Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News
China ready to work with ASEAN countries to elevate comprehensive strategic partnership to higher level
VIENTIANE, Oct. 10 — Chinese Premier Li Qiang said here Thursday that China will always firmly support ASEAN integration, community building, and its strategic independence, and stands ready to work with ASEAN countries to elevate the China-ASEAN comprehensive strategic partnership to a higher level.
Li made the remarks at the 27th China-ASEAN Summit, noting that new steps have been taken over the past year to build the China-ASEAN community with a shared future, which has delivered tangible benefits to the people of both sides.
The global economic recovery remains sluggish, and problems such as insufficient global aggregate demand are becoming more prominent, Li said, adding that the market has become the scarcest resource in the current economic development.
Noting that China and ASEAN are two major markets with over 1.4 billion and 600 million people respectively, Li said that market resources are the most prominent advantage for China and ASEAN. The markets of China and ASEAN are fully upgrading, continuously expanding, and increasingly opening up, and strengthening market connectivity is an important direction for further cooperation, he added.
The Version 3.0 China-ASEAN Free Trade Area (FTA) negotiations have reached a substantial conclusion, providing an institutional guarantee for the two sides to jointly build a hyper-scale market, a significant step toward leading economic integration in East Asia, the premier said.
China is ready to work with ASEAN to make more efforts to develop and share a common market, so as to generate stronger and more sustainable growth impetus for both sides while providing more robust support for the common prosperity of the region and the world at large, he added.
Noting that China-ASEAN relations have developed beyond the bilateral scope with far-reaching significance for Asia and a global impact, Li pledged to work with ASEAN to create a better future for Asia, as Chinese President Xi Jinping said that China will continue to follow the principle of amity, sincerity, mutual benefit and inclusiveness, and work with other countries in the region to build a better Asian community.
China and ASEAN should build a multidimensional connectivity network, actively promote cooperation in infrastructure construction, and expedite the signing and implementation of the Version 3.0 China-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement, said Li.
He called on both sides to expand cooperation in emerging industries, tap the cooperation potential in such areas as digital economy and green development, and accelerate industrial transformation.
Li urged both sides to deepen cultural and people-to-people exchanges and promote the implementation of the Global Civilization Initiative in the region.
Sonexay Siphandone, prime minister of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic and the current chair of the ASEAN, along with other ASEAN leaders attended the summit.
They praised the robust growth momentum of the ASEAN-China comprehensive strategic partnership, noting that ASEAN and China are each other’s largest trading partner, and their cooperation in various fields has yielded fruitful results, which has greatly improved the well-being of people in the region.
ASEAN leaders welcomed the substantial conclusion of negotiations for the Version 3.0 China-ASEAN FTA, expressing their readiness to take this opportunity to align with the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative, continue to advance regional economic integration, enhance cooperation in areas such as trade, investment, agriculture, connectivity and climate change mitigation, and expand collaboration in emerging areas like artificial intelligence, digital economy and green economy.
They reaffirmed their commitment to making the China-ASEAN Year of People-to-People Exchanges a success, building a closer ASEAN-China community with a shared future, and contributing to maintaining regional peace, stability and prosperity.
During the summit, several outcome documents were adopted, including a joint statement on the substantial conclusion of Version 3.0 China-ASEAN FTA negotiations, and documents on fighting telecommunications and internet fraud, deepening cooperation in areas such as smart agriculture, digital ecosystem, and cultural and people-to-people exchanges.
Today’s report shows inflation has fallen back down to 2.4%, the same rate as right before the pandemic. We keep making progress, with inflation returning to pre-pandemic levels, 16 million jobs created, lower interest rates, and low unemployment. Our economy has grown 3.2% per year under the Biden Harris Administration—stronger than during the previous administration. Incomes are up almost $4,000, after adjusting for inflation. We are working around the clock to help the families affected by Hurricane Milton and Hurricane Helene recover and rebuild, supported by our strong and resilient recovery.
President Biden and Vice President Harris will keep fighting to lower costs—by building new homes to lower rents, capping prescription drug costs and reducing health insurance premiums, and lowering taxes for middle-class families—as Congressional Republicans keep pushing trickle-down economics that would raise costs by nearly $4,000 per family while cutting taxes for billionaires and big corporations.
I thank Siena College for organising this conference.
My personal links to the Franciscans run deep.
Father Vítor Melícias – a Franciscan priest – is a lifelong friend, who has presided over both my wedding ceremonies, baptized my children, and celebrated mass many times in my home.
And as an António from Lisbon, I have a strong connection with Santo António – one of the first Franciscans.
People from Lisbon and people from Padua may never agree on where Santo António belongs, but of course, he belongs to the whole world.
And that world – our world – is in trouble.
We are witnessing real-time climate collapse – the result of the greenhouse gases we are spewing into the atmosphere.
Temperature records are falling like dominoes.
Violent weather is becoming more extreme and more brutal.
This year, we’ve seen Hurricane Beryl wreak havoc across the Caribbean and –reportedly – deprive almost three million Texans of power.
We’ve seen heat force schools to close in Africa and Asia.
And we’ve seen a mass global coral bleaching caused by unprecedented ocean temperatures, soaring past the worst predictions of scientists.
All this puts peace and justice in peril –as Saint Francis would have understood.
As Pope Francis has said, Saint Francis “shows us just how inseparable the bond is between concern for nature, justice for the poor, commitment to society, and interior peace.”
Today, floods and droughts are fuelling instability, driving conflict, and forcing people from their homes.
And though climate chaos is everywhere, it doesn’t affect everyone equally.
The very people most at risk, are those who did the least to cause the crisis: small island states, developing countries, the poor, and the vulnerable.
This is breathtaking injustice – and it is just the beginning.
Brothers and Sisters,
The patron saint of ecology has much to teach us about making peace with nature.
So of course, does Pope Francis. Including through his inspiring 2015 encyclical Laudato Si’, after which this Center is named.
Pope Francis tells us that: “When we exploit creation, we destroy the sign of God’s love for us.” He reminded us that human beings are “custodians” of this creation, not “masters” of it.
We must stop intentionally destroying our natural world and its gifts.
We must protect people from the destruction we have unleashed.
We must deliver climate justice for the vulnerable.
And, crucially, we must limit the rise in global temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius – as countries agreed to do in the landmark international climate pact – the Paris Agreement.
Brothers and Sisters,
The 1.5 degree limit is vital.
Our planet is a mass of complex, connected systems.
Every fraction of a degree of global heating counts.
The difference between a temperature rise of 1.5 and two degrees could be the difference between extinction and survival for some small island states and coastal communities.
And the difference between minimizing climate chaos or crossing dangerous tipping points.
For example, temperatures rising over 1.5 degrees would likely mean the collapse of the Greenland Ice Sheet and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet with catastrophic sea level rise.
But we are nearly out of time.
Meeting the 1.5 degree limit means cutting emissions 43 per cent on 2019 levels by the end of this decade.
That is daunting, but possible – if, and only if, leaders act now.
Next year, governments must submit new national climate action plans – known as nationally determined contributions. These will dictate emissions for the coming years.
At the United Nations climate conference last year – COP28 – countries agreed to align those plans with the 1.5 degree limit.
That means, putting the world on track:
To reach net zero global emissions by 2050;
End deforestation by 2030;
Accelerate the roll out of renewables.
And phase out planet-wrecking fossil fuels – fast and fairly.
Fossil fuel expansion and new coal plants are inconsistent with 1.5 degrees.
They must stop.
Not only for the sake of the climate. But for sustainable development and economies too.
Renewable power can connect people to electricity for the first time – transforming lives in the most remote and poorest regions.
And onshore wind and solar are the cheapest source of new electricity in most of the world.
Brothers and Sisters,
We cannot accept a future where the rich are protected in air-conditioned bubbles, while the rest of humanity is lashed by lethal weather in unlivable lands.
Leaders must take urgent steps to shield communities from the impact of climate destruction – for example, building flood defenses, and early warning systems to alert people that extreme weather is coming.
But developing countries can neither cut emissions nor protect themselves if money is not available.
Today, eye-watering debt repayments are drying up funds for climate action.
Extortion-level capital costs are putting renewables virtually out of reach for most developing and emerging economies.
This must change.
Developed countries have made promises to deliver climate finance – they must keep them.
All countries must support action on debt, and deep reforms to the multilateral system – including the Multilateral Development Banks – so that they can provide developing countries with far more low-cost capital.
And governments must make generous contributions to the new Loss and Damage Fund – providing financial assistance to countries most impacted by climate change.
Brothers and Sisters,
You play a vital role.
Everywhere, young people and religious communities are on the frontlines for bold climate action.
The Laudate Si Franciscan Network can be an important part of these efforts.
Together, we must stand with our brothers and sisters around the world in the fight for climate justice;
Alert our fellow citizens to the crisis;
Inspire them to call for change;
And demand that our governments take this chance, and act: to protect the vulnerable, deliver justice and save the planet.
In the words of Pope Francis:
“Let us choose the future. May we be attentive to the cry of the earth, may we hear the plea of the poor, may we be sensitive to the hopes of the young and the dreams of children!”
Derby City Council has launched a nine-week public consultation today yesterday (Wednesday 9 October) on proposed changes to Council Tax for empty homes and second homes in the city. The changes are in line with the new guidance rules introduced by the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act 2023.
The proposed changes will include a 100% Council Tax premium on properties that have been unoccupied and substantially unfurnished for at least one year, effective from April 2025; and the introduction to a 100% Council Tax premium on second homes, effective from April 2026.
Those measures aim to encourage property owners to live in or sell their empty homes. This will help add more homes to the local housing market and reduce the number of underused properties, making sure more housing is available for residents who need them.
Councillor Shiraz Khan, Cabinet Member for Housing, Property and Regulatory Services, said:
The proposed changes aim to encourage the occupation of vacant homes. These proposals are designed to align with the Council’s Socio-Economic Duty by minimising the financial burden on vulnerable and low-income individuals while maximising the potential of vacant housing stock within the city.
The council encourages residents and stakeholders to engage with these proposals as part of its ongoing commitment to transparency and community involvement.
The consultation period will run from Wednesday 9 October 2024 to Friday 13 December 2024. To have your say, visit the Let’s Talk Derby website.
Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments
Ian Murray welcomes recommendations by Joseph Rowntree Foundation and vows to work with Scottish Government to tackle associated issues and break down barriers
Scottish Secretary Ian Murray spoke at the launch of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s (JRF) annual report into poverty in Scotland this week [7 October].
The report, summarised here, found that one million people in Scotland are living in poverty and that one in four of them are children. Recommendations were made to overhaul the social security system to tackle the problem and, in particular, for the UK and Scottish Governments to work together to make the process smoother in terms of reserved and devolved policy areas.
An excerpt follows from the remarks made by the Scottish Secretary at the event:
I want to outline some of the steps that the new UK Government is taking to reduce poverty in Scotland and across the whole of the UK.
We are committed to working together with the Scottish Government, and to reset the relationship between our two governments. Because, as this latest report highlights, it is vital that we can deliver on behalf of the people of Scotland.
I’ve spent a lot of time with organisations such as Poverty Alliance to understand fully the complexities of what’s happening.
Having one million people in poverty – a quarter of those children – is really sobering. But I think the most sobering thing is that none of us are surprised, and that really should be the thing that we need to tackle in terms of policy.
We are only 95 days into this new government and we’ve already done a lot of engagement to make sure we can develop these policies, whether it be in social security or regarding the underlying parts of poverty.
With the Budget coming up on 30 October, the Chancellor has been clear on two things. One is the economic inheritance that we’ve got to try and deal with and that those with the broadest shoulders will carry the majority of what needs to be done to grow the economy for all parts of our country.
Reducing poverty across all sections of society, particularly child poverty, is in our DNA. We did it before. Unfortunately, we’re going to have to do it again.
We will be publishing our Employment Rights Bill this week to fundamentally transform work and pay. It will ban exploitative zero-hour contracts, outlaw fire and rehire and will make sure that the National Minimum Wage becomes a genuine living wage.
It’s still sobering that two-thirds of children in poverty are in households where one or both adults are working full time, and that means that there’s a big problem with pay. We hope that our New Deal for Working People will start to resolve some of those issues.
I think it’s also important to highlight our Universal Credit review, which will look at everything from the two-child cap to housing allowances.
We’ve also launched our Child Poverty Task Force, chaired jointly by the Secretaries of State for Education and the Department of Work and Pensions. It looks at all the other big issues that are around in terms of poverty.
Yes, it’s about the social security system, Universal Credit, but it’s also about housing, educational attainment, health inequalities, pay in the workplace, progression and skills. It’s about those underlying causes of poverty that are inherent in our society that we need to find a way to resolve once and for all.
Having grown up on a council estate, I know that having that security of tenure of a house was the bedrock in which the family was built, and without that it’s difficult to see how you can get yourself out of poverty.
Housing is devolved, but both governments are working very closely together to make sure that we can resolve the housing emergency that’s been declared across a lot of our local authorities.
We’ve made a good start over the last 95 days. There will be bumps in the road, because these are fundamental challenges, but the whole culture of the new government is to try and resolve these issues.
We want to make sure the system can work better, and joint working is really important in this area. There’s no reason why Social Security Scotland and the DWP can’t work jointly in terms of the delivery of social security, to make sure that we get the best out of both systems for the benefit of everyone who needs to access that system.
Regarding the low update of benefits by ethnic minorities, I think that’s a huge challenge for us. Not just finding those individuals and families, but actually being able to engage with them and get them what they deserve to be claiming. That’s a huge battle for us all to try to work together and resolve.
We’ve got four big priorities as a new government and as a Scotland Office. Growth is the number one priority, but that also feeds into our green agenda, which is our second priority. Our third one is Brand Scotland to try and increase our exports, to improve our businesses and create more jobs. And the fourth one, which attached the first three, is the eradication of poverty.
That’s something that myself and Ministerial colleague Kirsty McNeill are fundamentally committed to doing. We can only do that by all of us – devolved governments, the UK Government and organisations like JRF working together. We must find ways we can not only make the system better, but make sure that those who require access to the system, get access to that system and get the funds and support they deserve.
There’s a huge amount of work to be done and this report gives us that very sobering starting point.
The 67 million Americans eligible for Medicare make an important decision every October: Should they make changes in their Medicare health insurance plans for the next calendar year?
The decision is complicated. Medicare has an enormous variety of coverage options, with large and varying implications for people’s health and finances, both as beneficiaries and taxpayers. And the decision is consequential – some choices lock beneficiaries out of traditional Medicare.
Beneficiaries choose an insurance plan when they turn 65 or become eligible based on qualifying chronic conditions or disabilities. After the initial sign-up, most beneficiaries can make changes only during the open enrollment period each fall.
The 2024 open enrollment period, which runs from Oct. 14 to Dec. 7, marks an opportunity to reassess options. Given the complicated nature of Medicare and the scarcity of unbiased advisers, however, finding reliable information and understanding the options available can be challenging.
We are health carepolicy experts who study Medicare, and even we find it complicated. One of us recently helped a relative enroll in Medicare for the first time. She’s healthy, has access to health insurance through her employer and doesn’t regularly take prescription drugs. Even in this straightforward scenario, the number of choices were overwhelming.
The stakes of these choices are even higher for people managing multiple chronic conditions. There is help available for beneficiaries, but we have found that there is considerable room for improvement – especially in making help available for everyone who needs it.
The choice is complex, especially when you are signing up for the first time and if you are eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid. Insurers often engage in aggressive and sometimes deceptive advertising and outreach through brokers and agents. Choose unbiased resources to guide you through the process, like http://www.shiphelp.org. Make sure to start before your 65th birthday for initial sign-up, look out for yearly plan changes, and start well before the Dec. 7 deadline for any plan changes.
2 paths with many decisions
Within Medicare, beneficiaries have a choice between two very different programs. They can enroll in either traditional Medicare, which is administered by the government, or one of the Medicare Advantage plans offered by private insurance companies.
Within each program are dozens of further choices.
Traditional Medicare is a nationally uniform cost-sharing plan for medical services that allows people to choose their providers for most types of medical care, usually without prior authorization. Deductibles for 2024 are US$1,632 for hospital costs and $240 for outpatient and medical costs. Patients also have to chip in starting on Day 61 for a hospital stay and Day 21 for a skilled nursing facility stay. This percentage is known as coinsurance. After the yearly deductible, Medicare pays 80% of outpatient and medical costs, leaving the person with a 20% copayment. Traditional Medicare’s basic plan, known as Part A and Part B, also has no out-of-pocket maximum.
People enrolled in traditional Medicare can also purchase supplemental coverage from a private insurance company, known as Part D, for drugs. And they can purchase supplemental coverage, known as Medigap, to lower or eliminate their deductibles, coinsurance and copayments, cap costs for Parts A and B, and add an emergency foreign travel benefit.
The Medicare Advantage program allows private insurers to bundle everything together and offers many enrollment options. Compared with traditional Medicare, Medicare Advantage plans typically offer lower out-of-pocket costs. They often bundle supplemental coverage for hearing, vision and dental, which is not part of traditional Medicare.
Understanding the tradeoffs between premiums, health care access and out-of-pocket health care costs can be overwhelming.
Turning 65 begins the process of taking one of two major paths, which each have a thicket of health care choices. Rika Kanaoka/USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics
Different Medicare Advantage plans have varying and large impacts on enrollee health, including dramatic differences in mortality rates. Researchers found a 16% difference per year between the best and worst Medicare Advantage plans, meaning that for every 100 people in the worst plans who die within a year, they would expect only 84 people to die within that year if all had been enrolled in the best plans instead. They also found plans that cost more had lower mortality rates, but plans that had higher federal quality ratings – known as “star ratings” – did not necessarily have lower mortality rates.
While many Medicare Advantage plans boast about their supplemental benefits , such as vision and dental coverage, it’s often difficult to understand how generous this supplemental coverage is. For instance, while most Medicare Advantage plans offer supplemental dental benefits, cost-sharing and coverage can vary. Some plans don’t cover services such as extractions and endodontics, which includes root canals. Most plans that cover these more extensive dental services require some combination of coinsurance, copayments and annual limits.
Even when information is fully available, mistakes are likely.
At 65, when most beneficiaries first enroll in Medicare, federal regulations guarantee that anyone can get Medigap coverage. During this initial sign-up, beneficiaries can’t be charged a higher premium based on their health.
Older Americans who enroll in a Medicare Advantage plan but then want to switch back to traditional Medicare after more than a year has passed lose that guarantee. This can effectively lock them out of enrolling in supplemental Medigap insurance, making the initial decision a one-way street.
For the initial sign-up, Medigap plans are “guaranteed issue,” meaning the plan must cover preexisting health conditions without a waiting period and must allow anyone to enroll, regardless of health. They also must be “community rated,” meaning that the cost of a plan can’t rise because of age or illness, although it can go up due to other factors such as inflation.
People who enroll in traditional Medicare and a supplemental Medigap plan at 65 can expect to continue paying community-rated premiums as long as they remain enrolled, regardless of what happens to their health.
In most states, however, people who switch from Medicare Advantage to traditional Medicare don’t have as many protections. Most state regulations permit plans to deny coverage, impose waiting periods or charge higher Medigap premiums based on their expected health costs. Only Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts and New York guarantee that people can get Medigap plans after the initial sign-up period.
Deceptive advertising
Information about Medicare coverage and assistance choosing a plan is available but varies in quality and completeness. Older Americans are bombarded with ads for Medicare Advantage plans that they may not be eligible for and that include misleading statements about benefits.
A November 2022 report from the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance found deceptive and aggressive sales and marketing tactics, including mailed brochures that implied government endorsement, telemarketers who called up to 20 times a day, and salespeople who approached older adults in the grocery store to ask about their insurance coverage.
The Department of Health and Human Services tightened rules for 2024, requiring third-party marketers to include federal resources about Medicare, including the website and toll-free phone number, and limiting the number of contacts from marketers.
Although the government has the authority to review marketing materials, enforcement is partially dependent on whether complaints are filed. Complaints can be filed with the federal government’s Senior Medicare Patrol, a federally funded program that prevents and addresses unethical Medicare activities.
Nearly one-third of Medicare beneficiaries seek information from an insurance broker. Brokers sell health insurance plans from multiple companies. However, because they receive payment from plans in exchange for sales, and because they are unlikely to sell every option, a plan recommended by a broker may not meet a person’s needs.
Help is out there − but falls short
An alternative source of information is the federal government. It offers three sources of information to assist people with choosing one of these plans: 1-800-Medicare, medicare.gov and the State Health Insurance Assistance Program, also known as SHIP.
Telephone SHIP services are available nationally, but one of us and our colleagues have found that in-person SHIP services are not available in some areas. We tabulated areas by ZIP code in 27 states and found that although more than half of the locations had a SHIP site within the county, areas without a SHIP site included a larger proportion of people with low incomes.
Virtual services are an option that’s particularly useful in rural areas and for people with limited mobility or little access to transportation, but they require online access. Virtual and in-person services, where both a beneficiary and a counselor can look at the same computer screen, are especially useful for looking through complex coverage options.
As one SHIP coordinator noted, many people are not aware of all their coverage options. For instance, one beneficiary told a coordinator, “I’ve been on Medicaid and I’m aging out of Medicaid. And I don’t have a lot of money. And now I have to pay for my insurance?” As it turned out, the beneficiary was eligible for both Medicaid and Medicare because of their income, and so had to pay less than they thought.
The interviews made clear that many people are not aware that Medicare Advantage ads and insurance brokers may be biased. One counselor said, “There’s a lot of backing (beneficiaries) off the ledge, if you will, thanks to those TV commercials.”
Many SHIP staff counselors said they would benefit from additional training on coverage options, including for people who are eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid. The SHIP program relies heavily on volunteers, and there is often greater demand for services than the available volunteers can offer. Additional counselors would help meet needs for complex coverage decisions.
The key to making a good Medicare coverage decision is to use the help available and weigh your costs, access to health providers, current health and medication needs, and also consider how your health and medication needs might change as time goes on.
This article is part of an occasional series examining the U.S. Medicare system.
Grace McCormack receives funding from the Commonwealth Fund and Arnold Ventures.
Melissa Garrido receives funding from Commonwealth Fund, the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, and the National Institutes of Health for Medicare-related research, including research discussed in this piece.
Source: The Conversation – USA – By Molly Yanity, Professor and Director of Sports media and Communication, University of Rhode Island
Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark, right, scrambles for a loose ball against Connecticut Sun guard DiJonai Carrington during a game on Aug. 28, 2024.Brian Spurlock/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
Clark, however, didn’t get a chance to compete for a league title.
The Connecticut Sun eliminated Clark’s team, the Indiana Fever, in the first round of the playoffs with a two-game sweep, ending her record rookie-of-the-year campaign.
And it may be just the latest chapter in a complicated saga steeped in race.
During the next day’s media availability, USA Today columnist Christine Brennan recorded and posted an exchange between herself and Carrington.
In the brief clip, the veteran sports writer asks Carrington, who is Black, if she purposely hit Clark in the eye during the previous night’s game. Though Carrington insisted she didn’t intentionally hit Clark, Brennan persisted, asking the guard if she and a teammate had laughed about the incident. The questions sparked social media outrage, statements from the players union and the league, media personalities weighing in and more.
But Brennan’s questions were not asked in a vacuum. The emergence of a young, white superstar from the heartland has caused many new WNBA fans to pick sides that fall along racial lines. Brennan’s critics claim she was pushing a line of questioning that has dogged Black athletes for decades: that they are aggressive and undisciplined.
Because of that, her defense of her questions – and her unwillingness to acknowledge the complexities – has left this professor disappointed in one of her journalistic heroes.
Brennan and much of the mainstream sports media, particularly those who cover professional women’s basketball, still seem to have a racial blind spot.
The emergence of a Black, queer league
When the WNBA launched in 1997 in the wake of the success of the 1996 Olympic gold-medal-winning U.S. women’s basketball team, it did so under the watch of the NBA.
While the league experienced fits and starts in attendance and TV ratings over its lifetime, the demographic makeup of its players is undeniable: The WNBA is, by and large, a Black, queer league.
In 2020, the Women’s National Basketball Players Association reported that 83% of its members were people of color, with 67% self-reporting as “Black/African-American.” While gender and sexual identity hasn’t been officially reported, a “substantial proportion,” the WNBPA reported, identify as LBGTQ+.
In 2020, the league’s diversity was celebrated as players competed in a “bubble” in Bradenton, Florida, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. They protested racial injustice, helped unseat a U.S. senator who also owned Atlanta’s WNBA franchise, and urged voters to oust former President Donald Trump from the White House.
Racial tensions bubble to the surface
In the middle of it all, the WNBA has more eyeballs on it than ever before. And, without mincing words, the fan base has “gotten whiter” since Clark’s debut this past summer, as The Wall Street Journal pointed out in July. Those white viewers of college women’s basketball have emphatically turned their attention to the pro game, in large part due to Clark’s popularity at the University of Iowa.
While the rising tide following Clark’s transition to the WNBA is certainly lifting all boats, it is also bringing detritus to the surface in the form of racist jeers from the stands and on social media.
After the Sun dispatched the Fever, All-WNBA forward Alyssa Thomas, who seldom speaks beyond soundbites, said in a postgame news conference: “I think in my 11-year career I’ve never experienced the racial comments from the Indiana Fever fan base. … I’ve never been called the things that I’ve been called on social media, and there’s no place for it.”
Echoes of Bird and Magic
In “Manufacturing Consent,” a seminal work about the U.S. news business, Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky argued that media in capitalist environments do not exist to impartially report the news, but to reinforce dominant narratives of the time, even if they are false. Most journalists, they theorized, work to support the status quo.
In sports, you sometimes see that come to light through what media scholars call “the stereotypical narrative” – a style of reporting and writing that relies on old tropes.
In Brennan’s coverage of the Carrington-Clark incident, there appear to be echoes of the way the media covered Los Angeles Lakers point guard Magic Johnson and Boston Celtics forward Larry Bird in the 1980s.
The battles between two of the sport’s greatest players – one Black, the other white – was a windfall for the NBA, lifting the league into financial sustainability.
But to many reporters who leaned on the dominant narrative of the time, the two stars also served as stand-ins for the racial tensions of the post-civil rights era. During the 1980s, Bird and Magic didn’t simply hoop; they were the “embodiments of their races and living symbols of how blacks and whites lived in America,” as scholars Patrick Ferrucci and Earnest Perry wrote.
The media gatekeepers of the Magic-Bird era often relied on racial stereotypes that ultimately distorted both athletes.
For example, early in their careers, Bird and Johnson received different journalistic treatment. In Ferrucci and Perry’s article, they explain how coverage of Bird “fit the dominant narrative of the time perfectly … exhibiting a hardworking and intelligent game that succeeded despite a lack of athletic prowess.” When the “flashy” Lakers and Johnson won, they wrote, it was because of “superior skill.”
When they lost to Bird’s Celtics, they were “outworked.”
Framing matters
Let’s go back to Brennan.
Few have done more for young women in the sports media industry than Brennan. In time, energy and money, she has mentored and supported young women trying to break into the field. She has used her platform to expand the coverage of women’s sports.
“I think [critics are] missing the fact of what I’m trying to do, what I am doing, what I understand clearly as a journalist, asking questions and putting things out there so that athletes can then have an opportunity to answer issues that are being discussed or out there.”
I don’t think Brennan asking Carrington about the foul was problematic. Persisting with the narrative was.
Leaning into racial stereotypes is not simply about the language used anymore. Brennan’s video of her persistent line of questioning pitted Carrington against Clark. It could be argued that it used the stereotype of the overly physical, aggressive Black athlete, as well.
At best, Brennan has a blind spot to the strain racism is putting on Black athletes today – particularly in the WNBA. At worst, she is digging in on that tired trope.
A blind spot can be addressed and seen. An unacknowledged racist narrative, however, will persist.
Molly Yanity 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.
Thank you for the kind introduction, Jennet.1 Let me start by saying my thoughts are with all the people in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia who have felt the force of Helene’s and Milton’s impact. I am saddened by the tragic loss of life and widespread disruption in this region. The Federal Reserve Board and other federal and state financial regulatory agencies are working with banks and credit unions in the affected area. As we normally do in these unfortunate situations, we are encouraging institutions operating in the affected areas to meet the needs of their communities.2 It is an honor to stand before you and speak to this group of audacious, innovative women. I am also very happy to be back in Charleston. I grew up in Milledgeville, Georgia, just about 250 miles down the road. Some of my fondest childhood memories of traveling in the South, especially as a Girl Scout, include South Carolina. Today I would like to talk with you about the important role startups, new businesses, and entrepreneurship play in our economy from the perspective of a Federal Reserve policymaker. I also want to share a bit of my story. Just like many of you—including those who have started a business or those who dream of doing that someday—I have faced and overcome hurdles along a winding path. My StoryI was born and raised in Milledgeville, where my mother, Professor Mary Murray Cook, was a faculty member in the Nursing Department of Georgia College and State University. She was the first tenured African American faculty member at that university. My father, Rev. Payton B. Cook, was a chaplain and then in senior leadership at the hospital there. My family lived through the events that brought Milledgeville out of a deeply segregated South. My sisters and I were among the first African American students to desegregate the schools we attended. I drew strength from the example set by my family, others in the Civil Rights Movement, and the village that raised me and from their conviction in the hope and promise of a world that could and would continually improve. While I had an interest in economics even before I entered high school, that was not the initial field of study I pursued. I entered Spelman College in Atlanta as a physics and philosophy major. After graduation, I had the honor of studying at the University of Oxford as a Marshall Scholar. After Oxford, I continued my education at the University of Dakar in Senegal in West Africa. However, at the end of my year in Africa, it was the chance to climb Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania in East Africa where I discovered my love of economics. I hiked alongside a British economist, and, by the end of the trek, he convinced me that studying economics would provide me with the tools to address some big and important questions I had pondered for a long time. I went on to earn my Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Berkeley. Entering the economics profession came with its usual challenges, and, for women, a few more challenges existed. To this day, women are still underrepresented in economics. Women earned just 34 percent of bachelor’s degrees in economics and 36 percent of Ph.D.’s in economics in 2022, the most recent available data from the U.S. Department of Education. The share of women earning those degrees rose only modestly from 1999, when women earned about 32 percent of economics bachelor’s degrees and 27 percent of Ph.D.’s. The data stand in sharp contrast to all science and engineering degrees, including in social science fields, where women earned roughly half of degrees granted in 2022.3 Education was paramount in my family and was construed as a means of realizing the promise of the Civil Rights Movement and continual improvement of our society and economy. Of course, economics, like physics, is a field where math skills are vitally important. Between my mother, my aunts, and my extended family, I had essentially understood STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics)-related jobs to be women’s work. I was grateful to have these role models in my orbit to give me the confidence to undertake study in a STEM field. Access and encouragement for girls to pursue study in math and science are a significant concern. Economist Dania V. Francis’s research shows that Black girls are disproportionately under-recommended for Advanced Placement calculus.4 The course is often a gateway for economics, for STEM classes, and for college preparation, in general.5 My mentors and role models encouraged careful study, teaching, and scholarship and helped me block out the voices saying I did not belong at each juncture. They encouraged my work and have been champions for me. As a result, I have been committed to serving as a mentor, as well. For several years, I was the director of and taught in the American Economic Association’s Summer Program, an important training ground for disadvantaged students considering economics careers. Each year, the share of students who are women oscillated between 41 percent and 67 percent, much higher than the enrollment in undergraduate economics courses nationally.6 I told those students—and continue to tell them as they make their way through graduate programs in economics and through the economics profession—”You belong here. Your insights are unique, and the profession will benefit from them.” In my career as an economist, I studied, researched, and taught in roles at universities and worked in the private sector and in government before I was nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate to become a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in 2022. I am honored and humbled to serve in this role and proud to be the first African American woman and first woman of color to serve on the Board of Governors. As Fed policymakers, we make decisions affecting the entire economy and the well-being of every American by focusing on the dual mandate given to us by Congress: maximum employment and stable prices. Entrepreneurs’ Vital Role in the EconomyIn my years of conducting research and while at the Board, I have met many inventors, innovators, and entrepreneurs who made important contributions to the economy. Many of them happened to be women who were very knowledgeable, creative, and inspiring. So I want to discuss the vital role entrepreneurship and new business creation play in our economy. You might ask what interest I have in this subject, as a monetary policymaker focused closely on the dual mandate of maximum employment and stable prices. Well, this topic has interested me for a long time, and I conducted a fair amount of research on entrepreneurship and innovation before joining the Board. But the topic is also important precisely because of our dual mandate. To convince you of this, I will explain a few of the ways in which economists think about entrepreneurship, and how they relate to the dual mandate. The first is the most basic: For many people—many millions, in fact—entrepreneurship or self-employment is a career choice.7 It is their preferred way of participating in the labor market and obtaining income for themselves and their families. They prefer to be their own bosses, with all the benefits and risks that entails.8 But whether they end up hiring others or not, self-employed individuals support the labor market by providing a job for themselves. A second way economists think about entrepreneurship is a little broader: New business creation is a large contributor to overall job growth. In fact, new businesses punch above their weight. For example, during the handful of years before the pandemic, in a typical year only about 8 percent of all employer firms were new entrants, but these new entrants accounted for about 15 percent of annual gross job creation.9 And research has found that this job creation effect is long lasting. Even though many new firms do not survive, those that do survive tend to grow rapidly over 5 to 10 years, largely offsetting the job losses from those firms that shut down.10 A third way economists think about entrepreneurship, which I have explored in my own research, is that a small but critical subset of new firms are innovators—they introduce new products or business processes that change how we consume or produce.11 As such, they make large contributions to overall productivity growth over time. That is, innovative entrepreneurs help enable us to do more with less—and even more so if access to innovation participation is equitable.12 It is important that everyone, including women, historically underrepresented groups, people from certain geographic regions, and other diverse representative groups, can participate in the entrepreneurship and innovation economy. In my research, I have found that investors underrate the prospects of Black-founded, or simply outsider-founded, startups in early funding stages. Better assessment of the early stages of invention and innovation could broaden the range of new entrants and the ideas they contribute to their local communities and the broader economy. Consider the Dual MandateSo let’s return to the dual mandate. You can now understand that self-employment and entrepreneurial job creation are relevant for our employment mandate. Indeed, one could argue that entrepreneurs are critical to Fed policymakers’ efforts to promote maximum employment. And the productivity gains we reap from entrepreneurship are like productivity growth from any other source. When the pace of productivity growth increases, it allows for economic activity and wage growth to be robust while also being consistent with price stability. The importance of business startups to our dual mandate objectives is why I have watched closely as various measures of new business formation have surged since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Applications for new businesses jumped to a record pace shortly after the pandemic struck the U.S.13 The pace of applications has remained elevated above pre-pandemic norms all the way from the summer of 2020 to the most recent data, even though the pace appears to be cooling some this year.14 At first, it might have seemed like these business applications were mainly being submitted by people who lost their jobs, or perhaps by an increase in “gig economy” work. There was doubtless some of that going on, but research and data since then have painted a more optimistic picture. When researchers look across areas of the country, the pandemic business applications had only a weak connection with layoffs. The surge in applications persisted long after overall layoffs fell to the subdued pace we have seen since early 2021. The applications did have a strong relationship with workers voluntarily leaving their jobs. Some quitting workers may have chosen to join these new businesses as founders or early employees. And surging business applications were soon followed by new businesses hiring workers and expanding. Over the last two years of available data, new firms created 1.9 million jobs per year, a pace not seen since the eve of the Global Financial Crisis.15 The industry patterns of this surge reflect shifts in consumer and business needs resulting from the pandemic and its aftermath. For example, in large metro areas, new business creation shifted from city centers to the suburbs, perhaps because of the increase in remote work. Suddenly, people wanted to eat lunch or go to the gym closer to their home, rather than close to their downtown office. Likewise, consumer and business tastes for more online purchases, with the shipping requirements that entails, are evident in the surge of business entry in the online retail and transportation sectors. But this is not only about moving restaurants closer to workers or changing patterns of goods consumption. There was also a particularly strong entry into high-tech industries, such as data processing and hosting, as well as research and development services.16 That may have more to do with developments like artificial intelligence than with the pandemic specifically, as I discussed in a speech in Atlanta last week.17 Economists will spend years debating the various causes of the surge in business creation during and soon after the pandemic. Perhaps strong monetary and fiscal policy backstopping aggregate demand played some role, or pandemic social safety net policies, or simply the accommodative financial conditions of 2020 and 2021.18 Indeed, more research is needed and will be the subject of many dissertations in the near future. I do think a large part of the story is ultimately a case of resourceful and determined American entrepreneurs, perhaps including some of you, responding to the tumultuous shocks of the pandemic. They, like some of you, stepped in to meet the rapidly changing needs of households and businesses. This points to a fourth way economists like to think about entrepreneurship, which is that entrepreneurship plays a big role in helping the economy adapt to change. Research suggests that entrepreneurs and the businesses they create are highly responsive to big economic shocks, and the COVID-19 pandemic was certainly a seismic shock.19 To be sure, the future is uncertain. It is unclear what the productivity effects of the pandemic surge of new businesses, particularly in high tech, will be.20 And whether that surge will continue is an open question; after all, the pre-pandemic period was a period of declining rates of new business creation, and the pandemic surge itself does appear to be cooling off recently.21 ConclusionFor now, let me say that I am grateful that entrepreneurs continue to give us a hand in meeting our employment mandate, and whatever productivity gains we may reap in coming years as a result may help ease tradeoffs with inflation as well. Finally, I will share one last story about why South Carolina will always hold a special place in my and my sisters’ hearts. Every summer and at Thanksgiving, we would travel through the Palmetto State to our grandparents’ house in Winston-Salem. Sitting in the back seat of the station wagon, we were entranced by the many colorful signs along Interstate 95 advertising what I, as a child, viewed as South Carolina’s number one attraction: the South of the Border roadside amusement park. We begged our parents to stop every time. It was an epic struggle that went on for more than a decade. Once or twice they did relent, a sweet childhood victory! And here is the funny thing about travels—paths can cross. The timing is such that my sisters and I may have even been helped by a waiter named Ben, a young man from Dillon, South Carolina, who would go on to be Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke! 22 Perhaps it was the world’s way of foreshadowing. Thank you for having me here in Charleston. It is inspiring to meet this group of bold, entrepreneurial women in South Carolina, and I look forward to continuing our conversation.
1. The views expressed here are my own and not necessarily those of my colleagues on the Federal Open Market Committee. Return to text 2. See Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Federal Reserve Board, National Credit Union Administration, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and State Financial Regulators (2024), “Federal and State Financial Regulatory Agencies Issue Interagency Statement on Supervisory Practices regarding Financial Institutions Affected by Hurricane Helene,” joint press release, October 2. Return to text 3. See U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, Completions Survey, available on the NCES website at https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/survey-components/7. Return to text 4. See Dania V. Francis, Angela C.M. de Oliveira, and Carey Dimmitt (2019), “Do School Counselors Exhibit Bias in Recommending Students for Advanced Coursework?” B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, vol. 19 (July), pp. 1–17. Return to text 5. See Lisa D. Cook and Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman (2019), “‘It Was a Mistake for Me to Choose This Field,’” New York Times, September 30. Return to text 6. See Lisa D. Cook and Christine Moser (2024), “Lessons for Expanding the Share of Disadvantaged Students in Economics from the AEA Summer Program at Michigan State University,” Journal of Economic Perspectives, vol. 38 (Summer), pp. 191–208. Return to text 7. There is no single way to measure the number of self-employed individuals and related businesses, but it certainly numbers in the millions. The latest Bureau of Labor Statistics Current Population Survey indicates there are roughly 10 million unincorporated and 7 million incorporated self-employed individuals. Separate data on businesses from the U.S. Census Bureau indicate that, as of 2021, there were about 25 million nonemployer and 800,000 employer sole proprietorships (Nonemployer Statistics; Statistics of U.S. Businesses). For analysis of inconsistencies between self-employment data sources, see Katharine G. Abraham, John C. Haltiwanger, Claire Hou, Kristin Sandusky, and James R. Spletzer (2021), “Reconciling Survey and Administrative Measures of Self-Employment,” Journal of Labor Economics, vol. 39 (October), pp. 825–60. Return to text 8. See Erik Hurst and Benjamin Wild Pugsley (2011), “What Do Small Businesses Do? (PDF)” Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Fall, pp. 73–142; and Erik G. Hurst and Benjamin W. Pugsley (2017), “Wealth, Tastes, and Entrepreneurial Choice,” in John Haltiwanger, Erik Hurst, Javier Miranda, and Antoinette Schoar, eds., Measuring Entrepreneurial Businesses: Current Knowledge and Challenges (Chicago: University of Chicago Press). Return to text 9. Gross job creation refers to all jobs created by entering and expanding establishments. Data are from the Census Bureau Business Dynamics Statistics, averaged for 2015–19. New firms’ share of net job creation is much higher, but this is partly an artifact of measurement practices: Firms with an age less than one measured in annual data cannot contribute negatively to net job creation. Return to text 10. See John Haltiwanger, Ron S. Jarmin, and Javier Miranda (2013), “Who Creates Jobs? Small versus Large versus Young,” Review of Economics and Statistics, vol. 95 (May), pp. 347–61; and Ryan Decker, John Haltiwanger, Ron Jarmin, and Javier Miranda (2014), “The Role of Entrepreneurship in US Job Creation and Economic Dynamism,” Journal of Economic Perspectives, vol. 28 (Summer), pp. 3–24. Return to text 11. For evidence on the importance of innovating young and small firms, see Daron Acemoglu, Ufuk Akcigit, Harun Alp, Nicholas Bloom, and William Kerr (2018), “Innovation, Reallocation, and Growth,” American Economic Review, vol. 108 (November), pp. 3450–91. For recent trends in technology diffusion of relevance to business entry, see Ufuk Akcigit and Sina T. Ates (2023), “What Happened to US Business Dynamism?” Journal of Political Economy, vol. 131 (August), pp. 2059–2124. Return to text 12. See Lisa D. Cook (2011), “Inventing Social Capital: Evidence from African American Inventors, 1843–1930,” Explorations in Economic History, vol. 48 (December), pp. 507–18; Lisa D. Cook (2014), “Violence and Economic Activity: Evidence from African American Patents, 1870–1940,” Journal of Economic Growth, vol. 19 (June), pp. 221–57; and Lisa D. Cook (2020), “Policies to Broaden Participation in the Innovation Process (PDF),” Hamilton Project Policy Proposal 2020-11 (Washington: Brookings Institution, August). Return to text 13. “Business applications” refers to applications for new Employer Identification Numbers submitted to the Internal Revenue Service. These are reported by the U.S. Census Bureau in the Business Formation Statistics. An application does not necessarily mean an actual firm with employees, revenue, or both will result. Return to text 14. Unless otherwise noted, the facts described in this section are documented in Ryan A. Decker and John Haltiwanger (2024), “Surging Business Formation in the Pandemic: A Brief Update,” working paper, September; and Ryan A. Decker and John Haltiwanger (2023), “Surging Business Formation in the Pandemic: Causes and Consequences? (PDF)” Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Fall, pp. 249–302. Return to text 15. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Business Employment Dynamics (BED) report new firm job creation of 1.9 million, on average, in 2022 and 2023, the highest pace since 2007. Alternative data on firm births from the Census Bureau Business Dynamics Statistics, which lag the BED by one year, report 2.5 million jobs created by new firms in 2022, also the highest pace since 2007. Return to text 16. See Ryan Decker and John Haltiwanger (2024), “High Tech Business Entry in the Pandemic Era,” FEDS Notes (Washington: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, April 19). Return to text 17. See Lisa D. Cook (2024), “Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, and the Path Ahead for Productivity,” speech delivered at “Technology-Enabled Disruption: Implications of AI, Big Data, and Remote Work,” a conference organized by the Federal Reserve Banks of Atlanta, Boston, and Richmond, Atlanta, October 1. Return to text 18. For a potential role of fiscal policy, see Catherine E. Fazio, Jorge Guzman, Yupeng Liu, and Scott Stern (2021), “How Is COVID Changing the Geography of Entrepreneurship? Evidence from the Startup Cartography Project,” NBER Working Paper Series 28787 (Cambridge, Mass.: National Bureau of Economic Research, May). For safety net programs (specifically expanded unemployment insurance), see Joonkyu Choi, Samuel Messer, Michael Navarrete, and Veronika Penciakova (2024), “Unemployment Benefits Expansion and Business Formation,” working paper, April. For the importance of financial conditions for entrepreneurship in past business cycles, see Michael Siemer (2019), “Employment Effects of Financial Constraints during the Great Recession,” Review of Economics and Statistics, vol. 101 (March), pp. 16–29; and Teresa C. Fort, John Haltiwanger, Ron S. Jarmin, and Javier Miranda (2013), “How Firms Respond to Business Cycles: The Role of Firm Age and Firm Size,” IMF Economic Review, vol. 61 (3), pp. 520–59. Return to text 19. Examples of research finding a large role for business entry in responding to aggregate shocks include Manuel Adelino, Song Ma, and David Robinson (2017), “Firm Age, Investment Opportunities, and Job Creation,” Journal of Finance, vol. 72 (June), pp. 999–1038; Ryan A. Decker, Meagan McCollum, and Gregory B. Upton, Jr. (2024), “Boom Town Business Dynamics,” Journal of Human Resources, vol. 59 (March), pp. 627–51; and Fatih Karahan, Benjamin Pugsley, and Ayşegűl Şahin (2024), “Demographic Origins of the Startup Deficit,” American Economic Review, vol. 114 (July), pp. 1986–2023. Return to text 20. The last period of robust productivity growth in the U.S., the late 1990s and early 2000s, was preceded by several years by strong business creation in high-tech industries; see Lucia Foster, Cheryl Grim, John C. Haltiwanger, and Zoltan Wolf (2021), “Innovation, Productivity Dispersion, and Productivity Growth,” in Carol Corrado, Jonathan Haskel, Javier Miranda, and Daniel Sichel, eds., Measuring and Accounting for Innovation in the Twenty-First Century (Chicago: University of Chicago Press). Return to text 21. The number of annual new firms as a share of all firms declined from around 12 percent in the 1980s, on average, to around 9 percent in the period of 2010–19. New firms’ share of gross job creation declined from nearly 20 percent to less than 15 percent over the same period. Data are from Census Bureau Business Dynamics Statistics. The pre-pandemic trend decline in entry rates was documented by Ryan Decker, John Haltiwanger, Ron Jarmin, and Javier Miranda (2014), “The Role of Entrepreneurship in US Job Creation and Economic Dynamism,” Journal of Economic Perspectives, vol. 28 (Summer), pp. 3–24. Return to text 22. See Ben S. Bernanke (2009), “Brief Remarks,” speech delivered at the Interstate Interchange Dedication Ceremony, Dillon, S.C., March 7. Return to text
What do qubits, parallelism, entanglement, photonics and decoherence have in common?
The answer to this question, and many more, will be top of mind when UConn’s College of Engineering (CoE) hosts a two-day Quantum Computing (QC) Workshop, November 20-21 at UConn Health in Farmington. The workshop will feature hands-on learning about quantum computing fundamentals, algorithms, security impacts, communications and applications.
This interactive event is being coordinated by UConn’s Center for Advanced Engineering Education and the School of Computing, in collaboration with QuantumCT and the Connecticut Advanced Computing Center. It is open to the public, including industry leaders, engineering organizations, faculty, state government, and anyone interested in the field.
Sanguthevar Rajasekaran, director of UConn’s School of Computing, says quantum computing offers the potential of speeding up computations by an exponential factor and can make a huge impact on every walk of life.
“Quantum computing exploits the unique features of quantum mechanics to solve problems quickly and more efficiently than traditional computing,” he explains. “QC applications are far and wide, embracing medicine, manufacturing, drug design, climate modeling and much more. The impact of this rapidly evolving technology appears limitless and can provide significant benefits for industry, science, health care, and society at large.”
According to Nora Sutton, Director of the Center for Advanced Engineering Education, workshop activities will include interactions with industry and academic experts, comprehensive exploration of quantum computing, and networking opportunities with peers and industry leaders.
“We’re very excited about this workshop, which is designed to immerse participants in the cutting-edge world of quantum technology,” says Sutton. “These real-world applications will help participants uncover the revolutionary, transformative potential in AI, cybersecurity, health care, and more. UConn and CoE are on the forefront of quantum learning, and working to become an educational leader in this important, dynamic field.”
Quantum mechanics is the area of physics that studies the behavior of particles at a microscopic level. At subatomic levels, the equations that describe how particles behave is different from those that describe the macroscopic world. Quantum computing is a multidisciplinary field comprising aspects of computer science, physics, and mathematics that utilizes quantum mechanics to solve complex problems faster than on classical computers.
Quantum computers take advantage of these behaviors to perform computations in a completely new way. The field includes hardware research and application development. Potential benefits include advanced machine learning, portfolio optimization in finance, simulation of chemical systems, significant healthcare applications and solving problems currently impossible even using powerful supercomputers.
Visit the UConn Engineering site for more information or to register.
DBEDT NEWS RELEASE: DIGITAL EQUITY INNOVATION AWARDS HONORS THOSE HELPING TO CLOSE THE DIGITAL DIVIDE IN HAWAI‘I
Posted on Oct 9, 2024 in Latest Department News, Newsroom
DEPARTMENT OF BUSINESS, ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND TOURISM
JOSH GREEN, M.D.
GOVERNOR
SYLVIA LUKE
LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR
JAMES KUNANE TOKIOKA
DIRECTOR
CHUNG I. CHANG
STRATEGIC BROADBAND COORDINATOR
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 9, 2024
DIGITAL EQUITY INNOVATION AWARDS HONORS THOSE HELPING TO CLOSE THE DIGITAL DIVIDE IN HAWAI‘I
First-ever awards held during Digital Inclusion Week
In recognizing the work of individuals and organizations who help provide internet access and close the digital divide across the state of Hawai‘i, 18 recipients of the first-ever Digital Equity Innovation Awards (DEIA) were honored today.
Conducted in conjunction with National Digital Inclusion Week (October 7-11), the awards ceremony this morning recognized pioneers, future innovators, dedicated advocates, impactful organizations and data-driven leaders making significant strides in digital equity. This includes providing others with access to technology from broadband connectivity to devices, as well as teaching the necessary digital skills that are beneficial in employment, education, healthcare and other important facets of everyday life.
The digital awards were organized by the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism (DBEDT) Hawai‘i Broadband and Digital Equity Office (HBDEO), the Broadband Hui and Pacific International Center for High Technology Research (PICHTR), in partnership with the four county governments and the islands’ nonprofit community access television providers, ʻŌlelo Community Media, Hōʻike Kaua‘i Community Television, Akakū Maui Community Media and Nā Leo TV. The awards recognized those in each of the four counties in the following categories:
Digital Equity Pioneer Award: Those making outstanding contributions to closing the digital divide in each of Hawai‘i’s counties through innovative access and skills training.
Future Innovators Award: Student teams driving digital inclusion within their schools and communities with creative solutions and leadership.
Digital Equity Luminary Award: Individuals championing digital equity through sustained advocacy and impactful leadership.
Community Impact Award: Organizations with measurable success in fostering digital inclusion and reducing disparities.
Digital Equity Beacon Award: Awarding those who effectively use data to tell stories, measure progress, and drive decision-making.
Hawai‘i Lt. Governor Sylvia Luke, who last year announced the launch of the state’s “Connect Kākou” initiative to expand broadband service statewide through anticipated federal funding, praised the accomplishments of the DEIA winners.
“Achieving accessible and affordable high-quality internet for all of Hawaiʻi is the commitment of Connect Kākou. Making this a reality will require a collective effort—from government and nonprofits to businesses, students, educators, and digital equity leaders,” Lt. Gov. Luke said. “Mahalo to the dedicated community champions who are paving the way to create a future that keeps us all connected for generations to come.”
The awardees are listed below and grouped by county:
City and County of Honolulu
Dotty Kelly-Paddock, Hui O Hau‘ula (Community Impact Award)
Dan Smith, Hawai‘i Broadband Hui (Beacon Award)
Stacey Aldrich, Hawai‘i State Librarian (Luminary Award)
The DEIA awards program will also be broadcast at 10 a.m. today on the Hōʻike Kaua‘i Community Television, Akakū Maui Community Media and Nā Leo TV public access channels on the neighbor islands, and tonight at 7 p.m. on O‘ahu on ʻŌlelo Community Media.
About Hawai‘i Broadband and Digital Equity Office (HBDEO):
HBDEO was established within the state of Hawai‘i Department of Business, Economic
Development and Tourism with a mission to support and coordinate statewide deployment of high-speed internet access (broadband) and to achieve the goals of digital equity and adoption for all residents of Hawai‘i. HBDEO’s functions include the coordination, implementation, promotion, funding and managing of programs that ensure the equitable distribution of digital technologies and provide pathways to maximize Hawai‘i’s competitiveness in the digital economy.
About Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism (DBEDT):
DBEDT is Hawai‘i’s resource center for economic and statistical data, business development opportunities, energy and conservation information, as well as foreign trade advantages. DBEDT’s mission is to achieve a Hawai‘i economy that embraces innovation and is globally competitive, dynamic and productive, providing opportunities for all Hawai‘i’s citizens. Through its attached agencies, the department fosters planned community development, creates affordable workforce housing units in high-quality living environments and promotes innovation sector job growth.
# # #
Media Contact:
Laci Goshi
Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism
Consolidated accounts given unqualified audit opinion.
The Scottish Government accounts for the last financial year have been given an unqualified audit opinion.
In 2023-24 Ministers were required to make tough choices to navigate the “most challenging financial situation since devolution”.
The Scottish Government’s accounts record total spend of £53,980 million. An underspend of £277 million – around 0.5% of the overall budget – has been carried over in full to be spent in 2024-25.
Finance Secretary Shona Robison said:
“Since this government took office, we have consistently managed our fixed budget responsibly and I am pleased the annual accounts have been given an unqualified audit opinion for every one of those years.
“The last financial year was among the most challenging since devolution, and we have responded to higher inflation and cost of living pressures by making tough decisions to protect the most vulnerable in society.
“The Scottish Government cannot overspend on its Budget, and in 2023-24 we left a small underspend to ensure we could manage any unexpected funding pressures. Every penny of this has been allocated for spending in 2024-25.
“We will continue to work to ensure the sustainability of Scotland’s finances as we prioritise our spending towards eradicating child poverty, growing the economy, tackling the climate emergency and improving Scotland’s public services.”
The Public Finance Minister recently updated Parliament on the Scottish Government’s ten-year programme of reform to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of our public services, and prioritise prevention. Together this will improve outcomes, promote equality and ensure fiscal sustainability.
Headline: Bolstering local journalism to strengthen democracy
A free press is essential to healthy democracy, and local journalism is a critical component of a free press. Microsoft’sDemocracy Forward initiativeworks to preserve, protect, and advance the fundamentals of democracy by safeguarding open and secure democratic processes, promoting a healthy information ecosystem, and advocating for corporate civic responsibility.
Four years ago, we launched ajournalisminitiativeto explore ways in which we could help address the growing crisis facing independent local news organizations around the world. Two years ago, our Vice Chair and PresidentBrad SmithandUSAIDAdministratorSamantha Powerannounced our plan to partner with Internews to build a Media Viability Accelerator (MVA). We were thrilled to officially launch this tool during a panel event at the UN General Assembly last month.
Bolstering Independent Journalism through the Media Viability Accelerator
TheMedia Viability Acceleratoris a free web analytics platform built byInternewsandMicrosoft Azure. Funded by USAID andMicrosoft’s Democracy Forward initiative, the MVA aims to strengthen independent journalism by helping participating organizations achieve financial sustainability. Using Azure AI, the MVA harnesses the power of big data and machine learning to provide performance insights while ensuring that participants retain control over their own data. Through the MVA, media outlets can access a multilingual tool that visualizes performance data and receive actionable insights to improve performance.
Graphic of how the Media Viability Accelerator (MVA) functions.
More than 250 media outlets and over 500 journalists used the platform during the MVA’s initial pilot phase. Our goal is to empower over 1,000 more media outlets and thousands more journalists over the next two years, reaching audiences of hundreds of millions of people. Strengthening local journalism helps strengthen democracies around the world by ensuring that communities and voters have accurate, credible information about what’s happening around them, including and especially elections.
Strengthening journalism globally can also help turn the tide on rising authoritarianism. One of the guests on the panel we cohosted to launch the MVA was Juan Holmann, the publisher of Nicaragua’s longest-running newspaper, La Prensa. Holmann, who spent a year and a half in one of Nicaragua’s most notorious prisons, latersaidof his experience:
“I left jail with a stronger conviction that I have to continue fighting for freedom of expression. The most important right is the right to live, to be born, and to be. And the second most important is the right to free expression. The first right is useless if the second is taken away from us. Freedom of expression is the greatest because it is what makes us what we are. Freedom of expression is the right to be educated, the right to learn, to know, and to discern.”
We’re grateful to have La Prensa as a participant in the MVA, and we’re grateful for the tremendous work Internews has put into building and running this platform. We look forward to supporting its continued growth in the years to come.
Strengthening Democracy through Partnerships with News Organizations
As part of our efforts to strengthen democracy around the world, we have announced projects with a number of organizations designed to help journalists and newsrooms deploy AI responsibly in newsgathering, as well as bolster business practices to help build sustainable newsrooms. These ongoing partnerships include:
The Institute for Nonprofit Newsis leveraging AI to curate stories from the Rural News Network andconnect rural residentswith the stories most relevant to them via SMS messaging. Up to 30 newsrooms are also receiving stipends to produce and distribute voter information guides.
The Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalismat CUNY brought 25 experienced journalists to a tuition-free program to explore ways to incorporate generative AI into their work and newsrooms in a three-month hybrid and highly interactive program. TheAI Journalism Labhas added two new upcoming cohorts, one focused on adoption and another focused on leadership.
The Online News Associationlaunched programming to support journalists and newsroom leaders as they navigated the evolving AI ecosystem. ONA’sAI in Journalism Initiativeoffered a menu of opportunities addressing what is possible across the newsroom through AI and offered workshops to experiment with tools and learn about best practices. More than 2,000 journalists have been reached through in-person and virtual programming this year.
The GroundTruth Project,which sends local journalists into newsrooms around the world through its Report for America and Report for the World programs, added an AI track of work for its corps members through the AI in Local News initiative to explore tool adoption. The project helped local newsrooms work together to explore use cases for AI in newsgathering.
Semaforharnessed AI tools to assist journalists in their research and source discovery withSemaforSignals, which helped journalists provide a diverse array of credible local, national, and global sources to their audience. They also created an elections display to show connections between different countries in a massive global election year.
As the media landscape continues to evolve in response to new technology, we are doubling down on our efforts to provide journalists with the tools they need to deliver timely, accurate information to their communities. In doing so, we can help ensure that the “fourth pillar” of democracy remains robust and resilient.
We expect to have updated impact data on the above partnerships soon and will update this post once this information is available. News outlets or other organizations interested in joining the Media Viability Accelerator can visithttp://www.mva.netto learn more.
The Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, today issued the following statement on World Mental Health Day:
“Mental health matters. It always has. But for too long, seeking support for mental health struggles was stigmatized. Like something to be ashamed about. And that made people struggle even more. On World Mental Health Day, we raise awareness and our voices about the importance of caring for our mental health. We have open and honest conversations about caring for ourselves and for others. We get rid of the barriers that society has put up about seeking out help.
“Mental health is a critical part of our mandate. Earlier this year, we announced the new Youth Mental Health Fund, which will help community health organizations across the country make sure younger Canadians can access the mental health care they need and deserve. We are making generational investments in health care, and making sure those investments improve mental health care services. This includes improving Indigenous Peoples’ access to distinctions-based and culturally appropriate mental health services. Last year, we improved access to suicide prevention supports by launching the 9-8-8 Suicide Crisis Helpline – available to Canadians wherever and whenever it’s needed.
“There’s a lot more work to be done to break the stigma. Let’s create environments that support open conversations about mental health. Today, take some time to check in on loved ones, neighbours, and colleagues. Take care of yourselves. It’s okay not to feel okay. And it’s okay to speak to someone and get care. By coming together, we can break down the stigma, help others feel supported, and build a healthier, more compassionate society for everyone.”
If you or someone you know is thinking about suicide, call or text 9-8-8. Support is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. For mental health and wellness information and key links to services and supports, please go to Canada.ca/mental-health.
The Hope for Wellness Helpline provides immediate, toll-free telephone and online-chat-based support and crisis intervention to all Indigenous people in Canada. This service is available 24/7 in English and French, and upon request in Cree, Ojibway, and Inuktitut. Experienced and culturally competent counsellors are available by phone at 1-855-242-3310 or by online chat at hopeforwellness.ca.
It is a pleasure to join you today at PreCop, and I thank the Government of Azerbeijan for hosting us.
I appreciate the constructive engagement and leadership of the troika.
I welcome all the hard work done so far, including yesterday, which sends helpful signals for agreement at COP29 on the NCQG.
However, as the UN Secretary-General has said, we are at a moment of truth in our fight against the climate crisis.
We are minutes to midnight in our efforts to limit the rise in global temperature to 1.5-degree Celsius.
We are witnessing the consequences of inaction in real time.
As we meet, the west coast of Florida is reeling from the catastrophic impacts of hurricane Milton.
Extreme weather is devastating lives and livelihoods around the world, with those who contributed the least paying the highest price.
But there is hope and we are moving in the right direction.
At the signing of the Paris Agreement, the world was heading towards four degrees Celsius of warming.
By Dubai we were headed for somewhere between 2.1 and 2.8 degrees based on the UNFCCC’s synthesis report.
Last year at COP 28, you all committed to make 1.5C a reality in your next generation of NDCs and you acknowledged that the transition away from fossil fuels must accelerate in this critical decade.
And at last month’s Summit of the Future, world leaders from the Global North and South came together to agree on steps to begin reforming our international financial architecture:
Raising the voice and representation of developing countries in our International Financial Institutions to build trust and legitimacy.
Scaling up development finance to unlock the scale of resources required to meet today’s vast financing gaps.
Overhauling the debt architecture to free up fiscal space and give countries the confidence to invest boldly in their economies.
And creating a stronger global financial safety net to protect economies when crises strike.
COP29 must build on this momentum – and translate the ambitions and commitments in the Global Stocktake into real-world, real-economy outcomes.
In November, you must agree on an ambitious new climate finance goal that meets the scale of the challenge faced by developing countries.
Success is an imperative if we are to keep 1.5 degrees Celsius a reality.
Excellencies, we can only meet the goals of the Paris Agreement if every country has the means to accelerate climate mitigation and adaptation action.
The New Collective Quantified Goal – or NCQG – is an opportunity to reimagine your economies, climate finance, restore trust, build solidarity, and catalyze ambition.
It must help address the well-known challenges faced by developing countries: high cost of capital, high levels of indebtedness, and insufficient risk-bearing and affordable capital.
It must send the right political and policy signals to markets and investors: building confidence in the direction of travel.
And it must drive further progress in reforming the international financial architecture and implementing innovative sources of finance.
Yesterday’s High-level Ministerial Dialogue on the NQCG provided important direction and momentum to this process.
I heard from you a willingness to find common ground on outstanding elements, building on our shared ambition to keep 1.5 within reach and secure a climate resilient future.
There was also a clear recognition on the importance of the NQCG as an enabler of ambition and action.
Positions are well known. Now is the time to work together to find agreement.
We must also secure agreement on Article 6, with an outcome from COP29 that is effective, fair, and ready for implementation.
We need high integrity carbon markets that are credible and with rules consistent with limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Baku must be an enabling COP.
It marks the beginning of the deadline for the next generation of Nationally Determined Contributions – or NDCs.
These must be economy-wide and aligned with the 1.5-degree limit, covering all sectors and all greenhouse gases.
They must also show how each country intends to transition away from fossil fuels, in line with the COP28 outcome.
This is a chance for countries to align energy strategies and development priorities with climate ambition.
And the G20, who have the greatest capacity and responsibility, must demonstrate to the rest of the world what good looks like – on ambition, quality, and process.
Dear Colleagues,
If COP29 is to deliver the concrete outcomes urgently needed, your work here is absolutely vital.
We need success to be in reach when decision-makers arrive here in Baku next month.
Right now, the greatest threat to global ambition is lack of political will to act.
In today’s fraught and divided world, we must redouble our collective efforts to keep 1.5 within reach and protect those on the frontlines of the climate crisis.
And we must ensure justice and equity so that no country is left behind in the race to net zero.
The UN is here to support you every step of the way, as convenors and custodians of this process.
So, I urge you to keep a laser focus on the concrete outcomes needed this year.
And to keep a spirit of compromise and global solidarity at the fore, especially in the harder moments ahead.
I thank you for your crucial service and for your dedication, to people and planet.
A Concluding Statement describes the preliminary findings of IMF staff at the end of an official staff visit (or ‘mission’), in most cases to a member country. Missions are undertaken as part of regular (usually annual) consultations under Article IV of the IMF’s Articles of Agreement, in the context of a request to use IMF resources (borrow from the IMF), as part of discussions of staff monitored programs, or as part of other staff monitoring of economic developments.
The authorities have consented to the publication of this statement. The views expressed in this statement are those of the IMF staff and do not necessarily represent the views of the IMF’s Executive Board. Based on the preliminary findings of this mission, staff will prepare a report that, subject to management approval, will be presented to the IMF Executive Board for discussion and decision.
Washington, DC:Kuwait has a window of opportunity to implement needed fiscal and structural reforms to boost private sector-led inclusive growth and diversify its economy away from oil:
Gradual fiscal consolidation of about 12 percent of GDP is needed to reinforce intergenerational equity.
Structural reforms should focus on improving the business environment, attracting FDI, and unifying the labor market.
These reforms should be underpinned by continued prudent monetary and financial sector policies.
Economic statistics should be strengthened to support well-informed policymaking.
Recent Developments, Outlook, and Risks
Kuwait has a window of opportunity to implement needed fiscal and structural reforms. Political turmoil has gripped Kuwait in recent years, stalling reforms. The political gridlock was broken in May 2024, when H.H. the Amir Sheikh Meshaal al‑Ahmad al‑Jaber al‑Sabah dissolved the Parliament and suspended parts of the Constitution for up to 4 years, allowing reforms to be expedited.
The economic recovery was disrupted in 2023, and inflation is moderating. Real GDP contracted by 3.6 percent in 2023. This economic downturn was concentrated in the oil sector, which contracted by 4.3 percent in 2023 due to an OPEC+ oil production cut. In addition, the non-oil sector is estimated to have contracted by 1.0 percent in 2023, primarily reflecting lower manufacturing activity in oil refining. Headline CPI inflation declined to 3.6 percent in 2023 reflecting lower core and food inflation. More recently, headline inflation moderated further to 2.9 percent (y-o-y) in August 2024, given lower housing and transport inflation.
The external position remained strong in 2023. The current account surplus moderated to 31.4 percent of GDP in 2023, with a 10.3 percent of GDP reduction in the trade surplus from lower oil prices and production largely offset by a 7.4 percent of GDP increase in the income surplus. Official reserve assets amounted to a comfortable 9.0 months of projected imports at end-2023. However, the external position was substantially weaker than the level implied by fundamentals and desirable policies in 2023, partly reflecting inadequate public saving of oil revenue.
The fiscal balance weakened in FY2023/24. The fiscal balance of the budgetary central government swung from a surplus of 11.7 percent of GDP in FY2022/23 to a deficit of 3.1 percent of GDP in FY2023/24. This mainly reflected a 5.8 percent of GDP reduction in oil revenue given lower oil prices and production, and a 9.7 percent of GDP increase in current spending, of which 5.7 percent of GDP went to the public sector wage bill while 3.4 percent of GDP went to subsidies. Nonetheless, the fiscal balance of the general government (which includes the income from SWF investments) was an estimated 26.0 percent of GDP in FY2023/24.
Financial stability has been maintained. Banks have sustained strong capital and liquidity buffers to satisfy the CBK’s prudent regulatory requirements, while NPLs remain low given judicious lending practices and are well provisioned for.
Under the baseline assuming current policies, the economy is projected to remain in recession in 2024, then to recover over the medium term:
Real GDP will contract by a further 3.2 percent in 2024 due to an additional OPEC+ oil production cut, then will expand by 2.8 percent in 2025 as the cuts get unwound, and will grow broadly in line with potential thereafter.
The incipient recovery of the non-oil sector will continue in 2024, with non-oil GDP expanding by 1.3 percent despite fiscal consolidation, after which it will gradually converge to its potential of 2.5 percent.
Headline CPI inflation will continue to moderate to 3.0 percent in 2024 as excess demand pressure dissipates and imported food prices fall, then will gradually converge to 2.0 percent as the non-oil output gap closes.
The current account surplus will moderate further to 28.4 percent of GDP in 2024 as lower oil prices and production reduce the trade surplus, then will gradually decline over the medium term alongside oil prices.
The fiscal deficit of the budgetary central government will increase to 5.1 percent of GDP in FY2024/25 as lower oil revenue more than offsets expenditure rationalization, then will steadily rise by about 1 percent of GDP per year over the medium term under current policies.
The risks surrounding these baseline economic projections are skewed to the downside. The economy is highly exposed to a variety of global risks through its oil dependence, in particular to commodity price volatility, a global growth slowdown or acceleration, and the further intensification of regional conflicts. The materialization of these risks would be transmitted to Kuwait mainly via their impacts on oil prices and production. Domestic risks are primarily associated with the implementation of fiscal and structural reforms, which could get further delayed or accelerated. These reforms are needed to diversify the economy away from oil, which would enhance its resilience and stimulate private investment.
Economic Reforms—Transitioning to a Dynamic and Diversified Economy
The authorities aspire to implement reforms to support the transition to a dynamic and diversified economy. To achieve this goal, a well-sequenced package of fiscal and structural reforms is needed. Structural reforms to improve the business environment and attract foreign investment are needed to boost private sector-led inclusive growth. Meanwhile, fiscal reforms should be implemented to reinforce intergenerational equity while incentivizing Kuwaitis to pursue newly created job opportunities in the private sector, in particular gradual fiscal consolidation.
The contractionary stance of fiscal policy is appropriate. Fiscal policy was strongly procyclical in FY2023/24, with a fiscal expansion of 6.9 percent of non-oil GDP contributing to excess demand pressure. Under the FY2024/25 Budget, the non-oil fiscal balance of the budgetary central government should increase by 4.7 percent of non-oil GDP relative to FY2023/24. This large fiscal consolidation will help close the non-oil output gap while reinforcing intergenerational equity. It is mainly driven by current expenditure rationalization, concentrated in planned subsidy cuts worth 4.3 percent of non-oil GDP.
Substantial further fiscal consolidation is needed to ensure intergenerational equity. Under the baseline, the projected fiscal balance of the general government is far below the level needed to maintain the living standards of Kuwaitis for generations to come. A prudent approach calls for gradual fiscal consolidation of about 12 percent of GDP to reinforce intergenerational equity, alongside structural reforms to diversify the economy away from oil. These reforms would also reinforce external sustainability.
Expenditure and tax policy reforms would be needed to support the transition to a dynamic and diversified economy:
Fiscal consolidation should be implemented at a pace of 1 to 2 percent of GDP per year until the PIH fiscal balance target is achieved. This would offset or reverse the projected roughly 1 percent of GDP per year increase in the fiscal deficit of the budgetary central government over the medium term, without reducing growth much.
Compensation of government employees surged over the past decade, to the top of the GCC. A public sector wage setting mechanism should be introduced to gradually reduce the 41 percent premium over the private sector, while a hiring cap should be used to steadily lower the public sector employment share, both towards high-income country levels.
Hydrocarbon consumption subsidies are the highest in the GCC. They should be phased out by gradually raising retail fuel and electricity prices to their cost-recovery levels while providing targeted transfers to vulnerable groups.
On-budget public investment plummeted over the past decade, to near the bottom of the GCC. It should be raised to build up the quantity and quality of infrastructure towards high-income country levels.
The hydrocarbon share of government revenue remains the highest in the GCC. In the context of the global minimum corporate tax agreement, the government’s plan to extend the CIT to all large domestic companies is welcome. To boost non-oil revenue mobilization, Kuwait should introduce the GCC-wide VAT and excise tax.
The conduct of fiscal policy should be strengthened with Public Financial Management reforms. To align budget planning and execution with fiscal policy objectives, the Ministry of Finance should introduce a medium-term fiscal framework—including a fiscal rules framework with a public debt ceiling and non-oil fiscal balance target—underpinned by a medium-term macroeconomic framework. To inform fiscal policymaking and assess reform proposals, the capacity of the Macro-Fiscal Unit should be strengthened. To facilitate orderly fiscal financing, the Liquidity and Financing Law should be enacted expeditiously.
Monetary and Financial Sector Policies—Maintaining Macrofinancial Stability
The exchange rate peg to an undisclosed basket of currencies remains an appropriate nominal anchor for monetary policy. It has supported low and stable inflation for many years. Sustaining this successful monetary policy track record requires preserving the independence of the CBK. The monetary transmission mechanism should be strengthened by deepening the interbank and domestic sovereign debt markets, establishing an efficient capital market, and phasing out interest rate caps.
The restrictive stance of monetary policy is appropriate. The exchange rate regime gives the CBK relative flexibility to conduct monetary policy. The policy rate is currently in line with controlling inflation and stabilizing non-oil output while supporting the exchange rate peg, and is above neutral. Under the baseline, monetary normalization is warranted, as inflation further moderates and the non-oil output gap closes.
Systemic risk remains contained and prudently managed. The credit cycle downturn triggered by the pandemic has been gradually unwinding, with the credit gap estimated to be nearly closed. Under the CBK’s latest stress tests, the capitalization and liquidity of the banking system generally exceeded Basel III minimum requirements, while individual bank shortcomings were limited. The stance of macroprudential policy is appropriate given contained systemic risk and subdued credit growth. Given that capital requirements exceed Basel III minimum requirements, the CBK could consider reclassifying part of its country specific capital buffer as a positive neutral countercyclical capital buffer. It should also continue its practice of regularly reviewing the adequacy of its financial regulatory perimeter and macroprudential toolkit. Finally, the CBK should continue its risk-based supervisory approach to assessing banks and effectively addressing any vulnerabilities.
Structural financial sector reforms are needed to enhance financial intermediation efficiency. The unlimited guarantee on bank deposits should be gradually replaced with a limited deposit insurance framework to address moral hazard, while the interest rate caps on loans should be phased out to support efficient risk pricing.
A comprehensive and well-sequenced structural reform package is needed to increase non-oil potential growth. The initial priorities are to improve the business environment by enhancing transparency, raising efficiency, and further opening up the economy. Meanwhile, labor market reforms should be gradually phased in to incentivize private sector-led inclusive growth.
The business environment should be further improved to raise economic competitiveness and promote private investment. To boost transparency, data disclosure on secondary market real estate transactions should be enhanced, while universal auditing standards for corporate balance sheets should be adopted. To raise efficiency, the government should improve public infrastructure, conduct regulatory impact assessments with public consultations, integrate digital public service delivery across ministries, and further streamline business establishment processes. To attract FDI, full foreign ownership of businesses should be permitted, while foreign ownership restrictions on land should be relaxed. Finally, public land sales for residential and commercial development should be scaled up.
Major labor market reforms are needed to promote economic diversification. To incentivize Kuwaitis to seek employment in the private sector, compensation and working conditions should be better harmonized across the public and private sectors. Enhancing the quality of education and aligning it with private sector needs would raise productivity and support economic diversification. Employment of highly-skilled expatriate workers should be supported by introducing targeted visa programs and reforming job sponsorship frameworks, promoting knowledge transfer. Higher female labor force participation should be encouraged by further improving the working environment for women, including by fully implementing the legal requirements for childcare in the private sector.
Reforms are needed to strengthen AML/CFT effectiveness. The AML/CFT framework should be strengthened expeditiously following a risk-based approach to protect its effectiveness.
Progress with climate change adaptation and mitigation should be accelerated. The government has made progress with implementing the 2019 National Adaptation Plan, but is delayed in developing its mitigation plan.
Data provision has some shortcomings that somewhat hamper surveillance, which the authorities should address within their legal constraints. An expenditure-side National Accounts decomposition remains unavailable for 2023, while multi-year delays in the publication of GDP data after the pandemic confounded surveillance and policymaking. The CSB urgently needs additional funding to boost its capacity and resume its annual Establishment Survey, which has not been conducted since 2019. The exclusion of government investment income and SOE profit transfers from the Government Finance statistics hampers fiscal policy analysis, while the omission of government foreign assets from the IIP statistics generates stock-flow inconsistencies with the BOP statistics.
The mission thanks the authorities for their warm hospitality and constructive engagement.
Washington, DC: The World Bank Group (WBG) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are pleased to announce that Tanzania is the second country benefiting from the Enhanced Cooperation Framework for Climate Action (the Framework). This follows the approval of an arrangement under the Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF) in June 2024 by the IMF Executive Board, and the WBG’s active engagement on climate action in the country.
Tanzania is highly vulnerable to climate change which poses significant risks to its macroeconomic, fiscal, and social development. Through the Framework, the IMF and WBG working closely with other development partners, will coordinate their efforts to support Tanzania’s ambitious policy reform agenda to address risks and challenges associated with climate change and enhance the resilience of the Tanzanian economy.
The Framework aims to support efforts by Tanzania’s authorities to bring together development partners, the private sector and civil society to address the adverse impacts of climate change. Building on their respective analytical expertise and financing instruments, the IMF and WBG will jointly provide critical support to Tanzania’s authorities in advancing climate action. This will be done through an integrated, country-led approach to policy reforms and public and private climate investments, including through complementary and well-sequenced reform measures.
Tanzania is the second country to benefit from this Framework, which builds on technical analysis such as the IMF’s Climate Policy Diagnostics (CPD). The country authorities, the WBG and the IMF identified several areas where synergies in capacity development and policy support will be most beneficial, such as (i) climate resilient public financial management, (ii) energy, water and other reforms that will build resilience and promote sustainable development, (iii) disaster risk management and social protection, and (iv) supervision of financial sector climate-related risks.
Under the Framework, the IMF-WBG will support Tanzania to consider climate change as a key element of medium-term public investment planning and prioritization. The IMF will back the introduction of climate resilient public investment regulations and reporting, while the WBG will focus on supporting sectors that help strengthen Tanzania’s resilience to climate change, such as energy, water, social protection, and agriculture. The two institutions will also support improvements to Tanzania’s disaster risk management policy and implementation, including a disaster risk financing framework and enhancements to the social safety net to make it responsive to climate shocks.
The WBG and the IMF will also support policies to improve water resource management, while IMF-supported reforms will help expand villages’ land use planning and management. Tanzania will also develop supervision of financial sector climate-related risks with support from the IMF and WBG.
Finally, the Framework will help catalyze official technical and financial assistance and private sector financing. The IMF and WBG stand ready to support a country-led platform to mobilize additional programmatic and project climate financing that could be implemented in 2025.
A Concluding Statement describes the preliminary findings of IMF staff at the end of an official staff visit (or ‘mission’), in most cases to a member country. Missions are undertaken as part of regular (usually annual) consultations under Article IV of the IMF’s Articles of Agreement, in the context of a request to use IMF resources (borrow from the IMF), as part of discussions of staff monitored programs, or as part of other staff monitoring of economic developments.
The authorities have consented to the publication of this statement. The views expressed in this statement are those of the IMF staff and do not necessarily represent the views of the IMF’s Executive Board. Based on the preliminary findings of this mission, staff will prepare a report that, subject to management approval, will be presented to the IMF Executive Board for discussion and decision.
Washington, DC:Kuwait has a window of opportunity to implement needed fiscal and structural reforms to boost private sector-led inclusive growth and diversify its economy away from oil:
Gradual fiscal consolidation of about 12 percent of GDP is needed to reinforce intergenerational equity.
Structural reforms should focus on improving the business environment, attracting FDI, and unifying the labor market.
These reforms should be underpinned by continued prudent monetary and financial sector policies.
Economic statistics should be strengthened to support well-informed policymaking.
Recent Developments, Outlook, and Risks
Kuwait has a window of opportunity to implement needed fiscal and structural reforms. Political turmoil has gripped Kuwait in recent years, stalling reforms. The political gridlock was broken in May 2024, when H.H. the Amir Sheikh Meshaal al‑Ahmad al‑Jaber al‑Sabah dissolved the Parliament and suspended parts of the Constitution for up to 4 years, allowing reforms to be expedited.
The economic recovery was disrupted in 2023, and inflation is moderating. Real GDP contracted by 3.6 percent in 2023. This economic downturn was concentrated in the oil sector, which contracted by 4.3 percent in 2023 due to an OPEC+ oil production cut. In addition, the non-oil sector is estimated to have contracted by 1.0 percent in 2023, primarily reflecting lower manufacturing activity in oil refining. Headline CPI inflation declined to 3.6 percent in 2023 reflecting lower core and food inflation. More recently, headline inflation moderated further to 2.9 percent (y-o-y) in August 2024, given lower housing and transport inflation.
The external position remained strong in 2023. The current account surplus moderated to 31.4 percent of GDP in 2023, with a 10.3 percent of GDP reduction in the trade surplus from lower oil prices and production largely offset by a 7.4 percent of GDP increase in the income surplus. Official reserve assets amounted to a comfortable 9.0 months of projected imports at end-2023. However, the external position was substantially weaker than the level implied by fundamentals and desirable policies in 2023, partly reflecting inadequate public saving of oil revenue.
The fiscal balance weakened in FY2023/24. The fiscal balance of the budgetary central government swung from a surplus of 11.7 percent of GDP in FY2022/23 to a deficit of 3.1 percent of GDP in FY2023/24. This mainly reflected a 5.8 percent of GDP reduction in oil revenue given lower oil prices and production, and a 9.7 percent of GDP increase in current spending, of which 5.7 percent of GDP went to the public sector wage bill while 3.4 percent of GDP went to subsidies. Nonetheless, the fiscal balance of the general government (which includes the income from SWF investments) was an estimated 26.0 percent of GDP in FY2023/24.
Financial stability has been maintained. Banks have sustained strong capital and liquidity buffers to satisfy the CBK’s prudent regulatory requirements, while NPLs remain low given judicious lending practices and are well provisioned for.
Under the baseline assuming current policies, the economy is projected to remain in recession in 2024, then to recover over the medium term:
Real GDP will contract by a further 3.2 percent in 2024 due to an additional OPEC+ oil production cut, then will expand by 2.8 percent in 2025 as the cuts get unwound, and will grow broadly in line with potential thereafter.
The incipient recovery of the non-oil sector will continue in 2024, with non-oil GDP expanding by 1.3 percent despite fiscal consolidation, after which it will gradually converge to its potential of 2.5 percent.
Headline CPI inflation will continue to moderate to 3.0 percent in 2024 as excess demand pressure dissipates and imported food prices fall, then will gradually converge to 2.0 percent as the non-oil output gap closes.
The current account surplus will moderate further to 28.4 percent of GDP in 2024 as lower oil prices and production reduce the trade surplus, then will gradually decline over the medium term alongside oil prices.
The fiscal deficit of the budgetary central government will increase to 5.1 percent of GDP in FY2024/25 as lower oil revenue more than offsets expenditure rationalization, then will steadily rise by about 1 percent of GDP per year over the medium term under current policies.
The risks surrounding these baseline economic projections are skewed to the downside. The economy is highly exposed to a variety of global risks through its oil dependence, in particular to commodity price volatility, a global growth slowdown or acceleration, and the further intensification of regional conflicts. The materialization of these risks would be transmitted to Kuwait mainly via their impacts on oil prices and production. Domestic risks are primarily associated with the implementation of fiscal and structural reforms, which could get further delayed or accelerated. These reforms are needed to diversify the economy away from oil, which would enhance its resilience and stimulate private investment.
Economic Reforms—Transitioning to a Dynamic and Diversified Economy
The authorities aspire to implement reforms to support the transition to a dynamic and diversified economy. To achieve this goal, a well-sequenced package of fiscal and structural reforms is needed. Structural reforms to improve the business environment and attract foreign investment are needed to boost private sector-led inclusive growth. Meanwhile, fiscal reforms should be implemented to reinforce intergenerational equity while incentivizing Kuwaitis to pursue newly created job opportunities in the private sector, in particular gradual fiscal consolidation.
The contractionary stance of fiscal policy is appropriate. Fiscal policy was strongly procyclical in FY2023/24, with a fiscal expansion of 6.9 percent of non-oil GDP contributing to excess demand pressure. Under the FY2024/25 Budget, the non-oil fiscal balance of the budgetary central government should increase by 4.7 percent of non-oil GDP relative to FY2023/24. This large fiscal consolidation will help close the non-oil output gap while reinforcing intergenerational equity. It is mainly driven by current expenditure rationalization, concentrated in planned subsidy cuts worth 4.3 percent of non-oil GDP.
Substantial further fiscal consolidation is needed to ensure intergenerational equity. Under the baseline, the projected fiscal balance of the general government is far below the level needed to maintain the living standards of Kuwaitis for generations to come. A prudent approach calls for gradual fiscal consolidation of about 12 percent of GDP to reinforce intergenerational equity, alongside structural reforms to diversify the economy away from oil. These reforms would also reinforce external sustainability.
Expenditure and tax policy reforms would be needed to support the transition to a dynamic and diversified economy:
Fiscal consolidation should be implemented at a pace of 1 to 2 percent of GDP per year until the PIH fiscal balance target is achieved. This would offset or reverse the projected roughly 1 percent of GDP per year increase in the fiscal deficit of the budgetary central government over the medium term, without reducing growth much.
Compensation of government employees surged over the past decade, to the top of the GCC. A public sector wage setting mechanism should be introduced to gradually reduce the 41 percent premium over the private sector, while a hiring cap should be used to steadily lower the public sector employment share, both towards high-income country levels.
Hydrocarbon consumption subsidies are the highest in the GCC. They should be phased out by gradually raising retail fuel and electricity prices to their cost-recovery levels while providing targeted transfers to vulnerable groups.
On-budget public investment plummeted over the past decade, to near the bottom of the GCC. It should be raised to build up the quantity and quality of infrastructure towards high-income country levels.
The hydrocarbon share of government revenue remains the highest in the GCC. In the context of the global minimum corporate tax agreement, the government’s plan to extend the CIT to all large domestic companies is welcome. To boost non-oil revenue mobilization, Kuwait should introduce the GCC-wide VAT and excise tax.
The conduct of fiscal policy should be strengthened with Public Financial Management reforms. To align budget planning and execution with fiscal policy objectives, the Ministry of Finance should introduce a medium-term fiscal framework—including a fiscal rules framework with a public debt ceiling and non-oil fiscal balance target—underpinned by a medium-term macroeconomic framework. To inform fiscal policymaking and assess reform proposals, the capacity of the Macro-Fiscal Unit should be strengthened. To facilitate orderly fiscal financing, the Liquidity and Financing Law should be enacted expeditiously.
Monetary and Financial Sector Policies—Maintaining Macrofinancial Stability
The exchange rate peg to an undisclosed basket of currencies remains an appropriate nominal anchor for monetary policy. It has supported low and stable inflation for many years. Sustaining this successful monetary policy track record requires preserving the independence of the CBK. The monetary transmission mechanism should be strengthened by deepening the interbank and domestic sovereign debt markets, establishing an efficient capital market, and phasing out interest rate caps.
The restrictive stance of monetary policy is appropriate. The exchange rate regime gives the CBK relative flexibility to conduct monetary policy. The policy rate is currently in line with controlling inflation and stabilizing non-oil output while supporting the exchange rate peg, and is above neutral. Under the baseline, monetary normalization is warranted, as inflation further moderates and the non-oil output gap closes.
Systemic risk remains contained and prudently managed. The credit cycle downturn triggered by the pandemic has been gradually unwinding, with the credit gap estimated to be nearly closed. Under the CBK’s latest stress tests, the capitalization and liquidity of the banking system generally exceeded Basel III minimum requirements, while individual bank shortcomings were limited. The stance of macroprudential policy is appropriate given contained systemic risk and subdued credit growth. Given that capital requirements exceed Basel III minimum requirements, the CBK could consider reclassifying part of its country specific capital buffer as a positive neutral countercyclical capital buffer. It should also continue its practice of regularly reviewing the adequacy of its financial regulatory perimeter and macroprudential toolkit. Finally, the CBK should continue its risk-based supervisory approach to assessing banks and effectively addressing any vulnerabilities.
Structural financial sector reforms are needed to enhance financial intermediation efficiency. The unlimited guarantee on bank deposits should be gradually replaced with a limited deposit insurance framework to address moral hazard, while the interest rate caps on loans should be phased out to support efficient risk pricing.
A comprehensive and well-sequenced structural reform package is needed to increase non-oil potential growth. The initial priorities are to improve the business environment by enhancing transparency, raising efficiency, and further opening up the economy. Meanwhile, labor market reforms should be gradually phased in to incentivize private sector-led inclusive growth.
The business environment should be further improved to raise economic competitiveness and promote private investment. To boost transparency, data disclosure on secondary market real estate transactions should be enhanced, while universal auditing standards for corporate balance sheets should be adopted. To raise efficiency, the government should improve public infrastructure, conduct regulatory impact assessments with public consultations, integrate digital public service delivery across ministries, and further streamline business establishment processes. To attract FDI, full foreign ownership of businesses should be permitted, while foreign ownership restrictions on land should be relaxed. Finally, public land sales for residential and commercial development should be scaled up.
Major labor market reforms are needed to promote economic diversification. To incentivize Kuwaitis to seek employment in the private sector, compensation and working conditions should be better harmonized across the public and private sectors. Enhancing the quality of education and aligning it with private sector needs would raise productivity and support economic diversification. Employment of highly-skilled expatriate workers should be supported by introducing targeted visa programs and reforming job sponsorship frameworks, promoting knowledge transfer. Higher female labor force participation should be encouraged by further improving the working environment for women, including by fully implementing the legal requirements for childcare in the private sector.
Reforms are needed to strengthen AML/CFT effectiveness. The AML/CFT framework should be strengthened expeditiously following a risk-based approach to protect its effectiveness.
Progress with climate change adaptation and mitigation should be accelerated. The government has made progress with implementing the 2019 National Adaptation Plan, but is delayed in developing its mitigation plan.
Data provision has some shortcomings that somewhat hamper surveillance, which the authorities should address within their legal constraints. An expenditure-side National Accounts decomposition remains unavailable for 2023, while multi-year delays in the publication of GDP data after the pandemic confounded surveillance and policymaking. The CSB urgently needs additional funding to boost its capacity and resume its annual Establishment Survey, which has not been conducted since 2019. The exclusion of government investment income and SOE profit transfers from the Government Finance statistics hampers fiscal policy analysis, while the omission of government foreign assets from the IIP statistics generates stock-flow inconsistencies with the BOP statistics.
The mission thanks the authorities for their warm hospitality and constructive engagement.
Washington, DC: The World Bank Group (WBG) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are pleased to announce that Tanzania is the second country benefiting from the Enhanced Cooperation Framework for Climate Action (the Framework). This follows the approval of an arrangement under the Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF) in June 2024 by the IMF Executive Board, and the WBG’s active engagement on climate action in the country.
Tanzania is highly vulnerable to climate change which poses significant risks to its macroeconomic, fiscal, and social development. Through the Framework, the IMF and WBG working closely with other development partners, will coordinate their efforts to support Tanzania’s ambitious policy reform agenda to address risks and challenges associated with climate change and enhance the resilience of the Tanzanian economy.
The Framework aims to support efforts by Tanzania’s authorities to bring together development partners, the private sector and civil society to address the adverse impacts of climate change. Building on their respective analytical expertise and financing instruments, the IMF and WBG will jointly provide critical support to Tanzania’s authorities in advancing climate action. This will be done through an integrated, country-led approach to policy reforms and public and private climate investments, including through complementary and well-sequenced reform measures.
Tanzania is the second country to benefit from this Framework, which builds on technical analysis such as the IMF’s Climate Policy Diagnostics (CPD). The country authorities, the WBG and the IMF identified several areas where synergies in capacity development and policy support will be most beneficial, such as (i) climate resilient public financial management, (ii) energy, water and other reforms that will build resilience and promote sustainable development, (iii) disaster risk management and social protection, and (iv) supervision of financial sector climate-related risks.
Under the Framework, the IMF-WBG will support Tanzania to consider climate change as a key element of medium-term public investment planning and prioritization. The IMF will back the introduction of climate resilient public investment regulations and reporting, while the WBG will focus on supporting sectors that help strengthen Tanzania’s resilience to climate change, such as energy, water, social protection, and agriculture. The two institutions will also support improvements to Tanzania’s disaster risk management policy and implementation, including a disaster risk financing framework and enhancements to the social safety net to make it responsive to climate shocks.
The WBG and the IMF will also support policies to improve water resource management, while IMF-supported reforms will help expand villages’ land use planning and management. Tanzania will also develop supervision of financial sector climate-related risks with support from the IMF and WBG.
Finally, the Framework will help catalyze official technical and financial assistance and private sector financing. The IMF and WBG stand ready to support a country-led platform to mobilize additional programmatic and project climate financing that could be implemented in 2025.
Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments
The UK’s International Climate Finance (ICF) has helped 110 million people adapt to the effects of climate change.
Reduced or avoided over 105 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions, and avoided 750,000 hectares of ecosystem loss, according to official analysis released today.
Climate finance has helped to mobilise £8.4 billion of public and £7.8 billion of private finance for climate change.
The UK’s International Climate Finance (ICF), helps developing countries limit and manage the impacts of climate change, mitigate further global warming from emissions and avert, minimise and address loss and damage.
The results published today demonstrate the transformational impact of the UK’s International Climate Finance from 2011, ensuring developing countries have access to clean energy and innovative technology to drive the global transition to net zero, while supporting the most vulnerable countries who are experiencing the worst impacts of the climate crisis. Over the last 12 years, the UK has:
Supported over 82 million people with improved access to clean energy.
Avoided or reduced 105 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions, equivalent to taking all UK cars off the road for approximately 1 year and 7 months.
Avoided 750,000 hectares of ecosystem loss, the equivalent to more than 1 million football pitches.
Through UK International Climate Finance, UK aid is investing in innovative solutions to tackle climate change, such as energy efficiency and forestry across the Global South to demonstrate their commercial viabilities:
The Climate Public Partnership (CP3) programme has been addressing the dual challenge of both climate challenge and access to clean, affordable energy by building a public-private partnership to unlock private investments. By investing in private equity funds, including £50 million to the Catalyst Fund, over a portfolio of 124 projects, UK aid successfully mobilised over £86 million of private finance to date.
In Madagascar and Indonesia, UK aid is helping to protect, restore and sustainably manage mangrove forests while reducing the poverty of the coastal communities that rely on them. By working together with national governments, local communities and the private sector, the Blue Forests Programme developed green business opportunities based on sustainable mangrove forestry and fisheries management and helped protect around 58,000 hectares of mangrove forests and delivered around 660,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide savings.
These results come as the UK has taken swift action at home to tackle the climate crisis and provide energy security for British families and businesses. The UK is first major economy to set a landmark goal in delivering clean power by 2030. In the space of a few months the Government has already:
Lifted the ban on onshore wind in England to roll out a new supply of clean and cheap power.
Delivered the most successful renewables energy auction to date, securing enough clean power to supply the equivalent of 11 million homes.
Introduced Great British Energy, creating the next generation of skilled jobs and protecting family from volatile fossil fuel prices that helped drive the cost of living crisis.
Consented unprecedented amounts of nationally significant solar – 2GW – more than the last 14 years combined.
The UK will use that strong action at home to accelerate global action at the COP29 summit in Baku, raising ambition to agree a new financial target to support developing countries in tackling climate change.
Minister for International Development, Anneliese Dodds said:
International climate finance is at the heart of our climate and development objectives and our Mission to be a clean energy superpower.
Our work – and the billions in private finance it has unlocked – will help the most vulnerable who are experiencing the worst impacts of the climate crisis and enable partners to meet the objectives of the Paris Agreement.
Our programmes are making a positive difference to people’s lives and helping to build a liveable planet for all, now and in the future.
UK Climate Minister Kerry McCarthy said:
The UK has played a key role in supporting the most vulnerable communities across the globe in tackling climate change while alleviating poverty and improving access to cleaner energy sources.
But there is more work to do, and unlocking greater global climate finance is crucial in addressing the needs of developing countries who are on the frontline of the crisis.
That’s why the UK will be pushing for an ambitious finance goal for climate aid at COP29. We will continue to champion the voices of those most affected and we will lead from the front in speeding up the global transition to net zero.
UK Minister for Nature Mary Creagh said:
We have a responsibility to tackle the biggest challenges facing our planet. This means putting nature loss and climate change at the forefront of the global agenda.
We are seeing an unprecedented decline in species and the loss of some of the world’s richest and most diverse ecosystems. Our climate programmes play a vital role in protecting and restoring nature and supporting the communities most affected by this crisis.
These results come ahead of this year’s UN climate summit COP29 in Baku, which will see countries come together to negotiate a new financial target for supporting developing countries in their climate actions, known as the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG).
In addition to UK ICF, the UK’s world leading expertise on green finance and net zero industries is supporting developing countries achieve their own climate goals through leveraging private sector funds. Since 2011, the UK has helped mobile £7.8 billion of private finance for climate change purposes.
The £11.6 billion commitment for the ICF remains the government’s intention as we undertake the spending review. Speaking at the UN General Assembly on 27 September the Prime Minister made clear the UK would continue to be a leading contributor to international climate finance.
Background
The UK’s International Climate Finance is funded by Official Development Assistance (UK aid) from FCDO, DESNZ and DEFRA.
UK International Climate Finance (ICF) is a portfolio of investments with a goal to support international poverty eradication now and in the future, by helping developing countries manage risk and build resilience to the impacts of climate change, take up low-carbon development at scale and manage natural resources sustainably. Through annual publications the ICF sets out results from these investments against a set of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
Girls as young as nine could be forcibly married, and protections regarding divorce and inheritance potentially removed
Urgent legal reforms are needed to protect Iraqi women and girls’ rights and criminalise marital rape
‘Iraqi lawmakers must heed the warnings of civil society and women’s rights groups on the devastating impact of these amendments’ – Razaw Salihy
Ahead of an imminent parliamentary vote in Iraq on possible changes to the country’s Personal Status Law, Amnesty International is calling on Iraqi lawmakers to drop amendments that would violate women and girls’ rights, further entrench discrimination and could allow for girls as young as nine to be forced into marriage.
The current Personal Status Law applies to all Iraqis irrespective of their religion. The proposed amendments would grant religious councils of the Sunni and Shia sects of Islam in Iraq the authority to develop their own “code of Sharia rulings on personal status matters” within six months of the law being passed, effectively threatening women’s and girls’ rightsand their equality before the law.
The amendments would also open the door to legalising unregistered marriages, which are often used to circumvent child marriage laws, and removing penalties for adult men who enter such marriages and clerics who conduct them. It would also remove critical protections for divorced women, such as the right to remain in the marital home or receive financial support from the former husband.
“Iraqi lawmakers must heed the warnings of civil society and women’s rights groups on the devastating impact of these amendments, which would eliminate the current legal marriage age of 18 for both girls and boys, paving the way for child marriages, as well as stripping women and girls of protections regarding divorce and inheritance.
“Not only does child marriage deprive girls of their education, but married girls are more vulnerable to sexual and physical abuse, and health risks related to early pregnancy.
“It is alarming that these amendments to the Personal Status Law are being pushed so vehemently when completely different, urgent legal reforms are needed to protect Iraqi women and girls’ rights.
“Iraq’s parliament must reject these harmful proposed amendments and instead focus their efforts on addressing woeful shortcomings in the penal code, which permits ‘honour’ as a mitigating factor for the killings of women and girls and allows for the corporal punishment of the wife and children by the husband, as well as failing to criminalise marital rape.”
Amnesty confirmed that the proposed amendments violate international treaties ratified by Iraq including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Opposition to the bill
The first reading of the bill took place on 4 August 2024. Similar amendments were proposed in 2014 and 2017 but failed to pass due to a nationwide outcry. On 3 September, Iraq’s parliament attempted to hold a second reading of the draft bill but opposing MPs had waged a boycott campaign that succeeded in blocking this. The bill’s second reading took place on 16 September, with women MPs and other opponents of the bill raising concerns that none of their recommendations had been taken into account, nor an amended draft shared. On 17 September, the Iraqi Federal Supreme Court ruled that the amendments were aligned with Iraq’s constitution.
Iraqi lawmakers must drop amendments to the Personal Status Law, which would violate women and girls’ rights, further entrench discrimination and could allow for girls as young as nine to be married, Amnesty International said today, ahead of an imminent parliamentary vote on the changes.
“Iraqi lawmakers must heed the warnings of civil society and women’s rights groups on the devastating impact of these amendments, which would eliminate the current legal marriage age of 18 for both girls and boys, paving the way for child marriages, as well as stripping women and girls of protections regarding divorce and inheritance, said Razaw Salihy, Amnesty International’s Iraq researcher.
“Not only does child marriage deprive girls of their education, but married girls are more vulnerable to sexual and physical abuse, and health risks related to early pregnancy. It is alarming that these amendments to the Personal Status Law are being pushed so vehemently when completely different urgent legal reforms are needed to protect Iraqi women and girls’ rights.
“Iraq’s parliament must reject these harmful proposed amendments and instead focus their efforts on addressing woeful shortcomings in the Penal Code, which permits ‘honour’ as a mitigating factor for the killings of women and girls and allows for the corporal punishment of the wife and children by the husband, as well as failing to criminalize marital rape.”
The current Personal Status Law applies to all Iraqis irrespective of their religion. The proposed amendments would grant religious councils of the Sunni and Shia sects of Islam in Iraq the authority to develop their own “code of Sharia rulings on personal status matters” within six months of the law being passed, effectively threatening women’s and girls’ rights and their equality before the law.
The amendments would also open the door to legalizing unregistered marriages, which are often used to circumvent child marriage laws, and removing penalties for adult men who enter such marriages and clerics who conduct them. It would also remove critical protections for divorced women, such as the right to remain in the marital home or receive financial support from the former husband.
“The amendments violate international treaties that Iraq has ratified, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Ensuring the safety, dignity and rights of women and girls is not only a state obligation under international human rights law but also a moral imperative that all Iraqi institutions must uphold,” said Razaw Salihy.
Education is essentially an “industry of industries,” with K-12 and higher education enterprises handling data that could include health records, financial data, and other regulated information. At the same time, their facilities can host payment processing systems, networks that are used as internet service providers (ISPs), and other diverse infrastructure. The cyberthreats that Microsoft observes across different industries tend to be compounded in education, and threat actors have realized that this sector is inherently vulnerable. With an average of 2,507 cyberattack attempts per week, universities are prime targets for malware, phishing, and IoT vulnerabilities.¹
Security staffing and IT asset ownership also affect education organizations’ cyber risks. School and university systems, like many enterprises, often face a shortage of IT resources and operate a mix of both modern and legacy IT systems. Microsoft observes that in the United States, students and faculty are more likely to use personal devices in education compared to Europe, for example. Regardless of ownership however, in these and other regions, busy users do not always have a security mindset.
This edition of Cyber Signals delves into the cybersecurity challenges facing classrooms and campuses, highlighting the critical need for robust defenses and proactive measures. From personal devices to virtual classes and research stored in the cloud, the digital footprint of school districts, colleges, and universities has multiplied exponentially.
We are all defenders.
A uniquely valuable and vulnerable environment
The education sector’s user base is very different from a typical large commercial enterprise. In the K-12 environment, users include students as young as six years old. Just like any public or private sector organization, there is a wide swath of employees in school districts and at universities including administration, athletics, health services, janitorial, food service professionals, and others. Multiple activities, announcements, information resources, open email systems, and students create a highly fluid environment for cyberthreats.
Virtual and remote learning have also extended education applications into households and offices. Personal and multiuser devices are ubiquitous and often unmanaged—and students are not always cognizant about cybersecurity or what they allow their devices to access.
Education is also on the front lines confronting how adversaries test their tools and their techniques. According to data from Microsoft Threat Intelligence, the education sector is the third-most targeted industry, with the United States seeing the greatest cyberthreat activity.
Cyberthreats to education are not only a concern in the United States. According to the United Kingdom’s Department of Science Innovation and Technology 2024 Cybersecurity Breaches Survey, 43% of higher education institutions in the UK reported experiencing a breach or cyberattack at least weekly.²
QR codes provide an easily disguised surface for phishing cyberattacks
Today, quick response (QR) codes are quite popular—leading to increased risks of phishing cyberattacks designed to gain access to systems and data. Images in emails, flyers offering information about campus and school events, parking passes, financial aid forms, and other official communications all frequently contain QR codes. Physical and virtual education spaces might be the most “flyer friendly” and QR code-intensive environments anywhere, given how big a role handouts, physical and digital bulletin boards, and other casual correspondence help students navigate a mix of curriculum, institutional, and social correspondence. This creates an attractive backdrop for malicious actors to target users who are trying to save time with a quick image scan.
Recently the United States Federal Trade Commission issued a consumer alert on the rising threat of malicious QR codes being used to steal login credentials or deliver malware.³
Microsoft Defender for Office 365 telemetry shows that approximately more than 15,000 messages with malicious QR codes are targeted toward the educational sector daily—including phishing, spam, and malware.
Legitimate software tools can be used to quickly generate QR codes with embedded links to be sent in email or posted physically as part of a cyberattack. And those images are hard for traditional email security solutions to scan, making it even more important for faculty and students to use devices and browsers with modern web defenses.
Targeted users in the education sector may use personal devices without endpoint security. QR codes essentially enable the threat actor to pivot to these devices. QR code phishing (since its purpose is to target mobile devices) is compelling evidence of mobile devices being used as an attack vector into enterprises—such as personal accounts and bank accounts—and the need for mobile device protection and visibility. Microsoft has significantly disrupted QR code phishing attacks. This shift in tactics is evident in the substantial decrease in daily phishing emails intercepted by our system, dropping from 3 million in December 2023 to just 179,000 by March 2024.
Source: Microsoft incident response engagements.
Universities present their own unique challenges. Much of university culture is based on collaboration and sharing to drive research and innovation. Professors, researchers, and other faculty operate under the notion that technology, science—simply knowledge itself—should be shared widely. If someone appearing as a student, peer, or similar party reaches out, they’re often willing to discuss potentially sensitive topics without scrutinizing the source.
University operations also span multiple industries. University presidents are effectively CEOs of healthcare organizations, housing providers, and large financial organizations—the industry of industries factor, again. Therefore, top leaders can can be prime targets for anyone attacking those sectors.
The combination of value and vulnerability found in education systems has attracted the attention of a spectrum of cyberattackers—from malware criminals employing new techniques to nation-state threat actors engaging in old-school spy craft.
Microsoft continually monitors threat actors and threat vectors worldwide. Here are some key issues we’re seeing for education systems.
Email systems in schools offer wide spaces for compromise
The naturally open environment at most universities forces them to be more relaxed in their email hygiene. They have a lot of emails amounting to noise in the system, but are often operationally limited in where and how they can place controls, because of how open they need to be for alumni, donors, external user collaboration, and many other use cases.
Education institutions tend to share a lot of announcements in email. They share informational diagrams around local events and school resources. They commonly allow external mailers from mass mailing systems to share into their environments. This combination of openness and lack of controls creates a fertile ground for cyberattacks.
AI is increasing the premium on visibility and control
Cyberattackers recognizing higher education’s focus on building and sharing can survey all visible access points, seeking entry into AI-enabled systems or privileged information on how these systems operate. If on-premises and cloud-based foundations of AI systems and data are not secured with proper identity and access controls, AI systems become vulnerable. Just as education institutions adapted to cloud services, mobile devices and hybrid learning—which introduced new waves of identities and privileges to govern, devices to manage, and networks to segment—they must also adapt to the cyber risks of AI by scaling these timeless visibility and control imperatives.
Nation-state actors are after valuable IP and high-level connections
Universities handling federally funded research, or working closely with defense, technology, and other industry partners in the private sector, have long recognized the risk of espionage. Decades ago, universities focused on telltale physical signs of spying. They knew to look for people showing up on campus taking pictures or trying to get access to laboratories. Those are still risks, but today the dynamics of digital identity and social engineering have greatly expanded the spy craft toolkit.
Universities are often epicenters of highly sensitive intellectual property. They may be conducting breakthrough research. They may be working on high-value projects in aerospace, engineering, nuclear science, or other sensitive topics in partnership with multiple government agencies.
For cyberattackers, it can be easier to first compromise somebody in the education sector who has ties to the defense sector and then use that access to more convincingly phish a higher value target.
Universities also have experts in foreign policy, science, technology, and other valuable disciplines, who may willingly offer intelligence, if deceived in social-engineering cyberattacks employing false or stolen identities of peers and others who appear to be in individuals’ networks or among trusted contacts. Apart from holding valuable intelligence themselves, compromised accounts of university employees can become springboards into further campaigns against wider government and industry targets.
Nation-state actors targeting education
Peach Sandstorm
Peach Sandstorm has used password spray attacks against the education sector to gain access to infrastructure used in those industries, and Microsoft has also observed the organization using social engineering against targets in higher education.
Mint Sandstorm
Microsoft has observed a subset of this Iranian attack group targeting high-profile experts working on Middle Eastern affairs at universities and research organizations. These sophisticated phishing attacks used social engineering to compel targets to download malicious files including a new, custom backdoor called MediaPl.
Mabna Institute
In 2023, the Iranian Mabna Institute conducted intrusions into the computing systems of at least 144 United States universities and 176 universities in 21 other countries.
The stolen login credentials were used for the benefit of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and were also sold within Iran through the web. Stolen credentials belonging to university professors were used to directly access university library systems.
Emerald Sleet
This North Korean group primarily targets experts in East Asian policy or North and South Korean relations. In some cases, the same academics have been targeted by Emerald Sleet for nearly a decade.
Emerald Sleet uses AI to write malicious scripts and content for social engineering, but these attacks aren’t always about delivering malware. There’s also an evolving trend where they simply ask experts for policy insight that could be used to manipulate negotiations, trade agreements, or sanctions.
Moonstone Sleet
Moonstone Sleet is another North Korean actor that has been taking novel approaches like creating fake companies to forge business relationships with educational institutions or a particular faculty member or student.
One of the most prominent attacks from Moonstone Sleet involved creating a fake tank-themed game used to target individuals at educational institutions, with a goal to deploy malware and exfiltrate data.
Storm-1877
This actor largely engages in cryptocurrency theft using a custom malware family that they deploy through various means. The ultimate goal of this malware is to steal crypto wallet addresses and login credentials for crypto platforms.
Students are often the target for these attacks, which largely start on social media. Storm-1877 targets students because they may not be as aware of digital threats as professionals in industry.
A new security curriculum
Due to education budget and talent constraints and the inherent openness of its environment, solving education security is more than a technology problem. Security posture management and prioritizing security measures can be a costly and challenging endeavor for these institutions—but there is a lot that school systems can do to protect themselves.
Maintaining and scaling core cyberhygiene will be key to securing school systems. Building awareness of security risks and good practices at all levels—students, faculty, administrators, IT staff, campus staff, and more—can help create a safer environment.
For IT and security professionals in the education sector, doing the basics and hardening the overall security posture is a good first step. From there, centralizing the technology stack can help facilitate better monitoring of logging and activity to gain a clearer picture into the overall security posture and any vulnerabilities.
Oregon State University
Oregon State University (OSU), an R1 research-focused university, places a high priority on safeguarding its research to maintain its reputation. In 2021, it experienced an extensive cybersecurity incident unlike anything before. The cyberattack revealed gaps in OSU’s security operations.
“The types of threats that we’re seeing, the types of events that are occurring in higher education, are much more aggressive by cyber adversaries.”
—David McMorries, Chief Information Security Officer at Oregon State University
In response to this incident, OSU created its Security Operations Center (SOC), which has become the centerpiece of the university’s security effort. AI has also helped automate capabilities and helped its analysts, who are college students, learn how to quickly write code—such as threat hunting with more advanced hunting queries.
Arizona Department of Education
A focus on Zero Trust and closed systems is an area that the Arizona Department of Education (ADE) takes further than the state requirements. It blocks all traffic from outside the United States from its Microsoft 365 environment, Azure, and its local datacenter.
“I don’t allow anything exposed to the internet on my lower dev environments, and even with the production environments, we take extra care to make sure that we use a network security group to protect the app services.”
—Chris Henry, Infrastructure Manager at the Arizona Department of Education
Follow these recommendations:
The best defense against QR code attacks is to be aware and pay attention. Pause, inspect the code’s URL before opening it, and don’t open QR codes from unexpected sources, especially if the message uses urgent language or contains errors.
Consider implementing “protective domain name service,” a free tool that helps prevent ransomware and other cyberattacks by blocking computer systems from connecting to harmful websites. Prevent password spray attacks with a stringent password and deploy multifactor authentication.
Educate students and staff about their security hygiene, and encourage them to use multifactor authentication or passwordless protections. Studies have shown that an account is more than 99.9% less likely to be compromised when using multifactor authentication.
Corey Lee has always had an interest in solving puzzles and crimes. He started his college career at Penn State University in criminal justice, but soon realized his passion for digital forensics after taking a course about investigating a desktop computer break-in.
After completing his degree in security and risk analysis, Corey came to Microsoft focused on gaining cross-industry experience. He’s worked on securing everything from federal, state, and local agencies to commercial enterprises, but today he focuses on the education sector.
After spending time working across industries, Corey sees education through a different lens—the significantly unique industry of industries. The dynamics at play inside the education sector include academic institutions, financial services, critical infrastructure like hospitals and transportation, and partnerships with government agencies. According to Corey, working in such a broad field allows him to leverage skillsets from multiple industries to address specific problems across the landscape.
The fact that education could also be called underserved from a cybersecurity standpoint is another compelling challenge, and part of Corey’s personal mission. The education industry needs cybersecurity experts to elevate the priority of protecting school systems. Corey works across the public and industry dialogue, skilling and readiness programs, incident response, and overall defense to protect not just the infrastructure of education, but students, parents, teachers, and staff.
Today, Corey is focused reimagining student security operations centers, including how to inject AI into the equation and bring modern technology and training to the table. By growing the cybersecurity work force in education and giving them new tools, he’s working to elevate security in the sector in a way that’s commensurate with how critical the industry is for the future.
Next steps with Microsoft Security
To learn more about Microsoft Security solutions, visit our website. Bookmark the Security blog to keep up with our expert coverage on security matters. Also, follow us on LinkedIn (Microsoft Security) and X (@MSFTSecurity) for the latest news and updates on cybersecurity.
¹The Institutional Impacts of a Cyberattack, University of Florida Information Technology. January 18, 2024.
²Cyber security breaches survey 2024: education institutions annex, The United Kingdom Department for Science, Innovation & Technology. April 9, 2024
³Scammers hide harmful links in QR codes to steal your information, Federal Trade Commission (Alvaro Puig), December 6, 2023.
Methodology: Snapshot and cover stat data represent telemetry from Microsoft Defender for Office 365 showing how a QR code phishing attack was disrupted by image detection technology and how Security Operations teams can respond to this threat. Platforms like Microsoft Entra provided anonymized data on threat activity, such as malicious email accounts, phishing emails, and attacker movement within networks. Additional insights are from the 78 trillion daily security signals processed by Microsoft each day, including the cloud, endpoints, the intelligent edge, and telemetry from Microsoft platforms and services including Microsoft Defender. Microsoft categorizes threat actors into five key groups: influence operations; groups in development; and nation-state, financially motivated, and private sector offensive actors. The new threat actors naming taxonomy aligns with the theme of weather.
Source: United States Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore)
October 10, 2024
In the last two decades, Supreme Court justices have accepted hundreds of gifts valued at nearly $5 million
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Ron Wyden said today he is cosponsoring legislation that would ban Supreme Court justices from receiving gifts valued at more than $50, aimed at strengthening the ethical standards of the Court.
Senators Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M., and Peter Welch, D-Vt., led the introduction of the High Court Gift Ban Act. In addition to Wyden, Senators Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., Alex Padilla, D-Calif., and Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., cosponsored the bill. Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Jamie Raskin, D-Md., introduced companion legislation in the House.
“American democracy can only work if the public has trust in its institutions,” said Wyden, who recently introduced sweeping reforms to restore public trust in the Supreme Court. “With more and more Supreme Court ethics violations being uncovered, the public’s trust in the Court has been shaken to its core. It’s not just unacceptable but morally wrong that those sitting on our nation’s highest court can get away with accepting lavish gifts from just about anybody. Supreme Court justices should be held to the same standards as other federal officials so that faith can begin to be restored in one of America’s most powerful institutions.”
Under current law, Supreme Court justices are not held to the same restrictions on accepting gifts that apply to members of Congress, federal judges, and other federal officials. A recent analysis by Fix the Court estimated that in the last two decades, Supreme Court justices have accepted hundreds of gifts valued at nearly $5 million.
The High Court Gift Ban Act does the following:
Bans Supreme Court justices and all 2,300 lower court judges from receiving gifts valued at more than $50 in a single instance or more than $100 in aggregate in a year;
Caps gifts of personal hospitality, which are currently unregulated, at a value equal to the tax threshold for personal gifts, currently about $18,000;
Contains exemptions in line with those for members of Congress;
Enforces prohibitions by requiring referrals to the attorney general for investigation;
Aligns civil and criminal penalties for non-compliance with the government-wide financial disclosure law, the Ethics in Government Act:
Up to $50,000 for civil violations;
Fines and up to one year in prison for criminal penalties.
The High Court Gift Ban Act is endorsed by Accountable.US, AFT, Alliance for Justice, American Humanist Association, Center for American Progress, Clean Elections Texas, Common Cause, Courage California, Court Accountability, Courts Matter Illinois, Demand Justice, DemCast USA, Demos Action, End Citizens United/Let America Vote Action Fund, Enough of Gun Violence, Faithful Democracy, Fix the Court, Free Speech For People, FRFF Action Fund, Get Money Out – Maryland, Greenpeace USA, Indivisible, League of Conservation Voters, Michiganders for Fair & Transparent Elections, MoveOn, National Association of Consumer Advocates, National Association of Social Workers, NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice, Ohio Fair Courts Alliance, P Street, People For the American Way, People Power United, Project on Government Oversight, Public Citizen, Reproductive Freedom for All, Secular Coalition for America, Secure Elections Network, Stand Up America, Supreme Court Integrity Project, Take Back the Court Action Fund, True North Research, United Church of Christ, Voices for Progress, and Walking To Fix Our Democracy.
The text of the bill is here.
Source: Government of Ireland – Department of Jobs Enterprise and Innovation
10th October 2024
The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment has opened the Emergency Humanitarian Support Scheme for small businesses, sports clubs, community and voluntary organisations who are unable to secure flood insurance and have been affected by recent flooding in County Cork.
The scheme will go some way in assisting businesses, who through no fault of their own, were unable to secure flood insurance, to put right the damage caused by the recent flood and help to ensure they get back up and running as quickly as possible.
As with similar flooding events in the past, the Irish Red Cross will administer and make payments under the Scheme on behalf of the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment.
The scheme is a humanitarian support payment towards the costs of returning small businesses, sporting, voluntary and community premises to their pre-flood condition including the replacement of flooring, fixtures and fittings and damaged stock where relevant. The scheme will not provide a contribution to loss of earnings or loss of business goodwill.
This financial support is targeted at small businesses (up to 20 employees), sports clubs and community and voluntary organisations and will have two stages:
The first stage will commence immediately and will provide a contribution of up to €5,000, depending on the scale of damage incurred. It is anticipated that this will meet the needs of the majority of those affected. The intention is to process payments as fast as possible.
In the event that the premises has incurred significant damages above €5,000, businesses can apply for additional financial support, following an assessment by the Irish Red Cross. The total level of support available for both stages combined is capped at €20,000.
The following text contains opinion that is not, or not necessarily, that of MIL-OSI –
Kamalanomics Continues To Crush Americans
Washington, October 10, 2024
American families are having to choose between filling up their gas tanks, heating their homes, or putting food on the table because of failed Kamalanomics. In September, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) showed Kamalaflation remains a tax on all Americans, and it isn’t going away anytime soon. Since Joe Biden and Kamala Harris took office, inflation has risen by 20.5%. The failed economic policies of Kamala Harris and Joe Biden continue to put Americans last.
MAKE NO MISTAKE: We cannot afford another four years of failed Far Left Democrat policies. We must return to the successful economic agenda Republicans implemented under President Trump which created the strongest economy in history and put Americans first.
KAMALANOMICS BY THE NUMBERS:
Inflation is a tax on ALL Americans.
When Joe Biden and Kamala Harris took office, inflation was at just 1.4%.
Since Joe Biden and Kamala Harris took office, inflation has risen by 20.5%.
Americans are paying more for just about everything because of inflation. Since Biden and Harris took office:
Food at elementary and secondary schools 69.7%.
Eggs are UP 69.2%.
Motor vehicle insurance is UP 56.5%.
Admission to sporting events is UP 46.4%.
Lodging away from home including hotels and motels is UP 42.4%.
Gasoline (all types) is UP 38.4%.
Baby food and formula are UP 31.0%.
Veterinarian services are UP 29.9%.
Cookies are UP 29.1%.
Uncooked ground beef is UP 28.2%.
Bakery products are UP 27.2%.
Chicken is UP 25.0%.
Airline fares are UP 24.5%.
Bread is UP 23.9%.
Pork chops are UP 23.0%.
Lunchmeats are UP 22.3%.
Milk is UP 16.2%.
Americans are spending $13,300 more annually to buy the basics because of Kamalaflation, compared to three years ago.
Real wages remain lower than when Biden-Harris first took office.
Inflation-adjusted average weekly earnings were $397.90 when Biden-Harris took office and are now $384.29 – the Bureau of Labor Statistics adjusts to 1982-1984 dollars – meaning Americans have seen a 3.4% decrease under Biden-Harris.
Kamalaflation outpaced wages for a majority of Biden’s presidency – both year-over-year real average hourly earnings and real average weekly earnings were negative for 25 months.
Interest rates have remained at a 23-year high.
Nearly half of Americans consider themselves “broke.”
Two-thirds of Americans report living paycheck-to-paycheck.
Americans need a six-figure salary to afford a typical home in nearly half of U.S. states
In September, the unemployment rate remained high, at 4.1%.
Over the past 12 months, 825,000 native-born Americans lost employment, while 1.2 million foreign-born workers found jobs.
There are over 6.8 million Americans who are unemployed which is up from a year ago at 6.3 million.
The labor force participation rate remains well below pre-pandemic levels.
In September, the labor force participation rates decreased for the following demographics:
Women, 16 years and over.
White women, 20 years and over.
Black or African American women, 20 years and over.
Asian Americans.
Hispanic or Latino Americans.
Hispanic or Latino men, 20 years and over.
Hispanic or Latino women, 20 years and over.
Since July of 2023 versus July of 2024, there has been a net zero job growth.
In August, it was announced that 818,000 jobs that the Harris-Biden Administration claimed to have created aren’t there.
The BLS revised down its total tally of jobs created from March 2023 through March 2024 by 818,000.
This included 115,000 manufacturing jobs.
The revision is the largest in 15 years.
In addition to these revisions, the August jobs report revealed the employment in June and July combined is 86,000 lower than previously reported.
The Biden-Harris Administration deserves no credit for economic growth.
Republican-led states are leading the way creating jobs and leading economic growth.
The latest state jobs report shows that 16 of the top 20 states for jobs recovered since the coronavirus pandemic began are led by Republican governors, and 16 of the states have Republican-controlled legislatures.
The U.S. government has released the National Spectrum Research and Development Plan, a crucial step forward in maintaining America’s global leadership in wireless spectrum innovation. The Wireless Spectrum Research and Development Interagency Working Group of the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development program developed the plan on behalf of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
The U.S. National Science Foundation was pivotal in creating the National Spectrum R&D Plan, co-chairing the working group with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration and contributing expertise and guidance on key research areas.
NSF’s involvement underscores its leadership in fostering interdisciplinary research, including critical innovations in agile antennas, spectrum sharing and interference resilience. The plan authoring team also included members from various U.S. government agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Defense, Department of Energy, Department of Transportation, Federal Communications Commission and the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
The National Spectrum R&D Plan aligns with President Joe Biden’s memorandum on Modernizing United States Spectrum Policy, which called for a coordinated national strategy to address the increasing demand for spectrum access, further cementing spectrum’s role in driving U.S. economic growth, national security and technological advancement. It also responds to the National Spectrum Strategy, which emphasizes the need for innovation in spectrum management and sharing technologies.
The innovation areas and organizational improvements detailed in the National Spectrum R&D Plan will offer research opportunities across multiple disciplines, from communications and networking to economics and policy. The cross-disciplinary nature of spectrum R&D will also pave the way for new commercialization pathways, offering industry leaders a blueprint to develop next-generation wireless technologies. Furthermore, the work described in the plan will improve data-driven decision-making and international cooperation to enhance U.S. competitiveness in the global spectrum landscape.
The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced a $12 million award to be split among three joint whistleblowers who provided critical information and assistance in an SEC enforcement action.
The joint whistleblowers provided the SEC significant information and extensive cooperation, which helped expand the scope of the investigation and the charges brought in the enforcement action and also saved the agency substantial time and resources. The joint whistleblowers met numerous times with SEC’s enforcement staff and certain of the joint whistleblowers suffered hardships due to their whistleblowing.
“Whistleblowers play a key role in helping the SEC hold wrongdoers accountable,” said Creola Kelly, Chief of the SEC’s Office of the Whistleblower. “Even where an investigation is already open, whistleblowers may contribute by providing new information about misconduct.”
Payments to whistleblowers are made out of an investor protection fund, established by Congress, which is financed entirely through monetary sanctions paid to the SEC by securities law violators. Whistleblowers may be eligible for an award when they voluntarily provide the SEC with original, timely, and credible information that leads to a successful enforcement action. Whistleblower awards can range from 10 to 30 percent of the money collected when the monetary sanctions exceed $1 million.
As set forth in the Dodd-Frank Act, the SEC protects the confidentiality of whistleblowers and does not disclose any information that could reveal a whistleblower’s identity.
For more information about the whistleblower program and how to report a tip, visit www.sec.gov/whistleblower.
The New Mexico State Council of Machinists and Aerospace Workers recently met in Ruidoso, N.M., to strengthen their Political Action Committee and prepare the political activists for upcoming state legislative priorities.
The Council also completed necessary business to finetune its bylaws and operating procedures.
“I continue to be extremely proud of the advances our New Mexico State Council is making through increased transparency and modernizing how we operate our Council,” said New Mexico State Council of Machinists President John Dyrcz. “Building real power for working people is a team effort, and New Mexico Council delegates have rolled up their sleeves and are doing the real work needed to increase our footprint in both New Mexico policy and politics.”
The Council discussed its upcoming winter meeting and the legislative issues they’ll be lobbying on in-state, including pursuing a ban on captive audience meetings, safe-staffing hospital ratios, and a bill for paid family medical leave.
They also reviewed endorsements for U.S. Congressional candidates and New Mexico’s House and Senate races, and decided on support for New Mexico constitutional amendments.
IAM Western Territory Chief of Staff Bobby Martinez spoke on behalf of the Territory and General Vice President Allen, voicing the Western Territory’s support for the New Mexico State Council and congratulating them on the positive progress they’ve made so far.
“The New Mexico State council is a shining example of bringing diverse members together to build on the common purpose of building people to enhance their power, bringing meaningful change for working families in the state of New Mexico,” said Martinez.
IAM Legislative and Political Assistant Director Loren Ameroth gave an overview of the political landscape in New Mexico right now, laying out where the IAM’s priorities lie.
IAM Veterans Services Assistant Coordinator Bryan Stymacks informed Council members about the many member support services the IAM provides to members, like the Employee Assistance Program, Veterans Affairs claims processing, and alcohol and addiction resources.
IAM Grand Lodge Auditor Suzette Trout spoke to the Council about legal compliance in managing their finances.
The Council also examined the outlook for its endorsed candidate, Democratic U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez, in his swing-seat congressional race.
Headline: Understanding Your FEMA Determination Letter for Hurricane Helene in South Carolina
Understanding Your FEMA Determination Letter for Hurricane Helene in South Carolina
ATLANTA – If you applied for FEMA assistance after Hurricane Helene, you will receive a determination letter from FEMA in the mail or by email.
The letter will explain your application status and how to respond. Please read it carefully. It will include the amount of funds you will receive for specific types of assistance, and important information on the appropriate use of disaster assistance funds.
Applicants who receive a letter stating they are not eligible for assistance may need to submit additional information or supporting documentation for FEMA to continue to process an application for financial assistance. Examples of missing documentation may include:
Proof of insurance coverage.
Settlement of insurance claims or denial letter from insurance provider.
Proof of identity.
Proof of occupancy.
Proof of ownership.
Proof that the damaged property was the applicant’s primary residence at the time of the disaster.
If you have questions about your letter, or disagree with the initial decision, you can call the helpline at 800-621-3362 to find out what information FEMA needs.
How To Appeal
The letter from FEMA will provide information on the types of documents or information that FEMA needs. It will also include an optional appeal form that you can use. Your appeal must be submitted within 60 days of the date of your decision letter.
You don’t need a written and signed appeal letter. You just need to submit verifiable documents that support your appeal request and meet the criteria for the type of assistance appealed.
You can submit your appeal and supporting documentation:
Online at DisasterAssistance.gov, where you can create an account and upload documents.
By mail: FEMA National Processing Service Center, P.O. Box 10055, Hyattsville MD 20782-7055.
We are excited about what the changing of the season has brought us so far and with that, the Law Library of Congress is offering more educational webinars in November. The Law Library of Congress’s next offerings will be a Lunch and Learn webinar concerning the use of secondary sources, an Orientation to Legal Research webinar on federal legislative history, and an Orientation to Law Library Collections webinar with a special guest from the Alaska State Court Law Library. We hope you can join us.
Flyer announcing the Lunch and Learn Webinar titled, “Using Secondary Sources in Legal Research.” The webinar will take place on November 5, 2024 at 1:00 PM EST. Created by Taylor Gulatsi.
A Lunch and Learn Webinar: Using Secondary Sources in Legal Research
Date: Tuesday, November 5, 2024, 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. EST
Content: This webinar will provide an overview of secondary sources such as legal encyclopedias, treatises, and dictionaries. In addition, the webinar will provide examples to show how these resources are used in practice. The presentation will demonstrate how secondary sources are an important step in the legal research method and how they can guide researchers to primary sources. Many of the materials and content for this webinar have come from the Law Library’s research guide, Legal Research: A Guide to Secondary Resources.
Instructors: Olivia Kane-Cruz and Linnea Eberhart. Olivia Kane-Cruz is a legal reference librarian at the Law Library of Congress. Olivia holds a B.A. in political science from Humboldt State University (Cal Poly Humboldt), a J.D. and a master of environmental law and policy from Vermont Law School, and an M.L.I.S. from the University of Washington. Linnea holds a B.A. in international studies and criminology from the University of South Florida Judy Genshaft Honors College, a J.D. from the University of Florida Levin College of Law, and an M.S.I. from Florida State University. She is currently a Librarian-in-Residence at the Law Library.
Register here.
An Orientation to Legal Research Webinar: Federal Legislative History
Date: Thursday, November 7, 2024, 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. EST
Content: This entry in the series provides an overview of U.S. federal legislative history resources, including information about the methods of identifying and locating them. In tackling this area of research, the focus will largely be on finding these documents online.
Instructor: Jason Zarin. Jason is a legal reference specialist at the Law Library. Jason has a B.A. in economics from Tufts University, an M.A. in economics from UCLA, a J.D. from the University of Southern California, an LL.M. in taxation from Georgetown University, and a Master of Science in information systems from the University of Texas at Austin.
Register here.
An Orientation to Law Library Collections Webinar feat. the Alaska State Court Law Library
Date: Thursday, November 14, 2024, 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. EST
Content: This webinar is designed for patrons who are familiar with legal research, and would instead prefer an introduction to the collections and services specific to the Law Library of Congress. Some of the resources attendees will learn about include the Law Library’s research guides, digital collections, and the Guide to Law Online, among others. This Orientation to Law Library Collections webinar will feature a special appearance by Susan Falk, State Law Librarian for the Alaska State Court Law Library as part of our 50 State Outreach Program.
Instructor: Anna Price. Anna is a legal reference librarian at the Law Library. Anna holds a B.S. in communications from Ithaca College, a J.D. from the University of Washington School of Law, and an M.L.I.S. from the University of Washington iSchool.
Register here.
To learn about other upcoming classes on domestic and foreign law topics, visit the Legal Research Institute.
