The UK showed its strength in Q3. Data out last week showed the economy grew 0.5% quarter-on-quarter, much greater than the 0.3% analysts expected. That's 2.3% growth year-on-year.
Not bad. Not bad at all.
Naturally, the government and its Greek chorus of pro-Brexit talking heads hailed this as yet more evidence that leaving the EU will not damage Britain.
They remind me of that perennial scene in the Road Runner cartoons, where Wile E. Coyote races over the edge of a cliff. For a brief moment, Coyote thinks he is soaring through the air. Only belatedly does he realise it's too late, the plunge is coming.That's where we are right now — waiting for the plunge.
This isn't an opinion. It's what the granular, forward-looking data is saying about the UK economy. The UK will leave the Single Market, it will face increased barriers to trade (after Brexit in 2019), and the pound is sinking. These things will weigh us down. We cannot defy gravity for long.
In the short-term, this GDP chart from HSBC makes Britain look really good right now:
But GDP is a backward-looking measure. It tells us what just happened, not where we might be going.
In terms of the future, here is the scariest chart published last week (which Prime Minister Theresa May, trade secretary Liam Fox, and Brexit chief David Davis are unlikely to be boasting about). It shows the volume change in mutual fund money leaving UK investments:
This is a forward-looking metric. Investors don't bet on what just happened (i.e. positive Q3 GDP). They're betting on the future. And the smart money is getting the hell out of Britain right now.
The data was collated by HSBC analysts Robert Parkes and Amit Shrivastava. This is what they told their clients:
"Post Brexit, international investors continue to head for the exit. Since the Brexit vote, holdings of the UK have fallen by more than 100 basis points. Relative to history (on a z-score basis), the UK is now the most out of favour region globally."
A big part of that is the falling pound. As Business Insider has noted before, the drop in sterling is bad in the long-run for Britain because it makes us all poorer, and it beggars anyone who keeps their money in the UK.
Ordinary consumers are starting to catch on to this, too. Consumer confidence actually dipped this month — a bad sign for the future — because of the declining buying power of the pound, according to GfK:
Why would consumer confidence dip if GDP is so good?
The answer is that while GDP was growing in Q3 the pace of that growth was slowing. That's what economies do before recessions.Barclays analysts Andrzej Szczepaniak and Fabrice Montagne told their clients, "Despite printing just above our forecast, it nonetheless confirms our overarching view that economic activity slowed post-referendum in light of rising post-exit uncertainty." Industrial production actually shrank by 0.4% quarter-on-quarter — a weird thing to happen given that UK exports ought to be cheap right now.
Here is what that shrinkage looks like in a chart, from HSBC's Elizabeth Martins:
Those downward-pointing lines at the far right should give you chills.
Most analysts had predicted the economy would start slowing dramatically in the second half of 2016. They were wrong, apparently.Martins admitted to her clients that the current data makes economists looks bad, as if they were backers of "Project Fear." The important thing, Martins says, is that while those economists may have got the timing wrong they have not changed their minds on its inevitability:
"In fact, despite the uncertainty, the UK looks to have seen faster growth than the Eurozone or the US in Q3. This affirms our view that the Bank of England will not cut rates next week, and poses upside risks to our 2016 growth forecast of 1.8%. It will also support the argument that economists overstated the impact of the vote as part of 'Project Fear'. Unfortunately, however, it does not change our view that a slowdown is coming. We expect investment to fall and consumption to slow next year as higher uncertainty and costs start to weigh on the UK economy. ..."
"For those who accused economists of subscribing to 'Project Fear', today's numbers will be viewed as a vindication. Indeed, our near-term pessimism does appear to have been premature."
"However, higher uncertainty and costs are already starting to weigh on businesses, and could start to hit the consumer too in the coming months. We expect investment to fall and consumption to slow next year."
That's where we are right now. The UK is the Wile E. Coyote of global economies. We're either soaring toward greatness, or we're treading on thin air.
The earthquakes that have buffeted central Italy over the last two months could continue in a devastating domino effect with one large quake leading to another along the central Apennine fault system, a leading seismologist warned on Sunday.
An earthquake measuring 6.6 according to the U.S. Geological Survey struck on Sunday in the same region where a 6.2 quake on Aug. 24 killed 297 people. In between there have been thousands of smaller tremors, including a 6.1 quake on Wednesday.
The latest earthquake caused no known casualties but was the strongest to hit Italy, one of the world's most seismically active countries, since 1980.
Gianluca Valensise, a seismologist at Italy's National Institute for Geophysics and Vulcanology, told Reuters there was a "geodynamic link" between the deadly August earthquake and all those that have followed.
Italy's Apennine mountains that run from the Liguria region in the northwest to the southern island of Sicily are dominated by a chain of faults in the earth's crust, each one averaging about 10-20 kilometers in length.
"An earthquake measuring 6 or larger creates stresses that are redistributed across adjacent faults and can cause them to rupture, and this is probably what we have seen since August," Valensise said.
"This process can continue indefinitely, with one big quake weakening a sister fault in a domino process that can cover hundreds of kilometers, in principle."
Valensise said Italy had seen something resembling the sequence of earthquakes in Calabria, in Italy's southern toe, in 1783 when there were five major quakes measuring 6.5 or larger in less than two months.
More recently, there were three quakes around Assisi in central Italy in 1997, the first one measuring 6.4 which killed 11 people, another the following day, and another around 20 days later with many smaller ones in between.
"That sequence was similar to what we are seeing now but this is on a larger scale," Valensise said.
The risk is that, with faults to the northwest and southeast of the central region most recently hit, "if the process of stress redistribution finds other faults close to rupture level they could go off in the next days or weeks", he said.."
One Texas mother not only won her office's Halloween costume contest, but also won over the Internet.
Alicia Williams' daughter Jessica posted photos of her mother's costume on Twitter. She captioned the photos, "My mom was a dead/frozen head in a freezer. She killed it!!"
Twitter seems to agree as the photos quickly went viral, racking up more than 14,000 retweets and nearly 30,000 likes.
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Williams, 46, told ABC News it only took her two days to create the elaborate costume that appears to be a stainless steel refrigerator.
"I tried to make the fridge look really real," she explained. "I copied the LG emblem and cut it out with foil ... and then I tried to make it stainless steel instead of white."
Williams added that she used two cardboard boxes and silver spray paint to create the refrigerator. Then she spray painted a third cardboard box white for the inside of the freezer. She used a mini-light with adhesive for the freezer light and used items from her own kitchen to complete the look.
Alicia Williams, of Irving, Texas, spent two days creating this gory costume that has gone viral on the internet.Jessica Williams
Alicia Williams, of Irving, Texas, spent two days creating this gory costume that has gone viral on the internet.more +
"I did it by myself ... and cut my finger," the Irving, Texas, woman admitted with a laugh. "I didn't want to waste this blood so I used it in the freezer."
The mother of three also had to transform her head so that it looked dead yet frozen. She used ice crystals made out of rock candy to glue on her head, and her daughter spray painted her hair silver.
At work, she won a $100 gift card but she also won over the Internet after her daughter, Jessica, shared the photos on Twitter unbeknownst to her.
"I said, 'What are you talking about? I thought you were showing everybody at work,'" Williams recalled of the conversation with her daughter once she realized she went viral. "I was like, 'Oh my gosh, Jessica!' I had no idea
Donald Trump initially offered the vice-presidential running-mate slot to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie but then withdrew it, sources said.
With a week to go before the GOP convention in July, Trump had not made his choice among Christie, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
Most of his Trump’s advisers — including then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Trump’s two eldest sons, Donald Jr. and Eric — and GOP leaders pressured Trump to pick Pence.
They argued that Pence would unify the party and appeal to evangelical Christians who had not supported Trump in the primary.But Trump was privately wavering and Christie saw an opening.
“Trump cares about who’s the most loyal and who kisses his a– the most, not who’s the most qualified and what’s the best political decision,” said a source close to the campaign. “If it was up to him, it would have been Christie.”
The two men had developed a close relationship. Whenever Christie visited Trump’s campaign headquarters, he’d spend most of his time in onetime Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski’s office, ignoring Manafort and other top aides, a source said.
Christie contacted Trump and made his final, impassioned appeal on July 12.
“Christie said he thinks he deserves it and he earned it,” a second Trump source said. Convinced, Trump made the offer.
Christie “said all the BS that Trump likes to hear, and Trump said, ‘Yeah, sure I’m giving it to you.’ ”
That didn’t sit well with Manafort, who had arranged for Trump to meet Pence in Indianapolis on July 13, and fly back together to New York the next day for a formal announcement.
After Trump tentatively decided on Christie, Manafort told Trump his plane had a mechanical problem, campaign sources said, forcing Trump to spend another night in the Hoosier State. Pence then made his case to be Trump’s No. 2 over dinner as Trump’s advisers argued that Christie’s Bridgegate troubles would sink the campaign.
“Trump had wanted Christie but Bridgegate would have been the biggest national story,” a third Trump source said. “He’d lose the advantage of not being corrupt.”
Trump agreed to name Pence the next day and broke the news to Christie, saying it would “tear my family apart if I gave you VP,” a source said.
Christie acknowledged to MSNBC that Trump’s decision bothered him. “If you’re a competitive person, like I am, and you’re used to winning, like I am — again, you don’t like coming in second, ever,” Christie said.
A Christie aide said it was “completely wrong” that Trump offered the job to the governor.
BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union and Canada signed Sunday a landmark trade pact, ending days of drama after a small Belgian region refused to endorse the agreement and deeply embarrassed the EU. The long-delayed Comprehensive and Economic Trade Agreement was bedeviled by yet another hold up overnight when Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's plane had to return to Ottawa because of mechanical issues.
"What patience," exclaimed European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker as he embraced the arriving Trudeau at EU headquarters in Brussels.
In a brief exchange together in French, Trudeau said "difficult things are difficult, but we were able to succeed." He declined to speak to reporters.Trudeau and Juncker signed the pact with European Council President Donald Tusk and Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, whose country holds the EU's rotating presidency.
On the other side of EU headquarters, a rowdy group of around 250 anti-CETA protesters gathered to block the front entrance as riot police watched. Red paint was smeared on the building. Some demonstrators had actually entered the foyer. Police took away 16 people, but did not break up the protest, spokeswoman Ilse Van de Keere said.
The EU needed unanimity among all its 28 members and Belgium needed the backing of all its regions to approve the pact. Trudeau had been due to sign CETA on Thursday, but was forced to cancel his flight when the country could not sign on because of opposition from the Wallonia region.
After several rounds of talks late into the night Belgium formally gave its endorsement on Saturday morning.
Smaller than the U.S. state of New Jersey, Wallonia region blocked the deal between more than 500 million EU citizens and 35 million Canadians for several weeks. Politicians there argued the deal would undermine labor, environment and consumer standards and allow multinationals to crush local companies.
The EU says CETA will remove more than 99 percent of tariffs and boost trade with Canada by 12 billion euros ($13.2 billion) a year, creating economic growth and jobs on both sides of the Atlantic. It insists the deal will not prevent governments from moving to protect environmental and social standards if they believe action is needed, despite concerns in Wallonia and elsewhere that big companies would have free rein.
"This is an important day for the EU and Canada too, because we setting international standards which will have to be followed by others with whom we are in negotiations as far as free trade is concerned," Juncker told reporters Sunday.
Work on the agreement was launched in 2009 and the text was actually finalized two years ago but sat in lim The delay has raised troubling questions about the EU's ability to seal big trade agreements. Work on a similar pact with the United States dubbed TTIP has barely advanced this year and little progress is likely before a new U.S. president takes office in January.
"There is no realism in concluding TTIP right now," EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem said Sunday, noting the U.S. election campaign.
None of it bodes well for the trade talks that Britain will need to have with its 27 EU partners once it leaves the bloc.
Blood and water can’t flow together,” declared a belligerent
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on September 26, 2016 in the wake
of 19 Indian soldiers dying in a militant attack on Uri military base,
just inside Indian-administered Kashmir. Holding Pakistan responsible
for the violence, Modi promised to unshackle India’s policy of
“restraint” — implying that India was now going to hurt Pakistan by
choking its water supply. For the people of Pakistan, a
nation dependent upon agriculture for its survival, the Indus rivers are
their lifeline. As it is, Pakistan is ranked second, after China, in
the Water Shortage Index, highlighting the vulnerability of the
Pakistani population to frequent water shortages. Modi’s proclamation
generated lots of nationalistic hyperbole in the two nuclear-armed twins
but also inflicted some damage: many on this side of the border are
perturbed about Modi making good on his threat and stopping water supply
to Pakistan.
Can Modi turn the taps off immediately?
Can Modi turn off the taps and choke Pakistan’s rivers?
The Indus Waters Treaty of 1960,
which governs water sharing arrangements between India and Pakistan,
outlines a framework for how either country can exploit water potential
and how they can’t. While the Indus Waters Treaty is upheld, India
cannot turn the taps off — in fact, it does not have the capacity at the
moment to do so either — but it can definitely delay the release of
water flows. And historically, India hasn’t been averse to using this
tactic when relations with Pakistan turn sour. This time has been no
different. In a story printed in the October 12 edition
of Dawn, irrigation department officials warned of a record reduction of
water levels at Head Marala in the Chenab. The fear is that water
shortage in the river and two of its canals, Marala-Ravi Link Canal and
Upper Chenab Canal, can adversely affect the sowing of crops
particularly in Sialkot, Gujrat, Gujranwala and Sheikhupura districts.
The situation has worsened at the time of this report going into print. The
cultivation cycle in the subcontinent is divided into two seasons:
khareef (monsoon) and rabi (winter). Khareef sowing starts in July or
even June while the sowing of rabi crops begins in September and
October, depending upon glacial melts and the amount of rains. The water
flows in the Indus system varies exponentially in different months. Up
to 90 per cent of flows can be accounted for during July to September.
For
rabi crops such as wheat, pulses, onions, tomatoes and potatoes, timing
is crucial. With October at an end, the record reduction of Chenab
water flows can translate into delayed rabi sowing, which in turn will
adversely impact produce for local consumption in the coming season and
lead to price inflation. In practical terms, consider
this: tomatoes are being sold in the market at 25 rupees per kilo today;
expect this price to rise manifold in the coming year. This is besides
the food and income insecurity that thousands of growers in Punjab and
Sindh will be pushed into.
A crisis is certainly brewing.
Beyond
hyperbole and nationalistic fervour, the two South Asian giants need to
be at the negotiating table. Normally a dispute like the one reported
by Dawn on October 12 could have been resolved at a meeting of the Indus
water commissioners, mandated by the Indus Waters Treaty to be held
once a year. But the Indian assertion that these meetings will resume
only once “an atmosphere free of terror is established” spells disaster
for our farmers. The only safeguard that the Indus Waters Treaty offered
Pakistan was through the Permanent Indus Commission whose meetings
India has been routinely flouting under one pretext or the other. If the
situation persists, Pakistan will have no option but to take the matter
through the cumbersome route of World Bank and international
arbitration. All through this period, India will enjoy undue
exploitation of water resources at the expense of the people of
Pakistan.
What can India not do?
Caught in
nationalistic fervour, hawks in the Indian media have been blaming
their previous governments for failing to exercise a water offensive
like the one PM Modi is intent on implementing. Indeed,
India can hypothetically terminate the Indus Waters Treaty and restrict
even the rivers flowing into Pakistan through the diversion of Indus
rivers waters. But when it comes to practice, this position remains
untenable. The waters of the Indus rivers flow through
deep gorges of the Karakoram and Himalayan mountains. The only way to
divert water from here is to tunnel through hundreds of kilometres of
the world’s highest and toughest mountains. Granted that
all technical problems have technical solutions. However such an
undertaking would be financially prohibitive, technically extremely
challenging, and with minimal cost-benefit ratios. The longest tunnel
dug in the world is the Gotthard Base Tunnel to facilitate rail travel.
Although it is being drilled for the last 22 years through the Swiss
Alps, it is merely 57 kilometres long and has already incurred an
estimated cost of 12 billion US dollars. For India to divert waters of
the western Indus basin rivers for meaningful use, it will have to dig
up to 300 kilometres of tunnels.As such, diverting the water going into western rivers which feed Pakistan is not a feasible option.
In
addition, India has remained part of the Non-Aligned Movement and
prides itself in having contributed towards drafting many international
conventions including the UN Convention on the Law of the
Non-navigational Uses of International Watercourses 1997, Helsinki Rules
1966 and their Berlin Revisions of 2004. Politically, an attempt to
scrap the Indus Waters Treaty would bring massive international
condemnation to India.
India’s planned infrastructure projects: how can they affect Pakistan?
While
India may not have the capacity to turn off the taps immediately or
divert the waters of the rivers flowing into Pakistan, it is undertaking
a number of projects that could have an adverse impact on Pakistan’s
water availability in the future. The Indus Waters Treaty
handed Pakistan the right to unrestricted use of the three western
rivers — Indus, Chenab and Jhelum. The eastern rivers — Sutlej, Beas and
Ravi — went to India. While the treaty allowed India to divert the
waters of the eastern rivers, it could only tap into 3.6 MAF of water
from the western rivers for irrigation, transport and power generation. Experts
at the Indus River System Authority (IRSA) complain that India has been
constructing huge water storages on all six Indus basin rivers, not
just on the three under its full control. For example, Baglihar and
Salal on Chenab are already generating 450 MW/h and 690 MW/h
respectively while the planned Bursar and Pakal hydroelectric projects
also on the Chenab will produce 1020MW and 1000 MW/h respectively. The
size of the energy outputs is an indication of the size of the projects.
Pakistan’s Mangla, for comparison, generates 1000MW/h.
In
all, India is in different phases of planning or construction of some
60 storages of varying capacity over the six Indus rivers, though
analysis of satellite imagery obtained by Dawn suggests the number may
be more [see map]. Technical experts in Pakistan worry that such
storages will provide India ultimate strategic leverage of increasing or
decreasing river flows during tensions between the two countries, even
if it cannot legally divert the waters for its own use. Sheraz
Memon, additional commissioner of the Indus Water Commission, argues
that India does not have sufficient capacity to withhold the water of
the western rivers nor it can divert them. “But they may keep the
implementation of the treaty at a snail’s pace, for example through
delaying the meetings of the Permanent Indus Commission and not
providing data or information about their new hydroelectric plants,” he
warns. There is also talk of expediting the construction
of the Pakal Dul, Sawalkot, and Bursar dams, also in Jammu and Kashmir.
Indian media reports claim that the Indian government might also resume
work on the Tulbul Navigational Project — also known as Wullar Barrage —
work on which began in 1985 but stopped soon after Pakistan lodged a
formal complaint against its construction. Pakistan opposed the project
at the time since it would have allowed India to store, control and
divert River Jhelum, which was a clear violation of the Indus Waters
Treaty. If completed, Tulbul will adversely affect the water storage
potential of Mangla Dam.
During
1956, Pakistani negotiators were warned by their irrigation officials
and technical experts not to accede to Indian delegation chief ND
Gulhati’s demand — also supported by the World Bank — to allow India to
build small storages over the western rivers.
Until the
signing of the treaty, the Indian predicament was that while Customary
International Law and conventions gave them a legitimate right over 33
MAF or 21 percent of the six Indus rivers water — corresponding to 21
per cent of the Indus basin being in Indian territory — India had little
room to utilise this water within the basin. The Indus Waters Treaty
gave them an opportunity to divert water towards Rajasthan for
irrigating over 700,000 acres of land which was previously bare sand
dunes.
Before the Treaty, the waters of the Ravi, Beas
and Sutlej were utilised for the cultivation of lands as far south as
Bahawalpur State. Suddenly there was no water for thousands of farmers
on this side of the border until Tarbela Dam was finally opened in 1976.
But
Pakistani negotiators at the time acquiesced, on the pretext that this
shared water would also benefit their Muslim brethren in Kashmir.
Pakistani negotiators did not even bother to specify the size of the
so-called small storages but agreed to India officially withdrawing up
to 3.6 MAF of water for local use. In comparison, the current storage
capacity of Mangla Dam, after expansion, is about 7.4 MAF.
Given
the pliancy of Pakistani negotiators at the time, the Indus Waters
Treaty emerged as a treatise that was skewed in favour of India. Perhaps
it is for this reason that PM Modi announced that while India will not
review or abrogate the Indus Waters Treaty, it will exploit water under
its share to the fullest. It will, for example, build more
run-of-the-river hydropower projects on the western rivers and irrigate
over 400,000 acres in Jammu and Kashmir.
One thing seems
certain: India will continue to build additional storages on the Indus
rivers to store more than its allowed quota of up to 3.6 MAF of water.
This will also provide hawks the option of delaying khareef crops in
Pakistan from time to time. If the winters’ torment is harsh, delay in
summers sowing would be a national crisis.
Looking within: what Pakistan needs to do
There
is a real danger that current Indian antics will push Pakistan towards
construction of very large dams at Diamer and Kalabagh, displacing more
people and adversely impacting our environment which is already in a
poor state.
“India is employing pressure tactics on Pakistan by
announcing it will speed up dam construction,” argues Dr Pervaiz Amir,
director of the Pakistan Water Partnership. “Pakistan must address its
own internal water security and create sufficient storage. India has 200
projects in hand. Saving water is a planned response by India, and
Pakistan should follow suit.”
But increasing storage
capacity is not the same as storage capacity from large dams, which in
any case is not the panacea that it is made out to be.
During
the last 69 years, Pakistan has developed three major water storages at
Tarbela, Mangla and Chashma with a cumulative storage capacity of 12.1
MAF against average water flows of 133 MAF annually through the three
Indus rivers. There have been little or no independent studies to either
assess or address the issues of resettlement, the massive loss to the
environment and overall economic cost due to construction of large dams.
In addition, issues of climate change —which have only recently come to
the fore — raise questions about the risks posed to and by large dams.
Freak weather conditions, such as unusually intense cloudbursts, are
becoming more common and have already resulted in threats to people
living downstream of large dams.
To add insult to injury, we have been ruthlessly pumping out
underground water through tubewells. Such pumping is severely affecting
the underground water levels in the country and often being replaced by
saline water, adversely affecting agricultural output. The number of
tubewells in Pakistan has risen from 2,400 to over 600,000 since 1960.
While
we could continue to curse the World Bank bureaucracy, American
interests in the region and Indian cunning for having deprived the
country of its water share, we must also look at our own wasteful
attitudes towards utilisation of available water resources as well as
the politics around available water.
Pakistan loses
almost half of its existing available water through seepage in the
irrigation system [see table]. This is a prime cause of waterlogging and
salinity which are turning large areas of fertile land barren. Surely
lining of water canals and water courses should be the first priority in
saving the water we have at our disposal, rather than the construction
of large dams.According to WAPDA’s published figures, average cereal
production in Pakistan against a metre cube of water is mere 0.13 kg. In
India, the same amount of water yields 0.39 kg, yield in China is
estimated at 0.82 kg, in the US 1.56 kg and in Canada 8.2 kg [see
table]. Clearly better management of water resources, efficient crop
yields and serious efforts towards population control will be much more
advantageous than building additional dams and storages that will
ultimately result in catastrophic environmental issues and human
resettlement crises as being faced in India and China.
The
issue of water supply does not simply concern the two nuclear-armed
neighbours. Tahir Rasheed, CEO of the South Punjab Forest Company (SPFC)
and a senior environmentalist, warns that if the Indo-Pak water crisis
spirals out of control, the friction can engulf other countries of the
region as well, especially Afghanistan.
“Afghanistan is
[currently] utilising 1.8 MAF of water [from the Kabul River which feeds
into the Indus], which is estimated to rise to 3.6 MAF in the future,”
says Rasheed. “Pakistan currently does not have any water sharing accord
with its northwestern neighbor. But the projected increase of water use
by Afghanistan can affect the lower riparian, Pakistan.”
In conclusion
The
Indus Waters Commissioners of Pakistan and India have met every year
since the Indus Waters Treaty came into force. The wars of 1965 and
1971, the Siachen and Kargil conflicts and the Mumbai attacks weren’t
able to dent it. In standing the test of time, the treaty has shown that
it generates the least conflict and more cooperation between the South
Asian neighbours. The chances of India scrapping the treaty altogether and
diverting the western rivers are negligible to none. But one must not
put past India its flouting the spirit of the treaty and manipulating
water flows to turn the screws on Pakistan.
Pakistan’s
response, however, should not be as cavalier as when it negotiated the
treaty, ignoring sound technical advice and short-changing itself in the
bargain. It needs to put its own house in order on an urgent basis — by
better utilising its existing water resources. Pakistan’s protestations
against India’s perfidy will then carry far more weight.
