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Tuesday, August 02, 2022

Links - 2nd August 2022 (1)

South Africa in chaos: At least 72 are dead in riots across country following Zuma's arrest - "The violence broke out after Zuma began serving a 15-month sentence for contempt of court... The violence was sparked by a judicial investigation into Zuma, a veteran of South Africa's fight against apartheid and white minority rule, over his relationship with Indian-born businessmen and brothers known as 'the Guptas'."

Can People Still Play the Same Games as They Get Older? | WIRED - "Certainly, with fast-moving action genres, it seems older gamers will inevitably have to face that it gets more difficult to keep pace. Even players with a mastery of online FPSs, versus fighters, or coin-munching arcade classics will eventually see their skills decline. The older you are, the harder it is to “git gud.”"

Why catching a parasite might be the best thing for your allergies - "Parasitic worms, just as any parasite, have to battle constantly with the host to prevent the body removing them. To do this, they have evolved an arsenal of chemicals that they use to suppress the body’s immune system to prevent them from detecting and killing the worms. The hygiene hypothesis supposes that throughout human history, the majority of the population was infected with parasitic worms most of the time. As a result, our immune system had to evolve so that it was strong enough to battle other infections whilst being dialled down by the parasitic worms – just as you might turn your headphones up when on a noisy train. When you step off the train onto a quiet platform, suddenly the noise of the headphones feels deafening. In the same way, when there are no parasitic worms around, the immune system is too strong and liable to attack anything in sight, resulting in the symptoms of asthma or autoimmunity."

Outdoor cats likely to blame for spread of potentially deadly parasite: UBC study - "A new University of British Columbia study has found that free-roaming cats — both domestic and feral — are likely to blame for the spread of a potentially deadly parasite in densely populated urban areas. The research found that Toxoplasma gondii — a common parasite that infects most warm-blooded animals, including humans, and causes the disease toxoplasmosis — is more likely to infect wildlife where human density is higher. "As human density goes up, the population of cats is going to go up as well. And as the population of cats goes up, we expect the number of free-roaming cats to increase as well," said study lead Dr. Amy Wilson, an adjunct professor at UBC's Department of Forest and Conservation Sciences."

Candace Owens: “It Started With One Party” - "“It didn’t start with gas chambers. It started with one party controlling the media. One party deciding what is truth. One party censoring speech and silencing opposition. One party dividing citizens into “us” and “them” and calling on their supporters to harass them. It started when good people turned a blind eye and let it happen.” It was a photo on Instagram Candace Owens had shared. I poked around for a source, and found this, from the Auschwitz museum. “It’s important to remember that the Holocaust actually did not start from gas chambers. This hatred gradually developed from words, stereotypes & prejudice through legal exclusion, dehumanization & escalating violence.” And this tweet from the Auschwitz Exhibition. “Remember, it didn’t start with gas chambers. It started with politicians dividing the people with ‘us vs. them.’ It started with intolerance and hate speech, and when people stopped caring, became desensitized, and turned a blind eye, it became a slippery slope to genocide.”"
Damn Auschwitz museum and Auschwitz exhibition, making inappropriate Holocaust comparisons!

Tim Cook to Investors: People Bought Fewer New iPhones Because They Repaired Their Old Ones - "Apple has long fought efforts that would make iPhones easier to repair: It has lobbied against right to repair efforts in several states, doesn’t sell iPhone replacement parts, sued an independent repair professional in Norway, worked with Amazon to get iPhone and MacBook refurbishers kicked off Amazon Marketplace, and has deals with electronics recyclers that require them to shred iPhones and MacBooks (as opposed to allowing them to be refurbished.) The Department of Homeland Security, meanwhile, has seized iPhone replacement parts from prominent right to repair activists in the United States."
Sure, they don't include charging cables to save the Earth

At an anime convention today, saw this gem. : justneckbeardthings - "Showers Are Sexy. Take one today. Brought to you by the Anime Oasis Social Awareness Organization"

Meme - "Y'all shame 'Vanilla' sex all the time on here but it's amazing when both people enjoy it. It's not my fault you gotta have your leg in a bear trap and get punched in the face to cum. Relax."

Taiwan businessman lodges police report against loan shark for refusing to take final loan instalment - "The Tainan-based businessman, who was not identified, told police that the Ah Long had been avoiding him and refusing to pick up his calls... he borrowed money from the loan shark to fund his business and had been servicing his loan on time... Tainan police had been cracking down on loan shark activities as illegal money lenders had upped the ante to encourage people to take up loans. The latest involved the use of pretty women to post alluring photos on dating apps and those who request to meet would first need to take out a loan."

Bengal monitor lizard raped in Maharashtra, 4 arrested - "Four people have been arrested for allegedly raping a bengal monitor lizard in the Sahydari Tiger Reserve near Gothane village in Maharashthra. The accused, identified as hunters, allegedly entered the core zone of Sahydari Tiger Reserve in the Gabha area at Gothane and committed the abhorrent crime. They have been identified as Sandeep Tukram, Pawar Mangesh, Janardhan Kamtekar and Akshay Sunil. The Maharashtra Forest Department checked the mobile phone of the accused and came to know about the incident. The officials found the recording of the act which showed the accused allegedly gang-raping the monitor lizard"

Entire Toronto high school banned from Dollarama over 'disruptive behaviour'

Later school start times in the U.S.: An economic analysis - "The study suggested that delaying school start times to 8:30 a.m. is a cost-effective, population-level strategy which could have a significant impact on public health and the U.S. economy.
The study suggested that the benefits of later start times far out-weigh the immediate costs. Even after just two years, the study projects an economic gain of $8.6 billion to the U.S. economy, which would already outweigh the costs per student from delaying school start times to 8:30 a.m. After a decade, the study showed that delaying schools start times would contribute $83 billion to the U.S. economy, with this increasing to $140 billion after 15 years. During the 15 year period examined by the study, the average annual gain to the U.S. economy would about $9.3 billion each year. Throughout the study's cost-benefit projections, a conservative approach was undertaken which did not include other effects from insufficient sleep, such as higher suicide rates, increased obesity and mental health issues — all of which are difficult to quantify precisely. Therefore, it is likely that the reported economic benefits from delaying school start times could be even higher across many U.S. states."

Buitengebieden on Twitter - "Elephant says thank you after the herd crossed the road.. 🙏"

The impact of sex education mandates on teenage pregnancy: International evidence - "To date most studies of the impact of school-based sex education have focused either on specific, local interventions or experiences at a national level. In this paper, we use a new cross-country dataset to explore the extent to which laws on sex education affect teenage pregnancy rates in developed countries. We find some evidence that laws mandating sex education in schools are associated with higher rates of teenage fertility. Parental opt out laws may minimise adverse effects of sex education mandates for younger teens. The estimated effects of mandatory sex education are robust to some but not all of our specifications designed to tease out causality. Taken together, changes in national laws relating to sexual health are unable to explain the significant declines in teenage pregnancy rates, which have been observed in many developed countries in recent years.
This suggests that contrary to the findings of smaller studies, sex education increases teen pregnancy

Irish government to pay artists 'basic income'

Sturgeon's economic advisor mocks plan to hand Scots £11k a year - "Benny Higgins, who helped to produce a recent report on how the Scottish economy should recover from COVID-19, said the scheme would be an “expensive distraction”. He told The Herald: “My personal conclusion at the moment is that we've really got to use all of our resources to get people back to work, rather than support them out of work."

Universal basic income would cost over $85 billion per year: PBO - "Introducing a universal basic income (UBI) would cost the government over $85 billion and raise taxes on the middle class according to a new report from the Parliamentary Budget Office. The report released on Wednesday estimates that providing a universal basic income would cost $85 billion if introduced this year, or approximately 25% of the federal budget... While providing benefits to the poorest 40% of Canadians, the report found that the top 60% of households will actually lose money as the government would raise taxes and cut other benefits to provide UBI... the total number of hours worked by Canadians would decrease by 1.3% as UBI-recipients would work less"

Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend: Alaska’s universal basic income problem - "when one considers the political ramifications of the largest and longest-running UBI experiment in America — Alaska’s Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD) — giving out cash appears to create unforeseen problems, and advocates for basic income would do well to incorporate Alaska’s latest experience into their conceptions of the policy... Despite traditional Republican aversions to handouts, Dunleavy ran for governor on the campaign platform of increasing the PFD. He promised every resident up to $6,700, to make up for Walker’s cuts in 2016 and 2017 — though he was foggy on how the state could pay. The result? Dunleavy won by a landslide. The problem is that he now finds himself unable to fulfill his campaign promise without major cuts elsewhere. He’s now seeking to jettison other state commitments to health care, education, infrastructure, and other vital areas. After initially vetoing $444 million from the state budget, Dunleavy responded to the threat of a recall vote and walked back some of his more extreme line-item cuts. Still, the state will see no funding for public broadcasting, a 31 percent cut to its critical ferry system, $130 million from Medicaid, and $70 million from the University of Alaska system. The PFD allowed Dunleavy to turn the governor’s race into a single-issue vote: Do you want a bigger check or not? The events in Alaska show that a UBI policy can have a dramatic effect on an economy — but it can also overwhelm all other governmental concerns and dominate politics. To supporters of a UBI, the Alaska PFD offers a tantalizing glimpse of what a universal basic income can do. Thanks to the PFD, crippling poverty is scant in Alaska. A 2016 study by the University of Alaska found it reduced poverty up to 20 percent. However, Alaskans’ finances are insecure in other ways. High unemployment (the highest in the country) and the astronomical cost of rural living meant that even voters who were concerned about the feasibility of Dunleavy’s $6,700 pledge voted for him anyway... on top of all the cuts he’s pushed, Dunleavy agreed on August 20 to the $1,600 PFD that was passed by the legislature — meaning Alaskans still won’t get the check they thought they were voting for, because contrary to Dunleavy’s campaign messaging, the governor does not actually hold the power to set the value of the dividend. (Only the legislature does.) The upheavals in Alaska illustrate how the PFD has come to warp the state’s politics. It has allowed a feckless politician to capitalize on residents’ economic insecurities and reach the state’s highest office. Alaska is one of the closest test cases we have for UBI, and interested parties should note the political and social costs that Alaska’s PFD is accruing. Once a government adopts such a policy, it may well become the preeminent issue in future campaigns. As Anchorage Daily News commentator Charles Wohlforth wrote, “It took only a year or two before the fund became politically sacrosanct.”"

Colby Cosh: Universal Basic Income won't cut poverty better than less expensive options - "When a true UBI is compared to alternatives involving income-tested tax credits or negative income taxes, the likely reduction in poverty is much greater, dollar for dollar of expenditure, with the alternatives. The hypothetical compensating advantage for a UBI is that, since it goes to everyone without regard to their other forms of income, it wouldn’t discourage paid work by imposing a “welfare wall” at some particular level of income. Great: except how do you pay for it? The report estimates that you could in fact eliminate poverty in B.C., by a statistical definition, with a $20,000 UBI for working-age people. This would cost $51 billion a year, “which is roughly the same order of magnitude as the B.C. budget”. This means higher taxes; you could start down the road to the $51 billion by effectively eliminating the personal exemption from income tax, but, oops, you have just erected a huge “welfare wall” for everybody who reaches the poverty line. You could try to get there by eliminating social programs that were no longer necessary with a UBI, but on close inspection — and the study does perform one — most of the existing ones of any size would still be necessary in UBI World. The devil is in the details, which has allowed UBI supporters to get away with playing three-card monte in the debate; this report pins things down and shows that “welfare walls” are inevitable whether or not the design of a basic income targets the vulnerable. Only a fraction of the report is devoted to UBI-debunking, with a page or so explaining why the experimental pilot that was originally demanded shouldn’t happen. The authors devote the remainder of the space to showing how reforms to the existing buffet of social programs, along with better integration among them, could achieve a lot of the desired effects of the UBI (many “welfare walls” just need a gentle push) and could, in fact, go quite a way to extinguishing poverty affordably. The overall effect is to provide a defence, one of unexpected power, of the unloved welfare state as it already exists."

An experiment to inform universal basic income - "the basic income in Finland led to a small increase in employment, significantly boosted multiple measures of the recipients’ well-being, and reinforced positive individual and societal feedback loops... A critical lesson of the Finnish experiment is the complexity of implementing a basic income. Policy makers need to decide how it should interact with a large number of other policies, such as child benefits, housing benefits, pensions, health insurance, and taxation; for example, in the Finnish experiment, basic-income recipients were eligible for housing allowances but not for basic social-assistance payments. Unless such linkages are streamlined, they could detract from a basic-income system’s potentially considerable savings in administrative costs."

Tasha Kheiriddin: CERB problems are bad news for proponents of a guaranteed basic income - "For 18 months now, unemployed Canadians have received unprecedented amounts of government money... All this cash did more than keep people afloat. It also transformed the labour market. Across Canada, employers began reporting worker shortages. Agricultural employers found that prospective employees didn’t even show up for interviews. The hospitality industry reported the same phenomenon. A recent survey by the Business Development Bank of Canada of 1,251 small and medium-sized businesses found that 55 per cent are struggling to hire the workers they need, hampering growth and forcing businesses to delay or refuse new orders. In the words of one frustrated employer currently offering employees 65 per cent more than the minimum wage, “People don’t want to work, especially in agriculture or physical labour-based jobs.” He added, “If UBI (universal basic income) comes into effect, agriculture will be a dead business.”... at the Liberals’ past convention, in April 2021, 77 per cent of delegates backed the following resolution: “Given the success of the CERB program, a UBI will assist seniors and low-income Canadians (to) maintain an adequate standard of living, regardless of working status.” Success, however, is a dubious description. Economists at the Fraser Institute reported that one million young Canadians earned more per month collecting CERB and not working in 2020 than their pre-pandemic monthly income. Other research has found that the CRB acted as a deterrent for some people from taking on more work... If anything, CERB and CRB were a perfect test case about why a UBI is an idea whose time has not come. Apart from the price tag of a universal income, which the Parliamentary Budget Officer pegged at $85 billion in 2021–22, rising to $93 billion in 2025–26, starting one now would hamper economic growth at the very time when that growth is sorely needed. UBI supporters may retort that employers should simply pay workers more, but without growth, it’s hard to see where those bigger paycheques will magically come from. It also makes no sense to implement a UBI when governments are extending other income supports, such as childcare subsidies. Either governments subscribe to the “efficiency argument,” whereby UBI replaces a patchwork of other supports, or they continue to supply targeted aid based on individual needs and circumstances. If one truly values “fairness,” one should think twice about a UBI. In a society as diverse from a geographic, economic and industrial standpoint as Canada’s, a one-size-fits all approach to income support is actually less equitable than giving help to those who truly need it. Something for progressives to think about"

Taiwan boy thrown 27 times during judo class taken off life support - "A seven-year-old boy who was slammed to the floor 27 times during judo practice has died in Taiwan. In April, he had suffered severe brain haemorrhaging after a judo class which saw both his classmate and his coach practise their throws on him. The boy, who has not been identified, later went into a coma and was put on life supporting treatment. His parents decided to withdraw life support after nearly 70 days... The seven-year old boy had attended judo class on 21 April under the supervision of his uncle, who reportedly filmed him in class to show his mother that judo was potentially unsuitable for him. The video shows him being thrown several times by an older classmate during practice. He is heard screaming in the video but his coach orders him to stand up and tells the older boy to continue throwing him, before proceeding to pick him up and throw him to the ground himself. He eventually passes out, though his family says his coach accused him of faking unconsciousness. There are questions as to why his uncle did not stop the coach, but experts in Taiwan say there is a long-seated notion of respect and reverence for teachers - which sometimes means accepting their authority regardless of the circumstances. The boy's mother told reporters that his uncle felt "terrible for what happened". It was later found that the coach was unlicensed."

Scientists battle to keep mummified remains under the ground after ‘black goo’ threat - "Scientists in Chile are battling extreme weather to keep mummies that have been buried for thousands of years under the ground. Skeletal remains have reportedly come to the surface after strong winds and increased rainfall lashed an area in Chile... Chinchorro mummies being kept in a museum in northern Chile were being eaten by bacteria and reduced to black goo in a process sped up by high humidity - which the local region had been experiencing due to global warming."

China's Big Tech firms are sending congratulation notes for 'graduating' to employees they're laying off

Afghanistan’s former finance minister is now Uber driver in Washington DC - "Days before Afghanistan fell to the Taliban last August, Ashraf Ghani, the Afghan president, was “welcomed” to the United Arab Emirates. He was alleged to have taken with him $169m, from his country’s treasury... [Khalid] Payenda resigned as finance minister a week before the Taliban seized Kabul, as his relationship with Ghani deteriorated. Fearing the president would have him arrested, he left for the US, where he joined his family. “We had 20 years and the whole world’s support to build a system that would work for the people,” Payenda said in a text message to a World Bank official in Kabul on the day the capital fell, quoted by the Post. “All we built was a house of cards that came down crashing this fast. A house of cards built on the foundation of corruption.”"
How you know he didn't steal money

Public School Teachers Looking Forward To Summer Break After Long Year Of Watching Netflix | The Babylon Bee

Outdoor Cats Are Using $500 Starlink Satellite Dishes as Self-Heating Beds - "Starlink satellite dishes have a self-heating feature to melt snow, which may be why cats are drawn to it, reports the Guardian. Engineers created this feature to stop snow from interfering with the signal, but can the dish handle a pile of felines? On Twitter, Taylor says five cats snuggling on his dish interrupts his video streaming and “slows everything down.” For those concerned about cats outside in cold weather, Taylor clarifies they do have access to heated cat house. But even when temperatures reached minus 13 degrees Fahrenheit, the kitties still used the satellite dish as a $500 cat bed. “When the sun goes down, they head back to their house”... He suspects these daytime luxury naps occur because sunlight heats the dish from the top, while the internal dish heater warms it from the bottom... Still, the American Veterinary Medical Association recommends keeping cats indoors to avoid dangers associated with diseases, parasites, cars, attacks from other animals, poisons, extreme weather. Preventing cats from going outside keeps native animals safe from predation and disease as well."

Opinion: The pandemic is changing the North American supermarket – a reinvention that’s long overdue - The Globe and Mail - "The basic design of a grocery store hasn’t changed much since it was invented in the 1930s. Generally, the dairy case is at the back right- or left-hand corner of the store – whichever is farthest from the front door. The purpose is to pull you all the way through the store. The first section you enter is produce – the most profitable part of the store. That section tends to be theatrically lit; that tomato looks better in store than it will in your refrigerator. Wonder why we are greeted at the door by flowers or fresh bread? We know that if the store (or restaurant) can get your saliva glands working, you are much less disciplined in your purchases. Same goes with sampling – the purpose is not necessarily to get you to buy what you tasted, but the simple fact that people who sample tend to spend more. They know that 90 per cent of us are right-handed, thus we push the cart with our left hand and pick up with our right. They know about the whine factor – kids will advocate for stuff that has been merchandised at their height. They know too that there are logical pairings: That display of barbecue sauce in the meat section didn’t get there by accident. The shelf position in most grocery stores is driven by slotting fees – the money the big food companies pay to be at eye level. For better deals look up or down. What we buy falls into three separate categories. First is what’s on our list. Second is things we see that we think should have been on our list – for example, that huge display of Pepsi by the front door triggers thoughts like “My kids are home for the holidays from college. Do I want them drinking beer, or is Diet Pepsi better?” The third is impulse purchases – cookies or salsa-flavoured ketchup... In January, the freshest fruits and vegetables are often not in the produce section of Loblaws but in the freezer section. In produce, those blueberries have travelled at least 10 days from Peru, while the frozen ones came from Ontario and were chilled a day or two after they were picked... In Milan, a grocery store chain has opened a “cathedral for food,” a store not designed for everyday visits but for monthly pilgrimages – a place for education and entertainment. In Mexico, some big supermarkets are designed with shelving that is easy to move with a forklift truck; during off-hours, an entire section can be moved to a zone in the back of the store, where it is restocked by a team – it works remarkably well. In some subway stations in Seoul, one finds virtual stores with photographic displays; as you wait for your train, you look and place your online order. The industry calls them chapels."

Meta's threat to close down Facebook and Instagram in Europe backfires as EU leaders embrace shutdown: 'Life would be very good without' - "The two leaders commented on Meta’ statement that if it is not given the option to transfer, store and process data from its European users on US-based servers, Facebook and Instagram may be shut down across Europe."

Medical student surgically implants Bluetooth device into own ear to cheat in final exam - "A medical student in India has come under scrutiny after he was allegedly caught cheating with a micro Bluetooth device believed to be surgically implanted into his ear... Another student was caught with a small SIM-powered device and a micro Bluetooth device, but told college authorities that it was not surgically inserted and can be removed with a pin. Dr Dixit told The Independent that the students had purposefully concealed these devices because they were asked to submit all the electronics items to the invigilators... Students getting caught in mass cheating or deploying sly means to not get caught is not uncommon in India where competition is fierce as aspirants outnumber the number of vacancies for a job and seats in colleges for courses. Madhya Pradesh state was gripped under a massive scandal, called Vyapam cheating scam, when the Supreme Court had to cancel the licenses of 634 doctors who were involved in it. During the scam, spanning the period between 2008 and 2013, several people were arrested for involvement in leaking question papers, rigging answer sheets and hiring proxies to sit for exams instead of the student. Dr Anand Rai, the whistleblower in the Vyapam scam, said: “It is very easy to get Bluetooth fitted in the ears. It is attached to the ear temporarily and can be removed. Such a technique was used by a Vyapam scam accused too to clear his medical exam eight years ago.” In another incident that grabbed both national and international headlines, several parents and relatives of the students were filmed scaling school walls in 2015 as police stood nearby watching the mass cheating unfold in Bihar. The pictures went viral, hundereds were arrested, including some parents, and at least 750 students were expelled."
If you don't pretend cheating is the same in every country, you're racist

More than half of the working day is spent kinda, sorta working - "White-collar workers devote more than half their day to “work coordination,” which includes following up on things, searching for information and communicating about work, according to a survey by business software maker Asana Inc. While there are regional differences — Germans devote a bit less of their day to such mundane tasks than Americans — the results are broadly similar across the globe: Only about a third of the workday is spent doing what we were actually hired to do, and that hasn’t changed much since 2019... The global survey of more than 10,600 so-called knowledge workers — data analysts, graphic designers and the like — also found that the amount of time spent on strategy, or planning ahead, declined to 9% last year from 13% in 2019. That’s due in part to the difficulties of getting disparate, often asynchronous teams together at the same time, Asana said. But it could also be because many companies found long-term forecasting difficult amid a global pandemic and its impact on office life... Germans devote more of their day to doing their actual job than other nationalities, but they also spend the least amount of time on strategic planning. Workers in Japan and Singapore, meanwhile, led the pack with 10% of their time going to strategy, but those two nations also spent the most time coordinating work... "Folks are genuinely loath to admit they’re doing performative work with literally zero value.”"

How the Prison Architect developers broke the Geneva Conventions - "Their crime? Displaying a tiny, five-pixel wide red cross on the hood of the ambulances and backpacks of paramedics. It might sound laughable, but it just so happens that those five pixels arranged just so are an internationally protected symbol... "In my mind that the red cross is the universal symbol for health packs and health add-ons—anything to do with healing in videogames," Delay says. "I'm sure there are red crosses on Doom health packs from 20 years ago." And while he's right about Doom, he was wrong about the red cross... Yet the use of the red cross for just those reasons is common. A Google search for 'health pack' returns dozens of results for everything from Doom to Halo. Outside of videogames, it appears in comic books, movies, and even theater. With misuse of the symbol so apparently widespread, Delay tells me he was a bit upset to find that Prison Architect had been one instance where the hammer would fall... Is the supposed dilution of the red cross' important meaning really of such importance? Internet activist, journalist, and author Cory Doctorow doesn't think so. "Is there any question that the use of red crosses to denote health packs in games will bring even the most minute quantum of harm to the Red Cross?"... On a broader spectrum, various Red Cross organizations have come under scrutiny for how they choose to spend their money and the lack of disclosure that can sometimes go along with it... For Morris, who tells me he's donated to the British Red Cross, the situation has an interesting wrinkle: Some tiny sliver of his own charitable givings has fueled the action taken against him. "I'm not saying I'm going to stop, but until I get some kind of understanding of how much of my money they're using to pursue infringement claims, I'm starting to think, maybe they've got a little bit more money than they need?""

Royal Dutch Shell ditches the Dutch - "Royal Dutch Shell said on Monday it would scrap its dual share structure and move its head office to Britain from the Netherlands, pushed away by Dutch taxes and facing climate pressure in court as the energy giant shifts from oil and gas... In a further knock to its relations with the Netherlands, the biggest Dutch state pension fund ABP said last month it would drop Shell and all fossil fuels from its portfolio. The Dutch government said on Monday it was “unpleasantly surprised” by Shell’s plans to move to London from The Hague. The decision will, however, be seen as a vote of confidence in London after Britain’s exit from the European Union triggered a shift in billions of euros in daily share trading from the UK capital to Amsterdam... Monday’s move follows a major overhaul Shell completed this summer as part of its strategy to shift away from oil and gas to renewables and low-carbon energy. The overhaul included thousands of job cuts around the world. In May, a Dutch court ordered Shell to deepen its planned greenhouse gas emission cuts in order to align with the Paris climate deal which aims to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Shell has said it would appeal... Dual listings, which are more expensive to maintain, are also falling out of favour. Consumer products giant Unilever abandoned its dual Anglo-Dutch structure last year in favour of a single London-based entity. Miner BHP Group has also called time on such a structure."

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