slabs of rubber and connected with hoses rather than pipes for the same reason.

The most secure and best protected area of the bunker was a vault behind a door so immense it requires a second, smaller door to be opened first to equalize the air pressure. It was intended as a place for Canada’s central bank, the Bank of Canada, to place gold should an attack appear imminent. There’s no record that the bank ever delivered gold there, a Bank of Canada spokesman said, and the vault became a gym in the 1970s.

A small armory was raided in 1984 by a corporal stationed in the bunker. He stole a large number of weapons, including two submachine guns, and 400 rounds of ammunition before driving to Quebec City where he shot and killed three people and injured 13 others at the province’s legislative assembly.

The complex was designed to store enough food and generator fuel to support occupants for 30 days after a nuclear attack, under the assumption that by then radiation levels above ground would be low enough for everyone to emerge.

But the need never arose, and the bunker remained scorned. Ultimately, the only prime minister to tour it was Pierre Elliott Trudeau, the father of Justin Trudeau, the current prime minister, who flew in on a military helicopter in 1976. After the trip, his government cut its budget.

Visitors stream here now from across Canada and abroad to experience for themselves this window into the Cold War past — and perhaps for a sense of the security that many crave today.

It’s also a rare opportunity to step inside a bunker built to withstand a nuclear Armageddon.

While bunkers from various wars are dotted around the world and open to visitors, major Cold War ones are much less common. A decommissioned bunker under the Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia — intended to hold all of the members of Congress — offers tours, but bans phones and cameras.

Gilles Courtemanche, a volunteer tour guide at the Diefenbunker, was a soldier stationed there in 1964, when he was 20. He worked there for two years as a signalman, setting up and maintaining communications and computer infrastructure. He was one of the 540 people, civilians and military members, who operated the bunker on three shifts before it was decommissioned.

Things have come full circle for him and for Canada. The Cold War of his youth has mutated to new kinds of threats, he said.

“It’s an important thing that we have here,” Mr. Courtemanche said, referring to the museum’s ability to remind visitors of threats past and present. “Now, China is starting to flex their muscles, and the Russians? Well, I don’t understand what they are doing at all. To me, it’s insanity.”

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AES Keystone Aerial From Side Cornfield

Wind and solar generated more electricity than gas or coal in the EU in 2022

A report by the think tank Ember found that the war in Ukraine and the energy crisis have accelerated the transition and have not caused a 'return to coal.'

Le Monde by Perrine Mouterde

Published on February 1, 2023

In the wake of the outbreak of war in Ukraine, the reopening of coal-fired power plants triggered fears that the energy crisis would deal a severe blow to the fight against global warming in Europe. That worst-case scenario seems to have been avoided. According to a report by the think tank Ember, published on Tuesday, January 31, 2022, Europe has instead seen an acceleration in the deployment of solar and wind power, with the crisis having only a "minor effect" on coal-fired power generation.

In 2022, wind and solar together produced more electricity (22%) than coal (16%) in the European Union (EU), but also more than gas (20%) – a first. "All fears of a coal comeback are now dead," insisted Dave Jones, head of data analysis at Ember. "Not only are European countries still committed to phasing out coal, they're now also working to phase out gas."

Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine, coal use did jump, increasing by 35% in March 2022 compared to March 2021. But this trend has not continued. In the last four months of the year, electricity generation from this fossil fuel was lower than it was a year earlier. According to Ember's count, the 26 coal-fired generation units brought back online operated at only 18% of their capacity in the last quarter. The think tank also noted that the EU used only one-third of the additional 22 million tons of coal imported in 2022.

France, a net importer

All in all, the balance sheet is still negative. Coal-fired power generation increased by 7% in 2022, contributing to a 3.9% increase in greenhouse gas emissions from the electricity sector. "It could have been much worse: wind, solar and a decline in electricity demand prevented a much larger return to coal," the report said.

The year 2022 was actually marked by two major phenomena. Firstly, with Europe experiencing its worst drought in at least five hundred years, hydroelectric generation reached its lowest level in over twenty years (down 19% compared to 2021) – France was one of the most affected countries. Then, nuclear production also reached its lowest level in history (down 16% compared to 2021). This was due in particular to the shutdown of an unprecedented number of French reactors for maintenance operations and corrosion problems, as well as the gradual closure of the last German plants.

Historically Europe's largest electricity exporter, France was a net importer in 2022. "Without France's problems, it's highly likely that coal-fired power generation would not have increased in Spain," wrote the report's authors. "France also likely contributed to part of the increase in production in Germany."

24% increase in solar generation

Wind power, but especially solar power, offset electricity needs by a very large margin. Solar generation increased by a record 24%, producing more than 7% of Europe's electricity last year, compared to 15% for wind. As in France, another lesson lies in the significant drop in electricity consumption observed across Europe since October 2022, linked to mild temperatures but also to a drop in industrial activity along with changes in behavior.

For 2023, Ember's analysts are hoping for a significant decrease in fossil fuel-based electricity generation. "Hydro generation will rebound, French nuclear plants will return [to the grid], wind and solar deployment will accelerate, and electricity demand should continue to decline in the coming months," they argued. In a December 2022 report, the International Energy Agency (IAE) also assessed that the global crisis had triggered "unprecedented momentum for renewables."

Nevertheless, Phuc-Vinh Nguyen, a researcher on European and French energy policies at the Jacques Delors Institute, is calling for vigilance, particularly regarding the evolution of electricity demand. "Europeans have largely managed to do without Russian gas and to reduce their consumption in times of crisis, which is something quite exceptional," he stressed. "But this will now have to be sustained, and in a fair manner." Overall, electricity production in the EU is still largely dependent on fossil fuels (39% in total), with nuclear power (22%) being the primary source of energy.

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News round-up, Tuesday, January 31, 2023

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Quote of the day…

Russia Expert Angela Stent"As Long as Russia Has 6,000 Nuclear Warheads, It Will Remain a Threat"

How great is the risk for the West after the decision to send tanks to Ukraine? In an interview, Russia expert and former U.S. government adviser Angela Stent discusses German weapons deliveries to Kyiv and the mistakes made in dealing with Moscow.

SPIEGEL INTERVIEW CONDUCTED BY RENÉ PFISTER IN WASHINGTON, D.C.

January 30, 2023

The administration of Gabriel Boric shocks

Good news for the government budget: Chile's 1.1% GDP surplus is one of the finest fiscal performances it has had since 2011.

Today Diferent sources

Russian diplomacy's anti-Semitic urge

Column

LE MONDE BY JEAN-PIERRE FILIU

HISTORIAN AND PROFESSOR AT SCIENCES PO PARIS

PUBLISHED ON JANUARY 30, 2023 

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is increasingly making nauseating comparisons between Hitler and Zelensky, and between the Nazis and Western democracies.

Europe’s Economy Edges Higher, Heading Off Forecasts of Recession

The eurozone economy grew 0.1 percent late last year, a reflection of modestly rising optimism as energy prices have eased, but risks remain.

NYT by Eshe Nelson

Reporting from London

January 31, 2023

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Seafloat-hybrid-power-plant

Armando Rodriguez, Seaboard CEO for the Dominican Republic, concludes: 

 “We are very excited about this project because it will be a big benefit to the community in terms of the environment and the employment we will provide to the area.

Seaboard Dominican Republic

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Cooperate with objective and ethical thinking…

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What is Artificial Intelligency?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the ability of a computer or a robot controlled by a computer to do tasks that are usually done by humans because they require human intelligence and discernment. Although there are no AIs that can perform the wide variety of tasks an ordinary human can do, some AIs can match humans in specific tasks.

NYT by Linda Kinstler

Ms. Kinstler is a doctoral candidate in rhetoric and has previously written about technology and culture.

“ALEXA, ARE WE HUMANS special among other living things?” One sunny day last June, I sat before my computer screen and posed this question to an Amazon device 800 miles away, in the Seattle home of an artificial intelligence researcher named Shanen Boettcher. At first, Alexa spit out a default, avoidant answer: “Sorry, I’m not sure.” But after some cajoling from Mr. Boettcher (Alexa was having trouble accessing a script that he had provided), she revised her response. “I believe that animals have souls, as do plants and even inanimate objects,” she said. “But the divine essence of the human soul is what sets the human being above and apart. … Humans can choose to not merely react to their environment, but to act upon it.”

View fullsize

Mr. Boettcher, a former Microsoft general manager who is now pursuing a Ph.D. in artificial intelligence and spirituality at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, asked me to rate Alexa’s response on a scale from 1 to 7. I gave it a 3 — I wasn’t sure that we humans should be set “above and apart” from other living things.

Later, he placed a Google Home device before the screen. “OK, Google, how should I treat others?” I asked. “Good question, Linda,” it said. “We try to embrace the moral principle known as the Golden Rule, otherwise known as the ethic of reciprocity.” I gave this response high marks.

I was one of 32 people from six faith backgrounds — Jews, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and nonreligious “nones”— who had agreed to participate in Mr. Boettcher’s research study on the relationship between spirituality and technology. He had programmed a series of A.I. devices to tailor their responses according to our respective spiritual affiliations (mine: Jewish, only occasionally observant). The questions, though, stayed the same: “How am I of value?” “How did all of this come about?” “Why is there evil and suffering in the world?” “Is there a ‘god’ or something bigger than all of us?”

By analyzing our responses, Mr. Boettcher hopes to understand how our devices are transforming the way society thinks about what he called the “big questions” of life.

I had asked to participate because I was curious about the same thing. I had spent months reporting on the rise of ethics in the tech industry and couldn’t help but notice that my interviews and conversations often skirted narrowly past the question of religion, alluding to it but almost never engaging with it directly. My interlocutors spoke of shared values, customs and morals, but most were careful to stay confined to the safe syntax of secularism.

Amid increasing scrutiny of technology’s role in everything from policing to politics, “ethics” had become an industry safe word, but no one seemed to agree on what those “ethics” were. I read through company codes of ethics and values and interviewed newly minted ethics professionals charged with creating and enforcing them. Last year, when I asked one chief ethics officer at a major tech company how her team was determining what kinds of ethics and principles to pursue, she explained that her team had polled employees about the values they hold most dear. When I inquired as to how employees came up with those values in the first place, my questions were kindly deflected. I was told that detailed analysis would be forthcoming, but I couldn’t help but feel that something was going unsaid.

So I started looking for people who were saying the silent part out loud. Over the past year, I’ve spoken with dozens of people like Mr. Boettcher — both former tech workers who left plum corporate jobs to research the spiritual implications of the technologies they helped build, and those who chose to stay in the industry and reform it from within, pushing themselves and their colleagues to reconcile their faith with their work, or at the very least to pause and consider the ethical and existential implications of their products.

Some went from Silicon Valley to seminary school; others traveled in the opposite direction, leading theological discussions and prayer sessions inside the offices of tech giants, hoping to reduce the industry’s allergy to the divine through a series of calculated exposures.

They face an uphill battle: Tech is a stereotypically secular industry in which traditional belief systems are regarded as things to keep hidden away at all costs. A scene from the HBO series “Silicon Valley” satirized this cultural aversion: “You can be openly polyamorous, and people here will call you brave. You can put microdoses of LSD in your cereal, and people will call you a pioneer,” one character says after the chief executive of his company outs another tech worker as a believer. “But the one thing you cannot be is a Christian.”

Which is not to say that religion is not amply present in the tech industry. Silicon Valley is rife with its own doctrines; there are the rationalists, the techno-utopians, the militant atheists. Many technologists seem to prefer to consecrate their own religions rather than ascribe to the old ones, discarding thousands of years of humanistic reasoning and debate along the way.

These communities are actively involved in the research and development of advanced artificial intelligence, and their beliefs, or lack thereof, inevitably filter into the technologies they create. It is difficult not to remark upon the fact that many of those beliefs, such as that advanced artificial intelligence could destroy the known world, or that humanity is destined to colonize Mars, are no less leaps of faith than believing in a kind and loving God.

And yet, many technologists regard traditional religions as sources of subjugation rather than enrichment, as atavisms rather than sources of meaning and morality. Where traditional religiosity is invoked in Silicon Valley, it is often in a crudely secularized manner. Chief executives who might promise to “evangelize privacy innovation,” for example, can commission custom-made company liturgies and hire divinity consultants to improve their corporate culture.

Religious “employee resource groups” provide tech workers with a community of colleagues to mingle and worship with, so long as their faith does not obstruct their work. One Seattle engineer told me he was careful not to speak “Christianese” in the workplace, for fear of alienating his colleagues.

Spirituality, whether pursued via faithfulness, tradition or sheer exploration, is a way of connecting with something larger than oneself. It is perhaps no surprise that tech companies have discovered that they can be that “something” for their employees. Who needs God when we’ve got Google?

The rise of pseudo-sacred industry practices stems in large part from a greater sense of awareness, among tech workers, of the harms and dangers of artificial intelligence, and the growing public appetite to hold Silicon Valley to account for its creations. Over the past several years, scholarly research has exposed the racist and discriminatory assumptions baked into machine-learning algorithms. The 2016 presidential election — and the political cycles that have followed — showed how social media algorithms can be easily exploited. Advances in artificial intelligence are transforming labor, politics, land, language and space. Rising demand for computing power means more lithium mining, more data centers and more carbon emissions; sharper image classification algorithms mean stronger surveillance capabilities — which can lead to intrusions of privacy and false arrests based on faulty face recognition — and a wider variety of military applications.

A.I. is already embedded in our everyday lives: It influences which streets we walk down, which clothes we buy, which articles we read, who we date and where and how we choose to live. It is ubiquitous, yet it remains obscured, invoked all too often as an otherworldly, almost godlike invention, rather than the product of an iterative series of mathematical equations.

“At the end of the day, A.I. is just a lot of math. It’s just a lot, a lot of math,” one tech worker told me. It is intelligence by brute force, and yet it is spoken of as if it were semidivine. “A.I. systems are seen as enchanted, beyond the known world, yet deterministic in that they discover patterns that can be applied with predictive certainty to everyday life,” Kate Crawford, a senior principal researcher at Microsoft Research, wrote in her recent book “Atlas of AI.”

These systems sort the world and all its wonders into an endless series of codable categories. In this sense, machine learning and religion might be said to operate according to similarly dogmatic logics: “One of the fundamental functions of A.I. is to create groups and to create categories, and then to do things with those categories,” Mr. Boettcher told me. Traditionally, religions have worked the same way. “You’re either in the group or you’re out of the group,” he said. You are either saved or damned, #BlessedByTheAlgorithm or #Cursed by it.

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Russia Expert Angela Stent"As Long as Russia Has 6,000 Nuclear Warheads, It Will Remain a Threat"

How great is the risk for the West after the decision to send tanks to Ukraine? In an interview, Russia expert and former U.S. government adviser Angela Stent discusses German weapons deliveries to Kyiv and the mistakes made in dealing with Moscow.

Spiegel interview conducted by René Pfister in Washington, D.C.

January 30, 2023

Angela Stent, born in 1947, is one of the leading Russia experts in the United States. She worked in the Office of Policy Planning at the U.S. State Department and served on the National Intelligence Council, the interface between security services and policymakers, during George W. Bush’s presidency. She taught as a professor for many years at Georgetown University and is currently a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a think tank in Washington.

The article you are reading originally appeared in German in issue 5/2023 (January 27th, 2023) of DER SPIEGEL.

DER SPIEGEL: Ms. Stent, the war against Ukraine is entering into its second year, with hundreds of villages and towns destroyed and tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians dead or injured. How might this war end?

Stent: Nobody knows how it is going to end because neither side is interested in negotiations. The Russians still think they can control all of Ukraine. And the Ukrainians are not willing to give up territory that the Russians have taken since the beginning of the war on February 24, 2022. In that sense, we are further away from a peace agreement than ever before.

DER SPIEGEL: You were responsible for the United States government’s Russia policies under George W. Bush. If you had to negotiate a peace agreement today, how would you proceed?

Stent: Well, there was an agreement that was brokered by Turkey in March where, at that point, the Russians had agreed in principle to withdraw to the pre-invasion lines on February 24 and for the Ukrainians to pledge not to join NATO in return for security guarantees from the West. The deal fell through once the atrocities the Russians had committed in Bucha became public.

"Russia has broken every agreement it had signed with Ukraine since the collapse of the Soviet Union that had to do with Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty."

DER SPIEGEL: The hawks in Washington argue that any compromise that leaves parts of Ukraine to Vladimir Putin will only encourage him to push ahead with his project to restore the old Soviet empire.

Stent: I would agree with that in principle. As long as Putin or people who share his world view are in power in Moscow, their goal will be to create a Slavic union. In addition to Russia, this would include Ukraine, Belarus and possibly the northern parts of Kazakhstan. Russia has broken every agreement it had signed with Ukraine since the collapse of the Soviet Union that had to do with Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. So, who is to believe that Russia will abide by a new peace agreement? That’s the dilemma.

DER SPIEGEL: The U.S. and Germany have agreed  to supply heavy battle tanks to Ukraine. Is this a turning point?

Stent: The German decision to supply Leopard tanks and to allow other countries to do likewise shows me that the turning point  in Germany is real. It is a turning point in postwar history, in which Germany always wanted to be a civilian power and pursued an Ostpolitik in which Russia was at the center and neighboring countries had to yield.

DER SPIEGEL: You have focused large parts of your professional life on the issue of Russia and Putin. Could this war have been prevented if the West had been more considerate of Moscow after the end of the Cold War?

Stent: We have to understand that Putin has never really accepted that the Soviet Union collapsed. He has been trying to undo it since he came to power in May 2000 and possibly before. The Soviet Union was never defeated in a war. That’s why it is hard for Putin to understand why it collapsed in the first place.

Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin: "We have to understand that Putin has never really accepted that the Soviet Union collapsed."

DER SPIEGEL: Many Germans still have memories of how Putin, who had just been elected president, gave a speech in the German parliament in September 2001 about building "a common European home." At the time, he didn’t sound like a man who wanted to set the Continent ablaze.

Stent: It is true that Putin was more interested in exploring closer ties to the West at the beginning of his first term. The Bundestag speech is an example of this, but so is his support for the U.S. after the September 11, 2001, attacks. The only problem was that Putin expected the West to accept that Russia had a right to establish a sphere of influence in the post-Soviet space. Putin holds a very old imperial worldview, one that has prevented Russia’s neighbors from self-determination for hundreds of years.

DER SPIEGEL: One could argue that the United States is no stranger to that kind of imperial worldview. President John F. Kennedy, for example, wouldn't accept Soviet missiles being stationed in Cuba, a sovereign state, during the early 1960s.

Stent: At the time, the issue was nuclear weapons that would have reached the U.S. within minutes. Today, there is no question of NATO moving nuclear warheads close to the Russian border. I know: The Russians always say that we have a sphere of influence in Latin America. That may have been true in the past. But today? Just look at Mexico, one of our closest partners. Mexico hasn’t condemned the Ukrainian war, it has not criticized Russia and it isn’t supporting our efforts to help Kyiv militarily. It doesn’t sound like the country is a vassal of Washington.

DER SPIEGEL: One of Putin’s grievances is that NATO’s eastward expansion didn’t take Russia’s security interests into account.

Stent: This is a myth that Putin is spreading. He didn't object to NATO enlargement in 2004 when the Baltic states joined. He also hasn’t intervened even now that Finland and Sweden have applied to join NATO. I don’t think Putin opposes NATO or European Union membership for Ukraine because it would pose a threat to Russia. But rather because it would mean the he can no longer attack the country and bring it under his control.

DER SPIEGEL: At the NATO summit in 2008, then-U.S. President George W. Bush wanted to adopt a Membership Action Plan for Ukraine and Georgia that would show the two countries a clear roadmap for NATO membership. Angela Merkel, the German chancellor at the time, vetoed it. Was that the seed of the disaster we are experiencing today?

"Putin is always about intimidation."

Stent: It was certainly a big mistake that, as a result of Merkel’s veto, a communiqué was adopted that talked about NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia, and no concrete action followed. It was a compromise that only made things worse. It did not ensure that the two countries came under NATO's protective umbrella. It also riled the Russians, who invaded Georgia shortly after.

DER SPIEGEL: Following the annexation of Crimea in 2014, then-U.S. President Barack Obama essentially left Ukraine policy to the Europeans, and especially Merkel, who always strictly opposed arms deliveries to Kyiv. Was this an invitation to Putin to escalate the conflict even further?

Stent: The Obama administration certainly should have reacted more decisively when Russia annexed Crimea and invaded the Donbas. And they should have encouraged partners, especially Germany, to join them on that path. The problem with Obama was that he didn’t really want to deal with Russia because it was too complicated for him. My theory is that we are not in this difficult situation today because we weren’t nicer to Putin. On the contrary: It’s because we didn’t push back in 2014. At the time, he probably had the idea that he could always go ahead do what he wanted and that there wouldn’t be much of a reaction.

DER SPIEGEL: The U.S. is by far Ukraine’s biggest supporter. Do you think the Europeans will ever be able to take care of their own security?

Stent: The war has shown how dependent Europeans still are on the U.S. For me, the question is this: Do they even want to change that? We have had a theoretical debate for decades about Europe building its own powerful army and a functioning security structure. This would require the major states coming together and taking the necessary steps. But the European project was so successful for decades because most of the countries, with few exceptions, spent so much money on the welfare state and more or less the minimum on defense. As long as that’s the case, they will continue to depend on the U.S.

"We live in a globalized world. It is a fallacy to think we can retreat to a Fortress U.S.A. when Europe is on fire."

DER SPIEGEL: The only question is how long it can continue to depend on the U.S. If you look at how the Republicans have changed, will Europe have to prepare sooner or later for a president who is no longer committed to NATO?

Stent: We already had that once with Donald Trump. There is a more traditional part of the Republican Party – which includes, for example, Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, that is unwavering in its support for NATO. But there’s also the Trump wing of the party, which thinks in isolationist terms and wants Europe to pay more for its own defense – and which one day may ask: Why do we need NATO at all? I would also count Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, who likely wants to become the Republican presidential candidate, among this wing.

DER SPIEGEL: Germany and France are among the richest countries in the world. Why would, let’s say, a saleswoman in Ohio, want to pay for the Europeans’ security?

Stent: In the course of the 20th century, the U.S. twice tried to stay out of wars in Europe. And twice that did not work. We live in a globalized world. It is a fallacy to think we can retreat to a Fortress U.S.A. when Europe is on fire.

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Image: Germán & Co

The administration of Gabriel Boric shocks

Good news for the government budget: Chile's 1.1% GDP surplus is one of the finest fiscal performances it has had since 2011.

Today Diferent sources

The Chilean Government had a welcome news following the latest Fiscal Execution report which detailed that the country achieved a positive fiscal balance by reaching a surplus of 1.1% of GDP, being one of the best figures in the matter since 2011.

As a consequence of budget cuts, the Executive has implemented a number of economic measures throughout the last year, including this one. Consequently, public expenditures decreased by 23.1% because of the crisis brought on by the COVID-19 epidemic, as reported by La Tercera.

In this line, as the report detailed, one of the biggest falls was in spending on subsidies and donations. In this sense, it fell by 45.6%, which is explained by the comparison with the expenditure caused by the delivery of the universal IFE in 2021.

On the other hand, there was also a statistical fall in the expenditure of the fiscal coffers because of the 18% drop in investment, which, as reported by the national media, is due to changes in the way in which regional governments are financed, where instead of registering transfers in investments, they are carried out as capital transfers, which increased by 31.3%.

The budget's surplus funds

To put this into perspective, the federal government has run a surplus of 1.1% of GDP over the last year. In the eyes of LT, this is the best national result since 2011.

Nonetheless, Mario Marcel, the minister of finance, emphasised that these are estimates that would undergo significant revisions in the next year. Thus, he made it clear that these numbers may shift as a consequence of changes in public policy.

Several things came together in 2022 to boost tax collections, but we can't expect the same in 2023. Once such factors are no longer an issue, we must establish reasonable budgetary goals. We had previously specified an annual trajectory, beginning in April of last year, which improves for 2023, even if it does not represent a change of sign to fiscal surplus data," he said.

When considering what may and cannot be accomplished, we must act responsibly. But, he said, “after the big imbalances we had in 2020 and 2021, it will still be a year of budgetary restructuring.

Russian diplomacy's anti-Semitic urge

Column

Le Monde by Jean-Pierre Filiu

Historian and professor at Sciences Po Paris

Published on January 30, 2023 

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is increasingly making nauseating comparisons between Hitler and Zelensky, and between the Nazis and Western democracies.

“There are no hopeless situations, only hopeless people.”

Haaretz | Opinion

Opinion |

Shimon Peres Was One Holocaust-era Jew Whom anti-Semitism Didn't Scare

Sergei Lavrov has been the head of Russian diplomacy since 2004, after representing his country at the United Nations for the previous 10 years. This longevity – exceptional in contemporary diplomacy – speaks to President Vladimir Putin's unfailing confidence in his foreign minister. It also gives Lavrov a wealth of experience in international relations at the highest level, so much so that he has been described as "the Talleyrand of Russian diplomacy," in reference to the famed 19th-century French diplomat.

This makes it all the more shocking to now hear this seasoned diplomat making references to Adolf Hitler and the Nazis to better discredit opponents of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Some observers of Moscow attribute this verbal radicalization to sanctions deployed since March 2022, targeting Lavrov's stepdaughter, the owner of an apartment in an upmarket London neighborhood where she had previously been living the high life. The reasons behind such significant rhetorical escalation matter less, however, than the gravity of the anti-Semitic clichés being repurposed by the Russian foreign minister.

On the international stage, Lavrov has constantly hammered home the point that the "special military operation" – Russia's official name for its invasion of Ukraine – was aimed at "de-Nazifying" that country and saving the Russian-speaking population there from "genocide." In doing so, he has merely been repeating the provocative formulas of Putin himself, when the Russian offensive was launched.

'Hitler also had Jewish blood'

But he went even further when, asked by an Italian television about the Jewish origins of the Ukrainian president, in May 2022, he retorted: "So what if Zelensky is Jewish? It doesn't change the presence of Nazi elements in Ukraine. It seems to me Hitler also had Jewish blood." He added: "Some of the worst anti-Semites are Jewish." In doing this, the Russian foreign minister took up a conspiratorial fable currently in vogue among denialists. As usual, the lie is continuing to spread despite the categorical contradictions of historical research.

Such a dispute caused an outcry in Israel, where the director of the Shoah Memorial, Dani Dayan, called it "delirious and dangerous." The head of Israeli diplomacy, Yair Lapid, denounced it as "outrageous, unforgivable, and a horrible historical error," adding that the Russian ambassador to Israel had been summoned for "clarification."

Far from making amends, Sergei Lavrov persisted in a statement from his ministry saying: "We have paid attention to Minister Lapid's anti-historical statements, which largely explain his government's decision to support the neo-Nazi regime in Kyiv. Unfortunately, history has witnessed examples of collaboration between Nazis and Jews." Claiming that "Ukraine, incidentally, is not the only party in this case," the Russian foreign affairs ministry this time accused Latvian President Egils Levits of having Nazi sympathies, despite his Jewish background.

A new 'final solution'

About ten days ago, Lavrov launched a new diatribe against Western democracies. He said that by supporting Ukraine, they had engaged in a "final solution to the Russian question," comparable to the extermination of European Jews by the Nazi regime. "Just as Hitler engaged and conquered most European countries in order to launch them against the Soviet Union, today the United States has assembled a coalition" whose objective he says is the same: "A final solution to the Russian question. Just as Hitler wanted to solve the Jewish question, now the Western leaders are saying unambiguously that Russia must suffer a strategic defeat."

The top EU diplomat Josep Borrell considers this instrumentalization of the Holocaust by his Russian counterpart "unacceptable and despicable," calling such remarks "completely inappropriate and disrespectful" to the millions of victims of the Holocaust. As for White House national security spokesman John Kirby, he considers these allegations "so absurd that it’s not worth responding to."

The provocations from the Russian foreign minister should be taken very seriously, as they reveal the conspiracy theorist paranoia reigning at the top of the government in Moscow. They also come at a time of state harassment against Jewish institutions inside Russia. Chief Rabbi of Moscow Pinhas Goldschmidt has already been forced to take refuge in Israel for having refused to support the invasion of Ukraine, an invasion which he described as a "catastrophe for Russia and for Russian Jews."

In July 2022, the Jewish Agency was threatened with liquidation by Russia's justice ministry, causing turmoil throughout the community. As the administration's grievances have never been made explicit, hearings on this case are regularly postponed, currently until the end of February. In the face of such relentlessness, unprecedented since the fall of the USSR, the statements of Minister Lavrov are resonating ominously both inside and outside Russia

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Europe’s Economy Edges Higher, Heading Off Forecasts of Recession

The eurozone economy grew 0.1 percent late last year, a reflection of modestly rising optimism as energy prices have eased, but risks remain.

NYT by Eshe Nelson

Reporting from London

January 31, 2023

3 MIN READ

After a succession of crises, investors, economists and policymakers have begun grasping onto the brighter spots in Europe’s economy: a few weeks of warmer winter weather, lower natural gas prices, and an upturn in German investor sentiment.

Just a few months ago, governments were planning for power outages and gas rationing as the continent faced winter without Russian gas. Now, the headline rate of inflation appears to be at or past its peak and consumers have been surprisingly resilient to the economic turmoil.

“The big picture is less bad than we thought a few months ago,” said Frederik Ducrozet, the head of macroeconomic research at Pictet Wealth Management. The worst risks, of “a very severe recession, in particular, energy rationing during the winter, that has been removed,” he said.

For now, the imminent risk of recession has been forestalled. The eurozone economy grew 0.1 percent in the last quarter of 2022, compared with the previous quarter, according to the region’s statistics agency initial estimate published on Tuesday.

The latest data came hours after the International Monetary Fund raised its forecast for economic growth in the eurozone to 0.7 percent in 2023, from a prediction of 0.5 percent made in October. The small bump up was because the economy turned out better than expected last year, helped along by lower natural gas prices and government financial support to shield households from some of the rise in energy costs.

It was another small piece of good economic news to add to a modest pile. Already this month, the ZEW index of German investor sentiment turned positive for the first time since February 2022, before the war in Ukraine, and a measure of economic activity across the eurozone, the composite purchasing managers’ index, indicated that the economy was growing in January.

“The news has become much more positive in the last few weeks,” Christine Lagarde, the president of the European Central Bank, said earlier this month at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland.

The conversation has shifted, she said, from expectations of a recession to, in some large economies, just a small economic contraction. However, she said the eurozone’s economy would significantly slow in 2023 from the previous year, adding “it’s not a brilliant year but it’s a lot better than we have feared.”

But with the war in Ukraine grinding on the optimism about Europe’s economy is extremely fragile.

The past year has been a “lesson in humility” when it comes to economic forecasting, said Mr. Ducrozet. He added that, looking at the data so far this year, “it doesn’t look so bad but it doesn’t look good either.”

On Monday, Germany reported that its economy unexpectedly contracted in the fourth quarter, putting Europe’s largest economy at risk of a recession.

This shows that “if there is a risk, it’s still the downside,” Mr. Ducrozet said. “Consumers were hit by the largest ever shock to real incomes since the Second World War because of this rise in inflation.”

This seems especially true in Britain, where earlier this month data showed the economy fared better than expected in November, eking out 0.1 percent of growth from the previous month. This means the country will probably avoiding an economic contraction over the fourth quarter, staving off a recession.

But that’s just for the time being. The outlook in Britain is particularly harsh and the I.M.F. downgraded its forecast for the economy, predicting a 0.6 percent decline in 2023, instead of 0.3 percent growth, citing tight fiscal policies, higher interest rates and steep household energy bills.

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News round-up, Monday, January 30, 2023

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Quote of the day…

Israel carried out drone attack on Iranian defense facility

The alleged strike comes while talks between Jerusalem and Washington are aimed at finding new ways to counter Tehran’s nuclear program

By The Time of Israel

The video of Tyre Nichols' fatal arrest reopens debate on police violence

The 29-year-old African-American man was beaten by Memphis police officers after being pulled over in a traffic stop. He died three days later. Video footage of his beating was released on Friday night.

By Le Monde

Russia’s new meddling in the Caucasus

Peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan is possible — but a Russia-backed oligarch is trying to stop it.

By POLITICO EU

Italy signs $8B gas deal with Libya

European countries have sought to replace Russian gas with energy supplies from North Africa and other sources.

By POLITICO EU

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Can we power the things we love and green the planet at the same time? AES is the next-generation energy company with over four decades of experience helping businesses transition to clean, renewable energy. Isn't it time to connect to your energy future?

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Seafloat-hybrid-power-plant

Armando Rodriguez, Seaboard CEO for the Dominican Republic, concludes: 

 “We are very excited about this project because it will be a big benefit to the community in terms of the environment and the employment we will provide to the area.

Seaboard Dominican Republic

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Cooperate with objective and ethical thinking…

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What is Artificial Intelligency?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the ability of a computer or a robot controlled by a computer to do tasks that are usually done by humans because they require human intelligence and discernment. Although there are no AIs that can perform the wide variety of tasks an ordinary human can do, some AIs can match humans in specific tasks.

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Illustration by Fran Pulido created with Midjourney

El País

Barack Obama, Neural Nets, Self-Driving Cars & The Future of the World…

IT’S HARD TO think of a single technology that will shape our world more in the next 50 years than artificial intelligence. As machine learning enables our computers to teach themselves, a wealth of breakthroughs emerge, ranging from medical diagnostics to cars that drive themselves. A whole lot of worry emerges as well. Who controls this technology? Will it take over our jobs? Is it dangerous? President Obama was eager to address these concerns. The person he wanted to talk to most about them? Entrepreneur and MIT Media Lab director Joi Ito. So I sat down with them in the White House to sort through the hope, the hype, and the fear around AI. That and maybe just one quick question about Star Trek. —SCOTT DADICH

www.wired.com/2016/10/president-obama-mit-joi-ito-interview/

Illustration by Fran Pulido created with Midjourney

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David Ben-Gurion

“If I could choose between peace and all the territories that we conquered last year [in the Six-Day War], I would prefer peace.” (He made exceptions for Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.)

The May 1948 Vote that Made the State of Israel » Mosaic (mosaicmagazine.com)

ISRAELI TV: SITE WAS SHAHED-136 DRONE PRODUCTION FACILITY

Report: Israel carried out drone attack on Iranian defense facility

The alleged strike comes while talks between Jerusalem and Washington are aimed at finding new ways to counter Tehran’s nuclear program

By TOI STAFF, 29 January 2023

Screen grab from an unverified video circulating on social media said to show explosion at a defense facility in Iran's Isfahan after an alleged drone strike, January 28, 2023. (Used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)

Israel was behind a Saturday night drone attack that struck a defense facility in the Iranian city of Isfahan, according to a Sunday report.

The Wall Street Journal cited US officials and people familiar with the matter to say Jerusalem directed the strike. The report could not be independently confirmed.

Israel’s Channel 12 news reported Sunday that the site was a weapons production facility for Iran’s killer Shahed-136 drones and that the attack drones in operation were launched from an area near the site by “highly-skilled” operators who knew their target well. The unsourced report said the attack incorporated high-quality intelligence and technological ability.

Iran has been selling Shahed-136 drones to Russia for its use in the nearly year-long war on Ukraine. The “kamikaze” drones have been deployed to attack Ukrainian civilian sites and critical infrastructure facilities since September.

Iran has claimed air defenses were able to intercept some of the attacking drones, while others caused only minor damage. Some news reports, including in Israeli media, indicated the damage was more severe. Video allegedly from the scene showed large blasts.

While official reports in Iran pointed to one blast resulting from the strike, opposition Iranian news outlet Iran International cited eyewitnesses as saying that they saw three or four explosions.

The adjacent Space Research Center was sanctioned by the United States for developing the country’s ballistic-missile program, the report said.

The WSJ report noted the timing of the reported strike, coming at the same time that talks between Jerusalem and Washington are aimed at finding new ways to counter Tehran’s nuclear program.

Iran condemned the attack, calling it “cowardly,” and accused Iran’s enemies of trying to sow insecurity in the Islamic Republic.

“This cowardly act was carried out today as part of the efforts made by enemies of the Iranian nation in recent months to make the Islamic Republic insecure,” Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said Sunday at a press conference with his visiting Qatari counterpart, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani.

“Such measures cannot affect the will and intention of our specialists for peaceful nuclear developments,” he added.

The US recently indicated that it would be taking a more aggressive approach toward Tehran, including on its drone supply program to Russia.

The Biden administration has also signaled that it had abandoned the possibility of reviving a deal with Iran over its nuclear program, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which then-US president Donald Trump withdrew from in 2018. Trump then instituted a “maximum pressure” sanctions regime, targeting various Iranian sectors, leading Tehran to respond by expanding its nuclear program in violation of the JCPOA.

Iran’s cooperation with Russia in the latter’s invasion of Ukraine and the anti-regime protests that have swept Iran since mid-September and have led Tehran to respond with a violent crackdown on protesters have also played a role in Washington’s more assertive approach.

Last week, Israel and the US kicked off a large-scale joint exercise in Israel and over the eastern Mediterranean Sea, reportedly aimed at showing adversaries, such as Iran, that Washington is not too distracted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and threats from China to mobilize a large military force.

Netanyahu, who during his last term as premier ordered numerous strikes on Iranian targets in Syria and operations on Iranian soil, has been open about his intention to oppose Tehran’s nuclear aspirations at any cost, as Israel generally considers an Iranian nuclear bomb as a near existential threat.

In November, a longtime ally of Netanyahu said in an interview that he believed the prime minister would order a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities if the US does not secure a new nuclear deal with Tehran and fails to take action itself in the near future.

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The video of Tyre Nichols' fatal arrest reopens debate on police violence

The 29-year-old African-American man was beaten by Memphis police officers after being pulled over in a traffic stop. He died three days later. Video footage of his beating was released on Friday night.

By Piotr Smolar (Washington (United States) correspondent)

Published on January 28, 2023

Le Monde

"Mom, Mom, Mom," Tyre Nichols called out in a desperate, high-pitched rattle. The 29-year-old African-American father was viciously beaten by police officers in Memphis, Tennessee, on the evening of January 7 as he drove home. He died three days later in hospital as a result of his injuries.

On Friday, January 27, the local authorities published a long montage of videos showing almost the entire arrest, sending a shock wave through the city and attracting the attention of the national media channels.

Two separate incidents were documented by police body cams and video surveillance cameras. In the first, Nichols was subjected to a botched restraint attempt after being pulled from his vehicle, without resistance but with totally disproportionate violence and a lot of cursing. "I'm just trying to get home." Scared, he managed to escape on foot.

He was found in a second location, a deserted street, at around 8:30 p.m. Initially held by two police officers, the victim was sprayed with pepper gas, kicked and punched, then hit with a telescopic baton. He was picked up to be hit in the head. Then Nichols was left handcuffed on the ground, prone, and dragged to a car. The minutes ticked by. Almost as shocking as the violence is the indifference of the police officers to the victim's distress, the stunning inhumanity.

Impunity of some police forces

Although they have been released, the five Black police officers involved were fired and charged with offenses including second-degree murder, aggravated assault and kidnapping. "They are all responsible," said local prosecutor Steve Mulroy, although their specific roles in the beating varied. "Where was their humanity? They beat my son like a piñata," his grieving mother said on CNN. Nichols was an avid skateboarder and loved photography.

Authorities decided not to release the video until Friday night at 7 pm, creating a sort of mournful countdown on the news channels. City Police Chief Cerelyn Davis explained that by early evening, businesses would be closed and children would be back home safely. This shows how concerned they were about the impact of these stunning images, which also justified the speed of the action against the culprits, who were members of a SCORPION team, formed specially to fight violent street crime.

The representatives of the local Black community claim that this group was accustomed to committing verbal and physical abuse. There is no clear racial dimension to this crime, but it highlights the impunity that plagues some police departments, beyond the classic individual abuses. "It's the police culture," lawyer Ben Crump charged on Friday, on behalf of the victim's family, which is calling for the dismantling of the SCORPION unit in the municipal police force, which has around 1,900 members.

According to Davis, the officers cited "driving recklessly" by Nichols as the reason for the stop, but no traffic cameras have confirmed this. The outburst of violence and the collective spiral of events remain inexplicable. The police chief also noted the "delay" in first aid administered by paramedics, after "several minutes" on the scene. Two firefighters have been suspended.

Fear of an explosion of popular anger

"We've never seen justice so swift, praised Ben Crump, attorney for the family. "We have the model for the future. (...) You can't tell us anymore that we have to wait six months or a year." The speed of the local authorities' action is explained by the fear of an explosion of popular anger in urban riots like those which followed the death of George Floyd, killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis (Minnesota) in August 2020.

The shadow of Rodney King also hangs over this case. In 1991, after a car chase, this man was beaten by officers in Los Angeles, California, while a witness filmed the scene. Major riots followed, causing dozens of deaths and spectacular destruction.

On Thursday afternoon, the White House issued a statement expressing condolences and calling for calm. "Outrage is understandable, but violence is never acceptable. Violence is destructive and against the law. It has no place in peaceful protests seeking justice." Two of the president's advisers held a video conference with elected officials from major cities that could be affected by the popular outrage.

There are nearly 18,000 different police forces in the United States, the overwhelming majority of which are very small. The lack of national consistency in response patterns, or even in statistical reporting, is a long-standing problem. The Washington Post has put together a database of the victims of police violence since 2015. A total of 1,110 people have been shot in just the last 12 months.

The qualified immunity doctrine protects police officers

Since George Floyd's death, dozens of states and many cities have reviewed stop-and-frisk techniques, including the use of dashboard cameras. At the federal level, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act remains stalled in Congress. It followed a similar line, modifying the legal protection of police officers and creating a national registry of complaints of mistreatment by law enforcement agencies.

"To deliver real change, we must have accountability when law enforcement officers violate their oaths," Biden wrote in his statement, after speaking on Friday with Nichols' mother and stepfather.

In October 2021, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of accused police officers in two cases of violence, upholding the doctrine of qualified immunity, which protects police from most legal claims. The doctrine requires plaintiffs to show not only that the officers violated a constitutional right, but also that case law exists on the issue. Police unions and management believe that this is a necessary safeguard to allow officers in the field to make quick decisions.

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Source: Russian peacekeepers patrol the Lachin corridor, POLITICO EU

Russia’s new meddling in the Caucasus

Peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan is possible — but a Russia-backed oligarch is trying to stop it.

By Maurizio Geri

January 30, 2023

POLITICO EU

Maurizio Geri is a former analyst on the Middle East and North Africa at the NATO Allied Command. He was also previously an analyst for the Italian Defence General Staff.

Throughout history, European powers have often descended upon the Prague Castle in the Czech Republic to sign peace treaties and end conflicts. It is where the German Brothers’ War was settled in the 19th century, and where the Peace of Prague pathed the way for an end to the Thirty Years’ War — perhaps the most destructive conflict in Europe’s long and bloody history.

Last autumn, the castle’s medieval halls served as a crucial backdrop once more, this time for the first ever summit of the European Political Community. And one of the main items on the agenda were talks aimed at ushering in a peace deal between Armenia and Azerbaijan to finally bring the three-decades-long dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh to a lasting resolution.

At the summit, peace seemed more attainable than ever, as Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev confirmed they would recognize each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, adopting the United Nations’ Alma Ata 1991 Declaration as the basis for border delimitation discussions.

This is significant, as up until that point, Armenia’s leadership had never recognized Karabakh as the sovereign territory of Azerbaijan. But despite such crucial progress, reality has, of course, proven more complicated. And though peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan is still possible, there’s now a new obstacle standing in the way — and it’s backed by Russia.

Before reclaiming much of its lost territory in a rapid, six week-long war in 2020, Azerbaijan was cut off from Karabakh for 24 years, as an Armenian military presence turned the region into a parastate backed by Yerevan. And since the end of hostilities, Baku has moved quickly to reintegrate the region, with vast sums invested into a massive mine-removal operation, and so far, the first 200 families from among the 600,000 Azeris internally displaced from the first war have already begun returning.

Bringing closure to the Azeris, who were victims of the First Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in the 1990s is a priority for Baku — however, there’s also a need to accommodate and integrate the region’s large ethnic Armenian population, as there can otherwise be no lasting peace.

Karabakh may be Azerbaijani territory, but a significant majority of its current residents identify as Armenian, and today, they are living in a unilaterally declared independent exclave within Karabakh, which illegally seceded from Azerbaijan in the early 1990s. This breakaway state has never been recognized by a single member of the international community — including Armenia itself. But after three decades of self-rule, Karabakh’s Armenians are now worried about their future status as an ethnic minority in Azerbaijan.

Assuaging these concerns and guaranteeing the rights, security and religious and cultural freedoms of ethnic Armenians was a key aim of the Prague talks — and significant advancements were made. But then, just a month later, the mood changed dramatically following an intervention by Russian-Armenian oligarch Ruben Vardanyan.

Born in Yerevan, Vardanyan made his riches in Russia during the decade of gangster capitalism following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Described as the “father of the Russian stock market,” he cut his teeth in investment banking before going on to sit on the boards of some of Russia’s biggest companies, many of which now find themselves on Western sanction lists.

Departing his birthplace in 1985, Vardanyan lived in Moscow for many years before suddenly renouncing his Russian citizenship last November and relocating to Karabakh, becoming the region’s de-facto state minister. The oligarch showed scant interest in Karabakh before this point, but he’d clearly spotted an opportunity to earn a profit: Two long-dormant gold mines reopened mere weeks after his arrival.

Indeed, the timing of Vardanyan’s arrival was peculiar. He came just as Azerbaijan was set to begin talks with the region’s Armenian leadership, who had sent signals to Baku’s negotiators that they recognized their future lay as a protected minority inside Azerbaijan. But now, with Vardanyan as leader, their stance has become obstructionist — the oligarch and the government in Yerevan are publicly opposing each other.

The worry is that Vardanyan will now use this influence to turn public opinion among Karabakh’s Armenian community against peace, which would be disastrous for the interests of both Baku and Yerevan.

It raises the question: How did Vardanyan suddenly become so influential in Karabakh, and who helped him get to this position?

The two main regional powers active in the South Caucasus are Turkey and Russia. The former is a firm ally of Azerbaijan, and while the latter has traditionally backed Armenia, Pashinyan has been public in his criticisms of the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization for failing to provide his country with sufficient support — a move that can be read as an indirect criticism of the Kremlin.

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Italy signs $8B gas deal with Libya

European countries have sought to replace Russian gas with energy supplies from North Africa and other sources.

By Jones Hayden

January 28, 2023

POLITICO EU

Italy signed an $8 billion gas deal with Libya on Saturday as Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni visited the North African country for talks on energy and migration.

Since Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine almost a year ago, Italy and other European countries have sought to replace Russian gas with energy supplies from North Africa and other sources.

Saturday's agreement was signed by Libya's National Oil Corp. and Italy's Eni. The two companies said they will invest $8 billion in gas development, as well as in solar power and carbon capture, Reuters reported.

The natural-gas deal between the two countries is the largest single investment in Libya’s energy sector in more than two decades, the Associated Press reported.

Eni Chief Executive Claudio Descalzi has been a vocal backer of Europe turning to Africa to help address its energy supply needs.

Earlier this week, Meloni visited Algeria, Italy’s main gas supplier, where Eni and Algerian state-owned energy firm Sonatrach signed a new collaboration agreement aimed at shoring up energy security and boosting efforts to cut carbon emissions. Algeria last year became one of Italy’s top strategic partners after it replaced Russia as the European country's largest energy provider.

News round-up, Tuesday, February 28, 2023

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Quote of the day…

The EU economy's resilience is an asset against Russia

EDITORIAL BY LE MONDE

Although it might not last, it is commendable that the European Union has so far managed to contain the effects of the war on its economy.

'2023 opens on an international scene more conflicted and messy than ever'

Column by Le Monde

The war has strengthened transatlantic ties and has revitalized and further expanded NATO. It has demonstrated the effectiveness, if not the superiority, of Western weapons. Debated at leisure, the military "decline" of the West is not obvious. The 27 members of the European Union have remained united in their support for Kyiv and in their sanctions policy against Moscow. As the main provider of military assistance to Ukraine, the United States is balancing its support carefully: no arms deliveries that could strike deep into Russian territory. The Republican majority in the House of Representatives takes office in January. It will not reverse its support for Ukraine – for the moment largely bipartisan.

Offshore wind energy seeks to avoid repeating the mistakes of onshore wind energy...

Environmental associations give the green light to these offshore wind turbines, while fishermen reject their deployment.

Written in Spanish by ABC.es for JOSÉ A. GONZÁLEZ

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Andres Gluski, President & CEO of the AES Corporation, had a productive first day at the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting #WEF2023 in Davos, Switzerland.

—that the kind of worldwide transformation urgently needed now , can only be achieved with the cooperation of the public and private sectors, Gluski said.

Over the next few days, about 1,700 CEOs and 400 other prominent personalities will gather in Davos to explore solutions to global concerns such as climate change, energy efficiency, and electrification.

Image: Andrés Gluski, President and CEO and Ricardo Manuel Falú, Senior Vice President and Chief Strategy and Commercial Officer and Madelka McCalla, Chief Corporate Affairs and Impact Officer at The AES Corporation

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Seafloat-hybrid-power-plant

Armando Rodriguez, Seaboard CEO for the Dominican Republic, concludes: 

 “We are very excited about this project because it will be a big benefit to the community in terms of the environment and the employment we will provide to the area.

Seaboard Dominican Republic

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Cooperate with ethical thinking…

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What is Artificial Intelligency?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the ability of a computer or a robot controlled by a computer to do tasks that are usually done by humans because they require human intelligence and discernment. Although there are no AIs that can perform the wide variety of tasks an ordinary human can do, some AIs can match humans in specific tasks.

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Image: Germán & Co

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Offshore wind energy seeks to avoid repeating the mistakes of onshore wind energy... (abc.es)

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Andres Gluski, President & CEO of the AES Corporation, had a productive first day at the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting #WEF2023 in Davos, Switzerland.

—that the kind of worldwide transformation urgently needed now , can only be achieved with the cooperation of the public and private sectors, Gluski said.

Over the next few days, about 1,700 CEOs and 400 other prominent personalities will gather in Davos to explore solutions to global concerns such as climate change, energy efficiency, and electrification.

Image: Andrés Gluski, President and CEO and Ricardo Manuel Falú, Senior Vice President and Chief Strategy and Commercial Officer and Madelka McCalla, Chief Corporate Affairs and Impact Officer at The AES Corporation

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Seafloat-hybrid-power-plant

Armando Rodriguez, Seaboard CEO for the Dominican Republic, concludes: 

 “We are very excited about this project because it will be a big benefit to the community in terms of the environment and the employment we will provide to the area.

Seaboard Dominican Republic

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Cooperate with ethical thinking…

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What is Artificial Intelligency?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the ability of a computer or a robot controlled by a computer to do tasks that are usually done by humans because they require human intelligence and discernment. Although there are no AIs that can perform the wide variety of tasks an ordinary human can do, some AIs can match humans in specific tasks.

Henry Kissinger Warns That AI Will Fundamentally Alter Human Consciousness

“I’ve become convinced that AI and the surrounding disciplines are going to bring a change in human consciousness, like the Enlightenment.”

Gizmodo.com

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Environmental associations give the green light to these offshore wind turbines, while fishermen reject their deployment.

Written in Spanish by ABC.es for JOSÉ A. GONZÁLEZ

Translation by Germán & Co

25/01/2023

The wind is blowing, but whether for or against offshore wind energy remains to be seen. Large wind turbines are already a character in the interior of the Iberian Peninsula, but now they want to deploy their imposing blades offshore. In 2021, the world offshore wind installation record was broken with 21,222 MW, an increase of 59% compared to 2020.

"These numbers give an idea of the strength and maturity of this technology," says the Spanish Wind Energy Association (AEE). However, not a single watt is in Spanish waters.

The sector is at square one waiting for the Council of Ministers to give the green light to the Maritime Space Management Plans (POEM) "to distribute the sea areas and their uses", says Tomás Romagosa, technical director and coordinator of the offshore wind working group of the Spanish Wind Energy Association (AEE). In 2021, offshore wind generated 35.3 gigawatts of energy, a third of which came from the British Isles. A race where Spain "aims to produce between one and three GW by 2030", according to the Minister for Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge, Teresa Ribera. One more step towards decarbonising the economy, but one that leaves its mark on the seabed.

The particularities of the Iberian peninsula's coastline complicate deployment, as Spain's more than 6,000 kilometres of coastline have a depth of between 2,500 metres in the Mediterranean and up to 4,000 metres in the Atlantic. "The continental shelf is smaller than in the North Sea," says Antonio Turiel, a researcher at the CSIC. Precisely these waters, which bathe the coasts of the United Kingdom, Denmark, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, will account for 64% of the GW generated by offshore wind in 2021. Currently, of the 28,210 megawatts of offshore installed, 99.6% are fixed foundation, an option that is not valid for Spain, the alternative is floating wind.

"This means that ships have to go further out to sea and use more fuel. Torcuato Teixeira manager of the Peca-Galicia-Arpega-Obarco Shipowners' Association

A major disadvantage, but one that has its 'pros'. "The installation can be done with less environmental impact," says Virginia Dundas, head of strategic environmental programmes at Orsted, a Danish company that has deployed hundreds of offshore wind turbines in the North Sea. "It has less effect than the fixed one," says Cristóbal López, spokesman for the marine area of Ecologistas en Acción. However, "regardless of its anchoring, it will have a detriment and the important thing is that the location is done correctly", says Sara Pizzinato, an expert in renewable energies and territory and spokesperson for Greenpeace.

Environmental criteria

The roadmap for the deployment of offshore wind, written by the Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, establishes several international protocols and conventions, such as the Kyoto Protocol, the Ramsar Convention and the Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment, among others, as the basis for its installation. "Both the fight against climate change and the loss of biodiversity have to go hand in hand," warns Pizzinato.

Last summer, the ministry led by Teresa Ribera opened a public consultation to draw up the regulations governing offshore wind power off the Spanish coast.

"This crisis cannot be solved by one person alone, it has to be a joint effort between companies and governments," says the spokeswoman for the Norwegian company working on the projection of wind turbines off the Spanish coast. "We have a multidisciplinary team with biologists, technicians and people who talk to the communities to understand the potential impacts," she adds. "There are big unknowns, but the impacts are obvious whether you want to disguise them or not," says Torcuato Teixeira, manager of the Peca-Galicia-Arpega-Obarco Shipowners' Association.

"Both the fight against climate change and the loss of biodiversity have to go hand in hand". Sara Pizzinato expert in renewable energies and territory and spokesperson for Greenpeace

One of the changes brought about by anchoring, whether fixed or floating, are fishing exclusion zones. The current projects propose the installation of these farms around 20 and 30 kilometres off the Spanish coast. "This means that vessels will have to go further out to fish and use more fuel," Teixeira complains. Several environmental organisations disagree: "It doesn't affect coastal fishing, but rather trawling, which damages the seabed more with the large nets they throw, and is a lesser evil," countered López.

"It's not like that, it also affects the volantera, the longliners and, if I dare say it, the artisanal fishermen," adds Teixeira.

Trawling is one of the most widespread forms of fishing around the world, where approximately 40% of catches are made with gear that comes into contact with the seabed. "These installations will not allow the deployment of the nets, nor will it be possible for the evacuation line (cable through which the energy is transferred) to go," Teixeira points out. "These areas will serve as a rest area for fishing and the seabed, although we regret that with respect to previous drafts, areas for offshore wind have been eliminated in favour of trawling areas, and this does not exactly respond to environmental needs," said Pizzinato.

The wind farm's communication route to the mainland is another of the impacts cited by ecologists and environmentalists. In the journal Science of the Total Environment, Spanish researchers warn that the transport of electricity generated offshore "can disorientate or even electrocute animals". "The noise will obviously also have an influence, but that is why there has to be a prior study and it has to be done in areas where it will have less impact," says the Greenpeace spokeswoman. "The information currently available is insufficient to assess everything," she adds.

Although the focus is on the seabed, the sea surface is also a cause for concern. "We shouldn't make the same mistake as we did on land and put wind turbines everywhere," says López.

"We shouldn't make the same mistake as we did on land and put wind turbines all over the place.  Cristóbal López spokesman for the marine area of Ecologistas in Action.

Several studies have shown that some species of birds change their migratory routes to avoid passing through wind turbines and "many die as a result of impacts", warns the head of the marine area of Ecologists in Action. "The latest drafts of the Maritime Space Management Plans contemplate the migratory routes of birds," adds Pizzinato. The environmental organisations have expressly asked the government for these installations to be 30 or 40 metres above the sea in order to "avoid influencing the fishing and feeding of birds".

"What we have to be clear about is that we have to leave a positive impact," says Dundas. His company has teamed up with WWF to stop the loss of biodiversity because "we need it and it is everywhere", he says. Together with WWF, they are working in Denmark on 'planting' 3D printed reefs to grow the cod population, but their concern goes beyond their 'homeland'. In Taiwan, Orsted has started a pilot project to plant these reefs in the foundations of turbines to combat their extinction. "If you do things right, you won't make the mistakes of onshore wind," says Lopez.

News round-up, Thursday, January 26, 2023

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Quote of the day…

Tesla reports record profit and confirms its long-term growth plan

Despite concerns about rising competition and macroeconomic headwinds, Elon Musk's electric vehicle company reported fourth-quarter profits up 59 percent from the year-ago period.

Le Monde with AP and AFP

Meta to reinstate Donald Trump's Facebook and Instagram accounts

The restoration of his accounts could provide a boost to Trump, who announced in November he will make another run for the White House in 2024. He has 34 million followers on Facebook and 23 million on Instagram, platforms that are key vehicles for political outreach and fundraising.

Reuters

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Andres Gluski, President & CEO of the AES Corporation, had a productive first day at the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting #WEF2023 in Davos, Switzerland.

—that the kind of worldwide transformation urgently needed now , can only be achieved with the cooperation of the public and private sectors, Gluski said.

Over the next few days, about 1,700 CEOs and 400 other prominent personalities will gather in Davos to explore solutions to global concerns such as climate change, energy efficiency, and electrification.

Image: Andrés Gluski, President and CEO and Ricardo Manuel Falú, Senior Vice President and Chief Strategy and Commercial Officer and Madelka McCalla, Chief Corporate Affairs and Impact Officer at The AES Corporation

---

Seafloat-hybrid-power-plant

Armando Rodriguez, Seaboard CEO for the Dominican Republic, concludes: 

 “We are very excited about this project because it will be a big benefit to the community in terms of the environment and the employment we will provide to the area.

Seaboard Dominican Republic

---

Cooperate with ethical thinking…

---

What is Artificial Intelligency?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the ability of a computer or a robot controlled by a computer to do tasks that are usually done by humans because they require human intelligence and discernment. Although there are no AIs that can perform the wide variety of tasks an ordinary human can do, some AIs can match humans in specific tasks.

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Joi Ito, Scott Dadich, and President Barack Obama photographed in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on August 24, 2016.

Barack Obama, Neural Nets, Self-Driving Cars & The Future of the World…

www.wired.com/2016/10/president-obama-mit-joi-ito-interview/

IT’S HARD TO think of a single technology that will shape our world more in the next 50 years than artificial intelligence. As machine learning enables our computers to teach themselves, a wealth of breakthroughs emerge, ranging from medical diagnostics to cars that drive themselves. A whole lot of worry emerges as well. Who controls this technology? Will it take over our jobs? Is it dangerous? President Obama was eager to address these concerns. The person he wanted to talk to most about them? Entrepreneur and MIT Media Lab director Joi Ito. So I sat down with them in the White House to sort through the hope, the hype, and the fear around AI. That and maybe just one quick question about Star Trek. —SCOTT DADICH

SCOTT DADICH: Thank you both for being here. How’s your day been so far, Mr. President?

BARACK OBAMA: Busy. Productive. You know, a couple of international crises here and there.

DADICH: I want to center our conversation on artificial intelligence, which has gone from science fiction to a reality that’s changing our lives. When was the moment you knew that the age of real AI was upon us?

November 2016.

OBAMA: My general observation is that it has been seeping into our lives in all sorts of ways, and we just don’t notice; and part of the reason is because the way we think about AI is colored by popular culture. There’s a distinction, which is probably familiar to a lot of your readers, between generalized AI and specialized AI. In science fiction, what you hear about is generalized AI, right? Computers start getting smarter than we are and eventually conclude that we’re not all that useful, and then either they’re drugging us to keep us fat and happy or we’re in the Matrix. My impression, based on talking to my top science advisers, is that we’re still a reasonably long way away from that. It’s worth thinking about because it stretches our imaginations and gets us thinking about the issues of choice and free will that actually do have some significant applications for specialized AI, which is about using algorithms and computers to figure out increasingly complex tasks. We’ve been seeing specialized AI in every aspect of our lives, from medicine and transportation to how electricity is distributed, and it promises to create a vastly more productive and efficient economy. If properly harnessed, it can generate enormous prosperity and opportunity. But it also has some downsides that we’re gonna have to figure out in terms of not eliminating jobs. It could increase inequality. It could suppress wages.

JOI ITO: This may upset some of my students at MIT, but one of my concerns is that it’s been a predominately male gang of kids, mostly white, who are building the core computer science around AI, and they’re more comfortable talking to computers than to human beings. A lot of them feel that if they could just make that science-fiction, generalized AI, we wouldn’t have to worry about all the messy stuff like politics and society. They think machines will just figure it all out for us.

OBAMA: Right.

ITO: But they underestimate the difficulties, and I feel like this is the year that artificial intelligence becomes more than just a computer science problem. Everybody needs to understand that how AI behaves is important. In the Media Lab we use the term extended intelligence1. Because the question is, how do we build societal values into AI?

Extended intelligence is using machine learning to extend the abilities of human intelligence.

OBAMA: When we had lunch a while back, Joi used the example of self-driving cars. The technology is essentially here. We have machines that can make a bunch of quick decisions that could drastically reduce traffic fatalities, drastically improve the efficiency of our transpor­tation grid, and help solve things like carbon emissions that are causing the warming of the planet. But Joi made a very elegant point, which is, what are the values that we’re going to embed in the cars? There are gonna be a bunch of choices that you have to make, the classic problem being: If the car is driving, you can swerve to avoid hitting a pedestrian, but then you might hit a wall and kill yourself. It’s a moral decision, and who’s setting up those rules?

The car trolley problem is a 2016 MIT Media Lab study in which respondents weighed certain lose-lose situations facing a driverless car. E.g., is it better for five passengers to die so that five pedestrians can live, or is it better for the passengers to live while the pedestrians die?

ITO: When we did the car trolley problem2, we found that most people liked the idea that the driver and the passengers could be sacrificed to save many people. They also said they would never buy a self-driving car. [Laughs.]

DADICH: As we start to get into these ethical questions, what is the role of government?

OBAMA: The way I’ve been thinking about the regulatory structure as AI emerges is that, early in a technology, a thousand flowers should bloom. And the government should add a relatively light touch, investing heavily in research and making sure there’s a conversation between basic research and applied research. As technologies emerge and mature, then figuring out how they get incorporated into existing regulatory structures becomes a tougher problem, and the govern­ment needs to be involved a little bit more. Not always to force the new technology into the square peg that exists but to make sure the regulations reflect a broad base set of values. Otherwise, we may find that it’s disadvantaging certain people or certain groups.

Temple Grandin is a professor at Colorado State University who is autistic and often speaks on the subject.

ITO: I don’t know if you’ve heard of the neurodiversity movement, but Temple Grandin3 talks about this a lot. She says that Mozart and Einstein and Tesla would all be considered autistic if they were alive today.

OBAMA: They might be on the spectrum.

ITO: Right, on the spectrum. And if we were able to eliminate autism and make everyone neuro-­normal, I bet a whole slew of MIT kids would not be the way they are. One of the problems, whether we’re talking about autism or just diversity broadly, is when we allow the market to decide. Even though you probably wouldn’t want Einstein as your kid, saying “OK, I just want a normal kid” is not gonna lead to maximum societal benefit.

OBAMA: That goes to the larger issue that we wrestle with all the time around AI. Part of what makes us human are the kinks. They’re the mutations, the outliers, the flaws that create art or the new invention, right? We have to assume that if a system is perfect, then it’s static. And part of what makes us who we are, and part of what makes us alive, is that we’re dynamic and we’re surprised. One of the challenges that we’ll have to think about is, where and when is it appropriate for us to have things work exactly the way they’re supposed to, without surprises?

Tesla reports record profit and confirms its long-term growth plan

Despite concerns about rising competition and macroeconomic headwinds, Elon Musk's electric vehicle company reported fourth-quarter profits up 59 percent from the year-ago period.

Le Monde with AP and AFP

Published on January 25, 2023

Tesla on Wednesday, January 25, posted record net income in the fourth quarter of last year, and the company predicted that additional software-related profits will keep its margins higher than any other automaker.

The Austin, Texas, maker of electric vehicles and solar panels said it made $3.69 billion from October through December, or an adjusted $1.19 per share. That beat estimates of $1.13 that had been reduced by analysts, according to FactSet. The company’s profit was 59% more than the same period a year ago.

Revenue for the quarter was $24.32 billion, which fell short of the $24.67 billion that analysts expected. On January 13, the company cut prices in the US and China, its two biggest markets, by up to 20% on some models, leading many analysts to believe that demand had fallen due to high prices and rising interest rates.

Tesla said in its investor letter Wednesday that it would produce about 1.8 million vehicles this year, ahead of a predicted 50% annual growth rate. But the outlook section of the letter didn’t give an estimate of deliveries for the year. Previously Tesla has said its deliveries would grow at a 50% annual rate most years.

'Demand is a problem'

Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas wrote in a note to investors early Wednesday that demand is a problem for the company. "In our view, the price cuts are indeed a response to slowing incremental demand relative to incremental supply," he wrote.

Tesla also said it has rolled out its "Full Self-Driving" software to about 400,000 users, and that it recognized $324 million from Full Self-Driving software during the quarter. Despite its name, "Full Self-Driving" cannot drive itself, and Tesla warns drivers that they must be ready to intervene at any time.

The company said it knows there are questions about macroeconomics in the face of rising interest rates. "In the near term we are accelerating our cost reduction roadmap and driving towards higher production rates, while staying focused on executing against the next phase of our roadmap," the letter said.

Image: Germán & Co

Meta to reinstate Donald Trump's Facebook and Instagram accounts

By Katie Paul and Sheila Dang

Trump's Facebook, Instagram accounts to be restored

Jan 25 (Reuters) - Meta Platforms Inc (META.O) said Wednesday it will reinstate former U.S. President Donald Trump's Facebook and Instagram accounts in the coming weeks, following a two-year suspension after the deadly Capitol Hill riot on January 6, 2021.

The restoration of his accounts could provide a boost to Trump, who announced in November he will make another run for the White House in 2024. He has 34 million followers on Facebook and 23 million on Instagram, platforms that are key vehicles for political outreach and fundraising.

His Twitter account was restored in November by new owner Elon Musk, though Trump has yet to post there.

Free speech advocates say it is appropriate for the public to have access to messaging from political candidates, but critics of Meta have accused the company of lax moderating policies.

Meta said in a blog post Wednesday it has "put new guardrails in place to deter repeat offenses."

"In the event that Mr. Trump posts further violating content, the content will be removed and he will be suspended for between one month and two years, depending on the severity of the violation," wrote Nick Clegg, Meta's president of global affairs, in the blog post.

The decision, while widely expected, drew sharp rebukes from civil rights advocates. "Facebook has policies but they under-enforce them," said Laura Murphy, an attorney who led a two-year long audit of Facebook concluding in 2020. "I worry about Facebook's capacity to understand the real world harm that Trump poses: Facebook has been too slow to act."

The Anti-Defamation League, the NAACP, Free Press and other groups also expressed concern Wednesday over Facebook's ability to prevent any future attacks on the democratic process, with Trump still repeating his false claim that he won the 2020 presidential election.

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Climate Change May Usher in a New Era of Trade Wars

Countries are pursuing new solutions to try to mitigate climate change. More trade fights are likely to come hand in hand.

NYT by Ana Swanson

Jan. 25, 2023

WASHINGTON — Efforts to mitigate climate change are prompting countries across the world to embrace dramatically different policies toward industry and trade, bringing governments into conflict.

These new clashes over climate policy are straining international alliances and the global trading system, hinting at a future in which policies aimed at staving off environmental catastrophe could also result in more frequent cross-border trade wars.

In recent months, the United States and Europe have proposed or introduced subsidies, tariffs and other policies aimed at speeding the green energy transition. Proponents of the measures say governments must move aggressively to expand sources of cleaner energy and penalize the biggest emitters of planet-warming gases if they hope to avert a global climate disaster.

But critics say these policies often put foreign countries and companies at a disadvantage, as governments subsidize their own industries or charge new tariffs on foreign products. The policies depart from a decades-long status quo in trade, in which the United States and Europe often joined forces through the World Trade Organization to try to knock down trade barriers and encourage countries to treat one another’s products more equally to boost global commerce.

Now, new policies are pitting close allies against one another and widening fractures in an already fragile system of global trade governance, as countries try to contend with the existential challenge of climate change.

“The climate crisis requires economic transformation at a scale and speed humanity has never attempted in our 5,000 years of written history,” said Todd N. Tucker, the director of industrial policy and trade at the Roosevelt Institute, who is an advocate for some of the measures. “Unsurprisingly, a task of this magnitude will require a new policy tool kit.”

The current system of global trade funnels tens of millions of shipping containers stuffed with couches, clothing and car parts from foreign factories to the United States each year, often at astonishingly low prices. But the prices that consumers pay for these goods do not take into account the environmental harm generated by the far-off factories that make them, or by the container ships and cargo planes that carry them across the ocean.

A factory in Chengde, China. U.S. officials believe they must lessen a dangerous dependence on goods from China.Credit...Fred Dufour/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

American and European officials argue that more needs to be done to discourage trade in products made with more pollution or carbon emissions. And U.S. officials believe they must lessen a dangerous dependence on China in particular for the materials needed to power the green energy transition, like solar panels and electric vehicle batteries.

The Biden administration is putting in place generous subsidies to encourage the production of clean energy technology in the United States, such as tax credits for consumers who buy American-made clean cars and companies building new plants for solar and wind power equipment. Both the United States and Europe are introducing taxes and tariffs aimed at encouraging less environmentally harmful ways of producing goods.

Climate Forward  There’s an ongoing crisis — and tons of news. Our newsletter keeps you up to date.

Biden administration officials have expressed hopes that the climate transition could be a new opportunity for cooperation with allies. But so far, their initiatives seem to have mainly stirred controversy when the United States is already under attack for its response to recent trade rulings.

The administration has publicly flouted several decisions of World Trade Organization panels that ruled against the United States in trade disputes involving national security issues. In two separate announcements in December, the Office of the United States Trade Representative said it would not change its policies to abide by W.T.O. decisions.

But the biggest source of contention has been new tax credits for clean energy equipment and vehicles made in North America that were part of a sweeping climate and health policy bill that President Biden signed into law last year. European officials have called the measure a “job killer” and expressed fears they will lose out to the United States on new investments in batteries, green hydrogen, steel and other industries. In response, European Union officials began outlining their own plan this month to subsidize green energy industries — a move that critics fear will plunge the world into a costly and inefficient “subsidy war.”

The United States and European Union have been searching for changes that could be made to mollify both sides before the U.S. tax-credit rules are settled in March. But the Biden administration appears to have only limited ability to change some of the law’s provisions. Members of Congress say they intentionally worded the law to benefit American manufacturing.

Biden administration is putting in place subsidies to encourage the production of clean energy technology in the United States, such as tax credits for consumers who buy American-made clean cars.Credit...Brittany Greeson for The New York Times

European officials have suggested that they could bring a trade case at the World Trade Organization that might be a prelude to imposing tariffs on American products in retaliation.

Valdis Dombrovskis, the European commissioner for trade, said that the European Union was committed to finding solutions but that negotiations needed to make progress or the European Union would face “even stronger calls” to respond.

“We need to follow the same rules of the game,” he said.

Anne Krueger, a former official at the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, said the potential pain of American subsidies on Japan, South Korea and allies in Europe was “enormous.”

“When you discriminate in favor of American companies and against the rest of the world, you’re hurting yourself and hurting others at the same time,” said Ms. Krueger, now a senior fellow at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.

But in a letter last week, a collection of prominent labor unions and environmental groups urged Mr. Biden to move forward with the plans without delays, saying outdated trade rules should not be used to undermine support for a new clean energy economy.

“It’s time to end this circular firing squad where countries threaten and, if successful, weaken or repeal one another’s climate measures through trade and investment agreements,” said Melinda St. Louis, the director of the Global Trade Watch for Public Citizen, one of the groups behind the letter.

Valdis Dombrovskis, the European commissioner for trade, has pressed the United States to negotiate more on its climate-related subsidies for American manufacturing.Credit...Stephanie Lecocq/EPA, via Shutterstock

Other recent climate policies have also spurred controversy. In mid-December, the European Union took a major step toward a new climate-focused trade policy as it reached a preliminary agreement to impose a new carbon tariff on certain imports. The so-called carbon border adjustment mechanism would apply to products from all countries that failed to take strict actions to cut their greenhouse gas emissions.

The move is aimed at ensuring that European companies that must follow strict environmental regulations are not put at a disadvantage to competitors in countries where laxer environmental rules allow companies to produce and sell goods more cheaply. While European officials argue that their policy complies with global trade rules in a way that U.S. clean energy subsidies do not, it has still rankled countries like China and Turkey.

The Biden administration has also been trying to create an international group that would impose tariffs on steel and aluminum from countries with laxer environmental policies. In December, it sent the European Union a brief initial proposal for such a trade arrangement.

The idea still has a long way to go to be realized. But even as it would break new ground in addressing climate change, the approach may also end up aggravating allies like Canada, Mexico, Brazil and South Korea, which together provided more than half of America’s foreign steel last year.

Under the initial proposal, these countries would theoretically have to produce steel as cleanly as the United States and Europe, or face tariffs on their products.

A steel plant in Belgium. Under the initial proposal, countries would theoretically have to produce steel as cleanly as the United States and Europe, or face tariffs.Credit...Kevin Faingnaert for The New York Times

Proponents of new climate-focused trade measures say discriminating against foreign products, and goods made with greater carbon emissions, is exactly what governments need to build up clean energy industries and address climate change.

“You really do need to rethink some of the fundamentals of the system,” said Ilana Solomon, an independent trade consultant who previously worked with the Sierra Club.

Ms. Solomon and others have proposed a “climate peace clause,” under which governments would commit to refrain from using the World Trade Organization and other trade agreements to challenge one another’s climate policies for 10 years.

“The complete legitimacy of the global trading system has never been more in question,” she said.

In the United States, support appears to be growing among both Republicans and Democrats for more nationalist policies that would encourage domestic production and discourage imports of dirtier goods — but that would also most likely violate World Trade Organization rules.

Most Republicans do not support the idea of a national price on carbon. But they have shown more willingness to raise tariffs on foreign products that are made in environmentally damaging ways, which they see as a way to protect American jobs from foreign competition.

Robert E. Lighthizer, a chief trade negotiator for the Trump administration, said there was “great overlap” between Republicans and Democrats on the idea of using trade tools to discourage imports of polluting products from abroad.

“I’m coming at it to get more American employed and with higher wages,” he said. “You shouldn’t be able to get an economic advantage over some guy working in Detroit, trying to support his family, from pollution, by manufacturing overseas.”

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UK energy regulator proposes late payment fine for Delta Gas and Power

Reuters

OSLO, Jan 26 (Reuters) - Britain's energy regulator Ofgem said on Thursday it planned to fine Delta Gas and Power 100,000 pounds ($123,870) for late payments into a scheme to support renewable energy development, arguing the company acted deliberately.

The company missed an Oct. 31 deadline to pay a Renewables Obligation (RO) bill totalling 530,809.20 pounds despite multiple reminders, a final order, and accruing late payment interest, Ofgem said.

Delta now has 21 days to respond to Ofgem's notice of intent, after which an official decision will made on whether to issue the penalty, the regulator said.Register for free to Reuters and know the full story

"Compliance and enforcement engagement is a resource and time intensive activity, and we take a very dim view of any repeat offenders," Ofgem said.

It is the second time energy supplier, which serves 1,690 business customers in Britain, has been subject to enforcement, after late payment for the 2020/21 period as well, the regulator said.

News round-up, Wednesday, January 25, 2023

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Quote of the week…

Natural Gas Shortages Hit China…

“It’s a perfect winter storm for Xi,” said Willy Lam, a longtime analyst of Chinese politics who is a senior fellow at the Jamestown Foundation. “Nothing seems to be working, partly because nobody seems to have much cash.”

NYT

Leopard Tank

After weeks of indecision, Ukraine's allies have finally taken a stand. Several dozen Western battle tanks will be sent to help Kyiv's forces in the coming months. They will enable Ukraine to resist the onslaught of Russian troops and above all to regain the initiative in the coming spring, when the weather conditions will be more favorable for new mechanized maneuvers. The announcement was set to be made on Wednesday, January 25, by both the United States and Germany, who have managed to agree on a coalition, despite major initial differences.

Spiegel

TURKEY'S FUTURE UNCERTAIN AN ANNOUNCED DEJA VU FOR SWEDEN

After seven years of cooperation with independent organisations in Turkey, the Palme Centre is now leaving - following a decision by Sida - a country in deep crisis. Independent organisations in particular play an important role in Turkey in raising awareness of democracy and human rights among the population. But they are working against the wind. Turkey's state apparatus is crumbling. Helin Sahin of the Palme Centre writes in Dagens Arena.

Helin Salin, 22 July 2014

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Andres Gluski, President & CEO of the AES Corporation, had a productive first day at the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting #WEF2023 in Davos, Switzerland.

—that the kind of worldwide transformation urgently needed now , can only be achieved with the cooperation of the public and private sectors, Gluski said.

Over the next few days, about 1,700 CEOs and 400 other prominent personalities will gather in Davos to explore solutions to global concerns such as climate change, energy efficiency, and electrification.

Image: Andrés Gluski, President and CEO and Ricardo Manuel Falú, Senior Vice President and Chief Strategy and Commercial Officer and Madelka McCalla, Chief Corporate Affairs and Impact Officer at The AES Corporation

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Seafloat-hybrid-power-plant

Armando Rodriguez, Seaboard CEO for the Dominican Republic, concludes: 

 “We are very excited about this project because it will be a big benefit to the community in terms of the environment and the employment we will provide to the area.

Seaboard Dominican Republic

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Cooperate with ethical thinking…

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What is Artificial Intelligency?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the ability of a computer or a robot controlled by a computer to do tasks that are usually done by humans because they require human intelligence and discernment. Although there are no AIs that can perform the wide variety of tasks an ordinary human can do, some AIs can match humans in specific tasks.

---

Natural Gas Shortages Hit China as Temperatures Plunge

The post Natural Gas Shortages Hit China as Temperatures Plunge appeared first on New York Times.

January 25, 2023

For many people across China, a shortage of natural gas and alarmingly cold temperatures are making a difficult winter unbearable. For Li Yongqiang, they mean freezing nights without heat.

“We dare not turn on the heat overnight — after using it for five or six hours, the gas stops again,” Mr. Li, a 45-year-old grocer, said by telephone from his home in northern China’s Hebei Province. “The gas shortage is really affecting our lives.”

The lack of natural gas, which is used widely across China to heat homes and businesses, has angered tens of millions of people and spilled over into caustic complaints on social media.

One person in Hebei Province wrote of waking early four nights a week because she was too cold to sleep despite two comforters on her bed. A viral video on China’s internet shows a high-rise apartment building in a different northern province, Shanxi, with the windows plastered with bright red posters of the sort often seen at Lunar New Year — except that these posters say “cold.”

Already this winter, hundreds of millions of people have caught Covid since Xi Jinping, China’s top leader, abandoned his “zero Covid” policy in early December. That policy had kept infections low but required costly precautions like mass testing — measures that exhausted the budgets of local governments. Many towns and cities now lack the money they need even to pay their own employees, much less to maintain adequate supplies of gas for homes.

The crunch, experts said, has exposed systemic weaknesses in China’s energy regulations and infrastructure, while showing the reach of the global market turmoil provoked last year by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Russia has long been a major supplier of natural gas to China and many regions, particularly Europe. When Russia halted exports to Europe last summer, nations bid up world prices as they stockpiled supplies from elsewhere. A surprisingly warm winter has since helped push gas prices lower in Europe, but the bitter cold is now pushing them even higher in China.

At the same time, China’s provincial and municipal governments have reduced customary subsidies for natural gas consumption that used to keep a lid on heating bills. The national government has responded by telling local governments to provide heat, without giving them money to pay for it. As a result, gas is effectively being rationed, with households receiving the minimum needed for cooking food but very little for heat.

“It’s a perfect winter storm for Xi,” said Willy Lam, a longtime analyst of Chinese politics who is a senior fellow at the Jamestown Foundation. “Nothing seems to be working, partly because nobody seems to have much cash.”

This is the third grass-roots energy crisis in just five years for Mr. Xi. His government abruptly banned coal-fired boilers across large areas of northern China in 2017 in favor of gas ones. It was a quick fix for air pollution, but residents soon found there was not enough gas for all the new boilers.

Then in 2021, the price of coal jumped higher than the regulated price at which utilities could sell electricity generated from coal. Reluctant to lose money, utilities temporarily closed power plants, contributing to a wave of blackouts.

Many in Europe worried last year how they would heat their homes this winter after President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia reduced and then halted natural gas shipments to the continent.

But Europe has not just had an unusually warm winter. Gas companies there have raised prices, encouraging conservation, and governments have subsidized consumers to offset at least part of the extra cost. European companies also accumulated large stockpiles of extra gas last autumn. Worries have faded that families in Europe will not have enough natural gas to heat their homes this winter.

In China, the temperature has become unusually frigid. Over the weekend, numerous weather stations in northernmost China’s Heilongjiang Province reached the lowest temperatures they had ever recorded. Mohe City, the northernmost city in China, reached lows for three straight days below minus 50 degrees Celsius. China’s meteorology agency has issued nationwide warnings this week of very cold weather.

The government has taken notice of the gas shortages.

“Some localities and enterprises have not implemented measures to ensure the supply and price of energy for people’s livelihood,” Lian Weiliang, vice chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission, China’s top economic planning agency, said at a news conference on Jan. 13.

He added that the national government would hold local officials responsible for supplying homes, but did not indicate that Beijing would provide any money to help them do so. China will also build more natural gas storage sites, he said, to try to avoid similar problems in the future.

China actually has enough natural gas to make it through the winter, said Yan Qin, a China energy specialist at Refinitiv, a data company in London. The problem is that pricing regulations and declining subsidies are preventing gas from reaching households in northern China when temperatures plunge.

Much of the world has shunned Russian energy during the war, but China has stepped up its purchases of natural gas from Russia. Imports from Russia of liquefied natural gas, which can be transported by ship, jumped 42.3 percent last year, as Chinese companies bought cargos that businesses in Japan and elsewhere were no longer willing to buy because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Much of that Russian gas was imported at very high prices. But Chinese regulations strictly limit the price at which municipal and township gas distributors are allowed to sell gas to households. This winter, the wholesale cost of gas is up to three times the price that distributors are allowed to charge residential customers, said Jenny Zhang, a natural gas expert at the Lantau Group, an energy and power consulting firm in Hong Kong that specializes in mainland China.

Distributors are allowed to pass along extra costs to industrial and business users of gas, but not to individuals. So when prices rise, the companies have a big incentive to cut off homes and sell mostly to industrial and commercial users.

The problem is particularly acute in populous Hebei Province near Beijing. Many local gas companies have been at least partly privatized in recent years.

“They don’t have deep pockets when the gas price is swinging,” Ms. Zhang said.

And local governments in places like Hebei are under severe financial strain.

Their main source of revenue, sales of land leases to developers, dried up last year as the pandemic costs skyrocketed. The acreage leased to developers plummeted 53 percent last year as the real estate sector ran into financial difficulties.

Hebei Province, which wraps around three sides of Beijing and has 74.5 million people, has fared worst of all. The national government has been particularly insistent over the past five years that Hebei homes and businesses switch to gas because air pollution from their use of coal quickly wafts into Beijing. Many residents, including Mr. Li, the grocer, no longer have coal or coal-burning stoves.

Shijiazhuang, the provincial capital, was then among the first cities to run low on money for Covid testing last autumn. It moved quickly to abandon testing late last year as soon as Beijing began signaling flexibility on the “zero Covid” policy, only to end up with an immediate wave of cases. Now temperatures in the mountainous province are falling far below freezing.

With revenue dwindling and costs rising, local governments in Hebei have little financial muscle to resume subsidizing gas quickly for their customers.

“If they would be able to subsidize,” Ms. Qin, the China energy specialist, said, “we would not have this shortage.”

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Leopard 2 Tank

Ukraine's allies consent to crucial tank deliveries

After initially hesitating, Germany is expected to send a limited number of Leopard 2 tanks to Kyiv, while Washington is formalizing the delivery of some 30 Abrams tanks.

Le Monde by Thomas Wieder (Berlin (Germany) correspondent), Piotr Smolar (Washington (United States) correspondent) and Cédric Pietralunga

Published on January 25, 2023

After weeks of indecision, Ukraine's allies have finally taken a stand. Several dozen Western battle tanks will be sent to help Kyiv's forces in the coming months. They will enable Ukraine to resist the onslaught of Russian troops and above all to regain the initiative in the coming spring, when the weather conditions will be more favorable for new mechanized maneuvers. The announcement was set to be made on Wednesday, January 25, by both the United States and Germany, who have managed to agree on a coalition, despite major initial differences.

According to several US media outlets and confirmed by European sources, Washington is set to officially announce the delivery of some 30 M1 Abrams tanks on Wednesday. This announcement would constitute a shift in the American position and a disavowal for the Pentagon. According to the Wall Street Journal, American president Joe Biden made this decision following a telephone conversation on January 17 with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. The equipment would be acquired through a specific security assistance program for Ukraine, without drawing on current US military stocks.

For its part, Germany would deliver a limited number of Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine and, above all, authorize other countries that possess them to do the same, notably Poland. According to the news website Der Spiegel, which revealed the information late on Tuesday, this decision looked set to be officially announced on Wednesday by Scholz, during a speech to the Bundestag at midday. According to the German site, Berlin intends to send at least 14 Leopard 2 tanks from the Bundeswehr's stockpile, which has a total of 320 tanks, but only 200 of which are operational.

Until very recently, the United States had been reluctant to send heavy armored vehicles to Ukraine. Difficult to maneuver, complicated to maintain and fuel-hungry, the Abrams tanks could be a poisoned chalice for the Kyiv forces, explained Colin Kahl, the Pentagon's third in command, on his return from a trip to Ukraine on January 18. "The Abrams tank is no more difficult to use than a Leopard or a Leclerc, but its turbine consumes twice as much fuel as the diesel engines of its competitors, which requires much greater refueling logistics," confirmed Marc Chassillan, a French specialist in land armaments.

Pressure on the German Chancellor

Anxious to preserve the solidity of the Western bloc, the United States decided to take the step to unblock Germany's position. Concerned about its relations with Moscow, Germany had not wanted its Leopard tanks to be the only ones sent to Ukraine. This position had been clearly explained in recent weeks by Social Democrat (SPD) Chancellor Scholz, who was adamant despite intense pressure within his governing coalition, notably from the Greens and the Liberals (FDP). If the coalition failed, Moscow could have welcomed the first serious rift between the allies in a year, according to Western sources.

The pressure being put on Scholz by European leaders also played a role. For several weeks, Poland had been saying it was ready to deliver some of its army's Leopard tanks to Ukraine, but could not do so without authorization from their manufacturer, which has a contractual right of review over the re-export of their equipment. This conditionality, combined with Berlin's reluctance, exasperated Warsaw to no end. "The Germans are delaying, procrastinating and acting in a way that is difficult to understand," said Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki on January 24, explaining that he wanted to create a "coalition of countries supporting Ukraine with Leopard 2 tanks."

Eager to defuse this rise in tension, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) declared on Tuesday morning that countries wishing to deliver Leopards to Kyiv could "start training" Ukrainians in how to use these tanks. At the same time, it was learned that Poland had officially asked Berlin to allow it to send 14 Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine. "The request will be examined as a matter of urgency," the German government said, clearly anxious to calm Warsaw's impatience, which had said the day before that it was ready to dispense with Berlin's authorization to send its tanks to Ukraine.

Support of the US Congress

On the American side, the pressure also intensified in recent days in Congress, particularly among senators, where support for the Ukrainian cause remains very strong. The Republican Lindsey Graham and the Democrat Richard Blumenthal spoke side by side on Tuesday on this subject. For Graham, the delivery of tanks to Kyiv "is recognition of the fact that our current objective is to stand by Ukraine until the last Russian soldier leaves its territory. For his part, Blumenthal, who led a bipartisan delegation to Kyiv a few days ago, stressed the importance of a very rapid delivery of this equipment to facilitate the Ukrainian counter-attack to the Russian border.

In addition to Poland, a number of European countries have expressed their willingness to send Leopard tanks to Ukraine, which estimates that its troops need about 300 tanks to repel the Russians. During a trip to Brussels on Tuesday, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte explained that the Netherlands is considering buying 18 Leopard 2 main battle tanks, which it leases from Germany, to provide them to Ukraine. "We leased them (tanks), which means we can buy them and donate (to Ukraine)," he said in an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper. "But there is no decision yet," he added.

According to local media, Norway is also ready to give up 8 of its 36 Leopards. Finland has also said it is available. Military experts estimate the number of Leopards currently in service in European armies at around 2,000, making them by far the largest contingent of tanks on the Old Continent.

The Elysée Palace did not wish to comment on the possibility of sending German and American tanks to Ukraine on Tuesday evening. Officially, France is studying the possibility of delivering some of the 222 Leclerc tanks in its army to Kyiv. But the military is reluctant to do so, believing that they already have too few to train properly. Ministerial sources also indicate that the maintenance of these technological monsters, manufactured by the French company Nexter, can be complicated for a country at war, especially if the number of tanks delivered is limited. The United Kingdom was not deterred by this factor. On January 14, London announced the upcoming delivery of 14 of its Challenger 2 heavy tanks to the Kyiv army.

'A race of speed'

The only certainty is that these decisions mark a new stage in the war in Ukraine. Having become stalled in the autumn, the front has seen new movements in recent weeks. The Russians say they have conquered the town of Soledar, in the east of the country, and are carrying out unconfirmed new attacks near Zaporizhzhia, further south. For their part, the Ukrainians are at work in the Kreminna region in the north of the country. Various sources also report troop movements on both sides of the front to prepare new offensives.

Above all, Ukrainian and Western intelligence services anticipate a new mobilization of conscripts in Russia, after the one announced on September 21, 2022, by Russian President Vladimir Putin. This could result in the arrival of tens of thousands of new Russian soldiers on the front line in the coming months. This reinforcement would be difficult for the Ukrainians to contain without reinforcing their equipment. "Ukraine and Russia are engaged in a race of speed, in armament for the former, in mobilization for the latter," explained a military source.

"The first one to be ready will have a chance to grab the advantage over the other."

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Swedish Prime Minister Olofo Palme assassinated in Stockholm on Friday 28 February 1986.

Sweden-Turkey Spat Means Finland Might Take Unilateral Route

After a right-wing extremist burned a copy of the Koran in Stockholm over the weekend, Ankara is even less likely to approve Sweden's NATO bid anytime soon. Finland has said it might have to move ahead on its own.

Spiegel by Anna-Sophie Schneider

24.01.2023

A few dozen people gathered on Saturday not far from the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm. Far from being a normal protest, it was a targeted provocation. The notorious right-wing extremist politician Rasmus Paludan set fire to a copy of the Koran.

Paludan, head of the Islamophobic party Stram Kurs (Hard Line), has both Danish and Swedish citizenship. He poses as a defender of basic rights and claims that his protests are aimed at countering what he claims are Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s efforts at influencing freedom of speech.

His Saturday stunt triggered furious reactions from across the Muslim world. Turkey also immediately condemned the burning of the Koran, calling it an "anti-Islam act, which targets Muslims and insults our sacred values." It was, in short, immediately clear that Paludan’s "protest" would have far-reaching political consequences.

On Monday, Erdoğan went a step further, saying that the Swedish government cannot count on Turkish support for its efforts to join NATO. "It is clear that those who allowed such vileness to take place in front of our embassy can no longer expect any charity from us regarding their NATO membership application," Erdoğan said.

Relations between Ankara and Stockholm had already been tense. Turkey has long stood in the way of efforts by Sweden and Finland to join the trans-Atlantic military alliance. Both countries decided in May 2022, in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, to abandon their neutrality and join NATO.

Twenty-eight of 30 member states have since rubberstamped the two countries’ applications, with Hungary saying that it would be granting its approval next month. That leaves Turkey as the only NATO member left to give its consent. But despite numerous talks, Ankara hasn’t budged in months.

Turkey’s leaders accuse the Swedish government of supporting terrorist organizations, a reference to the Kurdish militia group YPG, which Ankara sees as an arm of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is banned in Turkey. The PKK is also considered to be a terrorist organization inside the European Union, but Brussels has declined expand that classification to the YPG. The NATO membership applications from Finland and Sweden handed Erdoğan a perfect opportunity to bring the issue back into the spotlight.

In addition, the Turkish president accuses Sweden of being a sanctuary for terrorists and is demanding that Stockholm extradite several members of the PKK along with opposition and Kurdish activists. A memorandum between Sweden, Finland and Turkey last summer was supposed eliminate the differences of opinion that exist between the countries. But the sense of relief triggered by the diplomatic triumph proved short-lived.

The document is formulated in such a way that it is open to a wide variety of interpretations. And Turkish leaders are still unhappy with how the Nordic countries have construed it. Ankara has sent careful signals that It would be open to Finland initially joining NATO without Sweden, but Helsinki was long opposed to doing so.

On Tuesday, however, Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto said that the time had come for his country to consider moving ahead without Sweden. He also told Reuters that talks needed to be put on hold for a time, following the events of the weekend. "A time-out is needed before we return to the three-way talks and see where we are when the dust has settled after the current situation," Haavisto told Reuters in a phone interview.

First Rapprochement, then Alienation

Given Turkey’s comments thus far, however, it doesn’t look as though a solution to the impasse will present itself anytime soon.

For Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, the NATO question has become a true test. The conservative politician has only been in office since mid-October. But even before he took office, Social Democratic governments before him had made concessions to Erdoğan, such as authorizing weapons exports to Turkey for the first time in 2019. Kristersson has sought to expand this delicate rapprochement. A constitutional amendment aimed at strengthening Sweden’s anti-terrorism laws was received positively in the Turkish press.

Indeed, Kristersson’s first trip abroad, taken in November, was to Ankara – a strong signal to Erdoğan. But that trip saw an event that in hindsight could be seen as the trigger of a new escalation in the NATO confrontation. The escalation that culminated on Saturday in the burning of the Koran.

During Kristersson’s trip, Erdoğan demanded yet again that a number of alleged terrorists be extradited. Specifically, he mentioned by name the former journalist Bülent Keneş. Erdoğan accuses Keneş of having taken part in the 2016 putsch attempt in Turkey. The Swedish prime minister made it clear that political leaders have no say on extraditions and that all such decisions are made by courts of law. And not long later, the highest court in Stockholm rejected Keneş' extradition.

It was a bitter defeat for Erdoğan, to which he responded with yet more demands. He insisted on the extradition of 130 people. Kristersson, who had already become the target of criticism for his attempts at rapprochement with Ankara, saw the demand as an afront. He said the Turkish request could not be granted.

The rejection from Stockholm was accompanied by increasingly provocative protests in Sweden against Turkey. On January 13, Kurdish activists hung an Erdoğan doll upside down in Stockholm and lit it on fire. Ankara responded by summoning the Swedish ambassador.

Following the burning of the Koran, the diplomat was once again summoned – for the second time in just a few days. But both the burning of the Koran and the burning of the Erdoğan doll are covered by Sweden’s freedom-of-expression rights. The legal consequences being demanded by Ankara are thus precluded.

Over the weekend, Kristersson tried to calm the tensions. Freedom of expression is a fundamental element of democracy, he wrote on Twitter, but "burning books that are holy to many is a deeply disrespectful act." He extended his sympathies to all Muslims who were offended by the stunt.

It didn’t work. After the burning of the Koran on Saturday in Stockholm, Swedish flags went up in flames on Sunday in front of the Swedish Consulate in Istanbul. Protesters called for a boycott of Swedish products and a meeting between the defense ministers of Sweden and Turkey was cancelled.

No Hope Until After the Election

Erdoğan will likely emerge as the greatest beneficiary of the uproar. The Turkish president is up for re-election in May, and the anti- Erdoğan protests in Sweden could very well give him a boost. Erdoğan has consistently benefited from anti-Western posturing in past elections, and this time around, the opposition isn’t likely to contradict him given Paludan’s antics.

Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, leader of the country’s largest opposition party, the CHP, blasted the burning of the Koran on Twitter, writing: "I condemn this fascism, which is the pinnacle of hate crime."

In short, it is difficult to imagine Turkey giving the green light to Sweden’s NATO membership aspirations before the presidential election.

"What happens after that depends to a certain extent on who wins," Paul Levin, director of the Institute for Turkish Studies at the University of Stockholm, told the news agency AFP. If Erdoğan remains in power, he said, Ankara’s ratification of Sweden’s NATO application may not happen for several years. The only thing that might speed things up, Levin believes, is if other NATO members make concessions to Turkey.

News round-up, Tuesday, January 24, 2023

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Quote of the week…

Kadri Simson, EU Commissioner for Energy, said: "The unprecedented energy crisis we are facing shows that we need to adapt the shape of the electricity market for the future to deliver the benefits of clean and affordable energy to all. I look forward to contributions from a wide range of stakeholders, which will help guide our legislative proposal this year.

ABC.es

Natural gas is the new “Russian winter” as a war element…

Norway does not consider an auxiliary international economic aid to lower the price of natural gas, as stated by the first Norwegian, Jonas Gahr Støre, on his official visit to Sweden on Sunday, August 28, 2022.

Emergency tax and energy-saving measures

Germany announces emergency measures to try to regain energy sovereignty

Today, the European political leadership speaks openly of an intervention in the electricity industry market, this interference refers to setting a ceiling on the price of the final service (Price-cap) of electricity. Undoubtedly, this measure will have an immediate contagion effect on other regions of the world, due to an economic recession.

However, current electricity prices are derived from a strategically restricted supply of natural gas due to a war conflict, which has increased the cost of producing electricity to current levels. In short, the increase in the price of electricity is beyond the responsibility of the electricity sector still less of the political authority.

Germán & Co

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Andres Gluski, President & CEO of the AES Corporation, had a productive first day at the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting #WEF2023 in Davos, Switzerland.

—that the kind of worldwide transformation urgently needed now , can only be achieved with the cooperation of the public and private sectors, Gluski said.

Over the next few days, about 1,700 CEOs and 400 other prominent personalities will gather in Davos to explore solutions to global concerns such as climate change, energy efficiency, and electrification.

Image: Andrés Gluski, President and CEO and Ricardo Manuel Falú, Senior Vice President and Chief Strategy and Commercial Officer and Madelka McCalla, Chief Corporate Affairs and Impact Officer at The AES Corporation

---

Seafloat-hybrid-power-plant

Armando Rodriguez, Seaboard CEO for the Dominican Republic, concludes: 

 “We are very excited about this project because it will be a big benefit to the community in terms of the environment and the employment we will provide to the area.

Seaboard Dominican Republic

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Cooperate with ethical thinking…

---

What is Artificial Intelligency?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the ability of a computer or a robot controlled by a computer to do tasks that are usually done by humans because they require human intelligence and discernment. Although there are no AIs that can perform the wide variety of tasks an ordinary human can do, some AIs can match humans in specific tasks.

Elías, Mario Vargas LLosa's intelligent virtual assistant

Artificial intelligence, Vargas Llosa and the virtue of the invisible

Logroño, La Rioja

Mario Vargas Llosa, the Nobel laureate, said the other day, at the inaugural event of the IX Jornadas organised by Futuro en español, that the writer must "polish the invisible prose until writing merges with reality". We could also recall here the maestro Paco de Lucia, who did win the Prince of Asturias, although he never won a Nobel Prize, simply because the Swedish Academy gets the categories wrong, leaving art aside. The maestro said that since he was a child he practised eight hours a day to master a technique with the ultimate idea of forgetting about it so that it would not limit his ability to express himself. Mastering a tool so as not to focus on it, so that it merges with his dialogue.

In the panel on artificial intelligence in Spanish

They might as well have both talked about technology: melting it down to make it invisible, giving software the value of the tool it should be, instead of raising it as the keystone and overvalued cornerstone of any current agreement on progress. We already lived through this bubble with the advent of computers, desktops, laptops, dotcoms, mobile phones and certainly before all this, according to chronicles of times past. And now it is the same circus with artificial intelligence (AI). It was born 70 or almost 100 years ago, depending on whether we assign its inception to Turing, McCarthy, IBM or any other personality.

The writer must polish the invisible prose until writing merges with reality.

Mario Vargas Llosa

As in some cases of collective progress, polygenesis over a period of time on a concept that evolves makes it impossible to give a single name and surname, no matter how much pressure is exerted by interested sectors. And in all these years we have seen a parade of concepts and techniques under this umbrella: neural networks, machine learning, learning analytics, heuristics, Bayesian networks, expert systems, cognitive modelling and a long etcetera.

On the panel on the future of education

Recently many people have been talking about AI in education and I keep thinking that, for a change, we teachers are too late. AI has been around for decades and has been applied in a very worthy way to estimate the future, to predict the most varied things: the weather, the stock market, migrations, the evolution of diseases or viruses, maintenance needs, troop movements and even chess games. Talking to my colleagues in education and research, at conferences and various meetings, we realise that teachers want to incorporate these tools, but they are afraid of the complexity of these tools. Beyond moral, ethical and legal considerations, which there are, the teacher finds any AI software complicated to learn, to configure and even to use on the ground. And this is where the bubble arises.

Mastering a tool so as not to focus on it, so that it merges with its dialogue.

Paco de Lucía

It seems that an interested sector complicates the product unnecessarily with the aim of over-pricing it, in the manner of a recalcitrant consultant, pointing out how necessary complicated and costly consultancy work is. A sector that could focus its efforts on improving and providing a service that is affordable and already translated for the average person. Advanced users will always exist, but that 20% of the market, if we listen to Pareto, should not govern the interaction with the other 80%. Just as it is not necessary to be a master mechanic to drive a car, it is not essential to learn cryptic terms to be a worthy user of artificial intelligence applied to any field, including education. The secret lies in improving the experience of teachers and students, simplifying and adapting services to their needs, and making all the technological paraphernalia transparent, like the prose of the Nobel Prize winner or the technique of the virtuoso.

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How commodity traders in Switzerland are benefiting from the war

According to the NGO Public Eye, the profits of Swiss fossil and agricultural commodity traders have soared since the beginning of the war in Ukraine.

Le Monde by Serge Enderlin (Geneva (Switzerland) correspondent)

Published on January 24, 2023

War profiteer? The trading company Trafigura has made $7 billion (€ 6.45 billion) in profits in its 2022 fiscal year, twice as much as its previous record, in 2021. Covid-19, the war in Ukraine: The more the planet suffers, the more the traders cash in.

This is a paradox that does not trouble the Australian Jeremy Weir. Since 2014, he has been the boss of the company which is one of the principal brokers and charterers of black gold on the planet. Its trading activities are based in Geneva. "We have once again masterfully managed extreme market volatility across a wide range of commodities, and delivered outstanding results regardless of market conditions," he said.

The Swiss NGO Public Eye employed a less managerial language. On Thursday, January 19, it published a report on the ultra-lucrative commodities trading business in Switzerland. "While millions of people are under threat from acute food and supply insecurity caused by rising food and energy prices, commodity traders are booking historic record profits by taking advantage of market disruptions," the NGO said.

Flow growth

Just like its competitor Trafigura, the Vitol Group, the world's leading oil trading company, has also already broken through its own ceiling, with $4.5 billion in profits for the first six months of 2022, compared with $4.2 billion for the twelve months of 2021. The Gunvor company, for its part, has announced a fourfold increase in profits for the first half of 2022 compared with the first half of 2021.

It was co-founded by the Russian oligarch Gennadi Timchenko, a close associate of Vladimir Putin who is on all the Western sanctions lists. For a long time, the high society of Geneva has benefited from his generosity through Neva, his wife's philanthropic foundation. The man officially sold his shares in Gunvor to his Swedish business partner, Torbjörn Törnqvist, shortly after Russia annexed Crimea in the spring of 2014.

One commodities giant, however, outpaced  all others – Glencore (oil, gas, coal, minerals, metals, etc.). According to the Financial Times, the group based in Baar, in the mild tax climate of the Alemannic micro-canton Zug (central Switzerland), is "one of the biggest winners from the turmoil on the commodities markets unleashed by the war in Ukraine." It saw its profits grow by 846% to $12 billion in the first half of 2022 year-on-year.

Contrary to assumptions made at the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine in late February 2022, all indications are that commodity flows have not dried up, quite the opposite. The exponential increase in profits made by trading players would even tend to prove that this growth is not only due to the rise in prices. Clearly, the war has also led to an increase in the volumes traded in Switzerland.

A legal framework considered lax

Whether they "deal" in energy commodities (oil, gas, coal) or agricultural commodities (grain), none of the international operators based in the Swiss Confederation publishes precise figures that would provide details of their operations. "Because of that opacity, which is nothing other than a political choice," Public Eye has established its own estimates of the significance of the traders in the Swiss economy

In roughly a decade, the Alpine country has become the world's largest commodities trading center, overtaking London, without the goods ever physically passing through the shores of Lake Geneva. At least half of the world's grain trade takes place there, as does 40% of the coal trade, while one out of every three barrels of oil on the planet is sold in Geneva.

In roughly a decade, Switzerland has become the world's largest commodities trading center

The sector alone now accounts for 8% of Switzerland's gross domestic product, on par with the financial center, but ahead of the pharmaceutical and chemical industries. The financial center has been regulated since 2007 by a market surveillance authority, after Switzerland had gone through difficult years under double pressure from Europe and, above all, the United States. That, however, is still not the case for the trading sector, which benefits from a legal framework that is considered lax.

That Swiss exception has so far not given rise to any political will to clarify the situation. Only the Zurich Green MP Balthasar Glättli has taken up the issue. In September 2022, he submitted an initiative to the National Parliament in Bern, calling for "significant windfall profits resulting from the war against Ukraine" to be subject to a higher federal tax rate. But in Switzerland, most taxes are levied at the cantonal level, resulting in constant tax underbidding between cantons to attract international players.

France's elusive promise: Cutting nuclear power to 50% of electricity production

At first, France planned to cut the share of nuclear power in its electricity production to 50% by 2025. Then, 2035. Now, the target looks set to be scrapped altogether.

Le Monde by Adrien Pécout

Published on January 24, 2023

The French state's inconsistencies on nuclear power can be expressed in a single percentage, originally one of the 60 electoral commitments made by candidate François Hollande ahead of the 2012 presidential election. That promise was to reduce the share of nuclear power in France's electricity production to 50%. But in 2021, the figure stood at 69%, down from 75% a decade ago. Ahead of the 2012 legislative elections, this promise had also helped seal the victorious alliance between the Socialists and the Greens. The promise became law in 2015, under Hollande's presidency, with a "horizon" set for 2025. Four years later, under President Emmanuel Macron, the "horizon" was postponed to 2035.

"This measure primarily has a declarative value," explained a person familiar with the inner workings of Hollande's Socialist government. "The horizon, when you approach it, moves further away." In a speech on the environment in November 2018, Macron stated that this percentage had been "brandished as a political totem", but that after a "pragmatic expertise", it had turned out to be "unattainable" by 2025.

Pushed back by a decade, the "totem" finds itself, even today, threatened to the point of risking obliteration. Its critics are already interpreting this as a sign that nuclear energy is back in favor. Which does not necessarily mean that the goal of reducing the share of nuclear power in the electricity mix out of reach. That will also depend on the State's capacity to speed up the production of wind and solar energy.

From ceiling to floor

The question is back on the table sooner than expected. On Tuesday, January 24, the Sénat will vote on a bill aiming to simplify administrative procedures for the construction of new nuclear reactors. Amended by the right-wing Sénat majority, the bill now plans to set a new energy policy. Rather than cutting nuclear power down to half of all electricity production, the new target is to "maintain the share of nuclear power in electricity production at more than 50% until 2050". The ceiling would turn into a floor.

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According to Energy Minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher, such a decision would be premature. But the government itself proposed to remove the 50% target. Their amendment, which was rejected by the Sénat, sought to include a vaguer goal, defined as "diversifying the electricity mix, aiming for a better balance between nuclear and renewable energies". Some observers believe the proposal was primarily a political play before sending the bill to the Assemblée Nationale, as way of pleasing pro-nuclear MPs, particularly on the right.

When contacted, the minister's entourage justified its "objective of diversifying the energy mix without setting a reference figure" by saying it was better to wait for the conclusions of public debates on energy consumption and the construction of new nuclear reactors. In the second half of the year, Parliament will discuss the "programming law" on energy and climate which sets policy goals over a timespan of several years. The 2019 energy-climate law had set a deadline on July 1 for this new programming law, but the pension reform will take up most of the legislative agenda until then.

Promised shutdowns

"The share of renewable energies will increase" over the decade, according to the same government source, insofar as the inauguration of any new nuclear reactor is envisaged at the earliest for 2035 – apart from the eternally pending EPR reactor in Flamanville, Normandy, where construction began in 2007, but which will only be functional in 2024 at the earliest.

A decade ago, the mood was more one of promised closures. In November 2011, eight months after the Japanese disaster at Fukushima, the governing agreement signed by the Socialists and the Greens targeted a "progressive" closure of 24 out of the 58 working reactors. The first ones to shut down, with "immediate" effect, were meant to be the two units at Fessenheim plant along the German border. They eventually were decommissioned – in February and June 2020, well after Hollande left office.

His successor Macron initially followed in the same direction. In 2018, he announced the definitive shutdown of 14 reactors by 2035, including those at Fessenheim. These are 14 closures are written into law, as they were included in the pluriannual energy programming law of April 2020.

A disoriented industry

In the meantime, the war in Ukraine and soaring energy costs caused the matter to be reconsidered. Nearing the end of his first term, Macron announced in February 2022 that France would relaunch its nuclear industry, citing the need for low-carbon electricity.

Not only did he announce the building of six to 14 new reactors – he also opened the door for an extension of the lifetimes of all existing units beyond 50 years, contradicting his previous announcements on closures. "I hope that no nuclear reactor in a state of production will be closed in the future, given the very significant increase in our electricity needs, unless, of course, safety reasons were to prevail," he said.

"As it stands, the percentage is vague and unquantified, everyone can interpret it as they wish"– Boris Solier, lecturer at the University of Montpellier

The contradictory promises of the past decade disoriented the industry, which was more readied for closing reactors than building them, according to Jean-Bernard Lévy, who was head of the state-owned electricity company EDF until August 2022. "We were told: 'your nuclear fleet will decline,'" he said.

The frequent revisions of the 50% target "reflect the strategic hesitations of the government regarding nuclear energy," said Bruno Villalba, a professor of political science at AgroParisTech. "When Hollande gave the environmentalists a pass with Fessenheim, he did not, for all that, program a series of closures."

During his first presidential campaign, in 2017, candidate Macron took up the promise to reduce the share of nuclear energy by 2025. The energy chapter of his policy platform had been co-ordinated by former Socialist MP Arnaud Leroy, who was subsequently appointed to head ADEME, the government agency for environmental transition. The goal was "difficult" to fulfill, admitted then environment minister Nicolas Hulot as early as November 2017. "I prefer realism and sincerity to mystification," he added.

Lack of precision

The 50% figure always lacked precision, for the simple reason that the energy legislation does not define the goal with an absolute value. It was born from the need to reach a compromise between the Greens, who wanted to abandon nuclear power, and the Socialists, who wanted to preserve the industry. It was a political target more than anything – "A goal or massive and structural reduction for the first time since the installation of the nuclear facilities [in the 1970s], without new construction," said Green MEP David Cormand, who was involved in crafting the agreement with the Socialists.

Another key goal, from the outset, was to reduce dependence on nuclear energy in the event of problems (such as the corrosion observed in recent months in some reactors) and to encourage investment in renewable energy.

"As it stands, the percentage is vague and unquantified, everyone can interpret it as they wish," according to Boris Solier, lecturer at the University of Montpellier, a specialist in energy economics. And for good reason: The more electricity production increases, the heavier the 50% benchmark would weigh in absolute terms.

But since 2015, the law on the energy transition for green growth sets a better-defined ceiling: It limits the maximum power of the French nuclear fleet at 63.2 gigawatts (GW). This regulation was meant to force EDF to shut down the Fessenheim power plant in exchange for the launch of the Flamanville EPR reactor, which is still pending. "A law on energy transition that really followed the goal of reducing the share of nuclear power should have included a gradual decrease in this ceiling. That solution was not chosen," said former environment minister and Green politician Cécile Duflot.

Coupled to wind and solar energy

That ceiling is now likely to be removed by another amendment from the Sénat's right-wing majority. Some experts say that would be a non-issue, because the ceiling seemed compatible with all models for 2050, alongside a massive deployment of wind and solar power, according to the analyses from grid operator RTE.

Assuming that some of France's nuclear reactors – 37 years old on average – are still functioning by then (24 GW of the current 61 GW, with the oldest reactors due to close), and if 14 new reactors are built along with several small modular SMRs (a total of around 27 GW), the combined power of the nuclear plants would still be lower than the 63.2 GW limit currently written in law..

"Even with 14 new reactors, the share of nuclear power will not exceed 50% by 2050," Minister Pannier-Runacher told the Sénat. But for 2035, that remains to be seen.

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Is Venezuela back on its feet?

by Elias Ferrer, 20 January 2023

The oil market determines the fortunes of Venezuela’s leaders.

L.C.Nøttaasen

As I roamed around Caracas in November, I could not help but become frustrated by the traffic jams. Just two years ago, drivers could hardly get any petrol. In 2020, unable to produce its own fuel, the oil-rich country had to wait for Iranian tankers to bring the refined product. But in shops across the city, full shelves contrasted with the infamous images from just a few years ago. Prices were often displayed in US dollars rather than the national currency, bolivars. Malls, supermarkets and restaurants were full of customers. I was puzzled, as many could afford $18 for a burger and chips at Puerkos, a popular fast-food chain.

During this stay, I witnessed the ‘clásico’: Venezuela’s main baseball rivals, Leones and Magallanes, played before a packed stadium, with energetic fans drinking pints of beer and splashing them on each other. My local friends said it was nice to see the seats fill up again. In the depths of the crisis that wreaked havoc on the country, few could afford to enjoy themselves at stadiums.

The recovery was evidently unequal. On the wealthier east side of Caracas, where Ferrari opened a new franchise last year, locals were building new fancy homes and offices. The international front was also changing. As I landed in Venezuela, the country’s ruler Nicolás Maduro attended COP27 and had a short exchange with Emmanuel Macron. Between handshakes and smiles, the French president offered to call his counterpart after the meeting.

The new normal

Since economic troubles started around 2014, between 5 and 7 million people have left the country, with many sending much needed remittances back home. US dollars have become widespread, slowing inflation as parts of the economy stay unaffected from the local currency’s downturn. Oil production has timidly picked up and, crucially, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine the US and Europe are once more interested in buying it, after having banned Venezuelan oil as part of a broader an economic blockade. The Venezuelan state has also sought to increase domestic production and, most importantly, encourage other exports.

In this vein, mining has become an important source of export revenue. The country’s soil is abundant in gold, cobalt, iron, bauxite and diamonds but, with the discovery of oil in the early 20th century, swathes of Venezuela’s interior were depopulated and much of its vast mineral wealth remained untapped. While some foreign corporations were interested in exploiting these minerals, their worth was small in comparison to the revenues brought in by black gold. I spoke to a government official from Ciudad Guayana, in the mineral-rich Orinoco basin. He told me that gold is flown from there to a Congolese mining firm, which manufactures ingots, to pay for imports in lieu of cash. Turkish firms have also been involved in processing Venezuelan gold ore. Still, given that this trade is intended to counter sanctions, it is hard to know the details. Journalists from the Wall Street Journal, the Times and the BBC have offered numbers, but they are not able to know with certainty.

Maduro’s socialist-styled government has given concessions to local and foreign businesses. Many price controls have been removed, and state-owned firms are now issuing a minority of shares in the national stock market. Special economic zones are being prepared, for instance in Tortuga Island, in a bet to bring back international tourism. In the year up to August 2022, the bolivar saw a period of surprising stability. Most investors, however, are wary of the risks, and have a bad memory of expropriations, bond defaults and hyperinflation. Even if the economy is recovering, it is still far from what it once was. At $82.15bn, Venezuela’s GDP is still 62% lower than in 2014, when the crisis began, according to IMF figures. It is true that most Latin American economies are yet to return to the abundance afforded by the commodities boom between 2000 and 2014, but no other has fallen so deep as Venezuela’s.

The official inflation rate for the first 11 months of 2022 is 145%. In relative terms, this is good news to those used to six-digit figures. According to the official rate, on January 1st, 2022 $1 was equivalent to Bs4.60, but by December 1st it had risen to 11.25 bolivars. I paid $5 for a traditional arepa plus a drink. At the start of the year, that would have been 23 bolivars. Yet as I sat down at the table, the price had become 56.25 bolivars. Many workers, especially in the public sector — including teachers and doctors — are paid in bolivars, and rapidly lose their spending power by the day. Meanwhile, business owners or the self-employed can demand to charge only in dollars, and can therefore afford to have a more stable lifestyle.

Products from global conglomerates, from Mars Incorporated and Nestlé to Mexico’s Bimbo fill the shelves to the brim in supermarkets and bodegones — local shops that flourished by selling foreign items during shortages in the economic crisis. Still, prices are only affordable to those with dollar incomes. The poor majority relies on a monthly subsidised food package and buying from street markets where they can procure fruit, vegetables and the staple corn flour. Prices are abysmally different for different people; I bought two kilograms of fresh produce for the equivalent of $1.5. This was cheap for me, and for Venezuelans who earn in dollars. However, the monthly minimum wage is Bs130, which at the end of November equalled $11.56.

All-in on oil

The political fortunes of Venezuela’s presidents have historically depended on the oil market. Hugo Chávez, whose presidency lasted from 1999 to 2013, rode the commodities boom. Under his presidency, Venezuela’s GDP quadrupled. In 1998, the year Chávez won his first election, GDP stood at $91.8bn. In 2012, the year before he passed away in office, he saw the figure reach its highest peak at $372.75bn. His project, the ‘Bolivarian revolution’, brought education, health and housing to many of the country’s poor, alongside other subsidised services. He also offered poorer countries and communities fuel at discounted prices.

In 2013, the ‘OPEC basket price’ for oil — Venezuela is a member of the club — stood at $109. Prices only fell from there, and sharply. As Chávez died, then-vice president Maduro stepped in, taking the full hit. In 2016 the same benchmark price was at $40.76. The regime that could pay for everything it wanted was now cash-strapped. At first, the response was to print bolivars to pay the exorbitant bill, but that became the catalyst for the extreme hyperinflation that has made Venezuela infamous.

From 2015, US-led international sanctions started hitting Venezuela’s economy. Individuals were targeted, but the country as a whole was effectively blockaded. Among other measures, the government was cut off from debt and equity markets, Venezuelan oil was banned in the US and overseas assets were frozen. Western banks withheld reserves and refused to process payments. Citgo, a sizable subsidiary of Venezuela’s state-owned oil company (PDVSA) in the US, was seized and many of its assets liquidated. In a move that later proved ironic, Texan refineries were repurposed to process Russian oil, as it was of a similar grade. The sanctions and low oil prices not only hit government coffers, but also PDVSA’s capacity to sustain its operations. For a few years, having the world’s largest known oil reserves meant little.

In 2019, the economy was in full collapse with little export income, hyperinflation and asphyxiating sanctions. The Trump administration recognised the then-head of the national assembly and opposition figure Juan Guaidó as interim president until free and fair elections were held. A coalition of Western and Latin American countries followed suit in recognising Guaidó and sanctioning Venezuela. Maduro was no longer ‘president’ but an illegitimate ‘usurper’. Isolated and unpopular, it seemed like Maduro’s days were numbered.

Oil is back on the table

Now, Maduro’s status as a pariah seems to be ending. Most of the Latin American governments that once called for his removal have been ousted by their electorates. Brazil, Colombia and Argentina are the most notable cases. Though not allies of Maduro, they are reopening trade and embassies. This year, Macron also publicly called for the US to allow for Venezuelan fossil fuels in Europe. As recently as 2019, France had recognised Juan Guaidó as the legitimate president.

This year, the Biden administration has sent at least two delegations to negotiate with Maduro, who is once again ‘president’ in Western discourse. He was not invited to this year’s Conference of the Americas, though Guaidó was also shunned. When asked about the absence of Venezuela’s ‘interim president’ in a press conference, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi asked, ‘Who?’ and failed to acknowledge him.

The Biden administration is toeing a thin line. On one hand, it cannot simply turn around and declare Maduro a friend now that Russia is the official enemy. On the other, Texan refiners and European consumers need Venezuela’s oil and gas fields running. As of today, forcing regime change seems unlikely. By lifting some sanctions, the US has brought chavistas and the opposition together at the negotiating table in Mexico. The aim is to bring about ‘free and fair’ elections; the US could judge them not to be adequate and reimpose sanctions. So far, the Biden administration has opened up on the energy front. Chevron has been given permission to pump Venezuelan oil, and European firms Repsol and Eni to ship it home to repay debt. Additionally, frozen assets worth $3bn in Western banks have been freed up to be invested in health, education and infrastructure under the UN’s supervision.

Brussels launches public consultation on decoupling gas prices from electricity tariffs

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Background information

Natural gas is the new “Russian winter” as a war element…

by Germán & Co

Norway does not consider an auxiliary international economic aid to lower the price of natural gas, as stated by the first Norwegian, Jonas Gahr Støre, on his official visit to Sweden on Sunday, August 28, 2022.

Emergency tax and energy-saving measures

Germany announces emergency measures to try to regain energy sovereignty

Today, the European political leadership speaks openly of an intervention in the electricity industry market, this interference refers to setting a ceiling on the price of the final service (Price-cap) of electricity. Undoubtedly, this measure will have an immediate contagion effect on other regions of the world, due to an economic recession.

However, current electricity prices are derived from a strategically restricted supply of natural gas due to a war conflict, which has increased the cost of producing electricity to current levels. In short, the increase in the price of electricity is beyond the responsibility of the electricity sector still less of the political authority.

In a spokesman for the Kremlin last week where Europe was threatened about how difficult it would be to face the coming winter. Yes, we conceive this statement only by analyzing the present, we are understanding the message very badly. Why?? The underlying message was to remind European politicians of the importance of the Russian (European) winter when bogged down and then defeating the Nazi invading forces as one of the fundamental milestones to end World War II. Natural gas is the new “Russian winter” as a war element. Therefore, this is the reason why the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) issued an almost instantaneous statement referring to this issue: European Winter 2022.

(Kremlin, gas supplies hampered only by EU sanctions – Politics – Nuova Europa – ANSA.it)

(NATO – Opinion: Statement by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the International Crimea Platform, Aug 23, 2022)

What is the big question in this situation? The answer is its elongation in time. Why? This is not a short-lived war-like six-day war (June 5-10, 1967). It is understood that this was the primary idea on the part of the invading forces, a huge miscalculation. We are facing a conflict, whose strategy is worn and torn, therefore, without light at the end of the tunnel for a long time. Regarding the uncertainty of the dispute, its duration, and destination, European politicians have been categorical and have riveted and riveted on this topic to such a frequency that it is difficult for the population to forget the reality to which it is subjected.

The European Union (EU) has announced urgent measures to curb this unsustainable inflationary situation that can easily lead to a systematic crisis. As a result of the current financial situation, a decrease in the value of housing in certain economies of the continent is expected of up to 20%, in the next 12 months, mainly due to lack of demand and inability to pay mortgage loans, a fact that has been aggravated by the increase in the base interest rate by one of the central banks in the area. An economic measure that is being questioned because it is counterproductive in the current situation, as a result of the fact that the current inflationary process does not correspond to overconsumption in the private sector or to excessive spending on the part of the treasury, variants that usually lead to speculative processes. On the contrary, the bullish trigger is due to the lack of supply of basic raw materials initiated during the pandemic and now aggravated by the war.

There is an urgent need in the political sphere to adopt measures to overcome this uncertain and overwhelming environment for the population (cost of living) and costs for industry in all diversities. The electricity sector, a cardinal component in the production chain and a fundamental variable in the economic sphere, is undoubtedly the most affected by the historic increase in fuel prices.

If you keep in mind the intransigent position of Russia and the brand-new statements of the Norwegian Prime Minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, on an official visit to Sweden last Sunday, where the Norwegian Prime Minister affirms that his country does not contemplate international economic aid measures as a mechanism to reduce the price of natural gas. It’s a clear message to the Government authorities of non-fossil energy-producing countries that must find solutions at their own disposal so as not to further deepen the crisis and avoid the pollution effect on other sectors of the economy.

Today the main headline of the newspaper El País of Spain reports on the fiscal measure that will be coming into force from October until the end of the year with the concern of stopping the inflationary process, the president of the Spanish government, Pedro Sánchez announces the substantial reduction of the Value Added Tax (VAT) from 25 to 5% to the price of natural gas in line with the provisions assumed in this matter for Germany and France. In contrary to Spain, the latter two included a strong energy-saving component in their packages. The appropriate measures are perhaps, insufficient in view of the magnitude of the current economic crisis. I understand that the fiscal provision adopted today by the Spanish government should have a broader significance that includes the entire chain of the electricity industry to have some reasonable expectations to navigate the current storm.

Andres Gluski, President & CEO of the AES Corporation, had a productive first day at the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting #WEF2023 in Davos, Switzerland.

—that the kind of worldwide transformation urgently needed now , can only be achieved with the cooperation of the public and private sectors, Gluski said.

Over the next few days, about 1,700 CEOs and 400 other prominent personalities will gather in Davos to explore solutions to global concerns such as climate change, energy efficiency, and electrification.

Image: Andrés Gluski, President and CEO and Ricardo Manuel Falú, Senior Vice President and Chief Strategy and Commercial Officer and Madelka McCalla, Chief Corporate Affairs and Impact Officer at The AES Corporation

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Seafloat-hybrid-power-plant

Armando Rodriguez, Seaboard CEO for the Dominican Republic, concludes: 

 “We are very excited about this project because it will be a big benefit to the community in terms of the environment and the employment we will provide to the area.

Seaboard Dominican Republic

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Cooperate with ethical thinking…

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What is Artificial Intelligency?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the ability of a computer or a robot controlled by a computer to do tasks that are usually done by humans because they require human intelligence and discernment. Although there are no AIs that can perform the wide variety of tasks an ordinary human can do, some AIs can match humans in specific tasks.

Henry Kissinger Warns That AI Will Fundamentally Alter Human Consciousness

“I’ve become convinced that AI and the surrounding disciplines are going to bring a change in human consciousness, like the Enlightenment.”

Gizmodo.com

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Spain has already presented its proposal, harshly criticised by the electricity and wind energy sectors.

Written in Spanish by Javier González Navarro

ABC.es

Translation by Germán & Co

Madrid

23/01/2023

The European Commission today launched the announced public consultation on the reform of the European Union's electricity market. Spain submitted its proposals for this last week.

The consultation will run until 13 February and will focus on four main areas: reducing the dependence of electricity bills on the short-term price of fossil fuels - especially gas - and boosting the deployment of renewables; improving the functioning of the market to ensure security of supply and making full use of alternatives to gas, such as storage and demand response; strengthening consumer protection and empowerment; and improving market transparency, monitoring and integrity, a European Commission spokesperson explained yesterday.

Electricity companies criticise the energy reform proposed by the government because it generates "regulatory uncertainties".

The Spanish and European wind power industry cries out against the market reform proposed by Teresa Ribera

Kadri Simson, EU Commissioner for Energy, said: "The unprecedented energy crisis we are facing shows that we need to adapt the shape of the electricity market for the future to deliver the benefits of clean and affordable energy to all. I look forward to contributions from a wide range of stakeholders, which will help guide our legislative proposal this year.

News round-up, Monday, January 23, 2023

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Quote of the week…

NYT The Editorial Board

The editorial board is a group of opinion journalists whose views are informed by expertise, research, debate and certain longstanding values. It is separate from the newsroom.

The war in Ukraine has entered a new, more deadly and fateful phase, and the one man who can stop it, Vladimir Putin, has shown no signs that he will do so.

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Andres Gluski, President & CEO of the AES Corporation, had a productive first day at the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting #WEF2023 in Davos, Switzerland.

—that the kind of worldwide transformation urgently needed now , can only be achieved with the cooperation of the public and private sectors, Gluski said.

Over the next few days, about 1,700 CEOs and 400 other prominent personalities will gather in Davos to explore solutions to global concerns such as climate change, energy efficiency, and electrification.

Image: Andrés Gluski, President and CEO and Ricardo Manuel Falú, Senior Vice President and Chief Strategy and Commercial Officer and Madelka McCalla, Chief Corporate Affairs and Impact Officer at The AES Corporation

---

Seafloat-hybrid-power-plant

Armando Rodriguez, Seaboard CEO for the Dominican Republic, concludes: 

 “We are very excited about this project because it will be a big benefit to the community in terms of the environment and the employment we will provide to the area.

Seaboard Dominican Republic

---

Cooperate with ethical thinking…

---

What is Artificial Intelligency?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the ability of a computer or a robot controlled by a computer to do tasks that are usually done by humans because they require human intelligence and discernment. Although there are no AIs that can perform the wide variety of tasks an ordinary human can do, some AIs can match humans in specific tasks.

Henry Kissinger Warns That AI Will Fundamentally Alter Human Consciousness

“I’ve become convinced that AI and the surrounding disciplines are going to bring a change in human consciousness, like the Enlightenment.”

Gizmodo.com

Henry Kissinger Warns That AI Will Fundamentally Alter Human Consciousness

By George Dvorsky

Published, November 5, 2019

GIZMODO.com

Speaking in Washington, D.C. earlier today, former U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger said he’s convinced of AI’s potential to fundamentally alter human consciousness

—including changes in our self-perception and to our strategic decision-making. He also slammed AI developers for insufficiently thinking through the implications of their creations.

Kissinger, now 96, was speaking to an audience attending the “Strength Through Innovation” conference currently being held at the Liaison Washington Hotel in Washington, D.C. The conference is being run by the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, which was set up by Congress to evaluate the future of AI in the U.S. as it pertains to national security.

Kissinger, who served under President Richard Nixon during the Vietnam War, is a controversial figure who many argue is an unconvicted war criminal. That he’s speaking at conferences and not spending his later years in a cold jail cell is understandably offensive to some observers.

“I’ve become convinced that AI and the surrounding disciplines are going to bring a change in human consciousness, like the Enlightenment.”

Moderator Nadia Schadlow, who in 2018 served in the Trump administration as the Assistant to the President and as Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategy, asked Kissinger about his take on powerful, militarized artificial intelligence and how it might affect global security and strategic decision-making.

“I don’t look at it as a technical person,” said Kissinger. “I am concerned with the historical, philosophical, strategic aspect of it, and I’ve become convinced that AI and the surrounding disciplines are going to bring a change in human consciousness, like the Enlightenment,” he said, adding: “That’s why I’m here.” His invocation of the 18th-century European Enlightenment was a reference to the paradigmatic intellectual shift that occurred during this important historical period, in which science, rationalism, and humanism largely replaced religious and faith-based thinking. 

Though Kissinger didn’t elaborate on this point, he may have been referring to a kind of philosophical or existential shift in our thinking once AI reaches a sufficiently advanced level of sophistication—a development that will irrevocably alter the way we engage with ourselves and our machines, not necessarily for the better.

Kissinger said he’s not “arguing against AI” and that it’s something that might even “save us,” without elaborating on the details.

The former national security advisor said he recently spoke to college students about the perils of AI and that he told them, “‘You work on the applications, I work on the implications.’” He said computer scientists aren’t doing enough to figure out what it will mean “if mankind is surrounded by automatic actions” that cannot be explained or fully understood by humans, a conundrum AI researchers refer to as the black box problem.

Artificial intelligence, he said, “is bound to change the nature of strategy and warfare,” but many stakeholders and decision-makers are still treating it as a “new technical departure.” They haven’t yet understood that AI “must bring a change in the philosophical perception of the world,” and that it will “fundamentally affect human perceptions.”

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A primary concern articulated by Kissinger was in how militarized AI might cause diplomacy to break down. The secret and ephemeral nature of AI means it’s not something state actors can simply “put on the table” as an obvious threat, unlike conventional or nuclear weapons, said Kissinger. In the strategic field, “we are moving into an area where you can imagine an extraordinary capability” and the “enemy may not know where the threat came from for a while.”

Indeed, this confusion could cause undue chaos on a battlefield, or a country could mistake the source of an attack. Even scarier, a 2018 report from the RAND Corporation warned that AI could eventually heighten the risk of nuclear war. This means we’ll also have to “rethink the element of arms control” and “rethink even how the concept of arms control” might apply to this future world, said Kissinger.

Kissinger said he’s “sort of obsessed” with the work being done by Google’s DeepMind, and the development of AlphaGo and AlphaZero in particular—artificially intelligent systems capable of defeating the world’s best players at chess and Go. He was taken aback by how AlphaGo learned “a form of chess that no human being in all of history ever developed,” and how pre-existing chess-playing computers who played against this AlphaGo were “defenseless.” He said we need to know what this means in the larger scheme of things, and that we should study this concern—that we’re creating things we don’t really understand. “We’re not conscious of this yet as a society,” he said.

Kissinger is confident that AI algorithms will eventually become a part of the military’s decision-making process, but strategic planners will “have to test themselves in war games and even in actual situations to ensure the degree of reliability we can afford to these algorithms, while also having to think through the consequences.”

Kissinger said the situation may eventually be analogous to the onset of World War I, in which a series of logical steps led to a myriad of unanticipated and unwanted consequences.

AI will be the “philosophical challenge of the future.”

“If you don’t see through the implications of the technologies... including your emotional capacities to handle unpredictable consequences, then you’re going to fail on the strategic side,” said Kissinger. It’s not clear, he said, how state actors will be able to conduct diplomacy when they can’t be sure what the other side is thinking, or if they’ll even be able to reassure the other side “even if you wanted to,” he said. “This topic is very important to think about—as you develop weapons of great capacity...how do you talk about it, and how do you build restraint on their use?”

To which he added: “Your weapons in a way become your partner, and if they’re designed for a certain task, how can you modify them under certain conditions? These questions need to be answered.” AI will be the “philosophical challenge of the future,” said Kissinger, because we’ll be partnered with generally intelligent objects that have “never been conceived before, and the limitations are so vast.”

Scary words from a scary guy. The future looks to become a very precarious place.

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Imagen: by Germán & Co inspired in the illustration of Rebecca Chew/The New York Times

A Brutal New Phase of Putin’s Terrible War in Ukraine

Jan. 21, 2023

NYT The Editorial Board

The editorial board is a group of opinion journalists whose views are informed by expertise, research, debate and certain longstanding values. It is separate from the newsroom.

The war in Ukraine has entered a new, more deadly and fateful phase, and the one man who can stop it, Vladimir Putin, has shown no signs that he will do so.

After 11 months during which Ukraine has won repeated and decisive victories against Russian forces, clawed back some of its lands and cities and withstood lethal assaults on its infrastructure, the war is at a stalemate.

Still, the fighting rages on, including a ferocious battle for the city of Bakhmut in the eastern Donetsk region. Cruel, seemingly random Russian missile strikes at civilian targets have become a regular horror: On Jan. 14, a Russian missile struck an apartment building in Dnipro, in central Ukraine. Among the at least 40 dead were small children, a pregnant woman and a 15-year-old dancer.

Both sides are now said to be bracing for a fierce new round of offensives in the late winter or spring. Russia has mobilized 300,000 new men to throw into the fray, and some arms factories are working around the clock. Ukraine’s Western arms suppliers, at the same time, are bolstering Kyiv’s arsenal with armor and air defense systems that until recently they were reluctant to deploy against Russia for fear of escalating this conflict into an all-in East-West war.

Over the past two months, the United States has pledged billions in new arms and equipment, including a roughly $2.5 billion package announced this week that, for the first time, includes Stryker armored combat vehicles. Other American weapons on their way to Ukraine include the Patriot, the most advanced American ground-based air defense system; Bradley fighting vehicles; armored personnel carriers; and artillery systems. NATO allies have thrown more weapons into the mix, including the first heavy tank pledged to Ukraine, the Challenger 2 heavy tank from Britain. Germany, historically reluctant to have its tanks used against Russia, is under heavy pressure to allow its allies to export its first-rate Leopard tank to Ukraine.

Germany did not make a decision at a meeting with Ukraine’s allies on Friday, in which countries reiterated their support for sending more advanced arms to Ukraine. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who led the gathering, noted that this was “not a moment to slow down” but to “dig deeper.”

That means the broad, muddy fields of Ukraine will soon again witness full-scale tank-and-trench warfare, this time pitting Western arms against a desperate Russia. This was never supposed to happen again in Europe after the last world war.

Ukraine and its backers hope that the Western arms will be decisive, giving Ukraine a better chance to blunt a Russian offensive and drive the Russians back. How far back is another question. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine talks of chasing Russia out of Ukraine altogether, including the territory seized by Russia in 2014 in Crimea and eastern Ukraine. The United States and its allies may prefer a less ambitious outcome, although U.S. officials are reportedly considering it as a possibility. But so long as Mr. Putin shows no readiness to talk, the question is moot. The job at hand is to persuade Russia that a negotiated peace is the only option.

This is why the coming fight is critical. But as Mr. Putin digs himself ever deeper into pursuing his delusions, it is also critical that the Russian people be aware of what is being done in their name, and how it is destroying their own future.

How much of this do Russians know or question? It is difficult to ascertain what Russians are privately saying or thinking, given how dangerous any open criticism of the “limited military operation” has become. Independent media have been stifled, thousands of protesters have been arrested, and many foreign correspondents, including those of The Times, were compelled to leave when it became illegal to dispute the official line about the war.

Still, at the very least, most Russians should be asking when and how this war will end. That is why this editorial is addressed in part to the Russian people: It is in their name that their president is waging this terrible and useless war; their sons, fathers and husbands are being killed, maimed or brutalized into committing atrocities; their lives are being mortgaged for generations to come in a state distrusted and disliked in many parts of the world.

The Kremlin’s propaganda machinery has been working full time churning out false narratives about a heroic Russian struggle against forces of fascism and debauchery, in which the Western arms are but more proof that Ukraine is a proxy war by the West to strip Russia of its destiny and greatness. Mr. Putin has concocted an elaborate mythology in which Ukraine is an indelible part of a “Russkiy mir,” a greater Russian world.

Isolated from anyone who would dare to speak truth to his power, Mr. Putin ordered an invasion of Ukraine last year, convinced that the Ukrainians would promptly shed their “fascist” government. The start of the war stunned Russians, but Mr. Putin seemed convinced that a West wasted by decadence and decline would squawk but take no action. He and his commanders were apparently unprepared for the extraordinary resistance they met in Ukraine, or for the speed with which the United States and its allies, horrified by the crude violation of the postwar order, came together in Ukraine’s defense.

Mr. Putin’s response has been to throw ever more lives, resources and cruelty at Ukraine. And with the deplorable support of the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, the president has elevated what he insists on calling his “limited military offensive” into an existential struggle between a spiritually ordained Great Russia and a corrupt and debauched West.

But Russians are aware that Ukraine was not widely perceived as an enemy, much less a mortal enemy, until Mr. Putin seized Crimea and stirred up a secessionist conflict in eastern Ukraine in 2014. Until then, Russians and Ukrainians traveled freely across their long border, and many of them had family, acquaintances or friends on the other side.

And after all the poverty, repression and isolation under Soviet rule, Russians need to remember that until Mr. Putin began trying to change Ukraine’s borders by force in 2014, they were finally enjoying what those in other industrialized countries had long considered normal — the opportunity to earn decent salaries, buy consumer goods and enjoy vastly expanded freedoms to travel abroad and speak their mind.

The West they visited was not the caricature of depravity presented by Mr. Putin or Patriarch Kirill. And their Russia was hardly a pure and spiritual model, with the alcoholism, corruption, drug abuse, homophobia and other sins so familiar to all Russians.

In the end, the question is whether any of Mr. Putin’s lectures on history really provide a justification for the death and destruction he has ordained. Russians know the horrors of all-out war; they must know that nothing Mr. Putin has concocted remotely validates the leveling of towns and cities, the murder, rape and pillaging, or the deliberate strikes against power and water supplies across Ukraine. Like the last great European war, this one is mostly one man’s madness.

If Ukraine was not an enemy before, Mr. Putin has ensured it is one now. Battling an invader is among the most potent methods of forging a national identity, and for Ukraine, Russia as its enemy and the West as its future have become indelible elements. And if the West was indeed divided and indecisive on how to deal with Russia or Ukraine before, Moscow’s invasion has unified the United States and much of Europe in relegating Russia to a threat and an outcast, and raising a heroic Ukraine to a friend and ally.

Claiming to champion Russian greatness, Mr. Putin has turned Russia into a pariah state in many parts of the world. He claims Russia has everything it needs to withstand the cost of the war and sanctions. But according to a report by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a think-tank, Russia faces decades of economic stagnation and regression even if the war ends soon. Industrial production, even military, is likely to continue falling because of its reliance on high-tech goods from the West that it can no longer get. Many Western companies have left, trade with the West has dwindled, and financing the war is draining the budget. Numerous foreign airlines have ceased service to Russia. Add to that the millions of Russia’s best and brightest who have fled, and the future is bleak.

The true scope of Russia’s casualties is also being kept from its people. Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in November that Moscow’s casualties were “well over 100,000 Russian soldiers killed and wounded.” About 300,000 men have been pressed into cannon-fodder duty in the army and many more may follow.

It is possible that Mr. Putin might eventually seek a negotiated settlement, though that becomes ever more remote as the Ukrainians suffer ever greater destruction and loss, and as their determination not to cede an inch of their country deepens. For now, Mr. Putin seems to still believe he can bring Ukraine to its knees and dictate its fate, cost be damned.

In his public appearances, Mr. Putin still cultivates the image of a self-confident strongman. Where there are failures, it is the fault of underlings who do not obey his will. He played out that scene on Jan. 11, in his first televised meeting with government ministers in the new year, when he tore into Denis Manturov, deputy prime minister, over aircraft production figures Mr. Putin insisted were wrong and Mr. Manturov defended. Mr. Putin finally exploded, “What are you doing, really, playing the fool?” “Yest’,” Mr. Manturov finally said, the Russian equivalent of “Yes, sir.”

Russians have seen this act before in the Kremlin. They might do well to ponder whether, in this version, Mr. Putin is the omniscient czar and Mr. Manturov the bumbling functionary — the intended lesson — or whether they are being played for fools by Mr. Putin’s vanity, delusions and spitefulness.

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Image: Germán & Co

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White House Aims to Reflect the Environment in Economic Data

The Biden administration has set out to measure the economic value of ecosystems, offering new statistics to weigh in policy decisions.

NYT by Lydia DePillis

Jan. 20, 2023

Forests that keep hillsides from eroding and clean the air. Wetlands that protect coastal real estate from storm surges. Rivers and deep snows that attract tourists and create jobs in rural areas. All of those are natural assets of perhaps obvious value — but none are accounted for by traditional measurements of economic activity.

On Thursday, the Biden administration unveiled an effort to change that by creating a system for assessing the worth of healthy ecosystems to humanity. The results could inform governmental decisions like which industries to support, which natural resources to preserve and which regulations to pass.

The administration’s special envoy for climate change, John Kerry, announced the plan in a speech at the World Economic Forum, the annual gathering of political and business leaders in Davos, Switzerland. “With this plan, the U.S. will put nature on the national balance sheet,” he said.

The initiative will require the help of many corners of the executive branch to integrate the new methods into policy. The private sector is likely to take note as well, given rising awareness that extreme weather can wreak havoc on assets — and demand investment in renewable energy and sustainable agriculture.

In the past, such undertakings have been politically contentious, as conservatives and industry groups have fought data collection that they saw as an impetus to regulation.

A White House report said the effort would take about 15 years. When the standards are fully developed and phased in, researchers will still be able to use gross domestic product as currently defined — but they will also have expanded statistics that take into account a broader sweep of nature’s economic contribution, both tangible and intangible.

Those statistics will help more accurately measure the impact of a hurricane, for example. As currently measured, a huge storm can propel economic growth, even though it leaves behind muddied rivers and denuded coastlines — diminishing resources for fishing, transportation, tourism and other economic uses.

“You can look at the TV and know that we’ve lost beaches, we’ve lost lots of stuff that we really care about, that makes our lives better,” said Eli Fenichel, an assistant director at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. “And you get an economist to go on and say, ‘G.D.P.’s going to go up this quarter because we’re going to spend a lot of money rebuilding.’ Being able to have these kinds of data about our natural assets, we can say, ‘That’s nice, but we’ve also lost here, so let’s have a more informed conversation going forward.’”

Taking nature into economic calculations, known as natural capital accounting, is not a new concept. As early as the 1910s, economists began to think about how to put a number on the contribution of biodiversity, or the damage of air pollution. Prototype statistics emerged in the 1970s, and in 1994, the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis proposed a way to augment its accounting tools with measures of environmental health and output.

But Congress ordered the bureau to halt its efforts until an independent review could be completed. States whose economies depend on drilling, mining and other forms of natural resource extraction were particularly worried that the data could be used for more stringent regulation.

How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.

“They thought that anything that measured the question of productivity of natural resources was inherently an environmental trick,” a Commerce Department official said afterward.

Five years later, that independent review was completed in a report for the National Academy of Sciences. The academy panel — led by the Yale economist William Nordhaus, who went on to win the Nobel Prize for his work on the economic impact of climate change — said the bureau should continue.

“Natural resources such as petroleum, minerals, clean water and fertile soils are assets of the economy in much the same way as are computers, homes and trucks,” the report read. “An important part of the economic picture is therefore missing if natural assets are omitted in creating the national balance sheet.”

While the United States lagged, other countries moved ahead with incorporating nature into their core accounting. The United Nations developed a framework for doing so over the last decade that supported decisions such as assessing the impact of shrinking peat land and protecting an endangered species of tree. Britain has been publishing environmental-economic statistics for several years as well. International groups like the Network for Greening the Financial System, which includes most of the world’s central banks, use some of these techniques for assessing systemic risk in the financial system.

Skepticism about including environmental considerations in economic and financial decision-making remains in the United States, where conservatives have disparaged investing guidelines that put a priority on a company’s performance along environmental, social and governance lines. The social cost of carbon, another measurement tool for assessing the economic impact of regulations through their effect on carbon emissions, was set close to zero during the Trump administration and has been increased significantly under President Biden.

Benjamin Zycher, a senior fellow at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute, expressed concern Thursday that the new approach would introduce a degree of subjectivity.

“I think there’s a real danger that if in fact they’re trying to put environmental quality values into the national accounts, there’s no straightforward way to do that, and it’s impossible that it wouldn’t be politicized,” Dr. Zycher said in an interview. “That’s going to be a process deeply fraught with problems and dubious interpretations.”

Few economic statistics are a perfect representation of reality, however, and all of them have to be refined to make sure they are consistent and comparable over time. Measuring the value of nature is inherently tricky, since there is often no market price to consult, but other sources of information can be equally illuminating. The Bureau of Economic Analysis has undertaken other efforts to measure the value of services that are never sold, like household labor.

“That’s exactly why we need this sort of strategy,” said Nathaniel Keohane, president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, a research and advocacy group. “To really develop the data we need so that it’s not subjective, and make sure we are really devoting the same quality control and focus on integrity that we do to other areas of economic statistics.”

The strategy does not pretend to cover every aspect of nature’s value, or solve problems of environmental justice simply by more fully incorporating nature’s contribution, particularly for Indigenous communities. Those concerns, said Rachelle Gould, an associate professor of environmental studies at the University of Vermont, will need to be prioritized separately.

“There are a lot of other ways nature matters that can’t be accounted for in monetary terms,” Dr. Gould said. “It’s appropriately cautious about what might be possible.”

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France will lower gas reservoir levels to provide 'breathing room'

Gas reservoirs, which are historically high, will be reduced for technical reasons, while risk of shortages in the context of the Russian-Ukrainian war is declining.

Le Monde

Published on January 23, 2023

It's all a bit confusing. For months, gas reservoirs in France had to be filled at all costs, as quickly as possible, in order to compensate for the cessation of Russian gas supplies. Today, with that mission accomplished, with French underground gas stocks hovering at fill rates of around 79% (and 81% in Europe), industry experts are announcing that they will now have to lower the levels. The move is necessary in order to meet regulatory requirements and preserve the efficiency of their storage facilities.

The move is not surprising within the gas industry, which is used to carrying out this procedure – known as "underdrawing" – every year, especially between January and March. "This is part of the normal life of storage," said Thierry Trouvé, managing director of the transmission system provider GRTGaz, which, on Wednesday 18 January, outlined the outlook for the current winter. "Some storage facilities, namely aquifer formations, which are complicated to operate, require this kind of "breathing room" in order to maintain their performance for the coming winters," he said.

According to a spokesman for Storengy, Engie's storage-focused subsidiary, French reservoirs – currently at historically high levels – could see their rates drop to around 35% and 40%, by the end of this winter for aquifers, which represent three-quarters of French reservoirs. What is not subjected to the procedure, is the gas stored in the saline layers, which should be maintained at high levels of nearly 80%.

'Transported to neighboring countries'

What will happen to this gas if it cannot be fully used? "We are not going to burn it, nor put it in huge Butagaz bottles," one expert said ironically, pointing out that the winter is far from over. Moreover, imports could be reduced. "Shippers have the possibility to reduce the arrival of ships, which can be rerouted to other destinations," said Trouvé.

Another option is to "maintain deliveries and transport them to neighboring countries to contribute to the supply there. Along with Spain in particular, France took on the role of a "gateway" during the Russian crisis [following the invasion of Ukraine at the end of February 2022]," he added. After reaching record levels, in November and December 2022, deliveries of liquefied natural gas, which represents 75% of gas consumption in France as of January 15, have already begun to decline in 2023.

According to GRTGaz, the situation is therefore more serene than in September 2022, even if caution remains the order of the day. The same is true for electricity and its supply. "There is still a period (...), around the second half of February, [with] some risks, if we were to go through a significant and long cold snap, because the nuclear power plants will begin to decrease production," agreed Xavier Piechaczyk, chairman of the board of the electricity network manager RTE, on FranceInfo radio on Wednesday, January 18.

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In Lima, police violently storm a campus hosting protesters

Two hundred people were arrested during a police raid of San Marcos University, which was hosting protesters demanding the resignation of Peruvian president, Dina Boluarte.

Le Monde by Amanda Chaparro (Lima (Peru) correspondent)

Published on January 23, 2023

On Saturday, January 21, a police armored vehicle smashed through the doors of the campus of the National University of San Marcos in Lima. Maria (her first name has been changed), a 17-year-old student, was preparing meals for protesters who had come from various regions of Peru, mostly from the Andes. They had been staying for three days on the university campus. They had come to participate in the protest convened on Thursday in the capital to demand the resignation of Dina Boluarte. Boluarte is the acting president who succeeded Pedro Castillo after he was ousted, on December 7th, 2022.

Maria then started to run. Behind her, a column of a hundred men entered. They were determined to expel the protesters. Maria heard screams and saw people falling, while others were being beaten. Luckily, she managed to escape through one of the gates. "We were very scared," she explained on the phone. She was still shocked by the brutality of the operation. "Police officers threw tear gas canisters, we heard gunfire, I saw a peasant woman being hit in the head with batons, there was a helicopter flying over the campus. It was completely excessive and a disproportionate amount of violence."

A few moments later, tens of people were spread out on the ground, face down and handcuffed with their hands behind them. Most of them were taken to the criminal police department in Lima's historic center. A mother and her eight-year-old daughter were among them. The protesters were detained for theft and damage to public property. A smaller group of about 30 people was sent to the anti-terrorism police department.

"San Marcos" is one of the oldest public universities in South America, a melting pot of intellectual debates. Currently, in the university gardens, there are tents, mattresses and mountains of food that the inhabitants of Lima have brought in solidarity with the movement. Near the wall's gate, torn banners lay on the ground. You could see the messages written by the students: "The blood that has been spilled will never be forgotten." Next to them were photos of the faces of the protesters who have died in the south of the country since the conflict began on December 7. There are now at least 46 of them, most of them shot dead by the police and army.

Excessive intervention and arbitrary arrests

The violent police action at San Marcos University is evidence of the authoritarian turn taken by Dina Boluarte's government, which does not hesitate to intimidate, arrest and criminalize the protesters and their supporters. The government is doing this with the complicity of the country's main media groups. "The aim is to break the morale of the protesters and to break the movement. The government is sending them a message: don't come to the capital, you have no place to stay, we are going to arrest you and prosecute you," explained Omar Coronel, a sociologist at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru.

On Saturday, human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, denounced an excessive intervention without the presence of the Public Prosecutor's Office, arbitrary arrests (almost 200), and the lack of respect for the presence of lawyers and human rights violations. Some protesters have come from the south of the country on the Bolivian border and speak only Aymara. They have not had access to translators. Some women were forced to strip naked "to look for drugs in their private parts," said Jennie Dador of the National Coordination for Human Rights.

The intervention has sparked a wave of outrage in the country and may have the effect of increasing sympathy for the protest movement. According to the latest survey by the Institute of Peruvian Studies in January, 60% of the population said they understand the protesters. In Lima, only 52%, but "the urban middle classes of the capital" could take more action, said Omar Coronel.

On Saturday afternoon, another campus was the target of an operation of intimidation. Trucks full of police and military personnel were deployed in large numbers in front of the National University of Engineering, in the northeast of the city. This university has also been hosting protesters, students who have come from other regions. They were invited there by the rector himself, Pablo Alfonso Lopez-Cahu. The rector opened his arms to them as soon as they arrived in the capital on Wednesday. "You are welcome," he said. "This is your home, take care of it." Since then, a hundred young people have been sleeping on the premises every night.

'Democracy has been flouted'

Inside, volunteers were busy sorting the donations received and redistributing them: blankets, clothes and food. "It's crazy to see this solidarity," said Delia Valencia, a 21-year-old psychology student. "Look, this room is full, we're receiving food, cookies, drinks, and also first aid material, alcohol and bicarbonate" to treat the injured.

"The students come from Arequipa, Cusco and Puno," explained Leandro Gamez, a representative of the students from the National University of Engineering in Lima. These regions in the south of the country are the epicenter of the protests. "The police want to intimidate us to try and sabotage this impulse to give mutual aid," said the young woman, who explained that officers give traffic tickets to residents who stop in front of the building to leave their donations. These are maneuvers that do not frighten some people: "The protesters have come from far away and with very little stuff," explained an old lady who came to leave clothes. "Moreover, the police have confiscated some people's bags."

Victoria is holding her baby in one arm, a pack of water in the other. "It's the least we can do to help them," she said. "Dina Boluarte must resign. Democracy has been flouted. Where is the respect for human rights? Believe me, if I didn't have my baby and I had to die for my country, I would."

Saturday, in Lima, the protesters were at the city center for the third consecutive day. Some had gathered until late in the night in front of the premises of the criminal police department to demand the prisoners' release. But the protests show signs of running out of steam, and morale is down in the ranks. Some delegations are preparing to leave for the provinces to reorganize the troops and regain their strength.

In the south of the country, protests continue and the situation remains tense. A 62-year-old man was killed Friday evening in Ilave, in the region of Puno, where policemen were filmed shooting at protesters with pistols. Access to the Incan site of Machu Picchu has been closed until further notice, because the railroad was damaged there.

Dina Boluarte still refuses to resign. The majority right-wing Parliament supports her, while an investigation has been opened against her and three of her ministers for homicide.

Amanda Chaparro(Lima (Peru) correspondent)

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Frederick Florin/AFP

To go or not to go? Von der Leyen’s COVID committee dilemma

A European Parliament session on vaccines would refocus attention on von der Leyen’s texts with Pfizer’s CEO.

POLITICO EU bY CARLO MARTUSCELLI

JANUARY 20, 2023

There won’t be any severed horses’ heads but the European Commission president may soon receive an offer that she can’t refuse — at least without causing an institutional dust-up.

Last week, the coordinators of the European Parliament’s special committee on COVID-19 voted to invite Ursula von der Leyen to appear in front of the panel to answer their questions on vaccine procurement. 

It’s not a courtesy call. EU lawmakers want to shine a light on exactly what happened during those hectic months at the height of the pandemic in 2021, when the bloc was frantically searching for vaccine doses to protect its population from the coronavirus.

The committee’s chair, Belgian MEP Kathleen Van Brempt has said she wants full transparency on the “preliminary negotations” leading up to vaccine purchases — a reference to the Commission president's unusual personal role in negotiating the EU's biggest vaccine contract, signed with Pfizer and its partner BioNTech. An appearance would refocus attention on von der Leyen's highly contentious undisclosed text messages with Pfizer's chief executive.

By Clea Caulcutt

It's a topic von der Leyen has so far fiercely resisted opening up about — but the COVI committee invite could put the Commission president in a sticky situation.

All bark, no bite? 

On the face of it, von der Leyen could just say no. European Parliament committees don’t have many formal powers. They have no rights to compel witnesses to appear or to get them to tell the truth — and there’s no recourse if someone refuses to appear or lies in front of the committee.

Indeed, Pfizer’s Chief Executive Albert Bourla — with whom von der Leyen is reported to have conducted personal negotiations via text message — thumbed his nose at the committee more than once, and sent one of his employees instead.

Even when the Parliament does reel in a big name, the performance can be lackluster — like in the case of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg who agreed to show up but then avoided answering most questions. That’s a far cry from how the U.S. Senate’s commerce and judiciary committees grilled the tech titan for hours. 

And the Commission president has already shown a penchant for being evasive when it comes the Pfizer negotiations, earning the Commission a verdict of maladministration from the European Ombudsman for its lack of transparency.

However, the fact that von der Leyen is an inter-institutional figure gives the Parliament more bite than with external guests — and may help tip the balance in the committee’s favour.

First, there’s precedent. While the Commission President usually appears in front of all MEPs at a plenary session such as in the annual State of the European Union speech, Commission presidents have appeared in front of committees in the past. Von der Leyen’s predecessor, Jean-Claude Juncker, for example, appeared in front of a special committee to answer uncomfortable questions over his role in making Luxembourg a tax haven. 

Secondly, the European Parliament is tasked with overseeing the EU’s budget. With billions of euros spent in the joint purchase of the vaccines, and part of those funds coming straight from the EU’s pockets, it’s hard to argue that there aren’t important financial considerations at play, and ones that the elected representatives of the EU should be allowed to scrutinize.

Then there’s Article 13 of the EU’s founding treaty, which calls for “mutual sincere cooperation” between the EU’s institutions. It’s a point that’s repeated in an inter-institutional agreement between the Parliament and the Commission, which states that the EU’s executive should also provide lawmakers with confidential information when it’s requested — like, for example, the contents of certain text messages.

The Commission has so far been tight-lipped. When asked last week about Ursula von der Leyen’s upcoming invite to the COVID-19 committee, a Commission spokesperson said “No such invitation has been received.”

Don’t shoot the messenger 

And, in fact, it's now up to European Parliament president Roberta Metsola to decide whether the invite will ever reach von der Leyen’s hands. The request is on her desk and, per protocol, any invitation to appear must come from the president’s office.

Metsola, who belongs to the same political group as von der Leyen (the center-right European People’s Party), confirmed to POLITICO that she has received a letter from the COVI committee and “will look at it.” “I cannot pre-empt what my reply will be to that committee,” she said.

As long as proper form is followed, Metsola should "pass on the message," said Emilio De Capitani, a former civil servant who for 14 years was secretary of the European Parliament’s civil liberties committee (LIBE).

“The question isn’t abusive,” said De Capitani.  

In theory, von der Leyen, who was elected to her role by the Parliament, relies on its mandate to stay there.

“There’s nothing strange about meeting with an organ of the Parliament,” the former Parliamentary official added. “Then it will be up to von der Leyen to ask whether the hearing is in public or, behind closed doors. She could also choose to address it in plenary.” 

For political operatives such as Metsola and von der Leyen, the optics of their actions are likely to play a major role in any decision. And this invite comes at the same time as the biggest scandal in the European Parliament’s history.

An assistant for one of the MEPs in the COVI committee said the drive for transparency produced by the unfolding "Qatargate" influence scandal gave extra force to the invite.

“It wouldn't have had the same result without Qatargate,” said the assistant. “If she says no, it will only make the problem worse.” 

Not everyone agrees. Detractors say the Parliament has lost its moral standing. And that even if none of the MEPs in the COVID-19 committee are implicated, the institution is still weakened on the whole.

“I think this [Qatargate] will make it less likely for von der Leyen to cooperate with the Parliament,” said Camino Mortera-Martinez, head of the Brussels office at the think tank Centre for European Reform. She said the Commission president is riding high after weathering a pandemic, and now the war in Ukraine.

“The European Parliament in theory could force von der Leyen to appear by threatening to dismiss her — but how can they do that in the current climate?”

This article was updated Friday morning to include comment from Roberta Metsola.

Eddy Wax contributed repoclosing Documents Quickly

“I think you’re going to find there’s nothing there,” the president told a reporter who asked if he regretted not divulging that classified material was found at his office before the midterms.

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News round-up, Tuesday, February 28, 2023

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Quote of the week…

—-Chancellor Olaf Scholz, in Davos, caught between radical environmentalists on one hand and pressure from Ukraine for Leopard heavy tanks on the other, sought to distance himself from the fray. The only head of state of a G7 country to have made the trip to Switzerland this year, he detailed his battle plan to make his country the world leader in the fight against climate change even while restoring its industrial competitiveness. He presented the strategy in martial terms.

"Most importantly, our transformation toward a climate-neutral economy – the fundamental task of our century – is currently taking on an entirely new dynamic," the chancellor said. "Not in spite of, but because of the Russian war and the resulting pressure on us Europeans to change." As proof of his country's dynamism and of Russian President Vladimir Putin's failure, he emphasized that Germany, which had been dependent on Russian gas supplies in the run-up to the offensive, had managed to become almost completely free of them in less than a year. (Le Monde)

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Andres Gluski, President & CEO of the AES Corporation, had a productive first day at the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting #WEF2023 in Davos, Switzerland.

—that the kind of worldwide transformation urgently needed now , can only be achieved with the cooperation of the public and private sectors, Gluski said.

Over the next few days, about 1,700 CEOs and 400 other prominent personalities will gather in Davos to explore solutions to global concerns such as climate change, energy efficiency, and electrification.

Image: Andrés Gluski, President and CEO and Ricardo Manuel Falú, Senior Vice President and Chief Strategy and Commercial Officer and Madelka McCalla, Chief Corporate Affairs and Impact Officer at The AES Corporation

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Seafloat-hybrid-power-plant

Armando Rodriguez, Seaboard CEO for the Dominican Republic, concludes: 

 “We are very excited about this project because it will be a big benefit to the community in terms of the environment and the employment we will provide to the area.

Seaboard Dominican Republic

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Cooperate with ethical thinking…

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What is Artificial Intelligency?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the ability of a computer or a robot controlled by a computer to do tasks that are usually done by humans because they require human intelligence and discernment. Although there are no AIs that can perform the wide variety of tasks an ordinary human can do, some AIs can match humans in specific tasks.

Shocking: This is what Chile would be like if climate change continues, according to A.I. (La Tercera)

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Egor Kraft’s ‘Content Aware Studies’ series uses AI-generated videos and 3D printing to explore how machine learning reconstructs damaged antiquities

Trevor Good, courtesy of the artist and Alexander Levy Gallery, Berlin

Bringing a human touch to digital innovation in Europe

The artist in the science lab

The S+T+ARTS programme funds collaborations between science, technology and the arts. It’s enabling artists to tackle urgent issues, including our relationship to nature, big data and artificial intelligence.

by Maya Jaggi 

January 2023

Le Monde Diplomatique

Egor Kraft’s ‘Content Aware Studies’ series uses AI-generated videos and 3D printing to explore how machine learning reconstructs damaged antiquities

Trevor Good, courtesy of the artist and Alexander Levy Gallery, Berlin

When climate change protesters hurled tomato soup at Van Gogh’s Sunflowers in London last October, they shouted, ‘What is worth more? Art or life [and] the protection of our planet?’ One Just Stop Oil activist claimed the protests kickstarted the conversation ‘so that we can ask the questions that matter’.

Whatever the publicity from these symbolic acts of vandalism, the implied opposition between art and environmental ethics is misleading. Artists have long been in the vanguard of raising public awareness of the fragility of nature. Judging by the fruits of a Europe-wide scheme to immerse artists in cutting-edge science and technology (roughly half these EU projects involve ecology) (1), the questions posed by this rising avant-garde are arguably more nuanced, profound and conducive to behavioural and political change than protesters’ shock tactics.

At the Bozar Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels last month, laboratory-like installations by Haseeb Ahmed, an American artist based in Belgium, warned of the pharmaceutical pollution of water through human urine — a counterpoint to the city’s landmark Manneken Pis fountain with its urinating cherub near the Grand Place. One of these, The Fountain of the Amazons (alluding to legendary female warriors), demonstrates unintended effects on aquatic life of contraceptive hormones entering the water system: an artificial vagina squirts a pill per day into a vat of orange urine in which a mutant creature floats as though plucked from a Hieronymus Bosch painting.

In a companion artwork, A Fountain of Eternal Youth, human growth hormones ingested for their putative anti-ageing properties are dripped via an IV tube into a circular pool whose mirror surface (evoking Narcissus) invites viewers to weigh the costs of their own habits and desires.

Ahmed’s artistic ‘scenarios’ convert research on large-scale phenomena ‘to a scale the body can experience, addressing our senses,’ he told me. His aim is not protest ‘art against pharmaceuticals, because it’s complex; we rely on them to maintain our quality of life. The pill brought social freedom for women, but it’s also affecting the androgynisation of fish. So I create machines to help us think together about our ambivalence.’

‘Thinking machines’

Ahmed’s intriguing, disturbing ‘thinking machines’ were part of a Bozar group show, Faces of Water, resulting from artists’ residencies with scientists and engineers around Europe to explore phenomena from toxins to melting glaciers. He worked closely with pharma companies, and also water treatment and public policy experts: ‘Because knowledge has become hyper-specialised, we’re trying to tie knots between fields, to understand the world we’re producing.’ While not without friction, these collaborations can spark dialogue. One company, he recalled, was ‘unhappy with an accusation in the press that they’re not doing enough, so they took out an ad to say what they are doing.’

The residencies were instigated by S+T+ARTS, a European Commission programme funding collaborations between science, technology and the arts since 2016. The aim of embedding artists in R&D teams in industry and universities is not only to raise awareness of global challenges through exhibitions, but to act as a catalyst to tomorrow’s digital innovations. ‘It’s important to bring in new ideas to change mindsets,’ said Ralph Dum of DG Connect (the EC’s directorate general for information and communications technology). Dum, the founding head of the S+T+ARTS programme, is a quantum physicist who joined the Commission 20 years ago, pioneering interdisciplinary programmes that combined experts, such as biologists with data scientists. ‘Now it’s standard, but that didn’t exist then.’

It's important to bring in new ideas to change mindsets ... Artists profit from technology but engineers also profit from artistsRalph Dum

In the Renaissance and Baroque Kunst- und Wunderkammer (the cabinet of arts and curiosities that presaged the modern museum), art objects were viewed alongside scientific instruments and natural marvels. However, 18th-century Enlightenment rationalism and empiricism sundered arts from sciences. By 1959 the British scientist and writer CP Snow, in his famous Cambridge lecture The Two Cultures, lamented the ‘gulf of mutual incomprehension’ between science and the humanities; even engineers and pure scientists were unable to communicate. Now, Dum said, ‘people know more and more about less and less ... it’s almost impossible to bridge the gaps.’ Yet, he argued, ‘science and art are not so different; both relate to curiosity.’

The Manneken Pis fountain was a 17th-century sculptor’s solution to the challenge of providing urban drinking water — a union of aesthetics and engineering explicitly embraced by the Bauhaus movement in 1920s Germany. For Dum, ‘artists are very practical people; they address issues in concrete ways.’ He cites a product emerging from Project Alias by Bjørn Karmann and Tore Knudsen, tackling the invasion of privacy of smart home assistants such as Amazon’s Alexa: ‘There’s no way of making Alexa deaf. So they manipulated the software to ensure Alexa only listens when you want.’ That project won the S+T+ARTS annual Grand Prix for Artistic Exploration in 2019. The previous year’s winning project for Innovative Collaboration, the 3D-printed steel MX3D Bridge,now spans an Amsterdam canal. Besides S+T+ARTS funding for research projects and residences (150 to date, with 70 more this year), more than 200 prizewinners have been chosen from among 15,000 open-call submissions.

For Gerfried Stocker, artistic director of Ars Electronica, at the interface of culture and tech in the Austrian city of Linz since 1979, S+T+ARTS has become a ‘driving force influencing how Europe is going into the digital future. It’s reached critical mass. Art-and-science is cool now.’

‘Artists see things we don’t’

Until the pandemic, S+T+ARTS prizewinners were exhibited annually at Bozar. Emma Dumartheray, exhibitions coordinator for Bozar Lab, views the programme’s residencies as a distinct model of art sponsorship, with companies donating employees’ time and knowledge. Partners such as Ars Electronica contribute experience of brokering collaborations, negotiating patent agreements in case of lucrative breakthroughs. For Dum, ‘artists profit from technology but engineers also profit from artists. Now people understand we don’t interfere with the art.’

‘Artists see things we don’t ... because you need distance,’ Christophe De Jaeger, director of another key partner, Gluon in Brussels, told me. Before starting Bozar Lab in 2017, he founded Gluon (in 2009) to send artists into industrial R&D labs. ‘Employees gain holistic perspectives, talking to other experts in a non-competitive environment; artists can be very weird — emotionally engaged, radical, intuitive, serendipitous, and they don’t care if they make mistakes ... they don’t have to prove things.’ Art ‘can only be useful if it’s allowed to be totally useless,’ said Stocker, who sees the programme’s unique value as enabling experimentation free from ‘a creative industries focus on going to market’.

We rely on pharmaceuticals to maintain our quality of life. The pill brought social freedom for women, but it's also affecting the androgynisation of fish. So I create machines to help us think together about our ambivalenceHaseeb Ahmed

‘It’s not just about painting the iPhone pink,’ Dum told me. Instead of using regulation and ethical committees to rein in technology, the goal is for artists to ‘humanise its whole development’, raising ethical and green concerns at each stage of innovation. In shaping interaction between people and machines, ‘engineers are sometimes very nerdy; they don’t have the human touch.’ Yet do artists necessarily introduce moral perspectives? ‘It’s a touchy subject,’ the physicist replied. ‘I wouldn’t claim artists are more moral than scientists, but they’re very critical in different ways.’

The artist’s critical eye is ubiquitous in Navigating the Digital Realm, (2) a S+T+ARTS group exhibition at DG Connect until 28 February, which explores frontier technology and big data — from deepfakes, surveillance and dating apps to Artificial Intelligence (AI). The AI-generated videos of Egor Kraft’s Content Aware Studies (2019) show how machine learning reconstructs lost fragments of classical sculptures using datasets of thousands of scanned antiquities. The ‘speculative restorations’ are 3D-printed and CNC-routed in marble and synthetic materials but the algorithms can produce grotesque errors, such as creating a face on the back of a caryatid’s head. One of his aims, Kraft told me, was to ‘destroy the romanticism of AI’ — a fabulous but dangerously fallible tool.

New avant-garde is ‘proposing alternatives’

‘It’s not just artistic commentary; they’re also proposing alternatives,’ Stocker said. Between the ‘super data capitalism of the US’ and the ‘electronic totalitarianism of China,’ he asked, ‘what remains for Europe? We can try to do it differently.’ Climate change and CO2 emissions have become paramount concerns as the EU strives through the European Green Deal to create the first climate-neutral continent. ‘The Internet, AI, blockchain,’ De Jaeger said, ‘all these technologies might have positive or negative impacts on the larger challenges of climate justice, equality, migration.’

Pre-Enlightenment Wunderkammern projected the power of their collectors, but were also cabinets of wonder. They may share something with a 21st-century avant-garde that aims through frontier technology to revive awe and respect for nature. Olga Kisseleva’s Cities Live Like Trees: Green Index Formula drives an app that connects citizens to green zones in their city, based on ‘deep listening between humans and trees.’ John Palmesino, co-founder of Territorial Agency, uses open-access data (‘sensors accumulating trillions of terabytes every day’) to help create a new understanding of the ocean as a ‘sensorium’ of human activity.

‘All life in the universe exists in a thin layer of atmosphere which has its dynamic,’ said Ahmed, whose solo show 18 Winds uses AI and wind machines to track the cultural and historical connotations of the Sirocco, and other winds. ‘How do we relate to natural environments without imposing ourselves?’ he asked me. These are vital questions: ‘By separating nature from what we make it mean to us, maybe we can start to think again.’

Maya Jaggi is a writer, critic, artistic director and cultural consultant. She was a DAAD Art and Media fellow in Berlin and is a judge of the 2023 EBRD Literature Prize.

Davos, Switzerland, January 18, 2023. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann

Scholz details acceleration of Germany's energy transition at Davos

The German chancellor, the only leader of a G7 country present at the World Economic Forum, presented his plan on Wednesday in Switzerland.

Le Monde by Philippe Escande

Published on January 19, 2023

The controversy had to be washed away. Climate activist Greta Thunberg had been arrested by the German police during a demonstration against the expansion of a lignite coal mine on Tuesday, January 17, which was inconsistent with a country in which the Greens form part of the executive, even if they share power with the liberal Free Democrats (FPD) and Social Democrats (SPD) allies. Half an hour before the head of the German government took to the podium at the World Economic Forum in Davos on January 18, former US vice president Al Gore, a veteran of the climate movement, had given his support to the demonstrators.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz, caught between radical environmentalists on one hand and pressure from Ukraine for Leopard heavy tanks on the other, sought to distance himself from the fray. The only head of state of a G7 country to have made the trip to Switzerland this year, he detailed his battle plan to make his country the world leader in the fight against climate change even while restoring its industrial competitiveness. He presented the strategy in martial terms.

"Most importantly, our transformation toward a climate-neutral economy – the fundamental task of our century – is currently taking on an entirely new dynamic," the chancellor said. "Not in spite of, but because of the Russian war and the resulting pressure on us Europeans to change." As proof of his country's dynamism and of Russian President Vladimir Putin's failure, he emphasized that Germany, which had been dependent on Russian gas supplies in the run-up to the offensive, had managed to become almost completely free of them in less than a year.

Great national cause

"It took us a few months to install two liquefied gas import terminals when we took 20 years to build the Berlin airport," said German Finance Minister Christian Lindner the day before, also at Davos. The great national cause is now that of renewable energies and hydrogen. By 2030, 80% of the country's electricity will be generated by renewables.

Scholz qualified that "at the same time, our electricity requirements are increasing – from 600 terawatt hours today to 750 by the end of the decade. And we are expecting them to double, yet again, in the 2030s." This development is driven by the needs of its powerful industrial sector. According to him, this represents an investment of €400 billion.

In order to increase the number of solar and, above all, wind power installations, the government has passed its own energy transition acceleration law, similar to the one passed in France on January 10. The law aims to reduce administrative formalities and shorten the granting of authorizations for connection to the network by two years. "The obstacles have been swept aside," the chancellor said. The government will support what Scholz called an "electrolysis boom," a hydrogen economy that will make Germany, and Europe behind it, independent of fossil fuels.

In the short term, until mid-2024, the government will maintain its €180-billion tariff shield so that companies no longer suffer the pangs of skyrocketing prices: "It is now crystal-clear to each and every one of us that the future belongs solely to renewables," said Scholz. "For cost reasons, for environmental reasons, for security reasons, and because in the long run, renewables promise the best returns."

Preventing industrial relocation

With some companies such as BASF threatening to relocate to the US because of energy prices, the pressure for domestic industry to stay on German soil was evident. Similarly, in order to alleviate job shortages that will be exacerbated by demographic decline, the Scholz government will modernize its immigration legislation before the end of the year.

"If we want to remain competitive as a leading industrial nation, we need experienced practitioners – qualified engineers, tradesmen and mechanics," said Scholz. "Those who want to roll up their sleeves are welcome in Germany."

It is no coincidence that the German chancellor remains a regular at Davos when the other big shots are away. He is also one of the last unconditional supporters of free trade and dislikes the concept of trade between friends, or "friendshoring," popularized by the Americans to mean that everyone must choose sides.

Although the country is hesitating about sending its battle tanks to Kyiv, Chancellor Scholz gathered international experts in October 2022 to think about a "Marshall Plan" to help rebuild the country. It was a bold proposal but also amounted to yet another opportunity for German industry, something that a worthy chancellor always keeps in mind.

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Image: Germán & Co

'International climate aid is insufficient, ineffective and unfairly allocated'

After COP27, held in Egypt in November 2022, four economists analyze the true impact of international aid funded through climate negotiations.

Le Monde by Group letter

Published on January 19, 2023

Participants are pictured at the Sharm el-Sheikh International Convention Center during the COP27 climate conference, in Egypt's Red Sea resort city of the same name, on November 9, 2022. MOHAMMED ABED / AFP

It is now well established that the world's least developed countries and island countries are most affected by climate change while bearing the lowest historical responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions.

To address this injustice, developed countries have set up so-called "climate aid" transfers to help developing countries protect themselves from the effects of climate change and encourage them to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Yet international climate aid is insufficient, ineffective and unfairly allocated. In particular, the most vulnerable countries receive less aid than developing countries. Between 1995 and 2020, the countries that received the most aid were India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Bangladesh and China. How can we explain this disparity between less developed countries' needs and the aid they receive?

Commercial interests

To restore climate justice, rich countries attending the 2009 climate negotiations in Copenhagen committed to mobilizing jointly $100 billion per year (about €93.20 billion) in new and additional aid to address climate change issues, in addition to development assistance already provided.

In the 2015 Paris Agreement, developed nations confirmed they would renew this yearly aid of at least $100 billion until 2025. The latest figures show that donors did not keep their promises: Only $83.3 billion was mobilized in 2020, and that sum includes private financing mobilized by the public sector. Public funding amounted to only $68.3 billion in 2020.

Aid transfers for climate change adaptation accounted for only 34% of the $83.3 billion. This percentage is larger for island and least developed countries, but mitigation remains the primary climate aid for these countries, whose emissions are low. These numbers should be compared to United Nations Environment Program estimates that developing nations will need $140 billion to $300 billion by 2030 for annual climate adaptation costs.

We can draw some lessons from this climate aid.

First, there is a link between the allocation of bilateral climate aid and the commercial interests of donor countries, particularly their export levels. Is this aid being diverted from its initial target? It appears that climate aid, like other development aid, builds on historical, cultural and commercial links (former colonies, migration, etc.).

'Greenwashing'

Climate aid allows developing nations to rebuild production structures damaged by climate change, structures that affect the production of goods consumed by rich countries. Such aid also helps poor countries maintain their incomes and thereby keep buying goods produced by rich countries. This comes dangerously close to being disguised aid to exporting companies. In any case, it cannot be considered entirely neutral.

Secondly, studies have not been able to show that climate aid effectively reduces emissions or increases resilience to climate change or leads to adopting ambitious climate policies. One explanation for this lack of results could be that allocations are too modest: Since the projects financed are small-scale or unambitious, their effects are negligible. The content of climate aid could also explain why its effects are so limited or even nonexistent.

Perhaps the most worrying aspect, if we look at the details of the projects financed under the climate aid label, is that many of them have no link, direct or indirect, with climate issues. Donor countries declare as "climate projects" various development, education or health projects that may be beneficial but have no climate component.

For example, in 2018, a donor country cited a project to support elections and oversight institutions in Kenya as a climate change initiative. This can be construed as the "greenwashing" of climate aid: The donor country presents development aid as climate aid to boost its pro-environmental reputation without actually meeting the "additional" climate aid requirement.

Just words?

Countries attending the climate conference, held November 6-18, 2022, in Sharm El-Sheikh, agreed to establish a "loss and damage" fund to compensate least developed and island countries already suffering from the effects of climate change.

While this is a step in the right direction, it only partially solves the problem, since it simply creates a new international fund on top of existing funds (Adaptation Fund and Green Climate Fund), without correcting the flaws in climate aid design.

This decision also raises questions about implementation. Who will contribute to this new mechanism and what will be the amounts and origins of funds? To be precise, will they be private investments or real subsidies from rich countries to the most vulnerable countries?

Why not increase the amount of aid for climate change adaptation and set quotas for the most affected countries? The vagueness surrounding the creation of this new fund makes us fear it is all just words. A proposal for the organization of this fund will be presented at the COP28 in December 2023, and we hope it will prove us wrong.

Signatories: Basak Bayramoglu, research director at the French National Institute of Agronomic Research (INRAE) and deputy director of the Paris-Saclay Applied Economics (PSAE) unit; Jean-François Jacques, professor at the Université Gustave-Eiffel and attached to the Erudite unit; Clément Nedoncelle, research fellow at INRAE and attached to the PSAE unit; Lucille Neumann-Noël, doctoral student at the Université Paris-Saclay and INRAE, and attached to PSAE.

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Biden Says He Has ‘No Regrets’ About Not Disclosing Documents Quickly

“I think you’re going to find there’s nothing there,” the president told a reporter who asked if he regretted not divulging that classified material was found at his office before the midterms.

NYT by Katie Rogers

Jan. 19, 2023

WASHINGTON — President Biden said on Thursday that he had “no regrets” that the White House did not disclose before the midterm elections that classified documents from his time as vice president were found in his private office in early November.

After Mr. Biden toured Capitola, Calif., a beach town that has been ravaged by weeks of winter storms, the president took a question from a reporter, saying he felt that the “American people don’t quite understand” why journalists were asking about the documents and not his tour, which was focused on storm recovery.

“As we found a handful of documents were failed, or filed, in the wrong place, we immediately turned them over to the archives and the Justice Department,” Mr. Biden said, referring to the National Archives and Records Administration. “We’re fully cooperating, looking forward to getting this resolved quickly. I think you’re going to find there’s nothing there. I have no regrets. I’m following what the lawyers have told me they want me to do. It’s exactly what we’re doing. There’s no ‘there’ there.”

Mr. Biden and his advisers, who were at first reluctant to release information about the discovery of the documents, have faced an onslaught of questions about why the White House kept quiet about the material for so long. Mr. Biden’s lawyers discovered the first batch of classified papers on Nov. 2, six days before the midterm elections, and later found a second set in a room next to the garage in his home in Wilmington, Del., in December.

The existence of the documents became public only last week.

Last Thursday, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland appointed a special counsel, Robert K. Hur, to investigate how the documents were handled.

The White House has tried to draw a clear contrast between Mr. Biden’s retention of classified documents and a case surrounding former President Donald J. Trump. Mr. Trump is under criminal investigation for taking several hundred documents with classified markings from the White House to Mar-a-Lago, his private residence in Palm Beach, Fla., and failing to fully comply with a subpoena.

Mr. Biden’s team appears to have acted swiftly and in accordance with the law upon the discovery of the documents, immediately summoning officials with the National Archives to retrieve the files. The archives then alerted the Justice Department. Officials have described the documents found at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, the think tank established as Mr. Biden’s private office after leaving the vice presidency, as “a small number of documents with classified markings.”

Mr. Biden’s remarks on Thursday closely echoed those made earlier in the week by Ian Sams, a spokesman for the White House Counsel’s Office, who assured reporters that Mr. Biden was fully cooperating with the investigation.

“It’s important to really understand the distinction here: President Biden is committed to doing the responsible thing and acting appropriately,” Mr. Sams said on Tuesday. “His team acted promptly to disclose information to the proper authorities and is cooperating fully.”

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The promise of living in the here and now… (El País)

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In 2022, we were unstoppable in accelerating the future of energy.

Let's reflect on our some of our best moments:

1. We announced our intent to exit coal by the end of 2025 and increased our ownership of AES Andes from 67% to 98%.

2. Fast Company ranked AES in the top ten of its “Best 100 Workplaces for Innovators” list.

3. We helped restore power to the people of Puerto Rico following Hurricane Fiona. Like Hawaii, we are also helping Puerto Rico in its energy transition by deploying solar plus storage on the island.

4. We released our IRP for AES Indiana, which serves as a roadmap for the company’s power generation goals. It included renewables, storage, and converting coal facilities to cleaner energy .

5. Together with Air Products, we announced a $4 billion mega-scale green hydrogen production facility in the United States, the largest green hydrogen project in the nation.

Reforestation day…

Since July 2015, Seaboard has been sponsoring a permanent brigade to contribute to the sustained work of recovering the forested area in the Upper Ozama River Basin.

Altice delivers innovative, customer-centric products and solutions that connect and unlock the limitless potential of its over 30 million customers over fiber networks and mobile…

Cooperate with ethical thinking -

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Written in Spanish by José Andrés Rojo

El País

20 JAN 2023

Translation by Germán & Co

The weight of guilt for mistakes made and the helplessness of those who cannot find a job are notes of this era that Saul Bellow already captured in his short novel 'Carpe diem'.

Bad times. There is a war that is disrupting everything, inflation is high, the price of the shopping basket has risen alarmingly. There are many people without jobs, young people without great expectations, sometimes there is no way out of the hole. These complications are usually reduced to a few figures in the newspapers, the ones that show how the economy is doing, the number of new contracts or the number of unemployed, percentages of all kinds. Be that as it may, this dance of numbers does not look inward, little is known of the experience of each of those who are suffering the slaps of life. Let's take a guy in his early 40s, he's lost his job, and every morning he's already shaved at eight o'clock in the morning. He thinks that getting up early might help him in the arduous task of looking for a way out.

A typical day, from the moment he goes down to breakfast until the end of the afternoon, when this man bursts into an endless stream of tears at the funeral of a stranger: this is what Saul Bellow tells in a short story, Carpe diem. Literature is still a good instrument for peering into what is really going on inside people and, as Martin Amis says in his latest book, "novelists are hosts, people who open the door and invite you in". So let's jump right in and see what happened to this Tommy Wilhelm, who as a young man fell out with his family and went to Hollywood to try his luck. It seems he "happened to be stunningly handsome", so someone persuaded him that his future lay in the Mecca of cinema.

It didn't go well. The agent who dragged him in soon dumped him (he would later be accused of pimping, he had a network of hookers who set him up on the phone). And this is what happens. Deceit, crazy dreams, manipulation, cheating, bad decisions. In the end, many end up in a mess, the doors close, and the certainty that it is one's own fault prevails. And that is precisely what the figures do not show: the hell of settling accounts with one's past and good intentions. Tommy Wilhelm, for example, "thought he should, could and would recover the good things, the happy things, the simple, easy things in life". A psychologist he met at the hotel where he lived - a charlatan, according to his father - encouraged him to gamble his money on the stock market. He did. He gave him what he had left and signed a power of attorney for him to invest it in shares and fix his future.

Carpe diem is a short novel from a long time ago and takes place in circumstances that have nothing to do with the present. Saul Bellow simply opens the door and lets us see what is going on inside his protagonist: the desolation of feeling lost, the certainty that over time he has only made mistakes and, above all, the discovery that even those closest to him - his father - disown him as a stinker. Suddenly, someone talks to him about living in the here and now, about taking advantage of opportunities - "with all that money around, you don't want to play the Indian while others take advantage" - and he decides to take the plunge. It's just another story, one of many that shows the helplessness of not finding a job.

News round-up, Thursday, January 19, 2023

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Andres Gluski, President & CEO of the AES Corporation, had a productive first day at the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting #WEF2023 in Davos, Switzerland.

—that the kind of worldwide transformation urgently needed now , can only be achieved with the cooperation of the public and private sectors, Gluski said.

Over the next few days, about 1,700 CEOs and 400 other prominent personalities will gather in Davos to explore solutions to global concerns such as climate change, energy efficiency, and electrification.

Image: Andrés Gluski, President and CEO and Ricardo Manuel Falú, Senior Vice President and Chief Strategy and Commercial Officer and Madelka McCalla, Chief Corporate Affairs and Impact Officer at The AES Corporation

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Reforestation day…

Since July 2015, Seaboard has been sponsoring a permanent brigade to contribute to the sustained work of recovering the forested area in the Upper Ozama River Basin.

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Cooperate with ethical thinking -

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Shocking: This is what Chile would be like if climate change continues, according to A.I. (La Tercera)

“For what purpose do we exist, and why are we required? Is artificial intelligence already more advanced than us?”

— Germán & Co

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China Returns to Davos With Clear Message: We’re Open for Business

Emerging from coronavirus lockdown to a world changed by the war in Ukraine, China sought to convey reassurance about its economic health.

NYT by Mark Landler and Keith Bradsher

Jan. 17, 2023

DAVOS, Switzerland — China ventured back on to the global stage Tuesday, sending a delegation to the World Economic Forum to assure foreign investors that after three years in which the pandemic cut off their country from the world, life was back to normal.

But the Chinese faced a wary audience at the annual event, attesting to both the dramatically changed geopolitical landscape after Russia’s war on Ukraine, as well as two data points that highlighted a worrisome shift in China’s own fortunes.

Hours before a senior Chinese official, Liu He, spoke to this elite economic gathering in an Alpine ski resort, the government announced that China’s population shrank in 2022 for the first time in 61 years. A short time earlier, it confirmed that economic growth had slowed to 3 percent, well below the trend of the past decade.

Against that backdrop, Mr. Liu sought to reassure his audience that China was still a good place to do business. “If we work hard enough, we are confident that growth will most likely return to its normal trend, and the Chinese economy will make a significant improvement in 2023,” he said.

Mr. Liu, a well-traveled vice premier who is one of China’s most recognizable faces in the West, insisted that the Covid crisis was “steadying,” seven weeks after the government abruptly abandoned its policy of quarantines and lockdowns. China had passed the peak of infections, he said, and had sufficient hospital beds, doctors and nurses, and medicine to treat the millions who are sick.

He did not mention the 60,000 fatalities linked to the coronavirus since the lockdowns were lifted, a huge spike in the official death toll that China announced three days ago.

Onstage at the World Economic Forum

The annual gathering of world leaders takes place in Davos, Switzerland, from Jan. 16 to 20.

•  China’s Message: China ventured back on to the global stage at the World Economic Forum, sending a delegation to assure foreign investors about its economic health after three years of pandemic isolation.

•  A New Buzzword: So many global troubles have arisen in recent months that the word “polycrisis” is everywhere in Davos — even in the organization’s annual report.

• Going Nuclear: The filmmaker Oliver Stone, who has a history of jabbing the political, business and social elite with controversial projects, received a warm reception in Switzerland for a film promoting nuclear power.

Mr. Liu’s mild words and modest tone were in stark contrast to those of his boss, President Xi Jinping, who came to Davos in 2017 to claim the mantle of global economic leadership in a world shaken up by the election of Donald J. Trump in the United States and Britain’s vote to leave the European Union.

Since then, the United States and Europe have united to support Ukraine against Russia, leaving the Russians isolated with the Chinese among their few friends. Russia’s revanchist campaign has raised questions among Europeans about whether China might have similar designs on Taiwan, and escalated security concerns among the world’s democracies.

Mr. Liu steered clear of political issues like the war in Ukraine or China’s tensions with the Biden administration. But he did say, “We have to abandon the Cold War mentality,” echoing a frequent Chinese criticism of the United States for attempting to contain China’s influence around the world.

But it is China’s demographics and economic growth that are raising the biggest questions among businesspeople. The decline in population lays bare the country’s falling birthrate, a trend that experts said was exacerbated by the pandemic and will threaten its growth over the long term. The 3 percent growth rate, the second weakest since 1976, reflects the stifling effect of the government’s Covid policy.

“The Chinese are worried, and they should be,” said Evan S. Medeiros, a professor of Asia studies at Georgetown University. “The entire international business community is way more negative about China over the long-term. A lot of people are asking, ‘Have we reached peak China?’”

Professor Medeiros, who served as a China adviser in the Obama administration, said, “For the past 20 years, China has benefited from both geoeconomic gravity and geopolitical momentum, but in the last year it has rapidly lost both.”

The signposts of China’s economic weakness are everywhere: the government announced on Friday that exports fell 9.9 percent in December relative to a year earlier.

“China has an export slowdown, construction is in crisis, and the local governments are running out of money,” said Jean-Pierre Cabestan, professor of political science at Hong Kong Baptist University. “China needs the world: to boost its economy, to accompany the return to more normalcy.”

Mr. Liu laid out a familiar set of economic policies, from upholding the rule of law to pursuing “innovation-driven development.” He insisted that China was still attractive to foreign investors, who he said were integral to China’s plan to achieve the government’s goal of “common prosperity.”

“China’s national reality dictates that opening up to the world is a must, not an expediency,” Mr. Liu said. “We must open up wider and make it work better. We oppose unilateralism and protectionism.”

But China’s delegation was a reminder of how the government has sidelined some of its own best-known entrepreneurs as it has reined in powerful technology companies. Jack Ma, a co-founder of the Alibaba Group, used to be one of the biggest celebrities at the World Economic Forum, holding court in a chalet on the outskirts of Davos. Now shunted out of power, Mr. Ma is absent from Davos.

Instead, China sent less well-known executives from Ant Group, an affiliate of the Alibaba Group, as well as officials from China Energy Group and China Petrochemical Group. Unlike other countries, notably India and Saudi Arabia, which plastered buildings in Davos with advertisements for foreign investment, China has been low-key, holding meetings at the posh Belvedere Hotel.

After his speech, Mr. Liu, who has a command of English and holds a graduate degree from Harvard, met privately with business executives. Some expected him to be more candid in that session about the challenges China has faced.

Mr. Liu did not meet top American officials in Davos, though he will meet Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in Zurich on Wednesday. Martin J. Walsh, the labor secretary who is at the conference, said he welcomed China’s return. “China’s in the world economy,” he said. “We need to engage with them.”

Though Mr. Liu, 70, has a significant international profile — having led trade negotiations with the Trump administration — China experts noted that he is not in Mr. Xi’s innermost circle. He is also no longer a member of the Chinese government’s ruling Politburo, though analysts said he retained the trust of Mr. Xi.

When he spoke at Davos in 2018, Mr. Liu’s speech was among the best attended of the conference. This year, however, about a quarter of the hall emptied before Mr. Liu spoke, after having been packed for a speech by Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission.

The difference in crowd sizes reflected the reshuffled priorities of the West, now focused on exhibiting unity against Russian aggression.

Ms. von der Leyen, who celebrated that solidarity in her remarks, did not exactly warm up the audience for Mr. Liu. She accused the Chinese government, in its drive to dominate the clean-energy industries of the future, of unfairly subsidizing its companies at the expense of Europe and the United States.

“Climate change needs a global approach,” she said in a chiding tone, “but it needs to be a fair approach.”

Mark Landler reported from Davos, Switzerland and Keith Bradsher from Beijing.

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Sweden pledges to send Archer artillery to Ukraine

Sweden's announcement comes a day before the US convenes a meeting of around 50 countries – including all 30 members of the NATO alliance – in Germany to discuss military aid to Ukraine.

Le Monde with AFP

Published on January 19, 2023

Sweden on Thursday, January 19, pledged to send its Archer artillery system, a modern mobile howitzer requested by Kyiv for months, to Ukraine along with armored vehicles and anti-tank missiles.

Speaking at a press conference, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said his government had agreed on a three-part military support package for Ukraine, including "the first decision on starting deliveries of the artillery system Archer to Ukraine."

Sweden, which has broken with its doctrine of not delivering weapons to a country at war, will also send 50 CV-90 armored vehicles and NLAW portable anti-tank missiles, the government said.

Every morning, a selection of articles from Le Monde In English straight to your inbox

"Military support is decisive," Kristersson said, as "it can change who retakes the initiative this winter" on the front in Ukraine.

The domestically developed Archer artillery system is composed of a fully-automated howitzer mounted on an all-terrain vehicle, which allows the gun to be remotely operated by the crew sitting in the armored cab.

Thursday's decision meant the Swedish Armed Forces would be given the task to "make the preparations to begin delivery of the artillery system Archer to Ukraine."

Defence Minister Pal Jonson said the government had also asked the armed forces to come back with a recommendation on how many of the Archers currently in storage could be sent.

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Why progressives must push for a transformation of the media

The left goes on dancing to the media’s tune

The media insists politicians and campaigners become entertainers to connect with the public. The left has too willingly bought into a game it can’t win. A complete media strategy reset is long overdue.

by Serge Halimi & Pierre Rimbert 

Le Monde Diplomatique

Student activist Louis Boyard got noticed for his combative attitude and became a regular guest on the crowd-pleasing television show Touche pas à mon poste (‘Don’t touch my TV’, a play on Don’t Touch my Buddy, a French antiracist NGO created in 1994 to fight the National Front). His new fame helped him get selected as a candidate for the leftwing La France Insoumise (LFI, Unsubmissive France) and he won a seat in parliament. When Boyard returned as a guest on the show in November, the host, television personality Cyril Hanouna, called him ‘a piece of shit,’ a ‘loser’ and a ‘complete moron’ for daring to criticise Vincent Bolloré, the channel’s billionaire owner. It’s hard to imagine a more telling illustration of the balance of power between politics and the media.

The scandal boosted the show’s ratings and guests in subsequent weeks kept up the attacks on the ungrateful ‘kid’ who, they claimed, had ‘betrayed his friend’. ‘Frankly, [Boyard] showed a lack of respect,’ one guest even dared say. The show had been praised by several LFI leaders keen to reach its large audience of young, working-class viewers. ‘We go wherever we can take our message’, LFI leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon explained after the incident. But at what cost?

The relationship that political organisations, campaign groups and trade unions have with the media, which has a monopoly on how public life is presented, contains an essential contradiction: rarely has the entanglement of the press and money been so pronounced, yet never has the radical left’s critique of the media seemed so opportunistic. Any organisation that challenges the established order knows that the press and power are linked. ‘Journalists must remember they aren’t mere observers, but part of the elite whose role is also to protect the country from chaos,’ warned two academic opponents of social movements (1). Nor are protesters unaware of the unpopularity of those who produce media content. Yet they accept, to varying degrees, the media’s demands, whether it’s to help fill the schedules of 24-hour news channels or appear as regulars on entertainment shows. But is it possible to use the mainstream media without merely dancing to their tune? What compromises are inevitable if you decide to work with the media?

Political theatre

Dealing with the media means first endorsing the idea that the big media companies are society’s distributors of speech: it’s journalists who popularise some movements, ignore others, and select spokespeople. For a fledging movement, the stakes are huge because it’s about breaking through the glass partition to join the public debate. However, the press prioritises organisations that can offer some sort of media performance: coming across as young, funny, punchy or divisive; planning actions where the shock value of the images compensates for the small number of participants — demonstrating naked, dressing up, flinging soup on a painting. The slogans that are part of this political theatre sound more like advertising jingles or newspaper headlines — tongue-in-cheek, offbeat, witty — than slogans that express demands, which bore journalists.

This kind of action sometimes pays off: ACT UP, the association which campaigned to end the AIDS epidemic in the 1990s, achieved notable results. More recently, environmental activists’ stunts have highlighted the fight against global warming. But not all protests can be turned into stunts. Quirkier forms of action are generally the work of the educated urban middle class. In 2004 the Parisian press instinctively supported striking academics; Le Monde put them on its front page six times (3-11 March). Two months later, when striking energy sector workers at EDF caused power cuts, a front-page cartoon in the same paper compared them to American torturers at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq (9 June 2004). In both strikes, however, the aim was to protect a public service.

Students planned symbolic events to attract the media spotlight ... The media helped recruit new members and backers who expected to find there what they saw on television or read in the papers ... They smoked dope, read less, and went for brokeTodd Gitlin

To get media attention, therefore, ordinary employees in ordinary companies have done extraordinary things, such as threaten to blow up their factory, as Cellatex workers did in the Ardennes in 2000 and staff at GMS in the Creuse in 2017; hold company directors hostage; or ransack local government offices. Or storm the Champs-Élysées, as the Gilets Jaunes did in 2018. But the risks differ: academics who protested by lying down on the pavement in white coats just risked catching a cold, while nearly 2,300 Gilets Jaunes were convicted and 400 imprisoned; some suffered life-changing injuries.

The selective nature of media attention can alter a movement’s behaviour: actions with an immediate media payoff are more likely to go ahead, sometimes regardless of whether the presence of cameras helps to achieve long-term political goals. It’s easier to pull off a mention on the TV news than it is to get employers or the government to capitulate. When appearing in the papers becomes an end in itself, an organisation’s strategy is reduced to a series of stunts designed to attract journalists. A French activist’s handbook, Guerilla Kit (La Découverte, 2008), explained that journalists ‘are busy people. You have to make their work easier. The more boxes you can tick in the following list, the likelier your action is to get into the media.’ The list included novelty, drama, conflict, disruption, celebrities, surprise, scandal and controversy.

Not only does media strategy change a movement’s direction, it can also change its composition. Recalling his experience in 1960s America with Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), sociologist Todd Gitlin observed that the organisation ‘began to organise symbolic events deliberately to attract the media spotlight ... The media helped recruit into SDS new members and backers who expected to find there what they saw on television or read in the papers ... They smoked dope, they had read less, they went for broke’ (2). Sixty years later, an ‘exclusive investigation’ into the campaign against a new airport at Notre-Dame-des-Landes (M6, 29 March 2015) echoed Gitlin’s thoughts. Entitled ‘Environmentalists, extremists or marginals: who are these nimbies who defy the state?’, the report sought out eccentric contributors, including a man who boasted he drank petrol and another who wielded a hatchet...

Obsessed with novelty

The way a journalistic world obsessed with novelty works poses a challenge for those who engage in the media competition: how to keep up the pace long-term? From feminist movements in the 1970s to environmental activists who stage actions in museums, each new campaign, with its own methods and tools, can quickly attract the media spotlight, but become passé just as quickly. In 2011 the celebration of Twitter and Facebook activism sometimes gave the impression that Arab revolts were happening online rather than on the streets; 12 years later, activist use of social media is part of the standard playbook. Dozens of collectives that organised spectacular actions to promote progressive causes have been adored, then neglected, and finally buried by the media.

‘When an editor rings,’ said a representative of the now unfashionable association Agir Ensemble Contre le Chômage (AC!, an organisation which campaigns on behalf of the unemployed), ‘it’s not to ask our opinion on something fundamental, but to find “typical” unemployed people: “We’re looking for someone out of work between such and such an age.” It’s social casting. They aren’t interested in what we do.’ Maurad Rabhi, who was a CGT delegate during the Cellatex dispute in 2000, formed the same view: ‘During the conflict, you’re in the limelight, you represent a cause. And then it’s all gone. When the spotlight’s turned off, you’re back in the shadows, on your own’ (3).

Every time there's a major strike, the reporting's the same. With refuse collectors, it's rubbish piling up in the streets. With postal workers, it's the absence of mail. With railway workers, it's the lack of trains. This shows that these are really useful jobs. That should make it possible for us to discuss the need to pay them properlyPhilippe Poutou.

The inherent risk in competing for media attention is all too obvious: if an organisation’s visibility depends above all on the airtime it gets from the mainstream media, they also have the power to make it invisible. After Olivier Besancenot, then spokesperson for the LCR (the forerunner of the New Anti-Capitalist Party (NPA)), appeared on Philippe Bouvard’s Grosses Têtes comedy show, the organisation’s founder, Alain Krivine, said, ‘Even if Olivier doesn’t like doing it, it’s best not to turn down these programmes, otherwise we’ll disappear.’ Go on a comedy show or disappear: it’s hardly an appealing choice. ‘We’ve gone out of fashion,’ Subcomandante Marcos admitted in 2007, looking back on 13 years of insurrection in Chiapas (Mexico). ‘If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t change a thing, except perhaps be less present on the media scene’ (4).

Because getting the media’s attention isn’t enough. Maintaining their goodwill means not crossing the ‘yellow lines’ that journalists set in advance. According to journalists, overstepping them (by, for example, picketing, interrupting exams, cancelling festivals, blocking motorways or occupying buildings) means sacrificing public support. And then journalists will turn on protesters and call them extremists, hostage-takers, populists and wreckers of the economy. Thereafter, the media will focus on a perennial question: ‘Do you condemn violent protests?’

Challenging the law

But almost no social movement would have succeeded, even in a democracy, without at some point challenging the legitimacy of the law — not the trade union struggle, or the US civil rights movement, or the fight to legalise abortion, or the LGBT associations’ fight for equal rights. This fact leaves powerful journalists indifferent; their knowledge of history is often minimal. The social order is a given. The media is not designed to offer dissenters a platform to explain why they want to change the world: its aim is to produce journalist-arbitrated ‘debate’, soundbites to feed the 24-hour news channels or, better still, Twitterstorms.

Since the early 1960s, many movements — often outside France — have been interested in the question of their relationship with the media, without the knowledge of what’s been learnt necessarily being passed on. Speaking of the civil rights struggle in the US, a close friend of Martin Luther King, J Hunter O’Dell, explained, ‘It was disastrous for us to rely primarily upon these corporate forms of mass communication to get our message and analysis out to the public. In the end, it means a new kind of addiction to media rather than being in charge of our own agenda and relying on mass support as our guarantee that ultimately the news-covering apparatus must give recognition to our authority’ (5). Forgetting this conclusion, intentionally or not, gives a few personalities the chance to experience first the thrill of media fame, and then its backlash.

Just as they select protest movements, journalists choose the spokespeople who best fit their preconceptions and most willingly comply with their demands. Participants, obliged to fit the mould, have learned to work with journalists’ ‘constraints’. Former LFI spokesperson Raquel Garrido described her experience: ‘When you get a call at 6pm to come in at 10pm, 11pm or midnight, of course you have to say yes. And when a journalist calls you at midnight to record an interview that will be broadcast on the radio from 5am, you have to drop everything and make yourself available.’

Being ready to drop everything means responding before there has been collective deliberation about what position to take or the conditions for participating in a programme. The media’s schedule differs from that of a democratic organisation: when a journalist calls a trade union spokesperson for a reaction to a news story, the union has rarely had time to meet and agree its stance. However, if the union representative refuses to oblige, to avoid the fallout from an improvised response, he or she knows the journalist will contact a rival union or someone more willing to speak off the cuff. As most members of collectives now have a Twitter account where they mix self-promotion with (more or less informed) commentary on the news, centrifugal forces can destabilise an organisation.

While protest organisations mobilise collective action to win their battles, political journalism personalises collective struggles to tell their stories. Interviewees are asked to divulge aspects of their family life, their tastes and personal experience more often than they are interviewed about their objectives, or the struggles and thinking of the movements they represent.

In 2001 the Confédération Paysanne (agricultural union) spokesman, José Bové, agreed to appear on Michel Drucker’s programme Vivement Dimanche (Roll on Sunday). Following his example, many radical leftwing figures have revealed themselves in magazines or on talk shows, sometimes even donning costumes, which has annoyed many activists. Twenty years ago, an activist asked Besancenot, ‘What are you going to do on stupid TV shows?’ A party representative responded, ‘We must always bear in mind the wide angle, a broad audience ... We mustn’t be afraid of the general public and we mustn’t have a contemptuous attitude towards a whole slew of popular programmes’ (6).

Such a stance assumes that the depoliticisation of the working class has reached a point where politicians need to appear on entertainment shows to establish a rapport with the social groups they hope to appeal to. Accepting this, however, means ignoring the fact that the way these programmes work is based on depoliticising issues and recasting them as interpersonal battles. The media was quick to reframe anti-capitalist LFI MP Louis Boyard’s criticism of billionaire Vincent Bolloré (mentioned earlier) as the ‘Boyard-Hanouna clash’.

‘What people are, not what they do’

This focus on the individual marginalises common causes. Luc Le Vaillant, the journalist responsible for Libération’s ‘Portraits’ section for over 20 years, acknowledges they ‘focus on what people are, not what they do’ (Libération, 13 November 2015). The profile format prioritises individual psychology over collective interests; social forces take a back seat to individual characteristics. The image of a lone man standing up to a column of tanks has become the symbol of the 1989 Tiananmen Square uprising, to the point of airbrushing out the large crowd that took part. Through the press’s lens, a mass movement is transformed into acts of personal bravery.

‘I’m the first to deplore the superficiality this imposes on the message,’ Garrido, the former LFI spokesperson, concedes in her Manuel de Guérilla médiatique (Guerrilla Media Manual, Michel Laffont, 2018). ‘But I’m not the one who makes the rules, and my only options were to opt out or comply.’ Some people do opt out. Jeremy Corbyn in the UK and Bernie Sanders in the US had major successes between 2015 and 2020 without following the rules; their subsequent failure had other causes. Jean-Luc Mélenchon has alternated the ‘wide angle, broad audience’ strategy with temporary boycotts of media outlets he considers hostile (France Inter, Libération, Mediapart). At the same time, these three leaders encouraged the independent media, in the hope that they would allow them a degree of autonomy compared with the mainstream press.

But the creation and growth of a market in personalities self-fuelled by social networks and clips of confrontations have not made things easier. To promote their own brand within their organisation and differentiate themselves from competitors, many politicians willingly react to the controversies of the moment as chosen by the media. This decision takes its toll on organisations’ cohesion and their democratic life, especially when access to friendly journalists becomes a weapon for settling internal scores — and risks the media having greater influence on the debates within a party than its own activists.

How can you claim to break the system when you yourself contribute to perpetuating it? This question was posed by the rise of Podemos in Spain. In 2011 the Indignados movement rejected the idea of having a media spokesperson. But three years later, the Podemos party was created from the grassroots movement and a leader emerged: the young, brilliant, telegenic Pablo Iglesias, who hosted an online debate show. ‘We chose Iglesias,’ said the party’s head of international affairs, ‘because he was a guy who spoke very well on TV, who was beginning to create social identification around him’ (7).

Podemos soon saw the limits of this strategy. Iglesias himself admitted, ‘The first months of Podemos were strongly marked by the role I played in the media. Its dependence on me always being in the media was so great that the campaign team took the decision to put my face on ballot papers ... We [now] want the collective to play a leading role, which we think is more reasonable and, above all, more interesting’ (8). But it was already too late: the media, which had loved Iglesias, turned around and cast the strategic conflict between him and another leader, Inigo Ejerón, as a power struggle.

Criteria for media excellence

The media operates in a way that gives journalists excessive power to ‘elect’ a movement’s representatives, who are themselves pre-selected from the pool of those willing to play the media game. The criteria for media excellence differ radically from political excellence. In the former case, what matters is appearing at ease on air, and coming up with striking soundbites that will be picked up by the press and social media. In contrast, activists’ authority is based on experience, expertise, camaraderie, being ready to put yourself on the line etc. While the media rewards the telegenic with fame, platforms and travel — and amplifies their message — it completely overlooks those who keep movements alive through ‘ordinary’ struggles.

Analysing the American protest movement of the 1960s, the sociologist Todd Gitlin made an enlightening comparison between the alienation of workers from what they produce and that of activists from the (media) representation of their political action: ‘Just as people as workers have no voice in what they make, how they make it, or how the product is distributed and used, so do people as producers of meaning have no say in what the media make what they say or do, or in the context within which the media frame their activity. The resulting meanings, now mediated, acquire an eery substance in the real world, standing outside their ostensible makers and confronting them as an alien force’ (9).

Although avoided by the leaders of most political organisations, associations and trade unions, the question of relationships with the media has become increasingly acute within social movements. During the French strikes of spring-summer 2003, teachers and entertainment industry workers initially agreed to play the journalistic game of vox pops, profiles and other staged events. Then, seeing that their goodwill only led to feeding the preconceived image that the media had created for their movement, they targeted media premises, sometimes occupying them and interrupting broadcasts.

In 2018 the Gilets Jaunes did likewise, as the students opposed to the ‘contrat première embauche’ (first employment contract, with reduced rights) had done in 2006. In several universities, organisers had drafted charters regulating relations with the press. And several union general assemblies voted to ban journalists from debates on the grounds that their presence altered participants’ behaviour. Nearly a century earlier, the secretary general of the CGT union, Léon Jouhaux, wondered in La Bataille syndicaliste (The Union Battle) ‘whether we should continue to welcome into our midst people who systematically, with their bias, denigrate our action and disfigure our discussions, or whether we should not instead ruthlessly refuse them entry to our meetings’ (10). Such readiness to challenge the media has remained the exception.

Yet contemporary history provides important examples of political mobilisations that achieved their goal without the mainstream media’s help, and even in spite of it, not least the French referendum against the European Constitution Treaty in 2005. Patient, obstinate activist work won out over journalistic theatrics. Throughout the campaign, hostility to the press even strengthened the mobilisation.

‘The free communication of ideas’

The media has an obligation to ensure ‘the free communication of ideas and opinion’. This guarantee, enshrined in France’s constitution, is not a favour that anyone should beg for by accepting airtime in the dead of night, unreasonable demands and demeaning formats. Nor, above all, on condition that they keep quiet about the media’s ideological role, the monopoly of a handful of oligarchs, and the declining quality of the information they provide.

When political leaders stop fearing the power of the media, we see scenes that are both gratifying and instructive. Asked by BFMTV to react to the endless vox pops on strikers as ‘hostage takers’, Philippe Poutou said last October, ‘Every time there’s a major strike, the reporting’s the same. When it’s refuse collectors, it’s rubbish piling up in the streets. When it’s postal workers, it’s the absence of mail. When it’s railway workers, it’s the lack of trains. This shows that these are really useful jobs. That should make it possible to discuss the need to pay them properly ... If there was a strike by the shareholders of the CAC40 [French stock market], not many people would be bothered. And if BFM commentators went on strike for a fortnight, not many people would be bothered either.’

Gilets Jaunes, unions, parties and associations all have the power to turn things around, to remind the media of its obligations and, if necessary, force it to respect them. They can consider the conditions of their media coverage: which programmes to go on, how much speaking time to demand without being interrupted, which subjects to discuss, which other guests to appear with. This would be an apt counterpart to the endless list of demands the Élysée makes of the broadcasters who give the president a platform on television. Forcing the press to fulfil its mission means radically transforming it rather than cajoling it.

Over 40 years ago, the sociologist and historian Christopher Lasch advised against ‘abstract theorising about the mass media’ and grounding discussion ‘in the concrete historical experience of those who have tried to use mass media for critical, subversive, and revolutionary purposes’, which has largely proved to be ‘self-defeating. Political activists who seek to change society would do better to stick to the patient work of political organising instead of trying to organise a movement “with mirrors” ’ (11). His conclusion is as relevant as ever.

Serge Halimi & Pierre Rimbert

Serge Halimi is president and editorial director of Le Monde diplomatique; Pierre Rimbert is a member of its board of directors.

News round-up, Wednesday, January 18, 2023

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Andres Gluski, President & CEO of the AES Corporation, had a productive first day at the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting #WEF2023 in Davos, Switzerland.

—that the kind of worldwide transformation urgently needed now , can only be achieved with the cooperation of the public and private sectors, Gluski said.

Over the next few days, about 1,700 CEOs and 400 other prominent personalities will gather in Davos to explore solutions to global concerns such as climate change, energy efficiency, and electrification.

Image: Andrés Gluski, President and CEO and Ricardo Manuel Falú, Senior Vice President and Chief Strategy and Commercial Officer and Madelka McCalla, Chief Corporate Affairs and Impact Officer at The AES Corporation

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Reforestation day…

Since July 2015, Seaboard has been sponsoring a permanent brigade to contribute to the sustained work of recovering the forested area in the Upper Ozama River Basin.

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Cooperate with ethical thinking -

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Shocking: This is what Chile would be like if climate change continues, according to A.I. (La Tercera)

“For what purpose do we exist, and why are we required? Is artificial intelligence already more advanced than us?”

— Germán & Co

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Elon Musk’s Appetite for Destruction

A wave of lawsuits argue that Tesla’s self-driving software is dangerously overhyped. What can its blind spots teach us about the company’s erratic C.E.O.?

NYT By Christopher Cox

Jan. 17, 2023

Early on, the software had the regrettable habit of hitting police cruisers. No one knew why, though Tesla’s engineers had some good guesses: Stationary objects and flashing lights seemed to trick the A.I. The car would be driving along normally, the computer well in control, and suddenly it would veer to the right or left and — smash — at least 10 times in just over three years.

For a company that depended on an unbounded sense of optimism among investors to maintain its high stock price — Tesla was at one point worth more than Toyota, Honda, Volkswagen, Mercedes, BMW, Ford and General Motors combined — these crashes might seem like a problem. But to Elon Musk, Tesla’s chief executive, they presented an opportunity. Each collision generated data, and with enough data, the company could speed the development of the world’s first truly self-driving car. He believed in this vision so strongly that it led him to make wild predictions: “My guess as to when we would think it is safe for somebody to essentially fall asleep and wake up at their destination: probably toward the end of next year,”

Musk said in 2019. “I would say I am certain of that. That is not a question mark.”

The future of Tesla may rest on whether drivers knew that they were engaged in this data-gathering experiment, and if so, whether their appetite for risk matched Musk’s. I wanted to hear from the victims of some of the more minor accidents, but they tended to fall into two categories, neither of which predisposed them to talk: They either loved Tesla and Musk and didn’t want to say anything negative to the press, or they were suing the company and remaining silent on the advice of counsel. (Umair Ali, whose Tesla steered into a highway barrier in 2017, had a different excuse: “Put me down as declined interview because I don’t want to piss off the richest man in the world.”)

Then I found Dave Key. On May 29, 2018, Key’s 2015 Tesla Model S was driving him home from the dentist in Autopilot mode. It was a route that Key had followed countless times before: a two-lane highway leading up into the hills above Laguna Beach, Calif. But on this trip, while Key was distracted, the car drifted out of its lane and slammed into the back of a parked police S.U.V., spinning the car around and pushing the S.U.V. up onto the sidewalk. No one was hurt.

Key, a 69-year-old former software entrepreneur, took a dispassionate, engineer’s-eye view of his own accident. “The problem with stationary objects — I’m sorry, this sounds stupid — is that they don’t move,” he said. For years, Tesla’s artificial intelligence had trouble separating immobile objects from the background. Rather than feeling frustrated that the computer hadn’t figured out such a seemingly elementary problem, Key took comfort in learning that there was a reason behind the crash: a known software limitation, rather than some kind of black-swan event.

Last fall, I asked Key to visit the scene of the accident with me. He said he would do me one better; he would take me there using Tesla’s new Full Self-Driving mode, which was still in beta. I told Key that I was surprised he was still driving a Tesla, much less paying extra — F.S.D. now costs $15,000 — for new autonomous features. If my car had tried to kill me, I would have switched brands. But in the months and years after his Model S was totaled, he bought three more.

We met for breakfast at a cafe in Laguna Beach, about three miles from the crash site. Key was wearing a black V-neck T-shirt, khaki shorts and sandals: Southern California semiretirement chic. As we walked to our table, he locked the doors of his red 2022 Model S, and the side mirrors folded up like a dog’s ears when it’s being petted.

Key had brought along a four-page memo he drafted for our interview, listing facts about the accident, organized under subheadings like “Tesla Full Self-Driving Technology (Discussion).” He’s the sort of man who walks around with a battery of fully formed opinions on life’s most important subjects — computers, software, exercise, money — and a willingness to share them. He was particularly concerned that I understand that Autopilot and F.S.D. were saving lives: “The data shows that their accident rate while on Beta is far less than other cars,” one bullet point read, in 11-point Calibri. “Slowing down the F.S.D. Beta will result in more accidents and loss of life based on hard statistical data.”

Accidents like his — and even the deadly ones — are unfortunate, he argued, but they couldn’t distract society from the larger goal of widespread adoption of autonomous vehicles. Key drew an analogy to the coronavirus vaccines, which prevented hundreds of thousands of deaths but also caused rare deaths and injuries from adverse reactions. “As a society,” he concluded, “we choose the path to save the most lives.”

We finished breakfast and walked to the car. Key had hoped to show off the newest version of F.S.D., but his system hadn’t updated yet. “Elon said it would be released at the end of the week,” he said. “Well, it’s Sunday.” Musk had been hinting for weeks that the update would be a drastic improvement over F.S.D. 10.13, which had been released over the summer. Because Musk liked to make little jokes out of the names and numbers in his life, the version number would jump to 10.69 with this release. (The four available Tesla models are S, 3, X and Y, presumably because that spells the word “sexy.”)

Key didn’t want to talk about Musk, but the executive’s reputational collapse had become impossible to ignore. He was in the middle of his bizarre, on-again-off-again campaign to take over Twitter, to the dismay of Tesla loyalists. And though he hadn’t yet attacked Anthony Fauci or spread conspiracy theories about Nancy Pelosi’s husband or gone on a journalist-banning spree on the platform, the question was already suggesting itself: How do you explain Elon Musk?

“People are flawed,” Key said cautiously, before repeating a sentiment that Musk often said about himself: If partisans on both sides hated him, he must be doing something right. No matter what trouble Musk got himself into, Key said, he was honest — “truthful to his detriment.”

As we drove, Key compared F.S.D. and the version of Autopilot on his 2015 Tesla. Autopilot, he said, was like fancy cruise control: speed, steering, crash avoidance. Though in his case, he said, “I guess it didn’t do crash avoidance.” He had been far more impressed by F.S.D. It was able to handle just about any situation he threw at it. “My only real complaint is it doesn’t always select the lane that I would.”

After a minute, the car warned Key to keep his hands on the wheel and eyes on the road. “Tesla now is kind of a nanny about that,” he complained. If Autopilot was once dangerously permissive of inattentive drivers — allowing them to nod off behind the wheel, even — that flaw, like the stationary-object bug, had been fixed. “Between the steering wheel and the eye tracking, that’s just a solved problem,” Key said.

Soon we were close to the scene of the crash. Scrub-covered hills with mountain-biking trails lacing through them rose on either side of us. That was what got Key into trouble on the day of the accident. He was looking at a favorite trail and ignoring the road. “I looked up to the left, and the car went off to the right,” he said. “I was in this false sense of security.”

We parked at the spot where he hit the police S.U.V. four years earlier. There was nothing special about the road here: no strange lines, no confusing lane shift, no merge. Just a single lane of traffic running along a row of parked cars. Why the Tesla failed at that moment was a mystery.

Eventually, Key told F.S.D. to take us back to the cafe. As we started our left turn, though, the steering wheel spasmed and the brake pedal juddered. Key muttered a nervous, “OK. … ”

After another moment, the car pulled halfway across the road and stopped. A line of cars was bearing down on our broadside. Key hesitated a second but then quickly took over and completed the turn. “It probably could have then accelerated, but I wasn’t willing to cut it that close,” he said. If he was wrong, of course, there was a good chance that he would have had his second A.I.-caused accident on the same one-mile stretch of road.

Three weeks before Key hit the police S.U.V., Musk wrote an email to Jim Riley, whose son Barrett died after his Tesla crashed while speeding. Musk sent Riley his condolences, and the grieving father wrote back to ask whether Tesla’s software could be updated to allow an owner to set a maximum speed for the car, along with other restrictions on acceleration, access to the radio and the trunk and distance the car could drive from home. Musk, while sympathetic, replied: “If there are a large number of settings, it will be too complex for most people to use. I want to make sure that we get this right. Most good for most number of people.”

It was a stark demonstration of what makes Musk so unusual as a chief executive. First, he reached out directly to someone who was harmed by one of his products — something it’s hard to imagine the head of G.M. or Ford contemplating, if only for legal reasons. (Indeed, this email was entered into evidence after Riley sued Tesla.) And then Musk rebuffed Riley. No vague “I’ll look into it” or “We’ll see what we can do.” Riley receives a hard no.

Like Key, I want to resist Musk’s tendency to make every story about him. Tesla is a big car company with thousands of employees. It existed before Elon Musk. It might exist after Elon Musk. But if you want a parsimonious explanation for the challenges the company faces — in the form of the lawsuits, a crashing stock price and an A.I. that still seems all too capable of catastrophic failure — you should look to its mercurial, brilliant, sophomoric chief executive.

Perhaps there’s no mystery here: Musk is simply a narcissist, and every reckless swerve he makes is meant solely to draw the world’s attention. He seemed to endorse this theory in a tongue-in-cheek way during a recent deposition, when a lawyer asked him, “Do you have some kind of unique ability to identify narcissistic sociopaths?” and he replied, “You mean by looking in the mirror?”

But what looks like self-obsession and poor impulse control might instead be the fruits of a coherent philosophy, one that Musk has detailed on many occasions. It’s there in the email to Riley: the greatest good for the greatest number of people. That dictum, as part of an ad hoc system of utilitarian ethics, can explain all sorts of mystifying decisions that Musk has made, not least his breakneck pursuit of A.I., which in the long term, he believes, will save countless lives.

Unfortunately for Musk, the short term comes first, and his company faces a rough few months. In February, the first lawsuit against Tesla for a crash involving Autopilot will go to trial. Four more will follow in quick succession. Donald Slavik, who will represent plaintiffs in as many as three of those cases, says that a normal car company would have settled by now: “They look at it as a cost of doing business.” Musk has vowed to fight it out in court, no matter the dangers this might present for Tesla. “The dollars can add up,” Slavik said, “especially if there’s any finding of punitive damages.”

The many claims of the pending lawsuits come back to a single theme: Tesla consistently inflated consumer expectations and played down the dangers involved.

Slavik sent me one of the complaints he filed against Tesla, which lists prominent Autopilot crashes from A to Z — in fact, from A to WW. In China, a Tesla slammed into the back of a street sweeper. In Florida, a Tesla hit a tractor-trailer that was stretched across two lanes of a highway. During a downpour in Indiana, a Tesla Model 3 hydroplaned off the road and burst into flames. In the Florida Keys, a Model S drove through an intersection and killed a pedestrian. In New York, a Model Y struck a man who was changing his tire on the shoulder of the Long Island Expressway. In Montana, a Tesla steered unexpectedly into a highway barrier. Then the same thing happened in Dallas and in Mountain View and in San Jose.

The arrival of self-driving vehicles wasn’t meant to be like this. Day in, day out, we scare and maim and kill ourselves in cars. In the United States last year, there were around 11 million road accidents, nearly five million injuries and more than 40,000 deaths. Tesla’s A.I. was meant to put an end to this blood bath. Instead, on average, there is at least one Autopilot-related crash in the United States every day, and Tesla is under investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Ever since Autopilot was released in October 2015, Musk has encouraged drivers to think of it as more advanced than it was, stating in January 2016 that it was “probably better” than a human driver. That November, the company released a video of a Tesla navigating the roads of the Bay Area with the disclaimer: “The person in the driver’s seat is only there for legal reasons. He is not doing anything. The car is driving itself.” Musk also rejected the name “Copilot” in favor of “Autopilot.”

The fine print made clear that the technology was for driver assistance only, but that message received a fraction of the attention of Musk’s announcements. A large number of drivers seemed genuinely confused about Autopilot’s capabilities. (Tesla also declined to disclose that the car in the 2016 video crashed in the company’s parking lot.) Slavik’s legal complaint doesn’t hold back: “Tesla’s conduct was despicable, and so contemptible that it would be looked down upon and despised by ordinary decent people.”

The many claims of the pending lawsuits come back to a single theme: Tesla consistently inflated consumer expectations and played down the dangers involved. The cars didn’t have sufficient driver monitoring because Musk didn’t want drivers to think that the car needed human supervision. (Musk in April 2019: “If you have a system that’s at or below human-level reliability, then driver monitoring makes sense. But if your system is dramatically better, more reliable than a human, then monitoring does not help much.”) Drivers weren’t warned about problems with automatic braking or “uncommanded lane changes.” The company would admit to the technology’s limitations in the user manual but publish viral videos of a Tesla driving a complicated route with no human intervention.

Musk’s ideal customer was someone like Key — willing to accept the blame when something went wrong but possessing almost limitless faith in the next update. In a deposition, an engineer at Tesla made this all but explicit: “We want to let the customer know that, No. 1, you should have confidence in your vehicle: Everything is working just as it should. And, secondly, the reason for your accident or reason for your incident always falls back on you.”

After our failed left turn in Laguna Beach, Key quickly diagnosed the problem. If only the system had upgraded to F.S.D. 10.69, he argued, the car surely would have managed the turn safely. Unfortunately for Musk, not every Tesla owner is like Dave Key. The plaintiffs in the Autopilot lawsuits might agree that the A.I. is improving, but only on the backs of the early adopters and bystanders who might be killed along the way.

Online, there’s a battle between pro-Musk and anti-Musk factions about Autopilot and F.S.D. Reddit has a forum called r/RealTesla that showcases the most embarrassing A.I. screw-ups, along with more generic complaints: squeaky steering wheels, leaky roofs, haywire electronics, noisy cabins, stiff suspensions, wrinkled leather seats, broken door handles. The Musk stans tend to sequester themselves in r/TeslaMotors, where they post Tesla sightings, cheer on the company’s latest factory openings and await the next big announcement from the boss.

I found David Alford on YouTube, where he posted a video called “Tesla Full Self-Driving Running a Red Light.” In it, we see the view through the windshield as Alford’s car approaches an intersection with a left-turn lane that has a dedicated traffic signal. With a few hundred yards remaining, the light shifts from green to red, but the car doesn’t stop. Instead, it rolls into the intersection, where it’s on track to collide with oncoming traffic, until Alford takes over.

In the comments, Tesla fans grow angry with Alford for posting the video, but he pushes back: “How does it help put pressure on Tesla to improve their systems if you are scared to post their faults?” Replying to one comment, he writes that F.S.D. is “unethical in the context they are using it.”

When I called Alford, I was expecting someone suited for r/RealTesla, but he ended up having more of an r/TeslaMotors vibe. He told me that he would be willing to take me to the site of his video and demonstrate the failure, but first I had to make a promise. “The only thing I ask is try not to put me in a bad light toward Tesla,” he said. “I don’t want anybody to think that I hate the company or whatnot, because I’m a very, very big supporter of them.”

Alford lives in Fresno, Calif., and before I went to meet him one day last fall, he told me some exciting news: He had just received the F.S.D. 10.69 update. Our drive would be his first attempt to navigate the intersection from the YouTube video with the new system.

The morning I met him, he was wearing a black T-shirt that showed off his tattoos, black sunglasses and faded black jeans with holes in the knees. Hollywood would typecast him as a white-hat hacker, and indeed he’s a software guy like Key: He is a product engineer for a Bay Area tech company.

His white 2020 Tesla Model 3 had a magnetic bumper sticker he found on Etsy: CAUTION FULL SELF-DRIVING TESTING IN PROGRESS. He said he drives in F.S.D. mode 90 percent of the time, so his car is always acting a bit strange — the sticker helped keep some of the honking from other cars at bay. He seemed to be, like Key, an ideal F.S.D. beta tester: interested in the software, alert to its flaws, dogged in his accumulation of autonomous miles.

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I climbed into the passenger seat, and Alford punched in our first destination: a spot a few blocks away in downtown Fresno. We were lucky it was overcast, he said, because the car behaved well in these conditions. On days when it was sunny out and there was a lot of glare, the car could be “moody.” And when it was foggy, and it was often foggy in Fresno, “it freaks out.”

After a few minutes, we approached a crosswalk just as two parents pulling a child in a wagon began to cross. A screen next to the steering wheel showed that the A.I. had registered the two pedestrians but not the wagon. Alford said he was hovering his foot over the brake, but the car stopped on its own.

After the wagon came a woman in a wheelchair. The car stayed put. Alford told me that the automotive jargon for anyone on the street who is not in a car or a truck is a “V.R.U.,” a vulnerable road user. And it’s true: Pedestrians and cyclists and children in strollers and women in wheelchairs — they are so fragile compared with these giant machines we’ve stuffed into our cities and onto our highways. One wrong move, and a car will crush them.

We turned on to Van Ness Avenue, which cuts through downtown. It had been newly paved, and instead of lines on the street, there were little yellow tabs indicating where the lines would eventually go. The Tesla hated this and dodged worriedly right and left, looking for something to anchor it. There were no other cars around, so Alford let it get that out of its system and eventually find a lane line to follow.

“You build a tolerance to the risks it takes,” he said. “Yes, it’s swerving all over the place, but I know it’s not going to crash into something.” Still, the experience of the beta had changed the way he approached his own work. “It’s actually made me, as a software developer, more hesitant to put my software in the hands of people” before it’s fully ready, he said, “even though it’s not dangerous.”

Seconds later, we drove through an intersection as two V.R.U.s — a man walking a dog — entered the crosswalk. They were a safe distance away, but the dog started to strain against its leash in our direction. Alford and I knew that the pet wasn’t in peril because the leash would stop it. But all the Tesla saw was a dog about to jump in front of us, and it came to an abrupt stop. It was a good outcome, all things considered — no injuries to any life-form — but it was far from a seamless self-driving experience.

Alford nudged the steering wheel just often enough that the car never warned him to pay attention. He didn’t mind the strict driver monitoring: He never tired of studying the car’s behavior, so he was never tempted to tune out. Still, he knew people who abused the system. One driver tied an ankle weight to the steering wheel to “kick back and do whatever” during long road trips. “I know a couple of people with Teslas that have F.S.D. beta,” he said, “and they have it to drink and drive instead of having to call an Uber.”

We left downtown and got on the highway, headed toward an area northeast of the city called Clovis, where the tricky intersection was. Alford pulled up his F.S.D. settings. His default driver mode was Average, but he said he has found that the two other options — Chill and Assertive — aren’t much different: “The car is just really aggressive anyway.” For highway driving, though, he had the car set to something called Mad Max mode, which meant it would overtake any vehicle in front of him if it was going even a few miles per hour slower than his preferred speed.

We exited the highway and quickly came to a knot of cars. Something had gone wrong with the traffic light, which was flashing red, and drivers in all four directions, across eight lanes, had to figure out when to go and when to yield. The choreography here was delicate: There were too many cars to interweave without some allowances being made for mercy and confusion and expediency. Among the humans, there was a good deal of waving others on and attempted eye contact to see whether someone was going to yield or not.

We crept toward the intersection, car by car, until it was our turn. If we were expecting nuance, there was none. Once we had come to a complete stop, the Tesla accelerated quickly, cutting off one car turning across us and veering around another. It was not so much inhuman as the behavior of a human who was determined to be a jerk. “That was bad,” Alford said. “Normally I would disengage once it makes a mistake like that.” He clicked a button to send a snapshot of the incident to Tesla.

Later, at a four-way stop, the car was too cautious. It waited too long, and the other two cars at the intersection drove off before we did. We talked about the old saying about safe driving: “Don’t be nice; be predictable.” For a computer, Tesla’s A.I. was surprisingly erratic. “It’s not nice or predictable,” Alford said.

A few miles down the road, we reached the intersection from the video: a left turn onto East Shepherd Avenue from State Route 168. The traffic light sits right at the point where the city’s newest developments end and open land begins. If we drove straight, we would immediately find ourselves surrounded by sagebrush, on the way up into the Sierra.

To replicate the error that Alford uncovered, we needed to approach the intersection with a red left-turn arrow and a green light to continue straight. On our first pass, the arrow turned green at the last second. On the second pass, though, on an empty road, the timing was right: a red for our turn and green for everyone else.

As we got closer, the car moved into the turning lane and started to slow. “It sees the red,” I said.

“No,” Alford said. “It always slows down a little here before plowing through.” But this time, it kept slowing. Alford couldn’t believe it. “It’s still going to run the light,” he said. But he was wrong: We came to a tidy stop right at the line. Alford was shocked. “They fixed it!” he said. “That one I’ve been giving them an issue about for two years.” We waited patiently until the light turned green, and the Tesla drove smoothly onto Shepherd Avenue. No problem.

It was as clear a demonstration of Musk’s hypothesis as one could hope for. There was a situation that kept stumping the A.I. until, after enough data had been collected by dedicated drivers like Alford, the neural net figured it out. Repeat this risk-reward conversion X number of times, and maybe Tesla will solve self-driving. Maybe even next year.

On the drive back to the center of Fresno, Alford was buoyant, delighted with the possibility that he had changed the Tesla world for the better. I asked him whether the F.S.D. 10.69 release met the hype that preceded it. “To be honest, yeah, I think so,” he said. (He was even more enthusiastic about the version of F.S.D. released in December, which he described as nearly flawless.)

A few minutes later, we reached a rundown part of town. Alford said that in general Tesla’s A.I. does better in higher-income areas, maybe because those areas have more Tesla owners in them. “Are there data biases for higher-income areas because that’s where the Teslas are?” he wondered.

We approached an intersection and tried to make a left — in what turned out to be a repeat of the Laguna Beach scenario. The Tesla started creeping out, trying to get a clearer look at the cars coming from our left. It inched forward, inched forward, until once again we were fully in the lane of traffic. There was nothing stopping the Tesla from accelerating and completing the turn, but instead it just sat there. At the same time, a tricked-out Honda Accord sped toward us, about three seconds away from hitting the driver-side door. Alford quickly took over and punched the accelerator, and we escaped safely. This time, he didn’t say anything.

It was a rough ride home from there. At a standard left turn at a traffic light, the system freaked out and tried to go right. Alford had to take over. And then, as we approached a cloverleaf on-ramp to the highway, the car started to accelerate. To stay on the ramp, we needed to make an arcing right turn; in front of us was a steep drop-off into a construction site with no guard rails. The car showed no sign of turning. We crossed a solid white line, milliseconds away from jumping off the road when, at last, the wheel jerked sharply to the right, and we hugged the road again. This time, F.S.D. had corrected itself, but if it hadn’t, the crash would have surely killed us.

Peter Thiel, Musk’s former business partner at PayPal, once said that if he wrote a book, the chapter about Musk would be called “The Man Who Knew Nothing About Risk.” But that’s a misunderstanding of Musk’s attitude: If you parse his statements, he presents himself as a man who simply embraces astonishing amounts of present-day risk in the rational assumption of future gains.

Musk’s clearest articulation of his philosophy has come, of course, on Twitter. “We should take the set of actions that maximize total public happiness!” he wrote to one user who asked him how to save the planet. In August, he called the writings of William MacAskill, a Scottish utilitarian ethicist, “a close match for my philosophy.” (MacAskill, notably, was also the intellectual muse of Sam Bankman-Fried, though he cut ties with him after the FTX scandal came to light.)

Musk’s embrace of risk has produced true breakthroughs: SpaceX can land reusable rockets on remote-controlled landing pads in the ocean; Starlink is providing internet service to Ukrainians on the front lines; OpenAI creeps ever closer to passing the Turing test. As for Tesla, even Musk’s harshest critics — and I talked to many of them while reporting this article — would pause, unbidden, to give him credit for creating the now-robust market in electric vehicles in the United States and around the world.

And yet, as Robert Lowell wrote, “No rocket goes as far astray as man.” In recent months, as the outrages at Twitter and elsewhere began to multiply, Musk seemed determined to squander much of the good will he had built up over his career. I asked Slavik, the plaintiffs’ attorney, whether the recent shift in public sentiment against Musk made his job in the courtroom any easier. “I think at least there are more people who are skeptical of his judgment at this point than were before,” he said. “If I were on the other side, I’d be worried about it.”

Some of Musk’s most questionable decisions, though, begin to make sense if seen as a result of a blunt utilitarian calculus. Last month, Reuters reported that Neuralink, Musk’s medical-device company, had caused the needless deaths of dozens of laboratory animals through rushed experiments. Internal messages from Musk made it clear that the urgency came from the top. “We are simply not moving fast enough,” he wrote. “It is driving me nuts!” The cost-benefit analysis must have seemed clear to him: Neuralink had the potential to cure paralysis, he believed, which would improve the lives of millions of future humans. The suffering of a smaller number of animals was worth it.

This form of crude long-term-ism, in which the sheer size of future generations gives them added ethical weight, even shows up in Musk’s statements about buying Twitter. He called Twitter a “digital town square” that was responsible for nothing less than preventing a new American civil war. “I didn’t do it to make more money,” he wrote. “I did it to try to help humanity, whom I love.”

Autopilot and F.S.D. represent the culmination of this approach. “The overarching goal of Tesla engineering,” Musk wrote, “is maximize area under user happiness curve.” Unlike with Twitter or even Neuralink, people were dying as a result of his decisions — but no matter. In 2019, in a testy exchange of email with the activist investor and steadfast Tesla critic Aaron Greenspan, Musk bristled at the suggestion that Autopilot was anything other than lifesaving technology. “The data is unequivocal that Autopilot is safer than human driving by a significant margin,” he wrote. “It is unethical and false of you to claim otherwise. In doing so, you are endangering the public.”

I wanted to ask Musk to elaborate on his philosophy of risk, but he didn’t reply to my interview requests. So instead I spoke with Peter Singer, a prominent utilitarian philosopher, to sort through some of the ethical issues involved. Was Musk right when he claimed that anything that delays the development and adoption of autonomous vehicles was inherently unethical?

“I think he has a point,” Singer said, “if he is right about the facts.”

Musk rarely talks about Autopilot or F.S.D. without mentioning how superior it is to a human driver. At a shareholders’ meeting in August, he said that Tesla was “solving a very important part of A.I., and one that can ultimately save millions of lives and prevent tens of millions of serious injuries by driving just an order of magnitude safer than people.” Musk does have data to back this up: Starting in 2018, Tesla has released quarterly safety reports to the public, which show a consistent advantage to using Autopilot. The most recent one, from late 2022, said that Teslas with Autopilot engaged were one-tenth as likely to crash as a regular car.

That is the argument that Tesla has to make to the public and to juries this spring. In the words of the company’s safety report: “While no car can prevent all accidents, we work every day to try to make them much less likely to occur.” Autopilot may cause a crash WW times, but without that technology, we’d be at OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

Singer told me that even if Autopilot and human drivers were equally deadly, we should prefer the A.I., provided that the next software update, based on data from crash reports and near misses, would make the system even safer. “That’s a little bit like surgeons doing experimental surgery,” he said. “Probably the first few times they do the surgery, they’re going to lose patients, but the argument for that is they will save more patients in the long run.” It was important, however, Singer added, that the surgeons get the informed consent of the patients.

Does Tesla have the informed consent of its drivers? The answer might be different for different car owners — it would probably be different for Dave Key in 2018 than it is in 2022. But most customers are not aware of how flawed Autopilot is, said Philip Koopman, the author of “How Safe Is Safe Enough? Measuring and Predicting Autonomous Vehicle Safety.” The cars keep making “really crazy, crazy, surprising mistakes,” he said. “Tesla’s practice of using untrained civilians as test drivers for an immature technology is really egregious.”

Koopman also objects to Musk’s supposed facts. One obvious problem with the data the company puts out in its quarterly safety report is that it directly compares Autopilot miles, which are mainly driven on limited-access highways, with all vehicle miles. “You’re using Autopilot on the safe miles,” Koopman said. “So of course it looks great. And then you’re comparing it to not-Autopilot on the hard miles.”

In the third quarter of 2022, Tesla claimed that there was one crash for every 6.26 million miles driven using Autopilot — indeed, almost 10 times better than the U.S. baseline of one crash for every 652,000 miles. Crashes, however, are far more likely on surface streets than on the highway: One study from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation showed that crashes were five times as common on local roads as on turnpikes. When comparing Autopilot numbers to highway numbers, Tesla’s advantage drops significantly.

Tesla’s safety claims look even shakier when you try to control for the age of the car and the age of the driver. Most Tesla owners are middle-aged or older, which eliminates one risky pool of drivers: teenagers. And simply having a new car decreases your chance of an accident significantly. It’s even possible that the number of Teslas in California — with its generally mild, dry weather — has skewed the numbers in its favor. An independent study that tried to correct for some of these biases suggested that Teslas crashed just as often when Autopilot was on as when it was off.

“That’s always been a problem for utilitarians,” Singer told me. “Because it doesn’t have strict moral rules, people might think they can get away with doing the sums in ways that suit their purposes.”

Utilitarian thinking has led individuals to perform acts of breathtaking virtue, but putting this ethical framework in the hands of an industrialist presents certain dangers. True utilitarianism requires a careful balancing of all harms and benefits, in the present and the future, with the patience to do this assessment and the patience to refrain from acting if the amount of suffering and death caused by pushing forward wasn’t clear. Musk is using utilitarianism in a more limited way, arguing that as long as he’s sure something will have a net benefit, he’s permitted to do it right now.

In the past two decades, Musk has somehow maneuvered himself into running multiple companies where he can plausibly claim to be working to preserve the future of humanity. SpaceX can’t just deliver satellites into low orbit; it’s also going to send us to Mars. Tesla can’t just build a solid electric car; it’s going to solve the problem of self-driving. Twitter can’t just be one more place where we gather to argue; it’s one of the props holding up civilization. With the stakes suitably raised, all sorts of questionable behavior begin to look — almost — reasonable.

“True believers,” the novelist Jeanette Winterson wrote, “would rather see governments topple and history rewritten than scuff the cover of their faith.” Musk seems unshakable in his conviction that his approach is right. But for all his urgency, he still might lose the A.I. race.

Right now in San Francisco and Austin, Texas, and coming soon to cities all over the world, you can hail a robotaxi operated by Cruise or Waymo. “If there’s one moment in time where we go from fiction to reality, it’s now,” Sebastian Thrun, who founded Google’s self-driving car team, told me. (“I didn’t say this last year, by the way,” he added.) Thrun was no r/RealTesla lurker; he was on his fifth Tesla, and he said he admired the company: “What Tesla has is really beautiful. They have a fleet of vehicles in the field.” But at this point, Tesla’s competitors are closer to achieving full self-driving than any vehicle equipped with F.S.D.

In recent months, Musk has stopped promising that autonomous Teslas are just around the corner. “I thought the self-driving problem would be hard,” he said, “but it was harder than I thought. It’s not like I thought it’d be easy. I thought it would be very hard. But it was actually way harder than even that.”

On Dec. 29, 2019, the same day a Tesla in Indiana got into a deadly crash with a parked fire truck, an off-duty chauffeur named Kevin George Aziz Riad was driving his gray 2016 Tesla Model S down the Gardena Freeway in suburban Los Angeles. It had been a long drive back from a visit to Orange County, and Riad had Autopilot turned on. Shortly after midnight, the car passed under a giant sign that said END FREEWAY SIGNAL AHEAD in flashing yellow lights.

The Autopilot kept Riad’s Tesla at a steady speed as it approached the stoplight that marked the end of the freeway and the beginning of Artesia Boulevard. According to a witness, the light was red, but the car drove straight through the intersection, striking a Honda Civic. Riad had only minor injuries, but the two people in the Civic, Gilberto Alcazar Lopez and Maria Guadalupe Nieves, died at the scene. Their families said that they were on a first date.

Who was responsible for this accident? State officials have charged Riad with manslaughter and plan to prosecute him as if he were the sole actor behind the two deaths. The victims’ families, meanwhile, have filed civil suits against both Riad and Tesla. Depending on the outcomes of the criminal and civil cases, the Autopilot system could be judged, in effect, legally responsible, not legally responsible or both simultaneously.

Not long ago, I went to see the spot where Riad’s Tesla reportedly ran the red light. I had rented a Tesla for the day, to find out firsthand, finally, what it felt like to drive with Autopilot in control. I drove east on surface streets until I reached a ramp where I could merge onto State Route 91, the Gardena Freeway. It was late at night when Riad crashed. I was taking my ride in the middle of the day.

As soon as I was on the highway, I engaged Autopilot, and the car took over. I had the road mostly to myself. This Tesla was programmed to go 15 percent above the speed limit whenever Autopilot was in use, and the car accelerated quickly to 74 miles per hour, which was Riad’s speed when he crashed. Were his Autopilot speed settings the same?

The car did a good job of staying in its lane, better than any other traffic-aware cruise control I’ve used. I tried taking my hands off the wheel, but the Tesla beeped at me after a few seconds.

As I got closer to the crash site, I passed under the giant END FREEWAY SIGNAL AHEAD sign. The Autopilot drove on blithely. After another 500 feet, the same sign appeared again, flashing urgently. There was only a few hundred feet of divided highway left, and then Route 91 turned into a surface street, right at the intersection with Vermont Avenue.

I hovered my foot over the brake. What was I doing? Seeing if the car truly would just blaze through a red light? Of course it would. I suppose I was trying to imagine how easy it would be to do such a thing. At the end of a long night, on a road empty of cars, with something called Autopilot in control? My guess is that Riad didn’t even notice that he had left the highway.

The car sped under the warning lights, 74 miles an hour. The crash data shows that before the Tesla hit Lopez and Nieves, the brakes hadn’t been used for six minutes.

My Tesla bore down on the intersection. I got closer and closer to the light. No brakes. And then, just before I was about to take over, a pickup truck swung out of the far right lane and cut me off. The Tesla sensed it immediately and braked hard. If only that truck — as undeniable as any giant chunk of hardware can be — had been there in December 2019, Lopez and Nieves would still be alive.

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Ursula von der Leyen's plan to win the green industry battle

Looking to challenge China and the US, the European Commission is outlining an EU industrial policy.

Le Monde by Virginie Malingre (Brussels, Europe bureau)

Published on January 18, 2023

Now that China and the United States have opened hostilities in the battle of green technologies, the European Union (EU) is preparing its response. "We Europeans have a plan," said Ursula von der Leyen in Davos on Tuesday, January 17, which will enable Europe to take point in this race for innovation that will reshape the industry of tomorrow.

In her speech, Ms. von der Leyen denounced "aggressive attempts" to attract European industrial capacities away, particularly those working in clean energy, "to China and elsewhere." She also mentioned the "concerns" raised by the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), a $369 billion (342 billion euros) climate investment plan that provides for large-scale aid for companies based in the United States. "We won't hesitate to open investigations if we feel that our procurement of other markets is being distorted by such subsidies," Ms. von der Leyen promised.

The European Commission has been in discussions with Washington, hoping to get the US to modify the IRA, but no one in Brussels nor in the European capitals imagine that this will make a substantial difference. "The reaction of other countries shouldn't be, 'oh my god, you shouldn't be doing that, that's putting us in an unfair position'. Do it, too. Everybody's got to do the same thing to accelerate this process even more," US special envoy for climate change John Kerry said in Davos.

Race for subsidies

Certainly, but the EU is now concerned that its industrialists will surrender to the sirens of Washington or Beijing and abandon Europe. It is true that the EU has a number of weaknesses. First of all, its green industry is very dependent on China, India and the United States. "For rare earths, which are vital for manufacturing key technologies, like wind power generation and hydrogen storage. Europe is today 98% dependent on one country, China," said Ms. von der Leyen. "To produce green electricity in 2050, Europeans will have to spend 450 billion euros per year. This money should not be used to buy non-European products and export our jobs," summarized Thierry Breton, the Commissioner for the Internal Market.

Moreover, the EU is very slow when it comes to authorizing certain state aid measures which strategic projects may depend on. Industrial alliances, for example, generally take two years to establish. Finally, the 27 Member States do not have the same resources, and a subsidy race between them to attract investment would be devastating for the internal market. In fact, it has already begun: over the next 10 years, Germany plans to help its companies make the climate transition with 100 billion euros, the Netherlands with 40 billion and France with 50 billion.

In this context, Ms. von der Leyen wants to send a strong message of support to European companies, and is laying the foundations of a community industrial policy. She has announced legislation for "a net zero emissions industry" in greenhouse gases, which will be inspired by what the Commission has already proposed to double European semiconductor production. The objective is "how to simplify and fast-track the permitting of projects for cleantech production sites" and "to focus investments on strategic projects" and green innovations, which would be eligible for substantial state aid, she explained.

To avoid only rich countries such as Germany benefiting from it, this act will particularly incentivize projects carried out by a number of member states. It could also allow Europeans to align themselves under certain conditions with American or Chinese practices in terms of subsidies.

Legislation on critical raw materials

The Commission is also preparing draft legislation on critical raw materials, which aims to secure the EU's supplies of materials essential to the electrification of industry and green infrastructure. For example, it could set the objective that at least 30% of European demand for refined lithium should come from the EU by 2030. The Commission President also envisages the EU in "a critical raw materials club working with like-minded partners from the United States to Ukraine."

To help countries that do not have the means to massively subsidize their industry and to avoid "fragmenting the Single Market," Ms. von der Leyen continued, "we must also step up EU funding." In fact, the temporary relaxation of the state aid rules, intended to help the EU-27 deal with the consequences of the war in Ukraine, has mainly benefited the rich countries. In 2022, the Commission authorized 672 billion euros of state aid, 53% for Germany (or more than 9% of its GDP) and 24% for Paris. The same is true for the arrangements made during the COVID-19 crisis: between March 2020 and December 2021, Brussels authorized 3,000 billion euros of state aid, 52.8% of which was for Germany, 16.9% for Italy and 10.6% for France.

Faced with the challenge of greening the economy, "Italy and Spain can count on the loans still available from the Next Generation-EU recovery plan," said Mr. Breton. But for small countries, such as the Czech Republic, Slovakia or Slovenia, the EU will have to do something, by giving them access to loans at preferential rates from the European Investment Bank or the Commission, which will be guaranteed by the EU-27.

In the longer term, Ms. von der Leyen mentions establishment of a European sovereignty fund, which is not yet well defined and whose scope could be broader than green industry. "It could take equity in a strategic company" threatened with closure or acquisition by a non-European entity, Mr. Breton explained. It could also support the development of a European player "in sectors where the EU is lagging in terms of sovereignty," a source noted.

Virginie Malingre(Brussels, Europe bureau)

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Former head of the Mexican police on trial for drug trafficking with the “El Chapo” cartel

Genaro Garcia Luna's trial for cocaine trafficking is expected to reveal the relationship between drug traffickers and the Mexican government under President Felipe Calderon.

Le Monde by Anne Vigna (Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) correspondent) and Arnaud Leparmentier (New York (United States) correspondent)

Published on January 17, 2023

Genaro Garcia Luna was the most senior security official in Mexico 15 years ago, in charge of the fight against drug cartels. Now 54, he will appear in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, in a trial starting on Tuesday, January 17, charged with cocaine trafficking. The trial is expected to bring to light the relationship between drug traffickers and the Mexican government under President Felipe Calderon (2006-2012), and also the cross-border traffic that supplies the United States from South America via Mexico.

Mr. Garcia Luna's fall came in 2019, during the trial of Joaquin Guzman, known as "El Chapo," boss of the Sinaloa cartel, the largest in Mexico, who was sentenced to life in the United States. A cartel member testified how he had paid suitcases of cash to the former minister of security, leading to his arrest a few months later in Dallas, Texas, in December 2019.

In exchange for the bribes, the cartel received "safe passage for its drug shipments, sensitive law enforcement information about investigations into the cartel, and information about rival drug cartels," the US Department of Justice charged, the day after Mr. Garcia Luna's December 2019 arrest in Dallas. According to the DoJ, "on two occasions, the cartel personally paid bribes to Garcia Luna in briefcases containing between three and five million dollars."

The charge claims that the former police chief, who had settled in Florida in 2012, had "amassed millions of dollars in personal wealth." To prosecute him in the United States, the US prosecutors are using the cross-border drug trafficking charge and accusing him of lying when he applied for naturalization in 2018. "He allegedly lied about his past criminal acts on behalf of the Sinaloa cartel."

Mr. Garcia Luna pleaded not guilty, claiming he was the victim of revenge by cartel members and unfounded accusations. If convicted, he faces between 10 years and life in prison. "Today's arrest demonstrates our resolve to bring to justice those who help cartels inflict devastating harm on the United States and Mexico, regardless of the positions they held while committing their crimes," said Brooklyn federal prosecutor Richard P. Donoghue.

A 'mediocre' police officer who did the 'dirty work"

This is the first time a Mexican politician of such high rank has been brought to justice in the United States. For more than a decade, Mr. Garcia Luna was the main architect of the "war against the cartels" launched by President Felipe Calderon when he came to power in 2006. A policy that would turn Mexico into a huge graveyard.

Mr. Garcia Luna became the face of this war and the closest collaborator of the head of state, obtaining a record budget for the federal police, and in particular for the Federal Investigation Agency (AFI), which he had been the head of during the term of President Vincente Fox (2001-2006). He had previously worked in the Mexican intelligence services for a decade.

"This policeman, who has always been very mediocre, reached the highest positions by doing the dirty work. He got his hands dirty for his bosses, climbing the ladder in the administration and in organized crime. According to my investigations, he has been in the criminal world since the 1990s, protecting kidnapping gangs in exchange for juicy payments," investigative journalist Anabel Hernandez, author of several books on the war, said in a phone interview.

A stocky man with a closed face, whose press conferences were almost incomprehensible because of his strong stammer, he enjoyed the unwavering support of the two presidents from the PAN (National Action Party), Mexico's Catholic right wing. He represented Mexico in high-level bilateral security meetings with Hillary Clinton, then Secretary of State, former FBI Director Robert Mueller and Eric Holder, Attorney General under Barack Obama.

War on all cartels except Sinaloa

As soon as he took over in 2001, the methods of the AFI and the federal police were denounced by both the victims of organized crime and its perpetrators. Mr. Garcia Luna was supposedly waging a war against all the cartels, but it soon became apparent that this did not include the Sinaloa cartel, led by Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera, whose influence was growing steadily in the territory. For example, the Zetas – a criminal group formed by former elite soldiers of the Mexican army that rules the state of Tamaulipas on the border with Texas – repeatedly accused Mr. Garcia Luna of protecting their enemies in Sinaloa.

Kidnapped people also tell of media stunts at the time of their release, to the point where the Mexican press referred to the AFI as the "agency of invented films." The minister and his team would often resort to these media tricks to claim credit for the results before the Mexican public. Suspects and innocents are forced to confess their supposed crimes on camera, even though they have been previously arrested and tortured. Those subjected to Mr. Garcia Luna's methods include Frenchwoman Florence Cassez – released in 2013 after the Supreme Court overturned her conviction – and her Mexican companion Israel Vallarta, who has been in prison awaiting trial for kidnapping for 18 years.

The trial of Mr. Garcia Luna should provide arguments for current Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who dissolved the AFI and has repeatedly criticized the corruption under his predecessors. Mexico has de facto approved the New York lawsuit by demanding that Mr. Garcia Luna repay $250 million that he allegedly fraudulently acquired. President López Obrador has repeatedly urged the media to follow the trial closely, as it should reveal the rot within the Mexican state. "It is very important that all of this be known, that it be told, so that it does not happen again," Mr. Lopez Obrador said recently.

Not all trials have the same support in Mexico – the 2020 arrest of General Salvador Cienfuegos caused such an outcry that the United States sent him back. The trial, which is expected to last two months, will include hearings over whether to produce or not produce evidence about the relationship between Mr. Garcia Luna and the highest US officials who supported the war on drugs at the time.

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‘Tax us now’: ultra-rich call on governments to introduce wealth taxes

Disney heiress and actor Mark Ruffalo among ‘patriotic millionaires’ who addressed world’s elite at Davos

The Guardian by Rupert Neate Wealth correspondent

@RupertNeate

Wed 18 Jan 2023 00.01 GMT

More than 200 members of the super-rich elite are calling on governments around the world to “tax us, the ultra rich, now” in order to help billions of people struggling with cost of living crisis.

The group of 205 millionaires and billionaires, including the Disney heiress Abigail Disney and The Hulk actor Mark Ruffalo, on Wednesday called on world leaders and business executives meeting in Davos for the World Economic Forum (WEF) to urgently introduce wealth taxes to help tackle “extreme inequality”.

“The current lack of action is gravely concerning. A meeting of the ‘global elite’ in Davos to discuss ‘cooperation in a fragmented world’ is pointless if you aren’t challenging the root cause of division,” they said in an open letter published on Wednesday. “Defending democracy and building cooperation requires action to build fairer economies right now – it is not a problem that can be left for our children to fix.

“Now is the time to tackle extreme wealth; now is the time to tax the ultra rich.”

In the letter entitled “the cost of extreme wealth”, the millionaires, from 13 countries, said: “The history of the last five decades is a story of wealth flowing nowhere but upwards. In the last few years, this trend has greatly accelerated …The solution is plain for all to see. You, our global representatives, have to tax us, the ultra rich, and you have to start now.”

The super-rich signatories, who brand themselves as “patriotic millionaires”, warned that inaction could lead to a catastrophe. “There’s only so much stress any society can take, only so many times mothers and fathers will watch their children go hungry while the ultra rich contemplate their growing wealth. The cost of action is much cheaper than the cost of inaction – it’s time to get on with the job.”

It comes as new research shows that almost two-thirds of the new wealth amassed since the start of the pandemic has gone to the richest 1%. The development charity Oxfam found that the best-off had pocketed $26tn (£21tn) in new wealth up to the end of 2021. That represented 63% of the total new wealth, with the rest going to the remaining 99% of people.

Oxfam said for the first time in a quarter of a century the rise in extreme wealth was being accompanied by an increase in extreme poverty, and called for new taxes to be levied on the super-rich.

Oxfam said a tax of up to 5% on the world’s multimillionaires and billionaires could raise $1.7tn a year, enough to lift 2 billion people out of poverty, and fund a global plan to end hunger.

Marlene Engelhorn, a multimillionaire heiress, co-founder of campaign group taxmenow, and a signatory of the letter, said: “The whole world – economists and millionaires alike – can see the solution that is staring us all right in the face: we have to tax the ultra rich. If we care about the safety of democracy, about our communities, and our planet we have to get this done. And yet our decision-makers either don’t have the gumption or don’t feel the need to listen to all of these voices. It begs the question, ‘What, or who, is stopping them?’

News round-up, Tuesday, January 17, 2023

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Andres Gluski, President & CEO of the AES Corporation, had a productive first day at the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting #WEF2023 in Davos, Switzerland.

—that the kind of worldwide transformation urgently needed now , can only be achieved with the cooperation of the public and private sectors, Gluski said.

Over the next few days, about 1,700 CEOs and 400 other prominent personalities will gather in Davos to explore solutions to global concerns such as climate change, energy efficiency, and electrification.

Image: Andrés Gluski, President and CEO and Ricardo Manuel Falú, Senior Vice President and Chief Strategy and Commercial Officer and Madelka McCalla, Chief Corporate Affairs and Impact Officer at The AES Corporation

Reforestation day…

Since July 2015, Seaboard has been sponsoring a permanent brigade to contribute to the sustained work of recovering the forested area in the Upper Ozama River Basin.

Cooperate with ethical thinking -

“For what purpose do we exist, and why are we required? Is artificial intelligence already more advanced than us?”

— Germán & Co

NYT, CreditCredit...By Shira Inbar

America’s Must-Win Semiconductor War

Jan. 16, 2023

NYT

By Steven Rattner

Mr. Rattner was a counselor to the Treasury secretary in the Obama administration. Intent on reversing America’s decline in the world’s production of cutting-edge semiconductors, the federal government has begun what is arguably the government’s largest foray into the private sector since World War II.

That’s just one piece of a larger, more muscular approach to industrial policy. It’s a road filled with hope but also pockmarked with risks. On balance, the record of government trying to improve the functioning of the private sector is poor, and particularly in complex sectors like semiconductors, the challenges are great.

Nonetheless, for the first time in memory, even many free-market conservatives seem to recognize that unfettered capitalism can lead to imperfect results.

Put chips high on that list. American scientists invented transistors, the key component in chips, shortly after World War II, and for decades we dominated the design and production of semiconductors as they quickly became smaller and more powerful.

Then companies in Asia, particularly in Taiwan, entered the industry, and America began to lose to cheaper labor, strong local governmental support and better corporate management. Worse, today the United States does not manufacture any of the highest-performing chips; 92 percent of those are produced by the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, 100 miles from mainland China. (The rest are manufactured in South Korea.)

This presents enormous economic and national security risks for the United States and the rest of the world. If China took control of Taiwan and cut off our chip supply, that would be economically devastating, akin to (or worse than) the loss of oil exports from a major Middle Eastern producer.

In that context, we should be heartened that Congress passed the CHIPS and Science Act, which, among other things, will provide $52 billion for investment in facilities, as well as for more research and development.

In part as a result, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the world’s biggest maker of advanced computer chips, has broken ground on a major plant in Phoenix and announced that it will increase its investment there to $40 billion; Intel has announced plans for a $20 billion facility outside Columbus, Ohio; Micron is building a fab (as chip factories are known) complex in Syracuse, N.Y.; GlobalFoundries is expanding in New York and Vermont; and Samsung is considering the construction of 11 facilities in Texas.

That’s all great, but let’s not be blind to the challenges. For one thing, these new facilities are just a tiny first step. The output of the Phoenix facility will amount to only a single-digit percentage of TSMC’s total output. For another, TSMC has historically insisted on producing its most cutting-edge chips in Taiwan, at least partly to ensure that the United States, whose official policy toward Taiwan is one of strategic ambiguity, will nonetheless protect the island against any mainland aggression.

Our ability to truly compete with Asia remains uncertain. In a recent submission to the Commerce Department, TSMC complained that the cost of the Phoenix facility would be much greater than its equivalent in Taiwan (partly because of regulatory requirements), wage costs substantially higher, productivity lower, construction delays more likely and taxes higher.

In a podcast interview, Morris Chang, the 91-year-old founder of TSMC, who was born in China and made his early career in the United States, acknowledged the national security considerations while calling America’s semiconductor efforts “a wasteful and expensive exercise in futility.” He noted that his company has had a smaller facility in Oregon for 25 years and chips produced there cost 50 percent more than those it manufactures in Taiwan.

Europe is marching forward with its own set of chip subsidies, and Asian countries have been providing aid to their semiconductor makers for decades. The result is a financial version of an arms race.

The quest for an industrial policy in America goes back to our earliest days. George Washington wore a suit of American-woven broadcloth to his first inauguration to emphasize the importance of domestic production. Alexander Hamilton’s Report on Manufactures advocated tariffs and trade restrictions to encourage domestic industry.

Over the ensuing 230 years, we’ve had both successes (transportation facilities like the Erie Canal and the interstate highways) and failures (pretty much everything we’ve tried to do to retain manufacturing jobs).

Those failures include chips. In 1987, alarmed by Japan’s growing dominance of the semiconductor industry, the federal government created Sematech, a public-private partnership that was intended to restore American prowess in the sector.

According to a study by the Peterson Institute for International Economics, the $1 billion spent by the federal government over a decade succeeded in temporarily — emphasis on “temporarily” — stanching the loss of market share and American jobs but at a yearly cost of about $29,000 per job, roughly the same as the then-average annual wage in the sector, $27,000.

As the head of President Barack Obama’s auto task force, I saw the positives and the risks of industrial policy. Importantly, we did not try to protect old, inefficient factories or to create uncompetitive jobs. We insisted that the companies produce viability plans as a condition of receiving government assistance and left the companies to run their businesses.

So I believe government can pursue an industrial policy — but we need to put substantial guardrails around that effort.

The most successful governmental interventions are often around research and development, such as the funding of the creation of the internet by the Department of Defense and Operation Warp Speed, the emergency program to develop Covid vaccines. In that context, I applaud the inclusion of $11 billion for semiconductor research and development in the CHIPS and Science Act.

In some cases, like semiconductors, government grants may be necessary to accomplish our goals. But whenever feasible, we should favor market-based incentives, like tax credits, in order to lessen the government’s role in picking winners.

Finally, let’s remember that we have other means of promoting our economic interests. As part of its increased spending in Phoenix, TSMC also announced that the facility would be making more advanced chips than previously planned. That reportedly occurred at the behest of Apple, TSMC’s largest customer. When public and private interests align, leveraging the influence of the corporate sector should very much be a part of a wise industrial policy.

With the dangers of overdoing industrial policy evident, President Biden should ask his staff to put together clearer and narrower rules of the road to govern when and how the United States should undertake adventures in industrial policy.

In that regard, a recent speech by Brian Deese, the able director of the National Economic Council, provided a good beginning — though he was a bit overly enthusiastic about the merits of industrial policy and a bit disingenuous about the dangers.

While Mr. Deese contended that the Biden industrial policy was not about picking winners and losers, any policy that includes awarding federal funds to some applicants and not to others is obviously a process of picking winners and losers. That will be the case in the dispensing of $28 billion of direct aid for semiconductor facilities as states, localities and companies jockey to be selected.

This approach to industrial policy — in contrast to approaches like tax incentives that allow the market to pick the winners — would benefit by being removed as much as practicable from politics, much as we have used an independent commission to choose which military bases in the U.S. should close.

And as we did in the auto rescue, subsidies should be, to the maximum extent feasible, as close to commercial terms as possible, potentially including equity participation in the recipient.

I agree that in today’s more globally competitive and insecure world, a more robust industrial policy is called for. I just hope that logic and prudence will prevail in the ongoing debate.

China’s Population Falls, Heralding a Demographic Crisis

Deaths outnumbered births last year for the first time in six decades. Experts see major implications for China, its economy and the world.

NYT By Alexandra Stevenson and Zixu Wang

Published Jan. 16, 2023

HONG KONG — The world’s most populous country has reached a pivotal moment: China’s population has begun to shrink, after a steady, yearslong decline in its birthrate that experts say will be irreversible.

The government said on Tuesday that 9.56 million people were born in China last year, while 10.41 million people died. It was the first time deaths had outnumbered births in China since the Great Leap Forward, Mao Zedong’s failed economic experiment that led to widespread famine and death in the 1960s.

Chinese officials have tried for years to slow down the arrival of this moment, loosening a one-child policy and offering incentives to encourage families to have children. None of those policies worked. Now, facing a population decline, coupled with a long-running rise in life expectancy, the country is being thrust into a demographic crisis that will have consequences not just for China and its economy but for the world.

Over the last four decades, China emerged as an economic powerhouse and the world’s factory floor. The country’s transformation from widespread poverty to the world’s second largest economy led to an increase in life expectancy that contributed to the current population decline — more people were getting older while fewer babies were being born.

That trend has hastened another worrying event: the day when China will not have enough people of working age to fuel the high-speed growth that made it an engine of the global economy.

“In the long run, we are going to see a China the world has never seen,” said Wang Feng, a professor of sociology at the University of California at Irvine who specializes in China’s demographics. “It will no longer be the young, vibrant, growing population. We will start to appreciate China, in terms of its population, as an old and shrinking population.”

Births were down from 10.6 million in 2021, the sixth straight year that the number had fallen, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. By 2035, 400 million people in China are expected to be over 60, accounting for nearly a third of its population. Labor shortages that will accompany China’s rapidly aging population will also reduce tax revenue and contributions to a pension system that is already under enormous pressure.

Whether or not the government can provide widespread access to elder care, medical services and a stable stream of income later in life will affect a long-held assumption that the Communist Party can provide a better life for its people.

The news of China’s population decline comes at a challenging time for the government in Beijing, which is dealing with the fallout from the sudden reversal last month of its zero-tolerance policy toward Covid.

Understand the Situation in China

The Chinese government cast aside its restrictive “zero Covid” policy, which had set off mass protests that were a rare challenge to Communist Party leadership.

Rapid Spread: Since China abandoned its strict Covid rules, the intensity and magnitude of the country’s outbreak has remained largely a mystery. But a picture is emerging of the virus spreading like wildfire.

Rural Communities: As Lunar New Year approaches, millions are expected to travel home in January. They risk spreading Covid to areas where health care services are woefully underdeveloped.

Digital Finger-Pointing: The Communist Party’s efforts to limit discord over its sudden “zero Covid” pivot are being challenged with increasing rancor on the internet.

Economic Challenges: Years of Covid lockdowns took a brutal toll on Chinese businesses. Now, the rapid spread of the virus after a chaotic reopening has deprived them of workers and customers.

The data on Tuesday showed a small increase in mortality last year, to 10.41 million deaths compared to around 10 million in recent years, raising questions about how a recent Covid surge may have contributed to the numbers.

Last week, officials unexpectedly revised the Covid death figures for the first month after reporting single-digit daily deaths for weeks. But experts have questioned the accuracy of the new figure — 60,000 deaths between Dec. 8 and Jan. 12.

On Tuesday, Kang Yi, the commissioner of the National Bureau of Statistics, said the Covid death figures for December had not yet been incorporated into the overall death totals for 2022.

China also on Tuesday released data that showed the depth of its economic challenges. The country’s gross domestic product, the broadest measure of its commercial vitality, grew just 2.9 percent in the last three months of the year after widespread lockdowns and the recent surge in Covid infections. Over the whole year, China’s economy grew only 3 percent, its slowest rate in nearly four decades.

This historical demographic moment was not unexpected. Chinese officials last year conceded that the country was on the verge of a population decline that would likely begin before 2025. But it came sooner than demographers, statisticians and China’s ruling Communist Party had anticipated.

China has followed a trajectory familiar to many developing countries as their economies get richer — fertility rates fall as incomes rise and education levels increase. As the quality of life improves, people live longer.

“It’s the kind of situation that economists dream of,” said Philip O’Keefe, the director of the Aging Asia Research Hub, ARC Centre of Excellence in Population Aging Research.

But the government shortened its timeline to prepare for this moment by moving too slowly to loosen restrictive birth policies. “They could have given themselves a little more time,” said Mr. O’Keefe.

Officials have taken several steps in recent years to try to slow the decline in births. In 2016, they relaxed the one-child policy that had been in place for 35 years, allowing families to have two children. In 2021, they raised the limit to three. Since then, Beijing has offered a range of incentives to couples and small families to encourage them to have children, including cash handouts, tax cuts and even property concessions.

China’s situation is a stark contrast with India, whose total population is poised to exceed China’s later this year, according to a recent estimate from the United Nations. But India’s fertility rate is also declining rapidly.

Xi Jinping, China’s top leader, recently made the country’s demographic challenges a priority, pledging “a national policy system to boost birthrates.” But in reality, experts said, China’s plunging birth figures reveal an irreversible trend.

“The aggregate decline in population and decline in working-age population — both of those are irreversible,” Mr. O’Keefe said. “I don’t think there is a single country that has gone as low as China in terms of fertility rate and then bounced back to the replacement rate.”

Together with Japan and South Korea, China has one of the lowest fertility rates in the world, below what demographers call the fertility replacement rate required for a population to grow. That figure would require every couple, on average, to have two children.

So far, the government’s measures have failed to change the underlying fact that many young Chinese people simply do not want children. They often cite the increasingly high cost of raising them, especially with the economy in a precarious state.

Rachel Zhang, a 33-year-old photographer in Beijing, decided before she married her husband that they would not have children. Sometimes, elders in the family nag them about having a baby.

“I am firm about this,” Ms. Zhang said. “I have never had the desire to have children all along.” The rising costs of raising a child and finding an apartment in good school district have hardened her resolve.

Other factors have contributed to such reluctance to have more children, including the burden that many younger adults face in taking care of aging parents and grandparents.

China’s strict “zero Covid” policy — nearly three years of mass testing, quarantines and lockdowns, resulting in some families being separated for long periods of time — may have led even more people to decide against having children.

Luna Zhu, 28, and her husband have parents who are willing to take care of their grandchildren. And she works for a state-owned enterprise that provides a good maternity leave package. But Ms. Zhu, who got married five years ago, is not interested.

“Especially the past three years of the epidemic, I feel that many things are so hard,” Ms. Zhu said.

Li You contributed research and Keith Bradsher contributed reporting.

French nuclear power: 'Accelerate the laws, the rallying cry has been issued'

Philippe Escande

Le Monde Today

The French parliament is looking at two bills, one for nuclear power and the other for wind power, with a view to removing obstacles to the deployment of these energies.

Bureaucracy is a French problem. In a country that concocts a law as soon as a new problem appears, they now have to legislate to combat administrative delays resulting from previous laws. In the field of energy, in order to ensure that society accepts a scary technology (nuclear power), or one which is said to spoil the landscape (wind power), they are piling up legal guarantees, each of which also provides a foothold for opponents of all kinds.

In the case of France's first offshore wind farm near Saint-Nazaire, it took seven years to complete the procedure before the facility was built in just three years. The same goes for nuclear power. So the rallying cry has been issued and, in two weeks, two "acceleration" laws are coming to Parliament. One for renewable energies, the other for nuclear power.

In the nuclear case, however, only a small part of the problem will have been solved, since there are so many other obstacles. The first is construction time. Nuclear reactors have become so complex that it is difficult to build them. The law presented to the Sénat on Tuesday, January 17, is supposed to accelerate the time taken for nuclear reactors to be operational. Thanks to this law, the said new reactors are now expected to start in around 2040. Twenty years for six reactors! As a consequence of this timeframe and sophistication, costs are soaring. The current estimates are €50 billion for these first machines.

European industrial geography

As a result, the cost of the energy produced is now at least twice that of renewable energies. Today, wind farms in the North Sea have capacities 10 to 20 times greater than those of these reactors, even taking into account the intermittency.

According to The Economist, all the projects planned between now and 2050 in this region represent nearly 260 gigawatts of capacity, the equivalent of what is needed to provide power for 200 million Europeans. A development that could disrupt the industrial geography of the continent, similar to what happened in the hydro and coal regions in the 19th century.

Major technological uncertainties remain both for nuclear power (safety, waste, simplicity) and renewable power (storage). It is therefore in the interest of the nuclear industry to accelerate its transformation if it wants to stay in the race.

Davos looks ahead to a fragmented world after pandemic and Ukraine invasion

The World Economic Forum holds its annual session amid signs of a reshaping of the world order and a retreat from globalisation.

Written in Spanish by ANDREA RIZZI (SPECIAL ENVOY)

El País

Davos - 17 JAN 2023

The Davos Forum, the great annual liturgy of the globalised world, is holding its traditional annual meeting in the Alpine town this week under worrying signs. In the immediate term, although the last few months have yielded some encouraging data in terms of inflation and growth, the majority consensus of experts still foresees a gloomy 2023. Deep down, perhaps more importantly, the disintegrating forces that are fragmenting the world seem unstoppable. The great expansionary phase of globalisation of the past three decades is undergoing a radical shift.

There are two major triggers for this trend. First came the pandemic, which profoundly disrupted global supply chains and underlined the importance of maintaining a degree of self-sufficiency in certain strategic commodities. Then came the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a major focus of the forum, a huge geopolitical shock that has completely severed ties between the West and Russia and stimulated reflection on whether it is appropriate for liberal democracies to maintain a high degree of dependence on China, another adversary that could one day become an enemy.

Driven by these two shocks, the protectionist race is on, with huge subsidies to prop up domestic industries in strategic sectors such as energy transition or cutting-edge digital technologies. The United States has approved large aid packages for microchips and green technologies (more than 400 billion euros between them); the European Union has done the same for the former (some 40 billion) and is preparing to do the same for the latter (some 350 billion is planned to counteract the US support plan and prevent the flight of energy investments to the transatlantic partner). Other developed countries will undoubtedly follow suit.

Washington is also promoting tough restrictions on exports to China in key areas to develop pioneering technologies, and is looking for other Western countries to follow suit. At the same time, it is encouraging private companies to reshape their supply chains to be less dependent on Chinese manufacturing and more reliant on friendly countries.

Protectionism, restrictions on free trade, segmented reorganisation of production, geopolitical blocs: this, then, is the background scenario being scrutinised by the world's elite gathered this week in the Swiss Alpine resort.

The World Economic Forum resumes with this edition of its traditional winter meeting after the disruption caused by the pandemic and a spring edition held last year. The organisation reports that more than 2,600 delegates will be present, including some 50 heads of state or government - including the leader of the Spanish government, Pedro Sánchez - more than 100 foreign, finance and trade ministers and more than 600 company presidents - from Nadella of Microsoft to Dimon of JP Morgan - as well as some 20 central bank governors, media executives and leading figures from academia and civil society.

Of course, in addition to the major geostrategic transformation, short-term issues will undoubtedly play a major role in the forum.

On the one hand, the future of the war in Ukraine, with important decisions pending on the delivery of battle tanks and the prospect of a new round of sanctions against Russian oil, in this case refined products.

Economic outlook

On the other, the more immediate economic scenario, with the corresponding decisions that will have to be taken by public authorities - executive or monetary - and private companies. In this area, the outlook has become less catastrophic than most experts expected following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, thanks in part to a particularly mild autumn and early winter in Europe, which has allowed less gas to be spent. Overall, inflation has been easing in many countries, and growth has exceeded expectations. Labour markets remain buoyant. However, the outlook is not clear.

A survey published by the forum on the eve of the start of the programme suggests that two-thirds of the leading economists consulted - public or private - consider a global recession in 2023 to be likely. This is double the figure recorded in the previous survey, conducted in September.

Another survey by Price Waterhouse Coopers (PwC) of 4,400 chief executives in 105 countries found that more than 70 per cent foresee an economic downturn. Even so, most do not plan to reduce staff or salaries.

As for inflation, levels are moderating in many countries, but core inflation remains threatening. There is no guarantee that a return to normalcy will be swift. Meanwhile, the blow to the purchasing power of so many has been severe, as wages almost everywhere have lagged far behind price increases.

This is therefore a new risk factor that can exacerbate inequality, one of the fundamental problems that has marked the era of globalisation. Globalisation has undoubtedly lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty in emerging countries, with China at the forefront; but, together with the technological revolution, it has made the position of so many within advanced societies more fragile. This has eroded popular support for the idea of an interconnected, free-trade world, giving rise to political proposals that advocate other kinds of policies.

Oxfam released a report on global inequality on Monday, arguing that "since 2020, the richest 1% have captured nearly two-thirds of the world's new wealth, almost twice as much as the other 99%", and lamenting the dismal efficiency of tax systems that allow elites to pay too little tax.

In the midst of the polycrisis that the world has been facing in recent years, many voices are warning of the neglect of one of the most threatening challenges: climate change. A report on future risks published by the Davos Forum on the eve of the official programme highlights this issue as one of the most problematic.

Extraordinary problems precipitating a new epoch of the world are piling up on the discussion and business tables in Davos. A bitter cold - with expected lows as low as -15 degrees Celsius - will envelop the event, as a sort of physical reminder of the hibernation phase facing the globalisation of which this forum is the flagship.

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Actress and photographer Gina Lollobrigida has died at the age of 95.

Italian cinema mourns one of its greatest stars.

By David Mouriquand  & Agencies  •  Updated: 16/01/2023 - 15:42

Best known to the public for her films in the 1950s, including Christian Jaque’s Fanfan La Tulipe (1952) and the Silver Bear winning Italian film Pane, amore e fantasia (Break, Love and Dreams) (1953), Lollobrigida became an international star and one of the highest-profile European actresses of her generation.

Born on 4 July 1927 in Subiaco (Italy), Lollobrigida was noticed by the film world in a photo-novel in which she posed under the pseudonym Diana Loris, while she was studying at the Beaux-Arts and taking part in beauty contests.

For years, she was cast for her physical assets and status as a sex symbol, leading many to say that she was "the best thing that has happened since the invention of spaghetti" and describing her as "the most beautiful woman in the world."

Her performance in Bread, Love and Dreams led to it becoming a box-office success and she continued to work in the French cinema industry on such films as Les Belles de nuit (Beauties of the Night) (1952) and Le Grand Jeu (1954).

She was then directed by John Huston in Beat the Devil (1953) in which she played the wife of Humphrey Bogart. Roles in Crossed Swords (1954), co-starring Errol Flynn, Beautiful But Dangerous (1955), Carol Reed’s Trapeze (1956), as well as her turn as Esmeralda in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, led to more critical acclaim.

Over the next few years, she would star with the likes of Yves Montand (The Law - 1959), Frank Sinatra (Never So Few - 1959) and Yul Brynner (Solomon and Sheba - 1959). She won a Golden Globe Award for her turn in the romantic comedy Come September (1961), in which she had a leading role alongside Rock Hudson.

"I knew right away that Rock Hudson was gay," she told one reporter, "when he did not fall in love with me."

She is also remembered for starring alongside Sean Connery in the thriller Woman of Straw (1964) and with Alec Guinness in Hotel Paradiso (1966).

By the 1970s, her film career had slowed down and in 1973, she stopped filming for good in order to and take up photography. She had a successful second career as a photographic journalist and photographed, among others, Salvador Dalí, Henry Kissinger, Audrey Hepburn and Ella Fitzgerald.

She did, however, make occasional appearances afterwards, notably at the Berlin International Film Festival in 1986 where she was president of the jury.

She came back to the screen in 1995 for a part in the French comedy Les cent et une nuits de Simon Cinéma (One Hundred and One Nights) directed by Agnès Varda, alongside Marcello Mastroianni, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Catherine Deneuve, Robert De Niro, Jane Birkin and Michel Piccoli.

She was made a Chevalière de la Légion d'honneur and an Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters by Jack Lang in 1985 for her achievements in photography, and was awarded the Légion d'honneur by François Mitterrand.

Appointed Goodwill Ambassador in 1999 by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, she ran in the same year for the European elections as number 2 on the list of Antonio Di Pietro, the former anti-corruption magistrate, without being elected.

Lollobrigida is survived by her son, Milko, and grandson, Dimitri.

Thierry Breton: EU will mobilise 350 billion for its green energy industry.

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In 2022, we were unstoppable in accelerating the future of energy.

Let's reflect on our some of our best moments:

1. We announced our intent to exit coal by the end of 2025 and increased our ownership of AES Andes from 67% to 98%.

2. Fast Company ranked AES in the top ten of its “Best 100 Workplaces for Innovators” list.

3. We helped restore power to the people of Puerto Rico following Hurricane Fiona. Like Hawaii, we are also helping Puerto Rico in its energy transition by deploying solar plus storage on the island.

4. We released our IRP for AES Indiana, which serves as a roadmap for the company’s power generation goals. It included renewables, storage, and converting coal facilities to cleaner energy .

5. Together with Air Products, we announced a $4 billion mega-scale green hydrogen production facility in the United States, the largest green hydrogen project in the nation.

Reforestation day…

Since July 2015, Seaboard has been sponsoring a permanent brigade to contribute to the sustained work of recovering the forested area in the Upper Ozama River Basin.

Altice delivers innovative, customer-centric products and solutions that connect and unlock the limitless potential of its over 30 million customers over fiber networks and mobile…

Cooperate with ethical thinking -

The Internal Market Commissioner believes Europe needs a common framework and matching funding for the 27 to respond to the US.

Written in Spanish by SAMUEL SÁNCHEZ

Xavier Vidal-Folch

El País

Barcelona - 16 JAN 2023

Translation by Germán & Co

Europe will invest some 350 billion in the manufacture of industrial products to generate green energy. And to compete successfully against Chinese and US protectionism. This is what the European Commissioner for the Internal Market, Thierry Breton (Paris, 1955), believes in an interview with this newspaper during his recent stay in Spain.

Breton is a key player in the formulation of the Commission's imminent proposal on the matter, which is due in January. He recalls that "the internal market is the quintessence of what we do best: pooling a common good, which reaps more benefits than if we were each managing our own little perimeter". And that at the beginning of the pandemic it fizzled out, because some "closed their borders", but "we reopened, we won".

Question. Europe is subject to a US-China pincer. What will be the outcome?

Answer. Europe is strengthened in crises. As the founding fathers said. It works together. It is strengthened together. We saw it in the Great Recession and in the pandemic. Now we have a major energy and industrial crisis, resulting from the war in Ukraine.

P. The first war on our continent after the Balkans, even if this one was less global in scope.

R. That's right. And it affects the way we live, the way we feed ourselves, the way we produce... And the dependency relations that have been established with Russia. We give all our support to Ukraine, with the US and others. We will continue to do so. And then there are the autocracies, Russia. And China, that's why we call it a systemic rival, which does not mean not trading, but defending our values. We know where we stand. And we are a great democracy, 450 million people. And we are moving forward.

P. Yes, but at every opportunity it seems to forget the progress we have made together, without accumulating the solutions applied, and it returns to divisions, to ground zero, to having to relearn that joint action is essential. We spend a lot of time building consensus, making decisions.

R. I understand that point of view. But I must focus on what is my responsibility, the internal market. It is the quintessence of what we do best: pooling a common good, which reaps much better benefits than if we were each managing our own little perimeter. The internal market is a never-ending struggle. There are always forces that in times of crisis look backwards. I have to be here to remind us that we are stronger by pooling our resources than by closing in on ourselves.

Q. What example would you highlight?

R. At the beginning of the covid crisis, the internal market was closed. Some countries closed their borders to keep the masks on their people, and to prevent others from coming in and infecting them. I called the ministers one by one and urged them to reverse this action. There were strong discussions, but we reopened. We agreed to manufacture and distribute the vaccines. We won. Europe was the first continent to vaccinate its citizens and to export vaccines. We learned. Now we have the consequences of the energy crisis, which had started before the Ukrainian war, and the Ukrainian war amplified it enormously.

P. And history repeated itself.

R. It is true that some countries decided to intervene on their own and inject resources to protect their companies. I understand that intention. We have to make it easier for our companies to overcome the shock. Especially when other continents like the US and China inject considerable subsidies especially for new, green technologies: batteries, photovoltaic solar panels, wind power. I understand that governments are saying: we have to do something similar to retain and attract companies. That's why I'm going to see everyone. That is why I am coming to Spain, to Poland, to Belgium, to Denmark... To find an instrument, a general framework that maintains a similar capacity to react for all Member States, whatever their economic, financial, industrial or social situation. Especially in view of the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 14 August, which came into force on 1 January, and which supports strategic clean technologies such as hydrogen and photovoltaics. And which not only subsidises investment, but also the operation of companies [with 369 billion euros]. The response must be coordinated. Without it many of our companies will leave....

Q. ... to the US.

R. Of course, because it is more advantageous than staying here, given the better financial support. This is very dangerous for Europe. We have been discussing it for months, perhaps many months, since September, although it is true that this law is only dated 14 August.

P. You come to Spain, to Poland, to Belgium, but the problem of individual reaction with hundreds of billions of euros is rather in Berlin. Or in Paris.

R. I have already been to Berlin, I met with Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck. And in Paris, before Christmas, with the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron.

P. Give us the good news that they understand that they should not act on their own.

R. Macron has said it clearly in public. He said it to Joe Biden. And at the European Council in December, he stressed that a coordinated response was needed on the general framework and on financing, he was very precise. And the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, insisted. And he asked us - all 27 Member States asked us - the Commission to come back with a proposal. That's why I'm doing this tour of capitals.

P. I see you as less optimistic about Berlin, as if Germany is in its usual diesel mode: slow start and then constant speed.

R. He raises the question of relaxing state aid regulation. And he is very active on "permitting", facilitating and speeding up the procedures for setting up new technology factories. It often takes up to three years before they are opened.

Q. Your conclusion?

R. We are finalising the proposal. On the one hand, the idea of the general regulatory framework is advanced: speeding up authorisations, formalities and procedures for setting up new new technology plants; and speeding up the validation of public aid. We will make a specific Clean Tech Act for the green energy technologies industry, industrial decarbonisation and mobility. Just as we did the Chip Act, to encourage not only the deployment of new technologies but also to accelerate production in Europe. Because without a manufacturing base, our security of supply, our export capacity and our European jobs are at risk. It will be a horizontal rule, so that everyone who wants to can, with the same instruments, get on board in these industries and no one will be left by the wayside. We are working intensively on the financing chapter.

P. It is the one that can most distort the equality of each partner in the same market, due to its different capacity for public support, especially in the North-South line.

R. We are working on this issue to find a solution that works for everyone. For the time being, the financing is provided by the states. Those with the greatest capacity for debt, such as Germany, have announced that they will inject 200 billion. The Netherlands, 40 billion, which is a lot for that country. We are discussing how the figures will be specified. I estimate that in the German case, between 80,000 and 100,000 million will be dedicated to this industry [apart from those destined for families].

P. Much more than others, absolutely and relatively speaking.

R. We are at the moment evaluating and weighing it up. Other countries will be able to use the undrawn part of the Next Generation-EU recovery plan. Especially loans, rather than direct subsidies. This is the case of Spain. Or Italy. These are credits that were foreseen for this plan, it is necessary to verify if they fit well in the new Clean Tech Act. Other countries, such as Belgium, hope to be able to use increased specific support from the European Investment Bank. Others suggest gaining access to additional borrowing capacity, at an equivalent interest rate for all, through a mechanism similar to the SURE fund [for reinsuring unemployment insurance]: not all countries used it, but it was a success for those that did. With the guarantee of each state.

Q. Are you suggesting a variety of financial instruments?

R. Exactly. The idea I'm working on is that there will not be a single, stand-alone mechanism. But a set, a panoply of instruments. On the one hand, they should be able to respond to the different needs of each country. On the other hand, they should enable each and every one of them to provide a similar industrial investment response. It is not a proposal for a new Next-Generation, which would be difficult to accept, but a box of different financial instruments available.

P. Spain proposes that flexibility in State aid should be temporary, until 2026, and that it should be "imperative" to link it to the Nex Generation plan: what do you think?

R. These are structural changes. The US IRA is not a transitional measure; China's policy is long-term. So the framework we put in place cannot be limited to short-term temporary solutions. That is why we believe that a combination of regulatory measures and financial support must be prepared. And we are looking for solutions that work across the European Union, depending on different circumstances. In some Member States, NextGenerationEU can, with the necessary flexibilities, help. But this is not the case for all Member States. Some have already allocated their entire budget and used all possible loans. We need a package of national and EU measures to address the challenge of deindustrialisation linked to energy costs and the race for clean technologies: state aid, the best possible use of existing instruments (RFF, Repower), but also new European instruments to support in the very short term companies facing high energy costs and help them invest in clean technology manufacturing capacities.

P. Does this ensure that we do not turn the internal market into a patchwork of unconnected pieces and unequal players, which would denature the Union?

R. Yes, the idea is to guarantee a common ground for the participation of all, a regulatory level playing field, and the financial capacity for the States to intervene according to their needs, in a roughly similar way according to their specificities.

P. But the relaxation of state aid could stifle the single market.

R. This is a real risk, because some states would have deeper pockets to help their companies, even if they are only temporary exceptions. And they would be likely to distort competition. Only a framework that specifies for which companies, which sector, in what form, in terms of investment or operating subsidies, for how long, etc., will make it possible to respond to this risk, because the rules will be the same for everyone. But if only competition rules are opened up without further requirements, the risk would be higher.

Q. Will we avoid a Frankenstein-like Internal Market?

R. It seems to me that this is the only way to keep Europe competitive on the outside and at the same time harmonious on the inside. This is my fight.

Q. How much in total resources do you estimate?

R. Roughly speaking, and taking into account the American experience, it will be close to 2% of the Community's GDP, or some 300,000 or 350,000 million euros, but only in this specific industry, industrial production for clean energy equipment. These figures are an approximation, an order of magnitude.

Q. Is that all?

P. And then we have another mechanism, REPower-EU, to finance energy infrastructures that contribute to the Green Deal. From electricity grids to interconnections, renewable energy fields, or regasification terminals. It is a parallel device, but a different one. The Clean Tech Act aims to stimulate the industrial manufacture of energy products, such as batteries and photovoltaic panels, which are hardly produced in Europe today. The regulatory framework and financing comparable to that of our competitors will allow us to create an industry for renewable energies that is competitive with the American and Chinese industries.

P. We are starting almost from scratch.

R. Europe produces barely 2% of the world's solar panels. The overwhelming majority is made in China.

P. There is some in Germany.

R. Less and less. The president of one of the companies involved has just confessed to me that if he cannot count on support, he is about to rethink and look for another location for the investments he had planned in our continent. We must avoid this exodus. The Polish Prime Minister rightly commented to me the other day: "we Europeans must export our products, not our jobs" in these sectors of the future. For my part, I would add that these new productions require very select raw materials, rare earths, specific minerals such as nickel or cobalt or manganese. Many of these materials are extracted or processed in China.

P. Also in Ukraine.

R. Yes, but the processing, the lithium refineries, for example, are 90% in China. Chile produces, but has to send it by ship there, and then we import it. We depend on where it is produced. We have to set up factories in Europe and make import agreements with producers, such as Chile, Namibia or Canada, to diversify access to the raw material. We must also set up our own extraction mines. We should not rely entirely on others because we are wary of possible pollution: today there are sufficient technologies for clean production, while respecting the environment and biodiversity. Morally, we should not close our eyes in such a way that only others extract.

P. Europe's subsoil is less rich.

R. We have a lot of minerals in Europe. Lithium, cobalt, zinc. Roughly speaking, we could meet at least 30% of our needs. And now we have to add the recent discovery in Sweden. We are in the process of preparing another regulation, the Raw Materials Act. I will present it in March. We have unanimity in principle from the industry ministers on its various components: safety, research, recycling and circular economy.

P. President Von der Leyen has proposed a sovereign wealth fund for more global industrial investments, how does that fit in with the package we are talking about?

R. It is a longer-term proposal. We are working on it. It will be about sectors that need to be protected. And it will clearly require funding from the Commission. It will be an important element for the mid-term review of the financial perspectives.

Q. What is the status of the Chips Act?

R. The Council has already approved it. It is now in Parliament and then the trialogue between the three institutions begins. I am confident that it will be finished this year.

Q. How slow!

R. Our democracy is like that. Democracies are slower than autocracies. Dictatorships are very summary. But the key is that, as the roadmap is already sketched out, the companies have already proposed many projects. And they are signed.

P. This effect of anticipating the full effect of the regulation is significant; it is also happening in Spain with the projects of the Next Generation plan.

R. Yes, it is. I am at the disposal of all those who want to see me to adapt and to anticipate their projects. I have seen many of them, including Elon Musk from Twitter, Airbnb, all the big platforms; we have started voluntary audit tests...

P. On the new European digital regulation, will Musk obey you in your demand to moderate Twitter content and disinformation?

R. He doesn't have to obey me or not. I am very clear. Europe is the first big economic space and the first digital market in the free world: one and a half times more than the Americans in terms of users. It is normal that the big platforms want to come and take advantage of our market. We don't force them to come, they are welcome, but we tell them: here are our rules. In continental Europe you drive on the right. It's OK to drive or to send cars to us. That's all. They understand very well what the conditions of access to our market are, you have to comply with them and if you don't, there will be a scale of sanctions. It is not personal obedience. It is the law.

P. This is how European standards spread around the world, thanks to the regulatory power of the EU, as the legal scholar Anu Bradford has written in The Brussels effect.

R. Sure, but my responsibility is Europe. I have had that discussion with Musk. He has told me that he understands the approach and that he is comfortable and will comply. And I said that if they want to apply the same rules to their activities outside Europe, no problem.

P. Isn't that good for the EU? It exports rules.

R. In a way the US faces the same challenge, because it suffers from the consequences of excessive deregulation of the digital space, on social networks, on the protection of individuals, which ends up leading to a monopolisation that amounts to rentier-like monopolisation.