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मंगलवार, 18 जुलाई 2023

Britain’s Most Famous Landlord, the King, Made $34 Million From Rising Rents.

Britain’s Most Famous Landlord, the King, Made $34 Million From Rising Rents

Rents are rising across Britain, and the nation’s most famous landlord was no exception. He received about $34 million from his real estate portfolio.

King Charles and Queen Camilla on the balcony at Buckingham Palace on the day of the king’s coronation, in May.Credit...Andrew Testa for The New York Times

The king and queen of the United Kingdom, wearing their crowns, wave from a balcony festooned in red and gold.

By Jane Bradley

Reporting from London

July 18, 2023

Rents in the United Kingdom are rising at a record pace, a trend that helped the nation’s most famous landlord, King Charles III, make a big payday.

Charles received 26.2 million pounds, or about $34.3 million, this year from his vast property empire, known as the Duchy of Lancaster. Charles inherited the estate when his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, died last fall.

The 45,000-acre estate is roughly the size of Washington D.C. and generates millions of dollars a year in rental income, without paying corporation taxes like most businesses in Britain are obliged to. (Charles voluntarily pays an undisclosed amount of tax on his private income).

Two men in suits talk outside a fenced-off construction site. — King Charles III visits a Duchy of Cornwall Poundbury development in Poundbury, in June.Credit...Pool photo by Chris Jackson

The Duchy recently published its first records since Charles took the throne. They show that he has weathered the financial woes faced by his nation, raking in a bigger private income than his mother ever did.

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Those profits came in part thanks to increased rents on tenants living on royal land. The Duchy also saw increased earnings from commercial properties. The accounts give an early insight into how, as king, Charles is running his financial empire.

How much did he make? And what’s a duchy?

A duchy is a territory traditionally governed by a duke or duchess. The Duchy of Lancaster is a $1 billion real estate portfolio tasked with making money for whoever holds the throne. The monarch uses these funds to support the extended royal family.

Charles’s private income from the Duchy was £26.2 million, about £2 million more than his mother last made. Charles has fewer family members to support than his mother did.

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This money is separate from the annual £86 million (around $112 million) taxpayer-funded Sovereign Grant, which pays for most official royal expenses.

So, the duchy raised rents?

Yes. Records show that the Duchy raised rents by 3 percent over the last fiscal year, which is just below the pace of private rental increases that have contributed to a cost-of-living crisis.

Private rents are increasing at their fastest rate on record across the United Kingdom, though the official figures only go back to 2016. The Duchy’s rent hikes accounted for an extra £8.2 million for the royal coffers. The Duchy said that “refurbishment and restoration” had led to “improved rental values.”

Of course, Charles is not a typical landlord. He does not rely on rental income to pay his home mortgage or household bills.

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What does this tell us about Charles?

Charles ascended to the throne at a time when millions of British residents cannot afford their living expenses. Standards of living are falling as wages fail to keep pace with rising housing and food costs.

The king appeared to be sharply aware of this when, after his mother’s passing, royal sources began telling the British media that Charles envisioned a “slimmed-down monarchy.”

The latest Duchy of Lancaster figures show no notable signs of cost-cutting in Charles’ private estate. Operating costs increased 40 percent as the Duchy hired more staff and gave its chief executive a pay rise to £275,000.

This is in keeping with the ambitious business-focused strategy he had as prince, when he ran the Duchy of Cornwall, a separate real estate portfolio now handed to his son William.

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A British village, amid rolling countryside, is seen from the air. — Aerial view of Poundbury village, part of the Duchy of Cornwall.Credit...Finnbarr Webster/Getty Images

Charles brought two executives from the Duchy of Cornwall along with him after he inherited his mother’s estate. Several senior money-managers who worked with Charles during his time at the Duchy of Cornwall told The New York Times that Charles opposed outsourcing and preferred to keep the estate in the hands of a trusted group of insiders.

Some of the changes to the Duchy of Lancaster have been planned for as long as a decade, said Paul Clarke, who served as the Duchy’s chief executive for almost 13 years until 2013.

Royal observers have noted for years that Charles was unlikely to shift his business-driven strategy as king.

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“Will the longest standing royal heir in British history really want to downsize his inheritance when he at last gains the crown?” the historian and royal commentator David McClure wrote in his book, “The Queen’s True Worth.”

How important is the Duchy?

The Duchies are the main sources of private income for the royal family. But they represent a small fraction of the family’s estimated $28 billion fortune, which includes the monarch’s closely-guarded personal wealth, real estate assets under the Crown Estate, the Sovereign Grant from the government, and Buckingham and Kensington palaces.

The royal family has long fought to keep its wealth a secret. Some historians have described the family as more secretive than the intelligence services.

A man in a suit sits at a table, hands clasped in front of him. — Paul Clarke, the former chief executive of the Duchy of Lancaster, responds to the House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts, which met senior officials of the two bodies generating private income for Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II and the Prince of Wales, in 2005.Credit...PA Images, via Getty Images

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Mr. Clarke, the former Duchy chief executive, described his hiring process as a “cat and mouse” game, where he had to sign a nondisclosure agreement to even discuss the job and wasn’t told who he might be working for.

Newton Investment Management and Stanhope Capital manage most of the duchy’s financial investments, which are kept closely guarded. Two former partners told The New York Times that the Duchy placed no restrictions on investments — just “give me a good return,” one said. Charles, though, did discourage environmentally unfriendly moves such as investing directly in oil companies.

Royals do not have to explain how they spend the private income they take from the duchies. When Charles was 4, for example, he began receiving £209,000 (in today’s value) from his estate. In a letter to civil servants, the Duchy of Cornwall only said the money was for his “maintenance and education.”

A correction was made on

July 18, 2023

An earlier version of this article misstated the dollar equivalent for the annual £86 million taxpayer-funded Sovereign Grant. It is about $112 million, not $112 billion.

When we learn of a mistake, we acknowledge it with a correction. If you spot an error, please let us know at nytnews@nytimes.com.Learn more

Jane Bradley is an investigative reporter covering the United Kingdom for The Times. She is based in London, where she focuses on uncovering abuses of power, financial crime and corruption, and social injustices. More about Jane Bradley

A version of this article appears in print on July 19, 2023, Section A, Page 11 of the New York edition with the headline: As Landlord In Past Year, King Charles Raked It In. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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What is the Joint Security Area between North and South Korea?

A South Korean soldier (R) and UNC (United Nations Command) soldier (background, in green) stand guard near the military demarcation line separating North and South Korea at the DMZ

A US soldier who has been detained in North Korea reportedly entered the country during a tour of the JSA

US soldier detained by North Korea after crossing border during visit to DMZ

A US soldier was detained by North Korea on Tuesday after he crossed into the country “wilfully and without authorisation”, according to a US official.

The soldier, Private 2nd Class Travis King, crossed the military demarcation line that separates the two countries while on a tour of the Joint Security Area (JSA) between North and South Korea. He is the first American detained in North Korea in five years.

What is the Joint Security Area?

Also known as Panmunjom or the “peace” or “truce” village, the JSA is a section on the 250km-long Demilitarized Zone separating North and South Korea.

A South Korean soldier stands guard inside a military post near the border with North Korea

In 1948, when the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) and the Republic of Korea (South Korea) were created, the DMZ marked the border between the two countries. In 1950, North Korea invaded South Korea, starting the Korean war, which ended in an armistice in 1953, signed at the JSA, at which point the DMZ became a 2km-wide buffer zone. The DMZ is lined on both sides with razor wire, heavy armaments and tank traps.

A North Korean soldier stands guard on the North Korean side of the Joint Security Area in the demilitarised Zone (DMZ). — A North Korean soldier stands guard on the North Korean side of the Joint Security Area in the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ). Photograph: Carl Court/Getty Images

The peace village is made up of bright United Nations-blue buildings, bisected by a military demarcation line. The two Koreas have their own liaison offices and conference halls in the JSA and troops from each country face each other across the military demarcation line, but despite working in close quarters, communication is often strained.

During periods of high tensions phone hotlines often go unanswered, forcing US or South Korean officials to try to shout across the border.

For years, both sides also blared propaganda broadcasts over the DMZ into each other’s territory. The broadcasts ended after a 2018 military agreement.

The JSA is overseen by North Korea and the UN Command, a multinational military force established during the Korean war.

In 2018, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and South Korean president Moon Jae-in met on the north and south sides of Panmunjom. In 2019, US president Donald Trump became the first incumbent president to enter North Korea, when he travelled to the JSA, crossed the military demarcation line on foot and shook hands with Kim.

Kim Jong-un meets Donald Trump in the Joint Security Area Photograph: KCNA/KNS/AFP/Getty Images

Can you visit the JSA?

Under a 1953 deal, the UN Command and the North Korean military were allowed to send no more than 35 troops to the JSA, and each of them can only possess one pistol or non-automatic rifle. But the number of soldiers and weapons increased as relations worsened. No civilians live in the JSA.

Vast stretches of the DMZ have been no man’s land for more than 60 years, where wildlife has flourished undisturbed. Other parts of it offer an unsettling mix of military installations and tourist attractions.

Multiple companies offer tourists visiting South Korea the chance to visit the JSA. Lonely Planet describes it as “unquestionably the highlight of any trip to the DMZ” during which, “You’ll be taken inside the meeting room – where the 1953 truce was signed – the only place where you can safely walk into North Korea”.

North Korean soldiers (C) take photos towards a South Korean soldier (L) and a US soldier (R) standing before the military demarcation line separating North and South Korea. — North Korean soldiers (C) take photos of a South Korean soldier (L) and a US soldier (R) standing before the military demarcation line separating North and South Korea. Photograph: Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images

It was while on one of these tours that US soldier Travis King crossed the border. The Donga and Chosun Ilbo newspapers cited South Korean army sources who claimed the man was with a group of visitors, including civilians, to the Panmunjom truce village “when he suddenly bolted over the brick line marking the border”.

The DMZ is littered with landmines planted over the decades, as many as 970,000 in the southern part alone, according to Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor, a Geneva-based civic group.

Why did the US soldier cross the military demarcation line?

That remains unclear. King had served nearly two months in a South Korean prison for assault. He was released and was meant to travel home to Fort Bliss, Texas, where he faced further disciplinary action. After being escorted to the airport, he left and joined a tour to the JSA.

The US is working with North Korea to “resolve this incident”, said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. The detention comes amid heightened tensions between the US and North Korea over Pyongyang’s increasing nuclear capabilities.

How 'climate lockdowns' became the new battleground for conspiracy-driven protest movement.

Protesters radicalized by their opposition to Covid-19 lockdowns have a new target: anti-traffic measures.

A demonstrator holds a placard at a rally against the expansion of the Ultra Low Emission Zone in London in June. Henry Nicholls / AFP via Getty Images

July 2, 2023, 2:46 PM IST

By Patrick Smith

LONDON — According to committed conspiracy theorist and climate change skeptic Linda Skinner, the Covid-19 pandemic was just the start of the global elite’s effort to oppress the world.

What’s the shadowy cabal’s next goal? Take away your car, the Londoner said.

While there is no evidence such a plan exists, Skinner is part of a growing group that evolved out of anti-vaccine protests and has energized a campaign against environmental measures across Britain and elsewhere. Many of these fears are generalized into opposition to “15-minute cities,” an urban planning idea designed to reduce traffic and increase walking and cycling that has become an obsession of the post-pandemic protest movement.

“This is only the beginning,” said Skinner, 64, who works at a jewelers and believes Covid was developed and released by a shadowy and powerful group “as a trial to see how compliant people would be.”

The April demonstration was a protest against Mayor Sadiq Khan’s plan to charge people if they drove older, more polluting cars anywhere in the Greater London area.

Drivers already have to pay £12.50 ($15.50) to drive high-polluting vehicles, typically older diesel cars, in central boroughs, and beginning in August this will apply to all of Greater London, a huge geographic area.

It isn’t only about cars.

For a generation of anti-government protesters radicalized by their opposition to pandemic lockdowns, the latest protest movement is about what they claim are powerful global elites' efforts to control, divide and even dramatically reduce the world’s population.

These unfounded ideas are spilling over into the wider society.

Protest against ULEZ Zone extension and Low Traffic Neighbourhoods — A protester holding a sign with “liar” branded across London Mayor Sadiq Khan's face at Trafalgar Square in London on April 15.Martin Pope / Getty Images

Almost a third of people who took part in a recent poll by King’s College London and the BBC said it was either “definitely” or “probably” true that “15-minute city plans are a government attempt to surveil people and restrict freedoms.”

Experts increasingly see Covid and the resulting lockdowns, vaccines and restrictions as a watershed moment for conspiracy-driven anti-authority activists.

“If you look at the individuals that are complaining, spreading misinformation and legitimizing conspiracy theories about 15-minute cities, they’re often the exact same cohort of individuals that spread misinformation about Covid and often it’s the same language,” Tim Caulfield, an expert in misinformation at Alberta University in Canada, said.

While these conspiracy theories become commonplace — whether being repeated by Fox News pundits, Dutch farmers, British lawmakers or Austrian nationalists — Caulfield warns that they are still extreme and outlandish.

“One of the remarkable things is the normalization of hardcore conspiracy theories. This isn’t like conspiracy theory-light, it’s a hardcore conspiracy theory,” he said.

As the world grapples with rising temperatures and climate migration, more and more groups suspicious of the government’s motives will resist ecological measures and how they affect their lives, he warned.

'Tyrannical control'

In November, Duncan Enright, head of transport at Oxfordshire County Council, which covers an affluent and mostly rural part of southern England, suggested a pilot scheme to reduce traffic on six congested roads running across the city of Oxford. The traffic filter plans spearheaded by Enright were aimed at encouraging drivers to use the ring road to get around the city rather than cut across it.

Weeks later, Enright said he was receiving death threats, mostly through social media but also in emails and telephone calls — a target of activists who say green measures are nothing more than an instrument of a malign state and its secret backers. Enright was accused of answering to a cabal of globalist elites to subjugate the population and trap it in its neighborhoods.

“People turned up to a couple of our meetings and were talking about things which were nothing to do with this at all — describing why climate change didn’t exist. Very odd and quite alarming.”

The language used by some opposed to 15-minute cities can be extreme and even violent.

Nigel Farage, the far-right populist and former leader of the Brexit Party who unsuccessfully ran for Parliament seven times, said on Twitter last week: “Mark my words, this isn’t going to end with 20 mph zones and low traffic neighborhoods, no no, this is the beginning of climate lockdowns.”

BRITAIN-POLITICS-REFORM UK — Nigel Farage, a former leader of the U.K. Independence Party and a key figure in the Brexit movement, in London in March. He has warned that "climate lockdowns" are about to be imposed by governments. Daniel Leal / AFP via Getty Images

At a protest in Oxford on Feb. 18, one placard said “THE 15-MINUTE WEF GHETTOS ARE NOT ABOUT CLIMATE. IT’S ABOUT TYRANICAL CONTROL.” Others went further and said the plan was comparable to Nazi “concentration camps’’ and the Warsaw Ghetto, which at its height 80 years ago housed 460,000 Polish Jews.

“A couple of people in my local town were making fun of me saying, you know, ‘Where’s your security detail?’ So it’s not at all a local thing, it’s using things that I’ve never really heard of. I’ve only really come across the World Economic Forum on the telly,” Enright said.

The traffic filter pilot was approved in October and there are no plans to halt the scheme.

A pyramid of priorities

The inventor of the 15-minute city concept has become a hate figure for those who rail against urban change in the name of environmentalism.

“It’s amazing to switch from being a researcher at a university to being a public enemy of the global movement of conspiracy theorists,” said Carlos Moreno, an associate professor at the IAE Paris Sorbonne Business School in Paris.

“It is the same people who are climate deniers, who thought Covid-19 was a biological weapon, [that] the vaccine was a way to introduce 5G into the body of people — they are manipulating the 15-minute concept [into] an open-air jail,” he told NBC News.

Around 2016, Moreno developed the idea that communities should be structured around people — not cars — and that everything someone might need during the day — from shops to schools, workplaces to doctors’ surgeries — should be within a 15-minute drive or cycle.

Modern cities have, he argues, given up far too much space to motorists.

Originally from Colombia, Moreno’s concept has been embraced by cities all over the world, including his adopted city of Paris, where Mayor Anne Hidalgo made reworking local areas to give priority to cyclists and pedestrians a pledge in her successful electoral campaign last year.

Rental e-scooter scooters t be banned to ensure Road safety in Paris, France - 7 Apr 2023 — Cyclists and pedestrians in Paris in April. The city's mayor, Anne Hidalgo, is a vocal advocate of the 15-minute-city urban planning concept.Hesther Ng / Sipa USA via AP

Moreno suggests a “pyramid of priorities” that put pedestrians in first place, followed by bicycles, public transport, electric cars full of passengers, taxis and regular private cars — in that order.

“No one is saying we need to control people, in fact it’s the opposite: This is a humanistic concept to allow more local services, more open spaces, more social interactions, a better local economy. This is not arduous,” he said.

Jonathan Tilt is a prominent anti-lockdown campaigner from West Yorkshire in northern England. Like so many, his political awakening was the pandemic, which he believes is connected to a concerted global effort to control and eventually depopulate the world.

“It will be sort of Soviet-style housing estates where you have to apply for permits to leave your house if you’re deemed as being essential in some way or other,” he said.

But crucially, whereas campaigning against Covid lockdowns was difficult during a time of national emergency, convincing people that the government wants to take away their cars is a much easier sell.

His group, Vote Freedom, said it supported more than 300 candidates at the local council elections across England on May 4, all of whom campaigned against 15-minute cities.

“Having stood [for election] campaigning against vaccines, campaigning on 15-minute cities is like a gift. This was like Christmas coming almost,” he said.

Patrick Smith

Patrick Smith is a London-based editor and reporter for NBC News Digital.

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मंगलवार, 18 जुलाई 2023

Britain’s Most Famous Landlord, the King, Made $34 Million From Rising Rents.

How much did he make? And what’s a duchy?