The world’s 10 wealthiest men doubled their fortunes during the first two years of the coronavirus pandemic as poverty and inequality soared, a report said on Monday.

Oxfam said the men’s wealth jumped from $700 billion to $1.5 trillion, at an average rate of $1.3 billion per day, in a briefing published before a virtual mini-summit of world leaders being held under the auspices of the World Economic Forum.

A confederation of charities that focus on alleviating global poverty, Oxfam said the billionaires’ wealth rose more during the pandemic more than it did the previous 14 years, when the world economy was suffering the worst recession since the Wall Street Crash of 1929.

It called this inequality “economic violence” and said inequality is contributing to the death of 21,000 people every day due to a lack of access to healthcare, gender-based violence, hunger and climate change.

The pandemic has plunged 160 million people into poverty, the charity added, with non-white ethnic minorities and women bearing the brunt of the impact as inequality soared.

The report follows a December 2021 study by the group which found that the share of global wealth of the world’s richest people soared at a record pace during the pandemic.

Oxfam urged tax reforms to fund worldwide vaccine production as well as healthcare, climate adaptation and gender-based violence reduction to help save lives.

The group said it based its wealth calculations on the most up-to-date and comprehensive data sources available, and used the 2021 Billionaires List compiled by the US business magazine Forbes.

Forbes listed the world’s 10 richest men as: Tesla and SpaceX chief Elon Musk, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, former Microsoft CEOs Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, former Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, US investor Warren Buffet and the head of the French luxury group LVMH, Bernard Arnault.

Source: AFP

Over 4,500 flights were cancelled around the world by Saturday and thousands more were delayed as the highly infectious Omicron variant disrupted holiday travel, according to tracking website Flightaware.

One route, however, was thankfully not affected: Santa was on track delivering presents to children across the globe, air defense officials assured US President Joe Biden.

According to Flightaware.com, at least 2,000 flights were cancelled worldwide on Christmas Day, including roughly 700 originating from or headed to US airports, with more than 1,500 delays as of 0720 GMT.

On Friday, there were around 2,400 cancellations and almost 11,000 delays. The site also reported over 600 cancellations for Sunday.

Pilots, flight attendants and other staff have been calling in sick or having to quarantine after exposure to Covid, forcing Lufthansa, Delta, United Airlines and many other carriers to cancel flights during one of the year’s peak travel periods.

Flightaware data showed United cancelled around 200 flights on both Friday and Saturday, or 10 percent of those that were scheduled.

“The nationwide spike in Omicron cases this week has had a direct impact on our flight crews and the people who run our operation,” United said in a statement on Friday.

“As a result, we’ve unfortunately had to cancel some flights and are notifying impacted customers in advance of them coming to the airport,” the airline said, adding that it was working to rebook passengers.

Similarly, Delta cancelled at least 260 flights Saturday and around 170 on Friday, saying it has “exhausted all options and resources — including rerouting and substitutions of aircraft and crews to cover scheduled flying.”

“We apologize to our customers for the delay in their holiday travel plans,” the company said.

Eleven Alaska Airlines flights were axed, after employees said they were potentially exposed to Covid-19 and had to self-isolate in quarantine.

The cancellations added to the pandemic frustration for many Americans eager to reunite with their families over the holidays, after last year’s Christmas was severely curtailed.

Chinese airlines accounted for the highest number of cancellations with China Eastern scrapping around 480 flights or over 20 percent of its flight plan, and Air China grounding 15 percent of its total scheduled departures at around 0720 GMT Saturday.

Huge travel bump

According to estimates from the American Automobile Association, more than 109 million Americans were scheduled to travel by plane, train or automobile between December 23 and January 2, a 34 percent increase since last year.

But most of those plans were made before the outbreak of the Omicron variant, which has become the dominant strain in the United States, overwhelming some hospitals and healthcare workers.

Luckily, Omicron did not affect Santa’s travel plans, according to the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), which has tracked St. Nick’s Christmas journey for over 60 years.

Major General Eric Kenny, commander of the Canadian NORAD region, told AFP that Santa had distributed over two billion gifts and was above Pakistan around 1800 GMT.

“Santa is doing very well so far,” Kenny said. “He’s been at it for many hours already and will go throughout the evening as well.”

Biden and First Lady Jill Biden also spoke to NORAD officials via video conference Friday to ensure Father Christmas’ trip was going smoothly.

Biden then spoke, also via video call, to several American families, asking children what presents they wanted and telling them that they had to be in bed before midnight, otherwise Santa would not come.

But in a sign of deep political divisions plaguing American society, the event then took a sour turn, when a father, to whom Biden had just wished happy holidays, launched an insult at him.

According to journalists present at the event, the father said “Merry Christmas” followed by “Let’s go Brandon!” The phrase has been used by supporters of Donald Trump as a euphemism for a derogatory remark against the current president.

Source: AFP

The supply chain troubles caused by Brexit and the pandemic have been so bad for Satyan Patel that the shelves at his convenience store in central London are seriously lacking water and soft drinks.

“Last week I ran out of Coca-Cola. I haven’t had large bottles of Evian for three weeks,” said Patel.

“Without products, there’s no business. With empty shelves like this, no one is going to come in the shop anyway,” he added.

A wide range of businesses have suffered through shortages for several months in the UK — from milkshakes at McDonald’s to beer at a pub chain to mattresses at Ikea.

But shoppers are also facing empty shelves for things as basic as water and milk at UK supermarkets and grocery stores.

The coronavirus crisis has severely disrupted the global supply chain, but Britain’s divorce from the European Union late last year has exacerbated the problem in the UK.

Shops are not getting products delivered to them as rules making it harder to hire EU citizens has left haulage companies with a drastic shortage of lorry drivers.

Many people who returned to their home countries from Britain during the lockdown have not returned.

Co-op, a cooperative supermarket group, said it was “impacted by some patchy distribution” to its deliveries but it was working with suppliers to re-stock quickly.

The group said it was recruiting 3,000 temporary workers “to keep depots working to capacity and stores stocked as quickly as possible”.

– Where’s the milk? –

According to recent estimates, the UK currently faces a shortage of about 100,000 lorry drivers.

“We had already decided to reduce our stock because of Covid… but now we’re finding it hard to get some products as well because they’re just not available,” Patel said.

At a supermarket near his store, the soft drinks aisle was a little short of bottles and cans but other shelves were full.

But 22-year-old sales assistant Toma said the situation was grim.

“We don’t have stock, we have nothing in our warehouse,” said Toma, who declined to give her last name.

“We have gaps everywhere,” she said. “Sometimes we receive only a certain amount (of some products). We don’t even have water.”

The shortages began when the pandemic hit and got worse after Brexit came into force on January 1, Toma said.

Some customers complain to supermarket staff and “say it’s us to blame”, she added.

At another major supermarket in southeast London, water bottles were sparse and milk was missing from shelves.

Frozen-food group Iceland and retail giant Tesco have warned of Christmas shortages.

Iceland head Richard Walker said the company has reduced deliveries as it has 100 fewer drivers than it needs.

“Every day we are missing around 10 percent of the stock we have ordered into our depots,” he wrote in a blog, adding that “when things were at their worst” its sole bread supplier was unable to deliver to as many as 130 stores per day.

– ‘Perfect storm’ –

Shortages of goods in the UK “will probably last for a while and may even intensify further”, according to a note by Capital Economics, a research consultancy.

A report this week from the Confederation of British Industry cited the Road Haulage Association as saying it would take at least 18 months to train enough Heavy Goods Vehicle (HGV) drivers to replace those who have left.

For the CBI, the dual effects of Brexit and Covid-19 are a “perfect storm”.

Stock levels in relation to expected sales fell by more than 20 percent to a record low across the retail and distribution sector in August, according to the CBI.

The group has urged the government to be more flexible on immigration and add skilled lorry drivers to a list of professions that are short on workers.

Road transport companies and businesses dependent on deliveries are offering bonuses and higher wages in an attempt to retain drivers, but the moves have raised concern that they could contribute to rising inflation.

Ryan Koningen, a 49-year-old project manager at a company in the City of London, said his colleagues often discussed the situation and “the question of costs: will they rise because drivers are paid premiums?”

He too said he had noticed shortages of “day-to-day products”.

Source: AFP

China said on Friday that it has imposed counter-sanctions on U.S. individuals including former U.S. commerce secretary Wilbur Ross in response to recent U.S. sanctions on Chinese officials in Hong Kong.

The sanctions are the first imposed by China under its new anti-foreign sanction law, passed in June, and come days before U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman is due to visit China amid deeply strained ties.

China also imposed unspecified “reciprocal counter-sanctions” on current and former representatives of a range of organisations, including the Congressional-Executive Commission on China and the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.

Other institutions named included the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, the International Republican Institute, Human Rights Watch (HRW), and the Washington-based Hong Kong Democracy Council (HKDC).

“The U.S. side concocted the so-called Hong Kong business advisory, baselessly smeared Hong Kong’s commercial environment, and illegally sanctioned Chinese officials in Hong Kong,” China’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

“These actions seriously violated international law and the basic principles of international relations, and seriously interfered in China’s internal affairs,” the ministry said.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki told a regular news briefing that the United States was “undeterred” by China’s move, which came after Washington last week issued its business advisory for Hong Kong and imposed sanctions on more Chinese officials over Beijing’s crackdown on democracy in the former British colony.

“These actions are the latest examples of how Beijing punishes private citizens, companies and civil society organizations as a way to send political signals,” Psaki said, adding that they illustrated the very risks about which the U.S. government had warned.

Ross could not be immediately reached for comment.

It was the second time this year that China has imposed sanctions on officials who served under former President Donald Trump, who adopted a tough line on Beijing and confronted it over trade, business practices, human rights and other issues.

Around the time Biden was sworn in as president in January, China announced sanctions against outgoing Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and 27 other top Trump officials.

The Biden administration called that move “unproductive and cynical.”

Biden has sought to rally allies and partners to help counter what the White House says are China’s increasingly coercive economic and foreign policies.

But U.S. officials say Sherman’s trip over the weekend to China, where she is due to meet Chinese State Councillor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, is an effort to ensure that competition between the two powers does not spill over into conflict.

Some of the groups hit by Beijing largely dismissed any negative impact of the sanctions. The HKDC said on Twitter that being targeted by China’s ruling Communist Party was the “best validation” of its fight for Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement.

“HKDC and Six Individuals in the US Recognized by PRC Ministry of Foreign Affairs for Human Rights Advocacy”

Human Rights Watch’s China director Sophie Richardson, who was sanctioned by China by name on Friday, called the move “hollow.”

“These are diplomatic tantrums that are designed to distract attention away from Beijing’s complicity in crimes against humanity,” she said, referring to China’s alleged human rights abuses in its western region of Xinjiang. China has dismissed the accusations.

(REUTERS)

The World Trade Organization kicked off a ministerial meeting Thursday aimed at breathing life into drawn-out negotiations towards banning subsidies that favour overfishing, but numerous sticking points remain.

Before the meeting, WTO chief Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala voiced cautious optimism that trade ministers from the organisation’s 164 member states could finally move towards clinching a “historic” agreement after 20 years of negotiations.

“While no one expects a miracle, the meeting represents a golden opportunity to bring the negotiations within striking distance of a deal,” she said in an editorial published Wednesday in Project Syndicate.

“A failure to do so would jeopardise the ocean’s biodiversity and the sustainability of the fish stocks on which so many depend for food and income.”

The talks aim to ban subsidies that contribute to illegal and unregulated fishing, as well as to overfishing, threatening the sustainability of fish stocks and the industry.

While fishing should in theory be held in check by the environment, with low fish stocks pushing up costs, subsidies can keep unprofitable fleets at sea.

It is widely agreed that action is needed to protect a crucial resource that millions of people depend on for their livelihoods.

In 2017, the Food and Agriculture Organization estimated that one third of global fish stocks were overfished.

Global fisheries subsidies are meanwhile estimated at between $14 billion and $54 billion a year, according to the WTO.

But two decades of negotiations have stumbled over a range of issues, including a UN demand that developing countries and the poorest nations receive special treatment.

After missing the last UN deadline to reach an agreement by December 2020, talks have intensified in recent months however.

– ‘Historic’ –

Okonjo-Iweala, who took the reins of the global trade body in March, has made clinching the long-awaited fisheries deal by the end of this year a priority.

Thursday’s meeting, which is taking place virtually due to Covid restrictions, is focusing on a draft text presented in May by Colombian ambassador Santiago Wills, who chairs the WTO fisheries subsidies negotiations.

Okonjo-Iweala voiced optimism that “marathon discussions” on the text, which according to Wills proposes “compromise language” in a range of areas, would succeed.

“We are on the cusp of forging an agreement at the WTO that is historic in more ways than one,” she said, stressing that a deal would also show that “members can come together and act on issues of the global commons.”

Reaching any kind of an agreement at the WTO can be hard, because all decisions require a consensus among all member states.

But observers said there had been a clear boost in momentum towards finding a deal.

“We have never had more political attention on the issue, (nor) the degree of political attention from a director general, and the degree of commitment from WTO members to really advanced this text,” Alice Tipping of the International Institute for Sustainable Development told reporters in Geneva.

– Special treatment? –

But a number of sticking points remain and NGOs warn against rushing to the finish line at any cost.

“It’s critical that WTO members do not sacrifice environmental outcomes for the sake of speed when negotiating a fisheries subsidies agreement,” Isabel Jarrett of The Pew Charitable Trusts told AFP.

One of the main stumbling blocks has been a UN demand that developing countries and the poorest nations receive so-called special and differential treatment, or SDT.

While special treatment for the poorest countries is widely accepted, demands from some self-identified developing countries to be exempt from subsidy constraints has proved difficult to swallow.

Many of the major fishing nations are considered developing countries by WTO, including China, which has one of the world’s biggest fishing fleets.

An EU official told reporters this week that a declaration from China that it was prepared to assume “full commitments without claiming SDT” would be “very helpful” to the talks.

There is also disagreement over how broad the fisheries deal should be.

There appears to be consensus around excluding fish-farming and continental fishing from subsidy constraints.

But some developing countries are calling for fuel subsidies, including through tax deduction schemes like those widely used in the EU, to be included in the deal — something the bloc flatly rejects.

Source: AFP

Lloyd’s List, a shipping industry journal, says its “rough calculations” suggest that the massive container vessel Ever Given, which has blocked Egypt’s Suez Canal since Tuesday, is halting about $9.6 billion worth of daily marine traffic.

Lloyd’s List puts westbound traffic at around $5.1 billion a day and eastbound traffic at approximately $4.5 billion.

Satellite pictures released by Planet Labs Inc show the 400-meter long vessel wedged diagonally across the entire canal, one of the busiest trade routes in the world.

Lloyd’s estimates that about 165 vessels are waiting to transit the waterway, while data compiled by Bloomberg show that the figure is 185.

The Suez Canal Authority (SCA) on Thursday announced it was “temporarily suspending navigation” along the waterway, which connects the Mediterranean to the Red Sea and drastically shortens travel between Asia and Europe, as efforts by tugs and diggers to dislodge the vessel have failed.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s advisor on seaports, Mohab Mamish, told AFP late Thursday that “maritime navigation will resume again within 48-72 hours, maximum”.

“I have experience with several rescue operations of this kind and as the former chairman of the Suez Canal Authority, I know every centimeter of the canal,” Mamish added.

However, salvage experts had warned earlier on Thursday the Suez blockage could last days or even weeks.

Vortexa senior freight analyst, Arthur Richier, said about 13 million barrels of crude oil on 10 tankers could be affected by the disruption, adding nine vessels carrying clean petroleum products, along with biodiesel, sitting outside Suez, were awaiting the resumption of northbound convoys.

How long it takes to refloat the grounded megaship will dictate further impact on markets.

According to shipping data compiled by Bloomberg, around 300 vessels globally are either stuck in the Suez Canal, waiting to transit the waterway or signaling it as their next destination.

Amid the continued closure of the waterway, shiping giants are looking into re-routing cargo ships around the southern tip of Africa.

Japanese ship-leasing firm Shoei Kisen Kaisha, the owner of the giant vessel, said it was facing “extreme difficulty” trying to refloat it.

“We sincerely apologize for causing a great deal of worry to ships in the Suez Canal and those planning to go through the canal,” it said in a statement.

On Wednesday, historic sections of the canal were reopened in a bid to ease the congestion.

In 2018, the canal was temporarily shut after a Greek-owned bulk carrier suffered engine failure that led to a five-ship collision.

Source: Presstv

A cargo container ship that’s among the largest in the world has turned sideways and blocked all traffic in Egypt’s Suez Canal, officials said Wednesday, threatening to disrupt a global shipping system already strained by the coronavirus pandemic.

The MV Ever Given, a Panama-flagged container ship that carries trade between Asia and Europe, became grounded Tuesday in the narrow, man-made waterway dividing continental Africa from the Sinai Peninsula.

It wasn’t immediately clear what caused the Ever Given to turn sideways in the canal. GAC, a global shipping and logistics company, described the Ever Given as suffering “a blackout while transiting in a northerly direction,” without elaborating.

Evergreen Marine Corp., a major Taiwan-based shipping company that operates the ship, said in a statement provided to The Associated Press that the Ever Given had been overcome by strong winds as it entered the Suez Canal from the Red Sea but none of its containers had sunk.

An Egyptian official, who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity as he wasn’t authorized to brief journalists similarly blamed a strong wind in the area for the incident. Egyptian forecasters said high winds and a sandstorm plagued the area Tuesday, with winds gusting as much as 50 kph (31 mph).

Source: AFP

Nigeria’s Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala looks set to be confirmed Monday as the first woman and first African leader of the beleaguered World Trade Organization, a near-paralysed institution desperately needing a kick-start.

The WTO has called a special general council meeting at which the former Nigerian finance minister and World Bank veteran is expected to be formally selected as the global trade body’s new director-general.

US President Joe Biden strongly swung behind her candidacy shortly after the only other remaining contender, South Korean Trade Minister Yoo Myung-hee, pulled out.

“I look forward to finalising the process,” Okonjo-Iweala said on February 6 after securing the Biden administration’s support.

The organisation is also eager to conclude the drawn-out process, having been leaderless since Brazilian career diplomat Roberto Azevedo stepped down last August, a year ahead of schedule.

The process of picking one of eight candidates to succeed him had been expected to wrap up by November, but the administration of former US president Donald Trump blocked the consensus to appoint Okonjo-Iweala. 

‘Reform candidate’

The 66-year-old will not be at the WTO’s Geneva headquarters for Monday’s virtual session and it is not known when she would take up her duties.

The 164-member organisation’s special session gets under way at 1400 GMT and Okonjo-Iweala is scheduled to hold an online press conference two hours later.

The WTO picks its leaders through consensus-finding, so even though she is the only candidate still in the race — boasting US, EU and African backing — there is always the chance of a spanner being thrown in the works.

She will take over an organisation mired in multiple crises and struggling to help member states navigate the severe global economic slump triggered by the coronavirus pandemic.

Okonjo-Iweala argued during the race that she was best placed out of the eight candidates for the post to steer the WTO through the crises.

“I am a reform candidate,” she insisted.

She has among other things warned that growing protectionism and nationalism have been spurred on by the pandemic and insists barriers need to be lowered to help the world recover.

Even before Covid-19 battered the global economy, the WTO was weighed down by stalled trade talks and struggled to curb trade tensions between the United States and China.

The WTO also faced relentless attacks from Washington under Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump. Among other things, Trump brought the WTO’s dispute settlement appeal system to a grinding halt in late 2019.

‘Boldness, courage’

Okonjo-Iweala has said her priorities include getting long-blocked trade talks on fishery subsidies across the finish line and breathing life back into WTO’s Appellate Body.

Twice Nigeria’s finance minister (2003-2006 and 2011-2015) and its first female foreign minister in a two-month stint in 2006, Okonjo-Iweala is seen as a trailblazer in her west African homeland.

She has brushed off claims she lacks experience as a trade minister or negotiator, insisting that what is needed to lead the WTO is not technical skills but “boldness, courage”.

She has portrayed herself as a champion against Nigeria’s rampant corruption — saying her own mother was even kidnapped over her attempts to tackle the scourge.

But her critics argue she should have done more to tackle it while in power.

A development economist by training with degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard, Okonjo-Iweala has also had a 25-year career as a development economist at the World Bank, eventually becoming its number two.

She is on the Twitter board of directors and chaired Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.

(AFP)