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Originally Australia #14 >>13168992
Hopping mad: US campaign to ban kangaroo imports gains bipartisan support
Matthew Knott - March 7, 2021
Washington: The Australian embassy in Washington is pushing back against a bipartisan effort by American legislators and animal rights groups to ban the importation of all kangaroo products into the United States.
A Democratic congressman from California, Salud Carbajal and his Republican counterpart Brian Fitzpatrick from Pennsylvania last month introduced a bill into the US House of Representatives that would impose steep penalties on anyone importing kangaroo leather or meat into the US.
The coalition of animal rights groups behind the bill is running a sophisticated campaign called “kangaroos are not shoes” that features graphic images of dead kangaroos and joeys.
The group’s website, which encourages Americans to contact their local representatives about the issue, describes Australia’s kangaroo cull as the “largest land-based commercial wildlife slaughter in the world, ten times larger and far bloodier than the notorious seal slaughter in Canada”.
The website asks why two million kangaroos are being killed each year in Australia when other countries protect native icons such as the North American bald eagle, the New Zealand kiwi bird and the Chinese panda.
If passed into law, the legislation would be a massive blow to the Australian kangaroo industry given exports to the US are worth an estimated $80 million a year, making it the industry’s second-biggest export market after the European Union.
The primary aim of the Kangaroo Protection Act is to stop major brands such as Nike, Adidas and Puma from using kangaroo leather in their soccer shoes and bicycle cleats.
The bill has forced Australian officials in Washington to counter commonly-held views, including that kangaroo harvesters are targeting a “cute and cuddly” endangered species.
“When we heard this bill had been introduced we moved quickly because we wanted to make sure that lawmakers understood the basis on which the commercial kangaroo industry operates in Australia,” US ambassador Arthur Sinodinos said.
“It’s about providing context and information to dispel some misconceptions that are out there.”
Wayne Pacelle, the president of Animal Wellness Action, one of the groups lobbying for the bill, said he decided to launch the campaign after the death of thousands of kangaroos and other marsupials during the Australian bushfires of late 2019 and early 2020.
“People outside Australia consider kangaroos to be one of the primary icons and symbols of that continent so there’s an instinctive reaction when they hear that two million kangaroos are killed for their parts,” he said. “They are stunned.”
Pacelle said: “I believe we stand a very good chance of getting this passed.
“The animal welfare lobby in the US has passed a lot of major legislation, and there’s no domestic constituency for this enterprise. It’s an easy vote for Democrats certainly, and also for Republicans to show they are animal-welfare friendly.”
Selling kangaroo products conflicts with the long-standing US norm that only farmed animals - rather than those killed in the wild - should be exploited for commercial gain, Pacelle said.
Politicians as divergent as Jamie Raskin, who served as the Democrats’ lead impeachment manager during Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial, and Republican Matt Gaetz, one of the most pro-Trump members of Congress, have signed on as sponsors of the bill.
Australian officials and the kangaroo industry are hopeful that the bill, like most pieces of legislation introduced into Congress, does not become law. But it could still have an impact if it spurs corporations to cut kangaroo products out of their supply chains to avoid a backlash.
Kangaroo Industries Association of Australia executive officer Dennis King said: “The bill is misguided, it’s not grounded in the facts. No threatened species are commercially harvested in Australia, nor are any kangaroos harvested for their hides. It’s all part of a government-regulated, humanely managed wildlife management program that has operated for 30 years.”
The industry argues that kangaroos, far from being a threatened species like the panda, are so abundant that their population needs to be controlled. The Australian government estimates that there are 43 million kangaroos in NSW, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia, up from 27 million a decade earlier.
“Even if there were no commercial industry, conservation culling would occur anyway to avoid overpopulation and mass starvation during droughts,” King said.
“Kangaroos may look cute and cuddly but they can do immense amounts of damage to farmers’ properties,” he added.
https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/world/north-america/hopping-mad-us-campaign-to-ban-kangaroo-imports-gains-bipartisan-support-20210304-p577p6.html
https://kangaroosarenotshoes.org
Out of curiousity… did you happen to spot a gubmint Lear coming into NAS JAX from the south at about 1500 Eastern yesterday?
Affirm, went to help a guy do some yard work in the area and this thing comes in, sometime between 1400 and 1500, rather low before turning on Final
Originally Germany #76 >>13170824
(translated by Yandex)
Corona: After the death of a nurse in Austria, thousands of AstraZeneca cans end up in the garbage
Covid-19 vaccine: AstraZeneca batch withdrawn in Austria
According to ORF, 6,000 doses of vaccine had to be withdrawn. Around 37,000 doses of the batch have already been inoculated. The precautionary stop for the batch ABV 5300 of the AstraZeneca vaccine has been in place since Friday evening. On Sunday, the state of Carinthia announced that vaccine doses of this batch had been delivered. "The Red Cross, the hospitals and the Medical Association - the sponsoring organizations that had been supplied with this batch - were immediately informed.“
How oe24.at according to reports, the said batch included one million doses. It had been distributed throughout Europe. Austria had received around 43,000 doses of the vaccine. Where exactly the remaining 6,000 doses are is still unclear. On Sunday, according to media reports in Carinthia, the exhibition center in Klagenfurt was locked up. Only vaccine doses from the affected batch were available to the state capital. A hotline for those affected has been set up.
https://www.merkur.de/welt/corona-oesterreich-astrazeneca-impfstoff-impfung-krankenschwester-tot-rueckruf-charge-muell-news-aktuell-90232384.amp.html
Originally South Africa #4 >>13171071
“Family offices: More than just keeping it among kin and paying it forward.”dated 26 November 2019 at https://cc.bingj.com/cache.aspx?q=https%3a%2f%2fwww.dailymaverick.co.za%2farticle%2f2019-11-26-family-offices-more-than-just-keeping-it-among-kin-and-paying-it-forward%2f&d=4702899173995044&mkt=en-WW&setlang=en-US&w=XcculH3wC8ZaofHgrhM_mtCGRKbh9K-f. Below are a few statements however it is worth reading in full.
The world’s first family office set up shop in the US in the 19th century. Its sole purpose at the time was to manage the fortunes of corporate moguls such as JP Morgan and John D Rockefeller. Fast forward a century or so, the offering has evolved into something more elaborate and further reaching. But it is in the past 10 years that family offices have gained real traction and become a significant contender in the money management game.
It’s a booming business. An EY report states that there are currently more than 10,000 single-family offices around the world, and research by Campden Wealth suggests family offices hold assets in excess of $4-trillion.
South African billionaires that crack the list include Nicky Oppenheimer, Johann Rupert, Patrice Motsepe, Koos Bekker and Michiel le Roux, according to Forbes.
But there is much more money to go around in South Africa than that among a handful of billionaires. A report by academics Ihsaan Bassier and Ingrid Woolard suggests that based on tax data, the country has an estimated 182,000 dollar millionaires.
It is for such reasons that Maitland opened up one of the largest full-service independent multi-family offices in South Africa in 2018. It said in a media statement at the time, that “the time is ripe” to tap into the growing wealth in South Africa.
Cheryl Howard, MD of the Maitland Family Office, says that the wealthy are quickly becoming “global citizens” and need a service that is truly international and delivered seamlessly across borders.
“This was compounded by increasingly complex regulations, a more litigious society and the risks of an unstable global economy.”
Maitland was founded in Luxembourg 42 years ago and according to the company, it counts some of the world’s wealthiest families as its clients. The group has 17 offices worldwide with private clients serviced mainly from Guernsey, Isle of Man, London, Luxembourg, Malta, Mauritius and Monaco.
The first business in SA to brand itself as a family office, however, was Stonehage Fleming. It was formed by the merger of Stonehage, which focused primarily on helping South Africans manage their overseas assets, and the family office interests of the UK’s Fleming family. The best-known member was Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond.
Stonewood, Vantage and Alpha Wealth are some of the other local operators. Citadel is planning to launch a family office operation in the second half of 2020.
Before them, the closest thing to a family office were the large trust companies such as Syfrets and BOE.
A move to a family office would see Tepper join several of his prominent peers, including George Soros, who moved in 2011 to close his hedge fund to outside investors. Billionaire John Paulson also indicated earlier in 2019 that he was weighing a transition. Leon Cooperman returned all capital to investors in his hedge-fund firm, Omega Advisors, at the end of 2018.
“Brooke Harrington of Copenhagen Business School worries that the growth is undermining meritocracy in capitalism.
“The bigger the apparatus they have behind them, the harder it is for the market to discipline them,” she says.
Chuck Collins of the left-leaning Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, frets over opacity — “they ensure ever more wealth goes off the ledger” — and their growing lobbying clout.
He argues that billionaires’ family offices have worked tirelessly to exploit loopholes and rig rules to further their interests, most notably by helping to gut America’s estate tax.
“They are in the dynasty-protection business, trying to arrest the normal, natural process of wealth dispersal,” he says.
They may wish to upgrade their wardrobes to Kevlar, just sayin
Sexiest Valkyrie ever…XB-70