With the market for recyclables in the doldrums, some Maine cities have opted to end their curbside recycling programs because the costs of those programs exceed the costs of just sending that material to the landfill. But Democratic state Rep. Ralph Tucker has a 21-page bill that would force companies that make packaging to subsidize local recycling programs. Industry officials oppose the bill, noting that it will do nothing to actually create a market for recyclables and that it would force them to pass the costs onto consumers.
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With the market for recyclables in the doldrums, some Maine cities have opted to end their curbside recycling programs because the costs of those programs exceed the costs of just sending that material to the landfill. But Democratic state Rep. Ralph Tucker has a 21-page bill that would force companies that make packaging to subsidize local recycling programs. Industry officials oppose the bill, noting that it will do nothing to actually create a market for recyclables and that it would force them to pass the costs onto consumers.
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Turkey Sends 1,000 Special Forces To EU Border To Prevent Migrant Return
Starting last week multiple journalists published proof that Turkish authorities were actively facilitating refugee and migrant movement toward EU borders after Erdogan began making good on his prior threat to ‘open the gates’ — angry over the unfolding Idlib crisis. This included footage of buses staged in Istanbul and other cities to take thousands to the land border with Greece.
And now Ankara is now openly saying it’s implemented a policy of not only pushing migrants to the border, but ensuring they won’t come back— even after Greece shut its border and has been seen using harsh tactics to keep people from entering in a heightened militarized response.
Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu announced Thursday the deployment of 1,000 special operations police officers to ensure migrants can’t return.
Greek riot police stand guard as migrants try to enter Greece from Turkey, via AP.
“Turkey will deploy 1,000 special operations police officers to prevent migrant pushback at the border,” the minister said, according to Turkey’s Daily Sabah.
The newspaper reported further: “Soylu told reporters that the European Union’s border protection agency Frontex and Greece have pushed 4,900 migrants back to Turkey since March 1.” He also claimed 164 migrants had been injured by Greek border security and Frontex.
The interior minister also estimated that almost 140,000 migrants are in the first wave headed toward Europe, which began departing Turkey last Friday.
This provocative Turkish move is sure to heighten charges out of Europe that Erdogan is weaponizing the vulnerable refugee and migrant population to blackmail the EU.
— Kathimerini English Edition (@ekathimerini) March 2, 2020
EU ministers met Wednesday in Brussels and issued a statement saying the bloc “strongly rejects” the “use” of migrants by Turkey’s government, saying that the “situation at the EU’s external borders is not acceptable.”
“The EU and its member states remain determined to effectively protect EU’s external borders,” the statement affirmed.
Migrants try to remove fences during the clashes with Greek police, after they tried to pass on Greek side, on the buffer zone Turkey-Greece border in Edirne.
A picture by #AFP photographer @Kilicbilpic.twitter.com/qu7eDnrViS
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian unleashed the most direct accusation of “blackmail.” He said in Paris Wednesday: “This migratory pressure is organized,” adding that, “It is organized by President Erdogan’s regime as a form of blackmail against the European Union.”
This latest move by Ankara to ensure migrants “can’t return” once pushed across the border is sure to only spark more chaos at border points already looking like war zones.
“Greek authorities fired tear gas and stun grenades to drive away a crowd of migrants making a push to cross the border from Turkey on Wednesday, as pressure on Greece continued after Turkey declared its previously guarded gateways to Europe open,” the AP reported earlier.
— Oh boy what a shot (@ohboywhatashot) March 3, 2020
Injuries and possible deaths have been reported, however, the Greek government has rejected initial reports of its border guards firing on and killing migrants as “fake news.”
A council in the UK removed two “transphobic” flags because they displayed the dictionary definition of the word ‘woman’.
Yes, really.
The flags, which were flown outside Bootle & Southport town halls, were meant to celebrate International Women’s Day.
They featured the words “woman” and the dictionary definition that a ‘woman’ is an “adult human female.”
However, after a Twitter user called Adrian Harrop complained that the flags were a “transphobic dog whistle,” the offending items were removed.
STATEMENT: We have been made aware of a potential issue regarding the messaging on a flag flown at Bootle & Southport town halls and have taken them down.
We have a proud history of supporting LGBTQ+ rights across the borough,we continue to support all members of our communities pic.twitter.com/gjcUr9zbSO
“We have been made aware of a potential issue regarding the messaging on a flag flown at Bootle & Southport town halls and have taken them down,” tweeted Sefton Council.
“We have a proud history of supporting LGBTQ+ rights across the borough,we continue to support all members of our communities,” the council added.
This was the offensive flag. Seriously, absorb this. They took these flags down because they were seen as OFFENSIVE. This isn’t something happening on social media. This shit is happening in REAL LIFE and it’s fucking BIZARRE. pic.twitter.com/EjVmvpl1MC
“Sefton Council stating here that the dictionary term for ‘woman’ is now offensive. This isn’t a joke. I’m not exaggerating this in any way. This is literally what they are saying here,” tweeted another Twitter user.
“This was the offensive flag. Seriously, absorb this. They took these flags down because they were seen as OFFENSIVE. This isn’t something happening on social media. This shit is happening in REAL LIFE and it’s fucking BIZARRE,” she added.
She then pointed out the irony of a flag meant to honor International Women’s Day being removed because a man complained.
So basically a flag celebrating International Women’s Day got removed because a man told them it was offensive. You have to love the unintentional irony of this situation 😂 pic.twitter.com/vnHrIKFpQT
Presumably, every dictionary that includes a proper definition of the word ‘woman’ will now have to be revised and all old copies burned.
In George Orwell’s 1984, the Newspeak dictionary shrank in size year after year in order to eliminate language and limit free thought and free speech, making it harder for the plebs to vocalize their opposition to The Party.
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“Unparalleled Disruption”: 290 Million Students Around The World Face Weeks At Home
Nearly 300 million students worldwide are enjoying an unexpected vacation as they face weeks at home, with Italy the latest country to shut schools over the deadly new coronavirus. According to Unesco, 290.5 million children in 13 countries were affected, while a further nine nations have implemented localised closures, the SCMP reported.
“The global scale and speed of the current educational disruption is unparalleled and, if prolonged, could threaten the right to education.” Unesco chief Audrey Azoulay said.
On Wednesday, Italy ordered schools and universities closed until March 15, ramping up its response as the national death toll rose to 107, the deadliest outbreak outside China. South Korea – the country with the largest number of cases outside China with nearly 6,000 – has postponed the start of the current term until March 23.
In Hong Kong schools are closed until at least April 20, while in Japan nearly all schools are closed after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called for classes to be cancelled through March and spring break, slated for late March through early April.
Some 120 schools closed in France this week in areas with the largest numbers of infections. In Germany, the health minister said the outbreak was now a “global pandemic” – a term the World Health Organisation has stopped short of using – meaning the virus is spreading in several regions through local transmission.
If Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan believes he can bully European leaders by provoking a fresh migrant crisis in southern Europe, then he would be well-advised to think again.
Ankara’s announcement that it is once again opening the floodgates to allow millions of refugees from Syria’s brutal civil war to travel to south-eastern Europe in search of refuge has been taken to persuade European leaders to back Turkey’s increasingly desperate situation in Syria.
Having launched an ill-considered military offensive against the Assad regime in northern Syria, Mr Erdogan now finds himself facing the consequences of his action, with regime forces, backed by Russia and Iran, waging a highly effective campaign against the Turks, which has so far resulted in the deaths of scores of Turkish troops.
In addition, Turkey’s decision to deploy thousands of troops to Idlib province in northern Syria has resulted in a fresh wave of refugees fleeing across the border into southern Turkey, where Turkish officials are already struggling to cope with the estimated four million Syrian refugees that have already sought sanctuary in the sprawling refugee camps.
One of the main reasons that Mr Erdogan now finds himself facing this difficult predicament is that he has badly underestimated the nature of his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
When Turkey took the controversial decision last year to purchase Russia’s state-of-the-art S-400 anti-aircraft missile system, Mr Erdogan calculated that it would herald new era of friendly cooperation with Ankara’s long-standing rival in Moscow even if, by pressing ahead with the deal, the Turks risked jeopardising their relationship with NATO, which bitterly opposed the deal.
There was certainly an expectation in Ankara that improved relations with Moscow would result in better cooperation between the two countries on the post-conflict settlement in Syria, especially regarding Turkey’s desire to establish a safe zone in northern Syria.
Yet, as the recent escalation in fighting has demonstrated, the Russians’ main priority is to support the Assad regime in its attempts to regain control of the last remaining rebel stronghold in northern Syria. Thus the Russians now find themselves in a direct confrontation with Turkish forces in Idlib province, where the Turks are trying to protect a number of Islamist militias committed to overthrowing the Assad regime.
If the current crisis facing Turkey is entirely of Mr Erdogan’s own making, that has not prevented the Turkish president from trying to deflect attention away from his own mishandling of the conflict by seeking to provoke a new migrant crisis in Europe.
Mr Erdogan used this tactic to great effect five years ago when, in response to Turkey’s decision to allow more than a million Syrian refugees to travel to Europe, he succeeded in persuading the European Union to pledge six billion euros to Ankara in return for allowing the refugees to remain on Syrian soil.
Yet, to judge by the initial response from European leaders to Mr Erdogan’s latest attempt to blackmail them, it seems that, this time around, the Turkish leader’s ploy is unlikely to deliver the desired result.
For a start, a meeting of NATO ambassadors called last week to discuss the increasingly vulnerable position of Turkish forces in Syria ended with expressions of sympathy for the Turks, but little else. Other NATO member states are simply not interested in getting involved in a conflict that might result in them being involved in a direct military confrontation with Moscow.
Mr Erdogan is also about to discover that there has been a hardening of attitudes among European leaders about dealing with unwanted migrants since the Turkish leader last used his blackmail tactics five years ago.
At a meeting of EU ambassadors this week to discuss the migrant crisis, officials expressed their outrage at Ankara’s behaviour.
Nor can Mr Erdogan expect any support from Germany, where German Chancellor Angela Merkel responded to the last migrant crisis by opening Germany’s doors to an estimated one million refugees, a decision that seriously undermined her political popularity.
These days, senior politicians in Mrs Merkel’s centre-right Christian Democrats take a more hard-nosed approach to the migrant issue, with one senior party member warning the migrants this week, “There is no point coming to Germany. We cannot take you in.”
Europe might have fallen for Mr Erdogan’s bully-boy tactics in the past. But all the evidence from the latest migrant crisis suggests they are not about to do so again.
The annual Munich Security Conference that took place February 14-16 this year turned out to be an iconic event, drawing comparison with the one held in the same Bavarian city on February 10, 2007, where in a prophetic speech Russian President Vladimir Putin had criticized the world order characterized by the United States’ global hegemony and its “almost uncontained hyper use of force – military force – in international relations.”
If Putin’s 2007 Munich speech was prescient about an incoming new Cold War and the surge of tensions in Russia’s relations with the West, 13 years later, at the event this year, we witnessed that the transatlantic ties that evolved through the two world wars in the last century and blossomed into a full-fledged alliance system have reached a crossroads.
Deep cracks have appeared in the transatlantic relationship. In an extraordinary opening address, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, an éminence grise in European diplomacy, accused Washington of rejecting “the very concept of an international community.”
Steinmeier acknowledged that there is no return to the halcyon days of close transatlantic partnership, as Europe and the U.S. are drifting away from each other. He warned, “If the European project fails, the lessons of German history, but perhaps also European history, will be called into question.”
Having said that, Steinmeier did not advocate that Europe could go it alone, either. Rather, “only a Europe that can and wants to protect itself credibly will be able to keep the U.S. in the alliance.”
But he regretted that “Europe is no longer as vital to the U.S. as it used to be. We must guard against the illusion that the United States’ dwindling interest in Europe is solely down to the current administration… For we know that this shift began a while ago, and it will continue even after this administration.”
The theme of European independence—Europe becoming a sovereign, strategic and political power—was also the leitmotif of a speech by French President Emmanuel Macron who brought a rare dynamism into the European debate, fighting spiritedly for a common European foreign and security policy. The German policymakers have signaled broad agreement with Macron’s idea that Europe must take charge of its own destiny.
In contrast, the U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had earlier insisted that the talk about the demise of the West is “grossly exaggerated,” and, in fact, “the West is winning. We are collectively winning. We are doing it together.”
Meanwhile, two subplots that kept appearing in the discussions were, one, the continued relevance of multilateralism in the international system and, two, deep anxiety over the current global security environment.
Steinmeier framed the concerns sharply, saying, “the idea of international community is not outmoded,” adding that “withdrawing into our national shells leads us into a dead end, into a truly dark age.”
All in all, these sharp exchanges between the Europeans and some of the American delegation confirmed, more than ever, the weakness and disunity of the West. A Politico report on the Munich Security Conference noted, “The two sides aren’t just far apart on the big questions facing the West (threats from Russia, Iran, China), they’re in parallel universes.”
One major issue that divided Munich was China. Neither Pompeo nor Defense Secretary Mark Esper left any doubt that Washington considers China to be a nefarious force in the world, representing a significant long-term threat. But that view is not shared by many countries in the EU. The underlying question is what posture the Western alliance should take toward China, which is a fundamental one with far-reaching consequences. Europe is deeply worried about the consequences that spurning Beijing would have on trade and investment.
It became apparent at the conference that there was no acceptance of Pompeo’s plea that China is the new enemy. His cautioning against the involvement of the Chinese tech company Huawei in the upcoming 5G rollout met with stony silence by European allies. The policy toward China could emerge as the biggest transatlantic divide.
Can the West regain its influence? The crux of the matter is that with the decline in material wealth and the decay of moral values, the capacity to influence has shrunk. And the West’s form of economic organization is no longer as appealing as it once was. Also, with the rise of China, rapid development of India, and the resurgence of Russia, a new dynamic of global power is taking shape.
As these and other emerging powers grow in strength, a dispersion of power and influence is bound to accelerate, and the West is unlikely to regain the preponderant influence it wielded in the post-World War II era.
This drain of influence might slow down if only a “new West” led by Europe that combined power and values reached out to powers such as India or Japan to build global alliances. But a major lacuna lies in the United States’ contempt of multilateralism and a rules-based order.
Equally, Washington’s push for trade-offs to advance its unilateral confrontations—be it with Russia and China or Iran and Venezuela—fails to strike a chord with its top Western partners, the majority of whom are averse to any form of confrontation, least of all with Beijing.
“We cannot be the United States’ junior partner,” said Macron, citing recent failures in the West’s policy of defiance. Clearly, internal divisions afflict the West, and it is hard to see how they can be overcome.
At best, coalitions of the willing may appear within and among the Western states on specific issues. But even then, the West can at best slow down its relative decline but nowhere near reverse it.
The heart of the matter is that the economic center of gravity in the world order and the ensuing global power equation is inexorably shifting away from the West, while on the other hand, there is no longer a “West” that is united behind principles, values, and policies.
Minimum-Wage Blowback – Fast Food Burger-Flipping Robot Works For $3 An Hour
Over the years, we’ve documented the proliferation of artificial intelligence and robots in the workplace would lead to a tidal wave of job losses through 2030.
What peaked our attention several years ago was Miso Robotics, a Pasadena tech company with the focus of developing robots for fast-food restaurants, has seen the price of its burger-flipping robot drop from $100,000 to $10,000 in four years.
“Off-the-shelf robot arms had plunged in price in recent years, from more than $100,000 in 2016, when Miso Robotics first launched, to less than $10,000 today, with cheaper models coming in the near future,” according to the Los Angeles Times.
The burger-flipping robot is now more cost-effective than the average low-skilled employee, which means Miso’s unveiling of a subscription plan for restaurants, of just $2,000 a month, with the choice of a robot that works either the grille or fryer, could be very appealing to restaurant owners or managers across the country who need to drive down labor costs.
“As a result, Miso can offer Flippys to fast-food restaurant owners for an estimated $2,000 per month on a subscription basis, breaking down to about $3 per hour. (The actual cost will depend on customers’ specific needs). A human doing the same job costs $4,000 to $10,000 or more a month, depending on a restaurant’s hours and the local minimum wage. And robots never call in sick,” LA Times adds.
Americans could soon see Flippy or a variant of the robot at a mom and pop restaurant or a major fast-food chain in the early 2020s, the affordability of these robots will entice restaurant operators to drive down labor costs.
On a much broader perspective, Karen Harris, Managing Director of Bain & Company’s Macro Trends Group, presented a fascinating report several years ago titled “Labor 2030: The Collision of Demographics, Automation, and Inequality,” which outlines how automation could eliminate upwards of 40 million jobs by the end of this decade.
Millions of Americans are employed in the fast-food industry; the proliferation of automation could lead to a rapid increase in job losses through the mid to late 2020s. The labor market could see major disruptions from robots in the years ahead, it’s expected this trend could force the government to have the Federal Reserve finance People’s Quantitative Easing, in the form of universal income, etc.
It may seem preposterous to suggest that the outbreak of the new coronavirus, COVID-19, has imperiled the rule of the Communist Party of China (CPC), especially at a time when the government’s aggressive containment efforts seem to be working. But it would be a mistake to underestimate the political implications of China’s biggest public-health crisis in recent history.
According to a New York Times analysis, at least 760 million Chinese, or more than half the country’s population, are under varying degrees of residential lockdown. This has had serious individual and aggregate consequences, from a young boy remaining home alone for days after witnessing his grandfather’s death to a significant economic slowdown. But it seems to have contributed to a dramatic fall in new infections outside Wuhan, where the outbreak began, to low single digits.
Even as China’s leaders tout their progress in containing the virus, they are showing signs of stress. Like elites in other autocracies, they feel the most politically vulnerable during crises. They know that, when popular fear and frustration is elevated, even minor missteps could cost them dearly and lead to severe challenges to their power.
And “frustration” is putting it mildly. The Chinese public is well and truly outraged over the authorities’ early efforts to suppress information about the new virus, including the fact that it can be transmitted among humans. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the uproar over the February 7 announcement that the Wuhan-based doctor Li Wenliang, whom the local authorities accused of “rumor-mongering” when he attempted to warn his colleagues about the coronavirus back in December, had died of it.
With China’s censorship apparatus temporarily weakened – probably because censors had not received clear instructions on how to handle such stories – even official newspapers printed the news of Li’s death on their front pages. And business leaders, a typically apolitical group, have denounced the conduct of the Wuhan authorities and demanded accountability.
There is no doubt that the authorities’ initial mishandling of the outbreak is what enabled it to spread so widely, with health-care professionals – more than 3,000 of whom have been infected so far – being hit particularly hard. And despite the central government’s attempts to scapegoat local authorities – many health officials in Hubei province have been fired – there are likely to be more questions about what Chinese President Xi Jinping knew.
Not surprisingly, Xi has been working hard to repair his image as a strong and competent leader. After the central government ordered the lockdown of Wuhan in late January, Xi appointed Premier Li Keqiang to lead the coronavirus task force. But the fact that it was Li, not Xi, who went to Wuhan seemed to send the wrong message, as Xi realized in the subsequent days.
On February 3, at a Politburo Standing Committee meeting, Xi took an unusually defensive tone in a speech that smacked of damage control. While Xi admitted that he had learned of the outbreak before he sounded the alarm, he emphasized his personal role in leading the fight against the virus.
Moreover, on February 10, Xi made a series of public appearances in Beijing, aimed at reinforcing the impression that he is firmly in command. Three days later, he sacked the party chiefs of Hubei province and Wuhan municipality for their inadequate handling of the crisis. And two days after that, in an unprecedented move, the CPC released the full text of Xi’s internal Politburo Standing Committee speech.
Though Xi has apparently regained his aura as a dominant leader – not least thanks to CPC propagandists, who are working overtime to restore his image – the political fallout is likely to be serious. The profound uproar that marked those fleeting moments of relative cyber-freedom – the two weeks, from late January through early February, when censors lost their grip on the popular narrative – should be deeply worrying to the CPC.
Indeed, the CPC may be highly adept at repressing dissent, but repression is not eradication. Even a momentary lapse can unleash bottled-up anti-regime sentiment. One shudders to think what might happen to the CPC’s hold on power if Chinese were able to speak freely for a few months, not just a couple of weeks.
The most consequential political upshot of the COVID-19 outbreak may well be the erosion of support for the CPC among China’s urban middle class. Not only have their lives been severely disrupted by the epidemic and response; they have been made acutely aware of just how helpless they are under a regime that prizes secrecy and its own power over public health and welfare.
In the post-Mao era, the Chinese people and the CPC have adhered to an implicit social contract: the people tolerate the party’s political monopoly, as long as the party delivers sufficient economic progress and adequate governance.
The CPC’s poor handling of the COVID-19 outbreak threatens this tacit pact. In this sense, China’s one-party regime may well be in a more precarious position than it realizes.
Alton Stewart, a spokesman for the Army’s Program Executive Offices (PEO), said the PSR would replace M107 and M2010 Enhanced Sniper Rifle.
The Tennessee-made PSR, which is produced by Barrett Firearms Manufacturing, is a bolt-action Multi-Role Adaptive Design (MRAD) system and called the Mk 22, which will be chambered in 7.62×51 mm NATO round. The PSR is the next generation of sniper rifles, and it’s lightweight, more accurate, and more reliable than legacy systems.
Task & Purpose said, “the PSR provides the increased probability of hit over the current M2010 [Enhanced Sniper Rifle] configuration at distances up to twelve-hundred (1200) meters and increases range out to fifteen-hundred (1500), which enhances the sniper role in supporting combat operations and improves sniper survivability.”
Army budget documents also said the PSR would include a silencer, thermals, and other advanced optics that will “allow snipers, when supplemented with a clip-on image intensifier or thermal sensor system, to effectively engage enemy snipers, as well as crew-served and indirect fire weapons virtually undetected in any light condition.”
Between fiscal years 2022 and 2025, the Army expects to have 1,516 PSR systems in the field. By 2025, it expects to have an estimated 2,545 at an estimated total cost of $45.5 million.
It’s not just sniper rifles the Army is considering for upgrade. We noted last Sept that the service selected AAI Corporation Textron Systems, General Dynamics Ordnance, and Sig Sauer as the three finalists to test their next-generation assault rifles for the next 27 months.
The Army requested all three manufacturers to each supply 53 rifles, 43 automatic rifles, and 850,000 rounds of ammunition for the 27-month test that will conclude in 1H22 with a winning design.
