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newstfionline · 4 years

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Headlines

More than 50% of parents expect to lose income when school starts: survey (Yahoo) With back-to-school season right around the corner, many parents are contemplating whether to send their children back to school or keep them at home due to the health risks of the coronavirus pandemic. And for parents who choose to keep their children at home over COVID-19 concerns, a staggering 54% say that they expect to lose up to half of their income, according to a new survey from Debt.com. Childcare has always been a major expense for parents of young children and is cited as the top-ranking unexpected cost by new parents, followed by diapers and formula, the Care.com survey found. Over half of American families spend at least $10,000 annually on childcare. Currently, it’s cheaper to pay for your teenage child to attend college than it is daycare—the average annual cost of in-state college tuition is $9,410, according to College Board. But there are also big financial implications to staying at home with their children. Over 50% of the parents surveyed by Debt.com expect to lose anywhere from 11% to 51% of their income once school begins.

House holding rare Saturday vote on postal changes, funds (AP) The House is convening for a rare Saturday session to address mail delivery disruptions, poised to pass legislation that would reverse recent changes in U.S. Postal Service operations and send $25 billion in emergency funds to shore up the agency ahead of the November election. Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the Postal Service will be “election central” as she recalled lawmakers to Washington in a highly unusual election year as millions of Americans are expected to opt for mail-in ballots to avoid polling places during the coronavirus pandemic. The daylong Saturday session comes as an uproar over mail interference puts the Postal Service at the center of the nation’s tumultuous election year, with Americans rallying around one of the nation’s oldest and more popular institutions.

Loss From Wildfires Grows in California (NYT) From the Southern California deserts to the Sierra Nevada to the vineyards and movie sets and architectural landmarks left by modern mortals, little of California has been left unscathed by wildfire. In the past several years, infernos have scorched the Yosemite National Park, blackened the Joshua Tree National Park’s palm-strewn Oasis of Mara, damaged the Paramount Ranch and eviscerated Malibu summer camps beloved for generations. Scars now pockmark the state, with more to come, according to fire officials. Burning across more than 771,000 acres, this week’s fires have largely stemmed from an extraordinary spate of dry lightning. As of Friday, there were some 560 blazes, about two dozen of them major. Smoke has worsened an already oppressive heat wave, the electrical grid has struggled to keep up with demand and the coronavirus has threatened illness in evacuation shelters. At least five deaths have been linked to the fires, which have forced more than 100,000 people out of their homes, filled the skies with thick smoke and consumed hundreds of dwellings.

2 tropical storms a potential double threat to US Gulf Coast (AP) Two tropical storms advanced across the Caribbean Saturday as potentially historic threats to the U.S. Gulf Coast, one dumping rain on Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands while the other was pushing through the gap between Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula and Cuba. Tropical Storms Laura and Marco were both projected to approach the U.S. Gulf Coast at or close to hurricane force. The current, uncertain track would take them to Texas or Louisiana. The projected track from the U.S. National Hurricane Center would put both storms together in the Gulf on Tuesday, with Marco hitting Texas and Laura making landfall a little less than a day later, though both tracks remain uncertain.

Lights dim on cafe life in Buenos Aires, as Argentina grapples with Covid-19 and a grim future (CNN) It’s a rather unusual sight. Felipe Evangelista is sitting down at the café he has owned for nearly four decades and all he can see are upside-down chairs stored atop empty tables. It is one of the hundreds of cafés, bars and restaurants in Buenos Aires that have been forced to close due to the coronavirus pandemic. Their demise is a troubling new chapter for Argentina’s battered economy, which was roiled by runaway inflation and stagnant growth even before Covid-19 slammed the door on businesses. The pandemic has been brutal for small and medium-size businesses around the capital Buenos Aires. According to the Commerce and Industry Federation of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires (FECOBA, by its Spanish acronym), 24,200 of those businesses, roughly 22% of the total, had permanently shut their doors by mid-July. Jonatan Loidi, a financial analyst, author and economics professor, says the pandemic and the implementation of a lockdown aggravated an economy that was already in a recession. “Argentina hasn’t grown since 2011. In the last three years there has been not only lack of growth but also a fall in the country’s GDP.” Loidi pointed out the annualized inflation rate in Argentina, even before the pandemic, was 55%. “Uncertainty is the word that best describes life in Argentina nowadays,” Loidi said.

Turkish navy, air force drills in Aegean Sea amid tensions (AP) Turkish air and naval forces conducted joint training exercises in the Aegean Sea, the country’s Defense Ministry said Saturday, amid strains with neighbor Greece over hydrocarbon discoveries. The announcement came as NATO members Turkey and Greece are facing off in the eastern Mediterranean Sea over gas and oil exploration and a day after Turkey declared significant gas discoveries in the Black Sea. Two weeks ago, Turkey sent a warship-escorted research vessel to prospect in waters where Greece claims exclusive rights to the underlying seabed. Athens responded by sending its own warships to the area and placing its military on alert. France also sent warships and planes to join drills with Greek forces. Relations between Greece and Turkey have traditionally been tense. The two have come to the brink of war three times since the mid-1970s, including once over drilling exploration rights in the Aegean Sea that separates the two countries.

Belarus leader blames US for chaos, vows to end protests (AP) Authorities in Belarus detained a leader of striking factory workers and threatened demonstrators with criminal charges Friday in a bid to stop the massive post-election protests challenging the country’s authoritarian president, who accused the United States of fomenting the unrest. Protesters are demanding that Lukashenko resign, accusing him of stealing a sixth term in office by rigging the country’s Aug. 9 presidential election. Many are fed up with sinking living standards and the lack of opportunities under Lukashenko, and their disgust grew deeper as he dismissed the coronavirus pandemic and refused to order a lockdown. Unfazed by government threats, thousands of demonstrators on Friday formed “chains of solidarity” across the capital of Minsk before marching to the central Independence Square as post-election protests entered their 13th straight day. Motorists honked and slowed down to block traffic in a show of solidarity.

Xi Declares War on Food Waste, and China Races to Tighten Its Belt (NYT) Chinese regulators are calling out livestreamers who binge-eat for promoting excessive consumption. A school said it would bar students from applying for scholarships if their daily leftovers exceeded a set amount. A restaurant placed electronic scales at its entrance for customers to weigh themselves to avoid ordering too much. China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, has declared a war on the “shocking and distressing” squandering of food, and the nation is racing to respond, with some going to greater extremes than others. The ruling Communist Party has long sought to portray Mr. Xi as a fighter of excess and gluttony in officialdom, but this new call for gastronomic discipline is aimed at the public and carries a special urgency. When it comes to food security, Mr. Xi said, Chinese citizens should maintain a sense of crisis because of vulnerabilities exposed by the coronavirus pandemic. It’s part of a broader message from the leadership in recent weeks about the importance of self-reliance in a time of tensions with the United States and other economic partners. The concern is that import disruptions caused by the global geopolitical turmoil, the pandemic and trade tensions with the Trump administration, as well as some of China’s worst floods this year, could cut into food supplies.

S. Korea imposes strict measures to stem spread (AP) South Korea is banning large gatherings, closing beaches, shutting nightspots and churches and removing fans from professional sports in strict new measures announced Saturday as it battles the spread of the coronavirus. Health Minister Park Neung-hoo announced the steps shortly after the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 332 new cases—the ninth straight day of triple-digit increases. While most of the new cases came from the densely populated Seoul metropolitan area, which has been at the center of the viral surge in recent weeks, infections were also reported in practically every major city and town.

Antarctic winds trigger rare snowfall across southeast Australia (Reuters) Antarctic air reaching Australia’s south east triggered snowfall down to low altitudes across several states on Saturday, with many people out enjoying the rare event despite wild winds and heavy snow that closed some roads. Pictures of snowy towns and landscapes across New South Wales (NSW), Victoria, the Australia Capital Territory and the island state of Tasmania flooded social media as locals rushed to capture the surprise early spring snowfall. Over one metre (3.3 feet) of snow had fallen in a number of alpine regions, and the cold weather would likely remain for several days, the weather bureau said.

Beirut needs billions of dollars it doesn’t have to rebuild after massive blast (Washington Post) With reddened eyes, 90-year-old Henri Azar surveys what remains of his family home. The traditional wooden-frame windows have been ripped out. Plaster was cleaved from the walls. Sunlight shines through gaps in the bedroom ceiling. A team of engineers tell him he needs to make repairs before the winter rains. Beirut officials have estimated that the damage from the enormous blast that shook the city two weeks ago could reach $15 billion, though the true extent of the destruction remains unknown. At least 25,000 homes are so badly damaged that they are uninhabitable, according to the Beirut government. There are myriad hurdles for rebuilding, including a months-old financial crisis that has sent the value of the Lebanese currency plunging and prompted draconian banking restrictions that limit withdrawals even by those with money in their accounts. Only a few homeowners have insurance, and they are being told they can’t receive a payout until the cause of the explosion is established by the government’s investigation, since damage due to war or terrorism is not covered. They say they have little hope of ever being compensated. In the meantime, landlords and long-term tenants are fighting over who should pay for repairs. No one expects assistance from the bankrupt government, which has been largely absent from cleanup efforts. Private funding of repairs is hamstrung by the banking restrictions, put in place last year after it emerged that as much as $100 billion is missing from the banking system, a sign of the country’s chronic mismanagement and corruption.

Thousands in Mali’s capital welcome president’s downfall (AP) Thousands marched Friday in the streets of Mali’s capital to celebrate the overthrow of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, as the West African nation’s political opposition backed the military’s junta plan to eventually hand over power to a civilian transitional government. But as opponents of the former regime moved ahead with plans for the future, the international community continued to express alarm about the coup that deposed Mali’s democratically elected leader this week. There are concerns that the political upheaval will divert attention away from the more than seven-year international fight against Islamic extremists who have used previous power vacuums in Mali to expand their terrain.

#headlines #news

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freehawaii · 4 years

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CORONAVIRUS REVEALS HOW BAD HAWAI`IʻS TOURIST PROBLEM REALLY IS

Fodors.com - April 29, 2020 - By Laurie Lyons-Makaimoku

The past two months have shown the world just how utterly messed up it is—from inept leaders and politicians to smog-free days in Los Angeles, this virus has pulled back the curtain on the so-called wizards that make the choices that affect the lives of our planet and its people. It has revealed the greed and imbalance that has plagued us all for too long. Sadly, we probably won’t learn too much from this. China’s wet markets and the assault on wildlife will continue, white-collar workers will go back to spending hours each day commuting to do a job that can easily be done remotely, and our politicians will continue to fan the flames of bipartisanship, treating constituents like they’re one big experiment and using their lives as another way to benefit financially. For those of us in Hawaii, the global pandemic has exposed something else for our small, island state—it is utterly at the mercy of tourism and tourists, and that can no longer be the case.

Hawaii currently has the highest unemployment rate in the United States at 37%, with many still waiting to file claims because of overloaded websites and staffing shortages. That rate is usually lower than 3%, while the nation’s average unemployment is around 4.4%. Tourism accounts for approximately 20% of the state’s economy, though that number can be somewhat hard to rely on because tourism touches so many areas of the economy. It has been the largest industry in Hawaii since statehood in 1959.

In recent years, other major events, natural disasters, left huge impacts on Hawaii: the unprecedented floods in Kauai and the eruption of the Kilauea Volcano, both in 2018, had serious economic impacts on the affected communities. The past three years have made it clear that this sort of dependence on an industry that is so dramatically affected by a variety of external factors is dangerous for this state to rely upon.

Aside from the economic impact of so many of Hawaii’s people losing work because tourism gets shut down, Hawaii’s dependence on tourism has had a much more significant impact—it has emboldened the entitled to use it as their playground and quarantine getaway, with very little regard for its people.

The examples are numerous, and as much as I’d love to call out the woman who bragged on her TikTok about how empty and cheap her flight was from Boston to Honolulu, or the mommy blogger who brought her whole family to Maui during the pandemic and actively brushed off criticisms, I won’t—the internet has handled them for us.

However, I am more than happy to call out the marketing company that was dumb enough to bring their firm to Hawaii from Baltimore and actively brag about their callousness on their social media channels. Uprooted Platinum flaunted their work vacation and laughed about their private beach (though they didn’t actually have a private beach) while continuously violating quarantine restrictions. Since their brazen displays, they have taken down all of their social media pages and their website. So maybe they weren’t that great at marketing, after all.

And yet, they keep coming. One couple was arrested in Waikiki this week after flaunting their refusal to adhere to the current visitor self-quarantine all over social media, then hopping from hotel to hotel to avoid suspicion. That couple, who were from Las Vegas and Australia, were then sent home. Another couple from California was arrested in Waikiki after allegedly violating the rules for an entire week. Three others were arrested at a hotel pool in Hilo, visitors from Washington who violated quarantine. Those who are coming to Hawaii because they are homeless and want to ride things out in the tropics are being sent back to their place of origin (using funds from the Hawaii Tourism Authority).

Since Hawaii’s governor enacted mandatory 14-day quarantine restrictions on March 26, Hawaii has continued to see an average of 130 visitors per day. Compare that to this time last year when that number was 30,000 people per day and it seems like nothing, but it is still something. That means that 130 people each day have dismissed the health and well-being of Hawaii’s citizens for their own benefit and pleasure. And that is about as far away from aloha as one can get.

Maybe I should take a step back for a second because there has been a lot of information to unpack since this pandemic has started. Maybe you don’t understand why Hawaii residents don’t want visitors right now, why “Hawaii is Closed” adorns social media profiles as far as the internet can see. It’s simple, really: it’s about a lack of resources. Hawaii has 340 intensive care unit beds and 561 ventilators, the majority of which are on Oahu. On top of that, the supply lines in Hawaii are limited—we depend on air transport and a few ships each week to bring in goods; we don’t have those interstate-traveling big rigs that the rest of the U.S. can rely on. Our toilet paper and hand sanitizer shortages started at least a full week before people started hoarding in the continental U.S. We don’t have enough supplies for our own homes, much less vacation rentals full of tourists.

In addition to the lack of resources, reports of tourists waiting out the pandemic at the few resorts that remain open include awful experiences interacting with guests. One resort employee told local ABC affiliate KITV that “a guest from San Francisco used racial slurs and said hotel staff should be grateful that tourists give them jobs.” She said that guests are extending their stays, but are ignoring restrictions on where they can go. She also didn’t shy away from calling some guests “rude and abusive.”

So, you can see why Hawai‘i would prefer to be closed right now.

And try as they might, our state and local governments have not come up with a solution to keep visitors away. As a state, Hawaii has no authority to shut down federal air travel for visitors (though Oahu Mayor Kirk Caldwell and the mayors of Maui and Kauai, as well as the Hawaii Island county council, have asked the Trump administration, to no avail). They have, however, managed to shut down interisland travel, requiring all but a few types of people to enter 14-day quarantine while traveling to and amongst the islands (including residents). Visitors are required to quarantine in their hotels, while residents must stay in their homes. Before those measures were enacted, Hawaii residents took it upon themselves to send a message to tourists who tried to come during the pandemic by protesting at airports and along Honolulu’s highways.

Gradually, stronger efforts have been made. The Hawaii National Guard has been activated to help monitor checkpoints and screen visitors at the airport. The police are screening people as they try to enter certain areas, like the famed Hana Highway in Maui, ensuring that potentially sick visitors cannot access the remote parts of the island that have limited access to health care. State government is looking at limiting hotel reservations. Law enforcement is cracking down on violators. In early April, the Hawaii Convention and Visitors Bureau put out a request to 170 top publications and trade magazines, asking them to stop promoting Hawaii right now. And yet, they keep coming.

Vacation rentals have been designated as non-essential businesses in hopes of keeping visitors out, but it’s proving to be a lot easier said than done (which seems to always be the case when it comes to regulating vacation rentals). When visitors enter Hawaii, they fill out an agriculture form to help prevent unregulated plants and animals from entering. Now, these forms are being used to help track visitors and enforce the 14-day quarantine, but there are some serious flaws with that system—illegal vacation rentals have a regular address like any other home, so it’s difficult to identify them. New steps are being taken to research each individual and address, but plenty of people have fallen through the cracks already, setting up shop in Hawaiian homes (almost 70% of which are owned by people who live off-island), and skirting that 14-day quarantine.

You would think that the hotels would be easier to monitor, but that doesn’t seem to be the case, either. Hotel employees have told local media that many hotels are doing almost nothing to enforce the quarantine, basically limiting their participation in regulation to handing guests a piece of paper with state and local rules and leaving them to it. The lack of monitoring means that the 14-day quarantine is almost useless once a person arrives, though it has clearly served as a deterrent for most people who consider traveling to Hawaii. That said, one of the high-profile quarantine violation arrests this week was due to a hotel manager calling the authorities on the California couple that flaunted quarantine for over a week. Not everyone is out to make a buck at the risk of Hawaiian lives.

At the time of publication, Hawaii’s coronavirus cases were just over 604, with 14 total deaths. On Oahu, where the majority of the cases are, Mayor Caldwell just extended the stay-at-home order to May 30, with a few relaxations of requirements. Non-essential businesses are closed. Beaches are closed for lounging (though people can swim and exercise in the ocean). Some parks are soon to reopen for exercise, but most people don’t come here to exercise in our parks. Hotels are not allowed to operate restaurants, gyms, or pools. And yet, they keep coming.

Polite requests to not come to Hawaii, or at the very least to go through the mandatory 14-day quarantine, are not being heeded. Tourism is rearing its ugly head during this pandemic. This continued deep lack of respect for a place that isn’t just a vacation stomping ground, but a place of immense cultural, historical, and spiritual significance for the people who come from there and live there makes it quite clear that Hawaii needs to significantly pull back on its reliance on tourism. And of course, these issues are far from new.

But what does that mean for Hawaii? In addition to tourism, the top industries for the state include defense, agriculture, fishing, manufacturing, and power. Strengthening the defense industry in Hawaii is not something that many Hawaii residents will advocate for, and sadly power, especially green power, has proven to be highly problematic when it comes to the concerns of Hawaii’s people. Of the remaining industries, agriculture seems to be the top choice among politicians and citizens in giving Hawaii a fighting chance in shaking off the yoke of tourism.

Hawaii imports approximately 90% of its food, a number that continues to astonish those who live here and see the bounty that these islands can produce. There are more than 200 varieties of avocado that grow in Hawaii—and we’re not talking about those little Haas ones that people love. We’re talking indulgent, buttery fruits that can grow so big that they set Guinness World Records, like this 5.6 pounder did last year. Hawaii Island alone is home to 10 of the 14 microclimates of the world, many of which are wonderful for growing a variety of foods.

This shift is currently at the top of the to-do list for many lawmakers. One citizen, new to politics, is running for Mayor of Hawaii County (on Hawaii Island) and is advocating for greater agricultural initiatives. Ikaika Marzo also happens to be a tour guide operator.

“An event like this pandemic truly shows us how much our econmy [sic] relies on tourism, and as a local tour owner and operator myself, I’m here to say that is not right, not an ideal way for a county to be structured–we are so much MORE than our in-n-out tourists who spend money here. We have many other options that could still be booming right now, right through this pandemic, and could factor into helping the rest of the mainland US which had to temporarily cut off imports from foreign countries,” Marzo wrote on a recent Facebook post, a video of him walking around a deserted downtown Hilo and stopping at the local farmer’s market (ironically, a popular tourist attraction) while discussing agriculture.

In addition to focusing on other industries, Hawaii needs to put more effort into educating visitors to ensure that its people and places are receiving the respect that they deserve. The Hawaii Tourism Authority is working on long-term, strategic plans to focus on sustainability in travel as their primary concern, including greater investments in culture and natural resources, and considering local communities and their priorities more. Some in the tourism industry are even discussing implementing more models like the one at Hanauma Bay in Oahu that requires visitors to go through a short educational orientation and watch a video before entering the nature preserve. Hopefully, these ideas will continue to be developed and implemented to help address some of these issues.

While state politicians and decision-makers can’t change an entire economy overnight, visitors who take advantage of Hawaii’s top industry can change their behaviors and their attitudes so that it’s a little bit easier of a pill to swallow for the people whose culture and history has been stripped down and repackaged for maximum consumption by folks on holiday. Visitors should never expect that they have access to go where they want to go or that they can treat people like crap, no matter where or when they travel. Visitors should treat their destination with respect and reverence for the people and places that are their hosts. Just because you can get away with something, doesn’t mean you should still do it. Just because it’s legal or allowed, doesn’t mean it’s ethical.

So, if you hope to receive some of our aloha (which doesn’t come as part of the price of admission, no matter what those beckoning ads may say), it is imperative that you come here ready to share some aloha of your own.

Hawaii has a long way to go before it can even partially extract itself from suckling so strongly at the teat of tourism, but it has never been given a better time to start than now. One thing has been made clear: though many people are suffering at the loss of their jobs, those dolphins and whales that visitors come to visit certainly don’t miss them. Marine life is flourishing as residents and visitors can no longer snorkel, scuba dive, or play amongst the reefs, and that needs to be taken very seriously by all of us, visitors and residents alike.

So come back to Hawaii, eventually. You’ll need a vacation when this is over, and many of us want to welcome you. Just don’t be too surprised if our aloha continues to wear thin if some changes aren’t made, starting with you.

#free hawaii #hawaiian kingdom #tourism #coronavirus

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aideaustralasia · 2 years

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Why Choose a Qualified Migration Agent?

How to Choose a Good Visa Service Provider?

While it is not a legal requirement in Australia to engage a registered visa service provider, it is advised that you do. Isn't it always better to engage someone who is qualified and really knows what they are doing, because your visa application can be a complex process - right?

There are many steps involved in obtaining a visa and you wouldn't want to make any careless errors. These could cost you dearly as your visa application may not be the best it can be; something you didn't mean to do, but did inadvertently anyway. education consultant australia

In Australia we normally refer to a Visa service provider as a Migration Agent. These are experts that help people to obtain a visa to enter Australia. Most Migration Agents will be qualified and should be registered with the Migration Agents Regulatory Authority.

What is the Migration Agents Regulatory Authority?

Australia has had some form of regulation in this industry for a long time now. The official body is known as the Migration Agents Regulatory Authority. The focus of the latest changes to the rules and regulations has been to remove the total self-regulation of the industry. This self regulation has caused distress to the representation of the industry, so many people haven't had put as much of their trust in these professionals as the Government would have liked.

Deciding to migrate overseas is a life-changing decision. It involves significant financial and emotional investments and it is vital they have confidence in the professionalism and integrity of their Migration Agent.

If you visit the Migration Agents Regulatory Authority website, you will find heaps of information to help you. If you know of a executive visa service provider that you would like to engage, you can do a search on the website and you will be able to find out if that person is registered or not.

As with most professions, there is a Code of Conduct that was established and monitored by the Migration Agents Regulatory Authority. top educational agent melbourne

What is the Code of Conduct that ALL Visa Service Providers MUST abide by?

If a visa service provider does not comply with the Code of Conduct (and it is found out) then the Migration Agent may be deregistered.

There are some interesting things in the Code of Conduct that you should know. For example, Agents are required to have a high knowledge of the australian skilled migration Act and relevant Regulations. Any changes to Policies can have a massive effect on visa applications, so ensure that your Agent is up-to-date with all Policy amendments. Visa service providers are often in a position where they could easily take advantage of people who do not know all the relevant laws.

A registered agent is not permitted to act for someone if they have a conflict of interest and that includes anyone they might intend to go into business with. While there is no set fee that a australian skilled migration Agent will charge you, it is discretionary. This does not mean that they can charge whatever they like! Under the Code of Conduct they are required to charge what is reasonable in the circumstances. You should ring around and get a few quotes to ensure that you are not getting ripped off!

Skilled Migrant Work Visa.

If you are looking to apply for a skilled migration work visa, you may find the process much easier with the help of a professional Migration Agent. If you are going to use a visa service provider who is not registered, be precautious and ask them about their qualifications and experience. Also, it might pay off to ask them why they are not registered. It does seem to give the public a measure of confidence if visa service providers are registered with the Migration Agents Regulatory Authority. migration services australia

Remember, if you are seeking a skilled migrant work visa, then you should engage a visa service provider, because the application can be a very complex process. If you are applying for an Australian student visa, you may be able to apply for this on-line and may not require a visa service provider.

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rankertopanwar · 2 years

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migration visa in Australia

Mbmigration.com.au

What is the Migration Agents Regulatory Authority?

for more information:- https://www.mbmigration.com.au/

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hopefulfestivaltastemaker · 3 years

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April 4, 2021

My weekly roundup of things I am up to. Topics include ammonia in shipping, industrial collapse, and an angiogram.

Ammonia for Shipping

This week I continued a more detailed exploration of the prospect of alternative fuels for vehicles.

About 2% of world energy consumption goes to international shipping, with another ~0.5% for domestic shipping. By ton-miles, most freight is transported by ship. Aside from associated greenhouse gases, shipping fuel tends to be heavy fuel oil, which is particularly bad with regard to air pollution when burned. Seaports, which are typically located around prime real estate in major cities, take a brunt of this pollution. For these reasons, there is great interest in developing low-pollution, low-emission fuels for shipping. The International Maritime Organization, the international agency that regulates shipping, has set a goal of a 70% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, relative to 2008 levels.

A 2019 report from Maersk analyzed several shipping fuel options and concluded that three of them are the most viable low-carbon candidates: ammonia, alcohol (e.g. methanol and ethanol), and synthetic methane. Liquified natural gas ships are starting to become common thanks to low natural gas prices, though this isn’t synthetic or a low-carbon fuel. I plan to look in more detail at LNG and methanol for shipping later on.

Among other options, hydrogen for shipping is plausible, but the technology is farther from being ready for prime time. Sails (wind power) has been used for shipping; it is a fine idea and brings romantic memories of the Age of Sail, but nowadays sailing can only augment and not replace other fuels. Battery electric ships are starting to come into use for short distance vessels such as ferries, but the energy density is insufficient for transoceanic voyages. Nuclear-powered shipping is well established in military applications and can be done for container ships, but for now it looks like it is too expensive, and there would be a hornet’s nest of safety and regulatory issues. It is a bit worrisome that, while nuclear shipping is a priority for nuclear advocates, particularly of small modular reactors, it doesn’t seem to be even on the radar of most shippers and shipping advocates, who don’t have much of a stake in debates about energy sources.

Anyway, DNV thinks that ammonia is the most promising long term option. By the analysis I’ve done, ammonia shipping will be more expensive, but the use of ammonia produced from steam methane reforming without carbon capture and sequestration (the most common method now) would have a carbon abatement cost of a rather affordable $24/ton. With CCS, the abatement cost rises to $95/ton, and it is $258/ton when hydrogen is produced by electrolysis from low-carbon sources. That’s based on prevailing worldwide renewable energy prices, and the figure is no doubt less in areas such as Australia, which has cheap and abundant solar power.

There are still quite a few issues to work out. For one thing, there are no container ships that use ammonia today, though a model is expected to be ready in 2024. Although ammonia pipelines are widespread, as ammonia has been commonly used for fertilizer and other chemicals for a long time, there are logistical issues with expending pipelines or other ammonia transportation to seaports. Because ammonia is a lower energy density than diesel, more space on the ship would have to be dedicated to fuel, which cuts into cargo space.

On the plus side, ammonia is already a cost-effective solution under a reasonable valuation of carbon emissions and even ignoring other air pollutants, and the economics should only get better. There are several ammonia production methods under development which could lower costs; most exciting is the prospect of bypassing hydrogen production in a process that mimics what plants do with photosynthesis. Low carbon energy should continue to get cheaper in the coming years.

Industrial Collapse

Samo Burja had another well-written but downbeat article on Palladium a couple weeks ago entitled “The End of Industrial Society”. It’s a good read, though I would take the scenario outlined here as a possibility rather than a prediction.

Samo argues, correctly in my view, that the transition to “post-industrial” societies represents a step backwards, rather than forwards, and he notes that some commentators try to spin this transition as success rather than failure. Dietrich Vollrath, in Fully Grown, stands out as a particular offender here. Vollrath channels an argument that seems to be accepted wisdom among wide swathes of the social elite, that low productivity growth (or stagnation) and low fertility are rational decisions to pursue leisure over socially productive ventures. The argument is not too dissimilar to what Tyler Cowen has been saying, except Cowen writes about these trends in a disapproving way.

Samo also notes that industrialization is a society-wide phenomenon, encompassing the full range of values and institutions of a society or even a civilization. An industrial mindset is embedded in the population, which takes the form of “tricks of the trade” knowledge that we chalk up to experience. I don’t think this phenomenon is well-studied, but hints of it do appear in topics such as Wright’s Law. Many of the proposed responses then, such as tariffs, public R&D programs, or other polices under the header of “industrial policy” are likely to turn out to be cargo cult solutions, in that they fail for a lack of understanding of what industrialization is really about and what drives it.

Deindustrialization, or post-industrialization, are trends that are at risk of exaggeration. Data from the Fed shows that manufacturing in the US, for instance, has been relatively flat since around 2005, with some fluctuations associated with recessions. This is probably a more pessimistic trend than would have been expected at the time, but it hardly indicates that industry has disappeared. More noticeable has been the decline in workers in manufacturing, all the more stark when you consider that this chart does not account for growth in the overall workforce size. A few years ago, these trends led to a panic about “robots taking our jobs”, a panic that has largely subsided now in the face of observations of low productivity growth and a pre-pandemic labor market that was one of the strongest in American history. Still, the hope of transitioning to a successful post-industrial society, in the sense that industrial society was post-agrarian, does not seem to be entirely in vain.

Angiogram

On April 1, I was in the hospital for an angiogram, the purpose of which was to check on the surgery I had last summer to make sure that the cerebral hemorrhage and other observable problems were resolved. It was supposed to happen in January, but Kaiser closed to elective procedures as a result of the third COVID wave.

Everything went well. Most importantly, no neurological problems were detected. The worst part about the operation was the anxiety I had beforehand. The surgeons had to put a catheter into my wrist to make the observations. But it wasn’t so bad. I would consider the whole thing to be uncomfortable but not painful. I’m due for an MRI next year, but there should be no more angiograms.

I chose the date of April 1 because it was the earliest date available when I scheduled it. But yes, I know that isn’t the most auspicious of days to go into the hospital. Actually, though, I’m a little disappointed that there weren’t any (harmless) practical jokes. But joking aside, modern medicine is nothing short of miraculous.

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wineanddinosaur · 3 years

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Wine 101: South Africa

This episode of “Wine 101” is sponsored by E. & J. Gallo Winery. At Gallo, we exist to serve enjoyment in moments that matter. The hallmark of our company has always been an unwavering commitment to making quality wine and spirits. Whether it’s getting Barefoot and having a great time, making every day sparkle with La Marca Prosecco, or continuing our legacy with Louis Martini in Napa, we want to welcome new friends to wine and sharing all of life’s moments. Cheers, and all the best.

In this episode of “Wine 101,” VinePair tastings director Keith Beavers discusses all things South African wine. Beavers explains that South African wine has roots dating back to the 17th century, and is generating growing excitement among in-the-know oenophiles today.

Listeners will learn about the big moments that have impacted South Africa throughout its wine-growing history, such as an outbreak of the vine-eating phylloxera louse, the formation of a government-led cooperative that regulated wine, and the creation of a grape called Pinotage. You will also learn about the distinct differences between the most important wine regions in South Africa.

Tune in to become an expert on the wines of South Africa.

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Or Check out the Conversation Here

Keith Beavers: My name is Keith Beavers, and I’ve been abstaining from peanut butter for almost two months now. It’s fine, I’m fine!

What’s going on, wine lovers? Welcome to Episode 10 of VinePair’s “Wine 101” podcast, Season 2. My name is Keith Beavers. I am the tasting director of VinePair, and how are you?

South Africa. It’s a major player in the wine scene in the world. What’s going on there? What are they growing? What are they making? What can you find from South Africa? South Africa is happening on our market now. Let’s get into it and understand it.

Back in 2003 I wasn’t even into wine yet. Wine wasn’t even a thing I was thinking about, and I had another job. Well, part of the job is we had to work this thing called the Fancy Food Show. It’s this big food convention that happens over a weekend at the Javits Center in Manhattan. It’s a huge convention center, one of the largest you have ever seen. I took a break from the booth I was working in. You just walk around and try food samples, swag, and all this craziness. All the way in the back of one of these big, big rooms, and these rooms are like a football field, there was a wine section. In that wine section, there was a big banner that said “South African wine.” I’ll never forget that. I was like, “What does that mean?” It stuck with me. It never went away.

Later, I think it was in 2005 or 2004, I was at a wine bar in Park Slope in Brooklyn, and this wine bar had a South African wine. I was like, “Oh, cool, let me try that. Wow, OK, so South Africa makes wine. This is cool.” I didn’t know what was going on. Fast-forward to 2007, when we opened up our wine shop in the East Village and we started buying wines for the initial inventory. I said we need to taste as many South African wines as we can and we, sure enough, did. It was just fascinating. It’s so crazy and cool what South Africa is doing.

When we talked about Australia, there is not intensity, but there’s this hunger. Australian winemakers have a hunger there. They’re the original, the flying winemakers that we talked about in that episode, where they finish the harvest down in their hemisphere, and they go to another hemisphere to start another harvest, because they just need to learn more. South Africa is on that level of innovation and experimentation and trying to find things that really jive with their terroir. Like in Australia and New Zealand, in South Africa, we have a loosely controlled appellation system. Like those other two countries we talked about previously, are still planting vines and finding what works in what areas. There’s a lot of successes with a lot of different varieties all over South Africa. It’s not just “this place does this, this place does that.”

We’re going to do another one of these overviews because there are so many wine regions in South Africa today that it’s impossible to go all through all of them. The good news is, even though all of South Africa is not on our market, there is a good amount of South Africa on our market that you can find, and it’s not hard. That’s really cool. I don’t know if you’re getting a sense of this yet, but these newer wine regions like Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, not Europe, you can get a sense that even to this day, they’re still experimenting.

Even in the United States, in a place like Sonoma, winemakers are still exploring. In South Africa, where the wine culture is new, they’re just trying whatever works. I think it’s very exciting because it’s fun. Diversity is great. If multiple varieties thrive in one place, that’s cool. A place doesn’t always have to be known for one grape. That’s also cool when it is, but it doesn’t have to be. We can celebrate places that aren’t known for just one grape, as well as places that are known for one grape, like Napa Cab. In Australia, we know pretty well because of the Shiraz trend back in the day. We’re pretty familiar with New Zealand because of the Sauvignon Blanc from Marlborough, but there’s not one of those things happening in South Africa.

Let’s talk about where the Republic of South Africa is on the continent of Africa. The Republic of South Africa is the southernmost country on the African continent, with about 59 million people. The country is bordered on the west and south by almost 1600 miles of coastline. In the north of South Africa are the countries of Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe. On the eastern border of this country are Mozambique and Eswatini. What’s really unique is there’s actually a country within the borders of South Africa called Lesotho. There are only two others in the world like this, and they’re both in Italy: the Vatican and San Marino. It’s pretty wild stuff.

Also, like New Zealand, South Africa is a biodiversity hotspot. I’m sure we all are pretty familiar with the history of South Africa and the struggles and the triumphs of the people in South Africa. We’re not going to go into the political, socioeconomic stuff, although it does affect the history of wine. I want to talk to you about where it began, some things that were important, and then get to where we are today. Again, like other new wine regions, I think today is what’s very invigorating and awesome about South Africa. We are going to see more and more South African wine on our market. It’s just going to happen. Let’s talk about what we can see now.

The history of wine in South Africa begins in the 17th century. It involves the massive Dutch trade system of the time. Towards the southern part of the western coastline of South Africa is the Cape of Good Hope. It juts out into the ocean. On that cape is what is now called Constantia, which is a very famous winery. It’s very historical. That right there is where the wine industry of South Africa began.

In the mid-17th century, the Dutch installed a 33-year-old surgeon by the name of Jan van Riebeeck onto the Cape of Good hope to set up a big garden and put a market around it. This was to help fight scurvy for the sailors that were going back and forth on these trade routes. Of course, a vineyard was part of this big garden. In 1652, Riebeeck recorded in his journal that they pressed the first grapes from harvest, and that is basically what began the wine industry of South Africa. Now, that moment was how grapes got to South Africa from France. The wine that was being made in Constantia on the Cape of Good Hope was a mostly sweet wine. We have an episode coming up this season on fortified wine. These are the wines that could actually survive a trip from South Africa to England.

For a long time, the wines of Constantia in South Africa were some of the most popular wines in the wine-drinking world at the time. It wasn’t until the 19th century that this area became kind of irrelevant. I only say that because of the political stuff that was happening between France, England, and Spain — which has been going on forever — at some point, there is a shift in power, tariffs, and taxes. The British are now able to get wine from France without taxation, so they leave South Africa behind. It’s just easier to get wine from across the English Channel than from all the way down in South Africa. I have this idea that, if it wasn’t for that moment that Bordeaux happened, I wonder what would have happened if that political moment never occurred or occurred later in South Africa. I don’t know, it’s conjecture. That’s a big historical moment.

From the moment that the Dutch colony of Constantia was formed to the 19th century, wine had a presence in this country. Another big moment, like a lot of moments in the wine world, which we’re going to get to, I promise, is phylloxera. Oh, my God, Keith, you keep on bringing up phylloxera. It happened, guys. It was a big deal. When it hit South Africa, it took the country almost 20 years to recuperate from that moment or that horrible scourge, which we’ll get to.

In doing so, they flooded the system. They flooded the land with high-production grapes. They were just getting nervous. They just flooded the zone, and we had a quality issue. This was supposed to be fixed by this huge cooperative company that was created called the Cooperative Wine Growers Association, or KWV in Afrikaans. What’s interesting about this entity is that at one time, it was connected to the government, and it controlled how wine was made and sold in South Africa. At some point, it breaks apart and becomes a company. To this day, it’s still around but it’s not a regulatory body. It’s more of a company supporting cooperatives.

These are big general moments in South African wine history. One that is not as devastating as these is the creation of the grape Pinotage. If you’re in Virginia and you drink red wine, there’s a chance you’ve tried Pinotage. For some reason, it’s happening in Virginia and doing well. But Pinotage is a native South African variety. It was developed by a human, but kind of not really. This is a cool story. Inland from the Cape of Good Hope is a major, major town called Stellenbosch. In that town is a very important university. In 1925, they had just started their viticultural department, and they hired Abraham Izak Perold to be the first professor of their department at the university. In the garden of the university that was set up for him, he actually pollinated Pinot Noir with a grape called Cinsault, which is a variety from southern France and usually used the Provence region for rosé. It was open-air pollination. He just put the plants in the same vicinity, and at some point they cross-pollinated on their own. Then he planted four of those seeds.

In 1927, he left to go work for KWV, which is really wild. A lecturer from the university that knew about those four seeds took the four seeds, brought them to another college. They propagated those seeds, grew some grapes, and chose the best one to use going forward to propagate and make wine from. This was a grape that pollinated from Pinot Noir and a grape called Cinsault.

At the time, in South Africa, the Cinsault grape was actually called Hermitage. The label on the vine was “Pinot Noir x Hermitage.” This is Pinotage. This is how Pinotage was created. It became an indigenous variety to South Africa through open-air pollination by a human. Very cool. To this day, Pinotage is part of the wine scene in South Africa.

Now, South Africa is doing all kinds of stuff. They’re doing Cabernet Sauvignon, they’re doing Syrah. They call it Shiraz sometimes. They’re sometimes doing Chardonnay. They’ve been doing Chenin Blanc for a very long time. They actually call it Stein. They’re doing Merlot, they’re doing Cab Franc. They’re doing everything, but Pinotage is always there. It wasn’t always popular. The Pinotage wines can have a very distinct, almost overpowering smoky aroma to them.

Nowadays, it’s a lot different. The wines being made from Pinotage, they’re being blended. They’re softer, supple, and inky. They’re really, really awesome. You should definitely check them out on the American market, because they’re here. Those are key moments in South African wine history: Constantia, phylloxera, regulatory government-led cooperative, Pinotage.

Now, where South Africa is today in wine is the most exciting time for South Africa. There are dozens of wine-growing regions in South Africa, starting all the way to the north of the country along the coast, going all the way down to the southern part of the country. Not the entire coastline, but a lot of the coastline and a bit inland, you have all these wine-growing regions and we don’t see all of them on the American market. We’re going to and it’s starting to happen. There are places that we see now that I want to tell you about so that when you’re out there in wine markets, you’ll know what you’re looking at.

The appellation system in South Africa is pretty unique. Well, it’s basically regions and subregions, but they have different terminology for them. You have geographical units, then within those geographical units, you have wine regions. Then, within those wine regions, you have districts and within those districts, you have wards. It’s wine regions, subregion, subregion, subregion, and subregion. For example, you have a geographical unit called the Western Cape. It’s the Western Cape of South Africa. Within that geographical unit, you have a region that is called Breede River Valley. Within the Breede River Valley are three districts: Breedekloof, Robertson, and Worcester. Within each of those, they have wards. Breedekloof has two wards. Robertson has nine wards. Worcester has three wards.

What we’re seeing here is terroir, right? As you get further down into subregions, this is a wine system and you need to know that there is terroir here. The soils are different, and you can see them being created, which is very cool. The Western Cape is a geographical unit. We’re going to see the majority of wines from that particular geographical unit on the American market. This large geographical unit has three regions in it that you’re going to see on the market. There are three regions in this area. I’m going to break them down but be very brief so we don’t get too convoluted here.

The Breede River Valley, which is what we just talked about, is in this geographical unit called the Western Cape with three districts. Of those three districts I talked about, Robertson is the biggest one. There are nine wards in this district, which is a lot. It’s a warm, dry area. It has a favorite ward, which is called Bonnievale. I’ve had wines from here. I’ve had Chardonnay from here — Sauvignon Blanc, Shiraz, and Cabernet Sauvignon. They’re all really good. This area is inland from the southern tip of South Africa.

From the Breede River, if you start going south towards the coast, you enter another wine region called Cape South Coast. Here, there are about six districts, and two of them we’re going to see on the American market. One is called Elgin, and one is called Walker Bay. These are coastal regions so they are going to be cooler climates. You’re not going to see Shiraz and Cab and stuff like that. You’re going to see more Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, because they want to get that acidity up again. Again, all kinds of things are happening in all these places, but these are the varieties you are going to see on the market right now.

Now, it’s the third region in this geographical unit that I’m saving for last because the majority of the stuff we see on the market will be from this chunk of acreage. The coastal region of South Africa has the Cape Peninsula district — this is where the Cape of Good Hope is. This is where the famous Constantia distillery/vineyard is to this day. North of that is a wine district called Darling. We’re not going to see it. We’re not seeing a lot of Darling on the American market, but I want to bring it up because I have had Syrah from Darling, and it was mind-blowing. Yes. Syrah, not Shiraz. It’s back and forth in South Africa, sometimes they call it Shiraz; sometimes to call it Syrah. I believe it’s because of the characteristics. If they’re different, that defines the name. Now, Darling is a wonderful place that proves that South Africa, some people think is hot, but it is close to Antarctica, and there is a wind current coming from Antarctica that goes along the coast of South Africa. It’s called the Benguela Current. It keeps everything nice and cool. That is why you get nice, spicy Syrah from Darling.

North of Darling is a place called Swartland. I’m bringing this up because we’re starting to see those wines pop up. I don’t know, I’ve never had wines from this area. It��s said that up in that region, we’re going to start seeing these funky wines coming from there. I’m not sure why, but that’s happening. Keep an eye out if you like the funky stuff.

In the center of the coastal region, inland from the Cape of Good Hope, is a lot of wine activity. You have the districts of Wellington, Paarl, and Stellenbosch. These three words, you’re going to see on a lot of South African wine that is here in the States. Wellington is still figuring itself out, but there are great red wines coming from out there. There are good white wines as well. I’ve had some awesome red blends from Wellington. Paarl is popular because Paarl is the home of KWV. That’s that huge cooperative company that began as a government regulatory body back in the day. I think I read that over 4,600 growers work with that cooperative. That’s crazy. And because it’s a cooperative, you’re going to see a lot of wines from Paarl on our market. Because wines that are made from a cooperative are not as expensive when it gets to the shelves here in the States.

Last but not least, Stellenbosch. If you’re interested in wine and you’ve heard about South African wine, there’s a very good chance Stellenbosch is the word that you know the most. It’s a university town in South Africa. This is where the viticultural department was formed in the 1920s. To this day, it’s a huge center for research in viticulture and viniculture, and there are vineyards everywhere. Now, Stellenbosch is mainly known for red wines, but you can’t say that, because everything’s being grown in Stellenbosch. It has good sun, it has cooling influences from False Bay, which is the bay just a few miles away. It’s like “Shark Week” Bay. It’s where all the great white sharks are. This is a place with heavy tourism. That’s why we’ve probably heard a lot about it. It has a wine route, it has restaurants, it has tasting rooms, it has the vibe.

But despite all of these vines, it has a very low yield. It is only 9 percent of the national yield of grapes in the country. It’s the fine-wine region that’s developing or has developed in South Africa. There will be more, but this is the one that’s been around for a long time, probably because of the university and the programs that are available there.

As I said, there are dozens of wine regions in South Africa. We’re learning about more and more all the time. More is coming on to our market. We have so much to explore in South Africa. Go out there, find some wines from South Africa, and just pop them and taste them and see what they’re like. Find what you like. Find a winemaker that you like and hold onto that winemaker. Maybe try a region. It’s ready to explore now. If you get into it now, as it develops, you’ll be like an expert in South African wine. What?!

@VinePairKeith is my Insta. Rate and review this podcast wherever you get your podcasts from. It really helps get the word out there. And now, for some totally awesome credits. “Wine 101” was produced, recorded, and edited by yours truly, Keith Beavers, at the VinePair headquarters in New York City. I want to give a big ol’ shout-out to co-founders Adam Teater and Josh Malin for creating VinePair. And I mean, a big shout-out to Danielle Grinberg, the art director of VinePair, for creating the most awesome logo for this podcast. Also, Darby Cicci for the theme song. Listen to this. And I want to thank the entire VinePair staff for helping me learn something new every day. See you next week.

The article Wine 101: South Africa appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/wine-101-south-africa/

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sciencespies · 4 years

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Meet Barbara Dane and Her Proud Tradition of Singing Truth to Power

https://sciencespies.com/history/meet-barbara-dane-and-her-proud-tradition-of-singing-truth-to-power/

Meet Barbara Dane and Her Proud Tradition of Singing Truth to Power

Smithsonian Voices Smithsonian Center For Folklife & Cultural Heritage

How Barbara Dane Carries a Proud Tradition of Singing Truth to Power

March 8th, 2021, 12:00AM / BY Theodore S. Gonzalves

Barbara Dane with the Chambers Brothers at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. (Photo by Diana Davies, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives)

There are times when a songwriter, a song, and a moment come together to make an impact beyond anyone’s expectations. That’s precisely what happened when Los Angeles-based songwriter Connie Kim (on stage, she’s MILCK) performed “Quiet” during the Women’s March in Washington, D.C, on January 21, 2017.

Originally written a year before the march with Adrian Gonzalez to address Kim’s personal trauma from an abusive relationship, they turned pain into power: “I can’t keep quiet / A one-woman riot.” A year later, the song served a wider purpose and a much larger audience.

Starting with smaller groups of women singing a cappella in different locations throughout the country, and without the benefit of in-person, live rehearsals, Kim found herself on the National Mall. She’s heard of choirs in Ghana, Sweden, Australia, Philadelphia, New York City, and Los Angeles singing “Quiet.” Her “one-woman riot” grew to millions: “Let it out now / There’ll be someone who understands.”

Kim concedes, “It’s not my song. It’s our song.”

Today on International Women’s Day, it’s time to connect the newest generation of songwriters like MILCK to a long and proud tradition of singing truth to power.

Since the 2016 presidential election, millions of people have found themselves in the streets, holding signs, chanting, singing, occasionally braving inclement weather, and probably meeting others they never expected to know. “I never thought I’d be out here, for hours,” many have said, some taking to protest for the first time in their lives. Maybe it was what was said on the campaign trail, how it was said, or simply who was saying it. For all the first-timers out there, no matter how they feel about the politics of the day, people finding connection in the streets should know that singer-agitator Barbara Dane has been connecting audiences and marchers for years, decades even.

Barbara Dane (left) at the 1966 Newport Folk Festival. (Photo by Diana Davies, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives)

As a teen, Dane sang for striking autoworkers in her hometown of Detroit. She attended the Prague Youth Festival in 1947 and connected local protest with stories of young people from around the world. With a natural gift for swinging and singing the blues, she launched a career in jazz that caught the attention of some of the greatest on the scene, like Louis Armstrong. By the end of the 1950s, Dane was featured in Ebony magazine, the first white woman to be featured in those pages and photographed with blues greats.

Forget about the sublime images of suburban life on TV from the 1950s. The postwar years saw millions taking up the banner of decolonization and national liberation. Americans couldn’t ignore those tides and neither could Barbara Dane. Her protest music took her to Mississippi Freedom Schools, free speech rallies at UC Berkeley, and in the coffeehouses where active-duty men and women steered clear of military police and regulations forbidding protests on bases. Dane was seemingly everywhere, leading chants, reinterpreting songs by Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, and Sara Ogan Gunning.

By the late 1960s, Dane took up an invitation to visit Cuba, where she was greeted warmly. Did she care about the U.S. State Department’s admonition against making the visit? Her response was sharp and clear: “We’re a country that promotes freedom, so why can’t this free person go where she wants to go?”

It’s no accident that Dane found kindred spirits among the ranks of singers and songwriters working in the nueva canción genre. This was a popular music that celebrated a constellation of impulses and influences, ranging from local, indigenous, folk, and ethnic instrumentation, stylizing, and vocalizing, to lyrics that were political, socially aware, defiant, or even comedic at times. Her Havana trip not only gave her a strong anchor in nueva canción for reference, but she also found singer-songwriters from Europe and Asia who shared those passions and interests.

Album art from Paredon Records (Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives)

These connections formed the basis of Paredon Records, the recording label she founded with Irwin Silber, a skilled critic and record producer. From 1970 to 1985, Dane and Silber released fifty albums that documented protest music from around the world. The musical messages reflected the stakes and the hopeful dreams of millions trying to make sense of a world dominated by superpowers with world-ending weaponry.

The songs and the writers came from every corner: students from Thailand and the Dominican Republic. Activists from Chile. Mass-party workers from the Philippines and Italy. Working-class rock by Brooklynite Bev Grant, anti-imperialist folk by Berkeley’s Red Star Singers, and anti-patriarchal songs by the New Harmony Sisterhood Band. But don’t think you can reduce Dane’s Paredon collection to merely strident messaging.

Throughout the catalog, you feel Dane’s attention to what it can mean to link the songwriter, the song, and the moment into something soulful and personal. Many of the musicians featured on Paredon trusted Dane because she was also an experienced singer in addition to being the label’s co-founder, writer of dozens of liner notes, and producer. She had the practical experience of knowing life as a working musician in an industry and in social movements dominated by men. She more than held her own. Audiences trusted her politics and attitude. And fellow musicians heard in Dane’s voice the hard life of singing for your living.

Getting out on the road and performing kept her vital and engaged. For Dane, as she explained in the liner notes to Barbara Dane Sings the Blues, the road taught her

what it means to be alive, to value life above anything and rage like a tiger to keep it… to spend it with care instead of trading it for a new car or a fur coat… to treasure the moments that are real between human beings without counting the cost or trying to bargain, because there’s no price on that beauty. The only thing we have, really, is our time alive, and I don’t think they’ve printed enough to buy mine. How about yours?

Folk musician Len Chandler talks with Barbara Dane at a major rally for the Poor People’s Campaign in Washington, D.C., 1968. (Photo by Diana Davies, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives)

It’s not too late for MILCK to meet up with Dane. I had the chance to catch Dane’s eighty-fifth birthday concert, where she sold out the Freight and Salvage in Berkeley, California. For the first set, her quintet backed her as she delivered a slate of jazz and blues standards. After the intermission, members of her family performed—her daughter, Nina, singing flamenco; her two sons, Jesse and Pablo, and her grandson on guitar. Toward the very end of the evening, she brought up her entire family, spanning four generations, and had her great-granddaughter step up to the mic to sing.

It was getting late into the evening, and I was going to miss my train back into the city. I left just as Dane led the crowd through chorus after rousing chorus of “We Shall Not Be Moved.” I could hear her strong voice fade as I hit the street and descended into the subway station.

I hope MILCK gets a chance to see Dane, now ninety, perform live. Or maybe they could teach each other their favorite songs. Both of them, so much more than a one-woman riot.

youtube

Above, watch Barbara Dane sing and share stories during the 2020 Smithsonian Folklife Festival’s Sisterfire SongTalk.

Find the two-disc retrospective of Barbara Dane’s recordings, Hot Jazz, Cool Blues & Hard-Hitting Songs, and a vinyl reissue of Barbara Dane and the Chambers Brothers for sale from Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. You can also explore the history, messages, and art of Paredon Records in a new online exhibition.

Theodore S. Gonzalves is curator of Asian Pacific American history at Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. He is currently writing a cultural history of Paredon Records.

#History

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dragonmagicvape · 4 years

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Is this the end of vaping? – Nicotine Importation Laws Australia

In a shocking move on Friday, the Therapeutic Goods Administration announced proposed changes to nicotine importation laws. The TGA are requesting that the Australian Government General enacts a law that prohibits consumers purchasing and importing nicotine vaping liquid. Up until this point if you had a prescription for nicotine you were able to legally import up to a 12 months supply. These changes will effectively make nicotine illegal, unless you have a prescription and buy from a supplier that has a permit to import nicotine. This comes into effect from the 1st of July 2020.

Australian vapers have been given 10 days to purchase nicotine before the new laws come into effect. The process to get a prescription will become even harder, with Drs required to complete a number of forms and seek a permit to prescribe nicotine. Even if you manage to obtain a legal prescription you will only be able to purchase nicotine from a pharmacist or medical supplier with an importation permit.

Liquid Nicotine by Jamesvilliam via Wikimedia Commons CC-BY-SA-4.0

Bad news for vapers

This is bad news for vapers who have been using liquid nicotine for a number of years. The changes would mean that only those quitting nicotine for good will be given access. This is unacceptable. Retrospectively banning a substance leaves many wondering why they can still purchase cigarettes from every corner store, yet are denied access to a much safer nicotine. delivery method. Nicotine is still seen as the evil additive in cigarettes, despite much research to the contrary.

The obvious issue with the proposed changes is that there are no pharmacies or businesses that currently have a permit to supply nicotine, and it is unlikely there will be in time for the 1st of July deadline. Very few Drs have been willing to prescribe nicotine in the past, with the extra steps and red tape now involved it is doubtful that will change. Another proposed change would see consumers having to prove that vaping is the last resort. Patients will be required to try every other “approved” smoking cessation method before a Dr will prescribe nicotine for vaping.

Inforgraphic by Alana Pirrone via University of Melbourne

Will rescheduling nicotine open up access?

In the next eight months the TGA will be considering the rescheduling of nicotine. While this does provide a small glimmer of hope, I question the real reason behind the change. If you’ve been following the progress of medical cannabis (which also was rescheduled to allow Drs to prescribe) access is still very limited and completely controlled by the TGA. Cannabis business is booming here in Australia, yet the majority of locally grown supply is sold internationally rather than domestically. The government profits from this industry while maintaining control of who is allowed access.

If nicotine is rescheduled, it’s not the magic fix vapers are hoping for. The ban on nicotine importation will be reviewed in twelve months time. This does leave vapers with some hope, but will rescheduling solve the problem of access? Health Minister Greg Hunt has said on many occasions he has no intention of making vaping legal while he is in office. It’s interesting how much input Minister Hunt has with the TGA, considering his recent alleged entrance interference with the agency’s review process of a self-testing flu kit.

Nicotine is currently listed in the Poisons Standard as a Schedule 7, except in preparations for human therapeutic use or in tobacco prepared and packed for smoking or in preparations approved for therapeutic use. The proposal currently before the TGA is asking for nicotine “at concentrations of 3.6 per cent or less of nicotine for self-administration with an electronic nicotine delivery system (‘personal vaporiser’ or ‘electronic cigarette’) for the purpose of tobacco harm reduction.”

3.6% is 36mg maximum strength available which is more than generous even for those that are new to vaping. I fully support this proposal but I am concerned on who will be allowed access and who will be supplying the nicotine. One of the man reasons I chose to vape was the savings. With the government collecting $17 Billion each year from tobacco taxes its hard to believe that the price of nicotine sold in Australia would be much higher than what consumers currently pay from countries like New Zealand. If the ultimate goal is to produce liquid nicotine in Australia then that would be controlled by the TGA and whichever business is given a permit to produce and distribute.

E-Liquid for Vaping by Lyndsay Fox via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

There is a better way

Australia should be looking to Canada for an example of nicotine regulations that work. Canada has a 60mg cap on nicotine, which can only be purchased from specialty vape stores. New Zealand has no such laws regarding nicotine and it is sold in vape stores across the country. The UK has vape shops inside hospitals and vaping is fully accepted as a front line smoking cessation method. Vape stores are allowed to sell nicotine liquids as well as offer specialist advice to consumers.

State laws here in Victoria prevent shops from displaying products or suggesting products to customers. The unavailability of nicotine and the way vaping is treated as something that should be kept underground, it’s easy to see why there are so many barriers to entry for smokers hoping to switch to vaping. There is no doubt that more readily available access would improve health outcomes for many Austrlians thereby also lightening the load on the health system.

While Minister Hunt continues to deny the evidence that vaping is 95% safer than smoking thousands of Australians continue to die from preventable smoking related diseases. The claim that there is not enough research is false. Nicotine has been around for a very long time, and more recent studies have shown it could play a big part in treating conditions such as Parkinson’s Disease. It’s time to put the pressure on Minister Hunt and the TGA to accept what other western countries are embracing, Vaping saves lives.

What you can do

There is still time to prevent these changes. The Governor General of Australia has the power to say no. You can be writing to Minister Hunt and the Governor General. It’s also important to keep reminding your local MP and state senators that this is an important issue. Legalise Vaping Australia has a handy form where you can input your post code and it will list your local MP and senators. It also states what their stance on vaping is if any. You can find the page here. There is also a form that can send a letter on your behalf to your local MP.

Legalise Vaping Australia via Twitter

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davewakeman · 4 years

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Talking Tickets 19 June 2020--Recovery! Concerts! Secondary Market! And, More!

Hey There!

Thanks for being here again this week. If you are enjoying this newsletter, tell your friends and colleagues to sign up by visiting this link.

I was chatting with my friend, Simon, yesterday and we agreed…a great sign is that the Premier League is back and “Come On You Spurs!” If anyone needs me this afternoon, I’ll be watching football.

Come have a drink with me and Ken Troupe tonight at 5 PM EDT. I’ll be having a nice new bourbon from One Eight in DC. A local dad owns the distillery and his son plays on my soccer team…so winning!

If you haven’t jumped in the Slack channel yet or lately, we had a couple of really good threads this week on the secondary market, shows coming back, and general business acumen.

To the tickets!

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1. The Stockdale Paradox and the world of tickets, sports, and entertainment:

Simon shared the story of “The Stockdale Paradox” with me yesterday because we were both talking about how it can feel like a bit of a struggle to keep our focus and to know how to deal with keeping our businesses moving forward when the world is paused and we don’t know if we are at the beginning, middle, or end of our fight with the pandemic.

The Stockdale Paradox came from a book that many of you may have heard of called, Good to Great.

I have to say, I read a great deal. Tony Knopp has said offering me a book to read is especially difficult because I am one of the more well-read folks in the business. I bring that up because I had bought the book before the pandemic one morning when I was walking but didn’t hear about Admiral Stockdale’s story until Thursday.

I bring that up because I see a lot of varying opinions on when things are going to open for crowds and most of them vary from way too optimistic to completely absurd such as we will never have crowds again.

Baker Richards’, David Reece wrote a really nice piece this week about the various routes to recovery and it provides a really great way of approaching our thinking as we move towards whatever the future looks like.

My friend, Dorie Clark, put together a piece on resetting your goals in the face of tremendous uncertainty.

The reason I bring this whole concept up at the front this week is that I can say that personally I struggle with the uncertainty of the situation and I try to keep a very neutral approach to situations, neither too up nor too down. And, the pandemic has been a struggle for me.

The thing is that all of us have been impacted either catastrophically or just incredibly. No one that is reading this note today has had their business left unimpacted.

The way back isn’t clear either.

Dr. Fauci said that baseball might not want to play into the fall and that football may not happen in the fall.

Do I believe him?

I trust that he has dealt with public health issues his entire career and that two things are going to be driving what happens from now until we defeat the coronavirus: risk and new science.

Risk will be contextual and will change depending on the science, the situation, and a bunch of other factors. Like anywhere else, we are going to have to just keep an eye on things and make the best decisions we can based on the information at hand and the risk involved. I believe I shared a story about thinking through risks as things open up and the factors to consider. But the major point was that each situation we are going into will carry its own risk profile and we will have make decisions accordingly.

The second part of new science is pretty straightforward as well. With any new scientific discovery, the science and the facts change rapidly.

I’m sure with this virus likely by the hour.

This means that whatever any scientist or source tells us today is likely to be different tomorrow because the knowledge base is too shallow for us to really know exactly what is or isn’t correct in the long-run.

So keep an eye on both of these and allow judgment to be your friend because none of us really know what is going to happen between now and the end of the pandemic, but to paraphrase Jim Collins, “we must operate under the knowledge that this will end while also dealing with the brutal realities on the ground.”

Or, as Simon said he is telling the Booking Protect team, “Control the Controllable.”

And, if you are looking for something to do to support the industry in the US right now, check out what NIVA is doing or connect with Derek Palmer who has been lobbying Congress.

2. The UK government is concerned about the StubHub/Viagogo merger:

Well, aren’t we all?

A few weeks back we discussed the in-depth article that called the merger something along the lines of the worst deal ever.

In light of the pandemic, the shutdown, and the lack of real information around when events will reopen to crowds and how that process will work, this deal probably is even more interesting to folks than it was before the pandemic.

Let’s think through three reasons that this deal carries additional weight and attention now:

First, Viagogo and the secondary market have not always been well-received by the average consumer in the UK and many other places around the world.

If you aren’t familiar with Viagogo’s practices in the UK, they’ve been ducking the government for years while the media has been recounting many instances where tickets were denied at the door, tickets weren’t received, or the terms and conditions weren’t properly disclosed.

So, the idea that the government of the UK was going to just wave through the merger because the States had given approval was unlikely.

Now that the government has a position of strength over this deal, how will they push Viagogo into compliance with the UK’s rules and regulations? And, what will they do to ensure that the behavior of the combined entity meets their expectations?

Two, the ongoing refund and cancellation challenges around the coronavirus.

Early in the pandemic, StubHub was taking the bulk of the heat for their response to the coronavirus and the postponement, rescheduling, and cancellation of events all over America and their response to these events. This wasn’t just a StubHub problem but a challenge that the entire industryhas been dealing with in different ways and forms.

While they’ve updated their policies a number of times, not much really seems to be resolved because we still see claims on social media that fans aren’t receiving refunds even in states that require refunds by law.

As the pandemic continues to march forward and we gain some direction on what events might happen when; what events will be rescheduled or changed; and how makes it to the other side of the pandemic still in business, the state of the merger will be more and more interesting to keep an eye on…because who knows what outs are in the deal or how the financing mechanisms are set up, eventually putting the shoe back on liability and who is left holding the bill.

Because like a lot of this…we just don’t know.

Third, this deal and the impact of the coronavirus is a window into the secondary market, the ticket market, and the business of entertainment.

We’ve learned a lot over the last few months including that these businesses were revenue rich and cash poor, debt-fueled a lot of these businesses, and your partners matter because the terms and conditions of your relationship can be changed with little or no warning.

As this story continues to play out and the entire ecosystem works towards whatever becomes the reopening of events with tickets, how the entire ecosystem recovers will tell us a lot about what the next decade of the industry looks like.

I’m still thinking about what I think here, but here are a few questions I’m thinking about:

* What shape will the secondary market take on the other side of this? Because it most certainly isn’t going to go back to the way it was before the pandemic. * What will be the ripple effect of the postponements, cancellations, and rescheduled events? * What percentage of organizations will take the approach of trying to return to business as usual when they were already struggling with attendance, sales, and marketing?

3. Major League Baseball is still working on a deal:

I feel a little bit like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football that Lucy is holding when I write about baseball and holding a 2020 season.

The latest proposal is for 70 games. At a certain point, we are going to run out of time to hold a baseball season.

The owners and the players have a long history of strife and it seems that the owners feel like they are in a much stronger position than they may actually be.

Sure, MLB has a new TV deal with TBS with growing TV rights. But we’ve also learned a lot about the business of the game since the start of the pandemic with the Cubs saying that 70% of their revenue comes from having fans in the stadium for games and most of the teams seeming to clock in around 35-40%.

What does this mean?

The sport needs fans and not just eyeballs because fans in the building are super important and baseball has been declining for several years and the average fan’s age has been steadily climbing.

I’ve written a lot here about baseball recently and I’ve been pretty consistent that there is just too much to be gained and to lose by not getting a deal done…but will it happen? I just don’t know.

4. The AFL is coming to ESPN:

Am I ahead of the curve or what?

I’ve been mentioning how great the AFL is for months now and how my team, Melbourne FC, rocks…now you’ll get to see that the AFL rocks and Melbourne is struggling, but let’s forget about the last part.

The last few weeks have been pretty positive for sport in Australia as their Prime Minister also announced that up to 10,000 fans could be in the stands in the next few weeks.

While the business of sports in Australia has been hit especially hard, the NRL has managed to stabilize its operations, the A-League is set to return, and organizations and partners are planning for the future.

What can we learn from Australian sport business right now?

In general, a lot because they are some of the most innovative and creative folks in the world due to the saturation of their markets.

In this context, we should recognize the need to innovate no matter what the circumstances, the importance of planning and project management to succeed in dealing with the coronavirus’s fallout, and sometimes opportunities come because you are prepared and in the right place. (Not that I’m discounting hard work for luck, but the harder I work…the luckier I get. And, sometimes you just get lucky!)

5. Live Nation changes terms with artists in advance of 2021 festivals:

The festival business is tough and I’ve been involved in festivals where some of the headliners haven’t just not promoted or helped sell tickets…they have actively taken actions that would hurt ticket sales and we would have no recourse.

Like everything that is happening now, there are going to be a lot of unintended consequences to this. Likely, it will be two years before we really know what they are.

I do think it is important to see how artists react and whether this pushes more artists to go to international markets more regularly where Live Nation may not have as strong of a hold on a market.

We will see.

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What am I up to this week?

New podcast posted this week with me being interviewed by Eric Fuller for his first Rescue Meet event.

I have a couple of new articles going up exclusively on the We Will Recoverwebsite next week on recovery and the “new normal”.

Also, I’m going to be posting an exclusive post on the Booking Protect blog on lessons from the pandemic and WFH that can be applied after the pandemic.

I’m in DC this week! Duh! Where else might I be at this point?

Please follow and like us:

Talking Tickets 19 June 2020–Recovery! Concerts! Secondary Market! And, More! was originally published on Wakeman Consulting Group

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cliftonsteen · 4 years

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Understanding The Middle East’s Flourishing Coffee Market

The Middle Eastern coffee market is experiencing a skyrocketing growth in imports and its younger generation is pushing a specialty coffee scene. Yet the region’s coffee culture is not like that of North America, Europe, or Australia – and those hoping to take advantage of the market opportunities will need to understand the differences in order to see success.

To gain more insight into the region, I had a chat with Maria Eduarda Pavani of Tres Marias Coffee in Dubai. Her company supplies the region with green beans from Ally Coffee, private label coffees, and barista training.

You might also like Coffee Tasting Exercises That Will Improve Your Palate

Coffee sample being roasted. Credit: Diego Nájera

A New Market With Immense Growth

“The coffee industry in the Middle East is growing very fast,” Maria says, stressing the demand for coffee “in all forms – green coffee, roasted coffee, and coffee beverages.”

She tells me that “in the United Arab Emirates, this demand started probably 10 years ago.” Now, it has what she considers a “mature” coffee culture.

According to the ICO, Saudi Arabian coffee imports rose by 42.8% between 2008 and 2018. Turkey saw a 192.8% growth, while in the United Arab Emirates, it was an incredible 249% increase.

These are startling statistics: during the same period, US and Japanese imports grew by just 19% and 6.8% respectively. And with the exception of the UAE, the re-export of coffee in the Middle East is low – meaning we are seeing striking increases in consumption and interest throughout the region.

Focusing on just the percentage growth could bias our view of the overall consumption pattern – after all, the US was consuming over 26 times more coffee than Saudi Arabia back in 2008. Yet the growth is worth noting and explains the fledgling interest in the region.

Maria believes that Saudi Arabia’s burgeoning coffee consumer market plays a big role in recent growth, saying that “a new era” has begun. “It is a huge country with a population of over 32 million, and a couple of months ago, they took an important step,” she says. She is referring to the relaxing of regulation that previously required businesses to segregate their male and female customers. While many businesses still segregate, others are relaxing the rules. And as Maria says, “as an official dry country, this socialization is happening around the coffee shops and coffee houses.”

Yet even before this change in regulation, the importance of the coffee market was not to be underestimated. In February 2019, the Dubai government invested US $35 million in building a DMCC coffee center. The 7,500m² space features an SCA Training Campus, a coffee quality lab, and cupping labs. It’s anticipated to handle up to 20,000 tonnes of green beans annually, at a projected value of US $100 million.

Green coffee bags in a warehouse. Credit: Meklit Mersha

A Tale of Two Coffee Traditions

What sets the Middle East apart from other regions is its rich coffee traditions that evolved prior to European coffee cultures and still exist today. Maria tells me that coffee is “almost a language” in Arabic culture.

In fact, qahwa, the Arabic word for coffee, is the root of the words we use today: “coffee” and “café”. And while there is no denying the social role that coffee plays in most countries, the coffee-drinking etiquette of the Middle East is complex and deeply entrenched.

“If you go to visit an Arabic friend, they will make sure to serve you Arabic coffee,” Maria tells me. “Once you finish your cup, if you want to be served again, you should shake your hand with the cup, meaning ‘I would like to have more.’ Or, they say that if you are not welcome somewhere, they would just not refill your cup of coffee and that would be the message delivered.”

Today, the region has a hybrid coffee culture: one in which traditional Arabic culture holds influence but so do Western-style cafés with their filter coffee. “The young generation really loves specialty coffee, the whole aspect of it: the product, the experience, and also the ‘hanging-out’ factor in coffee shops,” Maria says. “Many people living in the UAE are expats as well, so a lot of them already know specialty coffee from their [home] countries or previous experiences.”

Yet that doesn’t mean we should overlook the relevance of traditional culture. As Maria says, “if someone drinks specialty coffee, it does not mean that they won’t drink Arabic coffee.”

It’s also important to consider the influence of two distinct Western coffee traditions: third wave and second wave coffee. “The region loves sweet coffee,” Maria says, highlighting Spanish lattes, pistachio lattes, and saffron lattes as particularly popular drinks. Spanish lattes are made with a mixture of condensed and regular steamed and textured milk, meaning it is sweeter than a regular latte, while most flavoured syrups for lattes are very sweet.

Successful coffee shops often cater to a range of palates, Maria tells me. While “there are some coffee shops that have really extraordinary single origins,” she could “probably count on one hand” the shops that just offer third wave drinks.

With consumers drinking “six to ten cups a day,” competing coffee cultures often just add variety to people’s lives.

Espresso and milk beverage. Credit: Neil Soque

Middle Eastern Tastes For Specialty Coffee

Maria tells me that “normally Arabic coffee is made with Ethiopian Harar and Yemeni coffee is also very popular.” Saudi Arabia was the second-largest buyer of Ethiopian coffee in 2017–18, importing 16% of the country’s total exports. Only Germany, with a population nearly three times the size of Saudi Arabia, bought more Ethiopian beans.

Yet with the rise of specialty coffee, Brazilian beans have become a “bestseller,” according to Maria. “Most of the cafés will have two hopper/grinders, where they would offer Brazil and a second origin that would be normally Ethiopia, but it could vary,” she says.

According to the Arab-Brazilian Chamber of Commerce, countries in the Middle East were some of the fastest-growing importers of Brazilian coffee in 2018–19. Imports to Lebanon and the UAE grew by 24.5% and 21.8% respectively. Overall, the region saw a 4.9% increase, with Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan as the biggest buyers.

Yet it’s not just about Brazilian beans. Maria tells me, “Clients love to experiment as well, with other origins, different experimental processes, and anything that is new.”

In a relatively young and curious specialty coffee market, consumers approach the coffee menu with open minds. They might return to their favourites, the Brazilian and Ethiopian beans, but they’ll happily sample whatever else is on offer.

Two bean hoppers with different coffees at a coffee shop. Credit: Neil Soque

Understanding The Middle Eastern Coffee Entrepreneur

A rapidly growing market creates new business opportunities, but it’s not easy for entrepreneurs to succeed. Maria tells me that “micro-roasters are popping up everywhere” but the high cost of business in the UAE means that they either need to see exponential growth or run the roastery as a side-business.

Entrepreneurship is growing more common across the Middle East, yet it’s still a relatively unusual career path. Between 2013 and 2018, the number of startups in the MENA region increased by 48% – but they make up just 0.3% of companies overall, compared with the OECD average of 6.9%. Rates of business ownership across Saudi Arabia and the UAE are roughly half that of the US and UK.

One of the main barriers is funding, yet that is starting to pick up across the region. In 2019, there was a 31% year-on-year growth in the number of investments made in new businesses, with a 12% rise in value. Most investments happened in the UAE, followed by Egypt and Lebanon, while Saudi Arabia saw marked increases. Although most of these investments were in financial technology or e-commerce, there is a sense that now is a good moment for those who have been dreaming of setting up their own coffee business.

For those who have already taken the plunge and proven successful, expansion is also an option. The café-roastery is an increasingly common model. “A lot of coffee shops are growing and expanding so they see the need to open their own roastery to produce their own coffee shops and open a new line of income by selling B2B,” Maria explains.

Although there are challenges, Maria feels optimistic about the future of coffee entrepreneurs in the region. “I think the market is open for new opportunities, suppliers, and coffee professionals,” she stresses.

The Middle East has long stood apart from the rest of the specialty coffee market, thanks to its distinctive coffee traditions. Yet cultural changes, expat influences, and increasing exposure to specialty coffee have led to a vibrant and varied café industry, as well as a growing number of roasters.

The region has its own characteristics, from the interest in Brazilian and Ethiopian beans to the challenges of business ownership. Yet one thing is for sure: it is a player on the world market and its influence is only going to grow.

Enjoyed this? You might also like Tips For Calibrating Palates Across Different Countries

Written by Sunghee Tark.

Please note: This article has been sponsored by Ally Coffee.

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The post Understanding The Middle East’s Flourishing Coffee Market appeared first on Perfect Daily Grind.

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orbemnews · 4 years

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Without Backpackers to Pick Them, Crops Rot by the Ton in Australia SHEPPARTON, Australia — Peter Hall ran a hand over the Gala apples sitting in a wooden crate on his orchard in southeastern Australia, lamenting the yellow tinge of fruit that would ideally be crisp red and green. With the borders closed to the backpackers who do much of the country’s farm labor, Mr. Hall was short 15 workers. That had left him racing against the clock. Just a couple of extra days on the tree, and apples can be relegated to low-profit juice. “We’ve never faced a worker shortage like this in my 40 years,” Mr. Hall said. “I suspect for each lot of crop, we’ll just not get there in time.” “It’s extraordinarily frustrating,” he added. The pandemic has disrupted the rhythms of labor and migration worldwide. In Western Europe, for example, borders were tightened early last year, keeping out seasonal workers from Eastern Europe. But in isolated Australia, the pandemic has delivered a particularly sharp blow, exposing the unstable foundation of its agriculture industry, a growing $54 billion-a-year goliath that for years has been underpinned by the work of young, transient foreigners. Measures to keep the coronavirus out of the country have left Australia with a deficit of 26,000 farmworkers, according to the nation’s top agriculture association. As a result, tens of millions of dollars in crops have gone to waste from coast to coast. In the state of Victoria, rows of baby spinach and rocket, also known as arugula, have been plowed back into the earth, and peaches have been sent to the shredder. In Queensland, citrus growers have bulldozed acres of trees and left blueberries to rot. And in Western Australia, watermelons have been slashed and dug under. This enormous destruction has fueled rising calls for Australia to rethink how it secures farm labor, with many pushing for an immigration overhaul that would give agricultural workers a pathway to permanent residency. The current system was never intended to be a permanent solution to farmers’ decades-long labor struggles. But as the industry expanded and fewer Australians were willing to pick crops, the so-called backpacker program offered a lifeline. Since 2005, the government has steered young travelers to farms by offering extensions of working holiday visas from one year to two for those who have completed three months of work in agriculture. Backpackers can earn extensions by working in other industries like construction or mining, but 90 percent do so through farm work. In a normal year, more than 200,000 backpackers would come to Australia, making up 80 percent of the country’s harvest work force, according to industry groups. Now, there are just 45,000 in the country, according to government data. Attempts to fill the labor shortage with unemployed Australians have been largely unsuccessful. Only 350 applicants signed up for a federal government program that offers subsidies of 6,000 Australian dollars, or about $4,600, to work in rural areas. A last-ditch proposal by one state government to use prison labor was shelved after an uproar by farmers. So the federal government has flown in workers from nearby Pacific islands, which have largely avoided the pandemic. It’s part of an existing program that is one of Australia’s main sources of aid to the Pacific. With border restrictions in place, the arrangements have sometimes been convoluted. In January, after months of urging from the federal government and industry groups, Victoria agreed to take 1,500 Pacific island workers. They must first quarantine for two weeks on the island of Tasmania before being flown to Victoria. In exchange, 330 Tasmanians stranded overseas will be able to return through Victoria’s quarantine hotels. Nationwide, only about 2,400 workers have been flown into the country since the borders were shut, according to the National Farmers’ Federation. Updated March 2, 2021, 10:15 p.m. ET For years, industry groups have been pushing for a dedicated agriculture visa, but the idea has repeatedly run into obstacles. The last time it was seriously raised, in 2018, it caused alarm in Pacific island nations that said it could divert money away from their workers. Some academics said such a move could diminish Australia’s influence in the region, allowing China to make greater inroads. The idea was quietly shelved. A dedicated, stable work force would benefit not just farmers. It could also reduce abuses that have become rampant under the temporary labor system, according to researchers and unions. “The work force was easily exploitable, and there were no protections,” Joanna Howe, an expert on temporary labor migration at the University of Adelaide, said of the working holiday visa. “It pulled down wages and conditions in the industry. Noncompliance became the norm, and as a result, locals left the industry.” The abuses, exposed in a string of media reports in recent years, have run the gamut. “We’ve seen cases of sexual abuse, physical violence, passports taken against people’s wills,” said Dan Walton, secretary of the Australian Workers’ Union. “We’ve seen every form of dodgy labor practice, from ripping off wages, withholding pay, false deductions taken out of people’s pay.” Kiah Fowler, 23, a backpacker from Pennsylvania, arrived in Bundaberg, Queensland, in March 2020 to pick strawberries after having lost her hospitality job elsewhere in Queensland. “There are some wonderful farmers, but I happened to land myself in a region that’s known for some backpacker exploitation,” she said. “I was desperate for money, and thought it couldn’t be as bad as people said it was. It was.” The contractor she worked for paid her 19 Australian dollars an hour, or $14.75 — below the minimum casual wage of 24 Australian dollars — and offered only two to four hours of work a day, she said. The same contractor charged her 210 Australian dollars a week to stay in a cramped house with nine other backpackers. She and the other backpackers, she said, were aware that they were being taken advantage of, “but during Covid, a lot of us were like, ‘What choice do we have?’” Eventually, she left the job. Ben Rogers, the general manager for workplace relations and legal affairs at the National Farmers’ Federation, acknowledged that the industry’s reputation for underpayment and mistreatment of workers was not completely unearned. But he added that the organization was doing what it could through quality assurance programs and calls for new hiring regulations. There are hopes that addressing these problems could help bring some Australians back into the industry. Farmers talk about changing how the industry is viewed, starting in school, and about technological advancements that would make it less labor intensive. The Australian Workers’ Union has lodged a challenge with the Fair Work Commission to mandate an industry minimum wage. It believes that a wage floor would reduce the likelihood of underpayment and encourage a more local work force. But these potential solutions, as well as changes in immigration rules, are years off, if they ever happen. Right now, farmers are contending with national borders that were closed in March 2020 and are unlikely to reopen until 2022. The area around Shepparton, a city two hours north of Melbourne, where Mr. Hall was rushing to harvest his apples, is one of the worst hit by the labor shortage. Usually, backpackers would be flocking to Victoria Park Lake, in the middle of town, to use its free barbecue facilities and set up tents and park vans. This year, though, it’s quiet and still. Hostels, too, are mostly empty. One Australian, Brett Jones, 38, said he would return to a construction job soon. “With construction, at the end you feel like you’ve accomplished something, rather than just filled a bin of pears for someone,” he said. Besides, he admitted, “I’m not very good at fruit picking.” “My mind keeps wandering,” he said. “I keep thinking there has to be an easier way to make money.” Source link Orbem News #Australia #Backpackers #crops #Pick #Rot #ton

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nationwidesolarprosinstall-blog · 5 years

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Everything You Need to Know About Solar in Arizona

Arizona is known as the solar industry’s pioneer state and with good reason. Considering that the sun shines 85% of the year, Arizona and solar are like two peas in a pod. It’s no wonder, then, that the state is one of the top in the country in solar energy generation.

Solar use in Arizona goes back a long way. The history is colorful and surrounded by influential people and technology that made solar power the clean, efficient energy generator that it is today.

Now, innovations in solar technology have allowed regular homeowners in Arizona and around the globe access to this money-saving, carbon footprint reducing way to produce power in their homes. This economic change has catapulted solar energy to the highest levels it has ever been worldwide.

For residents of Arizona, it has major implications, too.

A Quick Timeline of Solar Power

Solar power has been harnessed for millennia when people used the strategic placement of openings in their homes to keep them warm, light up the interior, and even cook or start fires. We’ve come a long way since then, but the idea is the same – we want to use solar energy to completely power our homes.

In the 1800s, solar technology began being developed. In 1839 the idea that voltage can be created when a material is exposed to light, or the photovoltaic effect, was discovered. This laid the foundation for the first solar cell, at 1% efficiency, to be created. Fast forward to the 1950s and that little, inefficient solar cell was the catalyst for the birth of photovoltaics by David Chapin, Calvin Fuller and Gerald Pearson of Bell Labs. They were able to create a machine that was 4% efficient and later increased the efficiency to 11%.

Because of the inefficiency in these solar cells and the expense that was required to create them, the idea of solar power was intriguing, but the process of rolling it out for public use was not feasible. However, wealthy businesses and homeowners were purchasing solar systems for use, allowing developers and researchers to continue to study this clean energy resource and tweak it for continued improvements.

By 2015, Australia, who had much earlier let the world know that they were going to be a world leader in solar power, had improved the technology to the point that it was now cheaper to use solar energy than fossil fuels. Solar technology was now commonly found in airplanes, luxury vehicles, homes, and businesses, and the effect began to spread across the globe.

Solar Power’s Influence Rushes into Arizona

The government of Arizona quickly took notice. If Australia could harness the power of solar energy on such magnitude, why couldn’t they? The mountains of Arizona are a naturally absorbent material of the sun, and there is a constant supply of this renewable resource, so why not figure out how to make the best of it?

This journey became more economically viable back in 2006 when the Renewable Energy Standard and Tariff was enacted. This piece of legislation regulated utility companies and required them to utilize renewable sources to generate a minimum of 15% of their power by 2025. They also had to generate at least 30% of their power from renewable distributed sources such as solar panels. The race was on to find ways to make this happen, and it quickly became apparent that without the help of the millions of Arizona residents, it wouldn’t be possible.

For this reason, utility companies began coming up with rebates and other incentives to offer homeowners and businesses as a carrot to switch to solar power. Between these financial offerings and the impressive state and federal tax credits, solar energy use in Arizona skyrocketed, sending it to its current spot now as the top third state in the nation for solar power generation.

In fact, Arizona currently has over 3,300 megawatts of solar capability in use. This may not sound like much, but it’s enough to power over 500,000 homes just by using the sun’s rays that come every day without any side effects or labor to make it happen. And Arizona is ready to increase that solar capability annually.

With the price of solar almost 55% cheaper than it was five years ago, the state is going to need that extra capacity to account for all of the new installations on the agenda and the rest to come as more people learn about the incredible benefits of turning to solar energy for their homes and businesses.

The solar industry has boomed, creating over 7,000 jobs just in Arizona alone – the 7th highest in the nation, and still climbing. A recent clean energy overhaul proposal by Arizona Corporation Commission member Andrew Tobin, if passed, would lead the state to surpass all others in renewable energy and grid modernization. This proposal takes the old 25% target and increases it to 80% by 2050.

With some of the top sunniest cities in the country right in Arizona, like Yuma, Phoenix, and Tucson, this figure is not even intimidating. Arizona could easily generate enough energy to power millions of homes, more than double its current usage.

The Effects are More Than Financial

Solar power absolutely puts money in your pocket, and with all of the incentives, rebates, tax credits, and other financial perks that come with installing a solar system, it becomes the smartest investment you can make in terms of renovating your home. But there are benefits far beyond your wallet that lead many people to choose to make the switch to solar.

Solar energy is renewable and abundant. Instead of drilling for fossil fuels like coal and natural gas, the use of solar energy requires no work once the initial equipment is installed. Because of the ease of using it, solar power is much less expensive. There are no harmful impacts on the environment, and there’s no danger of it running out.

In fact, there’s so much solar energy available that one hour of all of the sun’s rays would be enough to provide everyone in the world with enough power to last them over a year. And unlike other clean energy fuels like wind, solar power is consistent and predictable.

Solar energy reduces the dependence on fossil fuels for power. Electricity generated by fossil fuels creates a massive abundance of greenhouse gas emissions like carbon dioxide. These gases are produced during the burning process of turning fossil fuels into energy. Concerns of increasing temperatures across the globe and climate change have been attributed to the build-up of these gases.

Every home that goes solar reduces the demand for fossil fuels – a non-renewable resource that is disappearing quickly – and, at the same time, diminishes greenhouse gas emissions. You can shrink your carbon footprint while you save money. In fact, statistics show that the average American home can save approximately 150 trees each year simply by moving to solar (not to mention the significant reduction on your energy bill)!

Using solar energy can improve your health. No, we are not just talking about the decreased stress level you’ll feel knowing you don’t have to pay those hefty utility bills every month. Your physical health can improve, too.

Solar energy emits a miniscule amount of pollutants into the air. By adopting solar power on a widespread level, like the one that is already in effect in Las Vegas, Nevada, the reduction in dangerous gases and pollutants could significantly reduce the amount of chronic health problems Americans currently suffer from.

These pollutants are known to cause respiratory and cardiovascular health conditions such as chronic bronchitis. The implications of these illnesses go beyond the physical, too. Costs for treating these conditions can run into millions of dollars each year and the individuals suffering from them can lose thousands of dollars annually in missed work or lose their jobs completely if they become permanently disabled from their condition.

By turning to solar power, you are reducing your carbon footprint, saving money, and helping to improve the overall health of the world for generations to come.

Unlike many other benefits to the environment, solar power does not come at a great financial expense. With this type of clean energy, you get all of the benefits of helping the environment at the same time as you reap all of the financial perks that come with having a solar system installed in Arizona.

Keep Up with the Changing Times

While modern society has always been dependent on fossil-fueled power, the times they are a-changing. Fossil fuel is becoming an increasingly expensive and inefficient use of resources. With the buildup of greenhouse gases destroying our environment and the abundance of clean energy sources, it simply makes no sense any longer to keep using this outdated form of electricity in our homes.

Residents of Arizona are blessed with living in a state where solar energy is abundant. It’s only logical, then, to utilize this resource to its optimal extent. You can join in with the millions of others who know that harnessing the power of solar energy is the way of the future by calling the experts at Nationwide Solar Pros.

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