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Saudi Arabia reveals oil output is near its ceiling

TASOS MANSOUR-UNSPLASH

DURING US President Joseph Biden’s trip to Saudi Arabia, the world was so focused on how Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman would respond to his plea to pump more oil immediately that it missed a bombshell: the level at which Saudi oil production will peak.

It’s a lot lower than many anticipated. It’s lower than the Saudis have ever intimated. And with the world still hungry for fossil fuels, it spells long-term trouble for the global economy.

For years, Saudi oil ministers and royals have sidestepped one of the most important questions the energy market faces: What is the long-term upper limit of the kingdom’s oilfields? The guesstimate was that they could always pump more, and for longer; if the Saudis knew the answer, they kept it secret. And then, almost casually on Saturday, Prince Mohammed broke the news, revealing that the ultimate maximum capacity is 13 million barrels a day.

Prince Mohammed framed his answer emphasizing that the world — and not just countries like Saudi Arabia — needs to invest in fossil-fuels production over the next two decades to meet growing global demand and avoid energy shortages. “The kingdom will do its part in this regard, as it announced an increase in its production capacity to 13 million barrels per day, after which the kingdom will not have any additional capacity to increase production,” he said in a wide-ranging speech.

It bears repeating: Saudi Arabia, the holder of the world’s largest oil reserves, is telling the world that in the not-so-distant future it “will not have any additional capacity to increase production.” Let that sink in.

The first part of his announcement was well known. In 2020, Riyadh instructed its state-owned oil giant Saudi Aramco to embark on a multiyear, multibillion-dollar program to boost its maximum production capacity to 13 million barrels by 2027, up from 12 million. The project is ongoing, with the first small additions coming online in 2024 followed by larger ones in the following three years.

But the second part was completely new, setting a hard ceiling at a much lower level than the Saudis have themselves discussed in the past. Back in 2004 and 2005, during Riyadh’s last big expansion, the kingdom made plans to expand its pumping capacity to 15 million if needed. And there was no suggestion that even that elevated level was an upper limit.

For example, Aramco executives told the CSIS think tank in Washington in 2004 that the company could sustain output levels of 10, 12, and 15 million barrels a day for 50 years if needed. At the time, Riyadh was fighting the views of the late Matt Simmons, author of the much-discussed book Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy. The book argued that peak Saudi oil production was just around the corner.

One reason why Saudi Arabia is now setting a lower production ceiling may be related to climate change. Unsure about future oil demand growth, Riyadh may calculate that it’s foolish to spend billions of dollars in new capacity that may not be needed.

In his speech, Prince Mohammed stressed the “importance of assuring investors” that policies do “not pose a threat to their investments,” with the aim of avoiding “their reluctance to invest.” I don’t think Prince Mohammed was talking about Wall Street money and hedge funds when he said “investors.” It’s a term that also covers Saudi Arabia’s interests.

Oil demand forecasting is as much art as science — and the kingdom is conservative by nature. A decade ago, then Saudi energy minister Ali Al-Naimi said Saudi Arabia would be “lucky” to be pumping more than 9 million by the early 2020s. “Realistically, based on all projections that I have seen, including ours, there is no call on us to go past 11 million by 2030 or 2040.” The reality has turned far more positive than he anticipated: next month, Aramco will lift daily production to just above 11 million barrels.

If demand proves stronger in the coming years than the Saudis currently anticipate, the kingdom may simply revise its investment plans, and announce it’s able to boost output further. But Prince Mohammed sounded rather definitive in setting that 13 million upper boundary. If money isn’t the constraint, then it must be geology.

For years, Saudi Arabia has brought new oil fields online to offset the natural decline of its aging reservoirs, and allowed Ghawar, the world’s biggest oil field, to run at lower rates. As it seeks to boost production capacity and not just offset natural declines, Aramco is increasingly turning to more expensive offshore reservoirs. Perhaps Riyadh is less confident in its ability to add new oilfields. Ghawar itself is pumping far less than the market assumed. For years, the conventional wisdom was that the field was able to produce about 5 million barrels, but in 2019 Aramco disclosed that Ghawar’s maximum capacity was 3.8 million.

If the obstacle to boosting production is geology, rather than pessimism about future oil demand, the world faces a rocky period if consumption turns to be stronger than currently expected. For now, Saudi peak production is a relatively distant matter, at least five years away. More urgent is whether Riyadh would be able to sustain its current output of 11 million — something it has achieved only twice in its history, and then only briefly — let alone increase it further. But that ceiling will matter towards the end of the decade, and perhaps even earlier.

Despite widespread talk about peak oil demand, the truth is that, for now at least, consumption keeps growing. The world relies heavily on three nations for crude: the US, Saudi Arabia, and Russia. Together, they account for nearly 45% of the global total oil supply. With US investors unwilling to finance a return to the days of “drill, baby, drill” at home, American output growth is now slower than it was in the 2010s. Russia faces an even darker outlook as the impact of Western sanctions not only curb current supply, but also hinder its ability to expand in the future.

In an era of climate change, Saudi oil production will be, ironically, even more important. And Riyadh has now, publicly, set a hard limit on how much it can pump. This time, oil demand will have to peak — because there won’t be additional supply. Ultimately, there are only two routes to that outcome: Voluntarily, by shifting to low-carbon sources of energy such as nuclear power or wind; or by compulsion, via much higher oil prices, faster inflation and slower economic growth. If we don’t take the first path, we’ll be forced to follow the second.

BLOOMBERG OPINION

When historians gossip about history

MASTER1305P-FREEPIK

Turns out, even the Father of History isn’t above a bit of gossip himself.

Writing of Herodotus, culture writer Charlotte Higgins (“The rest is history,” January 2009) lists down some of the more fantastical accounts in The Histories: “… we have a bearded priestess; a description of the embalming techniques of the Egyptians; a great number of mouthy women (including Atossa, the wife of Darius, whose pillow talk is supposed to have convinced the Persian king to turn his attention towards a Greek conquest); and the curious giant ants of India, bigger than foxes but smaller than dogs, who tunnel deep underground to harvest gold. That’s not to mention the steppe-dwelling Scythians, who wear coats made from human scalps; the musician Arion, whose life is saved by a dolphin; and the sheep of Arabia, whose tails are so long they drag them on little carts.”

FALSIFY FALSIFY
Indeed. And the foregoing makes a greater point about “history” and historians: Anything a historian says is fundamentally hearsay because practically most of the time he was never there when the events he is reporting on occurred. Most of the time, he was never in the room when a “historic” decision was made or action taken.

Instead, historians report on evidence they gathered: testimonies, documents, photographs, etc. But witnesses can lie or spout hearsay, documents may contain lies or be faked, photographs can be taken out of context or be doctored. That is why this evidence, those things historians say they “hold true,” need to be constantly questioned (in court trial, the process is called “direct or cross examine”).

This effectively makes any historical “truth” — including particularly scientific facts — as so only for the present moment. In Popperian terms, they can only be disproved or “falsified” but never be proven as “true.”

ALWAYS ROOM FOR DOUBT
Put another way, except for moral truths and mathematical laws which can be held as true for eternity, nothing else can be absolutely proven as true.

Because if historical “truths,” including scientific facts, are based on empirical observations, then there’s no way one can know everything. Everything historical or scientific always has that possibility of later being proven untrue. Admittedly, some facts like gravity, differences between men and women, earth is round, etc., experience (i.e., constant and continuous testing and experimentation), common sense, and logic will tell you it’s 99.9% true but that’s as far as it could go. There’s always that 0.1%.

“Historical ‘truth’ is subject to so many sieves: 1. The motives and the bias of the historian, 2. The evidence available, 3. The evidence selected as relevant and the material excluded as irrelevant, 4. One’s own historical standpoint, 5. One’s theory of history, 6. The soundness (or unsoundness) of inferences one draws from the present (relics, documents, artifacts, monuments, etc.) about the past. And others. Unlike perception, what is lacking is immediacy. This is the particular contribution of historians: to offer us constructs that should never be foisted as absolute truths but as tentative interpretations of data.” (Fr. Ranhilio Aquino, social media comment, July 19, 2022)

“Historians recognize that individual facts and stories only give us part of the picture. Drawing on their existing knowledge of a time period and on previous scholarship about it, they continually reevaluate the facts and weigh them in relation to other kinds of information, questions and sources. This is inescapably a task of interpreting rather than simply collecting data. Just as with any important shared body of knowledge, then, history is always undergoing reexamination and reconsideration.” (“Why do historians’ accounts of the past keep changing?,” National Council on Public History, https://ncph.org)

REVISIONISM
This does not mean that a past event has changed but rather the telling or appreciation of that past event is logically adjusted as more facts come in: “People who are not professional historians sometimes assume that historical research is a once-and-for-all process that will eventually produce a single, final version of what happened in the past. We often hear charges of ‘revisionism’ when a familiar history seems to be challenged or changed. But revisiting and often revising earlier interpretations is actually at the very core of what historians do. And that’s because the present is continually changing.” 

Hence why “revisionism” should not be considered a dirty word. Revisionism, done honestly and with humility, going beyond narrow ideological and partisan mindsets, laying openly old and newly discovered facts set in proper contexts, would be really good for our people in knowing the actual truth about past events.

WHY FREE SPEECH IS IMPORTANT
That is why it is inane for anyone to claim exemption from being questioned, particularly when that person vociferously imposes on others so-called “truths,” because the only way we can arrive at a “truth” is to continually question and test it, over and over again. That is precisely why we have the right to free expression. That right exists not for people to indulge in narcissistic displays of “self-expression” but rather because free speech is the mechanism with which we continuously test “facts” rather than have what we think or believe be dictated to us by “experts.”

To have the questions come from the “experts” alone is self-defeating. Every “expert” inherently comes with a bias, professional or personal. They can consciously or unconsciously be selective of the evidence they accept or reject (as we’ve clearly seen in the recent election campaign). Pride of authorship can also come in. Experts are also prone to human error. There’s this legal dictum that goes: “constitutional law is too important to be left to lawyers alone.” Well apparently, the same goes for history, it’s too important to be left to historians alone.

Absent that right of the people to unrelentingly question history and the “experts,” then so-called “history” is indeed just “tsismis” (gossip).

WHAT WRONG SIDE OF HISTORY?
Finally, there’s that vacuously vapid threat so beloved by those that love dictating what others think: disagree with us and you’ll be on the “wrong side of history.”

The question is: who decides what is right or wrong? The historians? Many individuals have been labeled numerous times as being on the “wrong side of history,” including those with public positions in favor of international trade, in defense of Philippine territorial rights, or against lockdowns, mandatory vaccination, abortion, contraception, divorce, same sex “marriage,” transgenderism, and LGBT “rights.” So far, those positions have been proven right every single time. So far. Thus, as to whether anyone is on the wrong or right side of history, that is better left to being decided by one’s conscience and ultimately God rather than by some historian.

 

Jemy Gatdula is a senior fellow of the Philippine Council for Foreign Relations and a Philippine Judicial Academy law lecturer for constitutional philosophy and jurisprudence

www.facebook.com/jigatdula/

Twitter @jemygatdula

Heatwave fee for Asia’s gig workers does little to cool climate stress

HO CHI MINH CITY/BANGKOK — As a heatwave engulfed northern and central Vietnam earlier this month, customers reaching for their phones to order food or a ride on the Grab app learned they would have to pay a surcharge. 

The extra fee, applied when the local temperature hits 35 degrees Celsius, came months after the Southeast Asian platform company introduced a rainy-weather fee in Vietnam. 

“Working under such bad weather conditions can be tough on our driver- and delivery-partners. We want to ensure they are fairly compensated for it,” a Grab spokesperson told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. 

In Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, the surcharge is 5,000 Vietnamese dong ($0.21) for Grab’s motorcycle taxi, and food and grocery deliveries, and 3,000 dong for its quick delivery service. 

Nguyen Tuan, a Grab driver in Ho Chi Minh City, said the additional payment gave him and his colleagues an incentive, as they have to work regardless of weather conditions. 

“If I don’t work, where do I get money to eat? I make a living day by day,” said Mr. Tuan, who puts in several hours a day as a food-delivery and motorcycle-taxi driver. 

Platform companies offering delivery and ride-hailing services have come under increasing scrutiny for their planet-heating emissions linked to traffic congestion and packaging. 

But there has been little discussion of how riders and drivers are dealing with extreme weather, as they often work long hours, waiting at street corners and outside restaurants for orders, and have limited access to medical care. 

Only now is the issue starting to grab the public’s attention as climate change brings more frequent and intense heatwaves and floods around the world, raising questions about the health impacts for the must vulnerable in the labor force. 

‘ABSOLUTELY INHUMANE’
India, which is estimated to have more than 7.5 million gig workers, was hit by several heatwaves in April and May, with temperatures of 45°C-50°C recorded in parts of the country. 

In May, a series of tweets from Mumbai resident Parizad Baria-Unwalla went viral as she described finding out that her food order was delayed because the delivery worker was walking to her home from the restaurant. 

“It is a summer afternoon in Mumbai and the restaurant was 4.5 km away. This is absolutely inhumane,” she wrote, as she appealed to the Swiggy platform to get him a cab or an auto rickshaw, and offered to pay for the transport. 

Dozens weighed in, with one user saying they had stopped ordering from Swiggy after a delivery worker cycled at least 5 km to their home at noon. 

Swiggy did not respond to a request for comment. 

“Gig workers in India have no protections because they are not recognized as workers, and hence don’t fall under the occupational health and safety rules,” said Rikta Krishnaswamy, a representative of the All India Gig Workers’ Union. 

While several platform firms hike prices during rains, that is more due to heavy demand, she said. Few firms make similar concessions in hot weather. 

“The workers are not even allowed to go into restaurants to pick up orders or get a drink of water, or use the washroom to freshen up. Meanwhile, companies are pushing more of their workers to cycle as part of their ESG drive,” she added. 

Zomato, another Indian platform company, delivered nearly a fifth of its food orders by bicycle in the financial year to March 2022, according to its Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) report. 

Zomato pays riders an extra fee for deliveries in the rain, and reduces the distance they have to travel, a spokesperson said. 

During the recent heatwaves in India, the company set up refreshment centers in several cities for riders to rest between deliveries and get free cold drinks, the spokesperson added. 

RISING RISK
Demand for gig work has surged in recent years with the growth in e-commerce and the so-called “platformization” of work, with advocates saying it offers both sides greater freedom and flexibility. The pandemic further boosted demand. 

But critics say it exploits workers who have few other choices, and that it undercuts hard-won labor rights, with gig workers in poorer nations largely treated as casual labor. 

Heat stress occurs at temperatures above 35°C in high humidity, according to the International Labour Organization. Heat stroke can occur if body temperature rises above 40°C. 

In the UAE, where summer temperatures can top 45°C, delivery workers are exempt from taking a mandatory break from 12:30 p.m. to 3 p.m., between June 15 and September 15, introduced to protect laborers from the “risks of exposure to high temperatures.” 

Where laborers have to work during these hours, employers must provide cold drinking water, first-aid kits, cooling facilities and shaded rest areas. 

Similarly in India, while several states have adopted heat action plans that recommend minimal outdoor activity during the hottest hours of the day, this is not an option for gig workers. 

Exposure to extreme heat can have adverse health impacts, and also carries an increased risk of injury or lapses in concentration, said Jaya Dhindaw, program director for urban development, planning and resilience at WRI India, a think-tank. 

“Platform workers will be especially susceptible to this,” she said. “However, strategies like a hot-weather surcharge should not be used as a way to exploit workers and drive them to deliver under dangerous or unsafe circumstances.” 

Meanwhile in Vietnam, on a public Facebook group of Grab drivers in Ho Chi Minh City with over 51,000 members, there were dozens of comments on the heatwave surcharge. 

In one post that has garnered over 300 likes and more than 100 comments, a member said that of the additional fee of 5,000 Vietnamese dong, drivers only get 3,600 dong, while Grab gets the rest for “sitting around doing nothing.” 

Tan Giang, a Grab user in southern Vietnam, said he would be happy to pay the surcharge if it benefited drivers 100%. 

“As a customer I support that because it is their sweat and tears,” he said. ($1 = 23,401.707 Vietnamese dong) — Sen Nguyen and Rina Chandran/Thomson Reuters Foundation

Sri Lanka swears in new president amid worst economic crisis in decades

COLOMBO — Veteran politician Ranil Wickremesinghe was sworn in as Sri Lanka’s new president on Thursday, a day after winning a vote in parliament and urging the island nation to come together to find a way out of its worst economic crisis in decades.

The six-time prime minister succeeded Gotabaya Rajapaksa who fled Sri Lanka and resigned from his post last week after mass protests over his handling of the economy. The swearing in ceremony was conducted in parliament, and presided over by the country’s chief justice.

The country of 22 million people has been crippled by a severe financial crisis, with a lack of foreign currency leading to shortages of essentials including fuel, food and medicines.

Sri Lanka received fresh diesel supplies over the weekend, and the main state-run distributor, Ceylon Petroleum Corporation, will restart sales under a new rationing system from Thursday onwards, the power and energy ministry said.

The protest movement that pushed out Mr. Rajapaksa — the first sitting Sri Lankan president to quit office — remained largely muted, despite Mr. Wickremesinghe’s unpopularity among some sections of the population.

Only a handful of people were present outside the presidential secretariat on Thursday, a colonial-era building that was stormed by a sea of protesters earlier this month along with the president and prime minister’s official residences.

But some have vowed to fight on against Wickremesinghe.

“We won’t give up because what the country needs is a total system change,” said Pratibha Fernando, a protester at the secretariat. “We want to get rid of these corrupt politicians, so that’s what we are doing.”

Hours after winning the parliamentary vote on Wednesday, Mr. Wickremesinghe appeared to distance himself from the powerful Rajapaksa family that has dominated politics in Sri Lanka for decades.

“I am not a friend of the Rajapaksas. I am a friend of the people,” he told reporters after praying at a Buddhist temple in the commercial capital Colombo.

Mr. Wickremesinghe, who earlier served as prime minister and finance minister under Rajapaksa, has been involved in negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a bailout package worth up to $3 billion.

Sri Lanka is also looking for assistance from neighboring India, China and other international partners. — Reuters

Thailand admits to using phone spyware, cites national security

NORDWOOD THEMES-UNSPLASH

BANGKOK — A Thai minister has admitted the country uses surveillance software to track individuals in cases involving national security or drugs, amid revelations that government critics’ phones had been hacked using the Israeli-made Pegasus spyware.

Minister of Digital Economy and Society, Chaiwut Thanakamanusorn, said in parliament late on Tuesday that he is aware of Thai authorities using spyware in “limited” cases but did not specify which government agency used such software, which program was used or which individuals targeted.

Human rights groups have accused successive Thai governments of using broad definitions of national security as a pretext to prosecute or suppress activities of their main rivals.

A joint investigation by Thai human rights group iLaw, Southeast Asian internet watchdog Digital Reach and Toronto-based Citizen Lab highlighted on Monday the use of Pegasus spyware on at least 30 government critics between October 2020 to November 2021.

The probe followed a mass alert from Apple, Inc. AAPL.O in November informing thousands of users of its iPhones, including in Thailand, that they were targets of “state-sponsored attackers”.

Mr. Chaiwut did not name Pegasus but said that he is aware of spyware being used to “listen into or access a mobile phone to view the screen, monitor conversations and messages”. But he added his ministry does not have the legal authority to use such software and did not specify which government agency does.

“It is used on national security or drug matters. If you need to arrest a drug dealer you have to listen in to find where the drop would be,” he said.

“I understand that there was usage of this sort but it is very limited and only in special cases.”

His ministry has previously denied any knowledge of the matter.

The most recent alleged use of spyware comes after the emergence of a youth-led movement in late 2020 that challenged the country’s powerful monarchy and the government of Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha. More than 1,800 people have faced security-related charges since the movement began.

Thai police in a statement denied the use of Pegasus for surveillance or breaches of privacy.

Pegasus has been used by governments to spy on journalists, activists, and dissidents and the Israeli firm behind it, NSO Group, has been sued by Apple and placed on a US trade blacklist.

NSO Group did not respond to Reuters’ requests for comment on Monday or Wednesday. — Reuters

Nigerian bakers suspend production over high costs

CHARLES CHEN-UNSPLASH

ABUJA — Nigerian bread makers suspended production from Wednesday to protest against soaring prices of ingredients such as flour and sugar, bakers associations said.

Prices of staples such as bread, maize and rice have risen since the start of this year, helping to propel inflation to its highest in more than five years in June.

The Master Bakers Association of Nigeria (MBAN) and smaller Premium Breadmakers Association of Nigeria (PBAN), which together have 700,000 members, want the government to stop charging a 15% levy on imported wheat, and to be issued licenses to import sugar.

PBAN also wants its members to gain access to low interest loans from the central bank available to some small- and medium-sized businesses, its president Emmanuel Onuorah said.

MBAN said its members had stopped work on Wednesday for a week while PBAN will suspend production from Thursday for four days.

“We had no option than to shut down for those days to draw government attention to our plight,” Jude Okafor, the MBAN national secretary told Reuters.

The impact was not yet immediately apparent on the streets of Lagos on Wednesday, where shops were still stocked with fresh bread.

Mr. Onuorah from PBAN said bakeries were making losses, which was no longer sustainable.

Global wheat prices have risen since Russia invaded Ukraine in February, affecting countries like Nigeria that import most of their wheat. Russia and Ukraine are major wheat exporters.

Mr. Onuorah said the price of a 50 kg bag of flour had risen 7.4% since June and by more than half this year to 29,000 naira ($70).

The price of diesel has also soared nearly threefold this year.

The Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment spokesman did not respond to calls and messages for a comment. — Reuters

Harden returns to 76ers on 2-year, $68.6-M deal

GUARD James Harden has agreed to a two-year, $68.6-million deal with the Philadelphia 76ers, ESPN reported Wednesday.

The deal features a player option on the second year of the contract worth $35.6 million. If Mr. Harden rejects the option, he will become a free agent following the 2022-23 season. Mr. Harden had previously rejected a one-year, $47.3 million option for next season, making him a free agent.

The 10-time All-Star spent the final two-plus months of last season with the 76ers after being traded from the Brooklyn Nets in February, along with Paul Millsap. In 21 regular-season games with Philadelphia, all of which were starts, he averaged 21.0 points, 7.1 rebounds and 10.5 assists while shooting 40.2 percent from the field and 32.6 percent from 3-point range. — Reuters

Major League Baseball All-Star Game ratings hit all-time record low

TELEVISION ratings for Tuesday’s All-Star Game continued a downward trend that began nine years ago, hitting an all-time low.

The Fox telecast drew 7.51 million viewers, down 8% from 8.14 million viewers in 2019, according to SBJ Unpacks, a podcast of the Sports Business Journal. Viewership was slightly better at 8.24 million in 2021.

The American League defeated the National League 3-2 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles to run its winning streak to nine games.

Ratings have fallen significantly with the explosion of television channels, internet channels and streaming services available. Before the plethora of other viewing options, All-Star Game viewership reached as high as 36.3 million in 1976 and again in 1980, according to Baseball-Almanac.com.

Ratings fell below 20 million in 1996 (18.5 million), and settled beneath 10 million in 2016 (8.7 million).

This weekend also saw a decrease in viewership for MLB’s Home Run Derby, which was on ESPN, and the MLB first-year player draft, which was aired on ESPN and MLB Network.

Despite the All-Star Game decline, baseball remained ahead of the other major pro sports. The NFL Pro Bowl (ABC/ESPN/DisneyXD) on Feb. 6 drew 6.69 million viewers.

The NBA All-Star Game (TNT/TBS) on Feb. 20 drew 6.28 million viewers, and the NHL All-Star Game (ABC) on Feb. 5 finished at 1.15 million on ABC. — Reuters

Carlsen will not defend world title next year

MAGNUS Carlsen will not defend his world championship in 2023 against Russia’s Ian Nepomniachtchi as he is not motivated to play another match, the Norwegian five-time champion said in a podcast on Wednesday.

If Mr. Carlsen does not defend his title, Mr. Nepomniachtchi is likely to face the runner up in the recent Candidates tournament, China’s Ding Liren.

“I feel I don’t have a lot to gain, I don’t particularly like (the championship matches), and although I’m sure a match would be interesting for historical reasons and all of that, I don’t have any inclination to play and I will simply not play the match,” he said on the podcast for his sponsor Unibet.

“Ultimately the conclusion stands, one that I’m pretty comfortable with, one that I’ve thought a lot about for a long time now, I would say more than a year… since long before the last match” in which he beat Mr. Nepomniachtchi without losing a game, Mr. Carlsen said.

“And I’ve spoken to people in my team, I’ve spoken to FIDE, I spoke to Ian as well. And the conclusion is, it’s simple, that I am not motivated to play another match,” said Mr. Carlsen, who has spent over a decade as the top-ranked player in the world.

FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich said Mr. Carlsen, who stressed that he was not retiring from the sport and would remain an active player, deserved nothing but respect from FIDE and the chess community.

“Only a handful of people in history can understand and assess the tremendous toll it takes playing five matches for the title,” Dvorkovich said in a statement.

“His decision not to defend his title is undoubtedly a disappointment for the fans, and bad news for the spectacle. It leaves a big void.

“But chess is now stronger than ever — in part thanks to Magnus — and the world championship match, one of the longest, most respected traditions in the world of sport, will go on.”

Mr. Carlsen had previously said he would be ready to let go of his world title unless his next opponent was Iranian-French teenager Alireza Firouzja, who is the world number three currently.

Instead, Mr. Nepomniachtchi set up a rematch by winning the Candidates Tournament in Madrid earlier this month with a round to spare.

Mr. Liren edged out chess YouTuber Hikaru Nakamura of the United States for second place in the Candidates Tournament by beating him in the final round. — Reuters

Stanway stunner sends England past Spain into Euro semis

BRIGHTON, England — England’s Georgia Stanway scored with a wonderful extra-time strike to earn them a 2-1 win over Spain on Wednesday in an excellent Euro 2022 quarter-final that sent the Lionesses into the last four.

Hosts England were facing an exit from the tournament with six minutes of normal time remaining, but went on to earn a semi-final clash with Belgium or Sweden to the delight of the home crowd.

It was a match which showcased the European women’s game at its best with both teams playing smart technical football at a high-tempo.

But as the familiar chants of ‘Football’s Coming Home’ indicated, it was also a victory which will spark optimism that England, under the guidance of Dutch coach Sarina Wiegman, can win their first major tournament.

There was little to separate the teams in the early stages although England had a 37th-minute effort from Ellen White ruled out for offside.

However it was Spain who grabbed a 54th-minute lead when taking advantage of some sloppy play from England as Athenea del Castillo did well down the right flank and squared the ball to Esther Gonzalez, who recovered after a poor first touch to drill home.

Del Castillo then went close to a second with a cross-shot which was clawed away by England keeper Mary Earps at full-stretch .

Spain were buzzing and playing with real confidence but six minutes from the end of normal time, the Lionesses found a way to keep the game alive when Alessia Russo headed Lauren Hemp’s cross into the path of substitute Ella Toone who poked home to take the game into extra time.

The decisive moment came when Stanway found space in the Spanish half and pushed forward before unleashing a fierce shot from 20 metres out which flew past Sandra Panos.

Spain, who have yet to win a knockout game in a major tournament, were devastated and left the field in tears but for the 28,994 crowd, the biggest for a Euro quarter-final, it was party time. — Reuters

Reasonable gambit

Don’t think for a moment that the Pacers simply wanted to take on the role of spoiler when they presented Suns slotman DeAndre Ayton with a maximum contract offer last week. They were dead serious in their intent to spread the welcome mat for the 2018 first overall draft pick; they even waived three players and expressed willingness to use the stretch provision to spread the effects of their planned acquisition over three seasons. As far as they were concerned, he figured to be the anchor of their efforts to be relevant anew.

It was a reasonable gambit, to be sure. The Pacers hoped the Suns would not match the offer sheet given the prospect of welcoming Kevin Durant to the fold; doing so would most certainly derail negotiations with the Nets. Moreover, they knew ties were already strained, and not just because head coach Monty Williams benched Ayton throughout the second half of a disappointing showing in Game Seven of the 2022 Western Conference semifinals.

As things turned out, the Suns wasted no time matching the Pacers’ offer — perhaps to Ayton’s chagrin. He had already been looking forward to playing with promising point guard Tyrese Haliburton and rookie Benedict Mathurin, recently named the Pac-12 Conference Player of the Year. And he most certainly wasn’t happy that his employers refused to extend him a max contract, instead daring him to get one in free agency.

In view of the setback, the Pacers must now survey the scene prior to formulating their next steps. The same goes for Ayton, who now returns to an environment of fractured relationships. Make no mistake, though; they will recover and thrive. They know the game, and they’ve played it to the hilt.

 

Anthony L. Cuaycong has been writing Courtside since BusinessWorld introduced a Sports section in 1994. He is a consultant on strategic planning, operations and Human Resources management, corporate communications, and business development.

Microsoft Teams back up for some users after service disruption

Microsoft Corp’s Teams was back up for some users, the company said on Thursday, after an hours-long outage that disrupted the chat application for thousands of customers.

The Redmond, Washington-based company pinpointed a disruption “on a recent deployment that contained a broken connection to an internal storage service”, but did not disclose the number of users affected by the outage.

“We’re receiving many reports that users are able to access Microsoft Teams, and many functions are beginning to recover,” the company said.

MS Teams forms an integral part of daily operations for businesses as workers use the service to communicate internally, message each other, make calls, and organize their workflow.

There were more than 4,800 incidents of people who reported issues with MS Teams on Wednesday, said Downdetector.com, which tracks outages by collating status reports from sources including user-submitted errors on its platform.

Some 530 users are currently affected as of 12:15 AM ET, Downdetector said.

The web monitoring firm also showed earlier that there were more than 150 incidents of people reporting issues with Microsoft Office 365.

Microsoft tweeted it has identified downstream impact to multiple Microsoft 365 services with Teams integration, such as Microsoft Word, Office Online and SharePoint Online.

“We’ve taken action to reroute a portion of traffic to provide some relief within the environment,” it said.

Microsoft in its earnings call in January had said that MS Teams surpassed 270 million monthly active users, as demand for remote business-oriented teleconferencing and messaging tools soared and became a key fixture for organizations during the COVID-19 pandemic as people worked from homes.

Other big technology companies have also been hit by outages in the past year, with a near six-hour disruption at Meta Platforms META.O keeping WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger out of reach for billions of users last October. — Reuters

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