tyb
dhey are in full blown 'mgmt' mode next door
kek
true dat
Union declares strike in world’s LARGEST copper mine in Chile after labor negotiations fail
A labor union has voted to approve a strike at Escondida, the world’s largest copper mine, located in the Atacama Desert, Chile, where the miners are demanding better work conditions and benefits during the pandemic.
The mine’s Union No 1 said that 2,164 of its members, or 99,5% of those who had voted, had chosen to reject a final contract offer, and that it had approved the strike. “The resounding result once against demonstrates that… our ranks believe that this offer doesn’t contain any progress towards [addressing] the legitimate demands of the workers,” the union said, in a statement late on Saturday. It also said the vote should become a “decisive wake-up call” for the mine’s owner, the Australian-based mining giant BHP Group, to start “substantive talks.”
The Federation of Copper Workers (FTC), an umbrella union group, said that miners did not stop contributing to the Chilean economy during the Covid-19 pandemic and are demanding “fair labor and human relations.” While the exact terms of the offer were not released, the union is demanding an additional bonus equivalent of 1% of dividends paid to the mine’s owners as a recognition of the sacrifices made by workers during the pandemic, according to Chilean media. BHP said in a statement to Reuters this week that its offer contained improvements to the current work environment, and new benefits, and was a result of conversations with workers.
After the vote, the company said it remains committed to dialogue and reaching an agreement with the union at upcoming government-mediated talks. During the previous labor dispute in 2017, miners at Escondida went on a strike for more than 40 days, demanding better contracts.
https://www.rt.com/news/530840-chile-copper-mine-strike/
HULK22 USAF E-4B Nightwatch departed Lincoln Muni Airport, NE es
This AC arrived at Lincoln Muni yesterday as TITAN25 after departing from JBA
Arrived on Friday from Manila, P.I. with the Secretary of Defense and it could habs had them on board yesterday as well since TITAN25 is the call sign for when that office is onboard.
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WIDE57 USAF KC-135 tanker heading to Not AF1 Joe at Camp David position from Portsmouth, NH depart
61-0309 USAF KC-135 tanker went back to Portsmouth earlier and this is the replacement
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SAM883 USAF G5 continues sw @ 40k ft from it's JBA depart a bit ago.
Square to buy Australia's Afterpay in $29 bln all-stock deal
U.S. fintech company Square Inc SQ.N said on Monday it had agreed to purchase Australian buy now/pay later giant Afterpay Ltd APT.AXin an all-stock deal worth about $29 billion.
Afterpay shareholders will get 0.375 shares of Square class A stock for every share they own, implying a price of about A$126.21 per share based on Square's Friday close, the companies said in a joint statement.
The offer price is a more than 30% premium to Afterpay's last close and the Australian firm's shareholders are expected to own about 18.5% of the combined company.
https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/square-to-buy-australias-afterpay-in-%2429-bln-all-stock-deal-2021-08-01
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XA987/SAM987 departed Hickam AFB Oahu north after an overnight
World’s Biggest Pension Fund Cuts U.S. Bond Weighting by Record
Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund made a record cut to the weighting of Treasuries in its portfolio last fiscal year as the world’s safest asset led a global debt selloff.
GPIF, as the world’s biggest pension fund is known, slashed U.S. government bonds and bills to 35% of its foreign debt holdings in the 12 months through March 30, from 47% previously, according to an analysis by Bloomberg of the latest data.
The rebalancing comes with the fund now over a year into a new investment plan that’s reduced dependence on Japanese government bonds and shifted focus toward higher returning equities and overseas debt. Bloomberg’s analysis indicates the shift came largely through boosting holdings of European sovereign bonds, rather than selling Treasuries into a falling market. While GPIF offers little commentary on annual changes in its portfolios, even small adjustments reverberate through world markets given its total investments of about $1.7 trillion. Some strategists suggested the pension giant may have sought to trim Treasuries because of an extended period of underperformance. Others said this could have been incidental as it moved to reduce risk by aligning weightings with global indexes. To be sure, GPIF’s Treasury holdings had shot up in the year earlier, particularly in shorter maturities, just as it was mulling the new investment plan. This offers yet another reason -- that extra funds had only been parked temporarily in U.S. bills and notes as a substitute for cash before the fund settled on more permanent allocations. Whatever the motives may have been, GPIF made a 7.1% return on overseas debt last fiscal year, versus 5.4% for FTSE Russell’s World Government Bond Index excluding Japan, which it measures performance against. That represents the strongest result in four years versus the benchmark. FTSE Russell’s weighting for Treasuries was around 38% as of the end of June, including Japanese debt.
GPIF’s allocations for French, Italian, German and the U.K. bonds all increased by at least 1.7 percentage points in the 12 months through March. Purchases of these securities totaled 5.72 trillion yen ($52 billion) after adjusting for fluctuations in exchange rates and bond prices, Bloomberg’s analysis found. While the weighting for U.S. bonds fell, GPIF still added about 1.1 trillion yen worth of Treasuries to its holdings last fiscal year, after adjusting for currency fluctuations and bond returns, according to Bloomberg’s analysis. That took its hoard to about 17.5 trillion yen. Under its five-year investment plan that took effect in April 2020, GPIF aims to split its portfolio evenly between stocks and bonds, with these two asset classes then divided equally between domestic and foreign markets. Japanese government bonds previously had a 35% weighting in total investments.
The changes are paying off, with the return last fiscal year on bonds and stocks combined beating the fund’s composite benchmark for the first time in seven years. Still, it isn’t possible to fully assess how well GPIF timed its adjustments because the fund doesn’t disclose when during the 12-month period changes took place. There was enormous movement in bonds over the period, with 10-year Treasury yields largely moving sideways over the first half of the fund’s fiscal year before surging about 100 basis points to around 1.7% in the second half. The fund’s smaller peers in Japan, which often follow its lead, will scrutinize the latest changes. “GPIF has a large influence over the investment decisions of other pension funds in Japan,” said Ayako Sera, a market strategist at Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank Ltd. in Tokyo. “What it does has an impact in the market.” Looking at the more recent moves, Sera sees the attractiveness of Treasuries dropping even further. “Current yield levels don’t compensate investors enough to take foreign-exchange risks,” she said.
Treasury Department data show Japanese investors overall have sold a net $24 billion of U.S. government bonds since the start of the Asian nation’s current fiscal year on April 1. They offloaded $35 billion in the 12 months before that, the most in three years.
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/world-s-biggest-pension-fund-cuts-u-s-bond-weighting-by-record-1.1635509