LONDON (AP) — A children's book written by British celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has been withdrawn from sale after it was criticized for causing offense to Indigenous Australians.
The Guardian newspaper reported Saturday that the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Corporation blasted “Billy And The Epic Escape,” which was published earlier this year, for employing a series of tropes and stereotypes about Indigenous Australians, including their relationships with the natural and spiritual worlds.
The group criticized one of the fantasy novel's subplots, which tells the story of an Indigenous girl living in foster care, for contributing to the “erasure, trivialisation, and stereotyping of First Nations peoples and experiences."
In a statement, Oliver, 49, said he was “devastated” to have caused offense and apologized “wholeheartedly.”
“It was never my intention to misinterpret this deeply painful issue," he said. "Together with my publishers we have decided to withdraw the book from sale.”
Indigenous campaigners were particularly aghast that neither Oliver nor his publishers, Penguin Random House, had consulted with them before the novel was published.
“It is clear that our publishing standards fell short on this occasion, and we must learn from that and take decisive action,” the publisher said. "With that in mind, we have agreed with our author, Jamie Oliver, that we will be withdrawing the book from sale.”
Oliver, who is in Australia promoting his latest recipe book, is among a long list of celebrities to have put their names to children's books, a trend that has been criticized by many children's authors, who say they are being crowded out of their market.
Oliver released his first children’s book, “Billy And The Giant Adventure,” last year and said in a social media post that he had “carefully chosen the font to make sure the text is as clear as possible” as dyslexic people like himself can find it hard to read.
Oliver, who rose to fame in 1999 with his book and television show “The Naked Chef,” has long campaigned on children’s food and nutrition and caused a furor in 2005 when he hit out at the nutritional content of some school dinners in the U.K.
FILE - British chef Jamie Oliver attends a panel session during the 47th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, WEF, in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 18, 2017. (Laurent Gillieron/Keystone via AP, file)
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Eight members of the OPEC+ alliance of oil exporting countries decided Thursday to put off increasing oil production as they face weaker than expected demand and competing production from non-allied countries — factors that could keep oil prices stagnant into next year.
The OPEC+ members decided at an online meeting to postpone by three months production increases that had been scheduled to take effect Jan. 1. The plan had been to start gradually restoring 2.2 million barrels per day over the course of 2025. That process will now be pushed back until October 2026.
OPEC+, which includes Saudi Arabia as the dominant member of the OPEC producers’ cartel, and Russia as the leading non-OPEC member in the 22-country alliance, have imposed several sets of cuts to agreed output to support prices.
Oil prices have been slack due to weaker than expected demand from China as well as increased production from countries like Brazil and Argentina that aren’t in OPEC+.
Among the beneficiaries of the current state of the oil market are U.S. motorists, who have seen gasoline prices fall to their lowest in 2 1/2 years to near $3 a gallon.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Members of the OPEC + alliance of oil exporting countries will decide Thursday whether to put off plans to pump more crude amid sluggish demand and competing production from non-allied countries -- factors that could keep oil prices stagnant into next year.
Key beneficiaries of that would be U.S. motorists, who have seen gasoline prices fall to their lowest in 2 1/2 years to near $3 a gallon.
OPEC+, which includes Saudi Arabia as the dominant member of the OPEC producers' cartel, and Russia as the leading non-OPEC member in the 22-country alliance, is holding an online meeting over whether to put off production increases that are scheduled to take effect Jan. 1.
Eight OPEC+ members planned to start increasing production from Jan. 1 by gradually restoring 2.2 million barrels per day in previous production cuts. Analysts now say the group could postpone production increases for another three months as it monitors demand.
Oil prices have been slack due to weaker than expected demand from China as well as increased production from countries like Brazil and Argentina that aren't in OPEC+. Oil analysts have been busy reducing their estimates for demand for next year, meaning that OPEC+ could remain in a bind well into 2025.
The Saudis need oil revenue to carry out Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman’s ambitious plans to diversify his country’s economy, including the development of Neom, a $500 billion futuristic city in the desert. For Russia, oil export revenues are a key pillar of state finances and funding for the war against Ukraine. Holding back production risks losing market share. Yet increasing production and sales could lower prices in a global economy that analysts say is already well supplied with oil.
U.S. oil has been stuck around $70 per barrel and traded at $68.92 on Thursday ahead of the meeting, down from $80 in August. International benchmark Brent crude traded at $72.66 per barrel, down from around $80 in July.
One result of those slack prices is that U.S. average pump prices for gasoline fell to $3.03 a gallon this week, the lowest since May, 2021 and well down from their record peak of $5.02 from June, 2022, according to motoring club AAA.
Thirty-one U.S. states now have average gas prices below $3 a gallon.
U.S. oil price levels of $70 or less “are great for consumers,” said AAA spokesman Andrew Gross. Crude oil makes up about half the price of a gallon of gasoline, making crude the key factor on top of distribution costs and taxes. Motorists in Europe see far smaller fluctuations because taxes make up a much bigger chunk of the cost.
OPEC has cut its forecast for 2025 demand growth to 1.54 million barrels per day, from 1.85 million barrels per day in July. That is at the high end of estimates compared to those from the International Energy Agency at 990,000 barrels per day, U.S. Energy Information Administration at 1.22 million and energy intelligence firm Rystad Energy at 1.1 million.
Analysts at Commerzbank foresee Brent prices averaging $75 per barrel in the first quarter of next year and $80 for the remaining three quarters.
In the United States, Donald Trump’s return to the White House will likely lead to more fossil fuel production. Not only has the President-elect campaigned on more drilling, but his Treasury secretary nominee Scott Bessent has put together an economic plan with the goal of increasing domestic oil production by the equivalent of 3 million barrels a day. Bessent has indicated that the additional oil production would reduce inflationary pressures for U.S. consumers. But the Trump team has not fully outlined why oil producers would ramp up supplies and lower prices to levels that could hurt their profits.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is an intergovernmental organization founded in 1960, by Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. It has since expanded to 12 member countries. In 2016, largely in response to dramatically falling oil prices due to U.S. shale oil output, OPEC signed an agreement with 10 other oil-producing countries to create OPEC+.
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Josh Boak contributed from Washington DC.
This version corrects that the number of countries in the OPEC+ alliance is 22, not 23.
FILE -The logo of the Organization of the Petroleoum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is seen outside of OPEC's headquarters in Vienna, Austria, March 3, 2022. A street sign that says „one way" is positioned below the logo. (AP Photo/Lisa Leutner, File)
