Travel 2021: What will be on the itinerary once vaccination opens up the world? – The Financial Express

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Newfound appreciation for doorstep delights will endure alongside an abiding love of the far-flung, and travellers will find new ways to blur the lines between work and travel.

When the world opens up, which hopefully might happen in the coming months, the one thing people would like to make up for the most is travel. However, travel may not be carefree and without caution at least this year. And, both consumers and the travel and hospitality industry are geared up for that.

As per a Booking.com global report predicting the future of travel in 2021, about 65% people are excited about traveling again after lockdowns and 38% will plan a trip to make up for a celebration missed due to coronavirus. The report says travellers will look for a heightened level of travel safety and more sustainable travel offerings, as well as evolve their preferences for where and with whom they travel. Newfound appreciation for doorstep delights will endure alongside an abiding love of the far-flung, and travellers will find new ways to blur the lines between work and travel. All of which will catapult a demand for deeper value from the trips booked in the future.

Gloria Guevara, president and CEO, World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC), says travelling in the new normal age requires coordinated actions, including new standards and protocols for a safe and responsible road to recovery for the global travel and tourism sector as consumers start planning trips again.

That special trip

The first trip should be a special one after the lockdown. Travel agencies like Thomas Cook India suggest local and long family stays, road trips to unknown destinations, luxury travel and increased use of non-hotel accommodations will be in huge demand. A stay in a planters villa in Kerala, ocean suites or water bungalows in the Maldives, a luxurious experience at Dubais Atlantis, and experiences like a jeep safari amidst the lush plantations of Munnar, a unique bush-dining experience in Bandhavgarh, mangrove walks in the Sundarbans or the heady adrenalin rush of bungee jumping in Rishikesh could be exciting options.

Ease of travel restrictions and resurgence in domestic tourism has made consumers keen to explore unknown places. Hence, we created the hidden gems portfolio with unique experiences. Customer behaviour and booking trends reveal that as Indians were unable to holiday in 2020, a combination of pent-up travel demand and health/safety concerns are resulting in a new found interest in affordable luxury packages with bookings for global brands given their focus on hygiene protocols. In the face of travel and health protocols, Indians are opting for the ease of mono-destination vacations with extended stays, says Rajeev Kale, president & country head, holidays, MICE, Visa, Thomas Cook India.

Destinations like Maldives, Dubai, Goa, Andaman, Himachal, Rajasthan and Kerala will be in good demand, feels Daniel Dsouza, president and country head, leisure, SOTC Travel, who conducted the SOTC Travel Holiday Readiness Report recently based on customer perceptions for holiday travel post-pandemic. We expect a surge in demand for private homes and boutique properties with local guides in 2021, eclectic accommodation such as colonial bungalow, heritage properties, palaces and travel insurance, adds Dsouza who feels Drivcations (driving vacations) and multi-generational staycations will see an uptick in the post-Covid-19 travel landscape.

Touchless travel

Technology has played a key role in driving demand and innovation. Touchless travel will accelerate for some time. The notion of touching grubby menus or interacting with airport kiosks will undergo massive changes.

From pre-packed and sealed meals, immunity passports, global airline strategy firm SimpliFlying predicted more than 70 ways in which air travel will be different in future. Expect, for instance, the use of personal devices to grow as passengers would avoid touching seat-back screens. There will be no cash transactions, or passengers wiping their own seats. A social-distancing-friendly class, touchless cabin, in-flight janitor and a document to prove immunity will play a critical role, besides, self-service technologies at every step will facilitate passenger flow, cutting queues while ensuring a social distancing-friendly passenger experience.

Hotels and restaurants will opt for contactless arrivals and dining experiences. Some brands like Club Mahindra of Mahindra Holidays & Resorts India even offer Covid insurance, travel insurance, testing, and car sanitation services.

Digital menus, QR codes and mobile orders will redefine dining out. Like My Menu, a specialised digital tablet menu service provider, has launched a QR ordering solution to enable better display information of the menu. Eating out platform EazyDiners Safe+Dining is a safety programme for restaurants and diners for real-time feedback on hygiene standards. With a demand for technology solutions like inventory and wastage management, dining out tech platform Dineout has launched technology for hotels to reserve time slots at gym, spa and laundry services, besides in-room dining technology while maintaining the least contact possible.

Healthy halts

Given the challenges faced in 2020, Indians look towards travel as a transformative experience. They want to spend time interacting with their surrounds and locals to enjoy a more immersive experience. This year has been challenging for working professionals who seek wellness and spiritual breaks to Goa, Coorg, Himachal and Kerala, says Kale.

Brands continue to offer enriching experiences of a destinations local community. Like Hyatt Loves Local initiative, a global effort by Hyatt hotels to collaborate with small businesses that have been impacted by the pandemic, has more than 60 Hyatt hotels and resorts in destinations across the Americas, Asia Pacific, Europe and the Middle East to provide complimentary resources and exposure to select local businesses. Examples are Andaz Delhi sourcing local produce from certified organic and sustainable producers, Grand Hyatt Kochi Bolgatty collaborating with representatives from Kerala government-run female-empowerment mission Kudumbashree to offer indigenous products made by women across the district.

Farm-to-table concept is here to stay as most people will turn to healthy and immunity boosting eating. Kandima Maldives, a lifestyle resort, has The Fresh Lab, which sources fresh produce from island farms. The Residence by Cenizaro, independent luxury resorts in Maldives, Indonesia, Mauritius, Zanzibar and Tunis, has pioneered an initiative called the Earth Basket an on-site kitchen farm to develop their unique needs, compost food waste in-house and provide rich varieties of zero-kilometre produce.

Responsible, green travel policies and active measures will be a priority for a healthy world. Ankita Sheth, co-founder of Vista Rooms, a chain of luxury holiday homes across India, has properties with farm kitchens, solar power and waste management system, pet-friendly and wheelchair friendly. She feels, Especially after the pandemic, there is an increasing concern for living in the natural environment. More people value the importance of health, opt for rural and wildlife exploration and open to support green travel policies and experiential stays with nature. This will be an important decision driver in travel planning in the near future.

The new travel pass

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) is in the final stages of developing a digital vaccine passport for travellers. Governments and airlines may begin requiring travellers to get the immunisation and prove it with a new form of digital documentation called a vaccine passport. Thus, proof of the vaccine will be a new travel document. Tests and masks will stick around-even after a vaccine approval.

While announcements on the vaccine have already seen positive consumer sentiment, a digital health passport would be of value to ensure ease and convenience in facilitating travel across borders, while ensuring strong checks are in place, feels Kale of Thomas Cook India.

With the revival of the sector, mass vaccination drives in nations like the UK, US and Russia can give rise to vaccine tourism packages that may include a small tour to the destination, a visit to the health centre for the vaccination, the cost of which will be included in the package.

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Travel 2021: What will be on the itinerary once vaccination opens up the world? - The Financial Express

Jim Cramer: 10 Investment Themes I Like in 2021 – RealMoney

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Themes, I always fall back on themes. That's the best way to approach selloffs. That, of course, and having some cash stored up after a remarkable year-long run, one where the S&P was up 16 and some Nasdaq stocks had insane moves higher.

Look, it's easy to see what's up on a day like Monday and say, wow, these stocks are that strong, we have to buy them. There were plenty like that: CVS (CVS) , which rallied on how JPMorgan Chase (JPM) , Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A) (BRK.B) and Alphabet (GOOGL) quit their attempt to change the healthcare system. CVS, with its Aetna ownership and hammerlock on the vaccine process. I see PVH (PVH) , an old favorite, climbing on a brokerage push. Same with Lululemon (LULU) . I admire the financials for their modest rallies led by former underperformer Goldman Sachs (GS) , on an understanding that financial help, including picking stocks and doing transactions, matter again.

You can never go wrong buying up stocks on a down day. You catch an up day Tuesday and those stocks will be the first to rally because they were stone walls when everything else was crumbling except the redoubtable Tesla (TSLA) with a stock that might go down in the event of nuclear war.

However, I am talking about themes that can stand the test not of today, or tomorrow, but for all of 2021 and beyond. That's what you have to be thinking about. You need to do that because there are real reasons why stocks are going down and you need to have ideas that get better when they go lower not worse.

What's driving stocks down?

First, I think there is a fear that President Trump may be hurting his own cause, that the people of Georgia may be so upset with him from recent arm-twisting with Republican election officials that they stay away and Democrats take both Senate spots in Tuesday's voting. Second, stocks are up so much there are plenty of people who may have waited until the new year to take some profits. Third, I think the President, at this very moment, seems to believe he doesn't need to leave the White House and, in what should be a losing cause by headcount, many Republicans believe he's right. And finally, while Operation Warp Speed was swell, the administration of the vaccinescan only be considered abominable as the states have no idea what they are doing and vaccine stockpiles continue to grow. At least I am willing to call 'em as I see them. Others must fear presidential tweets. Get over yourself.

So what are the themes that I like and will return to many times this year:

First, e-commerce is growing not shrinking. While I like Amazon (AMZN) and Shopify (SHOP) , I think that this is the year for Walmart (WMT) and Costco (COST) to move to the fore. Walmart's already well on the way. Costco's been behind but in 2021 it catches up to everyone as it is now very serious about it and when Costco is very serious about anything it wins. By the way, I don't care that we may have vaccines soon. Americans have trialed e-commerce and they like it, trust it and believes it represents both convenience and a bargain. Any freight forwarding company will do well, too.

Second theme, a new one: you want to buy travel and leisure stocks on down days because the vaccine, as idiotic as it is being administered right now, won't always be so. I like Boeing (BA) for world travel, and two new ones, Uber (UBER) for local transit and food delivery and Airbnb (ABNB) , another company that has been sampled by many Americans and now represents a definitive bargain versus hotels post vaccine.

Third: Digitization. Hard to believe that everything hasn't been digitized but don't fool yourself, so many companies still think the cloud is like the rain or the sunshine. Others don't want to take the hit from moving on premise. Nevertheless, they have to. The bargain is too terrific. Again, the bargain is what will drive the enterprise. AMD (AMD) and Nvidia (NVDA) are primary digitization names engaged in takeovers -- Xilinx (XLNX) and ARM Holdings -- that will make them stronger in 2022. Yes, be that long-term please.

Ah hah, fourth is security. What a terrific thing to buy when stocks are down. I have had them all on Mad Money. CrowdStrike (CRWD) , Okta (OKTA) , Zscaler (ZS) and Palo Alto Networks (PANW) will all protect your cloud information,. NortonLifeLock (NLOK) , a very cheap stock with a good dividend ripe for a takeover, will protect your personal data.

Fifth, 5G remains a hugely important theme because it has barely begun. I think the premier 5G play is Marvell Technology (MRVL) , which had its numbers bumped Monday. Almost all semis are doing something 5G. I think that either Qualcomm (QCOM) and Skyworks (SWKS) can be your placeholder, too. Throw in some internet of things -- Texas Instruments (TXN) and NXPI (NXP) -- and you will be doing just fine.

Six: stimulus will produce what it did last time, lots of money to Walmart, which as I have noted is still down a lot from its high, Target (TGT) , Home Depot (HD) , Lowe's (LOW) and the dollar stores, Dollar General (DG) and Dollar Tree (DLTR) . Don't overthink it; it happened last time, it will happen again as the wealthier will go to the former and the less well off will steer to the latter.

Seven: China. No matter what you hear about how the PRC plays it -- where in the world is Jack Ma? -- President-Elect Biden will not be as tough on China as the current resident of the White House even if he stays in the White House, which seems to be his hell-or-high water intention. That means the Chinese will extend a thorn branch of buying Boeing planes -- there we go again -- as well as Caterpillar (CAT) and 3M (MMM) equipment. Nothing's a no brainer but I think that even President Xi, a modern day Mao, wants some 737 MAX's and 787s to show he prefers Biden to Trump. Boeing employs directly and indirectly two million people. Lotta voters. Mastercard (MA) , Visa (V) and American Express (AXP) can work, too, all of which dovetail with the travel and leisure theme just mentioned.

Eight: new theme: individual stock selection and wealthy management. That means Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley (MS) and, yes, Robinhood will all be viewed as places to run to in this new, non-index world.

Nine: Work from anywhere is going to be the new norm. It's just too inexpensive and healthy to do so. That's not changing. I think that the companies that help do that, Zoom (ZM) , Salesforce (CRM) once it closes on the Slack (WORK) deal, Microsoft (MSFT) , as well as Dell (DELL) , HP (HPQ) and Apple (AAPL) are all winners. You know me, I stand by Apple as always: own it, don't trade it.

Finally, ten, healthcare. You may not believe it but healthcare will be great under the Dems. The Affordable Care Act is here to stay. Again I like CVS as well as Humana (HUM) , UnitedHealth (UNH) and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) , the latter being the best positioned for both earnings-weak dollar-new products and the vaccine when they finally get it done.

There are plenty of other one-off ideas I continue to like. I think Facebook's (FB) cheap versus the growth numbers. I like AbbVie (ABBV) and Dow (DOW) for their dividends. Penn National (PENN) for gambling.

But it's the themes that work the best. You can buy them today, buy them tomorrow if they are down and I swear all of these are cheaper when they go lower.

(CVS, JPM, GOOGL, GS, AMZN, WMT, COST, BA, AMD, NVDA, NLOK, MRVL, MA, CRM, AAPL, FB, MSFT and ABBV are holdings in Jim Cramer's Action Alerts PLUS member club. Want to be alerted before Jim Cramer buys or sells these stocks? Learn more now.)

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Traveling to Spain during Covid-19: What you need to know before you go – CNN

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Editor's Note CNN Travel updates this article periodically. It was last updated in its entirety on December 28.

(CNN) If you're planning a trip to Spain, here's what you'll need to know and expect if you want to visit during the global coronavirus pandemic.

The basics

Spain has suffered greatly from Covid-19, with a high number of cases and deaths. After one of Europe's strictest lockdowns in spring, it reopened to visitors over the summer, but has since entered a state of emergency that is due to run until May 2021.

What's on offer

One of Europe's biggest hitters for good reason, Spain pulls tourists in by the millions thanks to its warm weather, laidback vibe and excellent food and wine. Plus, of course, there are some of Europe's best beach resorts, mountains, and cultural cities like Madrid, Seville and Barcelona.

Who can go

Travelers from the European Union, Australia, China, South Korea, Japan, New Zealand, Rwanda, Singapore, Thailand and Uruguay are all allowed to enter Spain without having to undergo quarantine. However, arrivals from the UK are restricted until January 6, 2021.

Visits from other countries are not permitted to enter, unless they gain special permission from the Spanish government.

What are the restrictions?

Health assessments take place on arrival into Spain, with a temperature check and visual examination as standard.

What's the Covid situation?

Spain has been in a state of emergency since the start of November 2020, with curbs due to be in place until May 2021. It has seen over 1.85 million infections and nearly 50,000 deaths. Case rates have recently dropped to their lowest since August, however, with signs that new measures are having a positive effect on transmission.

What can visitors expect?

Under the state of emergency, a national curfew is in place, effective from 11 p.m. until 6 a.m. Masks must be worn in public at all times (children aged five and under are exempt), while gatherings indoors and outdoors are limited to six people.

Restrictions vary by region, with some closing their internal borders to prevent transmission of Covid-19. Catalonia shut its bars and restaurants throughout November, while Madrid opted to keep them open. This regional approach means that restrictions often change depending on the local government. Curfew times may change as a result.

Hotels are operating at limited capacity, limiting guest numbers to ensure social distancing. Smoking outdoors is banned where two meters' social distancing cannot be maintained.

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Playing the Green Lottery: Life Inside Colombias Emerald Mines – The New York Times

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I was half a mile into the mine shaft, and my heart was racing. Hunched underneath the low ceiling and hardly able to see, I was following along by listening to the splashes of the mens steps in front of me. The water, dripping from above, was up to my ankles. Then we stopped. Wed come to a dead end, one of the miners said. In order for us to proceed, they needed to set off some dynamite.

In a matter of minutes, several packs of explosives were drilled into the mountain and ready to be detonated. I was told to open my mouth and not close it until the last of the dynamite had exploded.

The blasts began, and I sensed the mountain groaning around me. Then: complete silence. Ten seconds later, as the dust began to settle, one of the miners shouted, Lets go! Its time to see what we got.

Less than a month earlier, I was living a comfortable life in Dubai. Though I was born in Colombia, I left the country at age 18 to attend college in the United States and, since then, had followed my work elsewhere around the world.

Lately, though, I felt the need to reconnect with my country. Conveniently, an acquaintance in Dubai knew a respected emerald dealer and mine owner in Colombia. He invited me to visit and witness some of the countrys mining operations.

The miners I visited live and work in the department of Boyac, which is six hours by car north of Bogot, the countrys capital. Boyac sits on a branch of the Andes known as the Cordillera Oriental. Here, hidden in a series of small mining towns Muzo, Chivor, Otanche, Peas Blancas, Coscuez are some of the most valuable emerald mines in the world.

Its no secret that the miners in this region work in difficult and often dangerous conditions some in sanctioned and regulated areas, some illicitly. They labor under the threat of collapsing mines, falling rocks and temperatures in excess of 110 degrees.

Despite the risks, many of the miners speak to me about their work with pride, as if buoyed by a sense of tradition.

The economics of the trade can vary significantly. Some miners operate informally and independently, scouring debris fields or venturing into unregulated mines and profiting directly from the sale of stones to merchants or gem carvers.

Others officially work for mine owners or mining companies. These miners might be paid steady salaries or make commissions on the stones they find. (The specific circumstances of the financial arrangements whether the miners are paid upfront, for example, or only after a stone is sold to a merchant, carver or customer often depend on the level of trust between the owners and the miners.)

The harsh reality inside the mines is contrasted by the grandeur outside them: the smell of the clean air in the mornings, the ever-present sound of the rivers, the imposing peaks of the Andes.

During the dry season, miners set up small tents by the river to protect themselves from the intense sun. After long hours of work, they relax in view of the breathtaking beauty that surrounds them.

Over the course of the five days I spent with them, the miners shared countless stories of how the emeralds, and the surrounding mountains, had changed their lives.

One miner, an older man who lived in a modest house, claimed to have made exorbitant sums of money on several choice stones only to have squandered it all, he said, forcing him to return, reluctantly, to the mines.

Others have seen family members and friends killed during the intense fighting much of it tied to the illicit emerald trade that took place here in the mountains during the 1980s. And some have just been waiting patiently for decades, hoping that one day theyll find an emerald that will change their lives.

The future of these local miners is largely uncertain. In recent decades, corporations some of them foreign have ascended into Boyacs mountains and taken control of large swaths of the hills. Some of the companies offer salaries, health care and a sense of stability.

Still, many miners opt for the rewards, and the risks, of working alone.

Many of the men I met described mining as a gamble and an addiction. The mines, they said, are like casinos in the middle of the Andes: One stone could change it all.

And finding such a stone, they say, is ultimately what they live and are willing to die for.

Juan Pablo Ramirez is a Colombian photographer based in Dubai. You can follow his work on Instagram.

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Playing the Green Lottery: Life Inside Colombias Emerald Mines - The New York Times

Travel to New Zealand during Covid-19: What you need to know before you go – CNN

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Editor's Note CNN Travel updates this article periodically. It was last updated in its entirety on December 28.

(CNN) If you're planning a trip to New Zealand, here's what you'll need to know and expect if you want to visit during the global coronavirus pandemic.

The basics

New Zealand has become the poster child for how to deal with Covid-19. Its early lockdown and strict border measures mean it has suppressed the virus to an astonishing degree.

What's on offer

New Zealand's landscape is the stuff of legend. Arthur's Pass National Park, with its soaring peaks and deep valleys is ripe for "tramping", the locals' term for a good, long hike. Cape Reinga and Ninety Mile beach offer vast sea views from the tip of North Island. Meanwhile, indigenous Maori culture permeates every aspect of the country. Pick up an RV and it's easy to find an empty corner of this magical country to explore.

Who can go

The rules are simple. Other than a few exceptions for partners, dependents and critical workers, only New Zealand residents and citizens are allowed into the country.

What are the restrictions?

New Zealand has maintained some of the toughest travel guidelines in the world since March. All arrivals, including New Zealand citizens, must undertake 14 days of mandatory quarantine and test negative for Covid-19 at the end of this period before entering the community.

All arrivals must book their place in a managed isolation and quarantine facility prior to travel, and a voucher confirming that a space has been booked must be presented before boarding. Currently there is no availability until late February 2021.

What's the Covid situation?

New Zealand has successfully eliminated Covid-19 in the community, with all recent positives coming inside managed isolation facilities. After a handful of cases were found in Auckland in August after 102 days without a positive test, the city went back into a strict lockdown until October. The country's Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, has won plaudits for her handling of the crisis, in which only 25 people have died, with 2,144 cases overall.

What can visitors expect?

Those able to enter New Zealand will find life lived much as it was pre-pandemic. The country is currently at Alert Level 1, which means that the virus is contained. Mass gatherings are limited to 500, but while physical distancing is encouraged, it isn't mandatory. Bars and restaurants are open, but contact tracing measures are in place.

The country's Alert Levels go up to 4, at which point a stay-at-home order would be in place and education facilities would be closed.

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Travel to Antarctica during Covid-19: What you need to know before you go – CNN

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Editor's Note CNN Travel updates this article periodically. It was last updated in its entirety on December 28.

(CNN) If you're planning a trip to Antarctica, here's what you'll need to know and expect if you want to visit during the global coronavirus pandemic.

The basics

Antarctica reported its first cases of Covid in late December 2020. While scientists who observed strict quarantine rules sailed to the continent from the UK in November 2020, tourism remains severely restricted, with many cruise companies canceling their operations for the brief summer season.

What's on offer

A remote icy wilderness at the end of the world, trips to Antarctica have grown in popularity in recent years, with travelers sailing across the Drake Passage from South America to catch a glimpse of sprawling penguin colonies, breaching whales and rare seabirds.

Who can go

Because Antarctica is a scientific preserve, special teams have been able to restart research work on the continent from the end of 2020. While tourism isn't banned, the fact that most visitors can only arrive via ship means it's currently virtually impossible to go, as many cruises are not running at this time.

What are the restrictions?

Antarctica's unique position as an internationally administered region means that it isn't subject to Covid restrictions. However, because tourists access the continent from Chile and Argentina, they are subject to the entry rules of those countries. Travel to Argentina is off limits to all but nationals and permanent residents, who must present a negative PCR test taken within 72 hours of departure.

Chile has been open to tourists from all countries since December 8; however all travelers must have proof of a negative PCR test taken 72 hours before departure, complete a health form and have travel insurance to cover the cost of Covid-related health care up to $30,000.

However, all major cruise companies have cancelled operations for the 2020/21 season. Cruise ships remain a concern when it comes to Covid transmission, meaning sailings are not likely to take place until the next summer season in the southern hemisphere, in late 2021.

What's the Covid situation?

The first cases of Covid on Antarctica were reported on December 22, with 36 researchers and military personnel testing positive at a Chilean research base.

What can visitors expect?

Any ships that do make it to Antarctica will find the waters far quieter than usual. If you're on a ship that allows disembarkation, expect there to be strict protocols about handling equipment and protective gear.

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Joe Minihane and Julia Buckley contributed to this report

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Travel to Antarctica during Covid-19: What you need to know before you go - CNN

How four of this year’s Transformers helped the world’s biggest banks surviveand thrive… – Business Insider – Business Insider

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Banking has traditionally been considered a high-touch industry based on relationships and human interaction. Investment bankers normally jet around the globe for face-to-face meetings, where million- and billion-dollar deals are made based on gut instinct, trust, and reputation as much as on financial analysis. Trading, too, was long seen as a relationship game. Even as some asset classes electronify, the $128-trillion-dollar world of bonds has been particularly slow to go digital.

But COVID-19 put a freeze on all this in-person interaction. In the span of days, Wall Street and City of London firms shut their doors, with the majority of employees made to work from home. Suddenly, bankers were doing deals from their kitchen tables, while traders got to skip the commute before their notoriously early-morning starts.

Rather than business careening to a halt, however, things carried on smoothly. Balance sheets held firm. Deals got done. By April, Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman said his bank had proven it could "operate with no footprint" and would require "much less real estate," going forward. Others made similar comments, reporting better-than-expected earnings and signalling they could implement permanent flexible working structures.

So how did these massive, global institutions pull it off? Many of this year's Transformers lead innovative strategies that came to the rescue for the world's biggest banks.

In traditional investment banking, UBS' head of investment bank technology, Zoe Evans, is leading a new way of working through the bank's "hybrid pod" model a cross-functional business model designed to enhance collaboration.

Instead of the traditional, "waterfall" method of organization, hybrid pods are self-organizing teams made up of 4 to 9 people with different competencies, directly connected to their business purposes via dedicated product managers, that execute a clearly-defined digital book of work. The bank says the shared-ownership model reduces lead time and increases the quality of work delivered. And, according to Evans, it worked well during the pandemic.

"New hybrid pods were formed to build solutions for traders to work from home, delivering a solution within days," she told Business Insider. "The challenge is that, to implement hybrid pods, we need to move away from traditional methods of structuring and funding teams that have been in place for decades [and] not everyone is open to change."

So far, the transformation affects 6,000 employees around the world.

Evans is also leading the migration of apps to the cloud, as well as transitioning all engineers onto the investment bank's newly-launched developer platform on the cloud. She said the pandemic has been a "clear reminder" of the importance of having stable, secure, and scalable platforms.

"The most significant change that is going to shape the future of the investment bank...is the way our bank is transforming to become truly digital," she said. "To do this we had to change the way we work."

When it comes to sales and trading divisionsoften the global banks' largest businessesdigitization has been particularly slow in the fixed income department. But some of this year's Transformers have been making inroads there too.

JPMorgan's Chi Nzelu runs eCommerce for macro products out of the bank's London office. He is responsible for all electronic trading for foreign exchange, commodities, and interest rates markets, as well as for driving the execution component of the firmwide digital markets strategy.

Nzelu helped build JPMorgan's institutional currency trading franchise one of the largest on the Street through automation, research, and machine learning techniques. He was also integral in JPMorgan's mobile trading efforts, which proved particularly useful when lockdowns swept the globe forcing people to work from home.

"Evolution is happening all around us, and in finance, the last 40 years has been unprecedented in that respect," Nzelu said. "Trading has evolved at warp speed since the 1980s and my job is to form a path to the future of trading."

At Citigroup, Alaa Saeed is also working to electronify fixed income trading. Saeedthe global head of electronic platforms and distribution at CitiFXis responsible for the design, development, and distribution of Citi's foreign exchange and local markets capabilities, electronically.

He also spearheaded the development of Citi Velocity, a flagship proprietary trading platform that "basically kept clients going during the pandemic," according to a spokesperson, who said "the mobile trading app usage shot up when we were in the thick of it."

The Citi Velocity platform allowed clients to continue trading amid volatile markets with minimal interruption throughout the network. In the peak weeks of the pandemic in the spring, usage of Citi Velocity hit double-digit growth, and client mobile hits increased 138% year-over-year, according to the bank.

Saeed said his biggest challengeand opportunityis "dealing with the increasing complexity associated with the fragmentation of FX liquidity, and the proliferation of connectivity providers and platforms."

"Our work simplifies the electronic platforms landscape and sets out common standards and criteria to benchmark comparable offerings and performance," he said.

The pandemic also necessitated innovation in retail banking, and Starling Bank founder and CEO Anne Boden another one of this year's Transformers responded to the crisis quickly.

In April, Starling launched the Connected Card, a secondary debit card designed for people who are self-isolating and need others to handle their shopping. It is controlled by the Starling app and has its own PIN and other security blocks. The bank also launched a check-imaging service, allowing customers to skip the in-person hassle of mailing checks and process them remotely using the app instead.

For small business owners, freelancers, and contractors, Starling launched a business toolkit complete with an invoice generator, VAT calculator, and self-employment tax estimator. It also launched a US dollar account for small businesses, and has lent some 1.5 billion to small businesses under UK government-backed pandemic-recovery schemes.

"When I launched Starling in 2014, I wanted to change banking in the way that Amazon changed shopping and iTunes changed music," Boden told Business Insider. "I hope that Starling can give people a fairer, smarter, and more human alternative to the banks of the past."

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How four of this year's Transformers helped the world's biggest banks surviveand thrive... - Business Insider - Business Insider

Tracing the steps of a fantastic voyage, part 2 – SF Gate

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This is part 2 of a story about Chris McGinnis' fantastic voyage as a travel writer. You can read part 1 right here.

Like many of my trips, my path to becoming a travel writer took a circuitous route; the road I took was "the one less traveled by," to quote Robert Frost's famous poem.

I never took a journalism course in my life, and I even earned an F in English in eighth grade, which is probably why I still make typos and grammatical errors, most of which are thankfully caught by better-trained copy editors. But thanks to a few good English teachers, voracious reading, a habit of letter writing and keeping a journal throughout my early life, I honed my ability to write.

As mentioned in the previous post (part 1 of this story), my education was in international business. As a management consultant, I used my writing skills a lot, assigned to write up the letters and various reports my company submitted to clients. That part of my job was somewhat rewarding, but the greatest reward of my consulting work was that I got to travel and travel a lot. For several years, I was flying two or three times a week on the company dime, taking mental notes and learning the tricks of the frequent flying trade.

As it ended up, I loved the travel, but hated the corporate part of my consulting job the actual work was just not appealing. So after several months working on a project at a copper mine in Australia's outback, I quit. With a nest egg earned from consulting, and the frequent flier miles I'd racked up, I decided to, you guessed it, travel, taking the long road home to Atlanta via New Zealand, Hawaii and California.

Taking that time off gave my brain a rest, and helped me come up with a new career path. I would take the skills I learned as a trainer (part of my job as a consultant) and combine them with my encyclopedic knowledge of travel to form my own company, Travel Skills Group. My product? A traveler training program that I would sell to large corporations to help their travelers learn how to save money, stay safe and not burn out by learning "the art of traveling smart."

The idea caught, and I was soon delivering seminars across the country, doing well, but not really making enough money to survive. I had to drum up more business.

Using those writing skills I'd honed, I was a master at penning and promoting press releases about my new company and ended up snagging a lot of ink in big publications, such as USA Today and the Wall Street Journal. I became a regular, quotable source for my local newspaper, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, so much so that I convinced editors there to let me write a column in the paper's business section about business travel. This was 1990, and a travel column in a newspaper business section was a novel idea.

The Business Traveler column very quickly became one of the paper's most popular features given that Atlanta was such a large travel hub, and there was a hunger among business travelers for news and practical advice to make travel better and take advantage of those still nascent frequent flier programs. It was a unique, helpful tool that no other local paper offered back then and filled a vacant niche, which would ultimately be filled by the internet.

Landing a weekly column at one of the largest newspapers in the country was my "big break" into travel writing, and a position I held on to for 10 years. As a newly minted freelance writer, I used that experience and exposure to land several other jobs, such as writing for Entrepreneur and Fortune magazines. To pad my income further, I wrote business travel newsletters for big corporate travel agencies and picked up a few speaking gigs.

It was at this point I learned an important lesson: making a career as a travel writer was not only about "traveling around the world and writing about it," as many people frequently assume. To earn a living at it meant being an entrepreneur, taking risks, hustling multiple gigs, doing great work and being asked back to do more. This meant spending at least half of my time in the office, writing, researching, making connections, sending out invoices and searching for my next gig.

In 1994, an editor for McGraw-Hill read my AJC column when flying through Atlanta and asked me to write a book, "202 Tips Even the Best Business Travelers May Not Know," which elevated me even further from not just columnist, but also "author." (The first edition did so well, the publisher had me write a second edition four years later called "The Unofficial Business Travelers Pocket Guide.")

Since I was located in Atlanta, and so was CNN, I became a regularly cited source there as well, and eventually parlayed that into a stint as an on-air travel correspondent in 1995 that lasted in various forms through 2005. (You can see my on-air reel here or below, which shows snippets from a grueling, but energizing year, post-9/11, when I rose every morning at 4 a.m. to deliver travel news to a nation frightened by the 2001 World Trade Center attacks.)

Around that time, I dove into another one of those life-changing, long-distance relationships, and ended up flying back and forth every couple weeks to San Francisco, and finally, moved there. I brought with me The Ticket, a popular travel newsletter I was writing in Atlanta, which eventually morphed into the TravelSkills newsletter with a West Coast spin.

At the same time, I picked up a job as travel columnist for BBC.com, wrote the quarterly Expedia Travel Trendwatch report and served as Expedia's spokesperson and travel expert on morning shows like Good Morning America. Eventually, editors at SFGATE took notice that a travel expert was in town, and I began to share my content here until I came on as a full-time contributor in 2018.

So that's how I created a career that started out as a kid flipping through National Geographic magazines in bed at night and dreaming of a far-flung life, which eventually ended up in San Francisco. What's next? I'm not sure, but feel like I'm at one of those inflection points where it's time to jump, and wait for the net to appear!

Now let's talk about one of the best parts of being a travel writer: the trips! Over the past 30 years, I've had many. Here are some highlights:

In 1999, I was asked to appear on a media panel at the World Travel and Tourism Council meeting in Berlin. The WTTC is a club of CEOs of the worlds top travel companies like American Express, British Airways, Hertz and the like the type of people for whom a journey on the Concorde is a normal part of doing business. And lucky for me, part of the deal for appearing on the panel was a trans-Atlantic leg on British Airways supersonic Concorde. Here's a post about my experience.

On a bright spring day in 2011, Virgin America was celebrating the opening of SFO's Terminal 2 and its new Virgin Galactic spacecraft. In typical Virgin style, it was a big to-do. Richard Branson was there. So were Buzz Aldrin and his wife. California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, too. There were also plenty of airport dignitaries and a handful of lucky media! Watch the exciting video of my experience here.

Like many Americans, I felt the rush of excitement when President Barack Obama normalized relations with Cuba in 2016 and was thrilled to ride on the first U.S. cruise ship to land in Havana in 50 years. Here's the complicated story of that historic voyage.

Way back in 1992, at the beginning of my travel writing career, Elton John invited me to London for a whirlwind trip that included being backstage for his concerts at Wembley Stadium, staying over at his townhouse in central London and his rambling estate in Windsor, meeting royals, attending a star-studded garden party and racing around town in police-escorted Bentley limousines. Read about this amazing trip here.

An exciting part of travel writing is going behind the scenes, like I was able to do on a Cathay Pacific "delivery flight" from the Boeing factory near Seattle to Hong Kong with only a handful of people onboard. Here's my most viewed video ever, showing the crew rest area on a Boeing 777.

Queen Latifah invited me to LA for a travel tips interview in front of a live audience from two first class airline seats in the middle of the set! She was warm, personable and a LOT of fun (I expected no less!). Did you know that Queen Latifahs real name is Dana Owens? Thats what everyone backstage was calling her. (I just called her "your majesty!") See the segment video here.

Back when Airbus A380 sightings were new and exciting, Air France asked me to make a video of its first A380 arrival at SFO on a cold rainy day in 2011. To be on the ramps, runways and up close and personal with a big bird like that was quite a thrill! See the video here.

Visiting cities to write about their newest business class hotels was a regular part of my beat for BBC and SFGATE. One trip to Sydney, Australia, coincided with the city's big, raucous Mardi Gras celebration, which included a drag queen welcome at the airport, which got the trip off to a fun start! Here's my post from the most recent trip.

Contact Chris McGinnis via email here.

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Tracing the steps of a fantastic voyage, part 2 - SF Gate

The cauldrons of gold theory of media and startups – TechCrunch

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Another week, another email newsletter. This time, the story is Punchbowl, a politics-centric newsletter founded by a crop of recent Politico alums including Jake Sherman, Anna Palmer and John Bresnahan. Ben Smith has the story, as does Maxwell Tani at the Daily Beast with some more juicy details.

Why do we need another newsletter analyzing Beltway politics in a world of Politico Playbook, Axios, The Daily 202 and a hundred others? In fact, why do we need the voluminous output of tech-oriented newsletters covering startups (by my count, there are at least several thousand newsletters covering our industry)? Why, in a media world that was supposed to be all about the long-tail, does it seem that every new media startup is targeting the same single niche over and over again?

Thats where the cauldrons of gold come in. Media is not unlike many startup markets there may be infinite needs for diverse products, but there are only a handful of those needs that have serious dollars attached to them.

In media, these are beats like DC politics, or investment banking / M&A, or VC coverage in our quaint little world of startups, where the winners get to own massive audiences and, by extension, massive dollars from subscribers and advertisers. There are thousands of other niches, but they are impoverished with limited readership, users and recourse to revenue.

Put another way, these are tournament markets, where the winners can take all and where it is worth the gamble to have a small chance at a massive outcome rather than a good chance at a mediocre one. In medicine, everyone wants to cure cancer, not some neglected tropical disease (which might well have millions of people who could benefit from a cure). After all, the Nobel Prizes dont go to merely good science, they go for the biggest advances of the century that have the right level of notability. In startups, founders want to target the largest business and consumer markets, not the small application that might be useful but wont become a juggernaut.

Unicorns are not born in small markets.

There are of course hugely negative externalities to this model for many markets. All that competition to dominate the first-read newsletter on Capitol Hill or along Sand Hill Road means that we are overwhelmed with identical analyses on the same subjects rather than being able to select from a wide spectrum of different options. We probably should have more coverage of emerging market tech or state capitols than we do today.

In startups, we have way too many entrants in some extremely valuable layers of fintech, for example. There are at least 50? 100? wealth-management startups and incumbent products that focus on automated investing in ETFs (so-called roboadvisors). Yet, there is so much money to be made in some of these layers, that every founder with sense is essentially saying Ill take my chances for the reward at the end of that particular road.

You would sort of think the free market would work itself out in these niches. All that competition for attention in the DC media world or for wealth management users should ultimately lower costs and divide the pie thinly enough that it becomes less attractive for new entrants and makes other niches and markets look far more relatively competitive.

That would be true if the pie did actually subdivide further and further. Experience over the last decade though has proven to me that this is quite often not the case. DC politics is the cauldron of gold for politics coverage, and there are one to three newsletters that will always dominate that beat. M&A coverage on Wall Street is the cauldron of gold of business journalism, and a handful of reporters are going to own that beat by being the switchboards for all the most important sources. And VC coverage is the cauldron of gold for startup media, which is why TechCrunch and a few of our friendly competitors work so hard to cover it every day.

New markets do get invented and old markets expand and contract. There are absolutely startups that sort of come from nowhere and dazzle us with their originality and ability to create whole new categories. Yet, for every unicorn that gets its start that way, there are 10 others that get built in existing major markets and compete for the big reward offered to the winner.

There isnt anything wrong with investors who want to fund the fifteenth startup in a space. It makes sense thats where the rewards are, or at least, where we perceive the rewards to be. What needs to change is how to make some of those other niches offer the same incentives for innovation. How can more markets offer cauldrons of gold? Is that even possible? Or are we destined to read 100 newsletters on McConnell and Schumers machinations while getting ads for Marcus?

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The cauldrons of gold theory of media and startups - TechCrunch

Discovery+ enters the streaming wars with a big bet on reality TV – CNBC

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Discovery launched its new streaming service Discovery+ in the U.S. on Monday, hoping to carve out its own unscripted corner of the already crowded streaming space.

Discovery+, which previously launched in several other countries, dubs itself "the definitive non-fiction, real-life subscription streaming service." Its library includes more than 55,000 episodes of more than 2,500 shows from TV brands including HGTV, Food Network, Animal Planet, TLC, ID and more. It will also offer original series and exclusives, like BBC's "Planet Earth."

The service has a $4.99 monthly ad-supported tier (on par with NBCUniversal's Peacock's premium tier with ads) and a $6.99 monthly ad-free tier (which costs the same as Disney+). It's also working with Verizon to give 55 million customers up to 12 months of Discovery+ for free, depending on their plan. Other competitors include AT&T's HBO Max, which costs $14.99 a month, and Netflix, which has a standard plan costing $13.99 in the U.S.

The service can be streamed using Amazon Fire TV, Android TV, Apple TV, Chromecast, Roku and Samsung devices, along with mobile, web and game consoles.

"Our No. 1 goal was to be available on every platform in America," Discovery President and CEO David Zaslav said Monday on CNBC's "Squawk Alley."

He added that he believes the service is differentiated from its existing peers.

"We believe that we'll let the rest of that group fight out scripted series and scripted movies, but we have a great lane in the U.S. and around the world, and that lane is we have great content that people love: '90 Day Fiance' Chip and Joanna Gaines, Oprah Winfrey," he said. "And we're completely differentiated."

He said that makes the service a complement to popular existing services.

"We're a great companion to Disney and Netflix," he said. "If you have Disney or Netflix, you have two great products, but we're completely different and we go really well with them."

Zaslav wouldn't share projections for how much the company expects subscribers to grow in the next year.

"We think ... that we can be very, very big," he said. "That's our bet, we're putting a lot of resources behind it, and over the next couple of quarters we'll be reporting out our numbers and then we'll be projecting out how big big really is."

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Discovery+ enters the streaming wars with a big bet on reality TV - CNBC

Where the President Got His Lies About Georgia – Slate

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Another perfect phone call.Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images

On Saturday, in a phone call that might have been even more brazen than the one that got him impeached, Donald Trump pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to find 11,780 votes for him in order to flip the state into his column in the presidential election. During the hour-long call, which also included White House Chief of State Mark Meadows, Raffenspergers general counsel Ryan Germany, and several election lawyers working for Trump, the president repeatedly insisted that hed actually won Georgia, marshaling a number of falsehoods about voter fraud to support his claims. The Washington Post published a recording of the call as well as a transcript on Sunday.

Throughout the call, Raffensperger and Germany calmly rebutted each of Trumps claims, versions of which theyve apparently encountered as Trump, his campaign lawyers, and far-right media sources have insisted that the vote in the Peach State was fraudulent. (In fact, there have been two hand recounts and a voter signature audit that affirmed Joe Biden won Georgia, as well as multiple lawsuits on behalf of Trump, some of which have failed and some of which are pending.) At one point, Raffensperger said, Mr. President, the problem you have with social media, theypeople can say anything, to which Trump replied: Oh, this isnt social media. This isTrumpmedia.

While little Trump said during the phone call had much to do with the truth, its worth decoding his claims as he continues to try to overturn the election. They tell you a lot about the information well Trump is immersed in, and which sources are continuing to poison it.

They ran out because of a water main break, and there was no water main. There was nothing. There was no break.

They werent in an official voter box; they were in what looked to be suitcases or trunks, suitcases, but they werent in voter boxes.

Trump referenced an incident in which a water leak at State Farm Arena, which served as a polling place in Fulton County, Georgia, held up voting for two hours on Election Day. Right-wing conspiracy theorists have alleged there was an evacuation to allow poll workers to sneak in fake ballots, partly based on surveillance footage showing workers at the arena retrieving containers that look like suitcases. This footage surfaced on Dec. 3 in Trump attorney Rudy Giulianis presentation before the Georgia state senate, from multiple prominent conservative social media accounts like Restoration PAC, and on the pro-Trump One America News Network and Sean Hannitys Fox News show.

In actuality, a urinal leak did occur that resulted in a delay, but poll watchers at the arena werent asked to leave because of it. In addition, the suitcases were in fact storage containers that poll workers typically use for packing and transporting ballots. Investigators with the Georgia secretary of states office watched hours of surveillance footage and ultimately found that nothing was amiss.

We had at least 18,000 thats on tape, we had them counted very painstakingly18,000 voters having to do with [redacted name]. Shes a vote scammer, a professional vote scammer and hustler [redacted name].

Trump was referring to a poll worker in the State Farm Arena footage who has been the target of false allegations that she introduced thousands of invalid ballots from the suitcases in to the count. (News organizations have been withholding her identity since the claims Trump has made against her are unfounded.) As NBC News reports, she and her daughter have faced harassment from followers of QAnon, a conspiracy theory holding that the worlds major institutions are controlled by satanic pedophiles. QAnon accounts further fueled false rumors that shed been arrested. Gateway Pundit, a far-right blog known for misinformation, also revealed the workers identity and has continued to disseminate the hoax.

And this may or may not be true ... this just came up this morning, that they are burning their ballots, that they are shredding, shredding ballots

False claims that election fraudsters were destroying ballots in Georgia took root online in late November, when the state was conducting a recount. AP News reported at the time that L. Lin Wood Jr., the pro-Trump lawyer and conspiracy theorist, was key in disseminating this misinformation when he posted a series of photos and videos taken by a Georgia resident of shredding trucks stationed at the West Parking Government Center and Jim R. Miller Event Center in Cobb County. After Wood amplified the images, Cobbs election officials refuted the claims by explaining that the truck at West Parking Government Center was in fact there for a routine shredding of tax documents; the county tax commissioners office shares the building with the elections office. The truck at the Jim R. Miller Event Center, on the other hand, was helping with the routine destruction of nonrelevant election materials. Items essential for the recount remained on file.

Wood has since then tweeted out QAnon-linked conspiracy theories that Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts is part of an elite pedophile ring and called for Vice President Mike Pence to be executed for treason.

In Pennsylvania, they had well over 200,000 more votes than they had people voting.

Trump mentioned this supposed irregularity while trying to convince the Georgia officials that widespread voter problems had appeared in other states as well. According to Snopes, the apparent source of this false factoid, which Trump has tweeted out a number of times, is a press release that Pennsylvania State Rep. Frank Ryan issued on Dec. 28. (Ryan joined dozens of his fellow lawmakers in requesting that Pennsylvanias congressional delegation not recognize the states electors.) The Pennsylvania Department of State subsequently released a statement in response to the representative, pointing out that his analysis used incomplete data that was missing several counties. The department called it another perfect example of the dangers of uninformed, lay analysis combined with a basic lack of election administration knowledge.

But they had as an example, in Michigan, a tremendous number of dead people that voted. I think it was, I think, Mark, it was 18,000.

The New York Times reported in early November that Republican Twitter circles were rapidly spreading spurious claims that thousands of ballots bearing dead peoples names had been submitted in Michigan. According to the Times, one of the main purveyors of this theory was Austen Fletcher, a prominent right-wing internet personality also known as Fleccas. He tweeted a day after the election that he had found registration documents for four Michigan voters who listed their birth dates as falling between 1900 and 1902. He later released a list of 10,000 supposedly dead voters. Conservative figures like Candace Owens and James Woods soon glommed onto his claims. It turns out, however, that hed in many cases ended up highlighting typical clerical errors such as digital voter roll systems defaulting to 01/01/01 when a birth date wasnt on file. The BBC gathered a sample of 31 names from his list and found that all but three were still alive. Fletcher has made other unfounded claims, some of which have been amplified by the Trump family, and was instrumental in promoting lawyer Sidney Powells false narrative about widespread voter fraud.

I mean, in other states, we think we found tremendous corruption with Dominion machines, but well have to see.

Do you think its possible that they shredded ballots in Fulton County? Because thats what the rumor is. And also that Dominion took out machines. That Dominion is really moving fast to get rid of their, uh, machinery.

Trump repeatedly suggested during the call that the election technology company Dominion had either removed machines from Fulton County, Georgia, or replaced certain parts in those units in order to cover up supposed vote tampering. As NBC News reports, QAnon dabblers like Sidney Powell and L. Lin Wood Jr. have been the principal drivers of elaborate conspiracy theories surrounding Dominion. Trump has also recently been retweeting One America News Network interviews about vulnerabilities in Dominions machines featuring Ron Watkins. Watkins is famous for being the administrator of 8kun, the seedy imageboard where Q, the leader of QAnon, posts messages to his followers. Though he claimed to have resigned from his position on Election Day, Watkins has the ability to take over the Q account whenever he wants to and has played a crucial role in Qs rise. NBC also notes that many of the rumors that Watkins has been spouting about Dominion are sourced from 8kun and its predecessor 4chan.

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Where the President Got His Lies About Georgia - Slate

Epic Games buys enormous shopping mall, will convert it to global HQ – Polygon

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Epic Games is buying an old shopping mall with nearly one million square feet of space and plans to convert it into its new global headquarters by 2024.

The deal, first reported by the Triangle Business Journal, gives Epic the 980,000 square foot Cary Towne Center for $95 million. Cary Towne Center is about 2 miles from Epics current HQ.

Epic Games has been based in Cary, North Carolina since 1999, and has 2,200 employees in its global workforce. The company, best known for developing the Unreal Engine and Fortnite, has about two dozen subsidiaries and studios in other locations around the world, acquiring or establishing more than half of them since Fortnite Battle Royale launched at the end of 2017.

Sitting on 87 acres, Cary Towne Center, like many shopping malls in the United States, has struggled to remain open as anchor tenants have left or closed altogether thanks to shopping trends moving online. WRAL-TV of Raleigh noted that only a few stores remain open there, and much of the mall is blocked off. Its current owners picked it up in 2019 for $31 million, then got the Cary Town Council to approve its rezoning, which would permit office use, hotel rooms, and multi-family housing in addition to commercial space.

Its unclear how much of those plans will go forward under Epic, but because of the rezoning, Epic can get started on its new campus immediately. The company said it will work with the Town of Cary on a $193 million sports and recreation center that had been planned for the site. An Epic Games spokesperson told the Triangle Business Journal that the campus would include office buildings and recreational spaces.

Privately-held Epic Games reported a $1.78 billion round of new funding in August 2020, valuing itself at $17.3 billion. The company had planned to expand its existing location in Cary, which it has owned since 2015, with a 500,000 square foot facility that would accommodate up to 2,000 employees. Those plans are off, WRAL reported.

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Epic Games buys enormous shopping mall, will convert it to global HQ - Polygon

Brexit Arrives, for Better or Worse – The Wall Street Journal

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Forty-eight years after the U.K. entered what would become the European Union and more than four years after voters shocked David Camerons government by voting to leave, Brexit is no longer only a gleam in Nigel Farages eye. As of last weekend, Britons have joined Americans in those crowded Other Passport lanes in European airports and British trade faces more red tape.

Whatever its merits as policy, Brexit was an important test of the U.K. political system. Most of the British establishment hates Brexit as much as the U.S. establishment hates Donald Trump. But instead of following the European pattern of holding repeated referendums until voters return the right answer, the political glitterati bowed to the peoples will. Like Brexit or loathe it, that is how democracy is supposed to work.

It is also a personal triumph for Boris Johnson. Prime Minister Johnson took office with a Parliament hopelessly deadlocked on Brexit. He maneuvered his opponents into allowing him to call an election on a date of his choosing, won some of Labours safest seats to gain a solid majority, andto the astonishment and chagrin of his criticsnegotiated an agreement that won the backing of both hardline Tory Brexiteers and the head of the Labour opposition.

That he pulled all this off despite the pandemic eroding his governments standing in the polls, and sending him to critical care, only emphasizes the extraordinary nature of his success. It remains to be seen what Mr. Johnson will make of Brexit, but he has already joined Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair on the short list of post-imperial British leaders who made a mark on world history.

It is also much too soon to tell how Brexit will work out in practice. Raising barriers to travel and trade is not a recipe for economic growth, and the world-beating U.K. financial sector is particularly vulnerable. Still, both Britain and the EU may find offsetting advantages. Without Eurosceptic Brits dragging their feet, Europeans are now free to tighten the ever closer union that many hope will make the EU a more significant world power. And freed from the regulatory burdens of EU membership, Britain has the chance to engage more deeply with faster growing economies around the world.

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Brexit Arrives, for Better or Worse - The Wall Street Journal

Virus, more than Brexit fallout, worry in and near Gibraltar – The Associated Press

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LA LNEA DE LA CONCEPCIN, Spain (AP) Fears of disruptions following Britains departure from the European Union were replaced by coronavirus-related restrictions on border traffic between Spain and Gibraltar on Monday, the first working day at the United Kingdoms only land border with the European mainland.

Only a share of essential workers from an average of 15,000 who cross the fence between Spains La Lnea de la Concepcin and the British territory on a normal day were venturing into Gibraltar, which went into lockdown late Saturday amid a surge in virus cases that is putting under pressure its limited health infrastructure.

Under the new stay-at-home order, the 30,000 residents on the British speck of land on Spains southern tip are only permitted to venture out for work, exercise, medical appointments or to buy essential items. Gibraltar authorities have reported more than 1,300 new cases during the last month, more than double from the levels in early December, and are investigating if the surge is linked to the new virus variant that has rapidly spread in Britain.

In remarks over the weekend, Gibraltars chief minister, Fabian Picardo, said that the first batch of 5,000 vaccines would arrive in Gibraltar on Jan. 9.

At least 200,000 people across the border in Spain, in the so-called Campo de Gibraltar subregion, are also under similar levels of restrictions. The area has seen a surge of the 14-day infection rate per 100,000 inhabitants to 300 cases, twice the average in the broader Andalusia region of southern Spain.

Despite having overwhelmingly voted against the U.K.s EU departure, Gibraltar entered the new year with tighter new controls on what for decades has been an open border with the 27-nation bloc through Spain. The most immediate effect is on customs controls for some consumer goods intended for personal use, such as meat, milk, pet food, and fish produce in most forms.

Some of the longer-term concerns were dispelled last week after Spain and the U.K. clinched a preliminary agreement for making Gibraltar part of the Schengen area group of European nations sharing borders.

Madrid and London had been engaging for months in diplomatic negotiations over the post-Brexit future of Gibraltar, whose British sovereignty since the 18th century has been often disputed by Spain.

The agreement in principle should essentially lead to move border checks from the current fence with Spain to the international airport and the Gibraltar port, but a new treaty to be negotiated directly between the EU and the U.K. needs to be signed after jurisdiction issues and import duties are ironed out, according to authorities on both sides.

A major hurdle in the negotiations is whether the EUs police force, Frontex, could be stationed in the British territory.

___

Aritz Parra reported from Madrid.

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Virus, more than Brexit fallout, worry in and near Gibraltar - The Associated Press

Quiet New Year gives breathing room after UK-EU Brexit split – The Associated Press

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LONDON (AP) A steady trickle of trucks rolled off ferries and trains on both sides of the English Channel on Friday, a quiet New Years Day after a seismic overnight shift in relations between the European Union and Britain.

The busy goods route between southeast England and northwest France is on the front line of changes now that the U.K. has fully left the economic embrace of the 27-nation bloc, the final stage of Brexit.

For the majority of trucks, they wont even notice the difference, said John Keefe, spokesman for Eurotunnel, which carries vehicles under the Channel. There was always the risk that if this happened at a busy time then we could run into some difficulties, but its happening overnight on a bank holiday and a long weekend.

Britain left the European blocs vast single market for people, goods and services at 11 p.m. London time on New Years Eve, in the biggest single economic change the country has experienced since World War II. A new U.K.-EU trade deal will bring restrictions and red tape, but for British Brexit supporters, it means reclaiming national independence from the EU and its web of rules.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson called it an amazing moment for this country.

We have our freedom in our hands, and it is up to us to make the most of it, he said in a New Years video message.

The historic moment passed quietly, with U.K. lockdown measures against the coronavirus curtailing mass gatherings to celebrate or mourn. Brexit, which had dominated public debate in Britain for years, was even pushed off some newspaper front pages by news of the huge vaccination effort against COVID-19, which is surging across the country.

In the subdued streets of London which voted strongly to remain in the EU in Britains 2016 referendum there was little enthusiasm for Brexit.

I think it is a disaster, among many disasters this year, said Matt Steel, a doctor. It is a crappy deal. I dont really see any positives in it, to be honest.

But in seaside Folkestone, at the English end of the Channel Tunnel, retired bank manager David Binks said he was relieved that the tortuous Brexit saga was just possibly over.

Its been going on for so long now that the time is now, I think, that we move on and go from there, he said.

The break comes 11 months after a political Brexit that left the two sides in a transition period in which EU rights and rules continued to apply to Britain.

The trade agreement sealed on Christmas Eve after months of tense negotiations ensures that the two sides can continue to buy and sell goods without tariffs or quotas. But companies face sheaves of new costs and paperwork, including customs declarations and border checks.

The English Channel port of Dover and the Eurotunnel braced for delays as the new measures were introduced.

The vital supply route was snarled after France closed its border to U.K. truckers for 48 hours during Christmas week in response to a fast-spreading variant of the virus identified in England. Some 15,000 truckers needed emergency virus tests just to get into France, a process that left many stuck in their trucks for days.

But the pandemic and a holiday weekend meant cross-Channel traffic was light on Friday. Britain has also delayed imposing full customs checks for several months so that companies can adjust.

In the French port of Calais, officials said the new computer systems were working well and truckers had the right paperwork.

Brexit ... is not a synonym for congestion, as we say in English, nor a synonym for traffic disruption, but everyone must do their work, said Jean-Marc Puissesseau, president of the Ports of Calais and Boulogne-Sur-Mer.

Jean Marc Thillier, director of customs for the region, warned that the border faced a trial by fire when traffic picks up after the holiday weekend.

Brexit also brought new checks across the Irish Sea. A dozen trucks rolled off the first ferry to arrive at Dublin Port from Wales before dawn, clearing the new customs inspections without delays.

Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said trade would change fundamentally.

Were now going to see the 80 billion euros ($97 billion) worth of trade across the Irish Sea between Britain and Ireland disrupted by an awful lot more checks and declarations, and bureaucracy and paperwork, and cost and delay.

Hundreds of millions of people in Britain and the bloc also face changes to their daily lives, with new rules for work visas, travel insurance and pet paperwork.

And years of discussion and argument lie ahead, over everything from fair competition to fish quotas, as Britain and the EU settle into their new relationship as friends, neighbors and rivals.

Brexit could also have major constitutional repercussions for the United Kingdom.

Northern Ireland, which shares a border with EU member Ireland, remains closely tied to the blocs economy under the divorce terms. So while goods will continue to flow freely across the Irish land border, there are new checks between Northern Ireland and the rest of the U.K. Over time, that could pull Northern Ireland away from the rest of the U.K. and toward Ireland.

In Scotland, which voted strongly in 2016 to remain in the EU, Brexit has bolstered support for separation from the U.K. The countrys pro-independence First Minister Nicola Sturgeon tweeted: Scotland will be back soon, Europe. Keep the light on.

___

Video journalists Jo Kearney and Jason Parkinson in Folkestone, England and Alex Turnbull in Calais, France contributed.

______

Follow all AP stories on Brexit at https://apnews.com/Brexit

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Quiet New Year gives breathing room after UK-EU Brexit split - The Associated Press

Brexit Deal Poses Threat to Boris Johnson and U.K. Conservative Party – The New York Times

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LONDON An exceptional victory, the result of fantastic work and a deal that delivered for the British people.

Even before the text of the post-Brexit trade agreement was published, lawmakers loyal to Prime Minister Boris Johnson lavished praise on him for resolving an issue that has convulsed British politics for almost half a decade.

When Parliament convenes next week to ratify the document, the question will only be the size of Mr. Johnsons majority for a deal that severs close economic ties to continental Europe on Jan. 1 after almost 50 years. Even the opposition Labour Party will officially support it, arguing that it is better than nothing.

Yet this is unlikely to be the final word in the Conservative bloodletting over Europe that has, at least in part, led to the downfall of the partys last four prime ministers.

Hard-line Brexit supporters have yet to examine the agreement, and they probably will not like every word of an estimated 2,000 pages of dense treaty text and annexes. A small group did not want any trade deal at all, never really trusted Mr. Johnson and might still be inclined to make trouble for him.

Already, an organization representing British trawler fleets has expressed disappointment at compromises over fishing rights, and the Scottish government has attacked the deal, arguing it strengthens the case for Scotlands independence.

In the short term, the Tory Party is pretty united around the very hard Brexit that Boris Johnson pushed Britain toward but which many Britons never thought they were voting for, said Charles Grant, director of the Center for European Reform, a research institute.

But the agreement provides only limited economic benefits for Britain, and friction with the European Union is likely to remain, added Mr. Grant, who said the countrys post-Brexit relationship with the European Union may not be much more stable than what preceded it.

In the longer term, the rift may reopen, he said, adding that pressure might grow once the deals limitations become clear.

The pandemic has plunged Britain into the worst recession in three centuries, so post-Brexit politics remain highly volatile, said Anand Menon, professor of European politics at Kings College, London.

And the Brexit debate has poisoned the workings of the Conservative Party, which had long been known for a pragmatic and successful pursuit of power rather than an adherence to political doctrine.

Now, despite achieving his aim of getting Brexit done, Mr. Johnson cannot assume that the divisions are over.

Europe has turned the Conservatives into an ideological party, and it has basically got in the way of Conservative governments governing, Mr. Menon said.

Others have tried and failed to end this internecine feud, including David Cameron, one of Mr. Johnsons predecessors.

Mr. Cameron once famously pleaded with his party to stop banging on about Europe. Yet after being harried by internal euroskeptic critics, he took the fateful gamble of calling the 2016 referendum on European Union membership in an ill-fated effort to put the matter to rest.

Mr. Johnson was a beneficiary of that miscalculation, and the lesson he appears to have drawn from recent history is that it is dangerous for any Conservative Party leader to be outflanked on the euroskeptic right.

He campaigned for Brexit, became prime minister thanks to it, and last year kicked out of his party lawmakers who opposed the idea of a clear rupture with the European Union, uniting his Tories behind his hard-line stance.

But in striking a trade deal, Johnson is taking a calculated risk in disappointing a cohort of purist Brexit supporters who helped him win power and who wanted no agreement at all.

An influential caucus of pro-Brexit Conservative lawmakers known as the European Research Group has yet to weigh in on the agreement, and Mr. Johnson has been working hard to bring them on his side. How many of those lawmakers oppose him and who they are will be very significant, Mr. Menon said.

If you have 20 to 40 of them screaming betrayal, that changes the dynamic, he said.

Waiting in the wings is Nigel Farage, the populist anti-European Union politician who has now rebranded his Brexit Party as Reform UK and has shown his skill in the past at peeling off Conservative supporters.

On Thursday, Mr. Farage cautiously welcomed Mr. Johnsons deal but with the important caveat that he had yet to read the fine print.

Some Brexit supporters have always scented that betrayal would lie somewhere within any treaty negotiated with the European Union and, even before the agreement was struck, it was being denounced as another in a long series of British surrenders to Brussels. One commentary article in the pro-Brexit Daily Telegraph argued that the government had been outsmarted at every turn.

Others agree with that analysis, but from a more pro-European perspective, noting that even official forecasts suggest Britain will lose out on significant economic growth under Mr. Johnsons deal.

Many businesses will notice the limitations of Mr. Johnsons agreement as soon as Britain leaves the European Unions giant single market and customs union on Jan. 1. The accord failed to secure much of anything for the services sector, for example, which accounts for around four-fifths of the British economy.

And the deal increases barriers rather than eliminating them for the manufacturing sector and agriculture. So while there will be no taxes on the import and export of goods, there will be additional checks on them so-called nontariff barriers.

Delays at ports of which Britain just got an ugly foretaste, when France briefly blocked all travelers and freight from Britain will add significant costs to companies, which will have to make an estimated 20 million new customs declarations each year and face other compliance costs.

In the long run, it is such a bad deal that the more moderate wing of the Tory Party may try to get a better deal, said Mr. Grant of the Center for European Reform, noting the Conservatives traditional link to business.

Yet perhaps the biggest danger for Britain is that it is now stranded awkwardly, half-in, half-out of the European economic system, leaving its relationship with the bloc as fraught and politically combustible as ever.

As a big economy that shares a land border with Ireland, a European Union country, Britain will be unable to escape the huge trading blocs gravitational pull, any more than other neighbors that stayed aloof from it, experts say.

Switzerland, for example, is in constant, fractious negotiation with the European Union over their relationship.

Pro-Brexit lawmakers will be likely to press the British government to break away from Europes standards and laws and to test the limits of regained national sovereignty. That is possible under the agreement, but if the European Union believed any such measures were designed to undercut it, the issue could go to independent arbitration and tariffs could be imposed as a penalty.

Mr. Johnson might judge it in his interests to press ahead with contentious rules, either to promote his industrial strategy or to reignite the politically divisive debate over Europe that brought him to power.

Either way, the mechanism established by his deal for resolving trade disputes over diverging economic rules is likely to provide a future flash point. These or other cross-Channel conflicts are certain to be inflamed by the more jingoistic parts of the British tabloid media.

It means a process of almost permanent negotiation between Britain and the E.U., Mr. Grant said, and every time that happens, it will pump up the emotion and the rhetoric.

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Brexit Deal Poses Threat to Boris Johnson and U.K. Conservative Party - The New York Times

From leave vote to last-ditch deal a big Brexit timeline – The Guardian

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Its all over. There is no going back. The UK has left the EU after 47 years. So how did we get here?

The UK votes to leave the EU by a slim majority, 51.9% to 48.1%, setting the ball rolling on one of the most tumultuous chapters in recent British history. It will involve supreme court challenges, the prorogation of parliament, sackings of some of the most senior politicians in the Conservative party, and even splits in the future prime ministers own family, with Boris Johnsons brother quitting government and his sister running for election with a rival political party.

David Cameron resigns, bringing an abrupt end to his six-year premiership.

Front pages reflect the divisions that are to come.

Daily Mail: Take a bow, Britain. It was the day the quiet people of Britain rose up against an arrogant, out-of-touch political class and a contemptuous Brussels elite.

The Sun: Why should I do the hard s**t? With Cameron photo.

The Guardian: Over. And out.

Le Monde: Good luck.

Boris Johnson rules himself out of race to become Conservative party leader, having been dealt a fatal blow when his former Vote Leave ally Michael Gove announced he was standing.

Theresa May becomes prime minister after rivals Johnson and Gove fall.

May lays down her red lines to quash Ukip support, telling the party faithful immigration will be the central basis for departure from the EU.

Gina Miller wins a high court ruling that the government needs the consent of parliament to trigger article 50.

In an unprecedented attack on the independent judiciary, the Daily Mail brands the judges enemies of the people.

In a Lancaster House speech, May hardens her red lines, aiming for an end to the jurisdiction of the European court of justice and an exit from the single market and immigration control. On the other side of the Irish Sea, hopes of firm commitments on the Irish border are dashed, sowing the seeds for problems to come.

The EU decides the Irish border will be one of the three priority issues to be solved in the legally binding withdrawal agreement. May, still pushing to convince Eurosceptics of her credentials, will be left unprepared for the weight of the EU juggernaut about to arrive in the negotiation room.

May invokes article 50, fatefully starting the clock counting down to a Brexit deadline two years later. In Brussels, the EU negotiation machine is at full throttle, with detailed draft guidelines (including on the troublesome Irish border issue) issued two days later, something UK negotiators will later say gave them a hefty advantage.

May calls a snap general election, vowing to crush the saboteurs, the Daily Mail claimed. It described her decision as a stunning move in which she had called the bluff of game-playing remoaners (including unelected lords).

The election gamble backfires with the shock loss of 13 seats and a hung parliament, forcing May into a deal with the Democratic Unionist party (DUP) in Northern Ireland.

Britain releases its plan for the Irish border. It is dismissed by the EU as magical thinking.

The Telegraph brands 15 MPs including Ken Clarke, Dominic Grieve and Anna Soubry mutineers after they say they will join forces with Labour to block measures that would enshrine the date of Brexit in law.

The first phase of negotiations ends with the publication of a joint report, but not without last-minute drama. After touching down in Brussels for lunch with Juncker, May gets an unexpected call from the leader of the DUP, Arlene Foster, who tells her she will not support the paragraphs on the Irish border.

Four days later, May returns on a pre-dawn flight from Northolt to sign off a deal that contains one new paragraph that sows the seeds of two years of future conflict over the Irish border backstop. Irelands taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, calls the commitments on the border bulletproof.

The Brexit secretary, David Davis, goes on TV to downplay the significance of Decembers joint report, saying it is just a statement of intent.

Just months after signing the joint report that set up the negotiations framework, May declares that no prime minister could agree to borders between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.

May produces her Chequers plan to keep the whole of the UK in customs alignment with the EU thus obviating a need for Irish border checks. Michel Barnier rules it out soon after.

Davis and his junior Brexit minister Steve Baker resign, plunging the government into a fresh Brexit crisis. A day later, Boris Johnson resigns as foreign secretary.

May is humiliated in Strasbourg as she is told her proposals wont work. The European council president, Donald Tusk, posts on Instagram mocking May for cherrypicking. Her Europe adviser Raoul Ruparel will later describe it as the lowest moment in the negotiations.

Cabinet divisions deepen. The Brexit secretary, Dominic Raab, and the pensions secretary, Esther McVey, quit, as do the Brexit minister Suella Braverman and Northern Ireland minister Shailesh Vara.

The withdrawal agreement is signed in Brussels as the EU agrees it is the best possible Brexit deal, but May returns to domestic political war.

The first meaningful Commons vote on the Brexit deal is postponed after 164 speeches over three of the five days allotted for the debate. May wins a confidence vote.

Tensions rise with the EU as May returns to Brussels to ask for changes in the deal she has just signed.

The number of ministers and government aides quitting over Brexit rises to 19 after a whip resigns.

May loses the meaningful vote by a landslide 230 votes, the heaviest parliamentary defeat for a prime minister since 1924.

Tusk wonders about a special place in hell for those who proposed Brexit without a sketch of a plan.

Mutiny is in the air as a cabinet trio led by Amber Rudd threaten to resign unless May takes no deal off the table. The threat works, with May offering votes on no deal and an extension of article 50. But the decision causes shockwaves that will ripple through to the summer when Johnson makes his move on her job.

What a difference 24 hours makes. May returns from a mercy dash to Brussels for changes on Irish border backstop. The move backfires after her attorney general, Geoffrey Cox, says legal advice on the Irish border backstop is unchanged. May suffers a second humiliating defeat, this time by 149 votes.

Brexit descends into farce as the Commons Speaker, John Bercow, reaches back to 17th-century parliamentary convention to rule that May cannot bring her deal back for a third vote unless it is substantially changed.

May confirms she will step down as prime minister by the end of July, firing the starting gun on the race to succeed her, involving Michael Gove, Jeremy Hunt, Matt Hancock, Rory Stewart, Esther McVey and others. May is pictured welling up as she leaves Downing Street.

Johnson is declared leader of the Tory party.

Johnson reveals plans to prorogue parliament, causing deep divisions within his party.

Johnson suspends 21 members of his party including Grieve, David Gauke and Nicolas Soames who have sought to block a no-deal Brexit. Ten of them will have the whip restored after a Brexit deal is sealed in October.

Johnsons brother, Jo, resigns from the cabinet, citing unresolved tension between family and the national interest.

The supreme court rules that Johnsons advice to the Queen that parliament should be prorogued for five weeks at the height of the Brexit crisis was unlawful. The courts president, Lady Hale, becomes a hero and her broach an icon for many on the remain side.

Boris Johnson and Leo Varadkar meet in the Wirral for 11th-hour discussions to save Brexit and break the deadlock on the Irish border backstop. Days later the deal is revealed, with a Northern Ireland protocol setting a trade border in the Irish Sea.

Johnson is returned to power with an 80-seat majority on the promise that he will get Brexit done.

The UK leaves the EU at 11pm.

Trade negotiations begin, hampered by the Covid lockdown. The two sides chief negotiators, Barnier for the EU and David Frost for the UK, have symptoms.

The first deadline for a deal passes with no agreement on fisheries. Johnson tells the EU to put a tiger in the tank and get a deal by the middle of July. The EU council president, Charles Michel, tells the UK it will not buy a pig in a poke.

Another deadline set by Johnson passes.

Several more deadlines pass.

Finally, a deal is struck.

The 1,246-page document is released, leaving MPs and MEPs little time to read and scrutinise the detail.

Johnson tables an 85-page piece of legislation to ratify the deal with less than 48 hours to go before the end of the transition period. Brigid Fowler, a senior researcher at the Hansard Society, describes the process as a farce and an abdication of parliaments constitutional responsibilities to deliver proper scrutiny of the executive and of the law.

The deal is signed in the EU and ratified in the House of Commons by 521 votes to 73.

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From leave vote to last-ditch deal a big Brexit timeline - The Guardian

Nigel Farage rages over post-Brexit immigration mess French have stalled us – Daily Express

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Brexit: Johnson says UK has opportunity to expand horizons

The UK began a new relationship with the EU last week when the Brexit transition period ended.During the transition Britain remained subject to the blocs rules as a member of the single market and customs union.

But at 11pm on December 31, this ended. The UK and EU now cooperates under a free trade deal.

Writing in the Telegraph, Mr Farage said that reducing immigration into the UK remains a key issue for Tory voters.

The former MEP said he saw a problem with Home Secretary Priti Patels claims on immigration.

He added: Indeed, 2021 is not even a week old and already the first illegal immigrants have arrived at the Port of Dover.

Mr Farage went on to blast the celebrity do-gooders and lefty lawyers who signed an open letter in November calling for a deportation flight to Jamaica to be cancelled.

He said: Convinced of the evil intent of the government following the Windrush scandal, these celebrities and politicians managed to help prevent some of the deportations from going ahead.

Mr Farage acknowledge that Ms Patel understands the importance of border controls.

He said in 2020, the official number of people coming to these shores via inflatable dinghies reached 8,500.

READ MORE:Nigel Farage attacks BBC for 'impending doom' approach on Brexit

Last week, Ms Patel pledged to use "even tougher powers to keep this country safe and protect our homeland security" after the UK left the EU.

Writing in the Telegraph, she said the Brexit deal "gives our police and security services the tools and partnerships to help keep the public safe".

She added: "And having left the EU means we can give these agencies stronger powers to keep this country safe.

That includes banning foreign criminals who have served more than a year in jail from entering the UK.

DON'T MISSSNP divide as insiders warn 'anti-Sturgeon alliance' is being formed [UPDATE]Ireland fishing FURY: Chief shames Dublin, EU over horrific betrayal' [INSIGHT]Boris's Brexit bounce: PM soars ahead of Starmer in election poll[ANALYSIS]

Ms Patel also pledged to crack down on illegal immigration and reform the broken asylum system.

However, Mr Farage said the home secretary faces a problem now that the UK no longer deals with asylum claims under the Dublin regulation.

This regulation allowed British authorities to return people who had previously claimed asylum in another EU member state.

Mr Farage said: The problem for Patel is that, Britain leaving the EU, the Dublin regulations have expired and have not been replaced with anything else.

The French have successfully stalled us, so what will the British government do?

It could simply return to France those who arrive in the UK illegally, but I see a legal problem here too.

He explained that the UK has agreed to remain part of the European Human Rights act.

If the UK violates terms under the European Human Rights act, the whole of the trade agreement could be terminated by the EU" according to Mr Farage.

He added: This is the mess in which Britain now finds itself.

As things stand, the government will continue to face legal challenges if it tries to deport convicted criminals and the cross-Channel migrant route will be as busy as it was last year.

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Nigel Farage rages over post-Brexit immigration mess French have stalled us - Daily Express

The left must stop mourning Brexit and start seeing its huge potential – The Guardian

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So this is it. Forty-eight years after Britain joined what was then the European Economic Community, the fasten seatbelt signs are switched on and the cabin lights have been dimmed. It is time for departure.

Many in the UK, especially on the left, are in despair that this moment has arrived. For them, this can never be the journey to somewhere better: instead it is the equivalent of the last helicopter leaving the roof of the US embassy in Saigon in 1975.

The lefties who voted for Brexit see it differently. For them (us, actually, because I am one of them), the vote to leave was historically progressive. It marked the rejection of a status quo that was only delivering for the better off by those who demanded their voice was heard. Far from being a reactionary spasm, Brexit was democracy in action.

Now the UK has a choice. It can continue to mourn or it can take advantage of the opportunities that Brexit has provided. For a number of reasons, it makes sense to adopt the latter course.

For a start, it is clear that the UK has deep, structural economic problems despite and in some cases because of almost half a century of EU membership. Since 1973, the manufacturing base has shrivelled, the trade balance has been in permanent deficit, and the north-south divide has widened. Free movement of labour has helped entrench Britains reputation as a low-investment, low-productivity economy. Brexit means that those farmers who want their fruit harvested will now have to do things that the left ought to want: pay higher wages or invest in new machinery.

The part of the economy that has done best out of EU membership has been the bit that needed least help: the City of London. Each country in the EU has tended to specialise: the Germans do the high-quality manufactured goods; France does the food and drink; the UK does the money. Yet the mass exodus of banks and other financial institutions that has been predicted since June 2016 has not materialised, because London is a global as well as a European financial centre. The City will continue to thrive.

If there are problems with the UK economy, it is equally obvious there are big problems with the EU as well: slow growth, high levels of unemployment, a rapidly ageing population. The single currency which Britain fortunately never joined has failed to deliver the promised benefits. Instead of convergence between member states there has been divergence; instead of closing the gap in living standards with the US, the eurozone nations have fallen further behind.

In their heads, those predicting Armageddon for the UK imagine the EU to still be Germanys miracle economy the Wirtschaftswunder of the 1960s. The reality is somewhat different. It is Italy, where living standards are no higher than they were when the single currency was introduced two decades ago. It is Greece, forced to accept ideologically motivated austerity in return for financial support. The four freedoms of the single market no barriers to the movement of goods, services, people and capital are actually the four pillars of neoliberalism.

The Covid-19 crisis has demonstrated the importance of nation states and the limitations of the EU. Britains economic response to the pandemic was speedy and coordinated: the Bank of England cut interest rates and boosted the money supply while the Treasury pumped billions into the NHS and the furlough scheme. It has taken months and months of wrangling for the eurozone to come up with the same sort of joined-up approach.

Earlier in the year, there was criticism of the government when it decided to opt out of the EU vaccine procurement programme, but this now looks to have been a smart move. Brussels has been slow to place orders for drugs that are effective, in part because it has bowed to internal political pressure to spread the budget around member states and its regulator has been slower to give approval for treatments. Big does not always mean better.

Leaving the EU means UK governments no longer have anywhere to hide. They have economic levers they can pull procurement, tax, ownership, regulation, investment in infrastructure, subsidies for new industries, trade policy and they will come under pressure to use them.

Many on the remainer left accept the EU has its faults, but they fear that Brexit will be the start of something worse: slash and burn deregulation that will make Britain a nastier place to live.

This, though, assumes that Britain will have rightwing governments in perpetuity. It used to be the left who welcomed change and the right that wanted things to remain the same. The inability to envisage what a progressive government could do with Brexit represents a political role reversal and a colossal loss of nerve.

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The left must stop mourning Brexit and start seeing its huge potential - The Guardian

Short-term freight snags expected as Brexit deal goes into force – Supply Chain Dive

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Dive Brief:

Since early December, stockpiling behaviors and preemptive trade shifts, have caused some upheaval in the normal flow of freight between the U.S. and the U.K. Freight forwarders have been declining to transport goods into the U.K. for weeks leading up to the new year for fear that they won't be able to return with a backload or that long lines will delay drivers,Bloomberg reported.

The often relatively slow period between Christmas Day and the New Year led to a quiet first few days, but as trade picks up in the new year, officials expect delays to accrue beginning Monday.

Aidan Flynn, general manager of Freight Transport Association Ireland, warned that supply chains will need to re-engineer their processes, building in more time between order and delivery. Flynn ball-parked the necessary delay at 12 hours, according to the Irish Times.

Before the deal's final approval, the Port of Rotterdam said it expected a 20% to 30% increase in cargo declarations for imports and exports.

The 1,246-page document was published mere days before it went into effect, which means many supply chain professionals are still working out the final implications. But the deal has also triggered some actions that will eventually help solidify and normalize the new conditions for U.K.-EU freight flow.

The UK is building a 1,200-truck capacity "Inland Border Facility" parking lot at the Dover Port to open in July.

Link:

Short-term freight snags expected as Brexit deal goes into force - Supply Chain Dive