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Truck drivers that are looking to take their haul into the EU from the UK now must comply with a new, untested computer system that the EU has set up “to avert chaos” at the border – but will likely wind up causing it.

The system is called the Smart Freight System and it requires drivers to file information electronically and receive approval from tax authorities before being allowed to travel to the border, according to Bloomberg. 

The information was detailed in a recent 200 page report called “The Border with the European Union”. The document, reviewed by Zero Hedge, lays out in painstaking detail how products of all sorts should be moved across the border according to whether or not the point of entry has various computer/inventory systems in place. 

The systems are being put in place to stop trucks with incorrect paperwork and to prevent traffic jams. The system relies on a system called the Goods Vehicle Movement System – which so far has not been tested – in place in time. The government is aiming for July of next year for the system to be put in place and, in the interim, haulers still need permission from the government before moving goods over the UK/EU border. 

The systems and the 200 page manual is likely just the start of the bureaucratic changes that need to take place in order to help the UK continue unfettered trade with its largest trading partner. 

The UK’s tax authority predicts that in a post-Brexit world, firms will need to file about 400 million extra customs declarations at a price of $41 each. Last week the government rolled out an ad campaign to help prepare businesses for the new changes. The changes couldn’t come at a worse time, either: 45% of businesses were found to be unable to prepare for the changes due to the coronavirus.

Rod McKenzie, managing director of policy and public affairs at the Road Haulage Association, said: “Of course clarity is welcome, but this clarity isn’t clear. They unveil an immensely complex customs plan with five months to go. The truth is we needed 18 months to prepare, not five.”

Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove said the country will spend 705 million new border infrastructure to help facilitate the changes. The government is looking to acquire about a dozen sites along the border to help hold delayed goods and implement customs procedures.

And it’s not just truckers that are feeling the new administrative consequences of Brexit. Citizens are being told that if they want to visit the EU, they will now need travel insurance that covers pre-existing conditions. They also won’t be able to use pet passports and may now face roaming charges on their cell phones. 

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

The Chair of the London Metropolitan Police Foundation says it will be “nigh-on impossible” to enforce a new law which makes the wearing of face masks mandatory in all shops in England from July 24.

People who refuse or forget to wear the masks face a possible £100 fine for non-compliance, but according to Ken Marsh, who represents police officers in the capital, imposing the new law is virtually inconceivable.

“We’ll be driving round and round London looking for people who weren’t wearing masks, it’s absolutely absurd,” said Marsh.

He pointed out that the burden would fall on shopkeepers to stop refusniks, although since they have no power to detain, individuals would just leave before police could arrive.

Peter Cowgill, chairman of UK clothing outlet JD Sports, said that store employees shouldn’t be expected to try to enforce the law and that the outcome would just be less people shopping.

While health authorities have repeatedly insisted that wearing face masks helps stop the spread of COVID-19, the evidence is dubious at best.

The WHO only advocated face masks after political lobbying despite the science being unconvincing.

“The World Health Organization committee that reviewed the evidence for the use of face coverings in public didn’t back them. But after political lobbying, the WHO now recommends them,” reported BBC Newsnight.

Face masks were also widely used by Chinese people in Hubei province both before and during the original coronavirus outbreak, with seemingly little effect.

As Toby Young explains, forcing people to wear face masks in shops will only deter more people from going shopping, further damaging any chance of a proper economic recovery.

“One of the most depressing things about this Government’s diktat is that it will mean people are even less likely to go shopping than they were when non-essential shops were allowed to re-open on July 4th,” he writes.

“It’s as if the Government is determined to destroy the high street. First, it insisted on the closure of non-essential shops; then it allowed them to re-open, but only on the proviso that they put ridiculous social distancing measures in place, such as limiting the number of people that can be inside at any one time and insisting that anyone entering use hand sanitiser; now they’ve decided to make the shopping experience even more unpleasant. It’s the final blow, surely? Who will bother to go to a shop when they can get everything delivered to their front door?”

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No matter where in the world you log in from—Silicon Valley, London, and beyond—COVID-19 has triggered a mass exodus from traditional office life. Now that the lucky among us have settled into remote work, many are left wondering if this massive, inadvertent work-from-home experiment will change work for good.

In the following charts, Visual Capitalist’s Theresa A.G. Wood features data from a comprehensive survey conducted by UK-based startup network Founders Forum, in which hundreds of founders and their teams revealed their experiences of remote work and their plans for a post-pandemic future.

While the future remains a blank page, it’s clear that hundreds of startups have no plans to hit backspace on remote work.

Who’s Talking

Based primarily in the UK, almost half of the survey participants were founders, and nearly a quarter were managers below the C-suite.

Prior to pandemic-related lockdowns, 94% of those surveyed had worked from an external office. Despite their brick-and-mortar setup, more than 90% were able to accomplish the majority of their work remotely.

Gen X and Millennials made up most of the survey contingent, with nearly 80% of respondents with ages between 26-50, and 40% in the 31-40 age bracket.

From improved work-life balance and productivity levels to reduced formal teamwork, these entrepreneurs flagged some bold truths about what’s working and what’s not.

Founders With A Remote Vision

If history has taught us anything, it’s that world events have the potential to cause permanent mass change, like 9/11’s lasting impact on airport security.

Although most survey respondents had plans to be back in the office within six months, those startups are rethinking their remote work policies as a direct result of COVID-19.

How might that play out in a post-pandemic world?

Based on the startup responses, a realistic post-pandemic work scenario could involve 3 to 5 days of remote work a week, with a couple dedicated in-office days for the entire team.

Upwards of 92% of respondents said they wanted the option to work from home in some capacity.

It’s important to stay open to learning and experimenting with new ways of working. The current pandemic has only accelerated this process. We’ll see the other side of this crisis, and I’m confident it will be brighter.

– Evgeny Shadchnev, CEO, Makers Academy

Productivity Scales at Home

Working from home hasn’t slowed down these startups—in fact, it may have improved overall productivity in many cases.

More than half of the respondents were more productive from home, and 55% also reported working longer hours.

Blurred lines, however, raised some concerns.

From chores and rowdy children to extended hours, working from home often makes it difficult to compartmentalize. As a result, employers and employees may have to draw firmer lines between work and home in their remote policies, especially in the long term.

Although the benefits appear to outweigh the concerns, these issues pose important questions about our increasingly remote future.

Teams Reveal Some Intel

To uncover some work-from-home easter eggs (“Better for exercise. MUCH more pleasant environment”), we grouped nearly 400 open-ended questions according to sentiment and revealed some interesting patterns.

From serendipitous encounters and beers with colleagues to more formal teamwork, an overwhelming number of the respondents missed the camaraderie of team interactions.

It was clear startups did not miss the hours spent commuting every day. During the pandemic, those hours have been replaced by family time, work, or other activities like cooking healthy meals and working out.

Remote working has been great for getting us through lockdown—but truly creative work needs the magic of face to face interaction, not endless Zoom calls. Without the serendipity and chemistry of real-world encounters, the world will be a far less creative place.

– Rohan Silva, CEO, Second Home

The Future Looks Remote

This pandemic has delivered a new normal that’s simultaneously challenging and revealing. For now, it looks like a new way of working is being coded into our collective software.

What becomes of the beloved open-office plan in a pandemic-prepped world remains to be seen, but if these startups are any indication, work-life may have changed for good.

Authored by Burak Bekdil via The Gatestone Institute,

According to his fans and political allies, Turkey’s Islamist president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, conquered Istanbul for the second time when he signed a decree to convert the monumental Hagia Sophia cathedral in Istanbul, built in 537, into a mosque. With that logic, he became the first statesman who conquered a city that already belongs to his country.

“First, you should fill Sultanahmet (Blue Mosque, Istanbul) … This is a plot, this is sheer provocation,” Erdoğan told a crowd as recently as in March 2019 when party fans demanded the conversion of Hagia Sophia into a mosque. He was right. Most of Istanbul’s nearly 3,000 mosques (one mosque per 5,000 population) do not attract crowds. Sixteen months later, Erdoğan changed his mind.

In this theater-like play, he said the supreme court would decide on the fate of Hagia Sophia. Under a constitutional amendment in 2010, Erdoğan won the authority to appoint all members of that court, the Council of State. Erdoğan said he would respect the court’s verdict in “whichever direction it comes.”

And, unsurprisingly, the verdict came in the direction Erdoğan wanted: On July 9, the Council of State decided to void a cabinet decision, signed in 1934 by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey, designating Hagia Sophia as a museum, in a show of respect for Christianity. Only an hour after the verdict was announced, Erdoğan signed a decree for the conversion into a mosque of the monument on UNESCO’s World Heritage List.

Hagia Sophia Timeline

• 537: Byzantine Emperor Justinian I builds Hagia Sophia as a cathedral in then Constantinople.

• 1453: Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II (Mehmet the Conqueror) converts Hagia Sophia into a mosque after taking Constantinople from the Byzantines.

• 1453-1934: Hagia Sophia remains a mosque.

• June 7, 1931: The cabinet of the infant Turkish Republic signs a decree for the restoration of priceless mosaic frescoes at Hagia Sophia. The decree gave the job to Thomas Whittemore, an American Byzantine specialist.

• Aug. 25, 1934: Turkish Education Minister Abidin Özmen writes a letter to Prime Minister İsmet İnönü to inform him that he had received a verbal order from Atatürk for the conversion of Hagia Sophia into a museum.

• Nov. 24, 1934: The Turkish cabinet signs a decree that “un-mosques” Hagia Sophia.

• 1980: Turkish Prime Minister Süleyman Demirel allows Muslim prayers at an annex of Hagia Sophia.

• 1981: The military junta bans Muslim prayers at Hagia Sophia.

• 1991: Prime Minister Süleyman Demirel re-opens the annex to Muslim prayers.

• 2005-2020: The Council of State rejects three applications for the conversion of Hagia Sophia into a mosque.

• July 9, 2020: The Council of State rules in favor of the fourth application to make Hagia Sophia a mosque.

• July 24, 2020: Hagia Sophia will open as a mosque, with a Greek name and Orthodox frescoes on its walls.

Erdoğan comes from the ranks of political Islam, which made its debut in Turkey in the late 1960s – and was not then on the global radar. In the 1970s, Islamists of all flavors, including Erdoğan’s mentor, Turkey’s first Islamist prime minister, Necmettin Erbakan, made the “Hagia Sophia Mosque” a symbol of the completion of Istanbul’s conquest. The iconic church also became a symbol in the Islamists’ fight against Atatürk’s secularism.

Why now? Erdoğan possibly thought the move could reverse the ongoing erosion of his popularity due, among others, to a looming economic crisis. All the same, it appears to be wrongly timed, as presidential and parliamentary elections are three years from now and Turks are notorious for not having a good memory. Praying at the Hagia Sophia Mosque will not turn a hungry man into a happy man.

The conversion of Hagia Sophia into a mosque has once again underlined the insane racism of the majority in Turkey against the sanity of a dwindling minority.

One Muslim theologian, Cemil Kılıç, argued against the decision: “This is against the Quranic commandments,” he said. “Prophet Mohammed never converted a Jewish or Christian house of prayer into a mosque.”

His voice came against an abundance of racist comments on social media:

• “Jewish and Christian bastards will now understand who we are.”

• “Erdoğan is correcting what Jewish, Shabbetaist (Jews who converted to Islam), atheist crowds have done in the past century.”

• “You Jews, are you having fun?”

• “Day of mourning for Crusaders and Jewish converts.”

• “Cry, you Greeks! And wait for your turn, you Jews!”

• “Sad day for Zionists.”

• “A Shabbetaist Jew from Thessaloniki [Ataturk, born in Thessaloniki] closed it [to Muslim prayers] and man from Black Sea (Erdogan) opened it.”

• “You Jewish dogs, it will come to Al-Aqsa Mosque [in Jerusalem] too.”

This much of national sentiment reflects sheer ignorance, a hatred for “the religious other,” a self-isolationist thinking and a century-long desire to challenge all things non-Turkish, with an emphasis on “the Jew.” An Islamist leader decides to convert a monumental cathedral into a mosque, and his fans, are spilling out hatred against Jews. This is Turkey’s new normal.

The prospects for a V-shaped recovery in airlines are looking dim. The latest indication of how slow things are getting back to normal in the industry is Australian-based Qantas Airlines pulling all of its international flights off its website this week. 

The airline is cancelling routes to New Zealand until September 1 and flights to other international destinations have been cancelled until March 28, 2021 – nearly another year away – according to the Daily Mail. 

“All international and sale flights have been removed from the website until further notice due to the coronavirus pandemic,” a spokesperson for the airline said. “There are some international flights in the system but they are not currently operating.”

Flights are still available through the airline’s partner airlines like Emirates, British Airways and Cathay Pacific. But Qantas wants to prevent new bookings from being made on its own airline. Flights that have already been booked will proceed as planned. 

The move comes weeks after the airline cut 6,000 jobs, representing 20% of its workforce. The company’s CEO has also predicted that international flights wouldn’t resume until July 2021. 

“We have never experienced anything like this before – no-one has. All airlines are in the biggest crisis our industry has ever faced,” he said last month. “Revenues have collapsed, entire fleets are grounded and the world biggest carriers are taking extreme action just to survive.”

The decision to halt international flights comes after the airline’s decision to also ground its double decker A380 planes for at least three years and to retire six Boeing 747s. 

Trade Minister Simon Birmingham said in June that Australia’s borders would probably remain closed for another 4 months.