Daily Archives: January 24, 2020

Opinion | Guest ColumnMining executives should not be able to profit from new ventures while Montanans are still dealing with their past messes

By Bonnie Gestring and Karen Knudsen // Jan 22, 2020

The Beal Mountain Mine is a leaky and defunct cyanide-leach gold mine perched above a possibly unstable fault on public lands in the Beaverhead Deerlodge National Forest near Anaconda. In December, the U.S. Forest Service hosted a public meeting on cleanup efforts at the mine.

The site receives a huge amount of snow, and each year when that snow melts, water seeps through giant piles of mine waste and becomes contaminated with arsenic, selenium and cyanide. The water treatment building has been vandalized, overcome with mold, and struck by lightning. It needs to be replaced.

The Forest Service spends about $300,000 a year in public funds to collect and treat the highly contaminated water before it reaches the upper Clark Fork River. More than $15 million has been spent to date, with no end in sight: the site will require water treatment for the foreseeable future. Fixing the overarching problems that plague this mine will require even more money. While the Forest Service is doing good work in its efforts to manage this mess, every year seems to bring a new set of challenges.

Why are taxpayers footing the bill, you ask? Because Pegasus Gold went bankrupt and left taxpayers with the cleanup costs for Beal Mountain, along with the Zortman-Landusky and Basin Creek Mines. Cleanup at all three sites continues to this day at great public expense.

Nevertheless, now one of the former Pegasus Gold executives, Phillips S. Baker, wants to open two new mines under the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness with his new company, Hecla.

Fortunately, the state of Montana has taken enforcement action against the mining company under the states bad actor law. This law is simple: it holds corporations responsible for cleaning up after themselves. It prohibits mining executives whose companies failed to complete required mine reclamation from undertaking new mining projects in the state unless they rectify the mess and pay back the cleanup costs, with interest.

Letting the leadership of Pegasus profit from new mining projects in Montana while the public is still paying to clean up that companys old messes would be unfair and irresponsible. Its particularly inappropriate when the new plans threaten to dewater the wilderness rivers and streams that provide critical refuge to fish and wildlife and produce some of the purest water in the nation.

The environmental review of the two mines, released by the Forest Service, predicts that mining underneath the wilderness area will eliminate 97 to 100 percent of summer flows from overlying rivers and streams, effectively drying up important trout streams on a seasonal basis. Some of the worst effects are predicted to last for up to 1,300 years and will occur in the headwaters of the East Fork Bull River and East Fork Rock Creek the two most important bull trout recovery streams in the Lower Clark Fork, and a source of crystal-clear water to those that live downstream.

Given the science and history here, we cannot have faith that the Cabinet Mountains, and the mountains clean water and wildlife that are so critical to Montanas natural resource-based economy, will be protected.

Mining executives should not be able to profit from new ventures while Montanans are still dealing with their past messes. Lets hold mining executives responsible for their messes, and keep them away from our states greatest treasures.

Bonnie Gestring is the Northwest Program Director for Earthworks. Karen Knudsen is the Executive Director of the Clark Fork Coalition.

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The Ghost of Mining's Past Threatens Cabinet Mountains - Flathead Beacon

Throughout the last decade (2010-2019), tropical deforestation escalated at an alarming rate despite a raft of international commitments, including the New York Declaration on Forests, the U.N. REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) agreement, the inclusion of forests in the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals and the Aichi targets under the U.N. Convention on Biodiversity.

All of these agreements recognize the vital role forests play in climate change mitigation, but they have not reached their full potential due to weak commitments by governments who do not realize their potential as carbon sinks, according to forestry experts at Washington-based World Resources Institute (WRI) in a recent article summarizing a top 10 of big changes for forests over the past decade.

As a new decade begins, at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), we believe that green social and economic initiatives backed by sound government policies are key to spurring conservation and sustainable management of fragile forest and agroforestry ecosystems.

We must stop whittling away at our forests. They are central to biodiversity, water, the preservation of cultural values and the livelihoods of local and Indigenous communities.

FOREST LOSS

In 2016, 2017 and 2018, the three most recent years with available data, the world witnessed the highest rates of primary forest loss since the turn of the century, the WRI article says, pinpointing fires in Brazil for the spikes in 2016 and 2017.

Yet, as a nature-based climate solution, forests have the potential to contribute more than 30 percent of the mitigation action needed to keep global temperatures in check, studies show.

Unfortunately, a cavalier attitude toward forests prevails, despite the serious situation we confront.

The aim of the landmark 2015 U.N.Paris Agreementon climate change is to curb average temperatures and stop them from rising more than 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times. Forests must be recognized in this context for the key role they play as carbon sinks.

The five warmest years on record have occurred since 2015 and nine of the 10 warmest years have occurred since 2005, according to the U.S. National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI). Newly released data show that 2019 was the second hottest year after 2016 in 140 years of record-keeping. Temperatures last year were 1.15 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average, NCEI said.

Fires worldwide and shoreline flooding have taken their toll on forests and communities, reducing their ability to withstand global warming and protect against it. Overall, between 2014 and 2018, the world lost 120 million hectares of tree cover, an area larger than Colombia, according to Global Forest Watch.

These facts are frightening, but there were signs throughout the decade that show we may yet be able to work our way out of this human-made crisis, generated in large measure by 20th century supply-and-demand style capitalist economics.

FINANCIAL AND ECONOMIC ALTERNATIVES

Throughout the teens, some entrepreneurs in the business community began to see the value of preventing biodiversity loss, climate change and environmental degradation.

The concept of the Green New Deal, which began to gain momentum in the early 2000s, gained political traction in the United States over the decade and the concept of an economic transformation away from a fossil fuel-based economy, bled into the mainstream.

On the other side of the Atlantic, in December, the European Union unveiled its European Green Deal Investment Plan, which is aimed at ensuring the continent is carbon neutral by 2050. Key components include mobilizing at least a trillion euros ($1.1 trillion) of sustainable investments over the next decade and increasing public and private spending on climate and environmental action.

Mark Carney, who recently becameU.N. special envoyfor climate action and finance after stepping down as governor of the Bank of England, said that British banks and insurers would have to conduct climate stress tests and reveal their exposure to the climate crisis and how they would manage a temperature increase of up to 4 degrees Celsius. As envoy for climate action, Carney will focus on mobilizing private finance to invest in initiatives to help meet the Paris Agreement.

Commodities markets are becoming more and more sensitive to consumer demand for sustainably produced goods, but prices will largely decide whether they are successful.

While initial enthusiasm for the creation of a carbon trading market under REDD+ petered out, research demonstrates that at the local level, many communities around the world are benefiting from related projects at the jurisdictional level. Former CIFOR Director General Frances Seymour, has declared that REDD+ is undergoing a renaissance as the number of payment-for-performance and bilateral agreements have grown.

As part of the transition to a green economy, policymakers must begin to establish the parameters for the potential role that forests can play in the circular bioeconomy, which can help achieve SDG targets. We must increase the role of wood-based products, replacing what we can of the fossil-fuel based economy.

The emissions associated with any given product should account for all stages of production, use and end of life. For each ton of wood that replaces concrete, the CO2 emissions could be significantly reduced,according toPekka Leskinen, head of the Bioeconomy Program atthe European Forest Institute(EFI).

The use of wood-based fibers in the textile industry could also lead to a substantial carbon reduction compared with synthetics. Many studies indicate that the use of wood and wood-based products is associated with lower fossil and process-based emissions when compared to non-wood products.

While the relative pros and cons must be weighed to determine what proportion of biomass better serves sustainability by being left in the forest and contributing to local ecosystem services, we would be well on the road to economic transformation if we were to begin to sort this out.

A soon-to-be-published synthesis by CIFOR and EFI dips into details of the relative benefits of a bioeconomy, illustrating that the construction sector, dominated by carbon intense, non-renewable concrete and steel, could be transformed and become more sustainable through the use of wood. It shows that substituting non-wood products with wood has the potential to achieve average emissions reductions of 1.3 to 1.6 times.

Forests, sustainable forest management and forest-based solutions offer potential to catalyze such a transformation They can advance the bioeconomy while enhancing biodiversity and supporting wealth creation in rural and urban areas. Such materials as concrete, steel, plastics and synthetic textiles must be replaced by fossil free and renewable materials. In this context, wood, the most versatile renewable material on earth, will be central. Sustainable wood-based solutions are fundamental.

While the most immediate goal for a sustainable future and climate change mitigation is to reduce consumption and emissions, it is also crucial to begin using wood more efficiently for purposes in which wood has a comparative advantage from sustainability and circular economy perspectives.

CIFOR is working with EFI and World Agroforestry (ICRAF) to try and coordinate forest-related polices that could help achieve the targets of the Paris Agreement and the SDGs. To this end, the directors of the three organizations published an open letter to heads of state urging they convene an Earth Forest Summit.

RESTORATION IS VITAL

A key component of economic transformation, the groundwork for a U.N. Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021-2030 led by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP), with partners Global Landscapes Forum, International Union for Conservation of Nature and the U.N. Economic Commission for Europe was formally announced in September at the U.N Secretary Generals Climate Action Summit in New York.

The initiative recognizes that restoration and other natural options could contributemore than a thirdof the solution to the climate crisis, aims to clean up and restore land and waterways on a massive scale, providing an urgently needed buffer against global warming. It aims to pull together all stakeholders from all sectors to create a dialogue and act on restoration.

A major focus in the 2020s must be on preserving primary forests, while restoring secondary forests and degraded land to plantations, agroforestry and bioenergy use wherever it makes ecological and economic sense.

About 12 million hectares of land are lost each year to degradation, harming the wellbeing of more than 3 billion people. This costs more than 10 percent of annual global gross domestic product in lost ecosystem services. We must restore at least 12 million hectares annually simply to reach land degradation neutrality. Given the high cost of restoration, it must become an economic activity and financially attractive to investors and governments.

Additionally, the value of ecosystem services lost annually to degradation is estimated at $6.3 trillion. But achieving restoration at scale through an instrument such as the Bonn Challenge a commitment to restore 150 million hectares of land by 2020 and 350 million hectares by 2030 under the New York Declaration on Forests could result in trillions in net benefit and a significant return on investments. Restoring degraded forests generates an estimated $7 to $30 in economic benefits for every dollar invested.

While this will not be an easy task, new technologies developed over the past decade offer great strategic potential. Remote sensing and drones have made data collection a standard first step in many research efforts with a geospatial component.

New satellites equipped with radar and high-resolution sensors will help offset the handicap of heavy cloud cover and enable more detailed approaches to quantify ecosystem degradation and carbon measuring, WRIs Rod Taylor writes, at the same time pointing out that effective biodiversity loss monitoring is still elusive.

CIFOR aims to be at the forefront of technological innovation.

INCREASING PRESSURES

According to the United Nations, the global population hit 7 billion in 2011, and is currently about 7.6 billion.

The U.N. refugee agency says that the world is witnessing the highest levels of displacement on record, reporting that an unprecedented 70.8 million people around the world have been forced from home. Worldwide there are nearly 25.9 million refugees, over half under the age of 18.

In 2015, 244 million people, or 3.3 per cent of the worlds population, lived outside their country of origin, most crossing borders hoping to find better economic and social opportunities, while others have fled crises. Internal migration within countries is also growing.

Dramatic images of refugees adrift in overcrowded boats or in some cases lifeless and washed up on shorelines, were a shocking reminder of the dire straits some people face, at times due to resource depletion caused by land degradation and climate change.

These mass movements of humanity demand greater research to understand the consequences for landscapes.

For example, refugee camps provide crucial safe zones for displaced people fleeing danger, but resource scarcity can lead to land degradation. More than1.2 million refugeeshave found asylum in Uganda, the majority fleeing conflict in South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo over the past three years. This has put a strain on humanitarian resources and the environment.

Lalisa Duguma, a climate change researcher at ICRAF, recognized the need to develop ecosystem and landscape management in the camps. He worked with team of researchers to lead the development of a tree nurserywhich they say has so far produced over 170,000 seedlingstree planting, and maintenance, among other activities.

Internal migration poses its own challenges. It can also lead to ecosystem degradation and disputes over land. Research led by Peter Cronkleton, an anthropologist with CIFOR, demonstrates that understanding the impact of migratory communities is vital.

For example, the government of Peru often states that approximately 80 percent of deforestation in the Peruvian Amazon is driven by migratory agriculture from the high Andes, but Cronkletons research revealed that most migrants were actually from the area. He observed that migrants moved into land they perceived as being unused and available for settlement.

These lands were usually forests cleared by settlers for agricultural use. Gradually, infrastructure followed as state agencies moved in to provide services, build schools, roads and bridges. In some instances, property rights were also formalized, but only in places where the land had been deforested.

Spontaneous migration into forests, followed by the construction of government-supported infrastructure and property rights for settlers that cleared forest, reveal how cross-sectoral policies have a greater impact on deforestation than the people occupying the landscape, Cronkleton said.

Time and time again, research demonstrates that the best land managers are Indigenous and local communities.

Close to 1.6 billion people rely on forest resources for their livelihoods and most of them, 1.2 billion people, use trees on farms to generate food and cash, according to FAO, but many have been pushed off traditional lands to make way for massive resource extraction projects without consultation, or in spite of it.

Children living in areas of Africa with high tree cover tend to have more nutritious diets, adding support to research showing that forests play a key role in human health and food security.

Our research shows that children in Africa living in communities surrounded by good forest cover have higher dietary diversity and more fruit and vegetable consumption, said Amy Ickowitz, an economist with CIFOR. In these areas, dietary diversity increases with tree cover, suggesting that in heavily treed areas, children have healthier diets.

More than 36 percent of the worlds remaining intact forested landscapes are on Indigenous Peoples lands, recent research by CIFOR associate scientist John Fa shows. Some 370 million people worldwide identify as Indigenous due to their descent from populations who inhabited a country before the time of conquest or colonization and who retain at least some of their own social, economic, cultural and political institutions, manage or have land tenure rights over 25 percent of the worlds land surface.

HIGH STAKES

The threats are real for people who stand up to protect their lands. Rights watchdog Global Witness found thatmore than 1,700 environmental and land defendershave been killed this century, with an average ofmore than three murdered each week in 2018, reports WRIs Jessica Web, adding that about25 to 40 percent are indigenous peoples, although they make up only 5 percent of the worlds population.

The tide of public opinion is changing with greater concern for the impacts that deforestation has on Indigenous communities, Web says. We should also expect donor agencies, NGOs and international institutions to continue allocating resources to support Indigenous interests.

While this may be true, we must work harder to support Indigenous Peoples.

In 2019, we saw representatives from all major faith traditions with a following of more than a billion people worldwide, commit to ending tropical deforestation through the Faiths for Forests Declaration and Action Agenda. They also pledged to stand in solidarity with Indigenous peoples facing threats to their traditional lands.

UNEPannouncedthe newFaiths for Forestscampaign, an initiative of the Interfaith Rainforest Initiative(IRI). It led to the formation of the multi-faith IRI in 2017, two years after Pope Francis shared his fears about the impact of human activities on the environment, climate and rainforests in a major encyclical titledLaudato Si(Praise Be) in 2015.

While political support exists in some quarters, we face an uphill battle to challenge negative political leadership on environmental topics, which has had a profound effect.

For example, in 2017, President Donald Trump served notice that the United States would withdraw from the Paris climate accord. In 2019, like-minded President Jair Bolsonaro took office in Brazil, which put forests and Indigenous communities at risk.

As George Marshall, founder of Climate Outreach, points out, under Article 12 of the Paris Agreement, governments made a commitment to inform their citizens about climate change, a contract many have failed to keep.

Marshall also says that mainstream news media bear responsibility for downplaying the threat of climate change by often placing the views of climate scientists next to those of climate change deniers, as if this were a balanced debate.

ACTIVISM ACCELERATES

In 2018, the Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 degrees was released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It exacerbated fears throughout the environmental community and significantly beyond that temperatures may become an average of1.5 degrees Celsius warmer in the next 11 years with catastrophic consequences for the planet.

After the release of the report, climate change became a developing news story for mainstream news organizations.

The media can start with writing about it (climate change) all the time, every headline, every frontpage because this is too important, we dont realize how important this is, said teen activist Greta Thunberg, at the 2018 COP 24 climate talks. Thunberg became internationally recognized as a celebrity youth leader after establishing a Friday sit-in, known as a climate strike, which took off with youth worldwide.

Some six months after COP 24, in May 2019, Britains Guardian newspaper changed its official editorial style guide, opting to prioritize the use of such terms as climate emergency instead of climate change and global heating instead of global warming, citing Thunberg, who in December was named Time magazines 2019 Person of the Year, as an influence.

Despite the momentum, COP 25 climate talks at the end of the decade were a big disappointment. After two days of extra efforts, negotiators failed to clinch an agreement on the mechanism to govern carbon trading, which would have finalized the Paris Agreement rulebook.

This week, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Britains heir-to-the-throne Prince Charles continued his efforts as an advocate for nature and the environment when he launched his Sustainable Markets Initiative.

Nature is not a separate asset class, nature is in fact the lifeblood of our financial markets we must rapidly realign our own economy to mimic natures economy and work in harmony with it, he said.

In this decade, both nature and forests must find a place at the table because to cite a quote from an Indigenous leader at GLF if you are not sitting at the table, you quickly become part of the menu.

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So long tumultuous teens: High hopes for forests in the 2020s - Forests News, Center for International Forestry Research

The World Bank has committed USD 570 Mn to, in part, help Ghana make Accra Africas cleanest city. USD 557 Mn of the fund is in credits while the remaining USD 13 Mn is in grants.

One of the projects that will be financed include the Greater Accra and Integrated Development (GARID) initiative. This is a USD 200 Mn multi-sector and transformative urban project tailored to bolster the city to become safer, more resilient and cleaner.

It is one of the promises of Akufo-Addos administration to make Accra the tidiest place on the continent. Logically, the ambition is to overtake Kigali and Cape Town, Africas cleanest urbanities as of present.

It was in in April 2017 that the president promised to make Accra the cleanest city in Africa by the end of his tenure in office. The ambitious pledge came in the face of worsening sanitation crisis in the nations capital, Accra, with city authorities struggling to deal with the situation.

Nevertheless, there have been reservations from the past that the goal will remain a pipe dream. These beliefs are valid on the grounds that the present regime is about to come to an end, and the title is yet to be sat on.

Ghanas general elections will be held towards the end of 2020, so its fair to say the financial aid could not have come at a better time. USD 150 Mn of the money will go into the Ghana Accountability for Learning Outcomes project. The initiative is aimed at improving education in low-performing basic schools.

Not of of the fund is going into sweeping the streets of Accra. Another USD 200 Mn Ghana Economic Transformation Project will be financed. It is expected to promote private investment and firm growth in non-resource-based sectors of the countrys economy.

The fourth project being additional financing for the Ghana Forest Investment Programme Enhancing Natural Forest and Agroforest Landscapes Project, comes with a USD 12.4 Mn grant.

This week, the Minister of Sanitation and Water Resources, Cecilia Dapaah, inaugurated a Special Task Force On Environmental Sanitation to work with the Ministry in attaining President Akufo-Addos vision of making Accra the cleanest city in Africa.

Featured Image: Agromoneta-Ghana

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Accra To Become The Cleanest City In Africa & The World Bank Aid - WeeTracker Media

In a public letter to all company stakeholders, CEO Kevin Johnson sets 2030 science-based targets for carbon, water and waste as part of a multi-decade aspiration.

Hot on the heels of a similarly groundbreaking, industry-leading announcementlast week fromMicrosoft,Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson outlined today, ina publicletter,a multi-decade commitment to become a resource-positive company aspiring togive more than it takes from the planet. The announcement included science-basedpreliminary targets for the reduction of carbon emissions, water use and wasteby 2030; and outlined five strategies the company has identified to move towardthem.

As we approach the 50thanniversary of Starbucks in 2021, we are looking aheadwith a heightened sense of urgency and conviction that we must challengeourselves, think bigger and do much more in partnership with others to take careof the planet we share, Johnson said.

Our aspiration is to become resource positive storing more carbon than weemit, eliminating waste; and providing more clean, fresh water than we use.This aspiration is grounded in Starbucks mission. By embracing alonger-term economic, equitable and planetary-value proposition for ourcompany, we will create greater value for all stakeholders.

With the help of World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and Quantis, acomprehensive, data-driven environmental footprint of carbon emissions, wateruse and waste in Starbucks global operations and supply chain informed the fivestrategies to prioritize work:

Hear insights from a variety of field experts and practitioners on the myriad benefits of a world devoted to regenerative sourcing practices June 1-4 at SB'20 Long Beach.

Expanding plant-basedoptions,migrating toward a more environmentally friendly menu.

Shifting from single-use to reusable packaging a transition its alreadybegun through its fueling of Closed Loop Partners NextGen CupChallenge.

Investing in innovative and regenerative agriculturalpractices,reforestation, forest conservation and water replenishment throughout itssupply chain.

Investing in better ways to manage waste both in Starbucks stores and inits communities to ensure more reuse, recycling and elimination of foodwaste.

Innovating to develop more sustainable stores, operations, manufacturing anddelivery.

Johnson also outlined three preliminary targets for 2030:

A 50 percent reduction in carbon emissions in Starbucks direct operationsand supply chain.

50 percent of water withdrawal for direct operations and coffee productionwill be conserved or replenished with a focus on communities and basins withhigh water risk.

A 50 percent reduction in waste sent to landfill from stores andmanufacturing, driven by a broader shift toward a circular economy. Tounderscore its commitment to a circular economy, Starbucks has signed ontotheEllen MacArthur Foundations New Plastics Economy GlobalCommitment,setting ambitious circular targets for its packaging.

On Starbucks 50thanniversary in 2021, the company will formalize its 2030environmental goals based on learnings between now and then. Specifically,Johnson noted, the coming year will involve comprehensive market research andtrials to better understand consumer behavior and incentives to encourage moreuse of reusable containers.

Johnson noted the importance of Starbucks partnerships with others on itsjourney to be a more sustainable company. Advisors to the company have providedthe following comments:

Sheila Bonini, SVP of Private Sector Engagement at WWF, said:Asthe global climate crisis is fueling a new set of challenges for the planet,Starbucks has set an ambitious vision to give more than they take from ourplanets finite natural resources. This is exactly the kind of leadership weneed to see from businesses an opportunity to invest in their own future whilemaking their global customer base a partner in this sustainability journey.

Sander Defruyt, Lead of the New Plastics Economy initiative at the EllenMacArthur Foundation, said:The New Plastics Economy Global Commitment unitesbusinesses, governments and others behind a clear vision for a world whereplastic never becomes waste or pollution, and the ambitious targets required toachieve it. Creating this circular economy for plastic will be a challengingjourney, but by signing the Global Commitment, Starbucks is joining forces withmore than 450 signatories to make it possible. We urge others to join them. Bycoming together, we can eliminate the plastics we dont need and innovate, sothe plastics we do need can be safely and easily circulated, keeping them in theeconomy and out of the environment.

Mark Lee, Executive Director at SustainAbility, said: It isencouraging to see Starbucks embrace a data-driven and team-driven approach tocreating a resource-positive future. Given their proven ability to tap into thepassion and expertise of their partners around the globe, I am confident thatthey will succeed and that this will have a huge impact. Starbuckssustainability commitment is deeply embedded in their enterprise-wide strategiesand in the hearts and minds of their leaders. Their most senior leadership wasdirectly involved in the creation of this plan, and they did an outstanding jobconvening experts in the field in the course of its development, inviting themto help Starbucks dream big on whats possible for the planet. This putsStarbucks in the vanguard of corporate sustainability leaders, and we hope morebusinesses will be inspired to develop similarly robust approaches to addressingthe worlds most pressing sustainability challenges.

Published Jan 21, 2020 1pm EST / 10am PST / 6pm GMT / 7pm CET

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Starbucks Commits to a Resource-Positive Future, Giving More than It Takes from the Planet - Sustainable Brands

Indonesia is planning to establish a sovereign wealth fund to fund the countrys development projects following investment interest expressed by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the United States, among others.

The funds establishment is to be regulated by an anticipated omnibus bill on job creation, which has been drafted by the government and is expected to be submitted to the House of Representatives this week. The bill is seen as essential to support the governments efforts to attract investments to the country to help fuel the sluggish economic growth.

In a statement on Jan. 13, Coordinating Maritime Affairs and Investment Minister Luhut Pandjaitan said the UAE, Japanese conglomerate SoftBank Group and the US International Development Finance Corporation (IDFC) were among the investors in the sovereign wealth fund. He said the possibility for other potential parties to join the fund was still open.

The UAE government has prepared US$6.8 billion to invest in Indonesias development projects through a sovereign wealth fund, while the IDFC has pledged to invest $5.5 billion in Indonesia. SoftBank Group, meanwhile, has offered up to $40 billion to invest in the development of the countrys new capital city.

President Joko Jokowi Widodo said previously that the planned sovereign wealth fund was expected to attract at least $20 billion of foreign inflows to finance the countrys infrastructure projects.

Read also: Governments sovereign wealth fund plan questioned

However, some experts have questioned the funds establishment and management, saying the common practices are slightly different than what were set out in the governments plan. Here are things you need to know about the sovereign wealth fund and its potential dark side: a moral hazard.

First of all, what is a sovereign wealth fund?

According to the US-based Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute, a sovereign wealth fund is a state-owned investment fund that commonly raises funds from balance of payment surpluses, official foreign currency operations, money from privatizations, governmental transfer payments, fiscal surpluses and revenue generated from natural resource exports.

A sovereign wealth fund invests in a range of assets, such as government bonds, equities and foreign direct investment.

Each sovereign fund has its own reason for being created and its own objectives including to fund social and economic development, diversify from nonrenewable commodity exports and increase savings for future generations, as well as stabilize a countrys budget and economy from excess volatility in revenues or exports, according to the institute.

What are things the government intends to do with a sovereign wealth fund?

A presentation shared by the Office of the Coordinating Economic Minister on the omnibus bill revealed that the funds establishment was aimed at managing and allocating a sum of funding and/or state assets. The funds assets would be in the form of state capital injection, assets/business development returns, state-owned enterprise assets, grants and other defined sources.

The sovereign wealth fund would be owned by the government and would be able to engage in direct or indirect investments and work with other parties, according to the presentation material.

In contrast to common practices, the government said it was in discussions to invite foreign investments into the planned sovereign wealth fund to help finance the countrys development projects, according to Luhut.

This will have a multiplier effect, said the minister during a recent press briefing. If we have $15 billion [in a sovereign wealth fund], we have to look for projects that could generate up to $60 billion.

President Joko Jokowi Widodo said the planned sovereign wealth fund was expected to attract at least $20 billion of foreign inflows to finance the countrys infrastructure projects.

Read also: 'Largest deal in Indonesia's history': UAE pledges to invest in deal worth $22.8b

However, the plan has raised questions as experts considered foreign investments should not be considered as the funds assets.

The sovereign wealth plan is vague because a sovereign wealth fund is established by a country because it has excess money from a balance of payments surplus [among other things], like in the UAE, Centre for Strategic and International Studies economic department head Yose Rizal Damuri said on Jan. 17.

What the government planned, he said, was that domestic funding and foreign investment would be collected under a sovereign wealth fund to be used in Indonesia.

However, a sovereign wealth fund doesnt work like that, he added. [The governments plan] is probably to collect funding from other countries sovereign wealth funds.

Would a sovereign wealth fund benefit a countrys economy?

There are several examples of a sovereign wealth fund enriching a countrys economy, including the worlds largest Norway Government Pension Fund Global.

The value of Norways sovereign wealth fund grew to a record of $1.09 trillion in October, boosted by rising global stocks and the strength of the euro and dollar, as reported by Reuters.

Built since 1996 to save petroleum revenues for future generations, the size of the fund has grown to almost three times Norways annual gross domestic product, far exceeding original projections.

When the fund was set up, nobody thought it would pass $1.09 trillion. We were lucky to discover oil, the funds chief executive, Yngve Slyngstad, said in a statement confirming the record, according to Reuters.

The return on the investments in global financial markets has been so high that it can be compared to having discovered oil again, he said.

Commonly known as the oil fund and managed by a unit of the central bank, it invests close to 70 percent of funds in global equities and some 28 percent in a portfolio of fixed-income assets, according to the same report.

Do sovereign wealth funds pose risks to a countrys economy?

Some sovereign wealth funds tend not to be as transparent as others, according to the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute. For example, one sovereign wealth fund may disclose their investment holdings on a periodic basis, while another fund keeps them private.

Malaysias sovereign wealth fund, 1MDB, for instance, has been in a spotlight following alleged money laundering and financial fraud in which Malaysian and US investigators believe about $4.5 billion was misappropriated.

The case has implicated Wall Street investment bank Goldman Sachs officials and Malaysian businessman Low Taek Jho commonly known as Jho Low as well as former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak.

Read also: Malaysian financier denies masterminding 1MDB graft scandal

Looted money was used by Jho to buy things from a super-yacht to art pieces as he remained a wanted man by Singaporean authorities and the US Department of Justice, according to Malaysia-based media outlet The Star.

Najib, meanwhile, faces 42 criminal charges in five separate trials related to the alleged theft of billions of dollars from 1MDB in at least six countries including the US, Singapore and Switzerland. He has pleaded not guilty, according to Reuters.

The government must be able to supervise the fund management in a bid to avoid embezzlement such as in Jiwasraya or the 1MDB case, Center of Reform on Economics Indonesia research director Piter Abdullah said.

Meanwhile, Yose pushed for good governance based on international values to avoid corruption and financial fraud in the countrys upcoming sovereign wealth fund.

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Things you need to know about government's sovereign wealth fund - The Jakarta Post - Jakarta Post

Small town BC is in serious trouble and government neglect in the years preceding todays forestry sector implosion has only served to make the meltdown worse and the chances of a complete recovery more difficult.

However, this is not about singling out a political party with finger pointing and eager accusations of one-sided party ineptitude.

The sad and unfortunate truth is both BC Liberals and NDP governments (over several decades) contributed to the overall decline of rural communities through intentional policies of neglect, disguised as budgeting efficiencies.

The responsibility is therefore shared and just one example would be the long and deliberate practice of reducing or removing services from rural BC.

It began in the late 1980s, early 1990s when government offices and services were consolidated, with many relocated to larger urban centres. With those moves went ease of access along with the steady government pay cheques and supporting small business infrastructure that typically helped support a small town economy.

The flawed rationale for abandoning these communities was based on fiscal efficiencies in combination with a misplaced belief in the governments ability to replace local services with a technology based communications infrastructure.

Paradoxically, it was an Internet based system deployed in communities that often didnt have access to the Internet.

It was the start of a political process throughout rural BC that was ready, willing and able to take the taxes, fees and royalties generated by the Interiors resource industries and re-deploy that wealth for enhanced services in major urban centres.

Over time, when belts had to again be tightened, rural BC paid a disproportionate share of the cost through additional service and infrastructure cuts. And when a governments desire for increased spending, balanced budgets and personal income tax cuts defied logic, those same governments simply increased resource royalties as a means of paying for their unwillingness to pursue fair taxation measures.

It is a routine, thanks to the vote-rich Lower Mainland that can get a government elected for several terms.

However there comes a time of reckoning when sleight-of-hand politics meets the perfect storm of an interconnected global economy, dangerously ignorant and protectionist world leaders and rampant greed. And thats what is happening in our woods today.

Rural BC was thrown under the bus in return for short term and short sighted political gain. Instead of a more diversified economy we have a narrowly focussed rural economy that is unable to withstand even the slightest economic challenge.

It is also an economy that is consistently run over by politicians in their rush and lust for power. It is an economy that is seen as the provinces ATM; a ready source of cash to cover the faults of a political philosophy founded on self-interest, self-absorption and self-aggrandisement

The absurdity of this narrow-minded style of governing is now apparent. Rural BC, the golden goose that has kept the province afloat, has been plundered and abused too many times.

Rural BC has been bled to near death and the governments insatiable appetite for cold hard cash may now force them to the very urban taxpayer they have been protecting from the realities of budgets balanced on the backs of rural BC.

Bill McQuarrie is a former publisher, photojournalist and entrepreneur. Semi-retired and now living in Port McNeill, you can follow him on Instagram #mcriderbc or reach him at bill@northislandrising.com

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Rural BC The golden goose that has kept the province afloat - North Island Gazette

(MENAFN - GetNews) Saudi Arabia Outbound Tourism Market, Tourist Numbers, Countries (United States, United Kingdom, India, Germany, Switzerland, Singapore, Australia, Malaysia, Turkey, South Africa) Purpose of Visit (Holiday, Visit Friends & Relatives, Business, Others).

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's number of outbound visitors has grown year after year. Holiday activities like relaxation, shopping and sightseeing are the primary reason for driving the Saudi Arabia Outbound Tourism Market. The other major factors that propel the Saudi Arabia outbound tourism market are; rising per capita disposable income, economic growth, new generation has the willingness to roam around the world, lack of entertainment facilities in the country, increasing number of tech-savvy people, online booking and exploring new destination etc. Saudi Arabia Outbound Tourism Market throws an opportunity of USD 43 Billion by the year 2025 .

Structured survey reveals three big segments of travel conservatives, fun seekers, and diversity seekers. Conservatives have a deep dislike for entertainment-oriented events; fun seekers prefer shopping and leisure activities, and variety seekers like all holiday activities. Holiday segment among all other segments of Saudi Arabia Outbound Tourism is the most common segment of tourism.

Renub Research report titled 'Saudi Arabia Outbound Tourism Market, Tourist Numbers, Countries (United States, United Kingdom, India, Germany, Switzerland, Singapore, Australia, Malaysia, Turkey, South Africa) Purpose of Visit (Holiday, Visit Friends & Relatives, Business, Others) talks about fast-evolving, high-growth Saudi Arabia Outbound Travel Industry.

Request a free sample copy of the report: https://www.renub.com/request-sample-page.php?gturl=saudi-arabia-outbound-tourism-market-p.php

Market Summary:

By Purpose of Visit: The study explores the purpose of visit by; Holiday Tourists Arrivals & Market, Visit Friends and Relatives (VFR) Arrivals & Market, Business (MICE) Arrivals & Market and Others Arrivals & Market.

By Countries: Saudi Arabia outbound tourism categorized by countries into 10 parts; United Kingdom, United States, India, Germany, Switzerland, Singapore, Australia, Malaysia, Turkey and South Africa. This report studies multivariate statistical methods to define the market and volume of outbound visitors.

Request a free Brochure copy of the report: https://www.renub.com/request-brochure-page.php?gturl=saudi-arabia-outbound-tourism-market-p.php

If the information you seek is not included in the current scope of the study kindly share your specific requirements with our custom research team.

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Japan Outbound Tourism Market

UAE Outbound Tourism Market

Contact Us Email: Phone: +1-678-302-0700 Web: http://www.renub.com

Key Topics Covered :

1. Market Definition

2. Research Methodology

3. Executive Summary

4. Saudi Arabia Outbound Tourism

4.1 Tourists Market 4.2 Tourists Numbers

5. Tourists Share Saudi Arabia Outbound Tourism

5.1 Tourists Share by Countries 5.2 Tourists Share by Purpose - Saudi Arabia Outbound Tourism

6. Tourist Market Share Saudi Arabia Outbound Tourism

6.1 Market Share by Countries - Saudi Arabia Outbound Tourism 6.2 Market Share by Purpose - Saudi Arabia Outbound Tourism

7. United States

7.1 Saudi Arabia Outbound Tourist Visitors 7.2 By Purpose Saudi Arabia Outbound Tourists Visit to United States 7.3 Saudi Arabia Outbound Tourists Market (Spending) 7.4 By Purpose Saudi Arabia Outbound Tourists Market (Spending) in United States

8. United Kingdom

8.1 Saudi Arabia Outbound Tourist Visitors 8.2 By Purpose Saudi Arabia Outbound Tourists Visit to United Kingdom 8.3 Saudi Arabia Outbound Tourists Market (Spending) 8.4 By Purpose Saudi Arabia Outbound Tourists Market (Spending) in United Kingdom

9. Germany

9.1 Saudi Arabia Outbound Tourist Visitors 9.2 By Purpose Saudi Arabia Outbound Tourists Visit to Germany 9.3 Saudi Arabia Outbound Tourists Market (Spending) 9.4 By Purpose Saudi Arabia Outbound Tourists Market (Spending) in Germany

10. Switzerland

10.1 Saudi Arabia Outbound Tourist Visitors 10.2 By Purpose Saudi Arabia Outbound Tourists Visit to Switzerland 10.3 Saudi Arabia Outbound Tourists Market (Spending) 10.4 By Purpose Saudi Arabia Outbound Tourists Market (Spending) in Switzerland

11. India

11.1 Saudi Arabia Outbound Tourist Visitors 11.2 By Purpose Saudi Arabia Outbound Tourists Visit to India 11.3 Saudi Arabia Outbound Tourists Market (Spending) 11.4 By Purpose Saudi Arabia Outbound Tourists Market (Spending) in India

12. Australia

12.1 Saudi Arabia Outbound Tourist Visitors 12.2 By Purpose Saudi Arabia Outbound Tourists Visit to Australia 12.3 Saudi Arabia Outbound Tourists Market (Spending) 12.4 By Purpose Saudi Arabia Outbound Tourists Market (Spending) in Australia

13. Singapore

13.1 Saudi Arabia Outbound Tourist Visitors 13.2 By Purpose Saudi Arabia Outbound Tourists Visit to Singapore 13.3 Saudi Arabia Outbound Tourists Market (Spending) 13.4 By Purpose Saudi Arabia Outbound Tourists Market (Spending) in Singapore

14. Turkey

14.1 Saudi Arabia Outbound Tourist Visitors 14.2 By Purpose Saudi Arabia Outbound Tourists Visit to Turkey 14.3 Saudi Arabia Outbound Tourists Market (Spending) 14.4 By Purpose Saudi Arabia Outbound Tourists Market (Spending) in Turkey

15. South Africa

15.1 Saudi Arabia Outbound Tourist Visitors 15.2 By Purpose Saudi Arabia Outbound Tourists Visit to South Africa 15.3 Saudi Arabia Outbound Tourist Market (Spending) 15.4 By Purpose Saudi Arabia Outbound Tourists Market (Spending) in South Africa

16. Malaysia

16.1 Saudi Arabia Outbound Tourist Visitors 16.2 By Purpose Saudi Arabia Outbound Tourists Visit to South Africa 16.3 Saudi Arabia Outbound Tourists Market (Spending) 16.4 By Purpose Saudi Arabia Outbound Tourists Market (Spending) in South Africa

17. Growth Drivers

17.1 Rising Socio-Economic Aspirations 17.2 The information effect: A profusion of information, online and through social media, will empower travelers 17.3 Higher spending makes Saudi Arabia a lucrative region for outbound tourism

18. Challenges

18.1 Unemployment 18.2 Resource-based economy

19. Conclusion

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Renub Research is a Market Research and Consulting Company. We have more than 10 years of experience especially in international Business-to-Business Researches, Surveys, and Consulting. We provide a wide range of business research solutions that helps companies in making better business decisions. Our clients rely on our market analysis and data to make informed knowledgeable decisions. Our pertinent analysis helps consultants, bankers and executives to make informed and correct decisions.

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Saudi Arabia Outbound Tourism Market throws an opportunity of USD 43 Billion by the year 2025 - MENAFN.COM

Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

Elites have ruled over people and commanded the surplus produced by their labor for many millennia. It is this long history we have to contend with in todays crisis of capitalism that has produced endless wars and environmental catastrophes as corporate billionaire rulers continue to promote business as usual while preparing to fight each other with armed forces and nuclear weapons. This has all been normalized. Concentrated elite power ends up massively distorting peoples understanding of the nature of big business rule. Their highly paid spokes people even shamelessly deploy concepts like freedom and liberty to rationalize the enslaving and killing of millions for profits in resource wars. But we also need to understand that despite this long reign of (t)error, human beings lived for most of their evolutionary history (a much longer period of time than that during which elites have ruled) in nomadic hunter-gatherer societies where life conditions produced a rough equality among the Paleolithic family groups. If there was anything that could be called freedom here, it was a consequence of a primitive subsistence level that demanded participation from all in obtaining the means of survival while providing minimal incentives for large-scale social conflicts. Cooperation was primary; it is what made human societies not competition. These conditions also kept the human populations low and in balance with available resources, while as some anthropologists speculate (see Marshall Sahlins), providing significant amounts of free time for cultivating social ties.

This began to change with the agricultural revolution, during which some people found themselves in better positions to extract a greater portion of the newly available surpluses that allowed them to specialize in such key elite activities as that of warrior and priest, two elite categories that generally cooperated but were sometimes in conflict. Both of these functions demanded time for training and education that basic producers did not have, though they fed and clothed the elite and thus paid with their labor for the leisure afforded aristocracies to learn how to rule. The latter certainly commanded the resources and time that can be seen as one aspect of freedom, but their opportunity for leisure, learning, and the pursuit of pleasure, self-interest and aggrandizement was paid for by the lack of freedom of the laboring classes whose work had to support both themselves and their rulers.

Those who did the work were everywhere in the majority while their overlords almost always made up a minority often a very tiny minority of the societies that they dominated. For millennia, elites ruled over large numbers by using a combination of coercion and persuasion, and in a few instances, even inclusion of the lower orders in their decision-making processes. This could usually (but not always) be done with a minimum expenditure of blood and treasure. Elites were instrumental in founding the societies in areas over which they ruled by getting a hold on the best lands, establishing the institutions and monopolizing the means and techniques of coercion, and by producing and disseminating the dominant discourse. They set up or took over and adapted the major belief systems of their societies (from late Antiquity through the medieval period, and well into our own times primarily religion), and utilized these to rationalize their rule and reinforce acceptance of social hierarchies with them at the pinnacle.

For most of Antiquity, ruling elites lived and prospered from the labor of large numbers of people: primarily slaves, but also indebted peasants, and those people subjugated by conquest. During this epoch, the Greek and Roman experiences also produced decisive developments for elite rule, including the use of democracy in some of the Greek city-states that allowed continued aristocratic leadership while giving a voice to the self-armed peasants who fought in the infantry, and even landless laborers (the thetes) who rowed in the fleet. Greek democracy and Greek science and philosophy were the legacies left by the ruling Greek elite that have been historical reference points in play up to our own times. Platos work, for example, includes extended discussions of the need for rule by an elite of philosopher kings, to be supported of course by the labor of the lower orders. As for the Romans, their Republic left its mark on history as an example of republican governments in which the aristocracy selected a small number of their peers as decision makers to serve in the Senate. In early Rome, the plebeian commoners also had their own representative assemblies acceptable to the patrician elite because the peasants and commoners (as in Greece) filled the ranks of Romes army and were taxed to support its operations. Thus, their views could appear to be taken into account, though their influence on policy was seldom decisive. The Roman Republic was replaced by imperial rule as Romes empire grew. Strong executive leadership became necessary to control the factionalism of the aristocracy and manage the military power upon which the empire rested. But, eventually, Romes armies helped to create the conditions that would lead to Romes fall. Many Roman citizens no longer wished to risk their lives in the Roman military. Professional soldiers, including large numbers of barbarians paid and equipped by the state and later used as auxiliaries under their own leaders, replaced the earlier peasant levies. Romes later emperors used these barbarian soldiers while treating them and their families with suspicion and hostility, even murdering them on occasion.

In Romes armies the troops increasingly looked to their superior officers and commanding generals for a share in the spoils of war. They were loyal to the most successful, which meant that the army now made and unmade emperors. Emperors who frequently had to fight civil wars against rivals now protected the aristocracys interests; these wars eventually overstretched and weakened the empire. Even the remnants of representative institutions would be displaced by autocratic imperial power that came to rest on the recruitment of soldiers from Romes barbarian enemies while ruthlessly taxing the empires peasant population. These policies, given barbarian pressure on Romes overextended western frontier, may have appeared necessary. Overall, however, they were a recipe for disaster that left little or no room for freedom, undermined support for Roman rule, and would end in fragmentation and chaos. Too many people, inside and outside of the empire and its armies had little incentive to continue supporting it. Thus, as historys first large and successful world empire, Rome showed that conquest could be the road to elite power and wealth and could be maintained for centuries but not indefinitely. Rome became a major reference point for later imperial rule, and, of course, for the failures and decline of empires.

Through the Middle Ages, the peasantry was the main productive class, working both for their landlord masters and themselves. The most powerful of the medieval nobility and the holders of the largest land areas, kings and magnates, tied the lesser nobility to them by grants of land in exchange for loyalty and military service. From their estates and manors, this elite hierarchy ruled over the agricultural producers residing in village lands that were a part of the lords manor but had been customarily used by the peasants for centuries. For the most part, peasants accepted their landlords rule as long as the dues demanded of them remained constrained by the long usage of custom. But peasants could become rebellious if landlords demands were seen going beyond what had been usual. Peasants, however, never really threatened elite power, at least not during the Middle Ages or for several centuries beyond. It does not seem that, given the isolation of their villages, their lack of leadership experience, and their general acceptance of their rulers ideology, that the European peasantry of this period could ever have successfully mounted a challenge to elite rule. Later peasant-based revolutions (French, Russian, Chinese, Vietnamese) would tell a different story, though capitalist imperialism would eventually overwhelm the 20th century revolutions, which tried and failed to build long term worldwide revolutionary movements.

The medieval period was also marked by power struggles among the elite themselves for control of areas and, eventually, states that would emerge around certain dynasties, and by the 16th century become the European state systems among which the struggles would continue via ever-shifting alliances and antagonisms. The rivalries of these composite states extended the feudal-based conflicts over land, exacerbated by the increased resources needed to field large armies, and produced seemingly endless conflict that has indeed continued into our own times, with those powers that first developed the capitalist mode of production coming out on top. In the medieval West, the Christianity of the Roman Church was predominant and would act as a unifying force, at least ideologically, though not without developing its own institutional structures and interests that would sometimes clash with states in which the Church was a parallel authority. The Protestant Reformation would, of course, disrupt this catholic unity and add another major source of conflict, while still rationalizing elite rule via the idea of predestination Gods providence favoring those in power with success.

The nobility, trained for warfare, monopolized the upper levels of both Church and state and shaped them to serve their interests while in some states (England for example, and eventually any state that wanted to compete) increasingly blending with and driven by the emerging capitalist class. These people established educational systems (through both Church and state) to ensure their ideological hegemony. During the early Middle Ages, the legacies of Greek science and philosophy were lost or deliberately suppressed by the Christian authorities. The later medieval period and Renaissance saw a revival of Greek learning, though for most of the Middle Ages (and beyond, well into the early modern period) the Church continued to monopolize the discourse and use physical torture to repress any views deemed heretical. And, of course, the Church preached a doctrine that encouraged members of society to recognize and remain in their places where they would continue to do what they had always done. For the peasants, this meant to work and support their masters, as they had been doing for a thousand years or more in a feudal system where there were many peasant revolts, but never a robust, widespread and unified challenge to elite rule from below.

By the end of the 15th century, particularly in England, the long-prevailing feudal mode of production began to crack open from within due to changing balances among the contending classes that allowed for the development of a capitalistic mode of production that would eventually prevail throughout the world. Capitalism developed in a number of places in the early modern period as merchants accumulated capital from trade, and developed markets. But in England these developments combined with changes in agriculture that gave rise to a new capitalist economy. By this time the English nobility controlled the bulk of the land, owning much of it outright, though they were parasitic upon the tenant farmers to whom they rented their lands, and, of course, ultimately upon the labor of hired agricultural workers, former peasants whose rights to common lands had been removed, along with themselves, by a lengthy enclosure movement whereby landlords who controlled Parliament and police power took over what had been common lands and forced peasants from their holdings as they saw their lands become increasingly profitable. These displaced peasants were to become the new working class, owning no means of livelihood and with only their ability to work left to them.

The working class under capitalism was nominally and juridically free (neither serfs nor slaves, except on the colonial plantations of the New World where African slaves produced the surpluses that made planters some of the wealthiest people in the world). Now, however, they no longer controlled any means of subsistence (land). And the Industrial Revolution would eventually deprive them of their own tools. They were themselves commodities (wage slaves) forced by an economy driven by capital accumulation to sell their labor power in exchange for wages, on labor markets subject to the fluctuating needs of a new ruling class of capitalists. Capitalists paid workers a subsistence wage that represented the value of only a portion of what the worker produced, while owning the entire product of workers labor to be sold for profit. As a result of turning the peasants into workers with no way to feed and clothe themselves, English markets were the first to take a step toward mass-market production and consumption by producing for sale the basic staples such as food and clothing. But such markets now at least partially rested on the demand of wageworkers (as they still do today, representing roughly 70%). Yet worldwide, workers wages were (are) almost always barely enough for subsistence.

Subsistence farming was left in the dust; production of commodities for the market would become the main goal everywhere. Capitalism for the first time in human history introduced a mode of production based on individual capitalist-operated units such as Englands farms that produced for exchange and consistently demanded the most efficient methods (those which produced the greatest amount for the least cost, via machinery that eliminated labor, and/or cuts in wages, the latter being the most elastic of the cost-cutting measures) to keep overall production expenses low. This economic system replaced the basic peasant subsistence agriculture prevailing throughout previous human history. The new capitalism introduced a dynamic relentless competitive drive that led to innovation and exponentially expanded production, especially after the Industrial Revolution that could not have happened without this earlier capitalistic development. In terms of population growth and technical innovations, history appeared to speed up.

Capitalism has continued the rule of an elite, arguably the most powerful in history and committed to an economic system that knows no boundaries, depends on endless production and consumption (non-stop growth on a finite planet), and now threatens global environmental destruction. For millennia landed elites everywhere confronted peasants from whose labor they lived and grew relatively wealthy. Todays big capitalist elites, however, now exploit a global working class whose origins we have just discussed, and whose labor has resulted in the creation of a class of billionaires for the first time in history. The competitive struggles between and among capitalist, over control of trade and market share, natural resources, and access to the cheapest labor, have led to almost constant international conflict, including two colossal world wars in the twentieth century, wars fought for elite wealth and power, but using workers (and peasants) as cannon fodder. In defense of their interests, workers have been on a collision course with individual capitalists (and their states) since the 16th century. In more recent times, they have even confronted the capitalist class with the specter of revolution. The socialists of the 19th century and the communists of the 20th led workers and peasants in defensive struggles and, at times of crisis and war, even aimed to overthrow the rule of capital in the world. They did not succeed in this, though their efforts were met with some success in several countries where peasant exploitation lasted well into modern times. But by the end of the twentieth century, workers gains had been reversed, an unprecedented inequality prevails everywhere in the world, especially in the Global South, and working classes have been on the defensive everywhere.

Elite rule thus continues in the monopoly phase of capitalism that has concentrated power into fewer hands worldwide than in all previous history. Elites have now had centuries of ruling experience, and they have the same enemies the worlds working classes. They are in possession of the instruments of control (such as mass media) through which they deploy a complex of old and new ideologies on every imaginable front, much of which is designed to divide workers by race, gender, age, and any other categories our rulers can come up with to pit one group of working people against another. All of this is, of course, always backed up by their monopoly of state violence, which we can see in action virtually every day. Look to France for just one of many examples.

Nor is class struggle their only war front. Todays endless wars are waged for control of the worlds increasingly shrinking resources (oil, water, cheap labor, markets) sought after by monopoly capitalist interests led by big finance that has profited most from the production and encouragement of inflated debt bubbles like the real estate market that collapsed in 2007-8. The US has of course been the leader in this process, the hegemon whose post-World War II military supremacy allowed it to ride roughshod over the world, with the major exceptions of Russia and China. This has included enormously destructive wars in Korea and Vietnam, where the US wanted to set an example of what can happen to small, peripheral countries who try to control their own resources and destinies. Now, with the momentary defeat of communism, the rise of China to a global state-capitalist rival power, the recovery of a now-capitalist Russia from the US efforts to turn it into a neo-liberal colony after 1989, and the incipient alliance of these two former communist powers, the imperialist prospects of the US have taken a turn for the worst. A new cold war is upon us that portends another major conflict of imperialist powers like what overtook the world in 1914 and 1939. Todays rulers have available and have consistently used weapons of mass destruction unimaginable during the previous timespan of elite rule. Nuclear arms treaties are being ripped up and new nuclear weapons, with hypersonic delivery systems are being devised. If this were not enough to bring into being a world mass movement against capitalism, indeed against any further continuation of elite rule, the prospect of continued man-made global climate change has also stepped with frightening consequences onto the current stage of human history. Climate scientists like Ian Angus are even labeling it a new epoch, the Anthropocene, marked by the increasingly out of control production of carbon by the burning of fossil fuels that is wreaking havoc with the weather, the worlds oceans and supply of fresh water as well as unprecedented mass extinctions that are likely to include that of humanity itself. In the face of this, it is crystal clear that our elites are determined to do nothing about this situation created by their own economic practices, nothing that would cut into their profits. These conditions will add to the pressures for more resource wars up to and including the existential danger of another imperialist war now facing humanity as a whole.

So where does this leave us? Here comes the hard part that nobody seems to want to take in, and indeed it is the toughest nut to be cracked. Lots of people are pointing out the problems, even fingering capitalism as the main source of them. And there has been plenty of fight back everywhere. But few are confronting the political import of Lenins timely question: What is to be done? This is not surprising given the power of big capital to shape what people think. Worldwide collective democratic decision-making processes must replace the constant destructive competition of elite rule. The people who actually do the work should control the economy and operate it for the long-term sustainable benefit of everyone, not the profits of a few. And this program needs to be on the agenda everywhere; it needs to be an international movement of the worlds working classes, operated by and for the workers themselves. But it should also be clear that capitalist opposition to this will stop at nothing. Witness the record, just in England and the US, of massacres of workers who were resisting capitalist power, mostly in efforts to win recognition for their unions, not to mention the ferocious opposition to socialist and especially revolutionary communist movements that sought to do away with capitalism in favor of the collective power of the working class. Winston Churchill (no relation) recognized the rise of fascism in the twenties as an antidote to Bolshevism, and todays rulers have few qualms about reviving this genocidal monstrosity to protect their system. Add to the physical repression the almost constant drumbeat of anti-communism emanating from the top that has been a long and almost completely successful elite effort to demonize, distort, and suppress workers opportunities and efforts to even think about overthrowing capitalism and revolutionizing the way we exist. The capitalist-owned media, institutionalized politics and government, police and the army are all major players in protecting and preserving the capitalist status quo, and will continue to be so. Yet we seem to be running out of time to build the kind of mass international movement that can transform the dire situation we find ourselves in.

I came of age as a student in the late 1960s and early 1970s, a time of great intellectual and political ferment; a time of mass actions in the streets in support of civil rights, equality, and an end to the seemingly endless Vietnam War. And, for some of us, it was also a time to consider the sources of inequality and war, and the alternatives to this. The floodgates were open to ideas that were previously out of bounds. Our rulers could not easily contain it, though they eventually reasserted control and have worked overtime to demonize and discredit this formative experience ever since. Nevertheless, I see no shortcuts or easy paths around eliminating the source of our problems, and can only recommend that we re-examine the successes and failures of the revolutionary movements of the past couple of centuries in an effort to see a way forward politically. To do this we must NOT leave judgment in the hands of the capitalists. We need to avoid all of the efforts of capital to mislead, distort, dismiss and slander the efforts of the great revolutionaries of the past: Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, V.I. Lenin, Mao Tse Tung, Ho Chi Minh, Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and so many unsung others who lived, fought and sacrificed for the good of humanity. We also need to understand that anyone trying to change things for the benefit of the masses of the people even when they try to play within the rules set by big business will be the targets of endless media efforts to demonize and disqualify them.

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The Long History of Elite Rule: What Will It Take To End It? - CounterPunch

The world of work is changing constantly, profoundly, and faster. This is clear from the outsourcing of work, waves of technological advances, increasing automation in business, and big data analysis driving the growth of industries.

The needs of industry are shifting constantly and the education system should be responding to provide needs-based support.

Education theorists, researchers, practitioners, and policy makers have to remember that the occupational situation differs from country to country. They also need to remember that changing work contexts are influencing employees and job-seekers in distinct ways. Work is becoming increasingly more complex. This means that theres a growing need for lifelong learning, teamwork, and networking as well as an increased emphasis on digital skills to promote career adaptability and employability.

They also have to bear in mind that the industrial sector is shrinking. Accordingly, work-seekers in the Global South have been turning to the service sector as well as to the informal economy with a fair amount of success. This trend is likely to continue.

The issue is whether education systems are keeping pace with the changes.

To understand whether young South Africans have the skills required by the current world of work after 12 years in school I use the lens of the so-called gateway subjects. These are maths and physical sciences and, to an extent, accounting. These form the foundation for scientific, economic, and industrial development and research.

Multiple educationists and researchers have contended that learners whove passed maths and physical sciences and have acquired the basic aspects of information communication skills and robotics have a competitive advantage in the occupational world over those that have not. South Africa simply cannot afford the unacceptably low percentage of school learners who pass Grade 12 with mathematics and physical sciences.

Read more: Why South Africa's declining maths performance is a worry

Why the emphasis on maths and physical sciences?

Having passed Grade 12 with maths and physical sciences helps because these subjects contribute at least 22% to the economy. Likewise, having passed either information communication technology or even computer-assisted technology helps to advance the economy by reducing production costs, boosting the growth of new businesses, and improving communication.

It also helps to acquire soft skills such as career adaptability, emotional-social intelligence, career resilience, creativity, innovation, and the ability to collaborate and to network, among other things. These skills are increasingly being seen as hard skills in the 21st century workplace because theyre strongly aligned with market needs.

Unfortunately, they arent being taught and learned adequately at school.

A number of problems afflict South Africas education system.

Black learners continue to feel the effects of apartheids education system which spent more on education for white learners. This means that the vast majority of black learners in the neediest environments get inadequate teaching and learning.

Unless the disparity between rich children and poor children is addressed, the gap between the achievements of learners in well-resourced schools and disadvantaged learners in resource-scarce schools will persist.

The effects of this disparity are felt for the rest of the pupils lives. One consequence is that they they struggle to succeed in university studies.

An added difficulty is that the countrys overly academic school system sends the message to learners and their parents that learners should strive to study at a university and that it is better to study at a university than, for instance, at a TVET (Technical and Vocational Education and Training) College.

Im in favour of introducing a system that facilitates differentiated training from an early stage.

At the end of grade nine at about 15 years old most learners are already able decide whether they want to pursue academic or more vocational studies. This is the point where the system should start channelling them in career-related directions that will give them their best chance of eventually pursuing careers that fit their personalities including their interests and aptitudes and enable them to enact their central life themes.

Another key factor that needs to be addressed is the matter of inadequate career counselling for pupils black learners especially. During apartheid, the disadvantaged black majority of students were denied access to career counselling in schools. Even today, the vast majority of black learners still receive little career counselling at school and cannot afford to pay a career counsellor.

Funding should be made available by the government and employers to enable learners to consult career counsellors. Group-based career counselling is a viable solution to the challenge of providing career counselling in schools with large numbers of pupils.

I maintain that there are solutions for these challenges. Whats needed is the will to use resources that are available and to move forward expeditiously.

To help narrow the disparity gap Ive argued in favour of making it compulsory for graduating teachers and educational psychologists to do community service in rural areas and townships. These professionals must be given incentives, their safety must be ensured, and they must be paid a decent salary.

Another step that could be taken is to rehire the many teachers who have been retrenched or who have taken severance package deals.

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How to fix the gap between school and work in South Africa - The Conversation Africa

Hezbollah is a Shiite Muslim political party and militant group based in Lebanon, where its extensive security apparatus, political organization, and social services network fostered its reputation as a state within a state. Founded in the chaos of the fifteen-year Lebanese Civil War, the Iran-backed group is driven by its opposition to Israel and its resistance to Western influence in the Middle East.

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With its history of carrying out global terrorist attacks, parts of Hezbollahand in some cases the entire organizationhave been designated as a terrorist group by the United States and many other countries. In recent years, long-standing alliances with Iran and Syria have embroiled the group in the civil war in Syria, where its support for Bashar al-Assads regime has transformed Hezbollah into an increasingly effective military force. But with Lebanese politics in upheaval over mass discontent with the ruling class, and with U.S.-Iran tensions rising, Hezbollahs role in Lebanese society may change.

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Hezbollah emerged during Lebanons fifteen-year civil war, which broke out in 1975 when long-simmering discontent over the large, armed Palestinian presence in the country reached a boiling point. Various Lebanese sectarian communities held different positions on the nature of the Palestinian challenge.

Under a 1943 political agreement, political power is divided among Lebanons predominant religious groupsa Sunni Muslim serves as prime minister, a Maronite Christian as president, and a Shiite Muslim as the speaker of parliament. Tensions between these groups evolved into civil war as several factors upset the delicate balance. The Sunni Muslim population had grown with the arrival of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, while Shiite Muslims felt increasingly marginalized by the ruling Christian minority. Amid the infighting, Israeli forces invaded southern Lebanon in 1978 and again in 1982 to expel Palestinian guerrilla fighters that had been using the region as their base to attack Israel.

A group of Shiites influenced by the theocratic government in Iranthe regions major Shiite government, which came to power in 1979took up arms against the Israeli occupation. Seeing an opportunity to expand its influence in Arab states, Iran and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) provided funds and training to the budding militia, which adopted the name Hezbollah, meaning The Party of God. It earned a reputation for extremist militancy due to its frequent clashes with rival Shiite militias, such as the Amal Movement, and attacks on foreign targets, including the 1983 suicide bombing of barracks housing U.S. and French troops in Beirut, in which more than three hundred people died. Hezbollah became a vital asset to Iran, bridging Shiite Arab-Persian divides as Tehran established proxies throughout the Middle East.

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Hezbollah bills itself as a Shiite resistance movement, and it enshrined its ideology in a 1985 manifesto that vowed to expel Western powers from Lebanon, called for the destruction of the Israeli state, and pledged allegiance to Irans supreme leader. It also advocated an Iran-inspired Islamist regime, but emphasized that the Lebanese people must have the freedom of self-determination.

Hezbollah is led by Hassan Nasrallah, who took over as secretary-general in 1992 after Israel assassinated the groups cofounder and previous leader, Abbas Al-Musawi. Nasrallah oversees the seven-member Shura Council and its five subcouncils: the political assembly, the jihad assembly, the parliamentary assembly, the executive assembly, and the judicial assembly. The U.S. State Department estimates that Hezbollah has tens of thousands of members and other supporters worldwide.

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Political Movements

Terrorism and Counterterrorism

Hezbollah controls much of Lebanons Shiite-majority areas, including parts of Beirut, southern Lebanon, and the eastern Bekaa Valley region. Although Hezbollah is based in Lebanon, its manifesto clarifies that its operations, especially those targeting the United States, are not confined by domestic borders: The American threat is not local or restricted to a particular region, and as such, confrontation of such a threat must be international as well. The group has been accused of planning and perpetrating acts of terrorism against Israeli and Jewish targets abroad, and there is evidence of Hezbollah operations in Africa, the Americas, and Asia.

Iran continues to support Hezbollah with weaponry and more than $700 million per year, according to 2018 State Department estimates. Hezbollah also receives hundreds of millions of dollars [PDF] from legal businesses, international criminal enterprises, and the Lebanese diaspora.

Hezbollah has developed strong political and social arms in addition to its military operations. It has been a fixture of the Lebanese government since 1992, when eight of its members were elected to Parliament, and the party has held cabinet positions since 2005. The most recent national elections, in 2018, granted Hezbollah thirteen seats in Lebanons 128-member Parliament, three more than the Amal Movement, once its rival but now a coalition partner. The party marked its integration into mainstream politics in 2009 with an updated manifesto that was less Islamist than its predecessor and called for true democracy.

Additionally, Hezbollah manages a vast network of social services that includes infrastructure, health-care facilities, schools, and youth programs, all of which have been instrumental in garnering support for Hezbollah from Shiite and non-Shiite Lebanese alike. A 2014 report from the Pew Research Center found that 31 percent of Christians and 9 percent of Sunni Muslims held positive views of the group.

At the same time, Hezbollah maintains its military arm. Under the 1989 Taif Agreement, which was brokered by Saudi Arabia and Syria and ended Lebanons civil war, Hezbollah was the only militia allowed to keep its arms. The International Institute for Strategic Studies estimated in 2017 that the militia had up to ten thousand active fighters and some twenty thousand reserves, with an arsenal of small arms, tanks, drones, and various long-range rockets. Analyst and Brigadier General (Ret.) Assaf Orion, of Israels Institute for National Security Studies, says Hezbollah possesses a larger arsenal of artillery than most nations enjoy.

Critics say Hezbollahs existence violates UN Security Council Resolution 1559adopted in 2004which called for all Lebanese militias to disband and disarm. The United Nations Force in Lebanon (UNFIL), first deployed in 1978 to restore the central governments authority, remains in the country and part of its mandate is to encourage Hezbollah to disarm. The United Nations has implicated Hezbollah members in the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. Hezbollah blames Israel for the attack.

In October 2019, Hezbollah saw itself become a target of mass protests. Government mismanagement and years of slow growth have saddled Lebanon with one of the worlds highest public debt burdens, at 150 percent of its gross domestic product, and hundreds of thousands of Lebanese citizens disillusioned by the economic slump demanded the removal of what they see as a corrupt ruling elite. Demonstrators called for the government, including Hezbollah, to cede power to a new, technocratic leadership. The monthslong protest movement has spanned religious backgrounds, and even Lebanese Shiites have openly criticized Hezbollah.

Israel is Hezbollahs main enemy, dating back to Israels occupation of southern Lebanon in 1978. Hezbollah has been blamed for attacks on Jewish and Israeli targets abroad, including the 1994 car bombings of a Jewish community center in Argentina, which killed eighty-five people, and the bombings of the Israeli Embassy in London. Even after Israel officially withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000, it continued to clash with Hezbollah, especially in the disputed Shebaa Farms border zone. Periodic conflict between Hezbollah and Israeli forces escalated into a monthlong war in 2006, during which Hezbollah launched thousands of rockets into Israeli territory.

Hezbollah and Israel have yet to relapse into full-blown war, but the group reiterated its commitment to the destruction of the Israeli state in its 2009 manifesto. In December 2018, Israel announced the discovery of miles of tunnels running from Lebanon into northern Israel that that I claims were created by Hezbollah. Hezbollah has attacked Israel with sophisticated anti-ship and anti-armor weapons, which Western officials suspect are supplied by Iran. Orion told CFR that the more precise weaponry being provided by Iran ensures that Hezbollah will become an increasingly dangerous threat to Israel.

Hezbollah finds a loyal ally in Syria, whose army occupied most of Lebanon during Lebanons civil war. The Syrian government remained as a peacekeeping force in Lebanon until it was driven out in the 2005 Cedar Revolution, a popular protest movement against the foreign occupation. Hezbollah had unsuccessfully pushed for Syrian forces to remain in Lebanon, and has since remained a stalwart ally of the Assad regime. In return for Tehrans and Hezbollahs support, experts say, the Syrian government facilitates the transfer of weapons from Iran to the militia.

Hezbollah publicly confirmed its involvement in the Syrian Civil War in 2013, joining Iran and Russia in supporting the Syrian government against largely Sunni rebel groups. Prior to 2013, the group had sent a small number of trainers to advise the regime. More than seven thousand Hezbollah militants are estimated to have fought in the pro-Assad alliance, which has been instrumental in the survival of the Assad regime, including by winning the 2013 Battle of al-Qusayr, which secured a route for regime forces between the major cities of Damascus and Homs.

Analysts say that Hezbollahs experience fighting in Syria has helped it become a stronger military force, but that it faces a growing sentiment in Lebanon that focusing on the war led the group to neglect its domestic interests. Additionally, Hezbollahs support from Sunni Muslims in Lebanon has waned over the groups backing of the Assad regime, which particularly threatens Sunni Muslims. In recent years, Sunni extremists have committed terrorist attacks in Lebanon, including 2015 suicide bombings in Beirut claimed by the self-proclaimed Islamic State. Hezbollahs involvement in the war has also provoked Israel, which has struck targets in Syria thought to be supplying Hezbollah with weapons.

U.S. policymakers see Hezbollah as a global terrorist threat. The United States designated Hezbollah a foreign terrorist organization in 1997, and several individual Hezbollah members, including Nasrallah, are considered specially designated global terrorists, which subjects them to U.S. sanctions. The Barack Obama administration provided aid to Lebanons military with the hope of diminishing Hezbollahs credibility as the countrys most capable military force. However, Hezbollahs and the Lebanese militarys parallel efforts to defend the Syrian border from the Islamic State and al-Qaeda-affiliated militants have made Congress hesitant to send further aid, for fear that Hezbollah could acquire it.

In 2015, the U.S. Congress passed the Hizballah International Financing Prevention Act, which sanctions foreign institutions that use U.S. bank accounts to finance Hezbollah. Lawmakers amended it in 2018 to include additional types of activities. Additionally, the Donald J. Trump administration has sanctioned some of Hezbollahs members in Parliament, as part of its maximum pressure campaign against Iran. While Trumps approach has disrupted Irans economy, analysts say the countrys increasingly self-sufficient proxies are weathering the worst of the sanctions.

The European Union has taken a less aggressive approach to Hezbollah. The bloc designated its military arm a terrorist group in 2013, over its involvement in a bombing in Bulgaria and its backing of the Assad regime, though some EU states feared the move would bruise relations with Lebanon and hurt stability in the region. In 2014, the EUs police agency, Europol, and the United States created a joint group to counter Hezbollahs terrorist activities in Europe.

Hezbollah has scorned the largely Sunni Gulf Arab countries over their alliances with the United States and European powers. The Gulf Cooperation Councilcomprising the seven Arab states of the Persian Gulf, with the exception of Iraqconsiders Hezbollah a terrorist organization. Additionally, Saudi Arabia and the United States co-lead the Terrorist Financing Targeting Center, created in 2017 to disrupt resource flows to Iran-backed groups such as Hezbollah.

Experts say that Hezbollahs international network is expanding, but that the group isnt eager for outright war with Israel or the United States, pointing to its muted response to an Israeli drone strike in Beirut in August 2019. Instead, some analysts say, Hezbollah would rather rely on covert operations and terrorist activities, especially if Israel or the United States was to declare war with Iran.

U.S.-Iran relations worsened further after a January 2020 U.S. air strike that killed Qasem Soleimani, the head of the IRGCs elite Quds Force, which is responsible for the corps external operations. In response, Nasrallah promised that Hezbollah would attack U.S. forces but not target American civilians.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah could see a more pressing threat in its own backyard. The January 2020 formation of a Hezbollah-backed government failed to appease antiestablishment protesters, who sawit as a win for the countrys entrenched elites. Demonstrations have continued, but experts suspect that Hezbollah will not bend to protesters demands for fear that a new, politically independent government would weaken the groups power and force it to disarm. Some argue that the protest movement could undermine Hezbollahs influence more effectively than any U.S. policy ever has, by opening the floodgates of criticism of the group and potentially reinventing the system of government it has become expert in exploiting.

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What Is Hezbollah? - Council on Foreign Relations