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New report exposes DC police using arrests and tickets to score revenue for the District

Published

4 days ago

September 16, 2024

New report exposes DC police using arrests and tickets to score revenue for the District

The role of financial incentives in mass incarceration is often thought of in terms of the role of private contractors and private prisons. But the far greater financial incentive in mass incarceration comes from the public sector—the role of police in imposing fines and fees on local residents as a strategy to secure revenues for public budgets. This practice is happening all over the country, but now, a new report from Fines and Fees Justice Center explores the extent of this perverse fiscal strategy in the nation’s capital, Washington DC. Michael Johnson, Jr. of the DC Fiscal Policy Institute joins Rattling the Bars to discuss this eye-opening report, “The Hidden Cost of Justice.”

Studio / Post-Production: Cameron Granadino

Transcript

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Mansa Musa:

Welcome to this edition of Rattling the Bars. I’m your host, Mansa Musa.

In America, the prison industrial complex has monetized every aspect of imprisonment. Every aspect of imprisonment is monetized to the extent that everybody that’s incarcerated is, not only serving time, but have to pay for the time that they’re serving. So much so that some places they actually pay for to live to stay in prison.

And they’re being told that, if you got a job, a percentage of your money, it’s going towards us. Not going towards the home in an event that a prisoner’s released. But to home and go back into the state’s coffer. Joining me today is Michael Johnson, a policy analyst that’s going to talk about a report that he did called The Hidden Cost of Prison. Welcome, Mike.

Michael Johnson:

How you doing, Mansa?

Mansa Musa:

I’m good. Hey, introduce yourself. Tell our audience who you are and what you do.

Michael Johnson:

So my name is Michael Johnson. I’m a senior policy analyst at DC Fiscal Policy Institute. And my work really focuses on examining the cost particularly of jail and prison. And we focus mainly on DC, but we know this issue is something that affects people across the country. So that’s a little bit about me. And currently, sorry for the noise in the background and everything. I’m at a policy conference in Atlanta right now, but good to be here.

Mansa Musa:

Okay. And thank you for coming on and joining us. As I said in the beginning, you wrote this report called The Hidden Cost of Prisons. Now, we know that. And I served 48 years prior to being released. When I first went into the system, a lot of the infrastructure or the prison that I was in was funded and financed by the state. The food came from the state, the medical was state, the clothing was state. The entire infrastructure of the Maryland prison system was basically state.

So the money that was being used to maintain the prison industrial complex during that time was state funded. Since that time, I’ve noticed that, as the years went on, when they allowed telephones in, they was private. The medical facilities, they became private. The commissary, it became private. The clothing, it became private. All right, before we peel back on some of the layers. Was you able to glean from your research the extent of how prison has become monetized in terms of the infrastructure?

Michael Johnson:

So we were able to definitely get a good sense of that. And so, my report focuses on DC specifically. So we looked at the budget and funding for the DC jail, in particular. And one of the things that came out of the report is exactly what you’re talking about is this privatization of so many services that go into the prison and jail system. From the phone systems, like you mentioned, which are private. And folks pay 8 cents per minute, which is just about a $1.20 cents for a 15-minute phone call.

And then, commissary as well. Those are all things that folks while they’re incarcerated have to pay in addition to paying for any fines that you’re imposed at the time you’re sentenced. But also, just being able to live day-to-day. It’s one of those things where it’s really so unaffordable that a lot of times people have to ask for support from their families.

Mansa Musa:

Right.

Michael Johnson:

From their relatives, communities. And that’s something that I personally experienced with my father being incarcerated for most of my life and having to send him money every now and again.

Mansa Musa:

Right.

Michael Johnson:

Pay to even email them through JPay, and that was as a teenager. So we think about all the different costs that goes into the jail and prison system. And it’s not just impacting the folks that are incarcerated. It’s really impacting, especially the families of folks incarcerated.

Mansa Musa:

Right. And let’s talk about, because like you say, this report primarily focus on DC jail. But this report really is a overview of how all prisons and jails are ranked relative to the monetization of it. So we don’t want our audience to think that, because we’re talking about DC jail, every aspect of the DC jail is also Cook County, also in Alabama, also in upstate Washington, any other Southern detention centers.

The same principle applies. The privatization of the infrastructure, be it medical, be it food, be it clothing. And I said early, housing. But let’s talk about the DC jail. And I want to reflect on this aspect of it. Okay. The jail is primarily funded by… The money for the jails, it comes out of the DC budget. And they allocate so much money each year towards the maintenance and the running of the jail. Is that correct?

Michael Johnson:

Yes, sir.

Mansa Musa:

All right. So then from what you was able to gather, how is it that they transfer the cost of telephone, the cost of medical, and the cost of commissary to the individuals that’s incarcerated when the money’s already being… Why is it not the reverse? I know these companies got to be paying the jail. So why is it the cost being transferred to the individual? If you have any insight on that.

Michael Johnson:

You know, the fact of the matter is, is really about pushing those costs onto the people incarcerated themselves. And like you said, it’s not just DC. But we have the system where it’s intentionally exploiting and extracting resources, particularly from, when we think about the prison and jail population, Black people primarily, especially within DC.

Mansa Musa:

Right.

Michael Johnson:

And it really goes into our perceptions of what people deserve, I believe.

Mansa Musa:

Right.

Michael Johnson:

I think there’s this narrative across the country that, for the folks that are incarcerated, they should be paying for everything. But at the same time, we’re not paying living wages. We’re paying folks a $1, $2 a day.

Mansa Musa:

Right. Right.

Michael Johnson:

Or in some states like Louisiana not paying them anything at all for working.

Mansa Musa:

Right.

Michael Johnson:

And so, a lot of it, to be honest, is just continuing from the legacy of slavery.

Mansa Musa:

That’s right.

Michael Johnson:

You know, we set this country up in a way where this country was founded from exploiting Black labor, exploiting Black resources. And so, it’s just a continuation of that. And we saw that throughout the 20th century with Black Codes, where we would create laws to just fine people for really, not even serious offenses, just to get them into jails and prisons. In that sense, we’re funneling people to make money from them.

Mansa Musa:

Right.

Michael Johnson:

Because at the end of the day, folks are going into jails and prisons and working for companies to make money for those companies.

Mansa Musa:

Right.

Michael Johnson:

And so, a lot of it is about exploitation of Black labor, Black resources that has really been at the foundation of the country.

Mansa Musa:

And let’s talk about the fine system, because I think that’s one, when you look at the detention centers and when you look at the overall prison industrial complex, the fine system is one of the most damaging aspects of the collateral aspect of it because in some situations, you can opt out. I can opt out from commissary, right? I can’t opt out for medical, but I can opt out for commissary.

I can opt out for packages. I can opt out from buying books. I can opt out from buying different things from the commissary be it music. Or I can opt out from email. I can write a letter. But I can’t opt out from the fine because once the fine is imposed, the money is being taken. Whatever the money I get, they’re taken even though they’re not supposed to. Talk about the fine system.

Michael Johnson:

Yeah, so that’s exactly right. That’s definitely one of the most predatory aspects of the system.

Mansa Musa:

Mm-hmm.

Michael Johnson:

One, because of just the high cost of some of the fines. In DC, you can have fines over $250,000 for one offense.

Mansa Musa:

Right.

Michael Johnson:

And so, when you get charged and convicted of any offense, those fines also add up. So they all go on top of each other. But the other reason why it’s so predatory is, again, because of some of the mechanisms that they have to force you to pay.

Mansa Musa:

That’s right. That’s right. Come on, talk about that.

Michael Johnson:

And probably the most predatory way that they go about forcing people to pay is the threat of re-incarceration. So-

Mansa Musa:

Right.

Michael Johnson:

If you don’t pay, you can be incarcerated up to a year in DC. That’s the case in a lot of other places throughout the country.

Mansa Musa:

Right.

Michael Johnson:

And you could even be incarcerated for longer. But then, there’s other ways in terms of, if you don’t pay, there’s certain financial responsibility, obligation programs that different jails or prison systems have. But essentially, you enter into a payment plan where you agree to pay off a certain amount every month, every quarter.

Mansa Musa:

Right.

Michael Johnson:

And if you don’t make those payments, you can lose your access to the phones.

Mansa Musa:

Right.

Michael Johnson:

Get restricted in terms of how much you can purchase through commissary, get on restricted housing, and so many other ways where they’re coercing people to pay. And it is important too because a lot of those fines, they’re supposed to go towards victims of crime.

Mansa Musa:

Right.

Michael Johnson:

And a lot of times, the fines that are collected is only a very small drop of the bucket of how much actually goes towards victims. So there’s definitely a lot of different layers when it comes to that, but it’s definitely one of the more predatory parts of the system.

Mansa Musa:

And another part of the hidden cost and the impact that it has is the visitations where monies are given to put on what we call books, where I guess somebody put some money on my books. Talk about that because I know when I was in the county jail, they was taking like if somebody put $10, they were taking two. They give me the money, where before, I could just send the money owed in. Or before, I could send cash, I could drop off cash.

But now, it’s a system where they tell you that you have to use JPay, or you have to use one of them pay mechanisms, or a kiosk be in the lobby of the jail. And they tell you that if you want to give some money up, then you have to use the kiosk, or your family member is going to give you some money. Your family member give you $20, you might get 15 of it. Talk about that part. How is that being regulated or orchestrated really?

Michael Johnson:

So yeah, I mean, when it comes to those types of payments, a lot of times they can take money as long as you owe a certain fine amount and fines. They can take up to, I believe, it’s 50% of any amount that you get.

Mansa Musa:

Right.

Michael Johnson:

Whether that’s earned or if somebody sends that to you. So a lot of times, the money that’s being sent goes right back into the system. And so, the folks that are incarcerated really don’t see all of that money at any point pretty much any time.

Mansa Musa:

Right.

Michael Johnson:

Yeah.

Mansa Musa:

When we look at, like I said, the commissary. When commissaries privatizes, like they got different corporations. When I left prison, it was Keefe. And then Keefe charged astronomical price. And the crazy part about Keefe is the prices change wherever you at. So in the detention center, a ramen noodle might be a $1.50 or $2.

In the system, it might be 60 cents, but it’s the same corporation, it’s Keefe. And then in other parts of the country, Keefe, got a monopoly on commissary. To your knowledge, if you can answer this. How are they able to get away with that? Where they’re able to like, that’s price gouging really.

Michael Johnson:

Yeah. I don’t have a lot of information about that. What I can tell you is, in DC alone, they collect about $2 million per year just from commissary purchases. That goes right back into the system.

Mansa Musa:

Yeah.

Michael Johnson:

That doesn’t go towards supporting these folks’ re-entry. That doesn’t go towards any type of programming while you’re incarcerated. That’s just $2 million that Keefe and those other companies go to collect, and then go to restock the commissary. So there is a really good research article just by the appeal that just released and talks just about that though, about how a lot of the prices that are inside are oftentimes a lot more than the cost of things outside of prisons.

Mansa Musa:

And I know from experience that prior to them privatizing a commissary, they had in the state system, and this was regulated through legislation, that the proceeds from the commissary after they restocked would go to the Inmate Welfare Fund. The Inmate welfare Fund in turn was responsible for providing indigent individuals with their necessities. So toothpaste, stamps, and things of this nature. But now that they took that out the equation, the Inmate Welfare Fund has like a retribution aspect to it in prison, where they’ll give you something.

Once you become no longer indigent, then you have to pay it back. This is what the privatization has created in the collateral sense to the prison industrial complex has created in the prison system. I think I remember in your report the cost of people incarcerated paying to stay in prison. Like I’m in a detention center, I’m on work release, and I got to pay money to stay on the work. Was you able to glean anything out of that?

Michael Johnson:

Yeah. And just one other thing about the Welfare Fund, because that’s a really important point. So that definitely was a system that was intended to support inmates. When they were actually doing that though, it was only about 10% of the money that was generated from commissary.

Mansa Musa:

Right.

Michael Johnson:

That’s going into that Welfare Fund. So it was only a small drop in the bucket. And then since, I would say, 2020, they used to do audits of the Welfare Fund every year to provide some type of transparency about how those funds are being used. It hasn’t been done since then.

Mansa Musa:

Right.

Michael Johnson:

One, we know it’s predatory, but we also don’t know exactly how much is predatory because they don’t provide a lot of that information and data. So that’s a whole another piece is really trying to get them to actually be transparent about what’s actually going on.

Mansa Musa:

Right.

Michael Johnson:

But then on the other side, when you talk about the work release fee, that’s one of the most egregious fees. And it’s really just about your room and board. It’s just paying to be in, and it’s for folks that are transitioning out at a halfway house. So they’re on their way to go back into the communities. But at the same time, any amount that they earn is taxed at a 20%. So if I make a hundred dollars, that’s $20 getting taken out of that automatically.

Mansa Musa:

Right, right, right.

Michael Johnson:

And that’s before if you have any other fines that are owed, that gets taken out then. And then, still having to afford to pay-to-stay in contact with folks. To say, all this stuff adds up. And so, especially with the work release fees, that’s more than double the tax that we charge for millionaires in DC. So we’re charging folks that are on their way back and reentering society, we’re charging nearly double than what we’re charging in taxes for someone making a million dollars, which is pretty ridiculous.

Mansa Musa:

And I think that the irony in the whole thing, and really this is where the abuse is really can be quantified is taxpayers, your money is being taken out to support DC jail. You got money paying for security, money paying for everything going on in the jail. If nobody buy nothing, if nobody had no fine, you still going to put a astronomical budget aside in maintaining of the jail.

So the fact that you’re taking now and saying that, not only we getting money from you taxpayers to incarcerate them, house them, but we also get money from them, and that money’s going to the corporate America and back into the jail. So that’s the irony in the whole matter that you’re double dipping at the expense of a person that’s indigent all the while. But talk about the impact that it’d be having on family members.

Michael Johnson:

For sure. Yeah. I think one of the biggest pieces, in terms of families, a lot of times folks cannot afford all those different costs, whether it be phones, commissary, medical, the fines by themselves. So oftentimes, you have to rely on family. And we don’t have really good data or information about DC specifically.

But we know across the country, families are spending over $13,000 just on court costs. And then when you think about some of those, the commissary and phone fees alone. Across the country, families are spending over $3 billion just in fees for phones and commissaries. That’s $3 billion from the pockets of everyday people, in addition to taxpayers paying for the maintenance, the construction of jails.

Mansa Musa:

Yeah, yeah.

Michael Johnson:

The result is, a lot of times, folks don’t have resources to help support folks. And so, either they’re taking money from the bills, or you know?

Mansa Musa:

Right.

Michael Johnson:

Taking money from other things. And another thing is, about two thirds of families that did support their loved ones incarcerated had some trouble meeting their basic needs.

Mansa Musa:

Yeah, I can believe that.

Michael Johnson:

Just from support. So about two out of every three people are having trouble just supporting basic needs just because of being able to support their loved one while they’re behind bars. So that is one of the bigger issues when we think about the impact to families, to brothers, sisters, mothers, but children as well. And the generational impact that has is something that I think we need to be thinking more about too.

Mansa Musa:

Right. Man, we talking about 2.5 million people are locked up, confined, not to count the 2.5 million that’s under the criminal justice system. You’re talking about almost 5 million people that are just as involved on some level, shape, form, fashion that have an obligation. Some are paying for urinalysis. Some are paying for the box, be on electronic monitors. Some are paying for to be confined to a shelter. Some paying for to be able to go back and forth on work release. But I noticed this here, none of this money is going towards child support.

They haven’t constructed no, which would be idealistic if you was to take this money that you’re talking about and help pay for the incarcerated parent’s child obligation. That obligation going to follow them once they get out. So in addition, not having no money, having a fine, now you have an obligation with the state or city to pay child support. But Mike, tell our audience how they can get a copy of this report, so they can look at it for themselves and make their own determination on whether or not this is something that they as a taxpayer support.

Michael Johnson:

Definitely, you can find the report on our website, dcfpi.org. And again, it’s called The Hidden Price of Justice. And yeah, definitely happy to talk with anyone who is interested. I appreciate you having me on the show today.

Mansa Musa:

All right, and thank you. And there you have it. The Real News, Rattling the Bars. Somewhere along the line, I heard this saying that crime doesn’t pay. Man, crime is paying off astronomically. It’s not paying for the victims. It’s not paying for the victims or the person that was victimized. It’s not paying for the victim that’s been victimized by the criminal justice system. It’s not paying off for the family members. It’s paying off for corporate America and corporate America only. It’s paying off for capitalism and it’s paying off in big dividends.

We need to really pull back the cover off of this. And as taxpayers, y’all should be outraged that somebody’s asking you. They raise your taxes, and your taxes dollars is going to something that if they gave you a choice to say, “Where are my tax dollars should go?” I’m quite sure you wouldn’t say that your tax dollars should go towards making a fat cat fatter. There you have it. Rattling the Bars in Real News. We ask you continue to support Rattling the Bar and the Real News because guess what? We are actually the real news. Thanks, Mike.

Michael Johnson:

Thanks.

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News

Civil Liberties at Risk Under Vietnam’s Tô Lâm

Published

2 seconds ago

September 20, 2024

NewsAdmin

On May 25, 2023, a Vietnamese court in Danang sentenced 39-year-old noodle vendor Bui Tuan Lam to six years in prison for posting an online clip deemed anti-government propaganda. Detained since 2021, Lam was isolated from his wife and children for two years before his trial drew international attention for its bizarre background and questionable legality. The dangerous video in question? A TikTok-style parody video mocking then-Minister of Public Security Tô Lâm’s extravagant culinary selection at a steakhouse in London.

One year into the food vendor’s sentence, now-President Tô Lâm’s political fortunes changed dramatically. On August 3, the former top security official was unanimously elected as Vietnam’s next Communist Party General Secretary, the most powerful position in the country. It was the culmination of his meteoric political rise, facilitated by the death of his mentor and longtime party boss Nguyen Phu Trong, in July. Pledging to build on his predecessor’s legacy, Tô Lâm made it clear that he will continue prioritizing the anti-corruption policies and security measures that defined his tenure at the Ministry of Public Security.

However, as Bui Tuan Lam and the other 160 Vietnamese political prisoners have come to realize, Tô Lâm’s extrajudicial definition of a security threat includes public dissent, civil liberties, and even lighthearted comedy.

Born on July 10, 1954, Tô Lâm has always prized security. After graduating from the People’s Security Academy in 1979, he held various law enforcement roles until his elevation to the Ministry of Public Security in 2016. There, he defined himself as an excellent political enforcer, leading an impressive anti-corruption campaign under Trong’s direction. Together, Lâm and Trong’s “Blazing Furnace” campaign targeted over 20,000 government officials in 2023, a dramatic increase from previous efforts.

“Tô Lâm was appointed one of five deputy chairmen of the Central Steering on Anti-Corruption that was the spearhead of Trong’s blazing furnace campaign,” Carl Thayer, an emeritus professor of politics at the University of New South Wales, told me. “As Minister of Public Security, Tô Lâm was also responsible for the harassment, intimidation, arrest and imprisonment of political and civil society activists.”

To General Secretary Trong, Tô Lâm’s role in Hanoi as an enforcer quickly became apparent. In Lâm’s first week at the Ministry, the former law enforcement officer oversaw the brutal suppression of protests against Formosa Ha Tinh Steel, the company responsible for arguably the worst environmental disaster in Vietnamese history. 41 protesters were arrested, including activist Hoang Duc Binh, who was sentenced to 14 years in prison for advocating on behalf of local fishermen affected by the disaster.

Two years later, Tô Lâm’s Ministry of Public Security significantly expanded government surveillance powers. The Law on Cyber Security, passed by the National Assembly in 2018, required telecommunication providers to record and store their users’ private data, including “full name, date of birth, place of birth, nationality, profession, position, place of residence, contact address.” Despite widespread condemnation and international outrage, the law continues to undermine Vietnamese civil liberties and online privacy.

It’s not just democratic organizers and human rights advocates who have been targeted under Tô Lâm’s security regime. Le Trong Hung, a former middle school teacher, was arrested in 2021 after challenging General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong to a nationally televised debate. Another teacher, 43-year-old Bui Van Thuan, was also arrested that same year and sentenced to nearly a decade in prison for publicly criticizing the Communist Party. Even Lâm’s own police officers, such as Captain Le Chi Thanh, have been prosecuted for exposing corruption within the Ministry of Public Security.

Tô Lâm’s self-styled campaign to root out “corruption” and enhance state security also coincidentally targeted political opponents within his own party. “Tô Lâm used the Investigative Police Department of the Ministry of Public Security to gather evidence of corruption by the President Vo Van Thuong, the Chairman of the National Assembly Vuong Dinh Hue, and the Permanent member of the party Secretariat Truong Thi Mai,” says Thayer. “These were the three most powerful figures in the leadership under General Secretary Trong. All were pressured into resigning in turn.”

Since taking office in August, General Secretary Lâm has moved quickly to solidify his position on the international stage. Last week, the Vietnamese leader visited Beijing to meet with China’s Xi Jinping, marking his first official overseas trip. The visit came nearly a year after Vietnam upgraded its diplomatic relations with both Japan and the United States. However, this continuation of former President Trong’s “Bamboo Diplomacy” should not be interpreted as a sign that Lâm intends to govern as a carbon copy of his mentor. Tô Lâm’s particularly abysmal human rights record distinguishes him as a unique threat to civil liberties and basic freedoms, further cementing a decade-long trend of increasing censorship and political persecution in Vietnam.

[Ting Cui edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

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Record Indian gold imports help drive bullion’s rally

Published

8 mins ago

September 20, 2024

NewsAdmin

A surge in demand among Indian consumers for gold jewellery and bars after a recent cut to tariffs is helping to drive global bullion prices to a series of fresh highs.

India’s gold imports hit their highest level on record by dollar value in August at $10.06bn, according to government data released Tuesday. That implies roughly 131 tonnes of bullion imports, the sixth-highest total on record by volume, according to a preliminary estimate from consultancy Metals Focus.

The high gold price — which is up by one-quarter since the start of the year — has traditionally deterred price-sensitive Asian buyers, with Indians reducing demand for gold jewellery in response.

But the Indian government cut import duties on gold by 9 percentage points at the end of July, triggering a renewed surge in demand in the world’s second-largest buyer of gold.

“The impact of the duty cut was unprecedented, it was incredible,” said Philip Newman, managing director of Metals Focus in London. “It really brought consumers in.”

The tariff cut has been a boon for Indian jewellery stores such as MK Jewels in the upmarket Mumbai suburb of Bandra West, where director Ram Raimalani said “demand has been fantastic”.

Customers were packed into the store browsing for necklaces and bangles on a recent afternoon, and Raimalani is expecting an annual sales boost of as much as 40 per cent during the multi-month festival and wedding season that runs from September to February.

Raimalani praised India’s government and “Modi ji”, an honorific for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, for reducing gold duties.

Column chart of tariff cut triggers import leap last month showing Indian gold imports

Expectations of rapid interest rate cuts by the US Federal Reserve have been the main driver of gold’s huge rally this year, according to analysts. Lower borrowing costs increase the attraction of assets with no yield, such as bullion, and are also likely to weigh on the dollar, in which gold is denominated.

The Fed cut rates by half a per cent on Wednesday, pushing gold to yet another record high, just below $2,600.

But strong demand for gold jewellery and bars, as well as buying by central banks, have also helped buoy prices.

India accounted for about a third of gold jewellery demand last year, and has become the world’s second-largest bar and coin market, according to data from the World Gold Council, an industry body.

However, that demand has meant that domestic gold prices in India are quickly catching up to the level they were at before the tariff duty cut, according to Harshal Barot, senior research consultant at Metals Focus.

“That entire benefit [of the tariff cut] has kind of vanished,” said Barot. “Now that prices are going up again, we will have to see if consumers still buy as usual.”

Jewellery buying had been flagging before the cut in import duty, with demand in India in the first half of 2024 at its lowest level since 2020, according to the World Gold Council.

India’s central bank has also been on a gold buying spree, adding 42 tonnes of gold to its reserves during the first seven months of the year — more than double its purchases for the whole of 2023.

A person familiar with the Reserve Bank of India’s thinking called the gold purchases a “routine” part of its foreign exchange reserve and currency stability management.

Line chart of showing Rate cut expectations send gold to record high

In China, the world’s biggest physical buyer of gold, high prices have meant fewer jewellery sales, but more sales of gold bars and coins, which surged 62 per cent in the second quarter compared with a year earlier.

“We observed strong positive correlation between gold investment demand and the gold price,” wrote the World Gold Council, referring to China.

All of this has helped support the physical market and mitigate the impact that high prices can have in eroding demand.

“It acts as a stable foundation for demand,” said Paul Wong, a market strategist at Sprott Asset Management. “In parts of Asia, gold is readily convertible into currency,” making it popular for savings, he said.

Western investor demand has also been a big factor in bullion’s rally, with a net $7.6bn flowing into gold-backed exchange traded funds over the past four months.

After hitting a fresh high on Wednesday, analysts warn there could be a correction in the gold price.

“When you have this scale of anticipation [of rate cuts], for this long, there is room for disappointment,” said Adrian Ash, London-based director of research at BullionVault, an online gold marketplace. “I think there is scope for a pullback in precious alongside other assets.”

Whether or not gold pulls back from its record highs, Indian jewellery demand looks set to remain strong through the coming wedding season, according to MK Jewels’ Raimalani.

Soaring prices of bullion have been no deterrent to his customers, he added. “Indians are the happiest when prices go high because they already own so much gold. It’s like an investment.”

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‘Doomsday’ Glacier Is Set to Melt Faster

Published

21 mins ago

September 20, 2024

NewsAdmin

‘Doomsday’ Glacier Is Set to Melt Faster

Tidal action on the underside of the Thwaites Glacier in the Antarctic will “inexorably” accelerate melting this century, according to new research by British and American scientists. The researchers warn the faster melting could destabilize the entire West Antarctic ice sheet, leading to its eventual collapse.

The massive glacier—which is roughly the size of Florida—is of particular interest to scientists because of the rapid speed at which it is changing and the impact its loss would have on sea levels (the reason for its “Doomsday” moniker). It also acts as an anchor holding back the West Antarctic ice sheet.

Warmed ocean water melts doomsday glacier faster — Yasin Demirci—Anadolu/Getty Images

More than 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) thick in places, Thwaites has been likened to a cork in a bottle. Were it to collapse, sea levels would rise by 65 centimeters (26 inches). That’s already a significant amount, given oceans are currently rising 4.6 millimeters a year. But if it led to the eventual loss of the entire ice sheet, sea levels would rise 3.3 meters.

While some computer models suggest reductions in greenhouse gas emissions under the 2015 Paris Agreement may mitigate the glacier’s retreat, the outlook for the glacier remains “grim,” according to a report by the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration (ITGC), a project that includes researchers from the British Antarctic Survey, the U.S. National Science Foundation and the U.K.’s Natural Environment Research Council.

Thwaites has been retreating for more than 80 years but that process has accelerated in the past 30, Rob Larter, a marine geophysicist who contributed to the research, said in a news release. “Our findings indicate it is set to retreat further and faster.” Other dynamics that aren’t currently incorporated into large-scale models could speed up its demise, the new research shows.

Using a torpedo-shaped robot, scientists determined that the underside of Thwaites is insulated by a thin layer of cold water. However, in areas where the parts of the glacier lift off the seabed and the ice begins to float, tidal action is pumping warmer sea water, at high pressure, as far as 10 kilometers under the ice. The process is disrupting that insulating layer and will likely significantly speed up how fast the grounding zone—the area where the glacier sits on the seabed—retreats.

A similar process has been observed on glaciers in Greenland.

The group also flagged a worst-case scenario in which 100-meter-or-higher ice cliffs at the front of Thwaites are formed and then rapidly calve off icebergs, causing runaway glacial retreat that could raise sea levels by tens of centimeters in this century. However, the researchers said it’s too early to know if such scenarios are likely.

A key unanswered question is whether the loss of Thwaites Glacier is already irreversible. Heavy snowfalls, for example, regularly occur in the Antarctic and help replenish ice loss, Michelle Maclennan, a climate scientist with the University of Colorado at Boulder, explained during a news briefing. “The problem though is that we have this imbalance: There is more ice loss occurring than snowfall can compensate for,” she said.

Increased moisture in the planet’s atmosphere, caused by global warming evaporating ocean waters, could result in more Antarctic snow—at least for a while. At a certain point, though, that’s expected to switch over to rain and surface melting on the ice, creating a situation where the glacier is melting from above and below. How fast that happens depends in part on nations’ progress to slow climate change.

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David Lammy seeks emergency boost to aid cash to offset rising cost of migrant hotels

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39 mins ago

September 20, 2024

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Britain’s foreign secretary David Lammy is pushing for an emergency top-up to development spending as ballooning costs of supporting asylum seekers threaten to drain overseas aid to its lowest level since 2007.

The UK government spent £4.3bn hosting asylum seekers and refugees in Britain in the last financial year, more than a quarter of its £15.4bn overseas aid budget, according to official data. This more than consumed the £2.5bn increases in the aid budget scheduled between 2022 and 2024 by former Conservative chancellor Jeremy Hunt.

People familiar with Lammy’s thinking say he fears that if Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, resists calls to at least match Hunt’s offer, the aid budget will be further eviscerated, undermining the government’s ambitions on the global stage.

Currently, the housing of asylum seekers in hotels is controlled by the Home Office but largely paid for out of the aid budget, a set-up introduced in 2010 when spending on the programme was relatively modest.

In the longer term, development agencies and some Foreign Office officials want the costs capped or paid for by the Home Office itself.

However, such a move would be politically fraught, the people said, as it would require billions of pounds of extra funding for the Home Office at a time the government is preparing widespread cuts across departments.

Sir Keir Starmer, the prime minister, is due to attend a string of upcoming international events, starting with the UN general assembly this month, then a Commonwealth summit in Samoa, a G20 meeting in Brazil, and COP-29 climate talks in Azerbaijan later this autumn.

International partners will be looking at these meetings for signs that the change of government in the UK marks a change in direction on development.

Britain’s leading role was eroded by Rishi Sunak after he cut the previously ringfenced spending from 0.7 per cent of gross national income to 0.5 per cent when he was chancellor in 2020.

“When he turns up at the UN next week and the G20 and COP a few weeks later, the PM has a unique opportunity to reintroduce the UK under Labour as a trustworthy partner that sees the opportunity of rebooting and reinvesting in a reformed fairer international financial system,” said Jamie Drummond, co-founder of aid advocacy group One.

“But to be that trusted partner you need to be an intentional investor — not an accidental cutter.”

Speaking on Tuesday in a speech outlining UK ambitions to regain a leading role in the global response to climate change, Lammy said the government wanted to get back to spending 0.7 per cent of GNI on overseas aid but that it could not be done overnight.

“Part of the reason the funding has not been there is because climate has driven a migration crisis,” he said. “We have ended up in this place where we made a choice to spend development aid on housing people across the country and having a huge accommodation and hotel bill as a consequence,” he said.

Under OECD rules, some money spent in-country on support for refugees and asylum seekers can be classified as aid because it constitutes a form of humanitarian assistance.

But the amount the UK has been spending on refugees from its aid budget has shot up from an average of £20mn a year between 2009-2013 to £4.3bn last year, far more than any other OECD donor country, according to Bond, the network of NGOs working in international development.

Spending per refugee from the aid budget has also risen from an average of £1,000 a year in 2009-2013 to around £21,500 in 2021, largely as a result of the use of hotels to accommodate asylum seekers.

The Independent Commission for Aid Impact watchdog argues that the Home Office has had little incentive to manage the funds carefully because they come from a different department’s budget.

In her July 29 speech outlining the dire fiscal straits that Labour inherited from the previous Conservative government, Reeves projected the cost of the asylum system would rise to £6.4bn this year.

Labour was hoping to cut this by at least £800mn, she said, by ending plans to deport migrants to Rwanda. A Home Office official said the government was also ensuring that asylum claims were dealt with faster and those ineligible deported quickly.

But the Foreign Office projects that on current trends, overseas aid as a proportion of UK income (when asylum costs are factored in) will drop to 0.35 per cent of national income by 2028.

Without emergency funding to plug the immediate cost of housing tens of thousands of migrants in hotels, that will happen as soon as this year, according to Bond, bringing overseas aid levels to their lowest as a proportion of national income, since 2007.

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said: “The UK’s future [official development assistance] budget will be announced at the Budget. We would not comment on speculation.”

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AI translation now ‘good enough’ for Economist to deploy

Published

42 mins ago

September 20, 2024

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AI translation now 'good enough' for Economist to deploy

Preview of The Economist's Espresso app and Ludwig Siegele, The Economist's senior editor, AI initiatives. Pictures: The Economist — Preview of The Economist’s Espresso app and Ludwig Siegele, The Economist’s senior editor, AI initiatives. Pictures: The Economist

The Economist has deployed AI-translated content on its budget-friendly “snack-sized” app Espresso after deciding the technology had reached the “good enough” mark.

Ludwig Siegele, senior editor for AI initiatives at The Economist, told Press Gazette that AI translation will never be a “solved problem”, especially in journalism because it is difficult to translate well due to its cultural specificities.

However he said it has reached the point where it is good enough to have introduced AI-powered, in-app translations in French, German, Mandarin and Spanish on The Economist’s “bite-sized”, cut-price app Espresso (which has just over 20,000 subscribers).

Espresso has also just been made free to high school and university students aged 16 and older globally as part of a project by The Economist to make its journalism more accessible to audiences around the world.

Siegele said that amid “lots of hype” about AI, the questions to ask are: “What is it good for? Does it work? And does it work with what we’re trying to do?”

He added that the project to make The Economist’s content “more accessible to more people” via Espresso was a “good point to start”.

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“The big challenge of AI is the technology, at least for us, is not good enough,” he continued. “It’s interesting, but to really develop a product, I think in many cases, it’s not good enough yet. But in that case, it worked.

“I wouldn’t say that translation is a solved problem, it is never going to be a solved problem, especially in journalism, because journalism is really difficult to translate. But it’s good enough for that type of content.”

The Economist is using AI translation tool DeepL alongside its own tech on the backend.

“It’s quite complicated,” Siegele said. “The translation is the least of it at this point. The translation isn’t perfect. If you look at it closely it has its quirks, but it’s pretty good. And we’re working on a kind of second workflow which makes it even better.”

The AI-translated text is not edited by humans because, Siegele said, the “workflow is so tight” on Espresso which updates around 20 times a day.

“There is no natural thing where we can say ‘okay, now everything is done. Let’s translate, and let’s look at the translations and make sure they’re perfect’. That doesn’t work… The only thing we can do is, if it’s really embarrassing, we’ll take it down and the next version in 20 minutes will be better.”

One embarrassing example, Siegele admitted, is that the tool turned German Chancellor Olaf Scholz into a woman.

But Siegele said a French reader has already got in touch to say: “I don’t read English. This is great. Finally, I can read The Economist without having to put it into Google Translate and get bad translations.”

The Economist simultaneously launched AI-translated videos on its social platforms in the same four languages.

The videos are all a maximum of 90 seconds meaning it is not too much work to check them – crucial as, unlike the Espresso article translations, they are edited by humans (native language speakers working for The Economist) taking about 15 minutes per video.

For the videos The Economist is using AI video tool Hey Gen. Siegele said: “The way that works is you give them the original video and they do a provisional translation and then you can proofread the translation. So whereas the translations for the app are basically automatic – I mean, we can take them down and we will be able to change them, but at this point, they’re completely automatic – videos are proofread, and so in this way we can make sure that the translations are really good.”

In addition they are using “voice clones” which means journalists who speak in a video have some snippets of themselves given to Hey Gen to build and that is used to create the finished product.

The voice clones are not essential, Siegele explained, as translations can be done automatically regardless. Journalists can opt out of having their voices used in this way, and any data stored will be deleted if the employee leaves The Economist. But the clones do mean the quality is “much better”.

They have a labelling system for the app articles and videos that can show they are “AI translated” or “AI transformed”. But, Siegele said, they are “not going to have a long list of AI things we may have used to build this article for brainstorming or fact checking or whatever, because in the end it’s like a tool, it’s like Google search. We are still responsible, and there’s almost always a human except for edge cases like the Espresso translations or with podcast transcripts…”

Economist ‘will be strategic’ when choosing how to roll out AI

Asked whether the text translation could be rolled out to more Economist products, Siegele said: “That’s of course a goal but it remains to be seen.”

He said that although translation for Espresso is automated, it would not be the goal to do the same throughout The Economist.

He also said they still have to find out if people are “actually interested” and if they can “develop a translation engine that is good enough”.

“But I don’t think we will become a multi-linguistic, multi-language publication anytime soon. We will be much more strategic with what we what we translate… But I think there is globally a lot of demand for good journalism, and if the technology makes it possible, why not expand the access to our content?

“If it’s not too expensive – and it was too expensive before. It’s no longer.”

Other ways The Economist is experimenting with AI, although they have not yet been implemented, include a style bot and fact-checking.

Expect to see “some kind of summarisation” of articles, Siegele continued, “which probably will go beyond the five bullet points or three bullet points you increasingly see, because that’s kind of table stakes. People expect that. But there are other ways of doing it”.

He also suggested some kind of chatbot but “not an Economist GPT – that’s difficult and people are not that interested in that. Perhaps more narrow chatbots”. And said versioning, or repurposing articles for different audiences or different languages, could also follow.

“The usual stuff,” Siegele said. “There’s only so many good ideas out there. We’re working on all of them.” But he said he wants colleagues to come up with solutions to their problems rather than him as “the AI guy” imposing things.

Email pged@pressgazette.co.uk to point out mistakes, provide story tips or send in a letter for publication on our “Letters Page” blog

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Kentucky sheriff held over fatal shooting of judge in court

Published

1 hour ago

September 20, 2024

NewsAdmin

Kentucky sheriff held over fatal shooting of judge in court

A Kentucky sheriff has been arrested after fatally shooting a judge in his chambers, police say.

District Judge Kevin Mullins died at the scene after being shot multiple times in the Letcher County Courthouse, Kentucky State Police said.

Letcher County Sheriff Shawn Stines, 43, has been charged with one count of first-degree murder.

The shooting happened on Thursday after an argument inside the court, police said, but they have not yet revealed a motive.

Officials said Mullins, 54, was shot multiple times at around 14:00 local time on Thursday at the court in Whitesburg, Kentucky, a small rural town about 150 miles (240km) south-east of Lexington.

Sheriff Stines was arrested at the scene without incident, Kentucky State Police said. They did not reveal the nature of the argument before the shooting.

According to local newspaper the Mountain Eagle, Sheriff Stines walked into the judge’s outer office and told court employees that he needed to speak alone with Mullins.

The two entered the judge’s chambers, closing the door behind them. Those outside heard gun shots, the newspaper reported.

Sheriff Stines reportedly walked out with his hands up and surrendered to police. He was handcuffed in the courthouse foyer.

The state attorney general, Russell Coleman, said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that his office “will fully investigate and pursue justice”.

Kentucky State Police spokesman Matt Gayheart told a news conference that the town was shocked by the incident

“This community is small in nature, and we’re all shook,” he said.

Mr Gayheart said that 50 employees were inside the court building when the shooting occurred.

No-one else was hurt. A school in the area was briefly placed on lockdown.

Kentucky Supreme Court Chief Justice Laurance B VanMeter said he was “shocked by this act of violence”.

Announcing Judge Mullins’ death on social media, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear said: “There is far too much violence in this world, and I pray there is a path to a better tomorrow.”

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