Politics & History - GLOBAL NEWS

THE DISEASE OF CORRUPTION ,CAUSES POVERTY NARRATIVE HAS BECOME SO HEGEMONIC THAT IT HAS OFTEN MARGINALIZED POLICY ISSUES FROM POLITICAL DISCOURSE AS THE MERE PRESENCE OF CORRUPTION CAN LEAD TO NEGATIVE PUBLIC PERCEPTION.

Fri, 07 Jun 2019 15:53:00 +0000

Corruption has been described as a disease. Corruption erodes the credibility of government and weakens the moral bonds pm which democratic governance rests. That is why it must be denounced and corrupt officials must be resolutely prosecuted. But corruption is not the main cause of poverty, and challenge of poverty will not be met by the “anti poverty, anti-corruption” crusades that so enamor the middle classes and the World Bank. Bad economic policies create and entrench poverty, and unless the policies of structural adjustment, trade liberalization, and conservative macroeconomic management are reversed, there is no escaping the poverty trap.When corruption infiltrates global health, it can be particularly devastating, threatening hard gained improvements in human and economic development, international security, and population health. Yet, the multifaceted and complex nature of global health corruption makes it extremely difficult to tackle, despite its enormous costs, which have been estimated in the billions of dollars. In this forum article, we asked anti-corruption experts to identify key priority areas that urgently need global attention in order to advance the fight against global health corruption. The views shared by this multidisciplinary group of contributors reveal several fundamental challenges and allow us to explore potential solutions to address the unique risks posed by health-related corruption.Corruption ,when it comes to governments, the effects of corruption can be devastating for the world’s poorest. It’s harmful for the rule of law and governance, taking away much-needed money that could be spent on more health clinics, better schools, and new roads. It’s also bad for business and even leads to political instability.Over the last decade, Africa has experienced spectacular levels of economic growth and marked increases in financial flows. However, developing countries can only achieve equitable and inclusive growth, provide good public services, and help lift their citizens out of poverty if they are able to make the most of their resources. This includes mobilising domestic resources, primarily tax revenues from citizens and private companies, including natural resource revenues in many developing countries, as well as maximising the impact of aid from donor governments and other organisations. Yet in most developing countries there is far too little information available about these revenue streams, about how governments spend their resources, and about what results they achieve. In many cases, it’s impossible to ‘follow the money’ – limiting people’s ability to hold governments and companies to account for their actions, to keep corruption in check, and to fight poverty.Improved transparency of revenue streams will shine a light on what resources are available for investing in development, how they are spent, and the results that are achieved, to help ensure resources are invested effectively for development – in better health services, more productive agriculture, higher quality education, and improved infrastructure.Budgets: One of the first steps to following the money is ensuring that government budgets are available for scrutiny so that citizens and civil society organisations can hold leaders to account for the effective use of public funds. According to the International Budget Partnership’s 2017 Open Budget Index, only one African country – South Africa – publishes sufficient budget information to allow citizens to effectively monitor government spending, and 30 African countries provide little or no budget data at all.

Argentina's former Vice-President Amado Boudou has been sentenced to five years and 10 months in jail for corruption.The charges related to his attempt to buy a money-printing company through a front business.Boudou was in power during the administration of former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.

Corruption is a constant in the society and occurs in all civilizations; however, it has only been in the past 20 years that this phenomenon has begun being seriously explored. It has many different shapes as well as many various effects, both on the economy and the society at large. Among the most common causes of corruption are the political and economic environment, professional ethics and morality and, of course, habits, customs, tradition and demography. Its effects on the economy (and also on the wider society) are well researched, yet still not completely. Corruption thus inhibits economic growth and affects business operations, employment and investments. It also reduces tax revenue and the effectiveness of various financial assistance programs. The wider society is influenced by a high degree of corruption in terms of lowering of trust in the law and the rule of law, education and consequently the quality of life (access to infrastructure, health care). There also does not exist an unambiguous answer as to how to deal with corruption. Something that works in one country or in one region will not necessarily be successful in another. This chapter tries to answer at least a few questions about corruption and the causes for it, its consequences and how to deal with it successfully.African governments can increase budget transparency substantially by publishing online basic budget documents, enabling citizens to ensure that government expenditures reflect development priorities. Donor governments can help by providing targeted technical assistance to strengthen capacity at relevant government institutions and oversight agencies, by encouraging and supporting African country efforts to make budget processes more transparent, and by opening their own contracting processes with developing countries.Natural Resources: Natural resources such as minerals, oil, gas and timber represent a source of vast potential wealth for poor countries. 28 countries in Africa have significant natural resources, but due to a lack of transparency, it is extremely difficult for citizens to know if they are getting a fair deal for the use of their country’s natural resources. Only 19 countries worldwide have satisfactory transparency standards in oil, gas and mining, and just two of those are in Africa.By making public the payments that corporations make to governments, citizens can better track the resources that are due to them for the export of their oil, gas and mineral wealth. Twenty-four African countries are now members of the Extractives Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), a global standard that compares the receipts of companies and governments to increase the transparency of natural resource revenues. The European Union and Canada have implemented mandatory reporting requirements that will ensure citizens have access to information about the payments their governments receive from oil, gas, and mining companies.Retaining Resources: Every year, a trillion dollars is siphoned out of developing countries through a web of shady, secret and corrupt activities that involve anonymous shell companies and illegal tax evasion. Instead of being invested to help people, it fuels inequality and instability, keeping millions of people in developing countries trapped in the cycle of poverty. Anonymous shell companies and trusts are used to cover up the identity of the person who really benefits from the company, allowing them to mask illegal activities and hide stolen money, diverting countries’ resources and robbing governments of much-needed revenue. A study by the World Bank of more than 200 major corruption cases found that over 70% involved anonymous shell companies and trusts.To ensure that developing countries are able to retain and invest more of their own resources, countries should put an end to anonymous structures by requiring public disclosure of who owns and controls companies and trusts and publicly disclose how much tax they pay and other financial information in every country they do business.Aid: Developing countries, as well as taxpayers in donor countries, need reliable and comprehensive information about aid flows. In many cases, the governments of poor countries are not even given information about how much money is being spent by donors on different sectors (such as health and education) or in different regions in their own countries.For information on aid flows to be useful, it needs to be published regularly in a standardized and comparable format. The International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) has created a common international standard for publishing information about aid spending. The list of signatories to IATI is growing, with over 600 organisations having published so far, but progress on making all aid transparent must continue.Argentina's former Vice President Amado Boudou (Front, R) attends a sentence hearing in Buenos Aires, capital of Argentina, on Aug. 7, 2018. Argentina's former Vice President Amado Boudou was sentenced on Tuesday to five years and 10 months in prison for "bribery and business dealings incompatible with public service.Boudou, who served from 2011 to 2015 alongside then President Cristina Fernandez, was also barred for life from holding public office and fined 90,000 pesos (3,214 U.S. dollars).Boudou was convicted by a federal criminal court in relation to the so-called Ciccone Case, which alleged he profited from awarding government contracts to a company called Ciccone Printing, the only private company enabled to print money apart from the state mint.The case has been moving through the judicial system since at least 2012.Others were also convicted of wrongdoing, including Nicolas Ciccone, the former owner of the printer.In his defense before sentencing, Boudou denied the allegations."Politicians who follow the path of the powerful, walk without problems. Politicians who decide to transform reality are persecuted, at first by the media and then by the legal system," said Boudou.The head of the national anti-corruption agency, Laura Alonso, hailed the "historic trial," saying "for the first time in Argentina a vice president has been convicted."Boudou's attempt to buy a company that printed currency through a front business while serving as Kirchner's economy minister.A court found guilty of "passive bribery" and conduct "incompatible" with his duties as a public servant, sentencing him to five years and 10 months in prison.Boudou, who served in Kirchner's cabinet from 2009 to 2015, has been banned for life from holding public office.His lawyers are expected to appeal the conviction.Argentina has recently been rocked by another major corruption scandal involving top political and business figures and compared to neighboring Brazil's sprawling Operation Car Wash probe.Kirchner, who served as president from 2007 to 2015, has been summoned for questioning next week amidst allegations that tens of millions of dollars in bribes were funneled to the presidential residence, executive mansion and offices.Ever since she left office, her administration has been beset by various corruption allegations and convictions.Boudou told the court that he never negotiated a 70 percent stake in Ciccone Calcografica eight years ago, saying the "alleged bribe has no basis or link to the evidence because it didn't exist."Five other entrepreneurs were convicted alongside Boudou, including the company's former owner Nicolas Ciccone, who was given a four-and-a-half-year jail term.At the beginning of the year, Ciccone was granted a release from detention into house arrest as his partner, former Mexican politician Monica Garcia de la Fuente, was expecting twins.Laura Alonso, head of the anti-corruption office, said this case showed the country had confronted official corruption in an "open and public trial" and that there is "justice in Argentina."The court found Boudou guilty of trying to lift a bankruptcy declaration against Ciccone in return for a 70 percent share in the business.Amongst those also convicted were Argentina's former representative to the World Bank, Guido Forcieri, who was given a two-and-a-half-year suspended sentence.The more recent corruption case revolves around allegations that the planning ministry applied pressure to businessmen to contribute to the election campaigns of both Kirchner and her husband Nestor, whom she succeeded as president.A businessman who has admitted paying such contributions, Juan Carlos de Goycoechea, surrendered to police on Friday and asked for protection under an "accused collaborator" program.Prosecutors believe a total of $160 million could have been paid in bribes.Since this case came to light last week, 16 ex-government officials and businessmen have been arrested in dozens of raids. They face charges of conspiracy in a bribery and kickback scheme.

Due to the hidden nature of corruption and the paucity of criminal convictions, scientific evidence is difficult to come by. And there are those who just make huge amounts of money from the corrupt deeds of others.

There is no doubt that corruption is to be condemned and corrupt officials resolutely prosecuted because it erodes trust in government. It also weakens the moral bonds of civil society on which democratic practices and processes rest. But while research suggests that corruption has some bearing on the spread of poverty, the claim that corruption is the principal cause of poverty and economic stagnation, although popular with voters, is questionable. It is also a safe language of political competition among politicians, that is, one that they can deploy for electoral effect against one another without arousing the destabilizing effects of a discourse based on class.Not surprisingly, the international financial institutions have weighed in. The World Bank has made “good governance” a major thrust of its work, asserting that the “World Bank Group focus on governance and anticorruption (GAC) follows from its mandate to reduce poverty—a capable and accountable state creates opportunities for poor people, provides better services, and improves development outcomes.” Yet it is a discourse that has increasingly less appeal to the poorer classes. Despite the corruption that marked his reign, Joseph Estrada is running a respectable third in the presidential contest in the Philippines, with solid support among many urban poor communities. But it is perhaps in Thailand where the lower classes have rejected most decisively the corruption discourse, which the elites and Bangkok-based middle class deployed to oust Thaksin Shinawatra from the premiership in 2006.While in power, Thaksin brazenly used his office to enlarge his corporate empire, but the rural masses and urban lower classes—the base of the so-called “Red Shirts”–have ignored this and are fighting to restore his coalition to power. The reason is that they remember the Thaksin period from 2001 to 2006 as one where Thailand recovered from the Asian financial crisis owing to Thaksin’s kicking out the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and his promotion of expansionary policies with a redistributive dimension, such as cheap universal health care, a one-million-baht development fund for each town, and a moratorium on farmers’ servicing of their debt. These policies made a difference in their lives.Thaksin’s Red Shirts are probably right in their implicit assessment that when it comes to addressing poverty, pro-people policies are more decisive than corruption. Indeed, in Thailand and elsewhere, clean-cut technocrats have probably been responsible for greater poverty than the most corrupt politicians. And one suspects that one of the reasons the corruption-causes-poverty discourse is so popular with the elites and the international financial institutions is that it serves as a smokescreen for the structural causes of poverty and stagnation and for wrong policy choices.The case of the Philippines since 1986 is illustrative of the greater explanatory power of the “wrong-policy narrative” than the corruption narrative. In contrast to an ahistorical narrative that sees massive corruption as having suffocated the promise of the post-Marcos democratic republic, the wrong-policy narrative locates the key causes of Philippine underdevelopment and poverty in historical events and developments.The complex of policies that have pushed the Philippines into the economic quagmire over the last 30 years might be summed up in that formidable term: structural adjustment. Also known as neoliberal restructuring, it involved prioritization of debt repayment; conservative macroeconomic management involving huge cutbacks in government spending; trade and financial liberalization; privatization and deregulation; and export-oriented production. Structural adjustment came to the Philippines courtesy of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization, but it was internalized and disseminated as doctrine by local technocrats and economists.Corazon Aquino was personally honest—indeed the epitome of non-corruption–and her contribution to the reestablishment of democracy was indispensable, but her submitting to the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) demand to prioritize debt repayment over development brought about a decade of stagnation and continuing poverty. Interest payments as a percentage of total government expenditures went from 7 per cent in 1980 to 28 per cent in 1994. Capital expenditures, on the other hand, plunged from 26 per cent to 16 per cent. Since government is the biggest investor in the Philippines—indeed in any economy—the radical stripping away of capital expenditures goes a long way toward explaining the stagnant one per cent average yearly growth in gross domestic product in the 1980’s and the 2.3 per cent rate in the first half of the 1990’s.In contrast, the Philippines’ Southeast Asian neighbors ignored the IMF’s prescriptions. They limited debt servicing while ramping up government capital expenditures in support of growth. Not surprisingly, they grew by 6 to 10 per cent from 1985 to 1995, attracting massive Japanese investment while the Philippines barely grew and gained the reputation of a depressed market that repelled investors.When Aquino’s successor, Fidel Ramos, came to power in 1992, the main agenda of his technocrats was to bring down all tariffs to 0 to 5 per cent and bring the Philippines into the World Trade Organization and the Asean Free Trade Area (AFTA), moves that were intended to make trade liberalization irreversible. A pick-up in the growth rate in the early years of Ramos sparked hope, but the green shoots were more apparent than real, and they were, at any rate, crushed as a result of another neoliberal policy: financial liberalization. The elimination of foreign exchange controls and restrictions of speculative investment attracted billions of dollars in the period 1993-1997. But this also meant that when panic hit the ranks of foreign investors in Asia in the summer of 1997, the same lack of capital controls facilitated the stampede of billions of dollars from the country in a few short weeks in mid-1997. This pushed the economy into recession and stagnation in the next few years.The administration of the next president, Joseph Estrada, did not reverse course, and under the presidency of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, neoliberal policies continued to reign. New liberalization initiatives in the next few years were initiated on the trade front, with the government negotiating free trade agreements with Japan and China. These pacts were entered into despite clear evidence that trade liberalization was destroying the two pillars of the economy, industry and agriculture.Radical unilateral trade liberalization severely destabilized the Philippines’ manufacturing sector, with textile and garments firms, for instance, being drastically reduced from 200 in 1970 to 10 in recent years. As one of Arroyo’s finance secretaries admitted, “there’s an uneven implementation of trade liberalization, which was to our disadvantage.” While he speculated that consumers might have benefited from the tariff liberalization, he acknowledged that “it has killed so many local industries.”As for agriculture, the liberalization of the country’s agricultural trade after the country joined the World Trade Organization in 1995 transformed the Philippines from a net food exporting country and consolidated it into a net food importing country after the mid-1990’s. The year 2010 is the year that the China ASEAN Trade Agreement (CAFTA) negotiated by the Arroyo administration goes into effect, and the prospect of cheap Chinese produce flooding Philippines markets has made Filipino vegetable farmers fatalistic about their survival.What likewise became clear during the long Arroyo reign were the stifling effects of the debt repayment-oriented macroeconomic management policy that came with structural adjustment. With 20-25 per cent of the national budget reserved for debt service payments owing to the draconian Automatic Appropriations Law, government finances were in a state of permanent and widening deficit, which the administration tried to solve by contracting more loans. Indeed, the Arroyo administration contracted more loans than the previous three administrations combined.When the deficit reached gargantuan proportions, the government refused to take the necessary steps to contain the key factor acting as the main drain on expenditures; that is, it refused to declare a debt moratorium or at least renegotiate the terms of debt repayment to make them less punitive. At the same time, the administration did not have the political will to force the rich to take the brunt of bridging the deficit by increasing taxes on their income and improving their collection. Under pressure from the IMF, the government levied this burden on the poor and the middle class via the adoption of the expanded value added tax (EVAT) of 12 per cent on purchases. The tax was passed on to poor and middle class consumers by commercial establishments, forcing them to cut back on consumption, which then boomeranged back on small merchants and entrepreneurs in the form of reduced profits, forcing many out of business.The straitjacket of conservative macroeconomic management, trade and financial liberalization, and a subservient debt policy kept the economy from expanding significantly, resulting in the percentage of the population living in poverty increasing from 30 to 33 per cent between 2003 and 2006, according to World Bank figures. By 2006, there were more poor people in the Philippines than at any other time in the country’s history.

BATTLE IN NAME OF" DEMOCRACY ", UNDER TRUMP'S PRESIDENCY, AMERICAN DEMOCRACY IS IN CRISIS,TRUMP IS A TERRIBLE LEADER. TRUMP DOESN'T LEAD AMERICA BY GOOD EXAMPLE TO THE WORLD .TRUMP'S POLICY IS " AMERICANISM ,NOT GLOBALISM".

Sun, 10 Feb 2019 14:22:00 +0000

The Trump-era threat to democracy is the opposite of populism.There is a very real threat to liberal democracy in Trump’s America, but it has nothing to do with populism. In fact, populism — an insistence that government authority reflect the will of the people — could be a big part of the solution to the current crisis.

Besides historical examples, they had seen pure democracy in action across the young nation in the state governments established after the Declaration of Independence but prior to the U.S. Constitution:

The legislatures acted as if they were virtually omnipotent. There were no effective State Constitutions to limit the legislatures because most State governments were operating under mere Acts of their respective legislatures which were mislabeled “Constitutions.” Neither the governors nor the courts of the offending States were able to exercise any substantial and effective restraining influence upon the legislatures in defense of The Individual’s unalienable rights, when violated by legislative infringements.

The United States is on a steep learning curve. Because truth, factuality, and their very public sphere are under attack, democracy is in danger. The attack is devastatingly effective, partly because we have never experienced anything like this and thus are largely unprepared.Trump was never very popular, but he got high marks for his leadership.He’s not going to fix everything. He’s not going to drain the swamp. He’s not going to make America great again. He’s not going to unite all Americans. He’s not going to replace Obamacare with something “terrific.” He’s not going to bring back the manufacturing jobs or the America dream. He won’t make America respected around the world. He won’t make us safer. The issue with Trump is not so much that he himself doesn’t take ownership – since he clearly does. In particular, Trump is an expert at gaslighting a term described by the National Domestic Violence Hotline as “an extremely effective form of emotional abuse that causes a victim to question their own feelings, instincts, and sanity.” (It’s not a coincidence that gaslighting is also a favorite technique of Vladimir Putin.) Gaslighting techniques include questioning the victim’s memory even when the victim remembers the events correctly, changing the subject when challenged, blaming others, and denying and/or pretending to forget what actually occurred. They read, in other words, like the instruction manual for Trump’s Twitter account.Whether it’s being deployed against a person or a population, gaslighting has the same goal as all forms of abuse: to assert power and control. In the mind of Trump, this translates to getting people to pay attention to him. And that’s where we come in. When his 53.4 million Twitter followers obsess over his every word, we’re giving him exactly what he wants.Trump craves attention in part because he’s a narcissistic bully. But it’s also a strategy: The faster he creates new headlines, the less time we’ll have to process and protest what happened the day before. Our shock and outrage leave us paralyzed, and this, in turn, gives him even more control.To be clear, I’m not equating following Trump on Twitter with actually being trapped in a personal abusive relationship. In fact, that’s the point: They’re not the same. In an abusive personal relationship, it can obviously be difficult and dangerous to leave your abuser. But our relationships with Trump are not personal which means we can escape.His America First approach is only hardening, meaning allies will need to think about American power differently.From the end of the Second World War, the dominant current of American exceptionalism in the rhetoric and outlook of US presidents has been the belief that the United States has a special mission to redeem the world by extending liberty and democracy to all peoples. However, President Donald Trump is an exception. He believes that in the post-Cold War era successive administrations in Washington have pursued reckless visions of regional or global hegemony especially in the Middle East leaving the home front to languish and the nation open to ridicule. For Trump, the government must first protect its citizens and promote their prosperity. Despite eschewing this stream of American altruism, Trump wants to “make America great again” by rebuilding its economy and projecting military strength. In his first 18 months in office few policy decisions have exhibited either isolationism or a willingness to countenance American retreat from the world. Still, Trump is no internationalist, and has never expressed support for the institutions of global governance that emerged after 1945. Moreover, his long-standing impatience with alliances and hostility towards free trade and other multilateral approaches to international affairs have now found concrete, if inconsistent, expression in his presidency. Trump’s America First impulses are hardening as he gains greater confidence on the world stage and reshapes his national security team. His stoking of the politics of grievance and resentment will, however, continue to corrode domestic support for a more ambitious US foreign policy, and in future allies will have to think about the nature of American power differently. Look at what happened when Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination for the Supreme Court was nearly derailed by credible accusations of sexual assault. While the confirmation was in doubt, Trump protested that Kavanaugh was “innocent until proven guilty.” He then ordered an extremely limited investigation of the charges that interviewed a small number of witnesses and didn’t even speak with the accuser or the alleged culprit. Ultimately, he falsely declared that Kavanaugh had been “proven innocent” by the whole charade. This false fact Kavanaugh was exonerated now becomes reality to all of his followers.The same exact dynamic is playing out with the apparent murder by Saudi Arabia of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Trump has applied the “innocent until proven guilty” notion to the Saudi state, even directly comparing the case to Kavanaugh’s. Despite the reported audio evidence of Khashoggi’s brutal dismemberment at the hands of Saudi officials, physical evidence of an attempted cover-up, and the plain fact that Khashoggi entered a Saudi Consulate never to be seen again, Trump is treating the case as a stone-cold whodunit. Don’t be surprised when, in spite of all this evidence, whatever cover story is eventually manufactured for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, or any other probable culprits, is ultimately accepted as fact by Trump and then by his followers. Once again, the lie will then become the fact.Steve Bannon explained a broader administration strategy for dispensing with facts. “The real opposition is the media,” he has said. “And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit.” Yale professor Timothy Snyder, in his groundbreaking book The Road to Unfreedom, explains in detail how leaders like Vladimir Putin and Trump undermine factuality by flooding the zone in this way. Putin dominates Russia by propagating grand lies that take the entire society off balance. For example, when Ukrainians protested against Putin’s puppet ruler, Viktor Yanukovych, Putin’s press reported that the protesters were organized by an LGBTQ group attempting a “homodictatorship.” Enough people believe the lie or pretend to believe the lie that a shared reality becomes impossible.

Donald Trump’s War on Democracy.The president’s actions have been much more sinister than just tantrums and Twitter antics.His leadership bona fides were equally laughable, he won in the 2016 presidential election, the guardrails of democracy collapsed. Such metaphors, in fact, make it increasingly difficult to see what Trump and his babysitters are really doing: not just destroying a culture of civility or undoing the accomplishments of the Obama administration but attacking the very pillars of democracy.

Since Donald Trump’s election in November 2016 the most common critique of his foreign policy is that it undermines the liberal international order which has been the basis for prosperity and stability across much of the Western world for the past 70 years. Whether it be his scepticism towards the US alliance system in Europe and Asia, his withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Paris climate change accords or his attacks on the United Nations and other multilateral institutions, President Trump is perceived by many as posing a direct threat to the system of global governance established by the United States in the wake of the Second World War.This criticism of Trump often conceals a more serious charge: that by undermining the liberal international order he is actually diluting the power of the American idea itself, the core set of beliefs surrounding its self-image and role in the world. Even worse is the suggestion that he is hastening the relative decline of the United States as a global power. Trump does not use the language of Pax Americana, the long-held idea that the United States is the keeper of global peace. This adds to the prevailing sense of unease among many in America and abroad. In his acceptance speech as the Republican nominee, Trump proclaimed that “Americanism, not globalism, will be our credo”. In the second year of his presidency, that sentiment is hardening. That he regularly attacks the institutions and traditions of American democracy also challenges the very idea that the United States is a model for other societies to follow.Clearly the questioning of American power and purpose predates President Trump. Even before Trump’s election, Americans were undergoing a profound reappraisal of their world role. Speaking in late 2016, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said that while the notion of American exceptionalism still exists, “Cold War American exceptionalism is gone” and the idea of the country as the shining city on the hill was weakening. He argued that “an appropriate adaptation is a principal task of the new administration”. In Kissinger’s view, the American public could still be convinced of this higher calling for the US role in the world, but they would require a different explanation from the one that was valid in the 1950s.Many of the leading foreign policy thinkers interviewed by the author agreed: if only the right message and messenger could be found, Americans might rally once more to the cause of an activist foreign policy.To date, Trump appears to reject the notion of a higher calling for the United States in international affairs. His administration’s 2017 National Security Strategy states that “the American way of life cannot be imposed upon others, nor is it the inevitable culmination of progress”. This America First approach has provoked alarm in some quarters. The slogan has been derided as “opting for insularity and smallness” instead of global leadership, and dismissed as “profoundly depressing and vulgar”For others, the America First approach strikes at the core of the American idea. Forces once seen as mutually reinforcing are portrayed by Trump to be inherently antagonistic. Robert Zoellick, a former deputy secretary of state and later World Bank president, has argued that in foreign policy Trump’s “pitting of American nationalism against the country’s internationalism” is driving a stake through the country’s very essence. “Most often”, Zoellick added, “US nationalism and internationalism have been in synchrony … and the mixture created America’s unique global leadership”. Former senior foreign policy adviser to Hillary Clinton, Jake Sullivan, sees the task now as figuring out “how to convince people that principled nationalism and internationalism are not incompatible”. This perceived fracturing of the American ethos is disturbing to an elite nurtured by long-held beliefs in US primacy.While this challenge to the tradition of American exceptionalism predates Donald Trump, he is giving it a new impetus. This Analysis examines briefly the tradition of American exceptionalism since Woodrow Wilson enunciated the country’s special calling during the First World War. Understanding the power of this ideology helps explain the unique nature of President Trump’s outlook, and what it means for US foreign policy.The Analysis then explores how, since assuming the presidency, Trump and his close advisers have sought to bring an understanding of America’s historical international role to his speeches and policies. America First has been anchored in a particular view of the American Revolution and an argument about why (to use the phrase of one of Trump’s most influential advisers) the liberal international order need not be “preserved in amber”. It looks at how the Iraq war has changed the interplay between domestic and foreign policy. Finally, it asks whether the American dream can be revived, especially for the country’s working and middle class, and with it the nation’s exceptionalism. Many believe the United States will, as it has in the past, renew and replenish its national purpose. However, that assumption in itself says much about the deep roots of America’s national identity and self-belief.

The uncomfortable reunion brought US President Donald Trump together in the same pew with past White House residents who have given him decidedly critical reviews.The late Bush was the de facto chair of the modern incarnation of the president's club, transcending contentious campaigns and party lines to bring together fractious personalities who share that rarified experience. But the staid group of Oval Office occupants has been disturbed since Donald Trump's election. And since his swearing-in, Trump has spurned most contact with his predecessors and they have snubbed him in return.

Donald Trump's crime can lead to impeachment.The U.S. Constitution states that the president can be removed from office after being both impeached and convicted for “Treason, Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors.”Treason is notoriously difficult to prove. For example, Aaron Burr – a former vice president – was caught stockpiling supplies and gathering a force to take over some of the lands that would eventually be obtained through the Louisiana Purchase. And yet, he still wasn’t convicted of treason.What exactly constitutes a “high crime” or “misdemeanor” has always been open to interpretation, but it is clear that partisan politics plays a roleTrump’s unorthodox strategies, his thin skin and harsh attacks on his critics (some would call it “bullying”), and his impulsivity, offer important lessons for leaders if we combine his tactics with research on what makes leaders successful and unsuccessful.First, we have to distinguish between obtaining a leadership position, and actually being successful in a leadership position. The factors that get you into a leadership position are somewhat different than those that make you an effective leader. Look around at top-level leaders and they are predominantly White, male, and confident. These attributes helped Trump get elected. Being extroverted and seeming powerful also help in attaining leadership positions, again, Trump benefits. No surprises, but here’s where it gets interesting.Research on people’s “ideal” styles of leadership suggest that the majority of people’s ideal leader possesses intelligence, is hard-working, honest, and compassionate. Not surprisingly, these ideal leader qualities are those that are actually related to leader effectiveness. Trump doesn’t seem to be particularly strong in any of these areas.However, a subset of people view “strongman” leaders those who are pushy, manipulative, conceited, and selfish as ideal leaders to follow. Possessing these leadership qualities is labeled “tyrannical leadership” (although that term may be too strong). President Trump fits the strongman, tyrannical prototype. These type of leaders may be initially successful, but over time, followers’ support may diminish, as the leader bullies and overreaches. However, a core of loyal followers will remain. This seems to fit the bill for President Trump.A key element of effective leadership involves delegation of responsibilities to followers. This serves to both free up the leader to work on important projects, but also helps develop followers’ own leadership capacity. A truly good leader develops followers through giving them increased responsibilities and supporting their efforts. This is a cornerstone of transformational leadership.President Trump uses more of the “sink or swim” type of leadership, what is referred to as “management-by-exception.” This type of leader allows followers to take on responsibilities, but only intervenes to correct poor performance. In fact, Trump seems to allow subordinates a lot of leeway, but if they get out of line, or disagree with him, “You’re fired!”President Trump uses a whole host of psychological strategies to attract followers and keep them loyal. He is a master of using the well-known in-group, out-group bias. Singling out “enemies” who are used to solidify in-group support. Terrorists, immigrants, Muslims, and recently, Democrats, are identified by Trump as potential sources of threat to his in-group of followers. And, he has labeled the mainstream media as “enemies of the people.” Although this in-group, out-group bias builds support from Trump’s core followers, it makes it extremely difficult for the opposing groups to ever work constructively together. This causes ineffective leadership in the long run.Importantly, Trump puts himself at the center of the nation’s leadership (“I alone can fix our problems”). This is authoritarian leadership, and generally not effective in the long run. The reality is that leadership, particularly of a nation, is complex and takes the leader working in concert with the inner circle, and with others. In the long run, top-down, authoritarian leadership is less effective than shared, team leadership.Why Trump hasn’t been impeached and likely won’t be.

In American history, if you could somehow organise the entire population into a single line, all 350 million people, ordered not by height or weight or age but by each citizen’s interest in the federal government, and Donald Trump loitered somewhere near one end of it, Max Stier would occupy the other.By the autumn of 2016, Stier might have been the American with the greatest understanding of how the US government worked. Oddly, for an American of his age and status, he had romanticised public service since he was a child. He had gone through Yale in the mid-80s and Stanford law school in the early 90s without ever being tempted by money or anything else. He thought the US government was the single most important and interesting institution in the history of the planet and could not imagine doing anything but working to improve it. A few years out of law school he had met a financier named Sam Heyman, who was as disturbed as Stier was by how uninterested talented young people were in government work. Stier persuaded Heyman to set aside $25m for him so that he might create an organisation to address the problem.Stier soon realised that to attract talented young people to government service, he would need to turn the government into a place that talented young people wanted to work. He would need to fix the US government. Partnership for Public Service, as Stier called his organisation, was not nearly as dull as its name. It trained civil servants to be business managers; it brokered new relationships across the federal government; it surveyed the federal workforce to identify specific management failures and success; and it lobbied Congress to fix deep structural problems. It was Stier who had persuaded Congress to pass the laws that made it so annoyingly difficult for Trump to avoid preparing to be president.Anyway, from the point of view of a smart, talented person trying to decide whether to work for the US government, the single most glaring defect was the absence of an upside. The jobs were not well-paid compared with their equivalents in the private sector. And the only time government employees were recognised was if they screwed up in which case they often became the wrong kind of famous. In 2002, Stier created an annual black tie, Oscars-like awards ceremony to celebrate people who had done extraordinary things in government.Every year the Sammies – as Stier called them, in honour of his original patron – attracted a few more celebrities and a bit more media attention. And every year, the list of achievements was mind-blowing. A guy in the energy department (Frazer Lockhart) organised the first successful cleanup of a nuclear weapons factory, in Rocky Flats, Colorado, and had brought it in 60 years early and $30bn under budget. A woman at the Federal Trade Commission had built the Do Not Call Registry, which spared the entire country from trillions of irritating sales pitches. A National Institutes of Health researcher (Steven Rosenberg) had pioneered immunotherapy, which had successfully treated previously incurable cancers. There were hundreds of fantastically important success stories in the US government. They just never got told.It was first widely employed in World War II to describe the countries resisting the fascist states. In 1941, the internationalist, and strongly anti-fascist, Free World Association published a monthly magazine called Free World. During the conflict, Frank Capra directed a series of U.S. government propaganda movies, Why We Fight, designed to explain the campaign to the American people. One of the films quotes Hitler: “Two worlds are in conflict two philosophies of life … one of these two worlds must break asunder.” With animations produced by Disney studios, Why We Fight depicted in stark black a Nazi-Japanese slave empire in Eurasia, and in white, a free Western Hemisphere.Yet from the start, the concept of a free world was ambiguous. After all, the epicenter of World War II was an apocalyptic clash between two totalitarian states: Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Around three-quarters of German fatalities occurred at the hands of the USSR, whereas only one-quarter were killed by everyone else, including the United States, the British, the French, and other democratic states. The idea of a free world peaked during the height of the Cold War, when the U.S. government depicted a Manichean struggle between a democratic alliance and a communist realm set on world domination. At a press conference in 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower said: “The reason we call it ‘free world’ is because each nation in it wants to remain independent under its own government and not under some dictatorial form of government.

THE FIRST DEMOCRACY - GREEK ORIGINS ,AFTER THE POLIS ,AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT AND REVOLUTION ,THREAT AND PROMISE OF MASS DEMOCRACY.DEMOCRACY IN ANCIENT GREECE WAS MORE LIKE A GENTLEMEN'S CLUB.AROUND 550 BC ,DEMOCRACY WAS ESTABLISHED IN ATHENS ,MARKING FROM PREVIOUS RULING SYSTEMS.

Sun, 10 Feb 2019 14:20:00 +0000

Democracy, a direct translation of the Greek dēmokratia, means rule (kratos) by the people (dēmos). Both as a political idea, and as a political institution, democracy originated in the thought and practice of the ancient Greeks. They understood democracy literally: the people, deliberating and acting together in an assembly, was both sovereign and legislator. The people was not only the source of legitimate authority, but also the wielder of political power. In modern times the role of the people is limited to the legitimation of political authority, and power is wielded by elected representative assemblies.Democracy is a system of government, where the whole population gets to vote for representatives that will represent their area. The area could be from a city, to a whole country. In different countries such as Ancient Greece, only citizens that are men are allowed to vote for representatives for their country. Equality and freedom have both been identified as characteristics for democracy, since Ancient times. In many countries, democracy is the most popular form of government. We all know what we ought about the revolutionary practice of democracy in Ancient Greece. Here are seven facts you may not have known about democracy in Ancient Greece.In Ancient Greece, democracy helped to pick a leader among the citizens. For the reason that there was democracy, people couldn't just be a leader, they had to be elected by the citizens first. In Ancient Greece, democracy was the reason why they had no dictator or tyrant. People in Ancient Greece believed that citizens should choose rulers, and vote on matters themselves. Anyone could propose a new law in Ancient Greece.There was two types of democracy in Ancient Athens: Assembly & Council. The Assembly was made of male citizens, which made the laws of the land. They attended most meetings about making new laws. The Assembly could exile unpopular or dishonest leaders. The Assembly was made up of six thousand citizens. If there weren't exactly 6000 citizens, the police would round up more people. The police would use a rope dipped in red paint to indicate which men did not attend. The red paint would be dragged against the man's clothes. The Council was made up of five hundred citizens, chosen every year by lot names drawn from all Athenian citizens. Members of the Council serve for one year; they prepare laws for the Assembly to consider. In Ancient Greece, only citizens could vote. Children & slaves were not considered citizens, so they could not vote. All citizens have to take part in government. In old times, they believed all Greek men, rich or poor, had the right to vote. Women were citizens, but without political rights, so they could not vote. Slaves were not considered to be citizens, so they had only some basic rights. Democracy in Ancient Greece is a fair way of choosing a leader. It gives a chance for poor men to lead in the government. All men had the right to speak for themselves, be fairly treated, take part in the decisions, and vote. Democracy gave the Greek men these rights. It can cause fewer arguments about the laws being made in Ancient Greece. It prevented Ancient Greece from having any bad leaders that would not help the people in any way.For a long time, democracy in Athens was a sort of elitist political system, for only wealthy men (read: owners of properties) who had served in the military. Later on, the right of vote was extended to all Athenian men above the age of 20, which amounted to about 10 percent of the population. As such, slaves and women were never allowed a say in the matter.n fact, our modern democratic systems would be considered by Ancient Greeks as oligarchy, meaning, ruled by the few, as opposed to true democracy, which means “power, control by the people,” or the many. In our modern systems, we, the people, do not rule we elect people to represent us and entrust them to make decisions for the better good for all. But this, in fact, is what ancient democratic systems were against. Ancient Greeks thought elections systematically favored the few, or, in other words, the wealthy citizens. As such, Athenians actually met once every 10 days to run the city’s affairs by voting usually by a show of hands. The rule was simple: one citizen = one vote, regardless of age, wealth or rank.Known thinkers we praise for their intellectual and reflexional skills such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle actually hated democracy. For example, for Socrates, democracy was inherently corrupt, giving in to the will of the people who were inherently depraved. Plato concurred and stated that democracy, in a way, led to tyranny. His follower Aristotle was less hostile and even states the underlying principles of democracy in his work called Politics.

Athenian politician Pericles delivering his famous funeral oration in front of the Assembly.In Athenian democracy, every citizen was required to participate or suffer punishment. This practice stands in stark contrast to modern democratic governments in which citizens can choose whether or not they wish to participate. In Athenian democracy, all citizens pulled their weight.Not everyone in Athens was considered a citizen. Only free, adult men enjoyed the rights and responsibility of citizenship. Only about 20 percent of the population of Athens were citizens.

The famous Athenian, Pericles, said: "It is true that we (Athenians) are called a democracy, for the administration is in the hands of the many and not the few, with equal justice to all alike in their private disputes."Athens was far from the first Greek city-state to try to implement democracy. The city-state of Sparta also functioned as a form of democracy, between 50 to 200 years before its Athenian rival. However, Sparta was a monarchy with two kings ruling at the same time, but its constitution limited their powers. Furthermore, the Peloponnesian city-state has a Council of Elders as well as a lower governing house established to represent the interests of the people. Women also enjoyed rights that were unheard of elsewhere, although they couldn’t vote. Of course, the city-state’s infamous harsh military regime and its cruel slavery system are what we remember most today.During Antiquity, Greece was composed of roughly 1,000 city-states and communities. Some were monarchies, such as Macedonia in the north, and some were oligarchies or even constitutional governments. Others had more or less moderate democracies like in Athens. Several historical records show other city-states had democratic regimes, such as in Argos (although short-lived), Megara, Corinth, or even in Rhodes. However, in the case of Rhodes, its long history of conquests and unfortunate alliances caused a decline in its democracy. Outside Greece, other Greek ‘colonies’ such as Syracuse in Sicily or in Metapontum, in the south of Italy operated under democracies.In ancient Greece, tyrants were rulers who overthrew local oligarchies with the backing of the people. While they are considered to be the complete opposite of democracy, several well-known tyrants actually did more good than democratic regimes. For example, Athenian statesman and poet Solon during 600BC, introduced regulations that freed many slaves and tried to rebalance political power between the poor and the wealthy. He is responsible for the creation of the boule, or vouli in modern Greek, a council of 400 men that operates much like a senate.Around 550BC, democracy was established in Athens, marking a clear shift from previous ruling systems. It reached its peak between 480 and 404BC, when Athens was undeniably the master of the Greek world. But this Golden Age was short lived, and after suffering considerable loss during the Peloponnesian War, Athens, and the rest of Greece, was conquered by the kingdom of Macedonia in the 4th century BC, leading to the decline of its democratic regime.Direct Democracy: A form of direct democracy in ancient Greece was practiced in ancient city-state of Athens for about 100 years. It was an experiment. The people really liked it. How it worked is that all adult citizens had to take an active part in government (rule by many) if called on to do so. At this time, citizens were free men. Women, children, and slaves were not citizens, and thus could not participate or vote.Each year, there was a drawing. Five hundred (500) names were drawn from a pool of all the citizens of ancient Athens. Those 500 citizens had to serve for one year. During that year, they were responsible for making new laws and for changing old laws as they saw fit. But, nothing they did became law until all the citizens of Athens had a chance to vote yes or no. To vote, citizens had to attend the assembly on the day the vote was taken. The date was posted. It was not a secret, but you had to be present to vote. Majority ruled.This form of government is called a direct democracy. Athens experiment with democracy came an end after Athens lost a war with Sparta. This was the Peloponnesian War. For a while, Athens was ruled by a small group of Spartans.Ancient Greece’s most famous export to this day is arguably democracy. America, alongside many nations, recently celebrated the 2500th ‘anniversary’ of the invention of democracy in ancient Athens and its links with today’s democracies in America and around the globe. But was ancient Athenian democracy as alike to democracies of today as we may like to think?The more you look at the facts, the more the ancient democracy of Athens and the democracies of today look different. Ancient Athens only allowed a very small group of men resident in Athens the vote. Women and foreigners were excluded.Athens’ democracy also demanded a lot of time: adult male citizens who had the vote had to put a halt to their jobs and take up positions of authority within the democratic system on a rota system. They also had to go to the Athenian assembly (the Pnyx) on a regular basis to debate and vote on important issues like going to war.This dedication of so much time to the democratic system was made easier because many of these citizens had a good number of slaves working for them, and Athens also eventually decided to encourage citizens further by paying them to come to the assembly and to undertake other democratic duties like acting as jurors in the law courts.

Nevertheless, the idea of democratic government is one of the most significant contributions of the ancient Greeks. The city-state of Athens had one of the largest democracies in terms of population.The courts, too, were usually in the agora. The juries in court cases were very large, often numbering in the hundreds and sometimes in the thousands. To be fair, Athenians wanted their juries to reflect the general population. There were no lawyers. Each citizen was expected to make his own case.

The world used to be primarily ruled by kings and tyrants, who reigned with a singular opinion that did not always benefit the population as a whole. But in 507 BCE, a Greek leader in the city-state of Athens named Cleisthenes changed the course of history by introducing a new form of government that featured greater representation. He called his idea demokratia, which means rule by the people. So, Athenian democracy was not our ideal of equal freedom and rights, but more like a select club, facilitated to some extent by a slave population and in addition only really made possible, many scholars argue, by Athens’ control over a large and profitable empire which kept money pouring into the city.But at the same time we should not be too complacent as to think that we are more ‘democratic’ now. It is my bet that just as we may not want to recognize Athens’ democracy as properly democratic, so too an ancient Athenian would not recognize many of our democratic systems today as ‘true’ democracies.Ancient Athenians participated in a direct democracy: every citizen went to the assembly and voted on the issues. Moreover, if they were voting on whether or not to go to war, the voters did not go home afterwards to put their feet up while professional soldiers carried out their orders, they went home to pick up their armour and go off to fight.To a democrat of ancient Athens, today’s democracies, where the majority of voters elect representatives to make most of the decisions for them (and who then rely on professionals to carry out those decisions), wouldn’t merit the label of democracy either.Many of the Greek city-states were oligarchies, or governments ruled by a small, select group, usually aristocrats. Cleisthenes came from an aristocratic family, but understood that even greater power could be amassed by gaining the support of the people. His first step in doing so was to emphasize where people were from over their family name. By prioritizing villages, and Athens as a whole, the community became more important than the aristocracy. To govern Athens in a more equitable manner, Cleisthenes created a system that was made up of three components:Ekklesia (Assembly) -- Adult male citizens of Athens were eligible to participate in the governing body of the city-state. Thousands met occasionally throughout the year to write laws, decide on foreign policy, and vote on Ostracism, in which citizens (typically powerful men who posed a threat to democracy) were banished from Athens for 10 years. Cleisthenes helped to overthrow the harsh and tyrannical rule of Hippias but was driven from Athens by the aristocrats, who were unwilling to relinquish absolute power. The poorer citizens, however, were determined to have a greater say in how the city was run. They revolted, executed their leaders and called Cleisthenes back from exile to form the first government of the people. Democracy lasted through most of the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. but in 321 B.C., when Athens was conquered by its more powerful neighbor to the north, Macedonia, power went back to the elite. The egalitarian system would last in other parts of the Greek world until the Romans extinguished it more than a century later.The three key elements of Athenian democracy were the Ekklesia, the Bouleterion and the Dikasteria. The Ekklesia, or assembly, was the key governing body and any one of the city’s 40,000 adult male citizens could attend its 40 annual meetings, though only around 5,000 did each time. The assembly made decisions about war, foreign policy and laws by majority vote. The Bouleterion, or senate house, was a council of 500 men selected by lottery, 50 for each of the ten Athenian tribes, who met every day to conduct the daily work of government and decide what matters would go before the Ekklesia. The Dikasteria comprised the courts, where 500 male jurors picked daily by lottery would decide on prosecutions and deliver verdicts.Modern-day governments may have evolved from this original democracy in ancient Greece but there are several key differences. The Greeks invented the concept of one man, one vote but its system was deeply flawed by today's standards, as only adult males of Athenian descent were allowed to vote; women, foreigners and slaves were excluded from participation. As such, just 40,000 men of a population of 260,000 men, women and children held any power. It was also a direct democracy, with people voting for their own laws, whereas today voters in most countries elect representatives to make the laws and govern.Overall, one can say that democracy paved the way for a lot of new ideas. Not least in the form of a philosophy that was centred around the human being and which abolished the eternal truths, pointing out that everything is relative. However, not everyone shared the perspective on the human being expressed by these philosophers and there were many who had doubts about democracy.Socrates, Plato and Aristotle were looking for absolute and eternal truths, as well as a sustainable morality, and didn't accept relativism, even though Athens was still a democracy in their time.When democracy disappeared, there was also a considerable thinning out among the ranks of the Greek philosophers. Freedom of thought, reflection on the individual, relativism and democracy were contemporaries and, when they disappeared, much of Greek thinking and creativity disappeared too, along with their material prosperity.

ASIA - PACIFIC REGION ECONOMICS AND CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR.TRUMP'S INTERNATIONAL RATING REMAIN LOW,ESPECIALLY AMONG KEY ALLIES.ASIAN COUNTRIES HAVE LARGELY DISAGREE ON TRUMP'S POLICY.MAJORITIES ASIAN COUNTRIES ARE CONCERNED ABOUT NORTH'S KOREA'S NUCLEAR PROGRAM.

Sun, 10 Feb 2019 14:18:00 +0000

The population of the Asia-Pacific region is 4.2 billion, representing some 60% of the world's population. So while Asia's economic development promises an Asian Century, Asia has always dominated the world in terms of population.Asia has immense population diversity from countries like China (1.3 billion), India (1.2 billion), Indonesia (242 million), Pakistan (177 miilion), Bangladesh (150 million) and Japan (126 million) -- to small countries like Laos (6.3 million), Kyrgyzstan (5.4 million), Mongolia (2.8 million), Timor-Leste (1.2 million) to city states Hong Kong (7.1 million), Singapore (5.2 million) and Macao (0.6 million).The comparative political economy of East Asia, a highly dynamic region and one of critical importance to Australia's economic prosperity and security. It examines nine countries, including China, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Thailand, and Indonesia. Within these national settings, it focuses on government interventions in national economies and business involvement in politics, and activities that have helped to shape different rates of economic growth and political openness.One of the challenges commonly faced by those that work in or across the Asia Pacific region .if they are part of a US or European based organization – is to ensure their Head/Home office team understand some of the fundamental realities regarding the Asia Pacific region geography and diversity.When it comes to providing an Asia Pacific region overview the reality is there’s really no place called Asia, or Asia Pacific. It may well be that as part of a multinational organization the various markets in the region are consolidated together on one balance sheet, or it may be that there is an actual continent called “Asia” and one called “Australia” on the map, but that’s often as far as it’s possible to take the description.Companies may operate an Asia Pacific business region but the moment they forget this is theoretical only and does not actually exist, they are headed for trouble.While some definitions of Asia include the Middle East, a more common current definition takes the region from Pakistan in the west through to Japan in the east, and stretches south and south-east to Indonesia’s sprawling archipelago. It includes the former Soviet republics of Central Asia and much or Russia itself; the region of South Asia commonly describing India and the subcontinent; South East Asia which includes Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Singapore, the Philippines; Greater China; and North Asia, often used to cover Japan and the Korean Peninsula.Using the term “Asia Pacific” signifies the inclusion of Australia and New Zealand, along with the Pacific Islands and states that cover a vast region from Micronesia through a list of exotic destinations as far as Tahiti.That rolls of the tongue very easily, but pause for a moment to reflect that what this describes is around half the world’s surface; half the world’s population; the world’s second and third largest economies (Japan and China); the world’s two most populous countries (China and India); the world’s most populous Islamic nation (Indonesia); and four known nuclear powers (Pakistan, India, China, and Russia with the jury still out about North Korea).But the Asia Pacific region diversity and complexity – and the perils of failing to really grasp the fact that Asia isn’t one relatively homogenous region – go so much deeper. But rather than being defeated by this, it’s possible to start to make some sense of the region by understanding just ten key concepts.Distances and travel times have a more significant impact than many realize. From Karachi in the west to Wellington in the east the Asia Pacific region has a time zone variance of up to 7 hours, and the travel distances and time to cover the region are significant. It’s an 8-10 hour flight to and from Australia’s largest cities of Sydney and Melbourne to Tokyo, Shanghai, or Bangkok. From the northern and eastern cities of Tokyo, Seoul, Shanghai or Beijing it can be 10 hours or longer to Mumbai or New Delhi, and completing the triangle from India to Australia commonly takes twice that time with a stopover somewhere.Even for a business person located within the region somewhere more central like Singapore, Hong Kong or Bangkok travel times and distances impact to a much greater extent than executives responsible for other regions.There is no common “Asian” culture or approach to business. The Asia Pacific region consists of many, widely diverse cultures with long histories and very little in common between them. This is reflected in many different ways, including in business.While there may be some overt similarities in the way some things are valued (such as education and personal relationships), it is a fundamental error to think there is any such thing as a common “Asian” culture, or that what you have learned as being appropriate in one part of the region is automatically the same elsewhere.Chinese officials like to talk about practicing “win-win” diplomacy. Their American counterparts sometime joke that this means China wins twice. From November 3 to November 14, Donald Trump will visit Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, the Philippines, and China, on the longest foreign trip of his presidency thus far. What can the Trump administration accomplish that would effectively address its priorities? What’s the likelihood of a significant breakthrough on trade, market access, or North Korean denuclearization? There is no common “Asian” culture or approach to business. The Asia Pacific region consists of many, widely diverse cultures with long histories and very little in common between them. This is reflected in many different ways, including in business.While there may be some overt similarities in the way some things are valued (such as education and personal relationships), it is a fundamental error to think there is any such thing as a common “Asian” culture, or that what you have learned as being appropriate in one part of the region is automatically the same elsewhere.

ASEAN leaders meet in Singapore as Beijing and Washington compete for investment influence.As Southeast Asian countries continue to fret over managing the perennial fear of a conflict in the South China Sea, they remain concerned about the geopolitical implications of drawing economically closer to China. Many, but not all, of these nations find appeal in a broad regional trade deal, but continue to see deals with the US as a better wager for their long-term security concerns.

Asian cultures have long, proud histories. Modern China sees itself as the result of 3,000 years of unbroken civilization and culture. South Asia has a proud history of the glories of past empires and civilization stretching back to Alexander the Great and earlier. Marco Polo traversed the Silk Road of Central Asia to be amazed at the sophisticated technology he discovered.There is no common language across the region, other than English. Although Mandarin (China’s official language) is spoken by many people in Greater China and of Chinese heritage, it is a language not commonly used elsewhere in the region. Although they are the same in written form, there are many different spoken dialects in China, and a critical thing to remember is that character-based languages like Chinese require double-byte character capacity in software.Not only do languages differ across the region, the entire alphabet and writing style differs between, for example, Hindi, Thai, Japanese and Korean. English is without doubt the most common unifying language and is increasingly well studied and used, especially in business. However language still presents a major impediment to many, and is an additional layer of complexity.Asian cultures have long, proud histories. Modern China sees itself as the result of 3,000 years of unbroken civilization and culture. South Asia has a proud history of the glories of past empires and civilization stretching back to Alexander the Great and earlier. Marco Polo traversed the Silk Road of Central Asia to be amazed at the sophisticated technology he discovered.The Khmer civilization that built the amazing Angkor Wat complex flourished while Europe. languished in the Dark Ages. Japan has a proud history and reveres the Shogun tradition that unified the country. Many Asian cultures have a sense of being anchored in the past to a greater extent than many, especially those of the New World, and are sometimes bemused with western perspectives of history that overlook these facts.Between Western cultures and Asian, and from one Asian market to another, you cannot make assumptions that things operate the same way, or that the desires and motivations are the same.This extends from bureaucratic processes to the way that countries and businesses are run, and how people expect them to act and operate. It extends from the way legal agreements are viewed, to what is meant by the simple words “yes” and “no”, through to fundamental views on what is right and wrong, or what is acceptable and not acceptable in business.Australia and New Zealand are not sure how committed they are to joining the party – which. partially stems from the obvious fact that it’s not clear if they are invited, and however you play it, they will be the ‘different’ ones – like if Kenya and Zambia joined the European Community.There is so much about Australia and New Zealand that clearly differentiates these two countries from the rest of Asia; and yet their geographic proximity and increasing integration with the rest of Asia are also powerful arguments they should be seen as part of the region. Growing levels of Asian investment, immigration, and education in these countries along with growing dependence on commodity exports to Asia make additional arguments in favor of their inclusion, and this is likely to be a continuing trend.People placed in these positions typically ‘don’t know what they don’t know’ and it is knot unknown for some to carry misguided views that range from perspectives of cultural superiority more suited to the 19th Century outlook on colonialism, through to a simple inability to understand the sovereignty of other nations and their right to have policies and regulations that are not the same as other countries.This attitude can lead to the new manager appearing (and perhaps actually believing) to know better than subordinates who have worked in the region and know the lie of the land, and whose typical response to a new manager who doesn’t want to listen is to simply allow him or her to find out the hard way.The realities underpinning the mythical Asia Pacific business region should be compulsory education for every new manager given responsibilities across this region. Commencing a new responsibility with an Asia Pacific overview that provides an understanding of these ten points will go a long way towards equipping an international executive with enough of a framework of understanding to hopefully not make any major early blunders, and be able to build confidence as their own experience grows. Demographic trends are key to understanding the region’s future. While this is a complex issue, the key point is that fertility (the birth rate) is generally falling, and life expectancy is generally rising. With fewer people being born and people living longer, the average age of the population is increasing, with very significant implications on the economy as a result.This trend started several decades ago in Japan, which is now starting to experience the implications of fewer people in the work force supporting more who are in retirement, and the nations of China and South Korea can already see this will become a real issue over the next few decades.The same trends are starting to become evident in other countries however it’s likely to be mid century before this is seen as a major issue. Although the birth rate is falling, much of South and South East Asia is a very young population, and in many parts of the region more than half the entire population is under the age of 25.

Businesses are affected not only by tax rates but also by the ease with which taxes are paid in a jurisdiction. Therefore, it is advisable for business and tax payers to consider aspects like time taken to calculate taxes, to file tax returns, and effectiveness of a government’s tax policies in a particular jurisdiction – more than tax rates – while determining the place of doing business. For many of the ASEAN’s developing markets, slight differences in tax rates can be more than offset by difference in time taken to comply with tax-related procedures.

In the 40 years since China began opening its doors to more market-oriented economic policies, the country has experienced explosive growth that many refer to as nothing short of a miracle. The nation’s growing influence has been felt on every continent, and people have taken note that China continues to play an ever-larger role in world affairs. But more power brings more expectations and accountability, and in our most recent survey many people around the globe say they want an alternative to China as the world’s leading power.Across the 25 countries polled in a recent Pew Research Center survey, a median of 45% have a favorable view of China, while 43% hold an unfavorable view. Majorities or pluralities in 12 countries give China positive marks, with favorable attitudes most prevalent in Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia. In the United States, 38% have a favorable opinion of China, a slight decrease from 44% in 2017, while nearly half expressed unfavorable attitudes.A global median of 70% say China plays a more important role in the world than it did 10 years ago. Russia is a distant second in this assessment, with only 41% saying that country is more important than it was a decade ago. A median of only 31% believe the U.S. plays a more important role than it did a decade ago – less than half of the share who say this of China. Only 8% of those surveyed say China plays a less important role than it did a decade ago, the lowest share across the seven countries tested. In the U.S., 72% believe China is more important now than it was a decade ago, while only 31% of Americans say the same about their own country.While most agree that China’s global role has grown over the past decade, a lack of enthusiasm for Chinese world leadership persists. A median of 34% of people around the world currently regard China as the world’s leading economic power only slightly less than the 39% who picked the U.S. Yet when thinking about the future, a 25-country median of 63% say they prefer a world in which the U.S. is the leading power, while just 19% would favor one in which China leads. Notably, four of the five countries most inclined to choose the U.S. over China are located in the Asia-Pacific region: 81% of Japanese, 77% of Filipinos, 73% of South Koreans and 72% of Australians all favor a future where Washington, not Beijing, leads.Those who are more likely to say that China does not respect the personal freedoms of its people also tend to have more unfavorable views of China (e.g. France, Sweden). Conversely, people who are less disapproving of China’s human rights record show lower unfavorable opinions of China overall (Nigeria, Kenya, Tunisia). European nations surveyed tend to be particularly critical – a median of 82% across the 10 EU countries surveyed say China does not respect personal freedoms. Among countries at the more negative end of the scale, Japan is the outlier, showing higher levels of general dissatisfaction with China that may relate to historical and political strains in bilateral relations.The concept, while still a work in progress, is designed to present an alternative vision to a China-centric regional order. This comports with a growing consensus among strategists inside the Trump Administration that the United States needs a new approach to Asia that assumes a more competitive stance toward China, one that sheds long-held aspirations for either a highly collaborative U.S.-China relationship or China’s evolution into anything approximating a “responsible stakeholder.”What is striking, however, is the degree to which Trump’s China policy to date has been nearly opposite of what would be required for a strategy dedicated to a “free and open Indo-Pacific” narrowly focused on North Korea and trade, rather than holistic and comprehensive; explicitly transactional rather than based on deeply-rooted principles and values; rejecting multilateralism, rather than supporting regional institutions and collective action; emphasizing “America First” rather than American leadership; and being forgiving even flattering of China and Xi Jinping, rather than reflecting the emergent ideological competition.In the wake of the Administration’s conspicuous “Indo-Pacific” rollout, this begs the question of whether Trump’s upcoming trip to Beijing will represent a turning point in U.S. China policy or U.S.-China relations. Will there be any evidence in Beijing of a strategic shift in Washington? Don’t count on it. The visit will be long on ceremony and short on substance. Trump isn’t interested in playing hardball with his host in public. And while the Administration will put down markers privately on areas of frustration and disappointment, it isn’t using the visit as a forcing function or negotiating session. Instead, Air Force One will depart for Vietnam with little changed and little achieved.For years, countries in the region have been moving toward closer integration rather than disintegration. For example, China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) have become a boon for the countries in the region looking to improve infrastructure and connectivity.China and India also have strengthened ties despite their unresolved border disputes. The two countries are key members of the BRICS. Just in September, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended the BRICS leaders meeting in Hangzhou.At the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) meeting in Astana, Kazakhstan, in June, India and Pakistan became full members of the organization.China is now India’s largest trade partner. More Chinese companies, such as Huawei, ZTE, Alibaba and Xiaomi, have invested in India, while more Indian companies, especially in software and IT services companies, have invested in China.The potential for win-win cooperation between the world’s two most populous nations is enormous, and there is no reason for them at all to engage in a zero-sum game. It is entirely OK for the U.S. to propose an Indo-Pacific strategy. However, such a strategy should not aim at a third country, such as China. And it would serve the U.S.’ interests best if its strategy is to unite all the countries in the region rather than try to divide them.

North Korea is still making nukes, and the Trump admin is taking a harder lineThe newest intelligence shows Kim’s regime has stepped up efforts to hide its nuclear weapons production, say three senior U.S. officials.As President Donald Trump issues a steady stream of praise for Kim Jong Un in interviews and on Twitter, a steady stream of evidence that North Korea is still making nuclear weapons has pushed his administration to take a much more aggressive stance toward Pyongyang.

Trump’s International Ratings Remain Low, Especially Among Key Allies.Most still want U.S. as top global power, but see China on the riseAmerica’s global image plummeted following the election of President Donald Trump, amid widespread opposition to his administration’s policies and a widely shared lack of confidence in his leadership. Now, as the second anniversary of Trump’s election approaches, a new 25-nation Pew Research Center survey finds that Trump’s international image remains poor, while ratings for the United States are much lower than during Barack Obama’s presidency.The poll also finds that international publics express significant concerns about America’s role in world affairs. Large majorities say the U.S. doesn’t take into account the interests of countries like theirs when making foreign policy decisions. Many believe the U.S. is doing less to help solve major global challenges than it used to. And there are signs that American soft power is waning as well, including the fact that, while the U.S. maintains its reputation for respecting individual liberty, fewer believe this than a decade ago. Frustrations with the U.S. in the Trump era are particularly common among some of America’s closest allies and partners. In Germany, where just 10% have confidence in Trump, three-in-four people say the U.S. is doing less these days to address global problems, and the share of the public who believe the U.S. respects personal freedoms is down 35 percentage points since 2008. In France, only 9% have confidence in Trump, while 81% think the U.S. doesn’t consider the interests of countries like France when making foreign policy decisions.Critical views are also widespread among America’s closest neighbors. Only 25% of Canadians rate Trump positively, more than six-in-ten (63%) say the U.S. is doing less than in the past to address global problems, and 82% think the U.S. ignores Canada’s interests when making policy. Meanwhile, Trump’s lowest ratings on the survey are found in Mexico, where just 6% express confidence in his leadership.One exception to this pattern is Israel. After a year in which the Trump administration generated international controversy by moving the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, his positive rating jumped to 69%, up from 56% in 2017.Around the world, publics are divided about the direction of American power: Across the 25 nations surveyed, a median of 31% say the U.S. plays a more important role in the world today than it did ten years ago; 25% say it plays a less important role; and 35% believe the U.S. is as important as it was a decade ago.In contrast, views about Chinese power are clear: A median of 70% say China’s role on the world stage has grown over the past 10 years. Still, by a slim margin, more people name the U.S. as the world’s leading economic power (a median of 39% say the U.S., 34% say China).And despite the unease many feel about the U.S. at the moment, the idea of a U.S.-led world order is still attractive to most. When asked which would be better for the world, having China or the U.S. as the top global power, people in nearly every country tend to select the U.S., and this is particularly common among some of China’s Asia-Pacific neighbors, such as Japan, the Philippines, South Korea and Australia.Trade disputes have dominated relations between the world’s two biggest economies in recent weeks, as Washington and Beijing have slapped tariffs on goods from their respective countries. Although tensions over trade are hardly new, they have intensified during the Trump administration, and as a new Pew Research Center survey illustrates, American attitudes toward China have become somewhat less positive over the past year.Overall, 38% of Americans have a favorable opinion of China, down slightly from 44% in 2017. Attitudes toward China have fluctuated to some extent in recent years, becoming more negative during the 2012 election cycle, but more positive in 2017, before this year’s decline.Asian nations are divided when it comes to having confidence in Trump. Globally, a median of just 22% say they are confident Trump will do the right thing when it comes to international affairs. But of all 37 countries the Center surveyed, Trump’s greatest support comes from the Philippines, where 69% say they have confidence in him. A majority of people in Vietnam (58%) also express confidence in Trump. The shares are much smaller in Japan (24%) and South Korea (17%). In these two countries, confidence in the U.S. president is down dramatically from the end of the Obama administration. South Korea, for example, has seen a 71-percentage-point drop in confidence in the U.S. president since 2015. Many in Asia see the U.S. as the world’s leading economic power. Although many European publics view China as the world’s leading economic power, majorities in South Korea (66%) and Japan (62%) say the distinction belongs to the U.S. Around half of those in Vietnam (51%) and the Philippines (49%) also say this of the U.S., similar to the share of Americans (51%) who hold this view. Among the four Asian countries, the shares who say China is the world’s biggest economic power ranges from 17% in Vietnam to 27% in South Korea.Most oppose Trump policies that withdraw U.S. support for major trade and climate change agreements. Globally, a median of 72% disapprove of Trump’s proposal to withdraw the U.S. from major international trade pacts. Majorities in Japan (66%) and Vietnam (61%) hold this view, as do 72% in the Philippines and 80% in South Korea. The survey was conducted after Trump signed an executive order withdrawing the U.S. from the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement, of which Vietnam and Japan are signatories.Majorities in the four Asian countries also disapprove of Trump’s proposed policy to withdraw support for international climate change agreements.Concern is highest among Pyongyang’s closest neighbors – South Korea, Japan and the Philippines, where 85% or more in all three countries say they are at least somewhat concerned. Anxiety is greatest in Japan, where 66% say they are very concerned about North Korea having nuclear weapons. Within the Asia-Pacific region, people in Vietnam are least worried about North Korea’s nuclear program – only around a quarter (23%) say they are very concerned.Attitudes diverge on how to best deal with North Korea’s weapons program. A majority in Japan (61%) prefers increasing economic sanctions, as do around half of South Koreans (51%). Those in Vietnam and the Philippines, on the other hand, lean toward deepening ties with North Korea (43% and 45%, respectively).People in the region are split on how relations will change between the U.S. and their country. Many countries around the world do not expect relations between their country and the U.S. to change over the next few years with Trump as president. Globally, a median of 41% expect relations to stay about the same and 32% expect relations to get worse. Within the Asia-Pacific region, countries are split. About as many in South Korea say relations will stay about the same (45%) as say they expect relations to sour (43%). Around a third (34%) in Japan say relations will stay about the same, compared with four-in-ten (41%) who expect relations will get worse and 17% who say relations with the U.S. will get better. In the Philippines and Vietnam, people are more likely to say relations with the U.S. will stay the same or improve now that Trump is president.China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Australia, and India are the "Big Five" largest crude oil producers in Asia, accounting for 89% of regional production , and their dominance is likely to continue in the near future.

DONALD TRUMP'S TRADE WAR WITHOUT FREE AND FAIR TRADE.6 - YEAR OLDS DON'T ACT LIKE TRUMP,TRUMP'S TRADE WAR WILL FAIL.TRUMP ABLE TO FILE FOR BANKRUPTCY ,HE HAS FILED CHAPTER 11 BANKRUPTCY FOR HIS COMPANIES SIX TIMES.A REPORT SAID.

Sun, 10 Feb 2019 14:17:00 +0000

US leader praises Xi Jinping’s power grab as Beijing fuels fears of a trade war.The ruling Communist party plans to abolish term limits on the Chinese presidency, paving the way for President Xi to extend his authoritarian rule for at least another decade.

Trump set to turn all trade war fire on China after US deal with EU to suspend tariffs. America-First negotiating tactics may produce a new agreement on NAFTA , but history suggests he could be creating bad blood against the U.S. for years or longer.Next there is the future of Nafta. Canada and Mexico are caught up in the steel and aluminium tariff row, but there is a bigger game here. That is whether the North American continent can continue on the march towards a free trade zone. Nafta is by no means perfect, and there are all sorts of minor barriers to open trade. But it is a base from which you can negotiate. The US is the dominant partner in these negotiations and so does not need to throw its weight about. But it also needs a friend to the north and a friend to the south, along undefended borders. Does the president know this? Or is the drama of beating up your friends more attractive?Third, there is the long-term relationship with China. Negotiations are taking place in Beijing right now, but I am not particularly troubled by what will come out of these. Numbers matter more than words. So by how much does China’s trade surplus with the US, currently running at more than $350bn a year, come down? Does China really open up its industries to foreign ownership? The present outlook is for China to seek to cut its surplus, perhaps to $200bn a year, and that is a start. But opening up to the world is the bigger long-term issue. Clues about that are really interesting.Economists tell us the effects of the tariffs, while imprecise so far, are not pretty. Here’s a basic rundown.For workers in America’s heartland, the good news of savings from President Donald Trump’s tax cuts is getting overshadowed by concern over his disruptive trade policies.Tariffs are taxes on certain imports from another country paid by a country’s own population. They raise prices for manufacturers, which are passed onto customers, or for customers directly.When manufacturing costs up, manufacturers have to either adjust to the higher cost or find something to replace the imported good. Sometimes the replacement might create jobs domestically, but imports are not always easily switchable, like steel.With higher prices, demand goes down, and so on the retail end, jobs suffer. However, experts said jobs are the last in a series of cost-reductions that firms will take in reaction to tariffs.Other countries retaliate to U.S. tariffs by putting tariffs on U.S. goods sold in their own countries, like China’s tariff on U.S. soybeans. China still has to get soybeans from somewhere, and so far their eyes are set on Brazil. As a consequence, U.S. producers lose valuable customers they may not regain, and must drive prices down to compete with the foreign goods.The effect is lower prices and lower export levels, but some of these effects are only now starting to show. In anticipation of the tariffs, the agricultural industry pushed out more exports than usual, which postponed the price effects for months.It’s because they were doing all this advanced preparation to get around all the harm that would be coming later. So it’s going to be in the last half of the year that tariffs start showing up in producer and eventually consumer prices.Besides producer and consumer prices, the effects can be seen in the fiscal policy of the central bank. While the Fed’s interest rate hike in June cannot be attributed only to tariffs, they play a role, as tariffs accelerate inflation, which higher interest rates aim to fix. Those, in turn, trigger higher borrowing rates for consumers.Stock prices and investment are two other key indicators of the impacts of tariffs. The stock market following second quarter earning reports are a good place to look.Companies are reporting they are taking hits, and that is affecting stock prices.Even though it hasn’t shown a bad impact, it could going forward, depending on how much reports impact stock prices.

Different views of G7 meeting paint a tense picture of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, British Prime Minister Theresa May, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and U.S. President Donald Trump discuss the joint statement following a breakfast meeting at the G7 summit in La Malbaie, Que. on June 9, 2018.

Trump is ready to take the trade war with China to the next level.Asia must take a stand in dealing with Trump's trade war.Wait-and-see strategies to Trump's trade war are no longer viable. It's time for a strategic response from the region that has more stake in the global system than any part of the world.The multilateral rules-based trade regime is under assault and the liberal economic order that has underpinned trade growth and global prosperity is under threat from its chief architect, the United States.At the same time, the Trump administration seems to be doing its level best to run a competition calculated from the starting gate to lose the race, or the war, whichever it turns out to be. The US president’s latest effort was to threaten a rise in tariffs on US$200 billion worth of Chinese goods from 10 per cent to 25 per cent.Within 24 hours, China quickly reciprocated with a list of 5,207 American products, worth US$60 billion, on which it pledged to exact new tariffs ranging from 5 to 25 per cent if Trump implements his threats.The erosion of American manufacturing became a hot-button issue during the 2016 election. And for good reason. Total employment in manufacturing has fallen by 25 percent since 2001, putting about 4.5 million workers out of a job.Members of both parties now agree that free trade is largely to blame for this decline. Off-shoring and “bad” trade deals are cited as evidence that trade no longer serves America’s interests.The Trump administration’s solution is tariffs. In recent months, entry barriers have been erected, first to protect solar panels and washing machines in January and then steel and aluminum in March.Although he’s fighting these trade battles with many partners, including Canada and Europe, most of Trump’s attention is directed toward China. He claims that China manipulates its currency, fails to protect intellectual property and stunts economic innovation. Sweeping tariffs beginning with a 25 percent increase on $34 billion of Chinese imports – are an attempt to combat those issues.After months of warnings and threats and failed negotiations with China, United States officials have started collecting tariffs on $34 billion worth of Chinese goods. In response, Beijing has said that it will retaliate with levies on American pork, soybeans, and cars. In response to that response, Trump has promised to re-retaliate by applying tariffs to more than $200 billion worth of goods from China if Beijing follows through.It’s important to state that American and European companies have real gripes with China, which has spied on foreign companies and forced Western tech firms to hand over patented technology as a condition for selling into the Chinese market. Pressuring China to change course will take a coordinated global effort, a careful construction of alliances around the world, and a cautious approach to nudging China toward lowering its barriers to entry.Chinese state media kept up their criticism of U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade policies, with a newspaper on Tuesday describing as “wishful thinking” Trump’s belief that a fall in Chinese stocks was a sign of his winning the trade war.As the world’s two biggest economies remained locked in a heated tariff dispute, Beijing and Washington have kept up a blistering rhetoric with threats and counter-threats of more punitive trade measures.The editorial in the official China Daily underscored an increasingly aggressive stance adopted by Chinese state media against Trump, a shift from their previous approach of tempering any direct criticism against the U.S. president.The overseas edition of the Communist Party’s People’s Daily newspaper singled out Trump, saying he was starring in his own “street fighter-style deceitful drama of extortion and intimidation.”China proposed retaliatory tariffs on $60 billion worth of U.S. goods ranging from liquefied natural gas (LNG) to some aircraft on Friday, following the Trump administration’s plan for a higher 25 percent tariff on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports.

After a meeting at the White House between U.S. President Donald Trump and EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, the two leaders declared a temporary truce to escalating trade tensions and agreed to begin negotiations to eliminate tariffs and subsidies on everything but cars. Juncker also agreed to buy billions of dollars more in U.S. soybeans and natural gas.Since to some it seems like the U.S. got more than it gave in this tentative deal, it’s a good time to ask: Is Trump winning the trade war he began with Europe? Let’s say it’s halftime and the U.S. and EU are tied at 1-1. Who wins will depend most on the strategy each team works out in the locker room and how well it’s executed in the second half.Perhaps Trump thinks that because he can impose tariffs on more goods than the Europeans, the U.S. will win the game. He may also believe that his threat of steep tariffs on cars will compel Germany to force the EU to capitulate because Chancellor Angela Merkel won’t want to hurt her export-oriented auto industry.But your favorite french fry condiment isn’t the only target. The retaliation list reportedly includes duties worth over 18 billion euro ($21.07 billion), on items such as frozen fish, raisins, suitcases, and adhesive bandages.These tariffs will only be implemented should Trump decide to go ahead with placing duties on EU cars and car parts. Europe imported American cars worth €77 billion ($90.13 billion) in 2016, while the U.S. imported €254 billion ($296.12) in cars from Europe.A big advantage enjoyed by the U,S. is that it is able to make decisions quickly since there's only one American president, while the EU has 28 leaders who all must agree to major decisions.In addition, the U.S. runs a trade deficit with the EU, which means Americans buy more stuff from the Europeans than vice versa. Armed with these advantages, Trump's strategy seems to be to use the threat of tariffs to create uncertainty, sow dissension within the EU, and extract concessions.Perhaps Trump thinks that because he can impose tariffs on more goods than the Europeans, the U.S. will win the game. He may also believe that his threat of steep tariffs on cars will compel Germany to force the EU to capitulate because Chancellor Angela Merkel won't want to hurt her export-oriented auto industry.While Trump somewhat effectively employed this strategy with South Korea, it may not work with the EU.Not surprisingly, the option to pay back the US in kind is gaining traction and may well become reality. If so, a full-blown trade war could be inevitable. This is offset by the fact that an escalation of the trade war between the EU and the US was prevented last week. Yet this is merely a temporary ‘truce’; many analysts doubt if the negotiations concerning lower trade barriers – which would be a definite solution – between the European block and the United States will be successful. Plus, a relaxed relationship between both major players could give Trump 'carte blanche' to target China.

Trump and Jean-Claude Juncker agree deal to stave off trade war .Wall Street was boosted by the deal with the S&P 500 closing at its highest level since January 29, while MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan edged up 0.1 percent.

Trump has filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy for his companies six times. Three of the casino bankruptcies came during the recession of the early 1990s and the Gulf War, both of which contributed to hard times in Atlantic City, New Jersey's gambling facilities. He also entered a Manhattan hotel and two casino holding companies into bankruptcy. By allowing the business to continue, employees still have their jobs and the business is still making money. Corporate debts still need to be repaid but they may be reduced. The corporation must develop a repayment plan and corporate budget. Both must be approved by the creditors and by the bankruptcy court.he has also led some of his companies into bankruptcy, maneuvers he says were designed to restructure their massive debt.Critics have cited the Trump corporate bankruptcies as examples of his recklessness and inability to manage, but the real-estate developer, casino operator and former reality-television star says his use of federal law to protect his interests illustrates his sharp business acumen.Trump has filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy for his companies six times. Three of the casino bankruptcies came during the recession of the early 1990s and the Gulf War, both of which contributed to hard times in Atlantic City, New Jersey's gambling facilities. He also entered a Manhattan hotel and two casino holding companies into bankruptcy.Chapter 11 bankruptcy allows companies to restructure or wipe away much of their debt to other companies, creditors, and shareholders while remaining in business but under the supervision of a bankruptcy court. Chapter 11 is often called "reorganization" because it allows the business to emerge from the process more efficient and on good terms with its creditors.Trump opened the $1.2 billion Taj Mahal Casino Resort in Atlantic City in April 1990. One year later, in the summer of 1991, it sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection because it was unable to generate enough gambling revenue to cover the massive costs of building the facility, particularly amid a recession.Trump was forced to relinquish half of his ownership in the casino and sell off his yacht and his airline. The bondholders were awarded lower interest payments.Trump's Taj Mahal was described as the eighth wonder of the world and the largest casino in the world. The casino covered 4.2 million square feet on 17 acres of land. Its operations were said to have cannibalized the revenue of Trump's Plaza and Castle casinos.The Castle Hotel & Casino entered bankruptcy in March 1992 and had the most difficulty of Trump's Atlantic City properties in covering its operational costs. The Trump Organization relinquished half of its holdings in the Castle to the bondholders. Trump opened the Castle in 1985. The casino remains in operation under new ownership and a new name, the Golden Nugget.The Plaza Casino was one of two Trump casinos in Atlantic City to enter bankruptcy in March 1992. The other was the Castle Hotel & Casino. The 39-story, 612-room Plaza opened on the Atlantic City boardwalk in May 1984 after Trump struck a deal to build the casino with Harrah’s Entertainment. Trump Plaza closed in September 2014, putting more than 1,000 people out of work.Trump's Plaza Hotel was more than $550 million in debt when it entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1992. Trump gave up a 49 percent stake in the company to lenders, as well as his salary and his day-to-day role in its operations.The hotel, overlooking Central Park in Manhattan from its location on Fifth Avenue, entered bankruptcy because it could not pay its annual debt service payments. Trump bought the hotel for about $407 million in 1988. He later sold a controlling stake in the property, which remains in operationTrump Hotels & Casino Resorts, a holding company for Trump's three casinos, entered Chapter 11 in November 2004 as part of a deal with bondholders to restructure $1.8 billion of debt.Earlier that year, the holding company posted a first quarter loss of $48 million, double its losses for the same quarter the previous year. The company said its gambling take was down nearly $11 million across all three casinos.The holding company emerged from bankruptcy less than a year later, in May 2005, with a new name: Trump Entertainment Resorts Inc. The Chapter 11 restructuring reduced the company's debt by about $600 million and cut interest payments by $102 million annually. Trump relinquished the majority control to bondholders and gave up his title of chief executive officer, according to The Press of Atlantic City newspaper. . Trump Entertainment Resorts, the casino holding company, entered Chapter 11 in February 2009 amid The Great Recession. Atlantic City casinos were also hurting, according to published reports, because of new competition from across the state line in Pennsylvania, where slot machines had come online and were drawing gamblers.The holding company emerged from bankruptcy less than a year later, in May 2005, with a new name: Trump Entertainment Resorts Inc. The Chapter 11 restructuring reduced the company's debt by about $600 million and cut interest payments by $102 million annually.

The Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Atlantic City (formerly Trump Taj Mahal) is a casino and hotel on the Boardwalk, owned by Hard Rock International, in Atlantic City, New Jersey, United States.The casino, originally known as the Trump Taj Mahal, was inaugurated by its then-owner Donald Trump in 1990.

TRUMP HAS RECOGNIZED JERUSALEM AS THE ISRAELI CAPITAL IN DECEMBER 6, 2017.IVANKA TRUMP AND HER HUSBAND JARED KUSHNER WERE IN JERUSALEM FOR EMBASSY OPENING AS GAZA BRACES FOR BLOODSHED.MORE THAN 50 PALESTINE YOUNG PEOPLE KILLED IN CLASHES .

Sun, 10 Feb 2019 14:17:00 +0000

Palestinians want the capital of an independent Palestinian state to be in the city's eastern sector, which Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed in a move never recognised internationally.

Jerusalem,its multi-religious tradition. The scope of the book is broad, ranging from the fourth century B.C.E. to the present a preeminent and recently deceased Islamic historian, follows his clearly stated intention of providing what he regards as the balance necessary to an understanding of various religious groups' identity within Jerusalem. The essays cover Jewish, Muslim, and, to a lesser extent, Christian heritage. The development is purely chronological, moving from early tribal settlements through the empires of Rome and Byzantium, the emergence of Islam, the conflict with Christian Crusaders, and the rise of the Ottomans to, finally, dominance by the West. A useful addition to collections that seek to serve broad interests and Middle Eastern history.Jerusalem was conquered by King David around 1000 BCE, establishing it as the capital of Israel. The first Temple was built by King Solomon a few decades later and destroyed in 587 BCE by the Babylonians. The Second Temple was built in 516 BCE. Under Greek rule in 175 BCE, the Temple was plundered and desecrated. Following the Maccabean revolt, it is in this Second Temple, that story of the Hanukkah miracle takes place.Many significant events in the life of Jesus took place in Jerusalem, including the Temptation, Last Supper, Crucifixion, and Resurrection.The city was largely extended westwards after the Neo-Assyrian destruction of the northern Kingdom of Israel and the resulting influx of refugees. Destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BCE, it was rebuilt on a smaller scale in about 440 BCE, during the Persian period, when, according to the Bible, Nehemiah led the Jews who returned from the Babylonian Exile. An additional, so-called Second Wall, was built by King Herod the Great. In 41–44 CE, Agrippa, king of Judea, started building the so-called "Third Wall" around the northern suburbs. The entire city was totally destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE.The northern part of the city was rebuilt by the Emperor Hadrian around 130, under the name Aelia Capitolina. In the Byzantine period Jerusalem was extended southwards and again enclosed by city walls.In the early 600's CE, significant events in the life of Muhammad take place in Jerusalem, including the Initial Revelations, and the Night Journey. In 620 CE Muhammad declares the Al-Aqsa Mosque as one of the three holiest mosques in Islam. In 636 CE, Jerusalem is conquered again and becomes part of the Arab Caliphate.The Crusaders invade Jerusalem in 1099 and control the city until Saladin's capture in 1187.The Ottomans rule Jerusalem from 1516 until after World War I when the British Mandate begins. Following the 1948 War of Independence, the Old City falls under Jordanian control, where it remains until the 1967 Six-Day War, when it is returned to Jewish control for the first time in thousands of years.Muslims occupied Byzantine Jerusalem in the 7th century (637 CE) under the second caliph, `Umar Ibn al-Khattab who annexed it to the Islamic Arab Empire. He granted its inhabitants an assurance treaty. After the siege of Jerusalem, Sophronius welcomed `Umar, allegedly because, according to biblical prophecies known to the Church in Jerusalem, "a poor, but just and powerful man" would rise to be a protector and ally to the Christians of Jerusalem. Sophronius believed that `Umar, a great warrior who led an austere life, was a fulfillment of this prophecy. In the account by the Patriarch of Alexandria, Eutychius, it is said that `Umar paid a visit to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and sat in its courtyard. When the time for prayer arrived, however, he left the church and prayed outside the compound, in order to avoid having future generations of Muslims use his prayer there as a pretext for converting the church into a mosque. Eutychius adds that `Umar also wrote a decree which he handed to the Patriarch, in which he prohibited Muslims gathering in prayer at the site.

US Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, have arrived in Israel ahead of the opening of the new US embassy in Jerusalem.Israel regards Jerusalem as its "eternal and undivided" capital, while the Palestinians claim East Jerusalem - occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war - as the capital of a future state.

Trump’s recognition of contested Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in December 6, 2017 outraged Palestinians, who said the United States could no longer serve as an honest broker in any peace process with Israel.Palestinians seek East Jerusalem as the capital of a state they want to establish in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip.Leaders around the world, including US allies, have condemned the move as US embassies in the Middle East and Europe braced for potentially violent protests in the wake of the announcement. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, British Prime Minister Theresa May and a host of Middle Eastern leaders were among those criticising Mr Trump's "dangerous escalation" of hostilities.In Gaza, hundreds of Palestinian protesters burned American and Israeli flags, while several hundred protesters gathered outside the US consulate in Istanbul, with some throwing coins and other objects at the building.The Palestinian death toll from Israeli live fire in protests along the Gaza-Israel border at least 58 Palestinians were killed and more than 2,700 injured in Gaza as deadly protests took place ahead of, during and after the ceremony in Jerusalem.The U.S. relocation of its embassy from Tel Aviv fulfilled a pledge by President Donald Trump but it has fired Palestinian anger and drawn criticism from many foreign governments as a setback to peace efforts.Ministry officials said about 2,200 Palestinians were wounded, half of them by live bullets.France and Britain called on Israel to show restraint and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was “deeply concerned” by the events in Gaza.Other responses to the violence were stronger. Regional power Turkey accused Israeli security forces of carrying out a massacre and said the U.S. Embassy move had encouraged them. The policy of Israeli authorities to fire irrespective of whether there is an immediate threat to life on Palestinian demonstrators in Gaza, caged in for a decade and under occupation for a half century, has resulted in a bloodbath that anyone could have foreseen.”Tens of thousands of Palestinians had streamed to the coastal enclave’s land border, some approaching the Israeli fence a line Israeli leaders said Palestinians would not be allowed to breach.Clouds of black smoke from tyres set alight by demonstrators rose in the air.Demonstrators, some armed with slingshots, hurled stones at the Israeli security forces, who fired volleys of tear gas and intense rounds of gunfire.The Israeli military said three of those killed were armed militants who tried to place explosives near the fence.The latest casualties raised the Palestinian death toll to 88 since the protests started six weeks ago, the worst bout of bloodshed since the 2014 Gaza war.No Israeli casualties have been reported. Thousands of people approached the barrier as the protest unfolded, some rolling burning tyres and hurling stones.Others flew flaming kites to try and torch bushes on the other side and distract Israeli marksmen.Hundreds of Palestinians were treated for tear gas inhalation. “The IDF (Israel Defense Forces) will act forcefully against any terrorist activity and will operate to prevent attacks against Israelis,” the military said in a statement.he killings have drawn international criticism since the series of protests began but the United States has echoed Israel in accusing Gaza’s ruling Hamas movement of instigating violence, an allegation it denies.More than 2 million people are crammed into the narrow strip, which is blockaded by Egypt and Israel.The Trump administration says it has nearly completed a new Israeli-Palestinian peace plan but is undecided on how and when to roll it out.Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah, in a statement , accused the United States of “blatant violations of international law”.“Choosing a tragic day in Palestinian history (to open the Jerusalem embassy) shows great insensibility and disrespect for the core principles of the peace process,” Hamdallah wrote.French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said the U.S. move flouted international law. “France calls on all actors to show responsibility to prevent a new escalation,” Le Drian said in a statement.In London, the British government said it had no plans to move its Israel embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and it disagreed with the U.S. decision to do so.The Russian government said it feared the embassy move would increase tensions across the Middle East.

Israeli troops kill 16 protesting Palestinians as Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner open the Jerusalem embassy.Today is the big day when we will cross the fence and tell Israel and the world we will not accept being occupied forever," said a protester.

Protests at the Gaza-Israel border coincided with Nakba Day, the Palestinians' "day of catastrophe" a reference to Israel's 1948 founding and Palestinians' expulsion from their homes in Israel.Palestinians carry an injured protestors during demonstration to mark the 70th anniversary of Nakba and against United States' plans today to relocate the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, near Gaza-Israel border in Rafah southern Gaza. Dozens of people died in violence in Gaza ahead of the controversial opening of the new U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem.Ceremonies marking the embassy's move from the official capital in Tel Aviv were intended to be festive and celebratory, but authorities are preparing for demonstrations that could turn into fighting.Ivanka Trump and husband Jared Kushner, both senior White House advisers, represented the United States at the ceremony. U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan also attended.While Israel lauds the transfer of the embassy, announced by President Donald Trump last year, it's been roundly condemned by many Arab countries.ens of thousands of Zionists, Israel's far right-wing, participated in the Flag March on Sunday the annual procession that marks Jerusalem Day, the end of the 1967 war and the merger of East and West Jerusalem. Fighting broke out along the route to the Temple Mount, which passes through the city's Muslim Quarter.Several Palestinians were arrested, as were six Jewish marchers who sang songs police later described as incitement. Most vendors in the Muslim Quarter kept their shops open, despite warnings that police would be unable to protect them if the Flag March turned violent.The two sides were separated by police at the Temple Mount, a sacred site to Jews, Muslims and Christians, and several Jewish marchers were removed for breaking the rules of conduct, Ynet News reported.The move of the U.S. Embassy is seen in Israel as a transformative event breaking decades of U.S. neutrality on Israeli-Palestinian relations. Palestinians regard East Jerusalem as Palestine's capital, should it ever become a sovereign state, and interpret the U.S. Embassy move as Washington taking sides with Israel.Israel effectively annexed East Jerusalem after the 1967 war, although no country recognized the takeover until Trump's declaration of the embassy move.The violent clashes cast a shadow over the inauguration of the new US embassy in Jerusalem and raised new doubts about Trump's ambitions to broker what he once said would be the Middle East "deal of the century".While the US President did not attend the opening, his daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner attended the ceremony and delivered on "a longtime promise to the American and Israeli people".Update: 5.20pm The latest death toll stands at 52 after Israeli soldiers shot and killed Palestinians during mass protests along the Gaza border.The Associated Press reports that about 1,200 others suffered other types of injuries, including from tear gas, according to the statement.Israeli soldiers have shot and killed at least 43 Palestinians during mass protests along the Gaza border, overshadowing the inauguration of the new US embassy in Jerusalem.It has been reported that the number of people wounded is in its thousands.In a show of anger fuelled by the embassy move, protesters set tyres ablaze and hurled firebombs and stones toward Israeli troops across the border.The Israeli military said its troops had come under fire, and accused protesters of trying to break through the border fence. It said troops shot and killed three Palestinians who were trying to plant a bomb.At the same time, just 45 miles away in Jerusalem, the opening ceremony of the embassy got under way, with Trump saying in a video address that the move had been "a long time coming".Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas said the decision was tantamount to the US abdicating its peace mediator role.Britain's PM Theresa May said she believed Mr Trump's move was "unhelpful in terms of prospects for peace in the region".Lebanon's President Michel Aoun said the decision had put back the peace process by decades.Jordan's government spokesman said the kingdom considered "all unilateral moves that sought to create new facts on the ground as null and void".

At least 58 Palestinians were killed and more than 2,700 injured in Gaza as deadly protests took place ahead of, during and after the ceremony in Jerusalem,including five children under the age of 18. Almost 2,000 sustained injuries, more than 900 with live ammunition,10,000 "violent rioters" were participating in the Gaza protest.

Thousands of demonstrators have gathered at the border, setting fire to tyres and sending thick plumes of black smoke into the air to deter Israeli snipers at several spots, while the Israeli military said the protests were being used as cover for attacks and assaults on the border fence.In the West Bank, several thousand people gathered in the centre of Ramallah, while hundreds marched to the Qalandiya crossing on the outskirts of Jerusalem, where protesters threw stones at Israeli troops.Monday marks the biggest showdown in recent weeks between Israel's military and Gaza's Hamas rulers along the volatile border.The relocation of the embassy from Tel Aviv, a key campaign promise of US president Donald Trump, has infuriated the Palestinians, who seek east Jerusalem as a future capital.At least two Palestinians have been killed and dozens more injured as Israeli troops opened fire on protesters heading for the border with Israel ahead of the inauguration of a new US embassy in Jerusalem.The march is scheduled to be the biggest yet in a long campaign against a decade-old blockade of the territory.As crowds began to swell at midday, Israeli troops began firing from across the border fence. Palestinian health officials reported two people killed and at least 69 others wounded by gunfire, nine of them seriously.A majority of Gaza’s two million people are descendants of refugees, and the protests have been billed as the “Great March of Return”.Leaflets dropped over Gaza by army jets warned that those approaching the border “jeopardise” their lives. The warning said the army is “prepared to face all scenarios and will act against every attempt to damage the security fence or harm IDF soldiers or Israeli civilians”.US treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin said that it was a US “national security priority” to move the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Trump’s decision to go forward with a campaign promise to move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem was welcomed by Israel and condemned by the Palestinians. Previous US presidents had signed a waiver postponing the move, citing national security.Chief Palestinian negotiator Saed Erekat said Mr Trump was "crossing red lines" with his decision."I think tonight he is strengthening the forces of extremists in this region as no-one has done before, this is an act, a statement that is totally uncalled for, totally unacceptable," he said.Qatar's Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said the change in policy was a "dangerous escalation and death sentence for all who seek peace".Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed Mr Trump's announcement as a "historic landmark" and urged other countries also to move their embassies in Israel to Jerusalem.He said it was an "important step toward peace" and his country was "profoundly grateful".The UN's Mr Guterres said there was no alternative to a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians and that Jerusalem was a final-status issue that should be resolved through direct talks.Foreign Minister Julie Bishop made it clear that Australia does not back the Trump administration's decision."We've not ever supported unilateral action on either side. We believe that for there to be an enduring peace both sides must come together and negotiate an outcome, that includes on the status of Jerusalem," she said.Ms Bishop said Australia remained optimistic that a two-state solution was possible, but the President's decision made any negotiations over East Jerusalem "very complex".She also said Australia had no plans to move its embassy from Tel Aviv.Indonesian President Joko Widodo said Mr Trump's statement could threaten the stability of global security.He said he asked the peak body of Islamic countries, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, to hold a special meeting about the issue and told Indonesia's Foreign Minister to summon the US ambassador to express Indonesia's position.

CHILD TRAFFICKING ,CHILD LABOURERS AND THE PLAQUE OF MODERN SLAVERY.MORE THAN 165 MILLION CHILDREN ARE ENGAGED IN CHILD LABOUR ALL OVER THE WORLD.

Sun, 10 Feb 2019 14:16:00 +0000

Thousands of children found working in brick kiln in Nepal, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.Girls as young as seven found carrying bricks on their head.Some of the children were as young as four.Many children end up working alongside their parents because of a lack of schools and teachers.Local officials said they would investigate why the rescued children had not been enrolled in a nearby primary school.

History books tell the 400-year story of one of the most unfathomable practices ever engaged in by mankind of humans being bought, sold and traded as commodities, and of men and women shackled together on slave ships destined towards a life of captivity. This is indicative of the radical transformation of the international community in its attitude towards an inhumane practice that should have never been allowed to occur.In the world of work, over 165 million children aged 5 to 14 years are going to work. Of these, 74 million are engaged in work that could be dangerous to health. Compared with other continents, child labour is more in Asian countries. Despite the fact that over the past six years the number of minors who work here fell by nearly 5 million people, yet 122 million children and adolescents aged 5 to 14 years engaged in commercial activities or in the workplace. Among all countries, child labour is more in Nepal, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.Every week, thousands of people move from their traditional communities to find work in large cities. In border towns like Siliguri in India, children are at risk of harm, exploitation and abuse. Away from the support of their extended families and communities, children are easy targets for traffickers, who transport them across India or into other countries. World Vision is working to protect, empower and educate children in Siliguri. Learn more about our work in child protection.Modern forms of slavery can include debt bondage, where a person is forced to work for free to pay off a debt, child slavery, forced marriage, domestic servitude and forced labour, where victims are made to work through violence and intimidation.Child labour in Pakistan has increased in last two decades. The main causes of child labour are large family size, and unemployment. People with low wages or earnings and too many children cannot afford in quality life. They can’t even fill the stomach of their children , rather they could send them to school. So the children in such families are sent to learn some skills and earn while learn. People with too many dependents are unable to groom themselves. They find no resources to improve them personality. Thus, they have to lose all opportunities in life. They are being replaced by quality workers, so they lose their employment. To get rid of their miserable condition, they send the children to find work. Children under age are hired at extrem low salaries and most by are abused by their employers and adult co-workers. There should be proper law for child-labour. The children working at young age need to be protected by adults of our society.Considerable differences exist between the many kinds of work children do. Some are difficult and demanding, others are more hazardous and even morally reprehensible. Children carry out a very wide range of tasks and activities when they work.Not all work done by children should be classified as child labour that is to be targeted for elimination. Children’s or adolescents’ participation in work that does not affect their health and personal development or interfere with their schooling, is generally regarded as being something positive. This includes activities such as helping their parents around the home, assisting in a family business or earning pocket money outside school hours and during school holidays. These kinds of activities contribute to children’s development and to the welfare of their families; they provide them with skills and experience, and help to prepare them to be productive members of society during their adult life.The term “child labour” is often defined as work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and that is harmful to physical and mental development.In its most extreme forms, child labour involves children being enslaved, separated from their families, exposed to serious hazards and illnesses and/or left to fend for themselves on the streets of large cities often at a very early age. Whether or not particular forms of “work” can be called “child labour” depends on the child’s age, the type and hours of work performed, the conditions under which it is performed and the objectives pursued by individual countries. The answer varies from country to country, as well as among sectors within countries. All forms of slavery or practices similar to slavery, such as the sale and trafficking of children, debt bondage and serfdom and forced or compulsory labour, including forced or compulsory recruitment of children for use in armed conflict.The use, procuring or offering of a child for prostitution, for the production of pornography or for pornographic performances. The use, procuring or offering of a child for illicit activities, in particular for the production and trafficking of drugs as defined in the relevant international treaties.Work which, by its nature or the circumstances in which it is carried out, is likely to harm the health, safety or morals of children.Labour that jeopardises the physical, mental or moral well-being of a child, either because of its nature or because of the conditions in which it is carried out, is known as “hazardous work”.In order to appreciate the trafficking bill, some understanding of the history of international and domestic anti-trafficking law is essential. Against this backdrop it will soon become clear that the proposed law will do little to alleviate India’s shame of harbouring the highest number of the world’s ‘modern slaves’. It also seems to be a shallow attempt to ape a highly carceral, western approach to a juridically constructed problem of ‘trafficking’ undertaken in perfect amnesia of a richer, more systemic, and indigenous legal approach to the exploitation that has long afflicted vulnerable sections of India’s work force. Herein lies the irony of poorly thought out laws meant to act as band-aids on the long festering problem of severely unequal wealth and resource distribution.

How we can fight child labour in the tobacco industry.Many of them complained of suffering nausea, vomiting, headaches, and dizziness while they worked all symptoms consistent with acute nicotine poisoning, or green tobacco sickness, from nicotine being absorbed through the skin while handling tobacco.

Worldwide, 60 per cent of all child labour in the age group five to 17 years work in agriculture, including farming, fishing, aquaculture, forestry, and livestock. The majority of child labour are unpaid family members. One component of providing access to education is the School Infrastructure Development programme which focuses on improving school facilities, including sanitation, potable water, sports facilities and classroom equipment.An After School Programme seeks to prevent children from dropping out of school by providing them meals and engaging them in post-school activities, particularly during peak agriculture season, when the need for working hands is higher. “Our programme has been implemented in more than 50 schools in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. Over the years, we have seen a significant change in the school-going patterns of children.“Students, supported by parents, prefer to go to schools which now have good facilities and infrastructure. We are pleased at the way in which local communities have joined hands with us in spreading awareness against child labour and encouraging students to attend schools“Trafficking in persons” shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs: The consent of a victim of trafficking in persons to the intended exploitation set forth in subparagraph of this article shall be irrelevant where any of the means set forth in subparagraph have been used.Another layer of complexity comes from trafficking’s long history of association with prostitution. Historically, and more recently, trafficking was conflated with trafficking for sex work and, indeed, with sex work itself. When the US government then started ranking governments annually in the US State Department’s Trafficking in Persons Reports in terms of their actions to prevent trafficking and prosecute traffickers, and then withholding “nonhumanitarian, non-trade-related” aid from the worst offenders, governments scrambled to amend their anti-sex work laws in order to be placed higher up in the TIP rankings. Regions of the world like south Asia, meanwhile, became playgrounds of sexual humanitarianism, as religious evangelicals and liberals alike sought to rescue third world sex workers and purchase their ‘freedom’.Competing legal traditions and government inaction.It is in the context of these international developments that we need to assess the Indian trafficking bill. Like most countries around the world, India has a growing architecture of anti-trafficking law, put into place at different points in time to address varied manifestations of extreme labour exploitation. Yet the Indian Penal Code does not define the terms slavery, bondage, forced labour, or begary (where a person has been forced to work against his will and without payment). Many of the labour-related provisions in the IPC were a product of colonial rule, and thus they reflected the realities of that time. They also often furthered the colonial government’s interests in extracting compulsory labour from the natives.Meanwhile, the Indian Constitution, as a self-styled radical legal document reflecting postcolonial aspirations for modern nationhood, is concerned with indigenous forms of servitude. Under Part III, which deals with fundamental rights, Article 23 prohibits the traffic in human beings, begary, and other similar forms of forced labour, making the contravention of this provision an offence punishable in accordance with law.The Indian government needs to pause and dig deep into its own long and complex legal history, as well as its unique vision of dealing with extreme forms of exploitation that today travel under the conceptual banner of ‘trafficking’.In the 1970s, India, keen to live up to the aspirations of the Indian Constitution, passed several social legislations. These were the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976, as amended by the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Amendment Act, 1985 (BLSAA); the Contract Labour (Regulation & Abolition) Act, 1970, as amended by the Contract Labour (Regulation & Abolition) Amendment Act No.14 of 1986 (CLRAA); and the Inter-State Migrant Workmen Act (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1979 (ISMWA).All of these laws counter extreme forms of labour exploitation that are now commonly included under the term trafficking. Their intervention models are comprehensive, multi-pronged, community-based, and aimed at systemic reform – several notches above any simplistic attempts at rescue and rehabilitation. The BLSAA, for instance, not only prohibits and penalises existing and future bonded labour; all bonded labourers are set free and, by law, their obligation to repay the debt is extinguished.The BLSAA has several elaborate provisions rendering existing and future legal action arising from the debt void. Creditors accepting any repayment for an extinguished debt can face imprisonment and fines. Local district magistrates have to ensure the act’s implementation, the eradication of bonded labour, and the rehabilitation of bonded labourers so as to prevent their becoming bonded again. Vigilance committees with representatives of the state, the affected community, social workers, rural development institutions, and credit institutions are to assist the executive in this, while also defending suits against freed bonded labourers. The CLRAA and ISMWA, meanwhile, address chronic exploitation by intermediaries and sub-contractors by imposing on them the obligations of the employer. Consider the case of India! Globalization has helped the Indian economy to stand on its own in due time but has also catapulted the need of cheap unskilled labour. Unfortunately, millions of children are included in this huge domain of unskilled labourers. Not only they are deprived of their childhood, but also they are stripped of their fundamental rights.Not to talk about their meagre wages what they receive, India is one of the countries in South East Asia where human trafficking has become a menace. The migration of children from rural areas to urban domain has always been a common feature in Indian society. The meteoric rise of urban Indian culture has necessitated huge real estate growth where millions of children are engaged in physically intensive work which is detrimental to their natural growth and development. Let’s not forget the plight of the domestic helps in India, where it has become a norm to keep little children as domestic helps. The condition of girls in the child labour sector is pathetic to say the least. Minimal education, malnutrition, early marriage, societal exploitation and even prostitution have become common in this arena.It is indeed very sad to say that last year, the central government of India amended child labour laws to allow children below 14 to work in family businesses and the entertainment industry (excluding circuses). In India 33 million children are employed in various forms of child labour. There is no denying the fact that education is the only solution to abolish child labour in a developing country like India. Migration and debt trap have always been culprits in the rural economy and thus awareness programmes are indeed necessary.

Child labourers are vulnerable to abuse, and their families are often trapped in a cycle of poverty. In extreme cases, children are forced to work under threat of violence or death. Children can fall ill and get injured injuries have been as severe as loss of body parts.When children are of an appropriate age for the task, receive appropriate pay and work in safe environments, they can be considered “willing participants in work.” These children can balance work with school and play, and they develop the necessary skills to transition into adulthood.

Lack of financial institutions for the extreme poor can push them towards unregulated money-lenders who charge high interest rates or insist on large loans that leave the poor vulnerable to debt bondage.Poverty can trap people in debt bondage, because interest may add to the debt burden as fast as the person in debt can pay it off, Money-lenders may deliberately structure credit arrangements to trap people into long term debt bondage.Poverty can make it impossible for the poor to move to an area where they can get employed as free worker.Poverty may make it impossible for a worker to challenge an 'illegal' labour situation.When children, especially young ones are exposed to long hours of work in harsh and dangerous environments, which threatens their lives and limbs as well as jeopardize their normal physical, mental, emotional and moral development, it is termed child labour. As a result, they cannot imagine bettering something. I think though Bangladesh is a developed country, so most of the lower level of peoples is involving in service-oriented sectors to earned money. Most of the children they are doing domestic very little business. As a result, they do not get educationally facilities.Child domestic service is a widespread practice in Bangladesh. The Rapid Assessment of Child Labour Situation in Bangladesh estimated that in the city of Dhaka alone there were about 120,000 child domestics. Especially in Dhaka, city employers in the urban areas usually recruit children from their village homes through family, friends or contacts. Most of the child domestic workers come from the most vulnerable families, many of them being orphans or abandoned children. The majority of child domestics tend to be between 12 and 16years old, but children as young as 5 or 6 years old can also be found working. A survey of child domestic workers found that 38 percent were 11 to 13 years old and nearly 24 percent were 5 to 1years old. Their employers usually take care of their daily necessities like clothes, oil, soap, comb, towel, bedding and sleeping materials. The child domestic workers are often the least paid in the society, their remuneration ranging from 8taka to 40taka per month. In most of the cases, they hand over all their earnings to their parents, leaving nothing for themselves.Currently, child labor in Bangladesh is a critical issue. Day by day child labor is growing in different sectors. I think scarcity of one’s income to maintain his/her family and high density of population are the two main causes of child labor in our country. Different children are involved in difference activities to earn. Some children are involved with their traditional family jobs like clay modelling. Clay modeling was a tradition of our country earlier. Now this sector is in a destroyed position in Bangladesh. However, till now parents are sending their little children at hard work to save their family tradition with encourage. However, they do not get minimum facilities from the government and any private organization. As a result, unemployment and illiteracy rate is continuously increasing in Bangladesh.Child is any person who is yet to compete fourteen years of age’’. Bangladesh has the largest number of child workers in the world. They are employed in many industries and trades, including garments, footwear, brick kilns, stainless steel, hotels, textile shops and bus contractor etc. A dense population, limited resources, and frequent natural calamities complicate the poverty situation in Bangladesh and children are the worst victims. Although child labour is not illegal in Bangladesh but government or private organization have not take any positive steps to reduce the child labour. Among them large number of child is working by Bus helper or bus contractors to early age. As a result child labour is increasing day by day in Bangladesh.This has produced a vast pool of people in need of work.International anti-slavery law is not effectively enforced.There is a lack of institutions and procedures to enforce it.Some countries don't effectively enforce anti-slavery laws.This may not always be done for completely unethical reasons - if the alternative is wholesale starvation, then a government may choose not to enforce the law against slavery.

Children mining cobalt for batteries in the Congo,investigation has found child labor being used in the dangerous mining of cobalt in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The mineral cobalt is used in virtually all batteries in common devices, including cellphones, laptops and even electric vehicles.The work is hard enough for an adult man, but it is unthinkable for a child. Yet tens of thousands of Congolese kids are involved in every stage of mining for cobalt.But for the Chinese middlemen who buy the cobalt, there were no such constraints; they have free access.

Global number of children in child labour has declined by one third since 2000, from 246 million to 168 million children. More than half of them, 85 million, are in hazardous work (down from 171 million in 2000).There are 13 million (8.8%) of children in child labour in Latin America and the Caribbean and in the Middle East and North Africa there are 9.2 million (8.4%).Agriculture remains by far the most important sector where child labourers can be found (98 million, or 59%), but the problems are not negligible in services (54 million) and industry (12 million) mostly in the informal economy.African children have worked in farms and at home over a long history. This is not unique to Africa; large number of children have worked in agriculture and domestic situations in America, Europe and every other human society, throughout history, prior to 1950s. Scholars suggest that this work, specially in rural areas, was a form of schooling and vocational education, where children learned the arts and skills from their parents, and as adults continued to work in the same hereditary occupation. Bass claims this is particularly true in the African contex.Africa is a highly diverse and culturally developed clan. In parts of this clan, farming societies are a system of patrilineal clans and lineages. The young train with the adults. The family and kinsfolk provide a cultural routine that help children learn useful practical skills and enables these societies to provide for itself in the next generation. Historically, there were no formal schools, instead, children were informally schooled by working informally with their family and kin from a very early age. Child labor in Africa, as in other parts of the world, was also viewed as a way to instill a sense of responsibility and a way of life in children particularly in rural, subsistence agricultural communities. In rural Pare people of northern Tanzania, for example, five year olds would assist adults in tending crops, nine year olds help carry fodder for animals and responsibilities scaled with age.In northern parts of sub-Saharan Africa, Islam is a major influence. Begging and child labour was considered as a service in exchange for quranic education, and in some cases continues to this day. These children aged 7–13, for example, were called almudos in Gambia, or talibés in Senegal. The parents placed their children with marabout or serin, a cleric or quranic teacher. Here, they would split their time between begging and studying the Quran. This practice fit with one of the five pillars of Islam, the responsibility to engage in zakat, or almsgiving.The growth of colonial rule in Africa, from 1650 to 1950, by powers such as Britain, France, Belgium, Germany and Netherlands encouraged and continued the practice of child labour. Colonial administrators preferred Africa's traditional kin-ordered modes of production, that is hiring a household for work not just the adults. Millions of children worked in colonial agricultural plantations, mines and domestic service industries.Children in these colonies between the ages of 5-14 were hired as apprentice without pay in exchange for learning a craft. Colonial British laws, for example, offered the native people ownership to some of the native land in exchange for making labor of wife and children available to colonial government's needs such as in farms and as picannins.Fast-fashion retailers such as H&M, New Look, and Sports Direct’s Lonsdale label were all found to have worked with factories which employed 14 year old children in Myanmar, according to the new report “The Myanmar Dilemma” from the Amsterdam-based organisation the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (also known as Somo). Some interviewed over 400 workers in 12 factories which supplied garments for international fashion brands and found workers were being paid half of the full legal minimum wage, in addition to a number of children workers as young as 14 working over-time.If a supplier doesn't live up to our standards or national legislation we - in accordance with our routines - demand that the supplier immediately establishes an action plan, which has been done also in this case. One of the measures concerning the twosuppliers in question is improved recruitment routines, which has resulted in improved handling of ID-cards."H&M said the Bangladesh Fire and Safety Accord was extremely important to the company."Although being behind the projected schedule, we are experiencing good progress. This ‘race to the bottom’ led by fashion retailers forever in search for the lowest production hub causes unhealthy competition between garment producing countries in the region, argues Some in the report. “The rule of law in Myanmar is not adequately upheld. The army still has a lot of influence. The garment industry’s operations go largely unchecked. The question is justified if the time is ripe for foreign companies to invest in Myanmar. Garment brands should think twice before they start production in Myanmar. The risk of labour rights violations is very high. Companies should make a thorough analysis of all potential problems. They must ensure that they, together with their suppliers, identify and tackle these risks before placing any orders.It in not the first time H&M has been accused of working with factories that employ workers as young as 14 in Myanmar.

Primark axes suppliers for using child labour .Fashion chain Primark has axed three longstanding suppliers in southern India for using child labour after being alerted to the practice .The three suppliers - from the Tirapur region of the Tamil Nadu province - were sub-contracting embroidery work on dresses to child home workers. Almost its entire range is sourced from low-cost suppliers in Asia.

CHILD TRAFFICKING ,CHILD LABOURERS AND THE PLAQUE OF MODERN SLAVERY.MORE THAN 165 MILLION CHILDREN ARE ENGAGED IN CHILD LABOUR ALL OVER THE WORLD.

Sun, 10 Feb 2019 14:16:00 +0000

History books tell the 400-year story of one of the most unfathomable practices ever engaged in by mankind of humans being bought, sold and traded as commodities, and of men and women shackled together on slave ships destined towards a life of captivity. This is indicative of the radical transformation of the international community in its attitude towards an inhumane practice that should have never been allowed to occur.In the world of work, over 165 million children aged 5 to 14 years are going to work. Of these, 74 million are engaged in work that could be dangerous to health. Compared with other continents, child labour is more in Asian countries. Despite the fact that over the past six years the number of minors who work here fell by nearly 5 million people, yet 122 million children and adolescents aged 5 to 14 years engaged in commercial activities or in the workplace. Among all countries, child labour is more in Nepal, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.Every week, thousands of people move from their traditional communities to find work in large cities. In border towns like Siliguri in India, children are at risk of harm, exploitation and abuse. Away from the support of their extended families and communities, children are easy targets for traffickers, who transport them across India or into other countries. World Vision is working to protect, empower and educate children in Siliguri. Learn more about our work in child protection.Modern forms of slavery can include debt bondage, where a person is forced to work for free to pay off a debt, child slavery, forced marriage, domestic servitude and forced labour, where victims are made to work through violence and intimidation.Child labour in Pakistan has increased in last two decades. The main causes of child labour are large family size, and unemployment. People with low wages or earnings and too many children cannot afford in quality life. They can’t even fill the stomach of their children , rather they could send them to school. So the children in such families are sent to learn some skills and earn while learn. People with too many dependents are unable to groom themselves. They find no resources to improve them personality. Thus, they have to lose all opportunities in life. They are being replaced by quality workers, so they lose their employment. To get rid of their miserable condition, they send the children to find work. Children under age are hired at extrem low salaries and most by are abused by their employers and adult co-workers. There should be proper law for child-labour. The children working at young age need to be protected by adults of our society.Considerable differences exist between the many kinds of work children do. Some are difficult and demanding, others are more hazardous and even morally reprehensible. Children carry out a very wide range of tasks and activities when they work.Not all work done by children should be classified as child labour that is to be targeted for elimination. Children’s or adolescents’ participation in work that does not affect their health and personal development or interfere with their schooling, is generally regarded as being something positive. This includes activities such as helping their parents around the home, assisting in a family business or earning pocket money outside school hours and during school holidays. These kinds of activities contribute to children’s development and to the welfare of their families; they provide them with skills and experience, and help to prepare them to be productive members of society during their adult life.The term “child labour” is often defined as work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and that is harmful to physical and mental development.In its most extreme forms, child labour involves children being enslaved, separated from their families, exposed to serious hazards and illnesses and/or left to fend for themselves on the streets of large cities often at a very early age. Whether or not particular forms of “work” can be called “child labour” depends on the child’s age, the type and hours of work performed, the conditions under which it is performed and the objectives pursued by individual countries. The answer varies from country to country, as well as among sectors within countries. All forms of slavery or practices similar to slavery, such as the sale and trafficking of children, debt bondage and serfdom and forced or compulsory labour, including forced or compulsory recruitment of children for use in armed conflict.The use, procuring or offering of a child for prostitution, for the production of pornography or for pornographic performances. The use, procuring or offering of a child for illicit activities, in particular for the production and trafficking of drugs as defined in the relevant international treaties.Work which, by its nature or the circumstances in which it is carried out, is likely to harm the health, safety or morals of children.Labour that jeopardises the physical, mental or moral well-being of a child, either because of its nature or because of the conditions in which it is carried out, is known as “hazardous work”.In order to appreciate the trafficking bill, some understanding of the history of international and domestic anti-trafficking law is essential. Against this backdrop it will soon become clear that the proposed law will do little to alleviate India’s shame of harbouring the highest number of the world’s ‘modern slaves’. It also seems to be a shallow attempt to ape a highly carceral, western approach to a juridically constructed problem of ‘trafficking’ undertaken in perfect amnesia of a richer, more systemic, and indigenous legal approach to the exploitation that has long afflicted vulnerable sections of India’s work force. Herein lies the irony of poorly thought out laws meant to act as band-aids on the long festering problem of severely unequal wealth and resource distribution.

Worldwide, 60 per cent of all child labour in the age group five to 17 years work in agriculture, including farming, fishing, aquaculture, forestry, and livestock. The majority of child labour are unpaid family members. One component of providing access to education is the School Infrastructure Development programme which focuses on improving school facilities, including sanitation, potable water, sports facilities and classroom equipment.An After School Programme seeks to prevent children from dropping out of school by providing them meals and engaging them in post-school activities, particularly during peak agriculture season, when the need for working hands is higher. “Our programme has been implemented in more than 50 schools in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. Over the years, we have seen a significant change in the school-going patterns of children.“Students, supported by parents, prefer to go to schools which now have good facilities and infrastructure. We are pleased at the way in which local communities have joined hands with us in spreading awareness against child labour and encouraging students to attend schools“Trafficking in persons” shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs: The consent of a victim of trafficking in persons to the intended exploitation set forth in subparagraph of this article shall be irrelevant where any of the means set forth in subparagraph have been used.Another layer of complexity comes from trafficking’s long history of association with prostitution. Historically, and more recently, trafficking was conflated with trafficking for sex work and, indeed, with sex work itself. When the US government then started ranking governments annually in the US State Department’s Trafficking in Persons Reports in terms of their actions to prevent trafficking and prosecute traffickers, and then withholding “nonhumanitarian, non-trade-related” aid from the worst offenders, governments scrambled to amend their anti-sex work laws in order to be placed higher up in the TIP rankings. Regions of the world like south Asia, meanwhile, became playgrounds of sexual humanitarianism, as religious evangelicals and liberals alike sought to rescue third world sex workers and purchase their ‘freedom’.Competing legal traditions and government inaction.It is in the context of these international developments that we need to assess the Indian trafficking bill. Like most countries around the world, India has a growing architecture of anti-trafficking law, put into place at different points in time to address varied manifestations of extreme labour exploitation. Yet the Indian Penal Code does not define the terms slavery, bondage, forced labour, or begary (where a person has been forced to work against his will and without payment). Many of the labour-related provisions in the IPC were a product of colonial rule, and thus they reflected the realities of that time. They also often furthered the colonial government’s interests in extracting compulsory labour from the natives.Meanwhile, the Indian Constitution, as a self-styled radical legal document reflecting postcolonial aspirations for modern nationhood, is concerned with indigenous forms of servitude. Under Part III, which deals with fundamental rights, Article 23 prohibits the traffic in human beings, begary, and other similar forms of forced labour, making the contravention of this provision an offence punishable in accordance with law.The Indian government needs to pause and dig deep into its own long and complex legal history, as well as its unique vision of dealing with extreme forms of exploitation that today travel under the conceptual banner of ‘trafficking’.In the 1970s, India, keen to live up to the aspirations of the Indian Constitution, passed several social legislations. These were the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976, as amended by the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Amendment Act, 1985 (BLSAA); the Contract Labour (Regulation & Abolition) Act, 1970, as amended by the Contract Labour (Regulation & Abolition) Amendment Act No.14 of 1986 (CLRAA); and the Inter-State Migrant Workmen Act (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1979 (ISMWA).All of these laws counter extreme forms of labour exploitation that are now commonly included under the term trafficking. Their intervention models are comprehensive, multi-pronged, community-based, and aimed at systemic reform – several notches above any simplistic attempts at rescue and rehabilitation. The BLSAA, for instance, not only prohibits and penalises existing and future bonded labour; all bonded labourers are set free and, by law, their obligation to repay the debt is extinguished.The BLSAA has several elaborate provisions rendering existing and future legal action arising from the debt void. Creditors accepting any repayment for an extinguished debt can face imprisonment and fines. Local district magistrates have to ensure the act’s implementation, the eradication of bonded labour, and the rehabilitation of bonded labourers so as to prevent their becoming bonded again. Vigilance committees with representatives of the state, the affected community, social workers, rural development institutions, and credit institutions are to assist the executive in this, while also defending suits against freed bonded labourers. The CLRAA and ISMWA, meanwhile, address chronic exploitation by intermediaries and sub-contractors by imposing on them the obligations of the employer. Consider the case of India! Globalization has helped the Indian economy to stand on its own in due time but has also catapulted the need of cheap unskilled labour. Unfortunately, millions of children are included in this huge domain of unskilled labourers. Not only they are deprived of their childhood, but also they are stripped of their fundamental rights.Not to talk about their meagre wages what they receive, India is one of the countries in South East Asia where human trafficking has become a menace. The migration of children from rural areas to urban domain has always been a common feature in Indian society. The meteoric rise of urban Indian culture has necessitated huge real estate growth where millions of children are engaged in physically intensive work which is detrimental to their natural growth and development. Let’s not forget the plight of the domestic helps in India, where it has become a norm to keep little children as domestic helps. The condition of girls in the child labour sector is pathetic to say the least. Minimal education, malnutrition, early marriage, societal exploitation and even prostitution have become common in this arena.It is indeed very sad to say that last year, the central government of India amended child labour laws to allow children below 14 to work in family businesses and the entertainment industry (excluding circuses). In India 33 million children are employed in various forms of child labour. There is no denying the fact that education is the only solution to abolish child labour in a developing country like India. Migration and debt trap have always been culprits in the rural economy and thus awareness programmes are indeed necessary.

Lack of financial institutions for the extreme poor can push them towards unregulated money-lenders who charge high interest rates or insist on large loans that leave the poor vulnerable to debt bondage.Poverty can trap people in debt bondage, because interest may add to the debt burden as fast as the person in debt can pay it off, Money-lenders may deliberately structure credit arrangements to trap people into long term debt bondage.Poverty can make it impossible for the poor to move to an area where they can get employed as free worker.Poverty may make it impossible for a worker to challenge an 'illegal' labour situation.When children, especially young ones are exposed to long hours of work in harsh and dangerous environments, which threatens their lives and limbs as well as jeopardize their normal physical, mental, emotional and moral development, it is termed child labour. As a result, they cannot imagine bettering something. I think though Bangladesh is a developed country, so most of the lower level of peoples is involving in service-oriented sectors to earned money. Most of the children they are doing domestic very little business. As a result, they do not get educationally facilities.Child domestic service is a widespread practice in Bangladesh. The Rapid Assessment of Child Labour Situation in Bangladesh estimated that in the city of Dhaka alone there were about 120,000 child domestics. Especially in Dhaka, city employers in the urban areas usually recruit children from their village homes through family, friends or contacts. Most of the child domestic workers come from the most vulnerable families, many of them being orphans or abandoned children. The majority of child domestics tend to be between 12 and 16years old, but children as young as 5 or 6 years old can also be found working. A survey of child domestic workers found that 38 percent were 11 to 13 years old and nearly 24 percent were 5 to 1years old. Their employers usually take care of their daily necessities like clothes, oil, soap, comb, towel, bedding and sleeping materials. The child domestic workers are often the least paid in the society, their remuneration ranging from 8taka to 40taka per month. In most of the cases, they hand over all their earnings to their parents, leaving nothing for themselves.Currently, child labor in Bangladesh is a critical issue. Day by day child labor is growing in different sectors. I think scarcity of one’s income to maintain his/her family and high density of population are the two main causes of child labor in our country. Different children are involved in difference activities to earn. Some children are involved with their traditional family jobs like clay modelling. Clay modeling was a tradition of our country earlier. Now this sector is in a destroyed position in Bangladesh. However, till now parents are sending their little children at hard work to save their family tradition with encourage. However, they do not get minimum facilities from the government and any private organization. As a result, unemployment and illiteracy rate is continuously increasing in Bangladesh.Child is any person who is yet to compete fourteen years of age’’. Bangladesh has the largest number of child workers in the world. They are employed in many industries and trades, including garments, footwear, brick kilns, stainless steel, hotels, textile shops and bus contractor etc. A dense population, limited resources, and frequent natural calamities complicate the poverty situation in Bangladesh and children are the worst victims. Although child labour is not illegal in Bangladesh but government or private organization have not take any positive steps to reduce the child labour. Among them large number of child is working by Bus helper or bus contractors to early age. As a result child labour is increasing day by day in Bangladesh.This has produced a vast pool of people in need of work.International anti-slavery law is not effectively enforced.There is a lack of institutions and procedures to enforce it.Some countries don't effectively enforce anti-slavery laws.This may not always be done for completely unethical reasons - if the alternative is wholesale starvation, then a government may choose not to enforce the law against slavery.

Global number of children in child labour has declined by one third since 2000, from 246 million to 168 million children. More than half of them, 85 million, are in hazardous work (down from 171 million in 2000).There are 13 million (8.8%) of children in child labour in Latin America and the Caribbean and in the Middle East and North Africa there are 9.2 million (8.4%).Agriculture remains by far the most important sector where child labourers can be found (98 million, or 59%), but the problems are not negligible in services (54 million) and industry (12 million) mostly in the informal economy.African children have worked in farms and at home over a long history. This is not unique to Africa; large number of children have worked in agriculture and domestic situations in America, Europe and every other human society, throughout history, prior to 1950s. Scholars suggest that this work, specially in rural areas, was a form of schooling and vocational education, where children learned the arts and skills from their parents, and as adults continued to work in the same hereditary occupation. Bass claims this is particularly true in the African contex.Africa is a highly diverse and culturally developed clan. In parts of this clan, farming societies are a system of patrilineal clans and lineages. The young train with the adults. The family and kinsfolk provide a cultural routine that help children learn useful practical skills and enables these societies to provide for itself in the next generation. Historically, there were no formal schools, instead, children were informally schooled by working informally with their family and kin from a very early age. Child labor in Africa, as in other parts of the world, was also viewed as a way to instill a sense of responsibility and a way of life in children particularly in rural, subsistence agricultural communities. In rural Pare people of northern Tanzania, for example, five year olds would assist adults in tending crops, nine year olds help carry fodder for animals and responsibilities scaled with age.In northern parts of sub-Saharan Africa, Islam is a major influence. Begging and child labour was considered as a service in exchange for quranic education, and in some cases continues to this day. These children aged 7–13, for example, were called almudos in Gambia, or talibés in Senegal. The parents placed their children with marabout or serin, a cleric or quranic teacher. Here, they would split their time between begging and studying the Quran. This practice fit with one of the five pillars of Islam, the responsibility to engage in zakat, or almsgiving.The growth of colonial rule in Africa, from 1650 to 1950, by powers such as Britain, France, Belgium, Germany and Netherlands encouraged and continued the practice of child labour. Colonial administrators preferred Africa's traditional kin-ordered modes of production, that is hiring a household for work not just the adults. Millions of children worked in colonial agricultural plantations, mines and domestic service industries.Children in these colonies between the ages of 5-14 were hired as apprentice without pay in exchange for learning a craft. Colonial British laws, for example, offered the native people ownership to some of the native land in exchange for making labor of wife and children available to colonial government's needs such as in farms and as picannins.Fast-fashion retailers such as H&M, New Look, and Sports Direct’s Lonsdale label were all found to have worked with factories which employed 14 year old children in Myanmar, according to the new report “The Myanmar Dilemma” from the Amsterdam-based organisation the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (also known as Somo). Some interviewed over 400 workers in 12 factories which supplied garments for international fashion brands and found workers were being paid half of the full legal minimum wage, in addition to a number of children workers as young as 14 working over-time.If a supplier doesn't live up to our standards or national legislation we - in accordance with our routines - demand that the supplier immediately establishes an action plan, which has been done also in this case. One of the measures concerning the twosuppliers in question is improved recruitment routines, which has resulted in improved handling of ID-cards."H&M said the Bangladesh Fire and Safety Accord was extremely important to the company."Although being behind the projected schedule, we are experiencing good progress. This ‘race to the bottom’ led by fashion retailers forever in search for the lowest production hub causes unhealthy competition between garment producing countries in the region, argues Some in the report. “The rule of law in Myanmar is not adequately upheld. The army still has a lot of influence. The garment industry’s operations go largely unchecked. The question is justified if the time is ripe for foreign companies to invest in Myanmar. Garment brands should think twice before they start production in Myanmar. The risk of labour rights violations is very high. Companies should make a thorough analysis of all potential problems. They must ensure that they, together with their suppliers, identify and tackle these risks before placing any orders.It in not the first time H&M has been accused of working with factories that employ workers as young as 14 in Myanmar.

TRUMP'S IMMIGRANT POLICE ICE HAVE ALREADY ARRESTED THOUSANDS IMMIGRANTS WITHOUT CRIMINAL RECORDS.THIS WAS HITLER'S EMBARRASSING ACT TO JEWS.HITLER WOULD BE PROSECUTED BY ATTORNEYS FROM THE COUNTRIES THAT WERE HIS VICTIMS.

Sun, 10 Feb 2019 14:16:00 +0000

Trump is comparing to Adolf Hitler is an embarrassing act of Ignorance and also political irresponsiblility.Several times Trump has been compared to Adolf Hitler by people in America, mainly by his political adversaries who disagree with him passionately.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, also known as “ICE”, is the law enforcement arm of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that enforces American immigration laws. Among other duties, ICE is responsible for detaining and removing illegal immigrants. In many cases, however, ICE relies on local law enforcement authorities to identify, report, and turn over immigrants to them for deportation purposes.Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown has resulted in a surge of arrests. In a splashy statement, ICE said its agents arrested more than 41,000 people in the 100 days since Trump signed his executive orders on immigration a spike of nearly 40 percent when compared to the same period last year. “These statistics reflect President Trump’s commitment to enforce our immigration laws fairly and across the board,” the statement reads.The latest ICE stats have advocates particularly worried that arrests are increasingly happening away from the border, in the country’s interior.Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has listed several “sensitive locations” where they will not set up checkpoints or enter in order to arrest undocumented immigrants. These locations include schools, houses of worship, hospitals, and public demonstrations, though ICE says that arrests there are permissible under “exigent circumstances.”Courthouses are not sensitive locations, ICE states that enforcement action there “will only be executed against individuals falling within the public safety priorities of [Department of Homeland Security’s] immigration enforcement priorities set forth in the November 20, 2014, memorandum from Secretary Johnson.” However, this is not always the case – an undocumented woman was arrested outside of a courthouse in El Paso, Texas, where she was getting a protective order against an abusive ex-boyfriend. There have also been an increasing number of reports of similar arrests outside of courthouses across the country.Commission on Civil Rights, by majority vote, issued two statements: expressing concern that enforcing immigration detainers in courthouses diminishes access to justice for all persons, and urging the U.S. Department of Justice to work with police departments to ensure constitutional policing. The commission’s chairman, Catherine E. Lhamon, stated: “The Commission continues to fulfill its role in holding the federal government accountable in its efforts to enforce civil rights. Ensuring equal access to courthouses and constitutional policing are necessary parts of those efforts.”If you are stopped outside of a courthouse, you should not speak with ICE agents. You should use your right to remain silent, as well as invoke your right to legal representation. If you are worried about going to court alone, Long Island Jobs with Justice has the Accompaniment Project, which you can contact by sending an email to lijwj01@gmail.com or calling their hotline at (516) 387-2043.Instead of making our communities safer, this tactic actually puts a community at risk for increased crime. Witness who are undocumented will be afraid to testify against a defendant for fear of being picked up by ICE at the courthouse. It will be likely that the defendant will be released back into the community and go unpunished.Deportations and arrests of undocumented immigrants without criminal records soared in President Donald Trump's first year of office.The Detroit Free Press analyzed data from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S Border Patrol (USBP), and found a significant increase in the deportations and arrests of non-criminal immigrants.The Free Press reports a 117% increase in the number of deportations of undocumented immigrants with no criminal records, and 23% increase in deportations of immigrants with criminal records. Overall, deportations in Michigan and Ohio increased 56 percent.There was a 126% increase of ICE arrests of non-criminal undocumented immigrants, and a 52% increase of arrests overall.This reporting confirms the suspicions of many immigrants and immigration rights advocates, who have said that non-criminal deportations have risen, despite the Trump administration's rhetoric that they are prioritizing immigrants with criminal records.

In January 1933, some 522,000 Jews by religious definition lived in Germany. Over half of these individuals, approximately 304,000 Jews, emigrated during the first six years of the Nazi dictatorship, leaving only approximately 214,000 Jews in Germany proper (1937 borders) on the eve of World WarII

German Jews during the Hittler's Nazi Regime, 1939–1945

In January 1933, some 522,000 Jews by religious definition lived in Germany. Over half of these individuals, approximately 304,000 Jews, emigrated during the first six years of the Nazi dictatorship, leaving only approximately 214,000 Jews in Germany proper (1937 borders) on the eve of World War II.In the years between 1933 and 1939, the Nazi regime had brought radical and daunting social, economic, and communal change to the German Jewish community. Six years of Nazi-sponsored legislation had marginalized and disenfranchised Germany's Jewish citizenry and had expelled Jews from the professions and from commercial life. By early 1939, only about 16 percent of Jewish breadwinners had steady employment of any kind. Thousands of Jews remained interned in concentration camps following the mass arrests in the aftermath of Kristallnacht (Night of the Broken Glass) in November 1938.Yet the most drastic changes for the German Jewish community came with World War II in Europe. In the early war years, the newly transformed Reich Association of Jews in Germany (Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland), led by prominent Jewish theologian Leo Baeck but subject to the demands of Nazi German authorities, worked to organize further Jewish emigration, to support Jewish schools and self-help organizations, and to help the German Jewish community contend with an ever-growing mass of discriminatory legislation.Following the outbreak of war on September 1, 1939, the government imposed new restrictions on Jews remaining in Germany. One of the first wartime ordinances imposed a strict curfew on Jewish individuals and prohibited Jews from entering designated areas in many German cities. Once a general food rationing began, Jews received reduced rations; further decrees limited the time periods in which Jews could purchase food and other supplies and restricted access to certain stores, with the result that Jewish households often faced shortages of the most basic essentials.German authorities also demanded that Jews relinquish property “essential to the war effort” such as radios, cameras, bicycles, electrical appliances, and other valuables, to local officials. In September 1941, a decree prohibited Jews from using public transportation. In the same month came the notorious edict requiring Jews over the age of six to wear the yellow Jewish Star (Magen David) on their outermost garment. While ghettos were generally not established in Germany, strict residence regulations forced Jews to live in designated areas of German cities, concentrating them in “Jewish houses” (“Judenhäuser”). German authorities issued ordinances requiring Jews fit for work to perform compulsory forced labor.In early 1943, as German authorities implemented the last major deportations of German Jews to Theresienstadt or Auschwitz, German justice authorities enacted a mass of laws and ordinances legitimizing the Reich's seizure of their remaining property and regulating its distribution among the German population. The persecution of Jews by legal decree ended with a July 1943 ordinance removing Jews entirely from the protection of German law and placing them under the direct jurisdiction of the Reich Security Main Office. Deportation,public imagination associates the deportation of Jewish citizens with the “Final Solution,” but indeed the first deportations of Jews from the Reich albeit Jews from areas recently annexed by Germany began in October 1939 as part of the Nisko, or Lublin, Plan. This deportation strategy envisioned a Jewish “reservation” in the Lublin District of the Government General (that part of German-occupied Poland not directly annexed to the Reich). Adolf Eichmann, the German RSHA official who would later organize the deportation of so many of Europe's Jewish communities to ghettos and killing centers, coordinated the transfer of some 3,500 Jews from Moravia in the former Czechoslovakia, from Katowice (then Kattowitz) in German-annexed Silesia, and from the Austrian capital, Vienna, to Nisko on the San River. Although problems with the deportation effort and a change in German policy put an end to these deportations, Eichmann's superiors in the RSHA were sufficiently satisfied with his initiative to ensure that he would play a role in future deportation proceedings.In addition, RSHA officials coordinated the deportation of approximately 100,000 Jews from German-annexed Polish territory (the so-called province of Danzig-West Prussia, District Wartheland, and East Upper Silesia) into the Government General in the autumn and winter of 1939–1940. In October 1940, Gauleiter Josef Bürckel ordered the expulsion of nearly 7,000 Jews from Baden and the Saarpfalz in southwestern Germany to areas of unoccupied France in a second deportation of German Jews. French authorities quickly absorbed most of these German Jews in the Gurs internment camp in the Pyrenees of southwestern France.Upon Hitler's authorization, German authorities began systematic deportations of Jews from Germany in October 1941, even before the SS and police established killing centers (“extermination camps”) in German-controlled Poland. Pursuant to the Eleventh Decree of Germany's Reich Citizenship Law (November 1941), German Jews “deported to the East” suffered automatic confiscation of their property upon crossing the Reich frontier.Between October and December 1941, German authorities deported around 42,000 Jews from the so-called Greater German Reich including Austria and the annexed Czech lands of Bohemia and Moravia virtually all to ghettos in Lodz, Minsk, Kovno (Kaunas, Kovne), and Riga. German Jews sent to Lodz in 1941 and to Warsaw, the Izbica and Piaski transit ghettos and other locations in the Generalgouvernement in the first half of 1942 numbered among those deported together with Polish Jews to the killing centers of Chelmno (Kulmhof), Treblinka, and Belzec.German authorities deported more than 50,000 Jews from the so-called Greater German Reich to ghettos in the Baltic states and Belorussia (today Belarus) between early November 1941 and late October 1942. There the SS and police shot the overwhelming majority of them. After selecting a small minority to survive temporarily for exploitation as forced laborers, the SS and police interned them in special German sections of the Baltic and Belorussian ghettos, segregated from those few local Jews whose survival the SS and police had permitted, generally to exploit special occupational skills.Such “German ghettos” within a larger ghetto framework existed notably in Riga and in Minsk. SS and police officials killed most of these German Jews when they liquidated the ghettos in 1943. After late October 1942, the German authorities deported the majority of Jews remaining in Germany directly to the killing center at Auschwitz-Birkenau or to Theresienstadt.German regulations initially exempted German Jewish war veterans and elderly persons over the age of sixty-five, as well as Jews living in mixed marriages (“privileged marriages”) with German “Aryans” and the offspring of those marriages from anti-Jewish measures, including deportations. In the end, German officials deported disabled and highly decorated Jewish war veterans as well as elderly or prominent Jews from so-called Greater German Reich and the German-occupied Netherlands to the Theresienstadt (Terezin) ghetto near Prague. Although the SS used the ghetto as a showcase to portray the fiction of “humane” treatment of Jews, Theresienstadt in actuality represented a way station for most Jews en route to their deportation “to the east.” The SS and police routinely relocated Jews from Theresienstadt, including German Jews, to killing centers and killing sites in German-occupied Poland, Belorussia, and the Baltic States. More than 30,000 died in the Theresienstadt ghetto itself, mostly from starvation, illness, or maltreatment.In May 1943, Nazi German authorities reported that the Reich was judenrein (“free of Jews”). By this time, mass deportations had left fewer than 20,000 Jews in Germany. Some survived because they were married to non-Jews or because race laws classified them as Mischlinge (of mixed ancestry, or part Jewish) and were thus temporarily exempt from deportation. Others, called “U-Boats” or “submarines,” lived in hiding and evaded arrest and deportation, often with the aid of non-Jewish Germans who sympathized with their plight.In all, the Germans and their collaborators killed between 160,000 and 180,000 German Jews in the Holocaust, including most of those Jews deported out of Germany.

ICE arrests green card applicants in Lawrence, signaling shift In priorities.Federal immigration officers arrested five people in Lawrence when they showed up for scheduled appointments at a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) office.WBURhas confirmed that at least three of those arrested were beginning the process to become legal permanent residents. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had orders to detain each of Thousand individuals for deportation.

Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez introduced a new bill that would block Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers from wearing clothing or protective gear with the word “police” on it. H.R. 2073 aims to amend section 287 of the Immigration and Nationality Act so that ICE agents cannot identify themselves as police by placing the term on any items they use.“Not only are ICE raids an unconscionable attack on our most vulnerable communities, any attempt by immigration officers to deceivingly pose as local police ought to be prohibited,” Congresswoman Velazquez said in a statement. “After holding various ‘Know Your Rights’ workshops in my district, I’ve heard firsthand from families who fear reporting crime or engaging with the police due to the potential of getting caught up with immigration agents. This only makes our communities less safe.”“Irrespective of whether it’s lawful to do that, that begs the question of whether it’s ethical to do it or whether it’s an appropriate policy to do it. It begs the question of whether ICE doing so endangers public safety, “ICE misidentifying itself as police officers in my city makes Los Angeles less safe for everyone.”Sarah Rodriguez, an ICE spokeswoman, argued that “It’s clear that we are a law enforcement agency…We have police authority.” She added, “It is the universally recognized term for law enforcement, and our personnel routinely interact with individuals from around the world.”Removing “police” from ICE uniforms and gear helps disassociate ICE agents from local law enforcement. This distinction is becoming increasingly important, as undocumented immigrants conflate the two and are then scared to call for help when they become the victims or witnesses of crime. When ICE agents wear “police” on their uniforms, the relationship between the immigrant community and local law enforcement agencies is damaged and the fear of authority increases.Immigration and Customs Enforcement chief John Morton has been quick to deny the agency sets quotas for deportations after a Washington Post story revealed an internal memo stating just that. The head of ICE’s detention and removal operations, where he complained that the overall number of immigrant removals was down.Non-criminal Removals are Falling Short of our Goal,” a headline said in the document.Police Union Head Says NYC Cops Want to Help ICE Deport More People.New York City Police Commissioner James O’Neill sent out a memo on how his department should respond to president Trump’s new immigration executive orders. The note was 431-words long, but could be summarized in just three: This changes nothing.“It is critical that everyone who comes into contact with the NYPD, regardless of their immigration status, be able to identify themselves or seek assistance without hesitation, anxiety or fear,” O’Neill reminded New York’s finest. “The NYPD does not conduct civil immigration enforcement .For example, the NYPD does not arrest or detain individuals for immigration violations such as overstaying a lawfully issued visa. However, the NYPD does and will continue to honor federal immigration detainers when there is a risk to public safety.”Those arrested represented many countries throughout the world, including: Bahamas, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, South Africa, St. Kitts, Ukraine, Vietnam.Arrested individuals who have outstanding orders of deportation, or who returned to the United States illegally after being deported, are subject to immediate removal from the country. The remaining individuals are in ICE custody awaiting a hearing before an immigration judge, or pending travel arrangements for removal in the near future.All of the targets in this operation were amenable to arrest and removal under the Immigration and Nationality Act.

Since November 2014, the NYPD has refused to enforce administrative warrants from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, except in cases involving undocumented defendants accused of serious crimes. At the time that policy was enacted, it created relatively little friction with federal authorities midway through its second term, the Obama administration narrowed ICE’s deportation priorities to felons and recent arrivals.But the latest guidance from the Trump administration broadens ICE’s priorities to include nearly every undocumented immigrant in the United States. The Department of Homeland Security has instructed immigration enforcement to prioritize the deportation of anyone who engages in “fraud or willful misrepresentation in connection with any official matter” a description that fits any undocumented immigrant who has used a fake social security number to qualify for gainful employment.The NYPD’s disinterest in helping the White House with this project is shared by many other big city police departments.But it may not be shared by most rank-and-file NYPD officers. On Sunday, the Sergeants Benevolent Association president Ed Mullins discussed the Big Apple’s “sanctuary city” status on Gristedes owner John Catsimatidis’s AM-radio show. Here’s how Mullins summarized his union members’ position on cooperating with ICE (per Gothamist’s transcription):Make no mistake about it, the members of law enforcement in the NYPD want to cooperate with ICE. I speak to cops every day. They want to cooperate with ICE, they want to work with fellow law enforcement agents…There is a point where there is a moral obligation, and as the chief law enforcement officer of the city, you yourself have to be able to follow the direction of law.

We don’t get to participate in the laws that we want. If that’s the case, then we’re waiving all the federal laws for law enforcement officials then they can go out and break the law. I mean, that’s total lunacy that something like that could possibly happen.Here, Mullins argues that it is wrong for police officers to pick and choose which laws to abide by while also suggesting that cops have a “moral obligation” to aid immigration authorities in defiance of municipal law.When New York City decided to withhold resources from immigration enforcement, it did not nullify federal immigration law. Rather, it asserted its 10th Amendment right not to be “commandeered” by the federal government into enforcing such laws. Ed Mullins may object to the prevailing interpretation of federal powers on this matter, but when he substitutes his judgement for that of the Supreme Court, he is the one encouraging cops to flout the law.Whether Mullins truly speaks for the average cop on the beat is unclear. But Donald Trump did enjoy outsize support from law-enforcement groups across the country during his campaign.And the enthusiasm for the president and his policies among rank-and-file law enforcement agents has already led some to pick which Constitutional protections they wish to honor.

There definitely seems to be recklessness in the way ICE is operating. In recent days, its agents have taken a woman with a brain tumor out of a hospital, almost deported a distinguished French scholar flying into Houston to deliver a university lecture and scared the daylights out of an Australian children’s author who vowed after the experience never to visit the United States again.This isn’t being done solely to foreigners. The son of the boxer Muhammad Ali, a citizen, was questioned upon arriving in Florida from Jamaica about his religion, which would seem to be a clear violation of the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious freedom. And passengers on a domestic flight from San Francisco to New York were required to show their identity documents, a violation of the Fourth Amendment and an overreach of ICE’s mission of dealing with entry to the country.As a wise union representative once said, “If that’s the case, then we’re waiving all the federal laws for law enforcement officials I mean, that’s total lunacy.”ICE deportation officers carry out targeted enforcement operations daily nationwide as part of the agency’s ongoing efforts to protect the nation, uphold public safety, and protect the integrity of our immigration laws and border controls. These operations involve existing and established Fugitive Operations Teams.During the targeted enforcement operations, ICE officers frequently encounter other aliens illegally present in the United States. They are evaluated on a case-by-case basis, and, when appropriate, they are arrested by ICE officers.In fiscal year 2016, ICE conducted 240,255 removals nationwide. Ninety-two percent of individuals removed from the interior of the United States had previously been convicted of a crime.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers arrested many people. ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) officers made the arrests,those arrested represented many countries throughout the world, including: Bahamas, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, South Africa, St. Kitts, Ukraine, Vietnam.

CHINA'S ENVIRONMENTAL AIR - POLLUTION ,THE TEXTILE INDUSTRY IS THE FOUGHT - LARGEST CONTRIBUTOR OF CHEMICAL OXYGEN DEMAND( COD).WHICH HAS CAUSED WIDESPREAD ENVIRONMENTAL .TOXIC CHEMICAL POLLUTION IS DEADLY FOR PEOPLE IN CHINA.

Sun, 10 Feb 2019 14:15:00 +0000

China faces three major environmental health hazards: air pollution, water pollution, and soil contamination. As early as 2007, a study found that the health costs of air and water pollution in China amounted to about 4.3 percent of China’s GDP. In 2012, PM2.5 particulate pollutants, considered to be the most hazardous to human health, were linked to 670,000 premature deaths from strokes, lung cancer, coronary heart disease, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. A 2013 study also found that air pollution is associated with a reduction in life expectancy at birth of about 5.5 years in northern China. Meanwhile, the widespread production and use of toxic chemicals in agriculture and manufacturing industries have contaminated water and farmland, contributing to the emergence of more than four hundred “cancer villages,” areas where cancer rates are unusually high.China's rapid economic development has come at the cost of severe environmental degradation, most notably from coal combustion. Outdoor air pollution is associated with >300000 deaths, 20 million cases of respiratory illness, and a health cost of >500 billion renminbi (>3% of gross domestic product) annually. The young are particularly susceptible to air pollution, yet there has been only limited recognition of its effects on children's health and development.China relies on coal for ∼70% to 75% of its energy needs, consuming 1.9 billion tons of coal each year. In addition to CO2, the major greenhouse gas, coal burning in China emits vast quantities of particulate matter, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, sulfur dioxide, arsenic, and mercury. Automobiles emit nitrogen dioxide and benzene in addition to particulate matter and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Seventy percent of Chinese households burn coal or biomass for cooking and heating, which contaminates indoor air. Adverse effects of combustion-related air pollution include reduced fetal and child growth, pulmonary disease including asthma, developmental impairment, and increased risk of cancer. A prospective molecular epidemiologic study of newborns in Chongqing has demonstrated direct benefits to children's health and development from the elimination of a coal-burning plant.The human and fiscal cost of air pollution is irrefutable. Since 2013, the World Health Organization (WHO) has tracked air quality to measure its effect on heart disease, strokes, lung cancer, and other respiratory illnesses. China and India each had 1.1 million air pollution-related deaths in 2015, accounting for half of the world’s total air pollution deaths that year.Recognition of the full health and economic cost of air pollution to Chinese children and the benefits of pollution reduction should spur increased use of renewable energy, energy efficiency, and clean-fuel vehicles. This is a necessary investment for China's future.The communist party’s central leadership issued an “opinion” that proposed to evaluate officials on both their economic and environmental record. Yet this new policy rhetoric appears to contradict China’s performance-based legitimacy, which relies on delivering sustained economic growth. Since 1989, China has been governed by an implicit social contract: the regime commits to improving the material well-being of the people in exchange for the latter’s support of the party’s monopoly over political power. Herein lies in the dilemma for Chinese leaders: The party must keep economic growth above 7 percent to ensure employment and keep the people happy. Yet, these new measures to combat pollution are likely to undermine efforts to sustain GDP growth (at least in the short run). The recent economic slowdown exacerbates this dilemma. In January 2015, China’s growth rate edged down to 7.4 percent, its weakest expansion in over two decades. The International Monetary Fund recently revised down China’s 2015 GDP growth forecast to 6.8 percent. Just last month, the Chinese finance minister warned that unless China maintains a growth rate above 6.5 percent, the country has a greater-than 50 percent chance of slipping into the so-called middle-income trap, which occurs when a a country with middle-income status gets stuck at that level, instead of being elevated to the income levels of the truly developed countries.

After more than three decades of rapid industrialization and modernization, China is on the cusp of becoming the world’s largest economy. Yet China’s economic miracle has imposed tremendous social costs. One third of China’s major rivers and 60 percent of its underground water supplies are polluted due to poor environmental regulation and unbridled Industralization. Such environmental problems pose a serious and sustained threat to the health and well-being of the Chinese people.

Chinese Government efforts to address the environmental health crisis are further complicated by an increasingly polarized Chinese society. Establishing the relationship between the environment and health is notoriously complex. Given the range of hazards individuals may be exposed to on a daily basis, it is extremely difficult to establish a causal relationship. Despite the indiscriminate nature of an environmental health problem, health effects are not felt equally in every community or even by each person within a community.As with all public policy issues, proactive government responses to the health crisis run the risk of creating both winners and losers. Departments and nongovernmental actors promoting environmental protection would see their power and prestige increase, while polluting industries (including those who work for them) stand to lose. When Under the Dome, a TED Talk-style documentary investigating China’s air pollution went viral in China in March 2015, the newly appointed minister of environmental protection personally thanked the producer, Chai Jing, for her work. Still, petrochemical industry insiders disputed Chai’s claims that lax quality standards for petroleum were a primary contributor to China’s worsening air pollution.The tension between environmental protection organizations both official and nongovernmental and powerful vested interests reflects an increasingly polarized Chinese society. Despite the popularity of Chai’s video, a large number of Chinese Netizens debated the validity of its arguments about the relationship between business practices and pollution and the role of the state vis-à-vis the market. Many officials and intellectuals questioned Chai’s motives and integrity. Although initially there seemed to be government approval for the documentary, Under the Dome’s pointed criticism of the resistance of powerful interests to tougher fuel standards and the failure of government agencies to implement strong regulatory standards soon led top leaders to have second thoughts. Within a week of its release, the video was blocked by government censors.Thousands die each day from breathing the toxic air in China, according to the World Health Organization. The air quality in Beijing was so bad in 2015 that simply breathing on a high-pollution day could do as much damage as smoking 40 cigarettes. On an average day, breathing is equivalent to smoking four cigarettes, according to a Berkeley Earth study.But one man is on a mission to help clean up China.China’s Water Crisis” was the first major book on the country’s environmental crisis. He is the director of the nonprofit Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, which tracks air and water pollution on a website and mobile app, and pushes the government and manufacturers on environmental issues.That exploding growth in manufacturing and industry has contributed to the environmental crisis in China. Despite newer environmental rules, nearly 70 percent, or 13,875 companies, were found to be violating China’s own standards. The Chinese government’s most recent environmental report reveals that 75 percent of Chinese cities can’t meet the nation’s new air quality standards. Despite an effort to clean China’s polluted skies, it actually became 5 percent worse in October. In addition to air pollution, groundwater supplies in more than 60 percent of major Chinese cities were categorized as “bad to very bad”, according to China Water Risk. Air pollution is measured by the Air Quality Index (AQI), which scales pollution levels from 0 to 500 and assigns a color to different number levels to measure how hazardous the air quality is on any given day . Levels of 100 or below are known as “Blue Sky Days”, when smog is not easily visible.However, levels now reach up to 755, as measured by the United States Embassy in Beijing, which employs its own pollution reading device. This is the highest level of air pollution since recording began in 2008, and was appropriately deemed “Beyond Index”. The World Health Organization suggests that scores near 500 contain more than twenty times the safe level of particulate matter in the air.

China has been the world’s biggest emitter of carbon dioxide for more than a decade. It is responsible for nearly 30 percent of the Earth’s carbon emissions, according to the Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research.

The shorter lifespans of Beijing’s citizens has been connected to high pollution levels.7,8 Compared to citizens living in southern China, the average life span for Beijing’s citizens is five to six years shorter. The air pollution in Beijing causes lower birth rates and higher adult mortality from respiratory related diseases. Lung cancer rates have risen over 60% in the past decade, although the smoking rate has not increased.The Chinese Academy for Environmental Planning determined that air pollution was responsible for 411,000 premature deaths across China. The 2008 Olympic Summer Games in Beijing was the catalyst leading to many new policies to address air pollution. Emergency measures were enacted depending on the pollution levels, but the most important factor in curbing air pollution is the implementation of new laws and reformation of old laws. The Olympics were crucial in raising awareness about reform of environmental regulations. Many factories, industries, and manufacturing plants were shut down for the duration of the games and driving restrictions were imposed on millions of vehicles.1,9 Although this was a temporary solution for the Olympics, city officials promised to spend over $12 billion dollars on improving the environment. City officials converted coal furnaces in tens of thousands of homes to natural gas and relocated factories to other provinces in China.Emergency measures have also been enacted in Beijing. Mandatory factory closures and bans on motor vehicles entering the city are implemented on days of heavy air pollution. In 2013, the Heavy Air Pollution Contingency Plan was passed.10 This plan consists of four warning levels based on air pollution levels. Depending on the warning level, different actions are executed, which include school closures, removing 80% of government vehicles from the road, allowing certain private cars on the roads based on registration plate numbers and day of the week, barring freight and construction vehicles from the roads, utilizing watering carts and sprinkler trucks, shutting factories down, halting construction sites, and even forbidding barbecues and fireworks.10 To most effectively address air pollution would require reform in government laws and behavior.The State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) was established in 1998. The organization has the difficult task of reforming environmental laws that are often ignored by leaders. Another problem of environmental laws is the fines are so minuscule that offending corporations would rather pay the penalty, rather than change their business practices.Openness in reporting true pollution levels by municipal governments would also lend clarity to the condition of air quality. The government only reports AQI numbers up to 500. The Chinese government also prefers to release information only on PM10 particles and not larger PM particles. These larger PM particles may be more dangerous than PM10 particles. The United States Embassy did release such information, but was asked by the Chinese government to limit the release of information to Americans.Beijing’s air pollution affects the health of its citizens and threatens to limit the future success and expansion of the city. Though the contamination is extensive, there are possible solutions which can address the problem. By analyzing the sources of pollution, studying its consequences, and by reforming inadequate regulations and laws, Beijing can salvage its environment and create a healthier atmosphere for future generations.With this amplified wealth, individuals are more capable of affording motor vehicles.The number of motor vehicles on Beijing’s roads has doubled to 3.3 million with nearly 1200 added each day. Emissions from motorized vehicles contribute to nearly 70% of the city’s air pollution. The four most dangerous pollutants that are emitted include: sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), carbon monoxide (CO), and particulate matter (e.g. PM10).Newly introduced vehicles have lower emission standards, and thereby emit more of these pollutants into the atmosphere than their older counterparts. Motorized vehicles are only one contributor to air pollution. Population growth in China and Beijing contributes to extensive pollution. Beijing’s population has swelled from 11 million to 16 million in just 7 years, and has doubled over the past century.Coal burning factories also contribute to the smog present in Beijing. These factories rely on outdated and inefficient technologies. The factories are located on the outskirts of Beijing and the nearby cities of Harbin and Hebei. Beijing is a victim of its own topography because it is surrounded by mountains, ensuring that pollution remains trapped within the city limits.Air quality worsens in spring and summer when temperature and humidity levels rise, and winds contribute to the smog by carrying pollutants from industrialized southern regions.There are a variety of consequences of air pollution in Beijing. Along with health consequences, high levels of harmful emissions have led to hundreds of flight cancellations and frequent road closures due to low visibility levels.Air pollution has increased substantially over the years, resulting in thick smog that often engulfs the entire city.

The 190 most important Chinese cities sample were recorded with an Air Quality Index (AQI) value around 130. Most affected areas were the industrial North region including Harbin, Beijing and Tianjin.Particulate Matters (PM2.5 and PM10) were almost always the principal pollutants determining the value of Air Quality Index, PM2.5 with 68% of the city-month records being mostly concerned with PM10 only 29%. As a consequence, the PM2.5 inclusion in the new AQI definition has dramatically changed the Air quality perception

Farmers' fields are a bigger source of water contamination in China than factory effluent, the Chinese government revealed today in its first census on pollution.Senior officials said the disclosure, after a two-year study involving 570,000 people, would require a partial realignment of environmental policy from smoke stacks to chicken coops, cow sheds and fruit orchards.Despite the sharp upward revision of figures on rural contamination, the government suggested the country's pollution problem may be close to - or even past - a peak. That claim is likely to prompt scepticism among environmental groups.The Environment Tax Law was approved at the end of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee meeting which concluded .The law, to enter into force on Jan 1, 2018, will be key to fighting pollution, according to Wang Jianfan, director of the Ministry of Finance tax policy department.China has collected a "pollutant discharge fee," since 1979. In 2015, it collected 17.3 billion yuan ($2.5 billion) from some 280,000 businesses, Wang said.However, some local governments exploit loopholes and exempt enterprises which are otherwise big contributors to fiscal revenue. For years, regulators have suggested replacing the fee system with a law."The new law will reduce interference from government," Wang told a press conference. It will also improve tax payers' environmental awareness, forcing companies to upgrade technology and shift to cleaner production, Wang said.Under the new law, companies will pay taxes ranging from 350 yuan to 11,200 yuan per month for noise, according to their decibel level. It also set rates of 1.2 yuan on stipulated quantities of air pollutants, 1.4 yuan on water pollutants and a range of five to 1,000 yuan for each ton of solid waste.For instance, polluters will pay 1.2 yuan for emission of 0.95 kilograms of sulfur dioxide and 1.4 yuan for one kilogram of chemical oxygen demand (COD). Carbon dioxide (CO2) is not included in the levying list.Provincial-level governments can raise the rates for air and water pollution by up to ten times after approval by the people's congresses. Lower rates may also be applicable if emission is less than national standards.The law only targets enterprises and public institutions that discharge listed pollutants directly into the environment.Punishment for evasion or fraud are not specified, but offenders will be held liable in line with the law on administration of taxation and the environmental law.With more than a year still to go before the law comes into effect, Wang said authorities will make preparations including drafting a regulation for implementation of the law.He added that revenue will all go to local governments, and will not reduce their capability to spend on environment protection.The release of the groundbreaking report was reportedly delayed by resistance from the agriculture ministry, which had previously insisted that farms contributed only a tiny fraction of pollution in China.

Toward the end of last year through the beginning of this year, a dense haze containing toxic substances covered up to 25 percent of the Chinese mainland, affecting close to half the country’s population, or 600 million people. The number of people who developed air pollution-related diseases was 20-30 percent greater compared to previous years.China exceeds global limits for air pollution, but the government has been hesitant to monitor the health impacts.For the first time, China’s environmental watchdog will monitor, investigate and evaluate public health risks posed by environmental pollution.