City of Angels Criminalizes Sidewalk Vendors

BY PUI-YEE YU

A recent study by the Economic Roundtable found that when sidewalk vendors in Los Angeles sell their wares close to brick-and-mortar businesses, area businesses experience increased revenues and employment opportunities.

Sidewalk vending is illegal in Los Angeles, though no visitor would guess from its bustling and dynamic commercial corridors. Astonishingly, sidewalk vending is a municipal code misdemeanor, punishable by up to six months in jail and $1,000 in fines.

Students in UCLA School of Law’s Criminal Defense Clinicrecently represented sidewalk vendors in the City’s municipal “traffic” court. Even when charged as infractions, vending violations result in hefty fines and fees. As detailed in the “Criminalizing the Sidewalk” report we issued this week, a $50 municipal court fine balloons to $306 with penalty assessments and court fees.

True, community service can be granted to accommodate vendors unable to pay, but the required hours are determined by dividing the total fines and fees by the minimum wage. A single sidewalk vending infraction for $306 would therefore require approximately 38 hours of community labor to “pay.” Those who do not comply suffer additional fines and fees, further deepening their criminal justice debt.

Such severe punishment is unmerited—especially since vendors respond as entrepreneurs to unmet needs in lower income South Los Angeles, San Fernando Valley and other “food desert” areas where residents are calamitously underserved by “big box” grocery and retail stores.

Such criminalization is also unmerited in light of decades-long efforts by generations of sidewalk vending Angelenos to gain status as law-abiding businesspeople.

Students from UCLA School of Law’s Criminal Defense Clinic represent Rosa Calderon in her criminal trial for sidewalk vending at Los Angeles’ Metropolitan Courthouse.

In 1994, the City Council actually approved a framework to legalize vending in designated districts. The details languished until 1999, when the first and only district ever established was finally unveiled in MacArthur Park. Although MacArthur Park’s vending district is still on the books, the framework was never wholly implemented, its efficacy arguably compromised by a lack of ingenuity, political will and leadership from our city’s top policymakers.

Last year, our City Council again approved a legalization framework. As City Hall’s process unfolds, nearly 50,000 Angelinos continue to subsist and care for their families on sidewalk vending income. They anxiously await—and in some cases, demand—reform. The urgency is palpable; even as lawmakers explore the practical and technical issues surrounding regulation of their trade, 50,000 vendors continue working in fear of harsh prosecution.

Criminalization of sidewalk vendors must end. Whether through an exercise of the City Attorney’s prosecutorial discretion or a new legislative act of the City Council, a resolution is needed to stop the unjust treatment of some of the lowest-earning—yet hardest-working—Angelenos.

Like it or not, vendors are our neighbors, having shared the city’s sidewalks for decades. While vending opponents rightfully clamor to be heard in the democratic process, it is hard not to see opponents’ support of criminal prosecution as a silencing tactic, deployed against Angelenos whose voices have been marginalized by the political process for generations.

Sidewalk vendors eke out a living, accumulate assets, and—as we all do—hope to build that “better life.” This is the essence of the American Dream, and I am ashamed that in the City of Angels, we prosecute that.

Pui-Yee Yu

POSTED ON APRIL 10, 2015

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SUNDAY, 12 APRIL 2015 City of Angels Criminalizes Sidewalk Vendors Pui-Yee Yu: Even as lawmakers explore the practical and technical issues surrounding regulation of their trade, 50,000 vendors continue working in fear of harsh prosecution. READ MORE Say "No" to Supersizing Comcast Tracy Rosenberg: No real competition means no real choice to keep prices in line. Post-merger, consumer bills are not going to increase less rapidly. READ HERE Let's Pay College Athletes Walter Brasch: We need to get rid of restrictive NCAA rules and pay these athletes. Not just scholarships and room-and-board, but, an actual salary. With benefits. Maybe disability insurance and a retirement plan. READ MORE Understanding America’s Many Wars Murray Polner: In retrospect, a fearful and angry nation had gone mad. Blacklists, jail terms, a few, but very few, Soviet spies (we had our spies too in Russia), and a shamefully conformist mass media helped scare and silence potential critics. READ MORE Steven Fraser’s The Age of Acquiescence: A Celebration and Commentary Gene Rothman: Perhaps the most problematic and explosive issue facing the Democrats is where the issues of race and class intersect. READ MORE

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BG acquisition offers Shell opportunity for major strategy change

BG acquisition offers Shell opportunity for major strategy change

Apr 11th, 2015 

by John Donovan. 

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By Paddy Briggs

As a Shell “lifer” – more than forty years if you include my time as a Director of the Pension  Fund – I cannot recall a bigger strategic shift than the acquisition of BG. It offers the Corporation a unique opportunity to do what Tom Peters called “stick to its knitting” – to concentrate on what it’s really good at.

BG is an “Upstream” company. It only does exploration and production of oil and gas. And that is what Royal Dutch Shell (RDS) is good at too. To the man or woman in the street it is the Shell emblem standing over a Shell petrol station for which it is best known. But over the years this part of the business – never, in truth, that important to the heavies at the top – has declined in importance. The “Downstream” – the refining and marketing of oil, gas and chemicals – is pretty much cast adrift from the Upstream. The engineers, geologists and accountants in the highest echelons of Shell never really understood it anyway! There are no longer any economies of scale from being involved in oil from wellhead to petrol pump, if there ever were. 

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China’s Island Builders

China’s Island Builders

The People’s War At Sea

By Andrew S. Erickson and Conor M. Kennedy

APRIL 9, 2015

Philippine Marines and a local television reporter gesture towards a Chinese Coast Guard vessel, which twice attempted to block a Philippine government supply ship from reaching the disputed Second Thomas Shoal, part of the Spratly Islands, in the South China Sea March 29, 2014. (Erik De Castro / Reuters)

Recent satellite images show that the Spratly islands, a series of features in the South China Sea, are growing at a staggering pace. Tons of sand, rocks, coral cuttings, and concrete are transforming miniscule Chinese-occupied outcroppings into sizeable islands with harbors, large multi-story buildings, airstrips, and other government facilities. The parties behind the construction and defense of these islands remain a thinly veiled secret. As China builds up its presence in the South China Sea, it is also greatly increasing its ability to monitor, bully, and even project force against its neighbors. In Machiavelli’s words, Beijing has decided that it is more important to be feared than loved—and that making progress before a new U.S. president pushes back is crucial to its regional aspirations.

FOLLOW THE TRAIL 

Chinese strategy in the South China Sea may have many components, but it rests on the shoulders of one man: President Xi Jinping. Since assuming office in 2012, Xi has directed the nation’s transformation into a “Great Maritime Power” capable of securing its offshore rights and interests, including its unresolved maritime claims in the Yellow, East China, and South China Seas. 

To meet this goal, Xi has built up China’s already powerful navy, which is led by Admiral Wu Shengli, a hard-charging, now the longest serving commander in modern Chinese history. While it has grown far more qualitatively than quantitatively since modernization accelerated in the mid-1990s, China already has more attack submarines than the United States, many of which are focused on a much smaller area. In September 2014, Wu reportedly took a weeklong trip by naval ship to survey land reclamation projects on several disputed South China Sea islands, indicating that his interest in promoting Chinese activities expand beyond wartime preparedness to include peacetime activities in the nation’s adjacent waters. There, Wu also observed joint operations drills held on Fiery Cross Reef, which were meant to enhance and showcase China’s growing ability to field a variety of forces across the South China Sea.

Beijing has decided that it is more important to be feared than loved—and that making progress before a new U.S. president pushes back is crucial to its regional aspirations. 

There has been a history of tensions with outside actors in waters claimed by China. On March 5, 2009, a frigate monitored three civil maritime vessels and two government-controlled trawlers during closely coordinated harassment against the survey vessel U.S.N.S. Impeccable in international waters. China’s navy has kept itself out of direct conflict when other forces are available to do their dirty work. This dynamic allows China’s navy to play “good cop,” cultivating closer relations with, and learning from, its American counterpart. Smaller, harder-to-monitor paranaval “bad cops” are then free to advance China’s claims in the East and South China Seas. Some of the lowest-end, least glamorous work is assigned to the most junior force in the sea: China’s maritime militia.

The Impeccable incident was hardly the only one of its kind. Chinese maritime law enforcement (MLE) vessels have repeatedly harassed Indonesian government ships, reportedly including “point[ing] a large calibre machine gun at an Indonesian patrol boat.” On March 26, 2013, China’s most advanced fishery patrol ship, Yuzheng 310, confronted an Indonesian Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries vessel in the Exclusive Economic Zone off Natuna Island (claimed by Indonesia), apparently jamming its communications with headquarters in order to coerce the Indonesian vessel to release Chinese fishermen detained for illegal fishing. Chinese MLE vessels have bullied Vietnamese and Philippine ships as well, attacking fishing ships in international waters.

Meanwhile, as China’s navy trawls the sea, its civil maritime forces are also consolidating into the nation’s first unified Coast Guard. The already-large China Coast Guard’s (CLG) fleet greatly outnumbers that of Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines combined, and is projected to grow by 25 percentfrom 2012–15 as newer and larger ships replace smaller, older ones. The Chinese Coast Guard will soon receive from Chinese shipyards several 10,000-ton vessels that the country’s neighboring navies could only dream of having.

The Sansha Maritime Militia. (China Defense Forum)

Finally, drawing on the world’s largest fishing fleet, China is also strengthening its maritime militia, a dual-hatted force of specially registered fishing vessels with fisherman–soldier crews. Portions of these coastal militias are organized by local military and government officials along the nation’s many ports, providing China with small tactical units designed to execute specific missions in support of the country’s more professional military and maritime interests. China has had maritime militias dating back to the 1950s, but they have increased in importance as Xi has sought a more active presence in the South China Sea. The use of maritime militias is an unusual approach with few foreign parallels, and U.S. policymakers need to take note. All together, China’s navy, local law enforcement, Coast Guard, and maritime militias are making the country a great maritime power, indeed.

OPENING THE GATES 

Sitting at China’s “Great Southern Gate,” Hainan Province administers all of the nation’s land and sea claims in the South China Sea. A former backwater, the province is now at the frontline of China’s maritime interests and its officials are rising in stature. Within the past year, former State Oceanic Administration Director Liu Cigui, for example, has become Deputy Provincial Party Secretaryand Hainan’s new governor. Former Hainan Governor, Party Chief Luo Baoming, plays a major role in the development of China’s maritime militia as First Director of Hainan’s National Defense Mobilization Committee. Following Xi’s guidance, Liu and Luo have pushed for greater levels of civil–military integration, strengthened the province’s maritime militia, increased maritime consciousness, and built dual-use infrastructure in the South China Sea. In 2013, Hainan allocated $4.5 million to the cause (split evenly between the province and counties). 

Concurrently, in 2012, Beijing established Sansha City, a South China Sea prefectural seat on Woody Island, as a micro-capital for the region. A prefecture of Hainan Province, Sansha City is the nation’s largest by area while also its smallest by population. Of Hainan’s three prefectural cities, it is the one charged with administering the entirety of the South China Sea’s features. It boasts an expanded port and airplane runway, aircraft hangars, communications facilities, coastal defense positions, and a military garrison. Chinese enterprises seeking political credit scramble to invest in the island’s physical and intellectual infrastructure, which already boasts a variety of installations, including power generation systems, desalination plants, schools, and the National Library of China’s first branch outside Beijing.

Government investment in Sansha City is even greater. Sansha’s Mayor Xiao Jie recently stated that the city’s first 28 infrastructure projects totaled 24 billion renminbi ($3.81 billion), with much more investment still to come. The city’s namesake, 7,800-ton supply ship Sansha-1, was the first ship registered by Sansha City’s Maritime Safety Administration and services Chinese outposts throughout the South China Sea. And, in 2013, a new maritime militia company was established in Sansha City to join naval and civil law enforcement forces in administering surrounding waters.

China’s leadership has turned its focus toward the Spratly islands. Alongside the building materials that have been delivered and installed, airstrips, radar, and other defenses may soon follow.

Meanwhile, ongoing efforts to establish a permanent population in the area represent an attempt to bolster legal claims on many of the disputed islands and reefs; these days, the island has approximately 1,443 permanent residents, and a migrant population of over 2,000. China is preparing for more outposts under Sansha City’s jurisdiction, too. The cutter suction dredger Tianjing, Asia’s largest, has pumped sand onto five Spratly reefs in 2014 to create and expand regional islands. The dredger Tianqi is engaged in similar activities throughout the Paracels. Since early 2015, multiple People’s Armed Forces Departments have been established on Woody Island, two islands in the Paracels, and one in an unspecified location in the Spratlys. These departments were built specifically to strengthen militia work on the islands.

A Guangxi Maritime Militia detachment. (China Defense Forum)

MARITIME MILITIA MOBILIZATION

On April 8, 2013, Xi visited a fishing village on Hainan’s southern coast, where he inspected the Tanmen Village Maritime Militia Company, commending and encouraging its work. Xi’s choice of venue was no accident: Established in 1985, the Tanmen Company has received more than 20 awards from both the People’s Liberation Army PLA Headquarters and provincial governments for setting an example for other companies to emulate. Tanmen employs over 8,500 people and 300 fishing vessels devoted to developing the Spratlys. The company’s guerrilla ideology designates the South China Sea as its “fields” and its employees’ fishing vessels as their “homes,” and militia members both monitor and report on local conditions, while training to execute other operations as needed. The group vocally defends Chinese territorial claims, even after operatives were reportedly beaten and detained in Philippine jails and one of their ships was sunk by a Philippine Navy vessel. The company is also active in the political mobilization of the nearby fishing communities, encouraging others to invest in the construction of newer, higher-quality fishing vessels. These efforts have expanded Chinese patriot fishermen fleets multifold in recent years. 

Tanmen’s latest assignment is supporting island building in the South China Sea—familiar territory for a company that has been long charged with supplying building materials for construction in the region. Since the 1980s, Tanmen has delivered concrete, stone, rebar, water, and food to all seven Chinese-occupied Spratly reefs. Since the 1990s, members have delivered 2.65 million tons of materials to PLA stations in the Spratlys, often camping on the islands while assisting with construction. Working in greater numbers and capable of reaching shallower waters, trawlers operated cheaply by Tanmen and other militias sometimes prove more efficient than larger, more professional resupply vessels. Smaller craft can simultaneously resupply multiple stations instead of fuel-thirsty helicopters or scarce dedicated supply ships. Fishing vessels also draw much less attention politically than navy or coast guard vessels. 

The nation’s foremost military newspaper emphasizes these fishermen’s flexibility and legitimacy, writing “putting on camouflage they qualify as soldiers, taking off the camouflage they become law abiding fishermen.” Maritime militia units are charged with making both peacetime and wartime contributions to Maritime Rights Protection under the rubric of People’s War at Sea. After Xi’s visit, for instance, an exercise titled Maritime Mobilization – 1312 involving many militia units from other counties was held in Tanmen’s home county, Qionghai. Other exercises have involved a 2014 joint exercise to protect drilling platforms, escort supply ships, and repel sudden incursions by foreign vessels. The Tanmen Company has been praised for its reconnaissance work, providing valuable intelligence for the military. The company also assists civil law enforcement vessels by conducting search and rescue missions; state media recently lauded its heroic rescue of other ships stranded in typhoon conditions. 

Such maritime militia activities are growing along China’s southern coast; with cities and counties in Guangdong, Fujian, and Guangxi Provinces all experimenting with and strengthening paramilitaries under close supervision of local party, government, and military officials. Chinese state-run fishing company official He Jianbin has openly spoken of arming fishermen and using them for political or military purposes in the South China Sea, claiming that Vietnam’s maritime militia severely threaten China’s fishing fleet, since the Vietnamese fleet is armed and Chinese fishermen are not. He called for the arming of Hainan’s vast fishing fleet and the formation of maritime militias, stating that 5,000 fishing vessels would allow 100,000 armed fishermen to become a force greater than that of any other South China Sea competitor. Although this inflammatory language doesn’t represent current official policy, more nuanced statements in military documents nevertheless indicate support for additional measures.  

ROILING WATERS 

China’s leadership has turned its focus toward the Spratly islands. Alongside the building materials that have been delivered and installed, airstrips, radar, and other defenses may soon follow. Chinese goals likely involve increased control over features within the South China Sea, as well as increased surveillance capabilities in the region’s waters and airspace—all to win without fighting against neighbors. At this rate, the majority of South China Sea airspace will likely come under the aegis of a Chinese Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) before the Obama administration leaves office—a likely goal given Beijing’s apparent judgment that the next U.S. president is likely to be firmer in opposing Chinese assertiveness. From Xi’s bold directives to the Tanmen Company’s low-profile implementation, China will have a busy agenda over contested waters and the island features that are beginning to rise from their depths. China is rapidly building new turf in the region—small islands that grow larger by the month. All this makes the assessment of former top CIA China analyst Christopher Johnson of particular concern: “They believe Obama is fundamentally weak and disinterested.” In the South China Sea, there is reason to worry that Beijing is busy making hay while the sun is hot.

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The Daily Digg Friday, April 10, 2015 THE PEOPLE'S WAR AT SEA China’s Island Builders foreignaffairs.com Recent satellite images show that the Spratly islands, a series of features in the South China Sea, are growing at a staggering pace. Tons of sand, rocks, coral cuttings, and concrete are transforming miniscule Chinese-occupied outcroppings into sizeable islands with harbors, large multi-story buildings, airstrips, and other government facilities. WHAT WE LEARNED THIS WEEK There Is No Bourbon Shortage And Other Facts digg.com This week we learned that the bourbon apocalypse is a lie, humanity is on the verge of discovering alien life and why you should eat broccoli stalks. WATCHES WE DIGG SPONSORED Get Your Hands On A Better Watch, For Less mvmtwatches.com The only thing better than getting yourself a snazzy new watch? Paying less than full price for it: Use the code “DiggApril” to save $10 off your next order from MVMT. A REAL BREWHAHA Tracing The Origins Of Lucky Buddha Beer theconcourse.deadspin.com Lucky Buddha Beer is beer. Because of the fact that I have had many other beverages definitively known to science as beer (not bragging ... much), merely tasting the Lucky Drink Co. product was proof positive: This is beer. Beyond that meek pronouncement, however, the bona fides of this stuff are somewhat more difficult to establish. LAUNCH FOOTAGE THAT'S OUT OF THIS WORLD VIDEO: SpaceX Launches In 4K digg.com If you're looking for approximately two minutes of rockets blasting off into space in a resolution your computer probably can't display, have we got the video for you. A MURDER AT LA CASA GREEN, PART 3 How An Ex-Cop Saved, Then Doomed, Two Wrongfully Convicted Men buzzfeed.com In 2010, two men were exonerated and freed after more than 16 years in prison. Then the man who worked to free them was arrested for witness tampering, putting their newfound freedom in jeopardy. Get more stories on Digg.com →

GODZILLA EX MACHINA

Godzilla's head is unveiled as the irradiated monster was appointed special resident and tourism ambassador for Tokyo's Shinjuku ward during its awards ceremony in Tokyo Thursday, April 9, 2015. The giant Godzilla head towering 52-meters (171 feet) above ground level was unveiled Thursday at an office of Toho, the studio behind the 1954 original. Credit: AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi

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Shell Acquisition of BG Group to Create Giant Operator of LNG Ships

Shell Acquisition of BG Group to Create Giant Operator of LNG Ships

Apr 10th, 2015 

by John Donovan. 

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LONDON –  Royal Dutch Shell PLC’s (RDS.A) planned $70 billion acquisition of BG Group PLC would create a giant operator of liquefied-natural-gas vessels, offering owners that charter the ships more opportunities for lucrative, long-term contracts in an otherwise-depressed shipping industry.

“The merger offers owners more flexibility and better utilization of their fleets, which could mean long-term leases offering steady income,” said Ted Petropoulos, head of Athens-based Petrofin Research. “It’s also a defensive move to secure market share as more players come into the market.”

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Posted in: BG Group, China, Exxon Mobil, Gas, India, LNG, Oil, Royal Dutch Shell Plc.
Tagged: BG Group · ExxonMobil · Fox Business · Gas · Royal Dutch Shell Plc · Shell

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