Source: Deutsche Bundesbank in English
A digital euro would be a digital form of central bank money, specifically the euro. It could be used by the general public in much the same way as cash, only in virtual form. Alongside cash, the Eurosystem would thus supply households with an additional form of central bank money that can be used quickly, easily and securely.
Source: US State of New York Federal Reserve
Good morning. I would like to thank the Kentucky Bankers Association for the invitation to join you today for your annual convention.1 I appreciate the opportunity to share my views on the U.S. economy and monetary policy before we engage on community banking issues and other matters affecting the banking industry.
In light of last week’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting, I will begin my remarks by providing some perspective on my vote and will then share my current views on the economy and monetary policy.
Update on the Most Recent FOMC MeetingIn order to address high inflation, for more than two years, the FOMC increased and held the federal funds rate at a restrictive level. At our September meeting, the FOMC voted to lower the target range for the federal funds rate by 1/2 percentage point to 4-3/4 to 5 percent and to continue reducing the Federal Reserve’s securities holdings.
As the post-meeting statement noted, I dissented from the FOMC’s decision, preferring instead to lower the target range for the federal funds rate by 1/4 percentage point to 5 to 5‑1/4 percent. Last Friday, once our FOMC participant communications blackout period concluded, the Board of Governors released my statement explaining the decision to depart from the majority of the voting members. I agreed with the Committee’s assessment that, given the progress we have seen since the middle of 2023 on both lowering inflation and cooling the labor market, it was appropriate to reflect this progress by recalibrating the level of the federal funds rate and begin the process of moving toward a more neutral stance of policy. As my statement notes, I preferred a smaller initial cut in the policy rate while the U.S. economy remains strong and inflation remains a concern, despite recent progress.
Economic Conditions and OutlookIn recent months, we have seen some further progress on slowing the pace of inflation, with monthly readings lower than the elevated pace seen in the first three months of the year. The 12-month measure of core personal consumption expenditures (PCE) inflation, which provides a broader perspective than the more volatile higher-frequency readings, has moved down since April, although it came in at 2.6 percent in July, again remaining well above our 2 percent goal. In addition, the latest consumer and producer price index reports suggest that 12‑month core PCE inflation in August was likely a touch above the July reading. The persistently high core inflation largely reflects pressures on housing prices, perhaps due in part to low inventories of affordable housing. The progress in lowering inflation since April is a welcome development, but core inflation is still uncomfortably above the Committee’s 2 percent goal.
Prices remain much higher than before the pandemic, which continues to weigh on consumer sentiment. Higher prices have an outsized effect on lower- and moderate-income households, as these households devote a significantly larger share of income to food, energy, and housing. Prices for these spending categories have far outpaced overall inflation over the past few years.
Economic growth moderated earlier this year after coming in stronger last year. Private domestic final purchases (PDFP) growth has been solid and slowed much less than gross domestic product (GDP), as the slowdown in GDP growth was partly driven by volatile categories including net exports, suggesting that underlying economic growth was stronger than GDP indicated. PDFP has continued to increase at a solid pace so far in the third quarter, despite some further weakening in housing activity, as retail sales have shown further robust gains in July and August.
Although personal consumption has remained resilient, consumers appear to be pulling back on discretionary items and expenses, as evidenced in part by a decline in restaurant spending since late last year. Low- and moderate-income consumers no longer have extra savings to support this type of spending, and we have seen loan delinquency rates normalize from historically low levels during the pandemic.
The most recent labor market report shows that payroll employment gains have slowed appreciably to a pace moderately above 100,000 per month over the three months ending in August. The unemployment rate edged down to 4.2 percent in August from 4.3 percent in July. While unemployment is notably higher than a year ago, it is still at a historically low level and below my and the Congressional Budget Office’s estimates of full employment.
The labor market has loosened from the extremely tight conditions of the past few years. The ratio of job vacancies to unemployed workers has declined further to a touch below the historically elevated pre-pandemic level—a sign that the number of available workers and the number of available jobs have come into better balance. But there are still more available jobs than available workers, a condition that before 2018 has only occurred twice for a prolonged period since World War II, further signaling ongoing labor market strength despite the reported data.
Although wage growth has slowed further in recent months, it remains indicative of a tight labor market. At just under 4 percent, as measured by both the employment cost index and average hourly earnings, wage gains are still above the pace consistent with our inflation goal given trend productivity growth.
The rise in the unemployment rate this year largely reflects weaker hiring, as job seekers entering or re-entering the labor force are taking longer to find work, while layoffs remain low. In addition to some cooling in labor demand, there are other factors likely contributing the increased unemployment. A mismatch between the skills of the new workers and available jobs could further raise unemployment, suggesting that higher unemployment has been partly driven by the stronger supply of workers. It is also likely that some temporary factors contributed to the recent rise in the unemployment rate, as unemployment among working age teenagers sharply increased in August.
Preference for a More Measured Recalibration of PolicyThe U.S. economy remains strong and core inflation remains uncomfortably above our 2 percent target. In light of these economic conditions, a few further considerations supported the case for a more measured approach in beginning the process to recalibrate our policy stance to remove restriction and move toward a more neutral setting.
First, I was concerned that reducing the target range for the federal funds rate by 1/2 percentage point could be interpreted as a signal that the Committee sees some fragility or greater downside risks to the economy. In the current economic environment, with no clear signs of material weakening or fragility, in my view, beginning the rate-cutting cycle with a 1/4 percentage point move would have better reinforced the strength in economic conditions, while also confidently recognizing progress toward our goals. In my mind, a more measured approach would have avoided the risk of unintentionally signaling concerns about underlying economic conditions.
Second, I was also concerned that reducing the policy rate by 1/2 percentage point could have led market participants to expect that the Committee would lower the target range by that same pace at future meetings until the policy rate approaches a neutral level. If this expectation had materialized, we could have seen an unwarranted decline in longer-term interest rates and broader financial conditions could become overly accommodative. This outcome could work against the Committee’s goal of returning inflation to our 2 percent target.
I am pleased that Chair Powell directly addressed both of these concerns during the press conference following last week’s FOMC meeting.
Third, there continues to be a considerable amount of pent-up demand and cash on the sidelines ready to be deployed as the path of interest rates moves down. Bringing the policy rate down too quickly carries the risk of unleashing that pent-up demand. A more measured approach wo
uld also avoid unnecessarily stoking demand and potentially reigniting inflationary pressures.
Finally, in dialing back our restrictive stance of policy, we also need to be mindful of what the end point is likely to be. My estimate of the neutral rate is much higher than it was before the pandemic. Therefore, I think we are much closer to neutral than would have been the case under pre-pandemic conditions, and I did not see the peak stance of policy as restrictive to the same extent that my colleagues may have. With a higher estimate of neutral, for any given pace of rate reductions, we would arrive at our destination sooner.
Ongoing Risks to the OutlookTurning to the risks to achieving our dual mandate, I continue to see greater risks to price stability, especially while the labor market continues to be near estimates of full employment. Although the labor market data have been showing signs of cooling in recent months, still-elevated wage growth, solid consumer spending, and resilient GDP growth are not consistent with a material economic weakening or fragility. My contacts also continue to mention that they are not planning layoffs and continue to have difficulty hiring. Therefore, I am taking less signal from the recent labor market data until there are clear trends indicating that both spending growth and the labor market have materially weakened. I suspect the recent immigration flows have and will continue to affect labor markets in ways that we do not yet fully understand and cannot yet accurately measure. In light of the dissonance created by conflicting economic signals, measurement challenges, and data revisions, I remain cautious about taking signal from only a limited set of real-time data releases.
In my view, the upside risks to inflation remain prominent. Global supply chains continue to be susceptible to labor strikes and increased geopolitical tensions, which could result in inflationary effects on food, energy, and other commodity markets. Expansionary fiscal spending could also lead to inflationary risks, as could an increased demand for housing given the long-standing limited supply, especially of affordable housing. While it has not been my baseline outlook, I cannot rule out the risk that progress on inflation could continue to stall.
Although it is important to recognize that there has been meaningful progress on lowering inflation, while core inflation remains around or above 2.5 percent, I see the risk that the Committee’s larger policy action could be interpreted as a premature declaration of victory on our price-stability mandate. Accomplishing our mission of returning to low and stable inflation at our 2 percent goal is necessary to foster a strong labor market and an economy that works for everyone in the longer term.
In light of these considerations, I believe that, by moving at a measured pace toward a more neutral policy stance, we will be better positioned to achieve further progress in bringing inflation down to our 2 percent target, while closely watching the evolution of labor market conditions.
The Path ForwardDespite my dissent at the recent FOMC meeting, I respect and appreciate that my FOMC colleagues preferred to begin the reduction in the federal funds rate with a larger initial cut in the target range for the policy rate. I remain committed to working together with my colleagues to ensure that monetary policy is appropriately positioned to achieve our goals of attaining maximum employment and returning inflation to our 2 percent target.
I will continue to monitor the incoming data and information as I assess the appropriate path of monetary policy, and I will remain cautious in my approach to adjusting the stance of policy going forward. It is important to note that monetary policy is not on a preset course. My colleagues and I will make our decisions at each FOMC meeting based on the incoming data and the implications for and risks to the outlook guided by the Fed’s dual-mandate goals of maximum employment and stable prices. We need to ensure that the public understands clearly how current and expected deviations of inflation and employment from our mandated goals inform our policy decisions.
By the time of our next meeting in November, we will have received updated reports on inflation, employment, and economic activity. We may also have a better understanding of how developments in longer-term interest rates and broader financial conditions might influence the economic outlook.
During the intermeeting period, I will continue to visit with a broad range of contacts to discuss economic conditions as I assess the appropriateness of our monetary policy stance. As I noted earlier, I continue to view inflation as a concern. In light of the upside risks that I just described, it remains necessary to pay close attention to the price-stability side of our mandate while being attentive to the risks of a material weakening in the labor market. My view continues to be that restoring price stability is essential for achieving maximum employment over the longer run. However, should the data evolve in a way that points to a material weakening in the labor market, I would support taking action and adjust monetary policy as needed while taking into account our inflation mandate.
Closing ThoughtsIn closing, thank you again for welcoming me here today. It is a pleasure to join you and to have the opportunity to discuss my views on the economy and monetary policy. And given the recent FOMC meeting decision and my dissent, I appreciate being able to provide a more detailed explanation of the reasoning that led me to dissent in favor of a smaller reduction in the policy rate at last week’s FOMC meeting.
I look forward to answering your questions and to engaging with your members on bank regulatory and supervisory matters.
1. The views expressed here are my own and not necessarily those of my colleagues on the Federal Open Market Committee or the Board of Governors. Return to text
Source: European Parliament 2
Source: European Parliament 2
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MIL OSI Translation. Region: Italy –
Source: Switzerland – Federal Chancellery
Federal ChancelleryBern, 24.09.2024 – –The federal popular initiative “For a secure diet – by strengthening sustainable domestic production, more plant-based foods and clean drinking water (Nutrition Initiative)”, submitted on 16 August 2024, has been formally successful. Of the 113,060 signatures submitted, 112,736 are valid.Address for enquiriesBeat FurrerInformation Officer058 465 02 45beat.furrer@bk.admin.chPublished byFederal Chancelleryhttps://www.bk.admin.ch/bk/en/home.html
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EDITOR’S NOTE: This article is a translation. Apologies should the grammar and/or sentence structure not be perfect.
Source: The Conversation – USA – By Wasim Ahmad, Assistant Teaching Professor of Journalism, Quinnipiac University
Taking photographs used to be a careful, conscious act. Photos were selective, frozen moments in time carefully archived in albums and frames. Now, taking a photograph is almost as effortless and common as breathing – it’s something that people do all the time in the age of smartphone cameras with seemingly endless digital film.
But the downside to capturing every moment is that it creates a mountain of those moments to save for the future. Those photos can be easily lost if they’re not archived properly. All it can take is one accidental dip in the toilet for your phone, and all that data is lost forever.
So what’s a practical backup strategy for the average person? Here are a few ways to make sure memories are never lost:
The simplest way to archive your photos is cloud storage. For Apple users, there’s iCloud, which starts at US$0.99 per month for 50 gigabytes all the way to $59.99 per month for 12 terabytes with various tiers in between. With an average iPhone photo clocking in at 3 megabytes, that’s a little over 16,000 photos for the cheap plan and 4 million or so for the largest plan. Google’s Google One cloud storage is most cost effective for yearly plans, with 2TB going for $99.99 per year and 5TB going for $249.99 per year.
The actual amount you can store in that space does vary greatly with how a file is shot. Video has larger file sizes than photos. HEIF files, a newer format on Apple phones, compresses files into smaller packages, but long-term compatibility is unknown since the format hasn’t been in use for as long as the standard JPG file, which has been around since 1992.
While cloud services from big providers generally provide the easiest way for most average folks to back up their photos, and operate with little to no intervention via apps that are already on the phone constantly uploading every photo taken, there are risks involved.
Big companies often change their policies about how photos are saved. For instance, depending on what phone and when it was bought, Google’s cloud storage may have saved photos in a “storage saver” format that lowers the quality of images by sizing them down or compressing them differently. This affects your ability to make high-quality prints or view the photos on high-resolution screens down the road. Unless someone is astute enough to notice small text here and there that mentions it, most users won’t even realize it’s happening.
And what happens to cloud services when things go badly wrong? Users of photo backup service Digital Railroad found out the hard way. In 2008, the company abruptly shut down and gave its users 24 hours to download everything before the servers were shut down. Photographers rushed for the exits, trying to grab their photos on the way out, only to strain the servers to the point where few were able to recover anything at all. If this was the only way photos were backed up, it’s a lost cause.
So while the cloud is easy, costs can add up and terms of service can change at a moment’s notice. What are some ways for photographers to control their own fate?
Manually taking photos off a phone may take some extra time, but the approach offers peace of mind that cloud services can’t necessarily match.
Almost all phones can plug into a computer’s USB port and use the built-in photos app on both Windows or MacOS to download photos to a computer. Apple users can use a method called AirDrop to send photos wirelessly to other Apple devices as well, including laptop and desktop computers.
Now loading photos onto a local hard drive built into the machine can fill it up quickly, but there is a cost-effective way to get around that – namely, external hard drives. Theses are storage devices that you can plug into your computer as needed. They can be of the older and less expensive type with spinning platters or more modern solid-state drives that can survive a drop and greater temperature changes than the older drives can.
These are different than flash drives, more commonly known as thumb drives because of their small size, that are designed as temporary storage to shuffle photos from one place to another.
It’s easy to buy more than one hard drive to have duplicate backups in case of failure or catastrophe, but the downside is that there’s no easy access from the internet to your photos, and backup is generally a process that users must remember to do.
Network-attached storage is one way to solve the cloud storage problem while retaining the ability to access photos from the internet. These are essentially hard drives – sometimes multiple hard drives linked together for even greater or faster storage – that are connected to a router that allows for access to the internet through specialized software.
While not as easy as most third-party cloud storage services, once it’s set up, a network-attached storage unit is a flexible way to store your photos safely and accessibly. There are even companies that specialize in fireproof and waterproof units for extra insurance in case of disaster.
If cloud storage and hard drives seem too complicated, there’s always the old-fashioned approach of printing. There’s still something magical about seeing a photo on a wall or in an album, and thankfully there are ways to print professional-quality archival prints without having to go to a drugstore.
The easiest and most cost-efficient types of printers are dedicated 4×6 printers using a technology similar to professional labs called dye-sublimation. These yield high-quality, waterproof prints that cost about the same as what one would pay for drugstore developing. HP makes its popular Sprocket line of printers, though those require a phone and an app to print from, which makes plugging in a memory card from a professional camera out of the question. However, Canon’s Selphy lineup includes many models with screens and a card slot to make that possible.
The rabbit hole goes very deep, and there are many professional printers that can print even larger sizes. Canon and Epson dominate this space, marketing a range of pigment- and dye-based printers that can emphasize archival needs or color saturation, respectively.
Another option is ordering a photo book, which, as the name suggests, is a physical bound book of your photos. However, photo books are probably more appropriate for memorializing an event – trip, wedding, project – than general archiving, given the typical costs and number of photos involved.
There’s little reason to not make some sort of backups of photos in 2024, whether that’s on printed media, hard drives or in the cloud. The important thing is not which method to use, but to do it at all.
Wasim Ahmad does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
– ref. How to archive your photos in the digital age – https://theconversation.com/how-to-archive-your-photos-in-the-digital-age-239175
Source: The Conversation – USA – By Elizabeth Lightfoot, Distinguished Professor of Social Policy, School of Social Work, Arizona State University
Parents with any kind of disability are much more likely to have some type of interaction with the child welfare system than other parents. This means they are more likely than other parents to be reported for child abuse and neglect and more likely to have abuse or neglect substantiated by child welfare workers. They are also more likely to have their children placed in foster care and more likely to permanently lose their parental rights.
More than one-third of mothers with intellectual and developmental disabilities have an interaction with the child welfare system within four years of their child’s birth, and about one-fifth of all children in foster care have a parent with some type of disability.
However, there is little evidence that parents with disabilities abuse or neglect their children at higher rates than anyone else. Instead, there’s evidence that many young adults raised by a parent with a disability have very positive childhood experiences.
New rules that went into effect in July 2024 provide the first federal protections specifically for parents with disabilities. These new rules ban discrimination against parents and caregivers with disabilities throughout the child welfare system.
I’m a social work policy researcher who has studied policies affecting parents with disabilities since 2007.
In 2010, I found that three-quarters of states had laws which said that a parent’s disability could be used as the grounds for terminating their parental rights. Most of these state laws focused on parents with intellectual and developmental disabilities or mental health disabilities, though some listed physical disabilities and other types as well.
Many of these laws were vague and used outdated language such as “mental deficiency.”
Parental disability is the only grounds for termination of parental rights that focuses on a condition of the parent. The rest focus on behaviors. For example, parental poverty is not listed as grounds for termination of parental rights in any state, but neglect – a behavior – is.
State laws were only one of the issues parents with disabilities encountered related to child protection. For years, there had been confusion as to how the Americans with Disabilities Act, the federal law banning disability discrimination, applied to parents in the child welfare system. Until 2015, most state courts denied ADA claims by parents with disabilities who believed they were discriminated against.
In addition, most child welfare workers do not receive formal training on working with parents with disabilities. They are not trained in how to assess parenting skills or how to make accommodations to services that they typically provide, such as providing in-home parent training or conveying information in plain language. They might not know about the overwhelming evidence that parents with intellectual disabilities can learn parenting skills.
This has historically led many child welfare workers to make decisions based on stereotypes or speculation.
One of the main biases that parents with disabilities face is the “presumption of unfitness bias.” This is a widespread bias that parents are unable to parent solely because of their disability.
This bias can lead child welfare workers to not consider that parents with disabilities can rely on “parental supports” to assist them in parenting, ranging from adaptive cribs and baby monitors to in-home helpers. It also can result in parents with disabilities being held to a higher standard than others.
State laws specifically naming parental disability as a for termination of parental rights, the lack of federal protection, and widespread biases left parents with disabilities vulnerable in encounters with the child welfare system.
Two federal actions in the early 2010s brought national attention to parents with disabilities.
First, the National Council on Disability, the independent federal agency that advises the federal government on disability issues, released a report in 2012 called Rocking the Cradle. That report focused on the widespread discrimination faced by parents with disabilities; highlighted and called for changing the state child protection laws; and called for the application of ADA protections in child welfare cases involving parents with disabilities.
This report received a lot of media attention and led to more awareness of the plight of these parents.
Then, in 2015, Justice Department and the Department of Health and Human Services released guidance directing child welfare agencies to protect parents with disabilities from discrimination. This was the first federal action indicating that the ADA and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act applied to child protection services.
This guidance followed the departments’ investigation of the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families’ removal of a newborn baby from Sara Gordon, a new mother with a developmental disability, in 2012. The Department of Justice and the Department of Health and Human Services found that the state agency had made assumptions that Gordon was unable to take care of her child and unable to learn parenting skills. The state agency had also failed to take into account that Gordon had support systems in place. She lived with her parents, and her mother had quit her job to assist with parenting.
The momentum for protecting parental rights has led to some positive changes.
A few states changed their own child protection laws to address some of these problems before the federal government took action by providing new protections for parents with disabilities. In addition, the Department of Justice and Department of Health and Human Services have reached agreements with state agencies in Oregon, Georgia and Massachusetts related to discrimination against parents with disabilities.
Despite this progress, parents with disabilities are still discriminated against by the child welfare system in many parts of the country.
At the same time, I have no doubt that the federal government’s revision of the rules of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act is a major step forward for parents with disabilities.
In particular, it is promising that Section 84.60 of the rule clarifies that disability discrimination is not allowed in any part of the child welfare process. Child welfare agencies throughout the United States now must ensure that they are not making decisions based on speculation, stereotypes or generalizations.
Thanks to changes in the federal rule, when a child welfare agency evaluates how a child is being parented, the tools it uses must be backed by research. The evaluations must be conducted by a qualified professional and tailored to the needs of the individual parent. Agencies must ensure that parents with disabilities can participate in any services they provide. These services include parent-child visitation, parenting skills programs, family reunification services and child placements in foster care settings or in the care of another relative.
Disability advocacy groups applauded this new rule when it went into effect in the summer of 2024.
I believe these new rules will protect parents with disabilities when interacting with child protection authorities. They will also make it easier for child welfare agencies and state courts to recognize disability discrimination when it appears in their caseloads or on their dockets.
Elizabeth Lightfoot receives funding from the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research and the Arizona Developmental Disabilities Planning Council.
– ref. Parents with disabilities have faced discrimination for years in the US, but new rules will help ensure that child welfare systems treat them more fairly – https://theconversation.com/parents-with-disabilities-have-faced-discrimination-for-years-in-the-us-but-new-rules-will-help-ensure-that-child-welfare-systems-treat-them-more-fairly-238185
Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Mike Muller, Visiting Adjunct Professor, School of Governance, University of the Witwatersrand
A new round of angry exchanges has broken out between Egypt and Ethiopia over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD).
On September 1, Cairo wrote to the UN security council to protest against Ethiopia’s continued filling of Africa’s second largest reservoir and bringing two more power generating turbines into operation. Egypt sees any new infrastructure development on the Nile as a potential threat, since the river is the source of over 98% of the country’s water.
Egypt calls this a violation of international law and Ethiopia’s obligations to “prevent significant harm”. Ethiopia’s policies, it says,
could result in an existential threat to Egypt … and would consequently jeopardise regional and international peace and security.
Ethiopia has told Egypt to “abandon its aggressive approach” towards the dam. Ethiopia says that it must allow the Blue Nile’s water to flow through the dam’s turbines and on to Egypt to generate the hydropower for which it has been built, thus guaranteeing the overall flow to Egypt.
I have tracked the Nile disputes since the 1970s, first as a development journalist, then as a civil engineer and senior public servant. More recently, my research on water and regional integration for regional development agencies has provided further insights. My 2021 study considered the lessons to be learnt for today’s water challenges from centuries of the use and management of Nile waters.
Read more:
Innovations on the Nile over millennia offer lessons in engineering sustainable futures
Ongoing tension between Egypt and Ethiopia over control of the Nile River has a long history. Therefore, in one sense, the row between Egypt and Ethiopia is nothing new.
The countries went to war as far back as 1874, even as they both were also battling European colonialism. Ethiopia won the war of 1874 and, 20 years later, beat back Italy’s attempt to colonise it, at the battle of Adwa.
However, Egypt gained long term advantage from treaties negotiated by the British, which gave Cairo almost total control over the Nile. Egypt is still asserting the rights and privileges conferred by those colonial era treaties even though they are being challenged by other Nile countries. In my view, this is because Egyptians are still trapped by their past fears. As Norwegian professor Torje Tvedt has explained, these fears were deliberately entrenched by past colonial authorities.
With these perspectives, my view is that the current controversy over the Ethiopian dam still reflects historical conflicts rather than a careful analysis of present challenges.
Now 90% complete, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam has begun to generate electricity. A series of good rainy seasons have allowed the reservoir to start filling rapidly without affecting Egypt’s water availability.
The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam offers not just cheap green electricity for Ethiopia and the sub-region as well as reliable irrigation supplies and flood control for Sudan. Once filled, its storage could offer supply security and increase the amount of water available for Egypt as well.
What, then, are the issues that have prompted Egypt’s recent protests and what are the possible solutions to the problems raised?
The immediate technical challenge is to continue filling the dam without disrupting flows to Sudan and Egypt. The filling process might have to be interrupted if there is a regional drought. So recent developments, notably the greater focus on the rate at which the dam will be filled rather than the legality of its construction, suggest that there is a shift in positions which neither side is yet willing to acknowledge publicly.
This shift will be supported when other future-focused issues are raised. For instance, there must be negotiations about the supply of electricity to support Sudan’s irrigation expansion, although this is on hold due to the war in Sudan. In the longer term, Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia could cooperate to use the GERD’s storage to help Egypt to manage its Aswan High Dam more efficiently. Aswan currently suffers very high evaporation losses, which could be reduced if its reservoir levels were better controlled. The GERD could help to do this.
Unfortunately, the history of colonial Britain repeatedly threatening to cut Egypt’s Nile water supplies has been deeply imprinted in Egyptian public consciousness. It is understandable that Egyptians still fear a similar threat from Ethiopia. The responsibility now falls on Ethiopia to show good faith in its operation of the dam and to work with Egypt to change the combative discourse.
Egypt’s repeated complaints have alerted Ethiopia and international organisations of the need to act carefully. If there is another regional drought, Ethiopia will need to slow the rate at which it completes filling its dam. Informal liaison structures are monitoring the situation and such a response would help to build a more constructive engagement with Egypt.
Water is a patient teacher. Every season provides an opportunity for those who live with its natural cycles to understand it better. The hope is that, if the three countries experience the benefits of some seasons of the dam’s operation, the natural cycle will reveal the potential for cooperation and mitigate the conflict.
Read more:
Sudan’s catastrophe: farmers could offer quick post-war recovery, if peace is found
When peace returns to Sudan, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam will enable a vast expansion of irrigation to develop its role as a regional breadbasket. The dam will also help to manage Nile floods which regularly cause death and destruction, even to Sudan’s capital, Khartoum.
Efforts to promote cooperation between the East African countries that share the White Nile have been relatively successful. However, such cooperation on the Blue Nile will need much greater trust between the parties. To achieve this trust, the countries and their people will have to overcome centuries of cultural and political preconceptions. This will require much patient work and interaction, which is not easy in the current climate.
Mike Muller has received funding from the African Development Bank and South Africa’s Water Research Comission for work on regional cooperation in water resource management. He has been a member of the Global Water Partnership’s Technical Committee, chaired the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Water and been funded by the World Bank’s Cooperation in International Waters (CIWA) programme for contributions to the Nile Basin Initiative. He was also funded by UNESCO to attend a conference in Khartoum, organised with Sudan’s Ministry of Water Resources Irrigation and Electricity, on integrated and sustainable water management.
– ref. Egypt’s fears about Ethiopia’s mega-dam haven’t come to pass: moving on from historical concerns would benefit the whole region – https://theconversation.com/egypts-fears-about-ethiopias-mega-dam-havent-come-to-pass-moving-on-from-historical-concerns-would-benefit-the-whole-region-239418
Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News
Xinjiang’s Khunjerab Pass offers full-year service
Source: Africa Press Organisation – English (2) – Report:
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World Health Organization (WHO) in the African Region and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) have endorsed a regional collaboration framework to strengthen public health emergency response, especially at the community level, and bolster health security.
With the WHO in the African Region’s presence in 47 countries and the IFRC’s Africa Regional Office’s support of 49 National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in sub-Saharan Africa as well as over 1.4 million volunteers and 12 000 branches, the two organizations are leveraging their vast networks and presence on the continent to support governments in scaling up response at the community level.
To address the ongoing mpox outbreak, WHO in the African Region and IFRC are reinforcing their long-standing collaboration to support Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to ramp up measures for an effective response to halt the outbreak. The collaboration can be expanded to include other countries facing active mpox cases, as well as other public health emergencies.
“As the continent and the world face new and emerging threats, our enduring partnership remains crucial in safeguarding health, enhancing emergency preparedness, and building a healthier, more resilient Africa,” said Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa.
WHO and IFRC have collaborated for decades on the continent, driven by a deep-rooted commitment to save lives. The new collaboration framework will facilitate closer coordination and alignment in the response to health emergencies in Africa. It aims to enhance capacity-building in national health workforces, strengthen disaster preparedness and risk reduction, increase vaccine access and expand evidence-based action. The partnership will also streamline and integrate preparedness approaches within ministries of health and address the health impacts of climate change, among other priority areas for collaborative action across the continent.
Approximately 500 000 IFRC volunteers are in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country that accounts for 90% of all mpox cases in Africa. They have been trained in community-based surveillance, community engagement, risk communication and case management.
“Our volunteers are members of the community who have built social trust over many years. They generate large reservoirs of applied research and data on the health status of communities,” said Mohammed Omer Mukhier-Abuzein, IFRC Regional Director for Africa.
With an estimated ratio of one volunteer for every 200 people living in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the IFRC workforce will play a crucial role in passing real-time information about suspected outbreaks to WHO’s national mpox response team. This team includes polio experts who have demonstrated considerable effectiveness in previous disease eradication initiatives.
“By combining WHO’s technical expertise and national coordination with IFRC’s grassroots community mobilization, we can create a powerful and complementary response mechanism. This partnership ensures interventions are scientifically sound and locally relevant, setting a new standard for integrated and effective outbreak responses,” said Dr Abdou Salam Gueye, WHO’s Regional Emergency Director for Africa.
Epidemiological surveillance conducted in collaboration with IFRC will support the mpox vaccine rollout in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is set to begin in the coming weeks. WHO will be able to use data to guide vaccines to where they are needed most.
WHO is supporting countries experiencing mpox outbreaks through multiple response strategies, including enhancing disease surveillance, vaccine introduction readiness, contact tracing, training and combating misinformation.
Distributed by APO Group on behalf of WHO Regional Office for Africa.
Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News
GUANGZHOU, Sept. 24 — The first batch of plant products exported from the Chinese mainland to Macao was declared with digital customs clearance on Monday by the Gongbei Customs in Zhuhai, a city in south China’s Guangdong Province, which borders Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR).
From Monday, all exports of plant products via Gongbei Customs started to undergo paperless customs clearance of inspection and quarantine certificates after the customs inked a cooperation agreement with the Macao SAR government on animal and plant quarantine and food safety.
“In the past, we had to spend hours in the customs office for the declaration of the paper certificates of the goods. With digital management, the time was greatly shortened,” said Lin Genrui, the exporter of the plant products.
He said his company is a long-term supplier of flower and seedling products to Macao.
In the first eight months of this year, customs handled 952 batches of flower and seedling exports to Macao worth 14.88 million yuan (about 2.1 million U.S. dollars).
Chen Weiqi, an official of the Gongbei Customs, said that customs had strengthened communication and cooperation with the Macao SAR government for mutual authentication of customs declaration certificates to jointly ensure safety, promote cross-border trade facilitation, and enhance the market integration in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.
All plant products declared for export through customs are recognized through information sharing between the Chinese mainland and Macao, said Chen, adding that customs would continue to expand the types of export goods to be covered by the paperless customs clearance.
Source: Securities and Exchange Commission
One additional firm will not pay a penalty because it self-reported, self-policed, and demonstrated substantial efforts at compliance
The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced charges against 12 firms, comprising broker-dealers, investment advisers, and one dually-registered broker-dealer and investment adviser, for widespread and longstanding failures by the firms and their personnel to maintain and preserve electronic communications in violation of recordkeeping provisions of the federal securities laws.
The firms admitted the facts set forth in their respective SEC orders, acknowledged their conduct violated recordkeeping provisions of the federal securities laws, agreed to pay combined civil penalties of $88,225,000 as outlined below, and have begun implementing improvements to their compliance policies and procedures to address these violations. The firms are as follows:
“Today’s enforcement actions reflect the range of remedies that parties may face for violating the recordkeeping requirements of the federal securities laws. Widespread and longstanding failures, including where those failures potentially hinder the Commission’s investor protection function by compromising a firm’s response to SEC subpoenas, may result in robust civil penalties,” said Gurbir S. Grewal, Director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement. “On the other hand, firms that self-report and otherwise cooperate with the SEC’s investigations may receive significantly reduced penalties. Here, despite recordkeeping failures that involved communications by senior leadership and persisted after our first recordkeeping matters were announced in 2021, Qatalyst took substantial steps to comply, self-reported, and remediated and, therefore, received a no-penalty resolution.”
The SEC’s investigations into all the firms except for Qatalyst uncovered pervasive and longstanding use of unapproved communication methods, known as off-channel communications, at these firms. As described in the SEC’s orders, the firms admitted that during the periods relevant to each order, their personnel sent and received off-channel communications that were records required to be maintained under securities laws. The failure to maintain and preserve required records deprives the SEC of these communications in our investigations. The failures involved personnel at multiple levels of authority, including supervisors and senior managers.
In contrast, in response to the Commission’s recent off-channel enforcement actions, Qatalyst conducted an internal investigation and uncovered that Qatalyst personnel at various levels of authority sent and received off-channel communications, which Qatalyst did not maintain or preserve, that related to its broker-dealer business. Qatalyst will not pay a penalty because it self-reported its recordkeeping violations, cooperated with the staff’s investigation, and demonstrated substantial efforts at compliance with the recordkeeping requirements. Two additional firms, Canaccord and Regions, also self-reported their violations and, as a result, will pay significantly lower civil penalties than they would have otherwise.
The firms were each charged with violating certain recordkeeping provisions of the Securities Exchange Act or the Investment Advisers Act or both. In addition, all but one of the firms failed to reasonably supervise their personnel with a view to preventing and detecting those violations. The SEC’s order against Focused Wealth also found that the firm failed to adopt and implement policies and procedures reasonably designed to prevent the firm and its supervised persons from violating recordkeeping requirements.
Each of the firms was ordered to cease and desist from future violations of the relevant recordkeeping provisions and was censured. Ten of the firms also agreed to retain compliance consultants to, among other things, conduct comprehensive reviews of their policies and procedures relating to the retention of electronic communications found on personal devices and their respective frameworks for addressing non-compliance by their personnel with those policies and procedures.
Separately, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced a settlement with Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce for related conduct.
The SEC’s investigations into Stifel, CIBC, Intesa, Canaccord, Alpaca, and Qatalyst were conducted by Laurel S. Fensterstock, Karolina Klyuchnikova, Austin Thompson, and Alison R. Levine. The SEC’s investigation into Focused Wealth was conducted by Bennett Ellenbogen and Michael Paley. Each of these matters was supervised by Thomas P. Smith, Jr. of the New York Regional Office. The SEC’s investigation into Invesco was conducted by Melanie Good, Craig Welter, and Nikolay Vydashenko, and supervised by Corey Schuster of the Enforcement Division’s Asset Management Unit. The SEC’s investigation into Glazer was conducted by Anne Hancock, Samantha Martin, and Christopher Rogers, and supervised by B. David Fraser of the Fort Worth Regional Office. The investigation into Regions was conducted by Katie D. Krysan and Amy S. Cotter, and supervised by Paul A. Montoya of the Chicago Regional Office.
Source: US Federal Emergency Management Agency
Headline: Jefferson Parish Eligible for FEMA Assistance
Jefferson Parish Eligible for FEMA Assistance
BATON ROUGE, La. – Homeowners and renters in Jefferson Parish are now eligible for FEMA assistance to help them recover from Hurricane Francine.
Jefferson Parish joins Ascension, Assumption, Lafourche, St. Charles, St. James, St. John the Baptist, St. Mary and Terrebonne parishes, which were previously approved for Individual Assistance.
Assistance for eligible survivors can help with serious needs, displacement, temporary lodging, basic home repair costs, personal property loss or other disaster-caused needs. Also, low-interest disaster loans from the U. S. Small Business Administration (SBA) are available for businesses of all sizes (including landlords), private nonprofits, homeowners and renters.
How to Apply to FEMA
Homeowners and renters in Jefferson Parish and other designated parishes can apply several ways:
View an accessible video about how to apply at Three Ways to Register for FEMA Disaster Assistance – YouTube.
Parishes Eligible for Public Assistance
Ascension, Assumption, Lafourche, St. Charles, St. Mary and Terrebonne parishes are now eligible for permanent work (Categories C-G); these parishes were previously designated for Individual Assistance and assistance for debris removal and emergency protective measures (Categories A and B), including direct federal assistance, under the Public Assistance program.
East Baton Rouge, East Feliciana, Livingston, Orleans, Plaquemines, St. Helena, St. Martin, St. Tammany, Washington and West Feliciana parishes are now eligible for Public Assistance Categories A-G.
Visit fema.gov/assistance/public/process to learn more about FEMA’s Public Assistance program including eligibility and the categories of work.
For the latest information visit fema.gov/4817. Follow FEMA Region 6 on social media at x.com/FEMARegion6 and at facebook.com/femaregion6/.
alexa.brown
Source: Securities and Exchange Commission
Over the last several years, off-channel communications cases have become more prevalent on the Commission’s enforcement docket. We have struggled with these cases. While we supported many of them initially, it was not without deep reservations. Recently, we have objected to the penalties and undertakings in most of these cases. Today’s case against Qatalyst Partners LP[1] illustrates and confirms the reason for our reservations: it does not appear that firms have an achievable path to compliance. Accordingly, we voted no on Qatalyst Partners LP, and urge our colleagues to reconsider our current approach to the off-channel communications issue.
Recordkeeping by regulated entities is important. The Commission needs to be able to enforce its rules. To do that, it needs access to records about firms’ activities. Firms that are serious about complying with our rules also need access to records about their business activities. If business is being conducted using communications means that are outside of the reach of firm compliance personnel and Commission staff, both will be hampered in their ability to foster compliance with the rules. The off-channel communications cases arise from a legitimate concern that the compliance efforts both of firm compliance personnel and of Commission staff are impeded by improper recordkeeping practices. As the Commission’s Order in the first of these cases stated:
The federal securities laws impose recordkeeping requirements on broker-dealers to ensure that they responsibly discharge their crucial role in our markets. The Commission has long said that compliance with these requirements is essential to investor protection and the Commission’s efforts to further its mandate of protecting investors, maintaining fair, orderly, and efficient markets, and facilitating capital formation.
[2]
That first case involved a “widespread failure to implement” recordkeeping policies that “was not hidden within the firm,” “was firm-wide, and involved employees at all levels of authority,” and “impacted the Commission’s ability to carry out its regulatory functions and investigate potential violations of the federal securities laws across these investigations.”
Many other cases have followed. The use of off-channel communications—text messages, smartphone chat applications like WhatsApp, and personal email outside firm-approved systems—is prevalent across the securities industry. We have an industry-wide problem that we will not solve through enforcement.
Today’s action against Qatalyst illustrates why we cannot enforce our way to compliance. Under the standard applied in this case, even well-intentioned firms could find themselves in the Commission’s enforcement queue time and again. Qatalyst has been working to address the off-channel issue for at least sixteen years. The Commission’s Order outlines some of the firm’s efforts:
As early as 2008, Qatalyst personnel were advised that the use of unapproved electronic communications methods, including on their personal devices, was not permitted, and they should not use personal email, chats or text messaging applications for business purposes, or forward work-related communications to unapproved applications on their personal devices. Qatalyst reinforced its policies at least annually with regular, mandatory training and reinforcement from compliance and senior management. Qatalyst personnel were specifically advised not to list personal phone numbers in email signatures.
Then, “beginning in March 2017, Qatalyst provided its personnel with a compliant text-messaging process that could retain business communications” and “instructed its personnel to use only this process to communicate about Qatalyst’s broker-dealer business by text message.” “Beginning in 2020, Qatalyst required all personnel to have a firm-issued device on which to conduct Qatalyst business, and encouraged personnel to use firm-issued devices when communicating with both business and personal contacts.” Further updates to capture Slack and LinkedIn messages came in 2020 and 2022. Qatalyst trained its employees, monitored communications sent through firm-approved communication methods, and disciplined employees who violated the firm’s policies. Even with all that, Qatalyst violated the recordkeeping requirements: “Qatalyst collected data from a sampling of broker-dealer personnel and found that . . . several broker-dealer personnel, including at senior levels, had engaged in off-channel communications that concerned the broker-dealer’s business as such.” At the end of the day, despite Qatalyst’s compliance efforts, the Commission’s order states that:
Qatalyst . . . failed to implement a system reasonably expected to determine whether all personnel, including supervisors, were following Qatalyst’s policies and procedures. While permitting personnel to use approved communications methods, including on personal phones, for business communications, Qatalyst failed to implement sufficient monitoring to ensure that its recordkeeping and communications policies and procedures were always being followed.” (Emphasis added.)
This statement sounds to us like one that equates reasonableness with perfection. If we assess reasonableness based on whether policies and procedures always are being followed, firms will never escape our enforcement net. People are not perfect and so compliance will not be perfect—even at a firm that tries as hard as Qatalyst. Firing up our enforcement machinery every couple years to haul the industry in for headline-making penalties will not make people perfect, so firms will continue to discover violations of firm policies. We cannot enforce to perfection, but there is a way to achieve better compliance.
This case should serve as a catalyst for the Commission. We need to work with the industry and other interested members of the public to develop a pragmatic and privacy-respecting approach that enables firms and the Commission to have the records they need for compliance, examination, and enforcement at a reasonable cost in both financial and privacy terms. As we have this conversation, we ought to bear several points in mind:
The issues laid out above are only a few of the many that deserve discussion outside of the enforcement context. We look forward to working with our colleagues at the Commission and interested members of the public on a more productive path forward.
[3] See, e.g., Exchange Act Rule 15Ba1-8, 17 C.F.R. § 240.15Ba1-8 (recordkeeping requirements for municipal advisers); Exchange Act Rule 17a-4, 17 C.F.R. § 240.17a-4 (recordkeeping requirements for exchanges, brokers, and dealers); Exchange Act Rule 17g-2, 17 C.F.R. § 240.17g-2 (recordkeeping requirements for nationally recognized statistical rating organizations); Investment Advisers Act Rule 204-2, 17 C.F.R. § 275.204-2 (recordkeeping requirements for investment advisers); Investment Company Act Rule 31a-1 through 4, 17 C.F.R. § 270.31a-1 through 4 (recordkeeping requirements for certain investment companies).
Source: Hong Kong Government special administrative region
SITI commences visit to Wuhan (with photos)
SITI commences visit to Wuhan (with photos)
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The Secretary for Innovation, Technology and Industry, Professor Sun Dong, began his visit to Wuhan, Hubei Province today (September 24). Professor Sun called on Vice Governor of Hubei Province Ms Chen Ping, and exchanged views on the development of innovation and technology (I&T) and new industries in Hong Kong and Hubei. At the meeting, Professor Sun introduced the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government’s plan and latest work on leading the development of the city’s I&T industry. He also learned about Hubei’s strengths in I&T and advanced manufacturing, particularly the development of chips and new energy vehicle industries. They also explored ways to further strengthen co-operation between Hubei and Hong Kong in technological innovation and industry development. Professor Sun later visited the Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics of the Huazhong University of Science and Technology. It is one of the first six national research centres approved by the Ministry of Science and Technology, and is a research platform focusing on fundamental science and technology in the fields of optoelectronics for information, energy and life. Professor Sun was briefed on the laboratory’s development history, research conditions and innovation achievements, as well as the comprehensive support and services it provides to the “Optics Valley of China, Wuhan” and the development and industrialisation of the optoelectronics industry. Professor Sun then visited the Jiufengshan Laboratory to learn about its work on promoting the development of the fundamental research of compound semiconductor in order to support Wuhan to become a global compound semiconductor innovation centre and industry cluster. In a tour of the laboratory’s chip process lines and professional testing infrastructure, he was kept abreast of the facility’s efforts in pushing forward the technological frontier by aiming at research and development (R&D), technology development, transformation of R&D outcomes as well as detection and analysis on compound semiconductor. Professor Sun visited the Wuhan East Lake High-tech Development Zone in the evening and received an update on the development of the optoelectronics information industry cluster, as well as the efforts and achievements in building the “World Optics Valley”. Professor Sun also encouraged the East Lake High-tech Development Zone to set up accelerators and incubators in Hong Kong. The Commissioner for Industry (Innovation and Technology), Dr Ge Ming, also joined the visit. Professor Sun will continue his visit to Wuhan tomorrow (September 25).
Ends/Tuesday, September 24, 2024Issued at HKT 21:30
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Source: Hong Kong Government special administrative region
EDB launches “Love Our Home,Treasure Our Country 3.0” joint school national education activities to celebrate 75th anniversary of founding of People’s Republic of China (with photos)
EDB launches “Love Our Home,Treasure Our Country 3.0” joint school national education activities to celebrate 75th anniversary of founding of People’s Republic of China (with photos)
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The Education Bureau (EDB) today (September 24) held the “Love Our Home, Treasure Our Country” – Celebration of the 75th Anniversary of the Founding of the People’s Republic of China and Joint School National Education Activities Kick-off Ceremony. The Bureau announced that it will collaborate with Tung Wah Group of Hospitals, Po Leung Kuk, the Hong Kong Council of the Church of Christ in China, the Lok Sin Tong Benevolent Society, Kowloon, Hong Kong Subsidized Secondary Schools Council, Hong Kong Direct Subsidy Scheme Schools Council, Hong Kong Aided Primary School Heads Association and Subsidized Primary Schools Council to jointly organise the “Love Our Home, Treasure Our Country 3.0” series of joint school national education activities in the 2024/25 school year, with an aim of deepening students’ understanding of Chinese culture and strengthening their affection for and sense of belonging to the country. The Deputy Chief Secretary for Administration, Mr Cheuk Wing-hing; the Secretary for Education, Dr Choi Yuk-lin; the Convenor of the Working Group on Patriotic Education, Ms Starry Lee; the Division Director of the Education, Science and Technology Department of the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Dr He Jinhui, together with representatives from school sponsoring bodies, school councils and school head associations involved in the activities, jointly officiated at the kick-off ceremony. About 2 500 representatives from school sponsoring bodies and the EDB, principals, teachers, students and parents attended. Addressing the event, Mr Cheuk said that the “Love Our Home, Treasure Our Country 3.0” joint school national education activities will further expand the scale of the event. Participating schools cover kindergartens, primary schools, secondary schools, special schools and sister schools on the Mainland. Joint school collaboration not only strengthens exchanges among schools but also combines strengths to develop resources, enabling a patriotic atmosphere and sentiments to extend continuously across school campuses in all districts of Hong Kong. Mr Cheuk said, “Love for the country should be the value and sentiment of every Chinese national. Patriotic education and activities play an important role in nurturing the growth of patriotic sentiments.” He thanked practitioners from the education sector for remaining steadfast in their roles. Through learning inside and outside the classroom, students are given the opportunity to gain an in-depth understanding of the country’s history, culture and values from an early age, and experience the distinctiveness of traditional Chinese culture, thereby fostering their pride in being Chinese and enhancing their national pride and sense of responsibility and ownership. The kick-off ceremony featured a variety of rich programmes, including the performance of the magnificent “Hymn to the Sun” by a joint school Chinese orchestra formed by nearly 90 students. In addition, over 100 students performed lion dances, martial arts and other dances. A choir composed of 75 principals from school sponsoring bodies, school councils and government schools marked the finale of the ceremony with a song to express their warm congratulations on the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. Highlights of the kick-off ceremony will be broadcast on RTHK TV 31 at 1.30pm on September 28 (Saturday).
Ends/Tuesday, September 24, 2024Issued at HKT 21:25
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Source: Hong Kong Government special administrative region
Following is the speech by the Financial Secretary, Mr Paul Chan, at business luncheon Hong Kong-Spain: Partnering for Success in Madrid, Spain, today (September 24, Madrid time): Dr Peter Lam (Chairman of the Hong Kong Trade Development Council), Ms Jarillo (Deputy Director General for Asia, Europe and Oceania, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Enterprise of Spain, Ms Laura Jarillo), distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, Good afternoon. I’m delighted to be here, in Madrid, the dynamic capital and financial heart of Spain, a city renowned for its world-class museums and fine dining and wine, not to mention the best football club in Europe, if not the world. What more can a visitor ask for? Well, I can tell you that this speaker, and the young and energetic innovation and technology delegation here with me, are pleased to be here, with you, to talk about how Spanish and Hong Kong business can partner for success long-term, mutually rewarding success.Hong Kong, connecting Spain and Asia Ladies and gentlemen, like Spain, Hong Kong is back in business after the challenges of the COVID pandemic, back creating opportunity for a world of business. Spain, included of course. Hong Kong has long been recognised as one of the best connected cities in the world. Half the global population is no more than a five-hour flight away from us. Before the pandemic, Hong Kong International Airport operated 1 100 flights a day, covering 220 destinations. Today, passenger throughput is rebounding, reaching over 80 per cent of pre-pandemic levels on peak days, with full resumption expected by year’s end. As for cargo, our airport has been the busiest in the world for 13 of the last 14 years. This strategic connectivity is enhanced by Hong Kong’s institutional advantages, reinforcing our role as a “super connector” in Asia. The unique “one country, two systems” arrangement makes this possible. As part of China, Hong Kong enjoys convenient and sometimes priority access to the vast Mainland market, particularly the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, a city cluster comprising Hong Kong, Macao and nine Mainland cities in Guangdong province. The Greater Bay Area’s collective population counts more than 87 million, with a GDP exceeding 1.8 trillion euros, surpassing that of Australia and the Republic of Korea. And, on a purchasing power parity basis, the per capita GDP of the Greater Bay Area is US$40,000, 75 per cent of Spain’s. (Note: HK’s is US$71,500) Hong Kong, let me add, is the most international city in China, thanks to the “two systems” that distinguish us. We are the only jurisdiction in China practising the common law system, our judiciary exercising its powers independently. Information, capital, goods and people flow freely in and out of our city. Our taxes are low and simple, with a currency pegged to the US dollar. Our regulatory systems and professional services align with the best international standards. Our commitment to the rule of law is exemplified by the Rule of Law Index, produced by the World Justice Project. In the latest Index, Hong Kong ranked 23rd and Spain 24th, both ahead of the United States. Hong Kong’s enduring strengths will continue to thrive, as our country is committed to the “one country, two systems” principle for the long term. This commitment has been reiterated by President Xi Jinping on multiple occasions, and reaffirmed at various high-level state and party meetings in Beijing. Last year, China and Spain celebrated the 50th anniversary of diplomatic ties. And those ties continue to grow. Earlier this month, Prime Minister Sanchez was in Beijing, his second trip to the Chinese capital in two years. As political and economic ties between our two countries strengthen, Hong Kong is proud to play a pivotal role in fostering more two-way investments, and more economic, innovation and cultural exchanges.Financial Services One obvious area where we can contribute is financial services. Hong Kong, after all, is an international financial centre – number three worldwide, behind only New York and London, according to the latest Global Financial Centres Index, released today. We have a robust fund-raising market. Our stock market’s total capitalisation stands at 3.7 trillion euros, while assets managed by private equity and venture capital exceed 200 billion euros. Hong Kong is the leading biotech fund-raising hub in Asia, too. A defining feature of our capital market are the “Connect Schemes” with the Mainland. Under the schemes, Mainland investors can buy stock, bonds, ETFs and derivatives directly from Hong Kong, while foreign investors can buy similar financial products on the Mainland through Hong Kong. In short, Spanish companies looking to list or issue bonds in Hong Kong can tap the capital from both the Mainland and international markets. Hong Kong is also the world’s offshore renminbi hub. As the use of renminbi as a trade and reserve currency increases, businesses will naturally look for renminbi-denominated investment and risk-management tools. Hong Kong handles approximately 80 per cent of global offshore renminbi transactions, offering a wide range of investment and risk-management products. Then there’s green and sustainable finance. We have long been Asia’s leader in green finance, issuing, on average, more than 55 billion euros in green and sustainable debt a year over the past three years. Our green standards align with the best international practices. To take an example, the Hong Kong Taxonomy for Sustainable Finance, released in May, is highly compatible with the European Union’s Taxonomy for Sustainable Activities. For green projects looking for funding, Hong Kong is simply Asia’s premier destination.Innovation and Technology No less important is our commitment to rise as a global innovation and technology hub, together with the Greater Bay Area. We have what it takes to realise that ambition. Hong Kong is home to five global top 100 universities, and our two medical schools are among the world’s top 40. We also support 29 labs and research and development centres in collaboration with prestigious universities around the world. Our start-up system is thriving, offering a variety of innovative products in fintech, green tech, biotech, supply-chain management, big-data analytics and more. And 20 per cent of our 4 200 start-ups were founded by overseas entrepreneurs. Many of them are based in our two main innovation flagships: Science and Technology Park and Cyberport. And you will soon hear more from senior executives from these institutions, Albert and Eric. Let me add that our delegation members, many of them founders and CEOs of start-ups, are eager to talk to you, to explore business opportunities together. Hong Kong boasts a full-spectrum financing market, including banks, private equity funds, venture-capital funds and a well-developed stock and bond market. These provide abundant financial support for tech companies local and global, at different stages of growth. Greater Bay Area cities, let me add, each offers distinct strengths in innovation and technology; from basic research to technological application, commercialisation, and advanced manufacturing. This year, the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Global Innovation Index ranked the Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Guangzhou cluster second, globally, for the fifth consecutive year. Now, allow me now to highlight a few I&T areas where Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area offer singular advantages, starting with artificial intelligence. Crucial to AI are algorithms, supercomputing power, data and application scenarios, all of which Hong Kong is blessed with. We serve as a convergence point for Mainland and international data. We are also investing in the necessary i
nfrastructure, including a supercomputer centre. Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area provide many different application scenarios for AI. Many AI companies, let me add, are choosing Hong Kong to develop their large language models and to go global. Biotechnology is also a priority. And we are planning to conduct clinical trials for the Greater Bay Area. We are also working on a “primary evaluation system” that will allow medicine and medical devices approved in Hong Kong to be widely used in the Greater Bay Area, the Asian region and around the world. Then there’s the Northern Metropolis, a 300-square kilometre area in Hong Kong bordering Shenzhen. The Northern Metropolis is destined to rise as an innovation and technology hub, a vast bridgehead for Hong Kong’s co-operation with other Greater Bay Area cities. Ladies and gentlemen, that just touches on the opportunities Hong Kong is actively pursuing. But let me say that we’re particularly focused on four areas: AI, biotech, fintech and new energy and new materials. We are bringing in strategic companies to help us develop those sectors. Since the end of 2022, we have attracted over 100 tech companies to Hong Kong. Together, they will invest about 6 billion euros and create more than 15 000 jobs in our city. We are equally keen on attracting talent. Since the launch of the new talent admission schemes and updating existing ones, to date, we’ve received some 360 000 applications under our various talent admission schemes. About 226 000 applications have been approved, and 150 000 professionals have already arrived in Hong Kong, I’m pleased to say.Concluding remarks Ladies and gentlemen, Hong Kong offers boundless opportunities for Spanish companies – as a gateway to the Chinese Mainland and throughout Asia, and as a hub for financial services and I&T. My thanks to the Hong Kong Trade Development Council for hosting today’s luncheon, and to our Spanish partners, including CEOC, ICEX and the Spanish Chamber of Commerce, for make this welcome gathering possible. I am happy now to take your questions, to hear your thoughts and ideas on how our two economies and peoples can deepen our co-operation, creating far-reaching opportunities that benefit us all. Thank you.
Source: US State of West Virginia
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Source: US Department of Veterans Affairs
Thanks so much to everybody. Good morning to you. Thank you for inviting me to join you for your 16th Judicial Conference.
You had me a couple of years ago. The fact that you welcomed me back notwithstanding the intervening time as Secretary I take as a mildly positive sign. We’ll see how the reviews are on that at the end of the speech.
Chief Judge [Michael] Allen, thank you so much for the introduction. It’s fitting that you’ve stepped up to Chief Judge during this conference because, as I gather, your introduction to Veterans law for the first time was when you accepted an invitation to speak to this very conference in 2006. And at that conference, you recognized the importance of Veterans law, and so here we are.
Thanks for all you have done for Veterans, even before you joined this Court. You became one of the first professors with expertise in Veterans law, and you founded one of the law school clinics providing pro bono legal access for our nation’s heroes. I appreciate that one of your very first actions as Chief Judge was to introduce me just now. And so, I take that very seriously. So, thanks for that. I hope the rest of your tenure is as auspicious.
Judge [Margaret] Bartley, also known as Chief Judge Bartley for the last five years, congratulations. And thank you for your 30 years of service to Veterans. You’ve worked to ensure that Veterans receive all the benefits and services they’ve deserved and they have so richly earned, provided them with pro bono representation yourself, clerked for this Court, been appointed as a judge on this Court, and elevated then to Chief Judge. Your service to Veterans, to the national interest, to the country, has been remarkable.
And thanks also to all of you here at this Court, including this Court’s other distinguished judges, VA employees from the Board of Veterans Appeals and Office of General Counsel, attorneys representing Veterans before the CAVC [Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims], law professors, law students, and of course Veterans. No matter your role, you all care deeply about our nation’s heroes.
One of the benefits of this biannual event is that it brings us all together. It might be on different sides of the table, but each one of us supports Veterans all the time.
Let me begin where this Court began.
During legislative hearings leading to passage of the Veterans’ Judicial Review Act in 1988, Sonny Montgomery—then-Chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee—said, “Accurate, informal, efficient, and fair. These are the goals which have guided the committee in … expanding judicial review of VA decision-making …. [It is] not intended to express displeasure with the BVA [Board of Veterans’ Appeals] method of reviewing claims or imply that the existing review process is unfair.”
“To the contrary,” he said, “the committee believes that Veterans presently receive every possible consideration where the BVA reviews a case, and the committee expects that the new court will be similarly inclined.”
That’s quite a statement from the chairman of a Congressional committee. And given that statement, and Chairman Montgomery’s observation about “Veterans [receiving] every possible consideration,” I’ve been wondering what he would think of the last few years, years which have seen significant improvements and significant developments in Veterans law.
Two changes in particular have impacted the Veterans law landscape.
First, the Appeals Modernization Act [AMA], implemented in 2019, has improved the appeals process—so far. The AMA has made appeals faster, it’s provided Veterans different options for addressing denied claims. But we are still operating in two separate legal systems, with different options for Veterans filing appeals, and thousands of Legacy claims being adjudicated.
Second, President Biden’s PACT Act in 2022 greatly expanded VA health care eligibility for toxic-exposed Veterans and extended enhanced eligibility for Vietnam era, Gulf War era, and Post-9/11 combat Vets. We’re seeing Veterans file more benefits claims than ever before.
In 2023, VA processed nearly 2 million benefits claims—a record high. So far this year, we’ve exceeded that by processing more than 2.4 million, with another 10 days left, yet, in the fiscal year, on pace to surpass last year’s record by more than 27%. The VBA grant rate for these claims is 64.2%—and as high as 75% for PACT Act claims. In 2024, the average overall disability rating granted to Veterans is 70%, with over $20,000 per year in disability compensation.
Now, I know I’ve just listed a bunch of stats. Nearly every one of them represents all-time VA highs. But let’s remember that behind every one of them is a Veteran and their family receiving life-changing benefits and care.
Now, breaking records is good. But it’s not good enough. Because here’s the bottom line: we have a lot of work left to do, a lot of improvement. In fact, we need to improve. We must keep Veterans at the heart of everything we do. Part of that involves the appeals process. So, let’s talk about what that looks like.
When Veterans aren’t satisfied with decisions they’ve received, they have several recourses under the AMA, as you well know. Over the last three years, the Board of Veterans Appeals has hired more than 50 Veterans Law Judges, hired more than 350 attorneys, and has issued more decisions than ever before.
In 2023, the Board issued 103,245 appeals decisions, again a record. And in 2024, the Board has already issued more than 111,000 decisions—another record again, with 10 days left in the fiscal year—so I don’t want any of the BVA personnel or the Board of Appeals team in the room there thinking that you can take the next 10 days off.
The appeal rate to this Court has dipped over the last several years also. And last year, it was 7.4% of cases. However, this year there will still be about 9,000 BVA decisions appealed to this Court. Nine thousand of our nation’s heroes who have not received all the benefits they believe they’re entitled to, and in fact they believe VA has wrongfully denied them access to.
Nine thousand.
It’s long and complicated, and many of appeals don’t result in the outcome they desire. But it’s not simply the denial of benefits that makes Veterans unhappy. It’s the process, which can involve remand after remand and years and years of waiting.
Each week, hundreds of Veterans send me letters. I’d estimate that a third of those express frustration—and let’s just say I’m being diplomatic here—frustration with the benefits claims and appeals process. Let me share selections from a few of them.
In June, Travis in North Carolina wrote me: “Dear Secretary McDonough, I am a military Veteran writing to express my deep frustration with the unacceptably long wait times for decisions on VA disability claims. After sacrificing for my country, I now find myself struggling with service-connected disabilities and trapped in a seemingly endless bureaucratic process. This unresolved claim has caused tremendous stress and hardship for myself and my family. We rely on disability compensation not only for income, but for access to VA health care critical for treating my service-connected disability.”
Later in June, I received a letter from Chris in California—U.S. Marine, Vietnam, now in his 70s. He described multiple remands from Board judges ordering tests from an orthopedic specialist and x-rays to determine service connection for arthritis. But, Chris wrote, a VA contractor sent him to urgent care, not a specialist, and sent him to an imaging center incapable of conducting x-rays. He’s still waiting to see a specialist. He’s still waiting for x-rays. Chris ended with, “I am dismayed, disappointed, even appalled that our government and country I was so excited and happy to serve at 17 years of age would treat me this way. Shame on you and on your team.”
Shame.
And in August, Deborah in Tennessee, emailed me. Her husband, Army Vet, had a disability compensation rating of 100%. “Since his death in 2022,” she wrote, “I’ve been trying to get widows benefits. I’ve filed, been rejected, appealed, got a Veterans assistance firm to help, but every time the VA comes up with some sort of excuse, in the hopes I’ll give up. I have to borrow money from family members just to pay utilities bills. I fear I’ll lose my home. I need help to get through the process. Please help me.”
Now, there’s countless other Veteran letters I receive that express similar disappointment, heartache, anger, betrayal. So how can we address—alleviate—that frustration that Veterans so clearly express with our appeals process?
Well, we do it by getting to the root of these issues.
The Board of Veterans Appeals grants Veterans relief about one third of the time. One third.
Yes, we have to follow the law, we want to follow the law, we do follow the law. There’s no way to wave a wand and grant every single appeal. But too many Veterans—caught in the endless churn of remand after remand, claims examination after examination, hearing after hearing—don’t trust the process. We need Veterans to trust us, to trust the appeals process, and to understand why we reach the decisions, even if, in fact particularly when, they walk away disappointed. We—the Board, this Court, private counsel—can gain trust through final decisions, and final decisions that are faster than Veterans get today.
Look, the AMA has enabled us to make the process better, although there is still more to be done. Over the last few years, the Board’s AMA decisions result in 20% fewer remands and 10% higher grant rates. On average, final resolution of all issues in AMA cases takes between two to three years, faster than the seven to 10-year average before the passage of the AMA. But still, two to three years is too long.
Here’s the reality. Today, Legacy appeals take about six years. That’s faster than before, but that’s still six years. None of us thinks six years is fast enough. That duration is going to tick up and up, and appeals are going to take longer and longer, because there’s 40,000 Legacy cases still at VA.
Each year this Court remands thousands of additional Legacy cases to the Board. At any given time, 54% of the Legacy cases the Board is adjudicating have already been seen by a Board judge at least twice, nearly 30% at least three times, and almost 10% have already been adjudicated five times or more.
Even after the Board resolves all issues, for many Veterans the journey’s not over. It can take years to get a decision from this Court or the Federal Circuit. Typically, that decision just returns the case to the Board for further adjudication.
I think we can do better for Veterans. I know some of you are talking about these issues in various settings, including sessions with the Bar Association. And that’s encouraging. Yes, it’s important to capture ideas and suggestions for change down the road, but let’s think about how we can help more Veterans now—improvements that VA, this Court, the private bar can implement sooner rather than later to benefit Vets. Now, none of us is immune here. We can all do better, no matter where we work.
First, the claims examination process. Contractors speeding through compensation and pension exams, or not carrying out clear instructions on what to focus on, or conducting exams rife with inaccuracies. VA can—in fact, must—ensure that these exams are more accurate, with higher quality, leading to more resolved claims. Under Secretary [of Benefits, Josh] Jacobs and his team are working hard to implement quality measures on C&P exams—reducing unnecessary exams where we can so as to get to a decision sooner.
Second, the Board of Veterans Appeals. I’ve challenged the Board to increase efficiencies. I’ve asked them to increase capacity, increase output. I’ve asked them to find ways to fill hearing slots that open up due to cancellations and increase appeal resolution rates so that we can reduce wait times for Veterans. I’ve also asked the Board to explore how we better inform Veterans of the expected wait times before their appeal will be issued. I know they are discussing these issues, and they’re figuring out how to do it. It’s not easy. The hiring process, which we’ve had our foot on the gas on over these last several years—also too slow.
Remands going back and forth between the Board and this Court often aren’t productive, in my view. We’ve heard concerns that sending remanded cases back to the same Board judge may not always be the best way to get finality.
Third, this Court. I ask you to ask yourselves, if we’re remanding 75% of appeals back to the Board, are we doing everything we can for Vets? Are we moving with efficiency and urgency? Vets don’t want to wait year after year, not knowing whether they’ll receive benefits or not. Veterans need timely, fair, final decisions on their claims, decisions that either grant their benefits, or fairly deny those benefits only after proper hearing, proper development, a full consideration of all the evidence developed, and a correct application of law. They don’t want to be stuck in legal limbo.
Fourth, private counsel. One of the AMA’s improvements is that it gives Veterans options besides filing an appeal with this Court. Consider whether you’re always choosing the best option for your client, especially when the Veteran, or their surviving family member, or their living family member, wants a final decision on the claim—and quickly. Is an appeal to this Court the best option for your client when you know there’s a strong likelihood of a remand, or even multiple remands, and no resolution for years and years? Or would it be better for the Veteran to file a supplemental claim that can be processed much faster than a remanded appeal?
To everyone, please think about what happens if the system stays the same. Thousands and thousands of Veterans will continue to wait, burdened by what to them is a broken bureaucracy. They will continue to view appeals with disappointment and anger.
What are Veterans doing to make the system work for them? They are turning to unaccredited representatives who call themselves “coaches” or “consultants,” charging Vets high amounts or outrageous percentages of future benefits. Veterans turn to these claim sharks because they promise the Veteran they’ll get a quicker resolution. And as payment, the Veteran signs over a portion of the benefits that Veteran earned serving our nation. This surely is not what we want.
We have to do better.
We need finality, and we need that finality more quickly. Finality in the appeals process isn’t dictated by just one factor or one specific actor. Getting to final decisions—and how we get there—depends on actions and decisions of VA, claimants, their lawyers, and judges. If we want Vets to receive benefits they are entitled to, and for their claims decided fairly and justly—which everyone in this room surely wants—we must focus on finality and achieving finality with urgency.
Let’s consider how we make the system better for Vets. Talk about this with each other during your time here and after you leave. Because what everyone wants, I know, is for Veterans to receive all the benefits they have earned, accurately, quickly, fairly—the goals Chairman Montgomery hoped this Court would achieve.
The President often says that our nation’s only sacred obligation is to prepare and equip the troops we send into harm’s way, and to care for them and their families when they come home. The second part of that solemn duty is VA’s to fulfill, each and every day. And in this instance, it’s not on VA alone. It’s on each of us here. Each decision at VBA, the Board, this Court, and counsel appearing before this Court has an impact on the Veteran. And often, the impact on a Veteran, their families, and survivors is, in fact, life changing.
Remember, justice delayed is justice denied. Veterans did not hesitate to raise their hands and put their lives on the line for all of us. They didn’t say wait. So, let’s not make them wait one second longer than they have to for their hard-earned benefits.
It’s on all of us to make that happen.
Thanks for letting me be here today with you, and now let’s hear from you on your questions.
Really appreciate you.
Chief Judge, back to you.
Source: Government of Sweden
Published
The Government has decided to advance its allocations to the UN World Food Programme (WFP), the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the UN Population Fund (UNFPA). This comes as humanitarian needs are increasing while these organisations’ life-saving activities are severely underfunded. Sweden is therefore augmenting its 2024 support by SEK 461 million, of which SEK 186 million will be allocated to WFP to stave off famine, SEK 185 million to UNHCR to help displaced people and SEK 90 million to UNFPA to prevent maternal mortality and combat gender-based violence.
“We see how humanitarian crises around the world are becoming deeper and more numerous, while funding is not increasing at the same pace. A record number of people are displaced. More than a million people are on the brink of starvation in Gaza, Haiti, Mali, Sudan and South Sudan. The support we’ve approved will help the family in Darfur who lost everything when fleeing violence and conflict and, at best, might only have a loaf of bread to share for dinner tonight, or the heavily pregnant woman in Gaza who might not survive childbirth. Sweden’s development assistance makes a difference in these heartbreaking situations,” says Minister for International Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade Benjamin Dousa.
Hunger and forced displacement are currently two of the most prominent humanitarian challenges. More than 300 million people are suffering from chronic hunger in 71 countries, and more than 120 million people are displaced from their homes. For the first time in seven years, there is famine in the world – this time in Sudan, where more than 12 million people have been forced to flee their homes since April 2023. Women and girls are often particularly vulnerable in humanitarian crises and lack life-saving maternal health care and other sexual and reproductive health services. The assessment of the UN is that more than 300 million people will need humanitarian assistance in 2024.
At the same time, donor countries have only provided one third of the funding required. A number of humanitarian organisations are thus facing an urgent and extremely strained situation. These include the central UN agencies – UNHCR, WFP and UNFPA – where liquidity shortages are currently threatening their ability to help people in need. It is therefore particularly urgent that the Government disburse Sweden’s support to these UN agencies now, earlier than planned, when their life-saving operations are needed most. Sweden will also provide SEK 185 million to UNHCR and SEK 133 million to WFP in remaining funds that the Government approved earlier this year. Sweden is providing a total of SEK 779 million to these three UN agencies – much needed additional funding for an important cause.
Sweden is one of the world’s largest humanitarian donors. Every day, Swedish kronor help people with the most pressing humanitarian needs. This government decision means that Sweden is taking even greater responsibility for helping people who are displaced, suffering from famine, lacking maternal health care or subjected to gender-based violence. At the same time, more actors must renew their efforts to reduce humanitarian needs and expand the humanitarian donor base.
Source: US State of New York
Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul participated in a Concordia Summit Fireside Chat on Youth Mental Health in New York City.
VIDEO: The event is available to stream on YouTube here and TV quality video is available here (h.264, mp4).
AUDIO: The Governor’s remarks are available in audio form here.
PHOTOS: The Governor’s Flickr page will post photos of the event here.
A rush transcript of the Governor’s remarks is available below:
Penny Abeywardena: Good afternoon. So, we’re going to talk about something that really should be on the top of minds for all of us, and that is the many aspects of phones and schools to explore today. And there is no one better to reflect on this than our mom-Governor, Governor Hochul.
So there are two massive clusters of changing norms colliding over this past decade. Parents driven a lot by anxiety and concerns have been buying smartphones for their kids. How do I keep my kids safe in school? With mental health challenges and bullying, how can I make sure my kid is okay during the day?
And then, can I ensure my kid is keeping up with the technology? And then let’s not forget that the smartphone and video game and social media industries have focused on maximizing and monetizing screen time. So now these trends are complex and interdependent, but there is leadership that is going to help address this. And so it is a pleasure to be in conversation with Governor Hochul on this.
Now, I want to know what your aha moment is, and I do think this is a moment to reflect on personal experience. We were just talking backstage, I have an eight-year-old in the public school system here in New York City. This became a big issue over the last few weeks. And I was properly shocked because he’s eight. And so this is something that quite honestly all of us need to be thinking about. And so, Governor Hochul, through your personal experiences or insights, can you tell us what influenced you to really focus on this issue from a legislative perspective?
Governor Hochul: Thank you, Penny, and for Concordia for elevating this issue. I was here last year talking about climate change, and I’m always happy to talk about that. I can give you the speech I gave a few hours ago. But this is something a year ago I would not have thought we’d be talking about here. But I am so happy that this has finally taken hold because as a mom, a parent, you are hardwired to protect your children. Full stop. You wake up in the morning, start thinking about them when they’re little, late at night when they’re out with their friends you don’t sleep until they’re back home. That’s how we are. And as the Governor of New York, my number one job also has to be to protect all New Yorkers.
So, you asked what my aha moment was. About a year and a half ago, I started convening mental health roundtables because we knew we were starting to see the signs that young people in particular had not fully emerged from the pandemic. They are still stressed out. The statistics on suicide, especially for teenage girls contemplating suicide, the depression, the anxiety, it was off the charts. So, I started having meetings and gathering kids and talking all over the state, and there was one not that long ago where the young woman – we started talking about the impact of social media and how it really takes hold of them. They’re held captive to these algorithms that are designed to bombard them with information that they will like because it’s taking personal information about them and turning it around and pulling them in deeper and deeper.
And I said to this young woman – she was telling me how “I’m getting bullied during the day and all these social media and everybody’s doing this and I’m missing out and I have FOMO,” I said, “What do you want us to do?” She goes, “You have to save us from ourselves.” And that was my aha moment, when I realized it’s hard for parents to say you’re going to be the only teenager in the school without a cell phone, it’s hard for the school district to take it on and say, “We’re going to be the heavies,” teachers have enough on their plates, they don’t have to be the enforcers. And I realized this calls for government intervention, and I’m not afraid to take on the fights, especially when we’re fighting for our kids’ mental health.
That was when I said, “Let’s find out what we can do to control these social media companies,” and we can talk about our nation-leading legislation, but also I’m right now developing a policy that’s going to say, “Bell to bell, full school day, phones should not be in the hands of children because they’re being denied the chance to learn, the teachers are frustrated that they’re not paying attention anymore, but also it has taken them to negative places, and it’s horrible for their mental health.”
Penny Abeywardena: It really is. And different levels at different ages and grades, the impact is even more optimized, right?” Now, it would be great if you could talk about the significance of the first-in-the-nation law you signed to combat addictive social media feeds. And I will say, I hope many of you realize this, Instagram changed their policy last week, and I’m assuming it’s because they’re seeing the serious movement that’s coming from around the country, led by –
Governor Hochul: Well, that’s true. In the era of – waiting for industries to self-regulate in the best interest of consumers is probably never going to happen. So, I’m not holding my breath. We encourage the tech companies, social media companies to work with us. Obviously, you’re always threatened by lawsuits. And I said, first I have a lot of lawyers, I can hire any lawyer in the state I want so bring it on. But I’d rather not. I said, “Why don’t you get out of the courtroom and come into my conference room and help devise solutions, because you know what you’re doing. You know exactly what you’re doing. You design these algorithms that’ll capture all this personal data about any age, a 10-year-old, 12-year-old, 15-year-old,” and they’re using it to structure messaging around your interests.
We worked with them, they resisted, they built a campaign against us, they spent a lot of money. And I was able to work with our Attorney General, Tish James, here in New York, and legislators, and work with a coalition of parents and Common Sense Media, and formed a coalition where we were able to fight back. And our legislation – which we encourage every other state to adopt, I hear California’s looking at this now – it basically says a couple of things: one, is you cannot collect private data about anyone under the age of 18. You can’t collect it, you can’t sell it. You cannot monetize our children’s mental health any longer, you’re barred from that. Secondly, you are forbidden, barred from being able to target young people with algorithms designed based on their tastes.
Now, a young person is not prohibited from going to your sites. They can talk, they can go to all kinds of chat rooms, they can talk to their friends, they can do whatever they want. But you cannot target them. And that was a heavy lift for them, and it’s a heavy lift to get through in legislation, but we did it. I just signed it into law a few months ago, and I’m really proud of it.
We’re working on the regulations, but I always think about the fact that they told us, “Well, we have no capacity to identify who’s under the age of 18. This is an impossibility.” It’s like, “You’re tech companies, you can do anything, figure it out.” And somehow, magically, Instagram announced last week, they figured it out.
I have immense faith in their ability to solve problems even if it’s against their self-interest.
Penny Abeywardena: And that’s really bringing everybody to the table. When we think about the efficacy of what you’ve been able to do, it really came down to really strategic collaborations. Can you talk about how you worked not only with parents and teachers, but unions? We talked about authorities and the police; I’d just be curious how everybody’s playing a part in all of this?
Governor Hochul: That’s a great question because you can’t go into these battles alone, right? You have to have allies as you march into war. And here’s what we needed to have. First of all, many parents on their own have said they know how bad it is. They’ve seen their children, especially if they were able to get a cell phone at age 12, 13, 14, they turn into a different person. First of all, they lose the capacity over time to have real, genuine social interactions. They don’t make eye contact. They don’t talk to other students. In school, the cafeteria is silent. They’re silent when they’re in the schoolyard. They’re silent in the halls. And the school districts that – on their own – were courageous enough to ban them said they now hear children laughing, talking, even arguing, they’re communicating more.
And it was stopped. It was a dead silence. It was so unnatural. So, I had to get teachers on board, that was the easiest one. 72 percent of teachers across this country say that they are tired of the distractions and their inability to communicate with students or make connections in a way that are positive relationships.
This is, outside a parent, the most influential person in their lives is a teacher. And the teacher is trying to do the best they can, and they’re being thwarted. They’re not learning, but they’re also not making connections.
They’re stunted in their growth. They’re not turning into young adults eventually, over time, and ultimately adults. And we needed teachers on board, principals on board, school districts on board, and I said in all my – I did roundtables all over the state with all these parties at the table. I said, “I’ll be the heavy, just blame me, say, ‘that mean Governor made us do this,’ I mean I’ll take that on.” Because as a mom, I know how important this is and it would have helped me enormously to tell my kids, “I would have let you have the cell phones in school, but hey, it’s the law, I can’t let you do that. I still love you and I’d let you do anything else.”
It’s about relationships, the ability to say no, which I have no trouble saying to my kids, but some do. But I also need law enforcement, and this is interesting, because my kids were in middle school during Columbine, the very high-profile mass shooting, and you still say the word ‘Columbine,’ I get chills because I know what it did to my sense of security. And we have so many other cases since then, I just spoke about Uvalde at another forum.
So I thought, I have to think about how this affects parents’ sense of security when they say goodbye to their most precious little child, whether it’s kindergarten or 12th grade. I talked to law enforcement, what they said was so striking. If there is a crisis on campus or in the schoolyard, in the school, a mass shooting, worst case scenario, the last thing you want children to be doing, the last thing, is looking at their cell phone, texting mom and dad, sending messages, maybe videoing because they want to be the one who captures this. First of all, you’re telegraphing where you are, okay? You’ll hear this. Also, the police said to me the place their attention has to be is not on their smartphone, it has to be on the front of the classroom where the teacher is going to lead them to safety.
When I heard that, it was like the clouds parted. I said, that’s the argument for parents. They need to hear that. So we’re not through yet. I’ve proposed this and loosely I said I’m going to be developing a policy. I will be working with these same groups I just mentioned. Everybody to let them understand how important this is and it’s also when I think about employers in my state, I want to be able to let them know that when young people emerge from their educational process, they’ll be fully functioning adults who have social interaction skills, who’ll be able to have the creative collisions and talk to someone else, a colleague, and work in teams and strategize together and really be more productive instead of someone who’s, again, their existence for a number of years has just been with the virtual world.
And I can’t control what happens after school. Like my nieces are on all night long. I said, who are they talking to all night long? Isn’t anybody sleeping? And so they’re not, because they’re talking to kids on the other side of the world, literally. So we also say no notifications, and parents have the ability to turn it off. Sorry, kids, you can’t have it on from midnight until 6 a.m. I think Instagram actually said 10 p.m. to 7 a.m., which I thought was extraordinary. So parents are being empowered. So now we have to educate the parents. This is what it looks like, this is how you handle it, and when your teenager gets, tries to get around it, this is how you undo what they did. We have to help the parents get through this as well, but ultimately, imagine a world where this never happened. We’re not dealing with these high rates of depression and anxiety in young people and the bullying that goes on in schools.
One mom said her husband has to leave work every day to be there at the end of the day when the child comes home from school because he gets picked on so badly on his own cell phone, watching it all day long, people are saying that he’s about to commit suicide and they want to keep an eye on him.
If that doesn’t hit you as a parent – what is happening? But a world where we say, no cell phones, we just go back to the way it was when we were younger.
Penny Abeywardena: Yeah.
Governor Hochul: And if you need to – forget your lunch or you need to figure out how you’re getting home at the end of the day, guess what? There’s phones in the office. It’s a radical idea. Go down the hall, talk to your counselor, talk to your principal, can I use the phone?
Penny Abeywardena: Talk to someone.
Governor Hochul: And maybe forget your lunch and you go hungry; you won’t do it the next day. That’s called learning about life, right? Consequences. So it’s, that’s how I was raised. I don’t know. Maybe I’m old school, but I want to save our kids. It’s this important. I have to work on this intensely to at least save our state’s kids and hopefully other states will follow. And a number have, there have been other states that have done it.
Penny Abeywardena: I was curious what kind of advice you would give to other state lawmakers because we talk about these coalitions as groups, but they’re important constituents who vote. So they’re concerned about making parents angry and losing that support. And I’d be curious what strategies and ideas you would offer to other state lawmakers to take this on.
Governor Hochul: Just looking at it globally, the easiest thing in the world is to do nothing. Just wait for someone else. “It’s too hard.” Believe me, there’s a lot of challenges in New York to be a lot easier to pass on to somebody else. And that has happened. And I’m the cleanup Governor. I have a lot of work to do to try and invest, we never invested in mental health in the state.
For example, never, no one ever talked about mental health as if it was an issue at all. I invested a billion dollars in my first budgets and said, we have to deal with everything from the lack of training for more professionals to be in the field to school-based clinics, so we can treat the kids right in schools if they have challenges to the homeless on the subways, more beds in hospitals. We looked at it holistically and we’re making real progress. So my advice to them is just show some profiles and courage once in a while. Shock everybody. Do something that’s a little bit difficult on the front end, but we’re in the world to make a difference.
And these positions are positions of great authority, but they also hold a lot of responsibility for us. If you’re not making a difference every single day when you’re in a position like I am, then just stay in bed. I mean just don’t even bother because your job is to make a difference. Find problems – the easy problems my brilliant staff will solve, the hardest ones are on my desk and that’s what a Governor is supposed to do. It’s just, and if you’re not going to fight for kids, who are you wanting to fight for? That’s a statement about your values.
Penny Abeywardena: And building on that. So there’s a middle ground, right? There are these bags you can have in school, so the kids get their phones, they get to show up at school with their phones, but then put them in. We had an interesting conversation backstage, and I was wondering if you can share, you know, our kids are smart.
Governor Hochul: Yeah, kids are very smart. There are a few school districts in New York, Schoharie School District, up near the Capitol. They went full board, they did it a couple years ago, they said it was hard, there was a lot of resistance, parents said no, teachers didn’t want to be enforcers, and now they’re so glad they didn’t. And people now, and they had signs in front lawns, protesting taking cell phones away from kids.
Give me a break. So I know it’s coming. I know it’s coming. But, these, so they have these bags, and there’s all sorts of ways to do this, but there’s these bags that are magnetic. Teacher watches the children put them in the bag at the beginning of the school. Only the teacher can unlock it so at the end of the school day they’ll get their phone back.
No one’s going to steal it. It’s safe. Some kids are showing up at school, the teachers told me, with two cell phones. They lock one up in front of the teacher. Okay, kids have burner phones now? Okay, or what parent is buying their kid two cell phones? Okay? And then they use the other one all day.
The other thing I think is important for parents to know. One of the teachers, she said, “We have to deal with the integrity issues.” I said, “What’s that mean?” It’s a nice way of saying they’re cheating. The whole world, all the answers are sitting there on their lap, and they’re not learning because they don’t have to. Or they run off to the lavatory with their phone, even the schools that ban it but let you have it during lunchtime or during breaks. They’re looking up information that they’re never going to learn properly from. And people say they’re not going to learn how to use technology. What do you think they’re doing the second they get home?
They have all night long they’re doing that. I can’t control that. That’s up to parents. The last thing I’ll say on this is – parents, watch what you’re doing too. Kids learn from you. If you won’t put down the cell phone at the dinner table, or when you’re talking to them after dinner, by the time they’re mid-teenagers, they don’t even want to see you, so work on them before that. I believe I speak from experience. But show the kids they matter. Go to one of your meetings and leave your cell phone on your desk. The world will not fall apart. Somehow, we got to this age of 2024, surprisingly, throughout most of history, without being able to be connected and scrolling while your boss is talking to you, or while your colleagues are trying to present something. Just show basic respect to each other. Let’s not forget those skills. Respect each other, put down the phone.
Penny Abeywardena: Put down, and that they’re paying attention to you and what you’re doing. I want to, we’re about to run out of time, but you mentioned, can we just talk about the investment that you made in mental health and other educational initiatives. Can you just share some of the programs and initiatives you have coming up that essentially reinforce this legislative –
Governor Hochul: Yes. Again, one of the most significant things we’re doing is the mental health services in schools. Yeah. And so we’ve had to ensure that we’re funding workforce training for a whole new generation of more people going into the mental health professions, because I can open up a clinic in every single school. I could never staff it. I have to work with the unions and the training programs and put money behind this and training in hospitals. And so part of ours is creating a whole new generation of more healthcare workers, especially focused in this area. So that’s one big area, but I would say this, we also just need services, wraparound services from the get-go. My job is to make sure that our children emerge with healthy minds and not needing a lifetime of mental health services because we didn’t do our jobs when we had them in school.
Penny Abeywardena: That is a perfect conclusion. Thank you so much, Governor Hochul.
MIL OSI Translation. Government of the Republic of France statements from French to English –
Source: Swiss Canton of Vaud – news in French
This plan is part of the major balances built into the legislative programme and constitutes one of the most ambitious cantonal tax reforms for individuals, including progressive and financially absorbable measures.
It also serves as an indirect counter-project to the popular initiative “Tax cuts for all: restoring purchasing power to the middle class” – considered excessive – and which the Council of State opposes.
Press release of September 24, 2024
EDITOR’S NOTE: This article is a translation. Apologies should the grammar and/or sentence structure not be perfect.
Source: Government of Sweden
The text of the following joint statement was released by the Governments of Australia, Chile, Denmark, France, Iceland, the Republic of Korea, Spain, Sweden, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States of America
The undersigned country members of the Global Partnership for Action on Gender-Based Online Harassment and Abuse (Global Partnership) call attention to the urgent need to counter the spread of gendered disinformation and address all forms of technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV) against women in political and public life.
Gendered disinformation is a threat to societies defending peaceful, democratic values. False or misleading gender and sex-based narratives are being used in campaigns by malign actors to deter and discredit the participation of women, girls and LGBTQI+ persons in political and public life. This not only causes deep harm to the individuals targeted, but also threatens electoral integrity, access to information and the exercise of freedom of expression. At the same time, new and emerging technologies are being used to enable harmful, violent rhetoric and attacks against women, girls and LGBTQI+ public figures across borders at a scale and speed previously unseen.
In our 2023 Road Map, the Global Partnership committed to promoting the meaningful participation in public life for women and girls, in all their diversity, by countering TFGBV and gendered disinformation.
We welcome the work being done to shine a light on how and why gendered disinformation is conceived, who it targets and how it is spread. Last year, in a groundbreaking study, Canada, the European External Action Service, Germany, Slovakia, the United Kingdom, and the United States jointly assessed the tactics used by foreign state and non-state actors to sow gendered and other identity-based disinformation across the world.
In March 2024 the Global Partnership and members of its Advisory Group co-hosted a multi-stakeholder conference convened by the National Democratic Institute on possible responses to countering the spread of gendered disinformation in the context of electoral processes. Stakeholders affirmed the need for a comprehensive response to disrupt the spread of gendered disinformation and to support victims and survivors.
The world is at a critical moment for upholding democracy. More than 100 countries have held, or are soon to be holding elections, many of them taking place under democratically challenging circumstances. The active participation of all people, including women, girls and LGBTQI+ persons, is essential for secure, healthy and prosperous democracies.
We call upon states to join us in recognising and taking action to counter the threat of gendered disinformation to democracies globally. We urge technology and other private companies to take appropriate action to respond to this threat, including a commitment to a Safety-by-Design approach to the development and deployment of platforms and technologies. We ask states and all stakeholders to defend and protect the ability of women, girls and LGBTQI+ persons to participate in public life freely, safely and without fear.
Source: Verizon
Headline: Verizon Business inks 5G connected-vehicle deal with teledriving car-share company Vay
NEW YORK, NY and Las Vegas, NV – Verizon Business and Vay Technology today announced an agreement bringing Verizon 5G connectivity to Vay’s fleet of teleoperated electric vehicles. The deal also includes custom data plans to help manage massive amounts of data generated by Vay vehicles’ sensors and cameras.
“Vay’s unique operational model shows the importance of mobile connectivity for the future of transportation. From Vay’s app-based user interface to their high-tech teledriving command centers to the vehicle fleet itself, connectivity touches all corners of the business,” said TJ Fox, Senior Vice President of Industrial IoT and Automotive, Verizon Business. “We’re thrilled to work with a company as innovative as Vay, which can use our unrivaled network to fuel their expansions throughout the U.S.”
“Verizon’s technology has been critical for Vay’s entry into the U.S. market from Europe, and we look forward to continuing our relationship with them as we expand our commercial and B2B businesses,” said Thomas von der Ohe, Vay co-founder and CEO. “Verizon’s coverage, performance and network reliability are essential for handling the data load inherent to teleoperating our fleet to the highest standards of safety and capability.”
Vay currently operates its commercial service in Las Vegas, where users can order an electric car via the Vay app and have it delivered to them by a Vay teledriver. While in the car, the users drive themselves, just like in a regular car. When the trip is complete, they end the rental in the app, exit the vehicle, and a Vay teledriver remotely drives it to the next customer. High-performance, low-latency Verizon 5G connectivity helps enable this operational model.
Verizon connectivity is used for data-intensive, mission-critical workloads such as providing mobility solutions for teleoperation-capable cars; transmitting telematics or diagnostic information from vehicles to Vay and/or Vay customers; and transmitting over-the-air updates to software and firmware in Vay vehicles.
Visit verizon.com/connectedvehicle to learn more about Verizon’s connected automotive solutions and capabilities.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Wray Vamplew, Emeritus Professor of Sport, University of Stirling
In the trailer for Ridley Scott’s hotly anticipated sequel to Gladiator (2000), a new gladiator (played by Paul Mescal) goes to battle in “the greatest temple Rome ever built – the Colosseum”.
He comes up against naval warfare, a cutthroat promoter (Denzel Washington) and a stampeding rhino. But how much of this really took place in Roman times? As always with films based in the past, pedantic historians will jump in to assess the degree of cinematic licence and historical misinterpretation. So it is with the forthcoming Gladiator II.
One thing that certainly did not happen was a warrior mounted on a rhinoceros (even a non-computer-generated one) charging at a group of gladiators. However, there is a record of a rhino at the inauguration of the Colosseum in 80BC. It didn’t fight men, but a bull, bear, buffalo, bison, lion and two steers. The other rare mentions of rhinos in Rome are of those in menageries, to be admired as exotic creatures.
This Roman interest in foreign, wild animals was the basis of the initial beast spectacles which began in 275BC with an exhibition of captured war elephants. Such non-violent displays of animals continued into the imperial era, but in 186BC the first staged animal hunt (venatio), featuring both lions and leopards, took place and by 169BC beast hunts had become an official part of republican state festivals.
Later, under the emperors, collecting and transporting beasts, especially unusual and foreign ones, to be displayed – but more often killed – demonstrated imperial power, territorial control and the vastness of the empire. Thousands of animals were brought from Africa and elsewhere to Roman arenas to be slaughtered for entertainment and the meat from the dead animals was given away to the spectators (it was easier than trying to dispose of the many carcasses).
Those who fought the beasts were not gladiators but specially trained hunters (venatores) armed with spears. The venatio could also feature fights between animals, as with the Colosseum rhinoceros, but most often the contest consisted of bulls against an elephant or bear. Animal hunts outlasted gladiatorial combats as a source of spectator entertainment, but as both the size of the empire and imperial funds diminished, greater reliance was placed on domestically reared “wild” animals.
More credence in historical terms can be given to the film’s staged sea battle (naumachia) in the flooded Colosseum. Such spectacles were expensive to stage and were reserved for special occasions.
The first one recorded was for Emperor Augustus in 2BC. Held on an artificial lake, it featured 30 large ships carrying some 3,000 marines plus an unspecified number of rowers. Participants in a naumachia, typically either convicted criminals or prisoners of war, were expected to kill each other or drown, though, the demonstration of fighting ability and courage could gain them a pardon.
The grandest sea battle was provided by Emperor Claudius on Lake Fucinus, a spectacle involving 100 ships and some 19,000 marines and oarsmen. It was at this event that the fighting men reportedly said “hail, emperor, we who are about to die salute you”, mistakenly assigned to gladiators in so many films, including the first Gladiator.
Literary sources (not always to be trusted in antiquity as they were often written well after alleged events) claim that the Colosseum was flooded for a sea battle at its inauguration. After some debate, historians now accept that the engineering mechanisms were in place so that, at least in its early days, the Colosseum could have accommodated a naumachia.
Gladiator II also showcases the misconstrued sporting legacy of the thumbs up signal to spare a defeated gladiator who requested mercy or the converse of a thumbs down from those who wished him to die.
The arena was a large, noisy place and hand signals were often used as a means of communication. Indeed, rather than verbally requesting mercy, the defeated warrior himself would raise the index finger of his right hand, or even the hand itself, both of which were recognised pleas for clemency.
When the crowd opted for the death of a fighter they indicated this by means of pollice verso, literally a turned thumb, with no direction specified. When the hand was waved the sign indicated that the gladiator’s throat should be cut by his conqueror. Those who wished to save the vanquished, but courageous, fighter gave the sign pollice compresso, a compressed thumb but one often hidden from sight so as not to cause visual confusion.
Gladiators were valuable assets. Promoters, who had paid a hiring fee (typically 10-20% of their value) for them to fight, were reluctant to incur the full asset value demanded as compensation should they die. Especially when, at the crowd’s insistence, they could have a choice in the matter.
In many instances the event had been promoted to curry favour with the spectators so to go against their wishes would be counterproductive. However, whether the ultimate decision-maker gave a thumbs up or thumbs down is debatable. The idea that this occurred seems to have developed around 1872 with the popularity of a painting by French artist, Jean-Léon Gérôme. In it he depicts vestal virgins giving the dreaded sign. Although titled Pollice Verso, it became conventionally referred to as “the thumbs down painting”.
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Wray Vamplew does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
– ref. Did Romans really fight rhinos? Sports historian explains the truth behind the battle scenes in Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II – https://theconversation.com/did-romans-really-fight-rhinos-sports-historian-explains-the-truth-behind-the-battle-scenes-in-ridley-scotts-gladiator-ii-235255
Source: South Africa News Agency
President Cyril Ramaphosa has called on US businesses to deepen their investment ties with South Africa, highlighting the country’s renewed focus on economic recovery and structural reform.
Speaking at the SA-US Interactive Business Forum in New York on Monday, the President emphasised the progress made under South Africa’s Government of National Unity (GNU) and the vast opportunities available to foreign investors.
He said this is a “timely intervention”, referencing his first visit to the US since South Africa’s general elections in May, which led to a coalition government of political parties committed to inclusive growth and job creation.
“The advent of the Government of National Unity has renewed investor optimism in the South African economy. The message I bring to US investors today is that this optimism is well-placed.
“South Africa is firmly on the road to recovery, and we invite you to be part of this journey. Investments in South Africa are secure. Our business environment is stable. This is supported policy certainty and regulatory safeguards,” the President said.
He added that South Africa intends to stay the course on the structural economic reform process, on scaling up investment in key infrastructure, and on improving the business operating environment.
The President noted South Africa’s success in attracting investment, revealing that the country had achieved its target of raising R1.2 trillion (approximately USD 63.6 billion) ahead of schedule in 2022.
“We have announced a new target of approximately R2 trillion or approximately USD 100 billion over the next five-year period up to 2028.
“The far-reaching structural reforms we have implemented over the past six years have opened up the country to increased levels of investment that continues to grow,” the President said.
Ramaphosa particularly underscored the potential in the clean energy sector, which has attracted significant investment, supporting South Africa’s commitment to decarbonisation and energy security.
“We are equally committed to a Just Energy Transition that is inclusive, that take our developmental needs into account, and that leaves no community behind.
“We have a supportive and enabling industrial policy that incorporates amongst others expanding the special economic zones, driving export-led growth, and harnessing the potential of the Africa Continental Free Trade Area or AfCFTA. In January 2024 we began preferential trading under the AfCFTA,” he said.
The President emphasised that the Government of National Unity is furthermore committed to prudent monetary and fiscal policy and to strengthening regulatory and legislative frameworks to combat corruption.
The President also highlighted the importance of strategic partnerships with US businesses, especially in sectors like advanced manufacturing, energy, healthcare, and infrastructure.
“South Africa and Africa is ripe for investment in financial services, advanced manufacturing, energy, healthcare, infrastructure development, mining, science and technology and other sectors. South Africa is also developing the value chains of the future.
“With substantial reserves of critical energy transition minerals, we are positioning ourselves to be at the forefront of the green energy revolution,” he said.
He added that as the country with the world’s largest platinum group metal reserves, South Africa has a competitive advantage when it comes to the production of sustainable energy technologies, including electric vehicles, new energy vehicles and renewable energy components.
President Ramaphosa praised the collaboration between the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), following the 2022 Memorandum of Understanding. He stated that the partnership between the two stock exchanges “promotes cross-border investment and drives economic growth on a global scale.”
The President further highlighted the US as one of South Africa’s most valued trade partners, noting that bilateral trade totalled USD 17.6 billion in 2022.
He also praised the impact of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) in fostering trade and creating jobs in sectors like automotive, agriculture, and precious metals.
With Africa’s population expected to reach 2.5 billion by 2050, President Ramaphosa painted a bright picture of the continent’s economic prospects, noting that the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) would “drive a wave of industrialisation and create dynamic regional value chains.”
“This too presents opportunities for US businesses and investors, and opens up new markets for their goods, products and services.
“Mutually beneficial trade and investment not only unlocks the dynamism and potential of an entire continent. It will also aid Africa’s efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals,” the President said.
In closing, President Ramaphosa reassured investors of the stability and security of investments in South Africa.
“South Africa is open for business. Sustainable and inclusive growth spurs development and creates jobs.
“Together, we can forge a path to shared success and progress, leveraging our combined strengths to achieve enduring prosperity for our people,” the President said. – SAnews.gov.za
Source: The Conversation – USA – By Graeme Mack, Visiting Assistant Professor of History, University of Richmond
This year’s presidential election has a former president, Donald Trump, running for a nonconsecutive term. It’s the fifth time in U.S. history that’s happened.
Historically, a former president running for a nonconsecutive term has prompted voters to change their party allegiances.
In 1848, Martin Van Buren, a former Democratic president, ran as a candidate for the newly formed Free Soil Party and attracted many Northern Democrats who had grown disillusioned with their party’s pro-slavery stance. The Free Soil Party outperformed Democrats in three Northern states and enabled the other major party, the Whigs, to win the presidency.
And in 1856, former Whig President Millard Fillmore headed the newly formed American Party, otherwise known as the Know-Nothing party. When faced with a choice between two candidates, Fillmore and Democrat James Buchanan, who both seemed deeply complicit with slavery’s expansion, many Northerners voted for the new antislavery Republican Party.
Fillmore’s candidacy in 1856 made a Republican sweep of the North virtually impossible, ensuring victory for Buchanan, who only won 45% of the popular vote.
Theodore Roosevelt’s run in 1912 also saw dramatic changes in voter behavior. With the former president on the ballot, millions of voters cast ballots for the other major party or a brand new party.
By this time, Roosevelt had become one of the most famous men in the world. Reformers praised his ability to attract attention and build support for progressive causes.
These characteristics repulsed conservative Republicans and traditional Democrats who feared Roosevelt’s return to power.
After failing to secure the Republican nomination, Roosevelt headed the newly formed Progressive Party, winning six states and 88 electoral votes, the strongest showing for a third party candidate ever.
However, the split in the Republican ranks enabled Democrats to win by an electoral landslide.
One former president ran for a nonconsecutive second term and won: Grover Cleveland, whose two terms ran from 1885-1889 and 1893-1897.
When Roosevelt ran in 1912, he saw a society convulsed by rapid change.
Between 1870 and 1900, the population of the United States rose from roughly 38 million to more than 76 million.
During this time, business transformed from small-scale manufacturing and local trade to huge corporations and factory-based manufacturing.
From 1900 to 1915, another 15 million immigrants settled in American cities.
A political reform movement known as progressivism emerged across political parties. It sought to address problems with immigration, urbanization, political corruption, industrialization and the concentration of corporate power.
Roosevelt’s political career tapped into progressivism’s growing momentum. First elected vice president as a Republican in 1900, he assumed the presidency in September 1901 after the assassination of President William McKinley.
Campaigning on his progressive “Square Deal” — focused on consumer protections, control of large corporations and conservation of natural resources — in 1904, the popular incumbent won reelection in the largest electoral landslide the country had seen.
But in 1908, Roosevelt declined to run for a third term. Instead, he advocated successfully for William Howard Taft, his secretary of war.
However, as Taft’s presidency took shape, Roosevelt grew dissatisfied with him. What most frustrated Roosevelt was Taft’s refusal to use executive power to advance progressive goals.
Seeing an urgent need for forceful presidential leadership, Roosevelt challenged Taft for the Republican nomination in 1912.
At the Republican National Convention, however, party leaders rejected Roosevelt and confirmed Taft’s nomination. Roosevelt’s supporters stormed out, complaining that leaders had manipulated rules and procedures to block the former president.
Despite his loss of the nomination, Roosevelt assured his supporters that he felt as “strong as a Bull Moose” and expressed interest in “bolting” from the Republican Party.
Roosevelt’s threat to leave his party was echoed more than 100 years later by another former president running for a nonconsecutive term. In late 2023, Trump refused to participate in the Republican presidential primary debates and refused to rule out the possibility of running as an independent.
In doing so, Trump’s candidacy hampered efforts to seek an alternative candidate. It also disregarded opportunities to win over skeptical Republicans.
In a matter of weeks after Roosevelt failed to get the Republican nomination, the Progressive Party, popularly known as the Bull Moose Party, held its national convention and nominated Roosevelt as its first presidential candidate.
His presidential campaign did not lack for energy or spectacle. In October 1912, the former president delivered a one-hour speech immediately after being shot in an assassination attempt.
He told his supporters, “It takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose.”
Like the recent assassination attempts on Trump, this attack drew condemnation and galvanized the former president’s core supporters.
Roosevelt faced off on Election Day against the Republican incumbent, William Howard Taft; Eugene V. Debs, the Socialist Party candidate; and the Democratic candidate, Woodrow Wilson.
Many Republicans cast their ballots for Wilson, seeing his candidacy as more viable than Roosevelt’s. Some did so out of disgust for what they saw as Roosevelt’s egotistical and radical campaign.
The split in the Republican Party created an opportunity for Democrats, who had been shut out of the presidency for decades.
On election day, Democrat Wilson won 40 states and earned 435 electoral votes. Democrats also won the House and Senate for the first time since 1892.
However, Wilson prevailed with less than 42% of the national vote, the smallest share won by a president since Abraham Lincoln’s 1860 election.
A unified Republican ticket would very likely have prevailed in 1912.
Taft blamed Roosevelt for 1 million Republicans voting for the Democratic ticket to stave off a Progressive win.
Historical parallels are never perfect. However, the 1912 election invites some comparison, as one of the world’s most famous men runs for the third time for the presidency.
The 2024 election will be close. Wary of Trump’s return to power, will disillusioned Republicans vote for Democratic Party nominee Kamala Harris, choose a third-party candidate, or sit out the election?
Graeme Mack does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
– ref. A brief history of former presidents running for reelection: 3 losses, 1 win and 1 still TBD – https://theconversation.com/a-brief-history-of-former-presidents-running-for-reelection-3-losses-1-win-and-1-still-tbd-234959
Source: The Conversation – USA – By Adrienne Bitar, Lecturer, Cornell University
When Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said during the presidential debate on Sept. 10, 2024, that Haitian immigrants are eating pets, food historians like me were not surprised at the slur. Trump’s lie followed a long American history of peddling ugly rumors about immigrants stealing and eating pets.
Dietary rules that unite and define American cuisine can so easily be perverted to use disgust to divide Americans. In the U.S., cow is food and dog is friend. Chicken is food. Cat is companion. The sharp lines between the animals Americans eat, love, protect and exterminate help write the dietary rules that define American norms.
What we eat, what we don’t and with whom we break bread are just some of the food rules that unite and define Americans. Think of how turkey – or tofurkey – unites Americans behind the Thanksgiving ritual. Bottled water. Ice. Ballpark hot dogs. Airplane pretzels. Movie theater popcorn.
Food can also establish group identity apart from the mainstream. Think of the many factions of vegan, vegetarian, paleo, grain-free and carnivore dieters who use food to express a political position. Also, of course, religious dietary proscriptions have worried scholars for centuries so that Jews, Muslims and Christians may never share a meal.
There is no evidence that Haitians are stealing and eating pet cats and dogs. There is evidence, however, that racists have long twisted dietary rules to divide people and dehumanize immigrants. Trump told a lie to draw a line between Americans and others who allegedly eat the animals Americans love.
The myth of eating pets traces back to old legends in Europe, Australia and the United States that “immigrants are stealing our cats and dogs for their dinner tables or to serve in ethnic restaurants,” writes the folklorist Jan Harold Brunvand.
Two of the most common food-based legends center on “Oriental restaurants serving dog (or cat) meat, and legends about Asian immigrants in the United States capturing and cooking people’s pets,” Brunvard writes.
By 1883, the legend was so well-established that the Chinese-American journalist Wong Chin Foo offered US$500 to anybody in New York for proof that Chinese people were eating cats or rats. No proof was found, but that didn’t stop the racist jokes or urban legends.
None of the many examples deserve retelling. But scholars, for example, have cited “sick jokes” such as a “new Vietnamese cookbook is titled 100 Ways to Wok Your Dog.”
Or as comedian Tessie Chua joked about her multiracial Chinese, Filipino and Irish identity in 1993 when she said, “That means I eat dog, but only if I can wash it down with Guinness Stout!”
In 1971, mainstream news outlets, including Reuters, reported an “outrageously silly urban legend” of a pet poodle named Rosa served at a Hong Kong restaurant, complete with chili sauce and bamboo shoots.
In 1980, Stockton, California, was seized by racist rumors of Vietnamese families stealing expensive purebred dogs for dinner.
As recently as 2005, the TV show “Curb Your Enthusiasm” showed wedding
guests vomiting after being misinformed that they had eaten a German shepherd named Oscar, prepared by a Korean-American florist. “Oscar is bulgogi!,” Larry David cries.
Scholars calls these tropes a “nativist backlash” and “vehicle for anti-immigrant and especially anti-Asian sentiments in the U.S.”
More precise, maybe, than the adage that “we are what we eat” is that we are what we won’t eat. Shunning our neighbor for their vile food – stinky, strange, unpalatable – is also decidedly an American tradition.
“Garlic eater” was at one time recognizable in the U.S. as an ethnic slur for Italian Americans in the early 20th century. The names “spaghetti bender” and “grape stomper” were also used, but “garlic eater” stuck because, as one scholar argued, “garlic served as an ‘olfactory signifier’” – a distinguishing odor – “for the alien who consumed it.”
So when far-right radical Laura Loomer tweeted in September 2024 that the White House “will smell like curry” if Kamala Harris becomes president, she was also using food to stoke racist fears.
Americans aren’t alone in doing this. Some Persians call Punjabis “dal khor,” meaning dal-eater, and some Romanians call Italians “macaronar,” meaning macaroni-eater. Both are slurs. Iranians have been known to call Arabs “malakh-khor,” or locust-eater, and Southern Italians sometimes call Northern Italians “polentoni,” or polenta-eater.
To an outsider, being called a lentil- or polenta-eater seems more like praise for a healthy diet than a racial epithet, but such are the vagaries of racism: People hate who they hate and justify it however possible.
Other examples of how food can distinguish communities abound. In the Amazon, the Parakanã people appreciate tapir meat but abhor monkey. The Arara people, their neighbors, feel the opposite. Both groups are disgusted by one another. Curry, garlic, tapir, polenta, lentils – it doesn’t matter what the nail is, but how the hammer hits.
Urban legends about food and racist rumors can have serious consequences. Earlier in 2024, a false rumor that a Laotian and Thai restaurant in Fresno, California, cooked pit bulls led to such vile harassment that the owner, David Rasavong, moved the restaurant to a new location.
After Trump repeated the myth during the debate that immigrants eat pets, Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, quickly became the target of bomb threats, forcing city buildings and schools to close. Members of the Haitian community have said they fear for their safety.
But there’s a more hopeful side to the issue of food being used as a way to divide or unite people, too. The Latin origins for the words company and companionship mean the people we share our bread with.
Garlic is now as central to American cuisine as apple pie. Nowadays, Americans are so much the better for the sushi, garlic and curry – and the diversity behind the deliciousness – that flavor American cuisine.
Adrienne Bitar does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
– ref. No, immigrants aren’t eating dogs and cats – but Trump’s claim is part of an ugly history of myths about immigrant foodways – https://theconversation.com/no-immigrants-arent-eating-dogs-and-cats-but-trumps-claim-is-part-of-an-ugly-history-of-myths-about-immigrant-foodways-239343
