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THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES
This Constitution has benefited more people for a longer time than any other instrument with the exception of the Bible. The Constiution guarantees freedom from a tyrannical and oppressive government. However, evil men are constantly seeking power over the masses; and this is demonstrated by todays attacks on our Constituion and freedom.
This website is a protest to the people promoting the socialist agenda.
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constiution, nor prohibited by it to the states respectively or to the people."
This Amendment was required by the states to keep the federal government from becoming all powerful and dictatoral. Recently, unscrupulous judges have circumvented this amendment using various means. If we are to remain a free people, we must use this Amendment to remove the federal government intrusion into our lives. All citizens must work toward this end; otherwise, we citizens will become subjects.
There are 16,000,000 of these so called "Obama phones" floating around the USA. How about that for a vote getter. (Pine and Lewis, Tulsa, OK USA)
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President Obama's speech on regulatory reform was less painful than I had feared. I was hoping that Obama would have given us more details on the plan. Instead his briefing was more like the vague political posturing used by the Neocon Phil Gramm (R-Texas) back in the Clinton era to sell us on Credit Default Swaps.
The speech had many good points. For example, Obama dislikes the horrifically complex mortgages with pages of fine print that few can understand. This section of the speech would be welcome if not for the fact that it was given by a person with a track record or jamming through extremely complex legislation rife with fine print that few understand.
The turn in the speech that I liked was that Obama did not say our problems were the result of the last eight years (he said they were the results of decades of thinking). He also did not blame economic woes on "deregulation."
Unfortunately, I fear that the leaders of this nation (both R and Ds) have realized that our problems are not simply with the regulations in place, but with the way that we think about the economy.
Obama's speech establishes risk management as the primnary concern of the economy.
In reality, the central focus of the economy should be the building of equity coupled with people the living happy, fulfilled lives.
This process of created a hugely centralized government justified by risk management concerns is precisely the wrong direction.
Don't you see? The whole point of Credit Default Swaps, the mortgage backed securities, the government backed re-insurance, the short selling, the hedge funds, and the myraid of other complex financial instruments was an ill fated effort to create a set of financial tools that would set up a ruling class.
To truly solve the problem we need to root deeper and find the problem with our thinking that made risk management, opposed to building equity, the primary concern of our economy.
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Date: Tuesday, 05 December 2023
Britain’s Fake ‘Democracy’ Has Now Collapsed
Britain’s left-wing Party, Labour, has now disappeared into being a ‘competitor’ ‘against’ Britain’s right-wing Party, the Conservatives, competing for conservative voters, condemning progressive voters, and has abandoned voters who are to the left of center. Voters to the left of center have no longer political representation in either Party. Here is how that result was engineered by Britain’s billionaires (who basically control British politics):
On 7 December 2019, the anti-Zionist Jew — i.e., a progressive Jew; i.e., a Jew who opposes any apartheid nation, such as Israel — Tony Greenstein, headlined at al-Jazeera, “Is Jeremy Corbyn a ‘threat’ to British Jews? Corbyn’s opponents cannot defeat his political programme so they attack his character with spurious allegations.” He opened:
Since the election of Jeremy Corbyn as its leader in 2015, Britain’s Labour Party has been the target of a sustained campaign to portray it as rife with anti-Semitism. Alongside unfounded accusations that Corbyn himself and his closest allies are “anti-Semites“, it has widely been claimed that under the direction of someone who has spent a lifetime fighting racism, the party has become “institutionally anti-Semitic”. Furthermore, it has even been claimed that a Corbyn government would pose an “existential threat” to Jewish life in this country.
Racism and anti-Semitism, unfortunately, still exist in modern Britain. Therefore, it is impossible to claim that any mainstream national political organisation in the United Kingdom, be it Labour, the Conservative Party or the Liberal Democrats, is 100 percent free of members who hold racist or anti-Semitic views. Corbyn acknowledged this, accepting that even “one [incident of anti-Semitism in the party] is one too many” and explained that to him “driving anti-Semitism out of the party for good is a priority”. However, this never was about anti-Semitism which is why nothing he said or did proved enough to convince his detractors.
He is promising to take the privatised utilities and the rail companies back into public ownership and tax multinational companies like Google and Amazon which currently pay virtually no tax in the UK. Moreover, he is promising to stop arms sales to Israel and Saudi Arabia and to educate Britain’s youth about their country’s colonial history.
Rather than challenging the Labour leader’s policies on fighting poverty and ending Britain’s continuing support for oppressive regimes across the globe, his rivals and critics are focusing their energy on doubling down on their accusations of anti-Semitism.
So is the Labour leader, who has an impressive track record of supporting Britain’s Jewish community and standing against anti-Semitism, really an anti-Semite who purposefully filled Britain’s main opposition party with “fellow racists”, or is something else happening here?
What we are witnessing today is clearly not an honest expression of concern for Britain’s Jews, but a smear campaign born out of the British establishment’s desire to stop an anti-establishment and anti-Zionist leader from moving in to Number 10 Downing Street.
On 23 September 2022, al-Jazeera headlined “Unprecedented leak exposes inner workings of UK Labour Party: The leaked documents, obtained by Al Jazeera, reveal how party officials smear and intimidate rivals.”, and reported that, “In 2019, Corbyn resigned as leader after the party’s defeat in the December general election. He was eventually replaced by Keir Starmer, Britain’s former director of Public Prosecutions. Soon after Starmer became the leader in April 2020, Formby resigned as general secretary. She was replaced by David Evans. The Labour Files reveal that he has continued the McNicol-era hostility towards left-wing members of the party.” So: from having had the most members of any Party under the progressive Corbyn, the Labour Party quickly sank and lost membership, which resulted in a solid string of Conservative Party Governments, so that, now, leftist voters in Britain have actually no one to vote for.
On 21 October 2022, Craig Murray headlined “The Party is Over”, and he wrote that,
The highly paid political class in charge of each of the UK’s three major political parties detests, despises, distrusts and seeks to discard their own party membership.
The Conservative, Labour and SNP [Scottish National Party, in Scotland] elite all view their party members as a potential embarrassment. ...
The professionals are to radically limit the options of the members.
The Labour Party had under Jeremy Corbyn the largest mass membership of any political party in Europe. The current leadership has succeeded – quite deliberately – in losing half of them. The Labour members elected Keir Starmer on the basis of ten pledges to carry out the kind of left wing policies the Labour membership support. Almost all of those pledges have been summarily broken.
We have witnessed the Labour leadership refuse to endorse strikes which are the main avenue for working class resistance, ban its MPs from the picket lines, and refuse to oppose massive Tory attacks on civil liberties at home, while vying to be the most enthusiastic zionists and warmongers abroad. Labour members are summarily expelled for connection to legitimate socialist organisations.
This is what Labour Party members voted for:
This is typical of what they got:
Keir Starmer’s Shadow Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, not only wants to deport more immigrants than the Tories, she has for a decade been proclaiming that Labour will cut more benefits than the Tories. The disjunction between what Labour Party members want – and were promised by Starmer [in order for him] to get elected – and what Labour MPs want, could not be clearer. …
Starmer is delighted to have shed hundreds of thousands of Corbyn supporting members, to pursue instead corporate and billionaire money. …
The UK’s political parties are becoming uniformly right-wing organisations which represent a very narrow spectrum of views – those of the corporate sector and billionaire donors. …
Irrespective of what Labour and Conservative Party members would like to offer, the electorate is likely to be presented with Sunak or Starmer, two people so close in political outlook and policy there really is little point in turning up to vote.
On 3 December 2023, Reuters headlined “Labour leader Starmer praises Thatcher in bid to woo UK Conservative voters”, and reported:
Keir Starmer, leader of Britain's main opposition Labour Party, has praised former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, a deeply unpopular figure among many Labour supporters, as he seeks to woo Conservative voters before an election expected next year.
Starmer, whose left-wing party is ahead of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's Conservatives by some 20 points in opinion polls, is seeking to cement that advantage by broadening Labour's appeal to attract voters who have spurned the party in national elections over the past 13 years.
Thatcher, dubbed the "Iron Lady" by the UK press at the time, was Britain's Conservative leader from 1979 to 1990. She was an extremely divisive figure, hailed by some but loathed by many on the left for crushing trade unions and privatizing swathes of British industry. She died in 2013.
"Every moment of meaningful change in modern British politics begins with the realisation that politics must act in service of the British people, rather than dictating to them," Starmer wrote in an article for the Sunday Telegraph newspaper.
Starmer headlined then in the Conservative Party’s main newspaper, the Telegraph, “Voters have been betrayed on Brexit and immigration. I stand ready to deliver”, and he opened:
It is too easy to look at Britain today and throw your hands up in despair. Families across the country are bombarded with daily reminders of our current malaise: crumbling public services that no longer serve the public, families weighed down by the anxiety of spiralling mortgage bills and food prices, neighbourhoods plagued by crime and anti-social behaviour. Any one of these individually would be cause for outrage. Taken together they merge into something more insidious: the idea that our country no longer works for those it is supposed to.
That sense of a once great country now set on a path of decline has been sharpened by our political culture. The vast majority of the public don’t think about Westminster much. Why would they? At a time when people are looking for answers to the deep challenges of our age, they see a politics too large in its hectoring and interfering, too small in its ambition and ability. In these difficult conditions, the current Government resembles nothing so much as the sinking Mary Rose: overburdened, incompetently handled, plunging into the depths.
Every moment of meaningful change in modern British politics begins with the realisation that politics must act in service of the British people, rather than dictating to them. Margaret Thatcher sought to drag Britain out of its stupor by setting loose our natural entrepreneurialism. Tony Blair reimagined a stale, outdated Labour Party into one that could seize the optimism of the late 90s. …
Starmer is promising, to Conservative Party voters, that he will carry on in the tradition of Thatcher who despised workers and raised their (but NOT billionaires’) taxes, and in the tradition of the conservative Labourite (and sponsor of Starmer) Tony Blair who had joined with America’s George W. Bush in invading Iraq on the basis of lies; and Starmer closed his opinion-article by saying, “That’s why we extend the hand of friendship to you, no matter where you are or who you have voted for in the past. National renewal demands it. It [neoliberalism-neoconservatism] is only together that we will build the better future we all want.”
Starmer wants leftists to vote for his conservative Party, instead of for the other one (the one that calls itself the Conservatives).
Similarly, America’s ‘democracy’ has collapsed with two political Parties, the Democrats and Republicans, who both vote in the U.S. Congress almost 100% for, and run the White House for, the permanent-warfare economy (Lockheed Martin, etc.), which leaves less and less each year for the American people, in order for the U.S. Government to have more and more each year for overthrowing foreign Governments that The West’s billionaires don’t like, and that they do demand to become replaced.
A two-Party dictatorship is merely a lying ‘democratic’ or ‘republican’, or ‘labour’ or “Tory,” liberal right-wing dictatorship, liberal-fascism, and this is now what The West holds out to the rest of the world, as being ‘democracy’, which foreign governments supposedly should take as their model.
It’s just dictatorship under another name. And, under any name, it is far right but propagandized with liberal clichés instead of merely the old overtly conservative ones. It is designed to fool the public that both of the Parties’ billionaires despise.
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s new book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.
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Islamic Fundamentalism Yasmin Mather
Over the last few years Islamic fundamentalism has been portrayed by some in the West, especially the US administration,as a major world threat. The atrocities committed by a number of Islamic groups, such as the GIA in Algeria,fundamentalists in Egypt or the Islamic states in Iran or Afghanistan, have been used to whip up a sense of hysteria againstIslam. In this article we will try to explain the diverse and often contradictory nature of Islamic fundamentalism, both inIran where an Islamic state came to power in 1979 and among Islamic movements in the Arab world. We will argue thatfundamentalism – contrary to the propaganda of its supporters and its enemies alike – has only strengthened capitalism inIslamic countries, and that, since it poses a diversion to the development of revolutionary movements in these countries, itcan only reinforce the status quo. We will further argue that as Islamic fundamentalism is not a monolithic force, andbecause most of the Islamic world is an integral part of world capitalism, twentieth century Islam is unlikely to threaten"The West" as some want us to believe. In this respect it is important to note that the financial backers of some of the mostbarbaric Islamic groups, such as the Taleban, are Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states and Pakistan, all amongst the staunchestallies of the United States in the region. Others, such as the GIA (Algeria) and the Egyptian fundamentalists responsiblefor recent bombings, are by-products of the Afghan war paid by Saudi money or CIA funds in Pakistan – although atpresent some of these groups might be out of the control of their pay masters. Why fundamentalism?
The sociological reasons behind Islamic fundamentalism have been discussed by many writers and analysts. Industrialization and the rural exodus that started in the 1960s in most Middle Eastern countries saw the creation of shantytowns around many cities. The state in these countries was incapable of dealing with this demographic change. Poverty,unemployment, cultural differences and lack of social mobility all played a part in the alienation of shanty town dwellersfrom the rest of urban society. At the same time, the rate of literacy increased and state education allowed sections of thepetty bourgeoisie access to higher education. Many of the cadres of Islamist parties came from this section, while theirrank-and-file support is mainly from the lumpen youth of the shanty towns. The rise of Islamic fundamentalism in theMiddle East coincided with disillusionment with Marxist, secular ideologies and the failures of Stalinist parties. In Egypt,Algeria and Iraq the popularity of fundamentalism was a reaction to the failures of Arab nationalism and Baathism, and inAfghanistan it was a direct consequence of the failure of the Stalinist state. Contrary to popular belief, neo-fundamentalismis not simply a reaction against modernisation, but a by-product of modernisation. As a result it is often a nationalistmovement dominated by the cultural and political aspirations of various nation states, rather than a monolithic Islamistmovement. Contradictions and impasses of Islamic fundamentalism
There are many reasons, inherent in Islam, why it cannot become a world threat, unifying Muslims in tens of countries. First and foremost is the division between Sunni and Shia sections of Islam, which is at times more profound thandivisions between Muslims and followers of other religions. Shias mainly live in Iran, parts of Iraq, and as a minority inLebanon and Afghanistan; the rest of the Islamic world is predominantly Sunni. The establishment of the first Shia state inIran has led to some virulent anti Shia propaganda by Sunni clerics and Sunni fundamentalists of the Islamic Brotherhood. Second, the divisions within either of these sections regarding essential theological issues, as well as arguments regardingthe role of political Islam, the position of women and economic issues have constantly fragmented and weakened Islamicmovements. As there is no single Islamic culture and no single Islamic nation or language, Islamist movements areprimarily divided along national and regional lines. The Iranian revolution of 1979
If the Iranian revolution was the beginning of the rise of fundamentalism – albeit in a Shia state – the failure of "politicalIslam" in Iran, and the gradual yet consistent transformation of the Islamic state in Iran to "civil society" marks thebeginning of the end for the dream of an Islamic state based on Sharia (religious law and practice). The Iranian uprisingwas a direct result of the failures of the Shah’s regime to respond to the economic crisis that followed the economic boomof the early 1970s. Most skilled workers faced a drop in their living standards in 1976.The White Revolution had left
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massive numbers of peasants landless and penniless, going in search of seasonal jobs in major cities. Recession in theIranian economy left them unemployed and destitute in shanty towns. In addition to the above two groups, the smallindependent producers had been forced out of business (made bankrupt) with the help of Iran’s Chamber of Commerce, torescue the already privileged position of big industrialists. Corruption and the rule of a clique around the Royal courtmeant that many traditional merchants, often associated with the bazaar, were deprived of large profits available to themore privileged sections of the ruling class. The clergy, which had survived the repressive measures of the Shah’sdictatorship by compromising with the regime, was in a much better position to benefit from political discontent thansecular, socialist groups who had had lost many in their ranks through execution and imprisonment. Historical background of Shia clergy in Iran
Historically, Iranian intellectuals are responsible for portraying Shia Islam in Iran as a "progressive force". This concept,encouraged in the 1950s-1980s by Stalinist ideology, is based on the myth that Shia clerics were absent from politicalpower during the rule of various dynasties in Iran, and therefore were part of the movements against absolute monarchs. Infact religious Shia leaders were functionaries of the court (in the Safavid/Qajar dynasties), lived in the court and were partof the establishment and the state. During the Constitutional Revolution, the main aim of the clergy was to stop radicalmovements and, at best, sections of the clergy sided with constitutional monarchists (e.g. Ayatollah Behbahani), while themajority of the clergy was mainly concerned with defending feudalism. During what became known as the "tobaccouprising" most of the Shia clergy ended up in the gardens of the British Embassy supporting one colonial power (Britain )against another (Russia). During the oil crisis of 1953 a minority within the Shia clergy originally supported the limiteddemands of the nationalists – but as the balance of forces changed in favour of the Shah, they suddenly moved back tosupport the Shah. The role of the clerical leader of the time, Ayatollah Kashani, is well documented. In 1963, at the time ofthe Shah’s White Revolution, a reform from above aimed at transforming Iran to a modern capitalist state, the oppositionof the clergy led by Khomeini was completely reactionary. The main planks of his main opposition were two issues:firstly, on the expropriation of the land of feudal land owners, Khomeini’s objection was based on the sanctity of propertyin Islam; secondly, he opposed vehemently the reform to give women the right to vote. On both counts this opposition toreforms was clearly reactionary. Contradictions of Sharia (Islamic laws) – the case of Shia Islam
One of the principle pillars of Shia ideology is the concept of the return of the 12th Imam, who disappeared 13 centuriesago and will only return to earth when corruption, injustice. have reached unbearable levels. In his absence anygovernment is deemed to be unjust and corrupt. In fact as many clerical delegates of the Iranian parliament have repeatedlyreminded us over the last few years, any attempt by government, even a religious government, at improving socialconditions, reducing corruption, reducing poverty or narrowing the gap between the rich and the poor can only delay thearrival of the 12th Imam and therefore contradicts Shia theology. Such ideas are useful when the clergy is in opposition, asthey were in the early history of Islam in 7th and 8th century, but it is a serious hindrance to them when in power. The Shiastate is further based on the cult of personality of it martyred imams and innocence of these imams. Again this worked fineas a historic concept, when stories of the bravery of long-dead imams could aspire devotion martyrdom. It is more difficultwith a living imam (in this case Khomeini) in the last decades of the 20th century, when a minor (or major) indiscretionsuch as the Irangate scandal can tarnish the image of the supreme cleric overnight. Rule of Sharia in a country where thecapitalist mode of production and urbanisation are so advanced is doomed to failure.
However the principle cause for the failure of political Islam is that once it takes power, it institutionalises itself and in theabsence of any Islamist economic policy (i.e. an alternative to capitalism or socialism) it inevitably becomes another thirdworld capitalist state, with all the limitations of such a state. Let us remember that the rise of Islamic fundamentalism had alot to do with the envy of the merchants of the bazaar who could never match the colossal fortunes gathered by theindustrial bourgeoisie around the court and the state in the previous regime. This envy of "monopoly" capital led them toback the clergy, their traditional ideological representatives. Yet once in power, in order to survive and prosper in aninternational capitalist order, this bourgeoisie inevitably had to replace the very capitalists they despised. In some cases,where expertise and international capital were necessary, the Islamic state invited the previous capitalists to return. In othercases they themselves tried to replace the old capitalists. The very people who argued against Western consumption andaccumulation became the consumers, and indeed as modernity is irreversible and universal, the bazaar merchants of Iranwho so vehemently were anti-Western in the late 1970s, have become pro-Western in the late 1990s. A reflection of this,which can also be seen in the "Hezbollah" (supporters of the clergy), is described by Olivier Roy as the
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neo-fundamentalism of Iran with a schizophrenic approach: a hatred of one self for wanting Western consumption(therefore under the influence of Western culture) and a long battle to possess it.
The economics of a capitalist state necessitate a "civil society". Most of the internal battles of the Islamic regime in Iranover the last 9-10 years are indeed part of this struggle. On the one hand those who still believe in the rule of Sharia andthose (religious forces) who have decided that the only way to survive is the establishment of the rule of law in a trulycapitalist state. The current president of the Islamic regime best portrays this position – but even as early as 1979, despiteall the religious rhetoric, the constitution of the first Islamic Republic is far more law-based than many people have beenled to believe, with a role for the parliament, the legislative and executive centres of power in the day-to-day running ofthe state, and religion in all senses taking very much a secondary role. Many have seen this as a clear reflection of thepoverty of Islamic thinking on the issue of political institutions. Olivier Roy suggests that, despite many books and essayswritten by Islamic theologians on details of the rule of Sharia, Iran’s policies over the last 19 years can be described as thepolicies of the crown (the previous order under the Shah) being pursued under the turban (a reference to the clerical hatworn by shia clergy) ("la couronne sous le turban"). Many arguments typical of capitalism have been aired in the Iranianparliament, the Majles – the battle between the statist reformers and defenders of the free market being a primary example. It has been argued that until 1989 and the death of Khomeini, those favouring state ownership dominated the Majles,whereas it is quite clear that since 1989 defenders of the free market have had the upper hand.
In summary, both in economic and political spheres, the first Islamic state has been predominantly, and is increasinglybecoming, a capitalist state with "nationalist" overtones rather than religious ones. International politics
Another pillar of the Sharia deals with the concept of Islamic "Ummah" or the Islamic nation. In many nations, includingIran, examples of Islamic forces in power and in conflict with fellow Muslims over land or oil can be seen. Thus theconcept of the Islamic nation is no more than a myth, with nation states fighting for "national" or "regional" interests farmore aggressively than they do in defence of the so-called Islamic nation. The eight year war between Iran and Iraq clearlydemonstrated this, where both countries relied heavily on Arab and Persian identities.
Contrary to those who believe that Iran’s foreign policy was third worldist, one could argue that it was never more than acontinuation of the Shah’s policies of becoming a regional power. The real policy of Iran has been dominated bycompetition with Turkey, Pakistan, Iraq and Saudi Arabia with strong nationalist overtones. In order to become a regionalpower, Iran pursues a pragmatic foreign policy rather than an Islamist policy, despite all the rhetoric we have heard fromits leaders. For example in pursuit of a fierce competition with Turkey, Iran supported Christian Armenia versus MuslimAzerbaijan, simply because Turkey backed the latter. Iran opposed the Taleban advances in Afghanistan; its propagandatalked of the Taleban giving a bad name to Islam. But in reality the defenders of Hezbollah in Lebanon can’t be tooconcerned about the public image of Taleban, rather the main concern was that Taleban were supported by Saudi andPakistani money, competitors with Iran in the battle for domination of Afghanistan. Iran has kept contacts and reasonablerelations with Israel, mainly because the enemy of its enemies (the Arabs) must be a friend.
Of course Iranian leaders have made a great deal of their support for the deprived Muslims of the world. But in practice,given their total mistrust of Sunni groups, this has amounted to support for a handful of specific splinter groups of the Shiacommunity in Lebanon (under Hezbollah) and a minority of the Shia community in Iraq and Pakistan, most of whom areof Iranian descent. In fact the Islamist rhetoric of the Iranian regime is very much coming to an end. The recent interviewof the Iranian president with CNN signals a significant shift in this policy; he not only expressed great admiration for theAmerican civilisation and its struggles for independence but went further and expressed regret at the takeover of the USembassy in 1980.
The only issue that remains of Iran’s Islamist international rhetoric is the Fatwa on Salman Rushdie, and in this thefundamentalist regime is in a dilemma. Economic needs require better relations with European countries, yet Khomeini'sword cannot be contradicted and Iran’s competition with Saudi Arabia as the defender of the faith depends on this. Women and Islamic Fundamentalism
For over 19 years Iranian women have been victims of the patriarchal laws of the first Islamic Republic.
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Both under the current regime and the previous regimes Iranian women have been deprived of many of their basic humanrights and have suffered from both patriarchal ideologies that treat women as irrational and immature, and fromwidespread discrimination which affects their lives from birth to death. There is no doubt that since the establishment ofthe Islamic Republic in 1979, the plight of women has become worse. During the years of modernisation in the 1970s, alarge number of Iranian women found work in factories and offices. Many clerics argued that "the honour and dignityaccorded women by Islam" had vanished. One of the first acts of Ayatollah Khomeini was the enforcement of the veil onthe 8th of March 1979, less than a month after the establishment of the Islamic regime. The refusal of many organisationsof the left to defend women’s rights on this day led to catastrophic consequences: the Iranian regime started a systematicattack on women’s rights, and the left lost credibility as a defender of women’s rights and a supporter of democratic rights.
The policy of enforced hejab (veil) and segregation was subsequently used to limit women’s access to education andrecreation facilities, and to institutionalise women’s confinement to the limited career and life opportunities available tothem, thus ensuring they become second class citizens. The new government also launched a campaign to drive women outof office jobs and to discourage them from any careers other than nursing and education.
Government propaganda openly talked of the "shame and dishonour" of working in an office and school hours werechanged to make life more difficult for working mothers. All government-funded nurseries and day care centres attachedto offices and factories were closed.
Some Iranian feminists have since argued that Islamic laws including those on the hejab (veil) have had a liberating effecton Iranian women. But in reality the veil was used to ensure that Islamic moral order is not defied and the veil became aninstitutionalised practise of Islamic patriarchy.
Behind it all was a strategy of ensuring a return to traditional roles. The emphasis on motherhood as an essential femininecharacter forms a pillar of Islamic gender ideology. The heroine of Shia ideology is Fatmeh, a daughter of the prophet whomarried Ali (the first Shia Imam) at a very young age, gave birth to his three sons and died at eighteen.
The majority of Iranian muslim girls live in a world dominated and manipulated by their male relatives. They can be givenaway in legal marriage without their knowledge or consent while still in their childhood. The process, in effect, paves theway for selling families to sell their under-aged girls in return for financial gains.
The law of Hodud and Qesas (the law of tallion and physical punishments) treats women as half-human (or nothing) evenin their honesty or observation power, valuing a woman’s testimony in courts as half of a male’s testimony (or even as nilwhen it comes to testifying against murderers; according to article 33 of this law, no woman’s testimony is ever admissiblein murder cases).
The laws governing marriage are among the most regressive in the world in terms of the discrimination against women. While males are allowed to marry up to four wives at a time in permanent marriage and an unlimited number of women inwhat is known as "temporary" marriage, strict monogamy is expected from women. Any woman who deviates from thisset-up may be brutally and savagely punished by publicly, by being stoned to death – the officially-sanctioned, andfrequently executed, punishment for extra-marital affairs.
Inside marriage, the man is given almost a free hand in controlling his wife or wives. Rape inside marriage is sanctioned(as no consent is required for sexual relations inside marriage); wife-beating is tolerated and even encouraged by theKoran: women who disobey their men should be beaten up (soura 30).
A woman’s movement may be restricted by her husband, and his permission is required for getting official traveldocuments. The law gives very few (if any) rights to women in sharing decisions in married life and/or in regards to thecustody of children. Moreover, there are no proper provisions in the law to prevent men from transgressing their rightsand/or abusing the extensive power they have inside marriage.
When it comes to divorce, again, the man has almost a free hand, while the woman has a very limited recourse to the law. The grounds on which a man can divorce his wife are almost unlimited, while only in very unusual circumstances can awoman file for divorce. The extent of this gross and utterly discriminatory law was best exemplified by a report last yearthat an Iranian court has taken fourteen years to approve a divorce request from a woman who complained she wastortured by her husband, regularly reporting new incidents of abuse to the court; she finally agreed to drop all financialdemands against her husband, and had to contact Iran’s Prosecutor-General to get her divorce. In another case, the processtook eight years.
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The divorce law also inflicts huge financial and emotional blows to the woman. The woman has to forfeit almost allfinancial claims if she files for divorce, while the settlement she receives if the divorce is initiated by the man is still verylimited. The emotional loss is much greater and more hurtful: the woman is deprived from the custody of her children(some as young as two); custody is usually awarded to the man. Within and without marriage, even the father’s father isgiven priority over the mother in custody matters.
The extent of discrimination against women in marriage goes still further. A virgin woman (whatever her age) has no rightto marriage without the consent of her father (or her father’s father, in the absence of her father). A Muslim woman has noright to marry a non-Muslim, (a right her male counterparts have, with some limitations).
Discriminatory laws against women have created favourable conditions and a suitable environment for widespread abusesand atrocities against women. Women have no effective recourse to the law in case they are abused, beaten or raped. Evenmany incidents of rape outside marriage go unreported because of the justifiable fears of the victim from being"dishonoured", cursed or even murdered by members of her own family and friends, or being prosecuted by the State andbrutally punished by a large number of lashes or stoned to death if she was judged by the court as being a willing partner.
Many of the common laws such as the law of Hodud and Qesas, in conjunction with the discriminatory laws mentionedabove, work directly against women. As another example, if someone commits homicide in an all-female environment (thefrequency of which is itself a consequence of sexual segregation inside and outside the house), it will be impossible to geta conviction based solely on the testimony of the women present (no matter how many of them). According to article 33 ofthe law of Hodud and Qesas, no homicide case may be proved in court solely on the basis of women's testimonies.
Defiance of the hejab code is punishable by 74 lashes (as very few women will ever dare walk out without a head scarf thisoften means showing a fringe) and, "since the crime is self-evident", punishment does not require a court decision andenforcement of the punishment can be immediate. Women are either arrested or given verbal warnings. Those who arecaught showing a fringe under a hejab are accused of "flaunting their naked bodies in the streets" and denounced as"corrupt, seditious, dangerous and destructive of public honour and chastity". Others face the 74 lashes. Some women havehad paint splashed on their faces by patrolling Islamic squads.
Iranian women have been fighting hard against these injustices, but have had limited success in the face of theoverwhelming power of the State and its institutions. The privileged position of a handful of token women, mainly closerelatives of senior clerics, in higher echelons of the Islamic government, should not deceive anyone.
At a time when many Iranian feminists in exile have become apologists for the Islamic regime, it is up to the revolutionaryleft to defend and support the struggles of Iranian women with commitment, determination and as a major part of thestruggle against the Islamic regime. References:
Rodinson M. Islam et Capitalism, Le Seuil 1966
Roy Olivier, L’echec de l’Islam politique, Le Seuil 1992
Shahidian Hammed, Islamic Feminism and Feminist Politics in Iran, University of Illinois at Springfield, USA
http://www.isf.org.uk/ISFJournal/ISF3/IslamicFundamentalism.htm (5 of 5) [8/17/2000 9:45:01 PM]
Dott. Daniele FarinaCurriculum formativo /professionale Titoli di StudioLaurea in Medicina e Chirurgia presso l’Università di Torino conseguita il 30.10.78 con lode Specializzazione in clinica Pediatrica presso l’Università di Torino conseguita il 02.07.81 con lodePerfezionamento in Neonatologia presso l’Università di Verona conseguita il 17.11.83Idoneità Nazionale a Primario di Pediatr
conflict & communication online, Vol. 3, No. 1/2, 2004 Media Peace Discourse: Constraints, Concepts and Building Blocks Kurzfassung: Normative, fachliche und akademische Voraussetzungen bestimmen die Diskussion sowohl über die Wichtigkeit als auch überdas Fehlen eines Friedensdiskurses in den Medien ebenso wie über die Notwendigkeit und die Möglichkeit, einen solchen Diskurs anzusto-�
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Clockwise from top left: Zhou Bo, Anna Rosario Malindog-Uy, Li Aixin, and John Pang, discuss the South China Sea issue during Global Minds Roundtable on January 10, 2024. Photo: screenshot
Tensions between China and the Philippines in the South China Sea have been bubbling up for some time. Where is the situation headed in 2024? Could a conflict be sparked accidentally? In the latest episode of Global Times' Global Minds Roundtable (GT), Zhou Bo (Zhou), senior fellow of the Centre for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University, Anna Rosario Malindog-Uy (Malindog-Uy), director and vice president for external affairs of the Asian Century Philippines Strategic Studies Institute, and John Pang (Pang), a former Malaysian government official and a senior research fellow at Perak Academy, Malaysia, shared their views on these issues.
GT: How do you see the South China Sea situation developing in 2024?
Pang: It is actually driven by the US.
However, the US was already defeated by the Taliban in Afghanistan, by Russia in Ukraine, and by the Houthis recently in the Red Sea. It is in absolutely no shape to take on China in the South China Sea. They can't afford something blowing up in an election year.
I have enough faith in the maturity and the statesmanship of the Chinese government and the capacity of the PLA Navy to limit any particular skirmish. So at this point, it would be extremely foolhardy for the Philippines to be auditioning to be the next proxy to be destroyed.
GT: In 2016, China issued a white paper noting that the Philippines had promised to tow away the vessel on Ren'ai Reef. Yet the Philippines later denied making this promise and refused to acknowledge it due to the lack of a written agreement. What do you think is the reason behind the shift in the Philippines' attitude?
Malindog-Uy: The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China is saying that there was a promise. Some non-Chinese sources are also affirming that the promise exists. Gregory Poling, the director of the Southeast Asia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, revealed in his 2022 book that, and I quote, "when the Chinese government demanded that the ship be removed, President Estrada (then Philippine president), feigning ignorance, promised to tow the vessel away as soon as it could be safely floated off the reef."
The current Philippine government has denied making such a promise, and various Philippine government officials, and former presidents, have publicly stated that no such agreement was made. Also, it seems that there is no publicly available evidence of a documented promise by the Philippines to remove the vessel from the shoal. The conflicting claims from both sides make the situation complicated.
At the moment, political establishment in the Philippines are asserting that the vessel is in the shoal as a de facto military outpost of the Philippines and serves as a physical assertion of the Philippines' claim and presence in the area.
Unlike China, there's no consistency in the Philippines, when you talk about foreign policy. Philippine foreign policy varies significantly with changes in government and political leadership.
Zhou: Even Philippine scholars like you (Anna), know what promises your government made in the past on this issue. Otherwise, the Chinese government could not have written these remarks in the white paper.
China has been quite accommodating to all ASEAN claimants. Look at the Taiwan question. We said that we will make utmost efforts to resolve it peacefully. But still, there are three conditions in which we might apply non-peaceful means. But with ASEAN countries, China has never threatened to use force against any claimant. You can tell the difference and how patient we have been. But if the Philippines made a promise, violated the promise, and wants to have a permanent presence on the reef, that goes too far.
We do not want the Philippines to make this kind of installation a permanent military base. So my best answer is to let Mother Nature solve this problem. A ship that is not refurbished will become rustier, and eventually, this problem will be gone. If you put in cement and get it strengthened, this will become a bigger issue.
Pang: Regarding the Philippine actions with the grounded ship, if you ask me how these made-for-media antics make other countries in ASEAN feel, I'd venture to say that makes them uncomfortable. They're not going to reproach the Philippine government in public. The ASEAN way is to raise these matters behind the scenes. Going to the media, playing it up and letting domestic politics run the show, as in the US, would not be the ASEAN way. It also damages a key ASEAN concern: ASEAN centrality.
The Philippines is not the only democracy in Southeast Asia. Malaysia and Indonesia are also electoral democracies, and both have maintained a consistent policy toward China over decades. ASEAN does not want to see a member state placing itself in the service of great power politics, and involving the region in exactly the kind of great power conflict that ASEAN was founded to avoid.
GT: Could a conflict be sparked accidentally between China and the Philippines in the South China Sea in 2024?
Malindog-Uy: Hard to predict. The tendency for a conflict or a confrontation, especially a military one, is there. There are skirmishes between our navies.
I don't think the US is prepared to have a head-on military collision with China in the South China Sea, or even in the Taiwan Straits. That's why it uses a proxy, and my country, the Philippines, is being used as a pawn or a proxy. I'm always worried that my country, under the current administration, would be an instrument for a regional conflict that could lead to a global conflict.
I hope this will never happen, in 2024 or the coming years.
Zhou: I think the possibility of a conflict is not zero, but it is highly unlikely. I hope it won't happen at all.
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As usual when discussing a project the political world has got the relationship between jobs and costs entirely the wrong way around. Donald Trump, and others, are waving around job creation numbers like a toddler showing Mommy how the toilet training is going along. Proud pointing to all the good work being done here. Which is to entirely miss the point about jobs and projects–the number of jobs created by a project is a cost of that project, not a benefit of it. We would thus very much prefer to minimise job creation, not maximise it. That is, we should hope that the people saying Keystone XL will produce 35 jobs are correct, not the people touting 20 and 30 thousand.
But, you know, it’s traditional to get this wrong:
And Trump’s touting of the number of jobs to be created by the project – hyperbolic by most estimates – could also draw increased scrutiny to its economic benefits, particularly for the blue-collar tradesmen whose lot the president has promised to improve….(…)…Trump claims the number would be 28,000, and TransCanada promises 13,000 in construction alone, while the Obama-era State Department slims that estimate down to about 3,900 – and just 35 permanent ones. Opponents of the project have pointed out that drastic difference between permanent and temporary work in accusing advocates of inflating job-creation numbers…
My colleague Ellen Wald has a good review of how many jobs will be created where. But it is still true that we must consider those construction jobs to be a cost, not a benefit, of the pipeline project. On the useful logical grounds that they are a cost.
At one level this is entirely obvious. The pipeline builders are going to have to pay the workers to come and do those jobs. If you’ve got money going out that’s a cost. Jobs are therefore a cost, obviously so. But there’s another economic level to this as well. The true price of something is what you must give up to get it. If we’ve 35, or 28,000, jobs on the pipeline then that’s 35, or 28,000, people not doing something else. The price to us, the cost to us, of the pipeline is thus the loss of the other things those 35, or 28,000, would produce in the absence of their working on the pipeline.
Given that pretty much all of them are going to be construction workers that means something else that doesn’t get built. Say, just for the lolz, that without the pipeline we’d have a project to turn Route 66 into the Chuck Berry Memorial Highway. If we don’t have the pipeline those construction workers can build the highway. If we do have the pipeline we can’t have the highway. The cost of Keystone to us is therefore the absence of the Chuck Berry Memorial Highway.
That is, all this chest beating about how many jobs Keystone XL will create is entirely the wrong way around. For jobs are a cost of the project, not a benefit.
Jobs Are A Cost Of The Keystone XL Pipeline, Not A Benefit – Forbes
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Movement of New Forces party leader Mikheil Saakashvili has called on his supporters to walk to the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada building and demand that parliamentarians pass legislation on the president's impeachment.
"Let's go to the Rada all together and demand the president's impeachment," Saakashvili said to a crowd of his supporters and journalists on Kostelna Street in central Kyiv on December 5, after leaving a vehicle in which law enforcement agencies had planned to deliver him to investigators for questioning.
"I am calling on everyone to go to Maidan and begin the process of ridding the country of [President Petro] Poroshenko," he said.
After that, Saakashvili and his supporters walked down Kostelna Street toward Independence Square.
Prosecutor General of Ukraine Yuriy Lutsenko has claimed the leader of the New Forces Movement party, ex-head of Odesa regional state administration, Mikheil Saakashvili, received from the fugitive Serhiy Kurchenko $500,000 for his activities in Ukraine.
"A citizen of Ukraine Severion Dengadze, in agreement with Saakashvili, turned through a confidant to Serhiy Kurchenko, who is fleeing from prosecution ... on the issue of the stable financing of Saakashvili's activities in exchange for the interests of the members of the organized criminal group. We recorded a $500,000 receipt of funds from the Russian side for Saakashvili," he said at a briefing in Kyiv on December 5.
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“The longer you look back, the farther you can look forward” – Sir Winston Churchill
It is a well-accepted fact that many communities were changed, and even shaped, by the impact of the First World War. From coast to coast, the war claimed the lives of thousands of Canadians, tested the industrial capacity of Canada’s cities, and strained federal and municipal politics. The Waterloo Region was no exception to the sweeping effect of the war upon their unique society. The Canadian Censuses, in 1871, 1881, 1891, 1901, and 1911, reveal several trends that indicate that the Waterloo Region had a unique cultural and economic landscape in Southern Ontario. This first section discussed who the people of the Waterloo Region were ethnically, religiously, economically, and politically before the outbreak of the war. In order to understand the events and reactions of those living in the Region during the First World War, it is useful to develop an understanding of the people residing in the Region prior to 1914.
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troops are conducting a coordinated operation to hunt down Al-Qaeda and
Taliban militants along the Afghan border.
"Pakistan doesn’t have the drone
technology. Therefore, we have to depend on them (US forces)," a senior
Pakistani government official told IslamOnline.net, requesting
anonymity for the sensitivity of the issue.
For more details click here
The latest such attack targeted a house in
the northwestern Bannu district, the first US missile strike outside
the rugged tribal regions.
"The attack is part of a coordinated
operation jointly launched by Pakistani and US forces along Pak-Afghan
border," confirmed the government official.
Powered by ScribeFire.
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If you haven’t already seen it, this photograph is a PR nightmare for the Conservatives. It shows a 4-year-old boy with suspected pneumonia forced to sleep on a Leeds hospital floor because of a bed shortage. It’s an image that’ll resonate with any parent, but it’s particularly heart-breaking for anyone who’s taken their child to A&E in a similar situation: it was just a few months ago that my own son was being investigated for and later treated for pneumonia, so I’m particularly aware of how awful and frightening the wait can be.
It’s the kind of image that can change the path of elections, so the Conservatives have reacted very strongly. What’s interesting about that is the way they’re doing it. They appear to have activated a very powerful misinformation machine to spread outright lies.
Let’s make something clear first. There’s no doubt that the image is genuine. The Chief Medical Officer at the hospital has already apologised. The Chief Executive has made a personal apology to the child’s mother.
That’s not what people are seeing on social media. On Twitter and on Facebook they’re seeing the same message from multiple unconnected accounts, many of which have lain dormant for some time:
A good friend of mine is a senior nursing sister at Leeds Hospital – the boy shown on the floor by the media was in fact put there by his mother who then took photos on her mobile phone and uploaded it to media outlets before he climbed back on his trolley.
Here’s how it looks on Twitter.
The same cut-and-pasted text has since been retweeted manually by minor public figures such as former England cricketer Kevin Pietersen. But the initial rush of publication has come from what appears to be a centrally co-ordinated network of social media accounts.
The same message is being posted to carefully selected Facebook groups, as Marc Owen Jones explains (with screenshots as proof). Facebook groups are a very effective way of targeting voters of particular demographics, not least because nobody outside the group usually sees what you’re posting there.
In one example, Jason Crosby pastes the tweet on the FB group for “Seaham Have Your Say”. Seaham have your say is a page with 24k followers serving the North Eastern coastal town of Seaham. His post gets 91 comments and 26 shares.
And it’s making its way to the right-wing press. Here’s Allison Pearson of the Telegraph.
Pearson also claims that the mother of the child is upset that “Corbyn politicised it”, which is at odds with the claim that the mother staged the photos for political reasons. [Update, later that day: Pearson has now deleted the tweets without explanation or apology, presumably after a word with a libel lawyer.]
To reiterate: the hospital has already apologised. From the BBC:
Dr Yvette Oade, chief medical officer at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, said: “Our hospitals are extremely busy at the moment and we are very sorry that Jack’s family had a long wait in our Emergency Department.”
She added: “We are extremely sorry that there were only chairs available in the treatment room, and no bed. This falls below our usual high standards, and for this we would like to sincerely apologise to Jack and his family.”
What we’re seeing here is deeply disturbing. In response to a story it doesn’t like, the Conservative Party – or more likely, a separate organisation with plausible deniability of its connections to the Conservative Party – is trying to bury it not with spin, but with outright lies and defamation. Those lies are coming from a range of sock puppet accounts on multiple social networks and their message is then amplified by tame journalists.
This is no different from the fake-news chants of Donald Trump: the goal is to delegitimise the media, to push the narrative that everything you read critical of The Party is a lie. And it’s a key tactic of fascist politics, which is why it’s so frightening.
Fascism does not begin with jackboots. It begins with creating a “them” and an “us” and then delegitimising the institutions that limit state power such as the judiciary and the press. They ridicule the judges, claiming they represent special interests and are “enemies of the people”, as The Daily Mail put it. They accuse the press of bias and of lying, accusing them of speaking on behalf of the “them” against the “us”. If the press is not compliant, it is threatened into silence (this week alone the Conservatives have threatened the licence of Channel 4 and the funding of the BBC) or dismissed as fraudulent.
Our current Prime Minister is connected to former Trump advisor Steve Bannon, a proud supporter of far-right extremists who wants to “destroy the state”: “I want to bring everything crashing down and destroy all of today’s establishment,” he says. Delegitimising the press is a key part of that strategy.
The US Holocaust Museum famously lists 14 early warning signs of fascism. They are:
- Powerful and continuing nationalism
- Disdain for human rights
- Identification of enemies as a unifying cause
- Supremacy of the military
- Rampant sexism
- Controlled mass media
- Obsession with national security
- Religion and government intertwined
- Corporate power protected
- Labour power suppressed
- Disdain for intellectuals and the arts
- Obsession with crime and punishment
- Rampant cronyism and corruption
- Fraudulent elections
How many can you tick?
We don’t have all 14 yet, but many of the items in the list should give us pause. More than any other party, The Conservatives seem to be taking us down a road that we’ve seen many other countries travel. We know all too well where that road can lead.
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He is appointed as an independent non-executive Director, member of audit committee, remuneration committee and risk management committee of the Company. Mr. Zhao obtained his bachelor’s degree in law majoring in economic law from the Renmin University of China Law School in July 1989. In January 2005, Mr. Zhao obtained his master’s degree in law majoring in economic law from Renmin University of China Law School. Mr. Zhao has substantial professional legal experience. He is proficient in civil law theory and jurisprudence, contract, corporate, finance, construction, real estate, investment, competition, intellectual property, international arbitration, labour law litigation and non-litigation matters. Mr. Zhao was a legal director at Nanyue Law Office of Guangdong and Guangdong Bowen Law Office, and management committee member of Guangdong Fazhishengbang Law Office. Mr. Zhao is currently a deputy director and senior partner at Kings Law Firm in Guangdong, an arbitrator at China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission, Arbitration Centre Across the Straits, China Guangzhou Arbitration Commission, Foshan Arbitration Commission and Shantou Arbitration Commission. Mr. Zhao served as an independent non-executive director of State Energy Group International Assets Holdings Limited, a company listed on The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited (stock code: 918) for the period from October 2018 to December 2021.
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§ 18.2-271.1 Probation, education and rehabilitation of person charged or convicted; person convicted under law of another state
§ 18.2-271.1. Probation, education and rehabilitation of person charged or convicted; person convicted under law of another state
A. Any person convicted of a first or second offense of § 18.2-266 (i), (ii), (iii), or (iv), or any ordinance of a county, city, or town similar to the provisions thereof, or provisions of subsection A of § 46.2-341.24, shall be required by court order, as a condition of probation or otherwise, to enter into and successfully complete an alcohol safety action program in the judicial district in which such charge is brought or in any other judicial district upon such terms and conditions as the court may set forth. However, upon motion of a person convicted of any such offense following an assessment of the person conducted by an alcohol safety action program, the court, for good cause, may decline to order participation in such a program if the assessment by the alcohol safety action program indicates that intervention is not appropriate for such person. In no event shall such persons be permitted to enter any such program which is not certified as meeting minimum standards and criteria established by the Commission on the Virginia Alcohol Safety Action Program (VASAP) pursuant to subsection H of this section and to 18.2-271.2. However, any person charged with a violation of a first or second offense of § 18.2-266 (i), (ii), (iii), or (iv), or any ordinance of a county, city, or town similar to the provisions thereof, or provisions of subsection A of § 46.2-341.24, may, at any time prior to trial, enter into an alcohol safety action program in the judicial district in which such charge is brought or in any other judicial district.
B. The court shall require the person entering such program under the provisions of this section to pay a fee of no less than $250 but no more than $300. A reasonable portion of such fee, as may be determined by the Commission on VASAP, but not to exceed 10 percent, shall be forwarded monthly to be deposited with the State Treasurer for expenditure by the Commission on VASAP, and the balance shall be held in a separate fund for local administration of driver alcohol rehabilitation programs. Upon a positive finding that the defendant is indigent, the court may reduce or waive the fee. In addition to the costs of the proceeding, fees as may reasonably be required of defendants referred for intervention under any such program may be charged.
C. Upon conviction of a violation of § 18.2-266 or any ordinance of a county, city or town similar to the provisions thereof, or subsection A of § 46.2-341.24, the court shall impose the sentence authorized by § 18.2-270 or 46.2-341.28 and the license revocation as authorized by § 18.2-271. In addition, if the conviction was for a second offense committed within less than 10 years after a first such offense, the court shall order that restoration of the person's license to drive be conditioned upon the installation of an ignition interlock system on each motor vehicle, as defined in § 46.2-100, owned by or registered to the person, in whole or in part, for a period of six months beginning at the end of the three year license revocation, unless such a system has already been installed for six months prior to that time pursuant to a restricted license order under subsection E of this section. Upon a finding that a person so convicted is required to participate in the program described herein, the court shall enter the conviction on the warrant, and shall note that the person so convicted has been referred to such program. The court may then proceed to issue an order in accordance with subsection E of this section, if the court finds that the person so convicted is eligible for a restricted
license. If the court finds good cause for a person not to participate in such program or subsequently that such person has violated, without good cause, any of the conditions set forth by the court in entering the program, the court shall dispose of the case as if no program had been entered, in which event the revocation provisions of § 46.2-389 and subsection A of § 46.2-391 shall be applicable to the conviction. The court shall, upon final disposition of the case, send a copy of its order to the Commissioner of the Department of Motor Vehicles. If such order provides for the issuance of a restricted license, the Commissioner of the Department of Motor Vehicles, upon receipt thereof, shall issue a restricted license. Appeals from any such disposition shall be allowed as provided by law. The time within which an appeal may be taken shall be calculated from the date of the final disposition of the case or any motion for rehearing, whichever is later.
D. Any person who has been convicted in another state of the violation of a law of such state substantially similar to the provisions of § 18.2-266 or subsection A of § 46.2-341.24, and whose privilege to operate a motor vehicle in this Commonwealth is subject to revocation under the provisions of § 46.2-389 and subsection A of § 46.2-391, may petition the general district court of the county or city in which he resides that he be given probation and assigned to a program as provided in subsection A of this section and that, upon entry into such program, he be issued an order in accordance with subsection E of this section. If the court finds that such person would have qualified therefor if he had been convicted in this Commonwealth of a violation of § 18.2-266 or subsection A of § 46.2-341.24, the court may grant the petition and may issue an order in accordance with subsection E of this section as to the period of license suspension or revocation imposed pursuant to § 46.2-389 or subsection A of § 46.2-391. Such order shall be conditioned upon the successful completion of a program by the petitioner. If the court subsequently finds that such person has violated any of the conditions set forth by the court, the court shall dispose of the case as if no program had been entered and shall notify the Commissioner, who shall revoke the person's license in accordance with the provisions of § 46.2-389 or subsection A of § 46.2-391. A copy of the order granting the petition or subsequently revoking or suspending such person's license to operate a motor vehicle shall be forthwith sent to the Commissioner of the Department of Motor Vehicles.
No period of license suspension or revocation shall be imposed pursuant to this subsection which, when considered together with any period of license suspension or revocation previously imposed for the same offense in any state, results in such person's license being suspended for a period in excess of the maximum periods specified in this subsection.
E. Except as otherwise provided herein, whenever a person enters a certified program pursuant to this section, and such person's license to operate a motor vehicle, engine or train in the Commonwealth has been suspended or revoked, the court may, in its discretion and for good cause shown, provide that such person be issued a restricted permit to operate a motor vehicle for any of the following purposes: (i) travel to and from his place of employment; (ii) travel to and from an alcohol rehabilitation or safety action program; (iii) travel during the hours of such person's employment if the operation of a motor vehicle is a necessary incident of such employment; (iv) travel to and from school if such person is a student, upon proper written verification to the court that such person is enrolled in a continuing program of education; (v) travel for health care services, including medically necessary transportation of an elderly parent or, as designated by the court, any person residing in the person's household with a serious medical problem upon written verification of need by a licensed health professional; (vi) travel necessary to transport a minor
child under the care of such person to and from school, day care, and facilities housing medical service providers; (vii) travel to and from court-ordered visitation with a child of such person; (viii) travel to a screening, evaluation and education program entered pursuant to § 18.2-251 or subsection H of § 18.2-258.1; (ix) travel to and from court appearances in which he is a subpoenaed witness or a party and appointments with his probation officer and to and from any programs required by the court or as a condition of probation; (x) travel to and from a place of religious worship one day per week at a specified time and place; (xi) travel to and from appointments approved by the Division of Child Support Enforcement of the Department of Social Services as a requirement of participation in a court-ordered intensive case monitoring program for child support for which the participant maintains written proof of the appointment, including written proof of the date and time of the appointment, on his person; or (xii) travel to and from
jail to serve a sentence when such person has been convicted and sentenced to confinement in jail and pursuant to § 53.1-131.1 the time to be served is on weekends or nonconsecutive days. No restricted license issued pursuant to this subsection shall permit any person to operate a commercial motor vehicle as defined in the Virginia Commercial Driver's License Act (§ 46.2-341.1 et seq.). The court shall order the surrender of such person's license to operate a motor vehicle to be disposed of in accordance with the provisions of § 46.2-398 and shall forward to the Commissioner of the Department of Motor Vehicles a copy of its order entered pursuant to this subsection, which shall specifically enumerate the restrictions imposed and contain such information regarding the person to whom such a permit is issued as is reasonably necessary to identify such person. The court shall also provide a copy of its order to the person so convicted who may operate a motor vehicle on the order until receipt from the Commissioner of the Department of Motor Vehicles of a restricted license, if the order provides for a restricted license for that time period. A copy of such order and, after receipt thereof, the restricted license shall be carried at all times while operating a motor vehicle. Any person who operates a motor vehicle in violation of any restrictions imposed pursuant to this section shall be guilty of a violation of § 18.2-272. Such restricted license shall be conditioned upon enrollment within 15 days in, and successful completion of, a program as described in subsection A of this section. No restricted license shall be issued during the first four months of a revocation imposed pursuant to subsection B of § 18.2-271 or subsection A of § 46.2-391 for a second offense of the type described therein committed within 10 years of a first such offense. No restricted license shall be issued during the first year of a revocation imposed pursuant to subsection B of § 18.2-271 or subsection A of § 46.2-391 for a second offense of the type described therein committed within five years of a first such offense. No restricted license shall be issued during any revocation period imposed pursuant to subsection C of § 18.2-271 or subsection B of § 46.2-391. Notwithstanding the provisions of § 46.2-411, the fee charged pursuant to § 46.2-411 for reinstatement of the driver's license of any person whose privilege or license has been suspended or revoked as a result of a violation of § 18.2-266, subsection A of § 46.2-341.24 or of any ordinance of a county, city or town, or of any federal law or the laws of any other state similar to the provisions of § 18.2-266 or subsection A of § 46.2-341.24 shall be $105. Forty dollars of such reinstatement fee shall be retained by the Department of Motor Vehicles as provided in § 46.2-411, $40 shall be transferred to the Commission on VASAP, and $25 shall be transferred to the Commonwealth Neurotrauma Initiative Trust Fund.
F. The court shall have jurisdiction over any person entering such program under any provision of this section until such time as the case has been disposed of by either successful completion of the program, or revocation due to ineligibility or violation of a condition or conditions imposed by the court, whichever shall first occur. Revocation proceedings shall be commenced by notice to show cause why the court should not revoke the privilege afforded by this section. Such notice shall be made by first-class mail to the last known address of such person, and shall direct such person to appear before the court in response thereto on a date contained in such notice, which shall not be less than 10 days from the date of mailing of the notice. Failure to appear in response to such notice shall of itself be grounds for revocation of such privilege. Notice of revocation under this subsection shall be sent forthwith to the Commissioner of the Department of Motor Vehicles.
G. For the purposes of this section, any court which has convicted a person of a violation of § 18.2-266, subsection A of § 46.2-341.24 or any ordinance of a county, city or town similar to the provisions of § 18.2-266 shall have continuing jurisdiction over such person during any period of license revocation related to that conviction, for the limited purposes of (i) referring such person to a certified alcohol safety action program, (ii) providing for a restricted permit for such person in accordance with the provisions of subsection E, and (iii) imposing terms, conditions and limitations for actions taken pursuant to clauses (i) and (ii),whether or not it took either such action at the time of the conviction. This continuing jurisdiction is subject to the limitations of subsection E that provide that no restricted license shall be issued during a revocation imposed pursuant to subsection C of § 18.2-271 or subsection B of § 46.2-391 or during the first four months or first year, whichever is applicable, of the revocation imposed pursuant to subsection B of § 18.2-271 or subsection A of § 46.2-391. The provisions of this subsection shall apply to a person convicted of a violation of § 18.2-266, subsection A of § 46.2-341.24 or any ordinance of a county, city or town similar to the provisions of § 18.2-266 on, after and at any time prior to July 1, 2003.
H. The State Treasurer, the Commission on VASAP or any city or county is authorized to accept any gifts or bequests of money or property, and any grant, loan, service, payment or property from any source, including the federal government, for the purpose of driver alcohol education. Any such gifts, bequests, grants, loans or payments shall be deposited in the separate fund provided in subsection B.
I. The Commission on VASAP, or any county, city, town, or any combination thereof may establish and, if established, shall operate, in accordance with the standards and criteria required by this subsection, alcohol safety action programs in connection with highway safety. Each such program shall operate under the direction of a local independent policy board chosen in accordance with procedures approved and promulgated by the Commission on VASAP. Local sitting or retired district court judges who regularly hear or heard cases involving driving under the influence and are familiar with their local alcohol safety action programs may serve on such boards. The Commission on VASAP shall establish minimum standards and criteria for the implementation and operation of such programs and shall establish procedures to certify all such programs to ensure that they meet the minimum standards and criteria stipulated by the Commission. The Commission shall also establish criteria for the administration of such programs for public information activities, for accounting procedures, for the auditing requirements of such programs and for the allocation of funds. Funds paid to the Commonwealth hereunder shall be utilized in the discretion of the Commission on VASAP to offset the costs of state programs and local programs run in conjunction with any county, city or town and costs incurred by the Commission. The Commission shall submit an annual report as to actions taken at the close of each calendar year to the Governor and the General Assembly.
J. Notwithstanding any other provisions of this section or of § 18.2-271, nothing in this section shall permit the court to suspend, reduce, limit, or otherwise modify any disqualification from operating a commercial motor vehicle imposed under the provisions of the Virginia Commercial Driver's License Act (§ 46.2-341.1 et seq.).
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Java (Indonesian: Jawa), area 132,000 square km, has 114 million inhabitants and is the most densely populated island in Indonesia, with 864 people per kmē. It is the most populous island in the world. If it were a country it would be the second most densely populated country of the world, except for some very small countries (after Bangladesh).
Java is divided into 4 provinces, 1 special region* (daerah istimewa), and 1 special capital city district** (daerah khusus ibukota):
Java is located in a chain of islands with Sumatra to the northwest, Bali to the east, Borneo to the northeast and Christmas Island to the south. It is the world's 13th largest island.
Java is almost entirely of volcanic origin, and contains no less than thirty-eight mountains of that conical form which indicates their having at one time or other been active volcanoes. See Volcanoes of Java.
Java contains the capital of Indonesia, Jakarta. Popular tourist destinations include the city of Yogyakarta, a massive pyramid-like monument to Buddhism known as Borobudur, and Prambanan, the largest Hindu temple in Java.
Java is also the most densely populated island in Indonesia, with nearly half of the overall population of the country residing on Java and Bali. Since the 1980s the Indonesian government has started a transmigration program aimed at resettling the population of Java on other less-populated islands of Indonesia, many of which are in need of development. However, a highly corrupted bureaucracy ensured poor results, and in many instances ethnic tension between the native people and the settlers. Recent examples include the ethnic/religious wars in southern Borneo between the native animistic population and the settlers from Madura.
The island of Java is also famous for the Java man, a set of fossil remains of Homo erectus found near the Brantas river in East Java. Two million years ago, the rainfall in the Sunda and Digul plateaus were very heavy, and allowed heavy tropical vegetation to thrive. This in turn allowed many prehistoric cultures to emerge, as evidenced in many fossil findings in this region.
Hindu and Buddhist kingdoms
The island of Java is the site of many Hindu and Buddhist temples, such as the Borobudur temple. Indeed, the Javanese culture, and language itself, was heavily influences by the Indian continental culture and language. In the 6th and 7th centuries many maritime kingdoms arose in Sumatra and Java which controlled the waters in the Straits of Malacca and flourished with the increasing sea trade between China and India and beyond. During this time, scholars from India and China visited these kingdoms to translate literary and religious texts.
The most prominent of the Hindu kingdoms was the Majapahit kingdom based in Central Java. Its control of a large portion of Indonesia has been used by the current Indonesian government to promote their national unity campaign.
The remnants of the Javanese Hindu kingdom Majapahit moved to Bali during the 16th century, away from the growing influence of the Muslim kingdoms to the west of their territory. They remained isolated until the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when the Dutch mounted military expeditions to gain control of the island. Today Bali's native population is still overwhelmingly Hindus.
Muslim kingdoms and the Dutch colonization
The earliest Muslim evangelists were called the Wali Songo , the nine ambassadors. Several of them were of Chinese origin, leading to speculation of Zheng He's influence on the trade in the Straits of Malacca. Many of their tombs are still well-preserved, and often visited for superstitious and religious reasons.
Most of the brand of Islam that is adopted in Java is mixed with the local superstitions, and has a decidedly local flavor. For example, the legend of Nyi Roro Kidul was invented as a mix of the superstition common in the southern banks of Java and Islamic influences. Islam was also used as a political motive in support of the resistance of the later Java kingdoms against the Dutch colonials.
The Dutch East India Company established its trading and administrative headquarters in Batavia, and ruled Java through control of the Javanese courts in Yogyakarta and Surakarta. Despite several insurgencies, the Dutch maintained control until the Japanese invasion in World War II.
The Dutch started coffee and tea plantation on the island of Java, hence the term java is often used in place of coffee. These plantations still exist to today, and while the tea products are not considered gourmet, the coffee products are highly sought-after. The culture of coffee so permeates the Javanese culture that upon visiting a house, one is often automatically served a cup of coffee (often with a lot of sugar and/or milk) without asking.
The 19th century saw the Dutch government take over administration of the East Indies from the Dutch East India Company, and in the mid-19th century they implemented the cultuurstelsel and cultuurprocenten policies, which caused widespread famine and poverty. A Dutch author Douwes Dekker wrote a novel Max Havelaar to protest these conditions, and in turn the political and social movement spurned by this protest resulted in the Ethical Policy , by which many Javanese elites were given a chance to earn Dutch education both in Java and in the Netherlands itself.
Jakarta was made the capital of Indonesia upon her indepence, and an overwhelming majority of the figures of Indonesian independence are from Java as a result of the ethical policy from the beginning of the 20th century. This ensures political dominance that continues to today. The respected Indonesian author Pramoedya Ananta Toer once recommended that the Indonesian capital be moved outside the island of Java in order to free the Indonesian nationalist movement off its Java-centric character.
Being the location of the capital means that Java, and Bali, are the most developed regions of Indonesia. However, overpopulation means that most facilties are overused, and since the mid-1980s the government has started a transmigration program to resettle people from Java to other less-populated, and less-developed, regions such as in Kalimantan and Sumatra.
Generally speaking, the three main cultures of Java are the Sunda culture of West Java, the Central Java culture, and the East Java culture. Central Java was the seat of the later Islamic kingdoms that still continue to today - although they have only symbolic roles - and is still a major factor in the Indonesian national politics.
Java was the site of many influential kingdoms in the Southeast Asian region, and as a result many literary works have been written by Javanese authors. These include Ken Arok and Ken Dedes, the story of the orphan who usurped his king and married the queen of the ancient Javanese kingdom, and translations of Ramayana and Mahabarata. Today Pramoedya Ananta Toer the most famous Indonesian author has written many stories based on his own experiences of having grown up in Java, and takes many elements from Javanese folklore and historical legends.
Most of the Javanese are Muslims, either of the Abangan (nominal) type or orthodox muslims. Small Hindu enclaves are scattered throughout Java, but a large Hindu population prevails along the eastern coast of Java facing Bali, especially in the municipilaty Banyuwangi.
There are also christian communities - mostly in the major cities - although they are in the minority. Certain rural areas of central Java have strong christian influence. Buddhism communities also exist in the major cities, primarily among the Indonesian Chinese.
Last updated: 02-03-2005 12:39:17
Last updated: 04-25-2005 03:06:01
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Election-bound Punjab is in a drug-induced stupor, cancer from pesticide exposure is rampant in its farm belts. Old-guard politicians have been lazy, and AAP hopes to cash in
Jasleen Kaur | February 3, 2017 | New Delhi
Punjab’s deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal may well be right when he claims that no one can say his government has not performed on the parameters of development. What is left unsaid and unacknowledged are the social problems facing the state, including that of rampant drug use across the state.
Punjab, known for its lush green fields that once symbolised the progressive state, is today paying a heavy price for political neglect. Drugs is a big business in Punjab, bringing in easy money. Some of the powerful names in the political corridors have allegedly also been involved. The number of addicts is alarmingly high.
Ignorance about the drug menace was quite evident when the Shiromani Akali Dal objected to the movie Udta Punjab, released in June last year, which dealt with the problem of drug abuse by the state’s youth. The government had said Punjab was being defamed by being called a drug hub.
Though there is no comprehensive study by the state government on the impact of drugs, a number of surveys done by independent agencies highlight the plight. They show that at least half of Punjab’s population in the age group of 16-35 is addicted to drugs. A study by the state department of social security and development of women and children shows that there is at least one drug addict in 67 percent of the households in Punjab. The fact is that drugs have been part of rural Punjab for decades. But the Akali Dal-BJP government has always downplayed its existence.
Punjab will elect 117 MLAs, but the poll outcome is unpredictable. Voting will take place on February 4, while the vote count will be on March 11. The state, known for its bitter electoral battles between Akali Dal-BJP and the Congress, will see its first triangular fight in the assembly elections as the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) too is in the fray. The Shiromani Akali Dal had scripted history when it won a consecutive term in the assembly elections in 2012 – the first by any party.
This time, the anti-incumbency factor against the SAD-BJP government is high. And they will surely have to fight the stigma of being in power for two consecutive terms, yet not doing enough to get rid of the drug menace that has ruined generations.
“People have no problem if you take bribe. It is a nation-wide phenomenon. But drugs are not acceptable anymore,” says Ashutosh Kumar, Punjab-based political analyst and professor of political science at Panjab University, Chandigarh.
He adds, “Earlier drug addiction was seen as a problem of the poor, dalits and unemployed youth. But now the issue is about synthetic drugs, which include costly substance like heroin. The rich zamindars [landowners] buy that. The core support base of Akali Dal is the Jat Sikh. This is going to hit Akalis really hard this time.”
Punjab has been battling drug abuse for years, irrespective of which party ruled the state. But if the party has been in power for 10 years and drugs are still freely available, it certainly has to take the blame.
“When the issue is raised, the government will only catch hold of a few suppliers and addicts from villages. But there is no effort to find the root cause,” Kumar adds.
Drugs is not the only problem. There are other issues too. The state has faced political neglect. And there has been no improvement in the last five years.
During the 2012 state assembly elections, there was the scourge of poor education, failure in generating employment, poor health sector, increasing number of farmer suicides as some of the issues of concern among people. They all continue to plague the state.
These issues have never really been part of the poll manifestos of the traditional parties. It is now believed unfulfilled promises by the state government will result in resentment among the voters against the ruling party.
Professor Santokh Singh, a political analyst based in Ludhiana, says there is development which is visible in terms of construction of roads, malls and airports, but there has been no focus on social problems. He adds the development has been superficial and impacts only 5-10 percent of the population.
“The development which could affect the lives of common people, improve their income and quality of life, create employment opportunities, and bring in quality in school and college education has not been there. The health sector has been pushed towards privatisation. The infrastructure that has been developed will benefit only the rich people. The poor have been largely neglected,” he adds.
Emergence of AAP
Though the Congress led by Capt Amarinder Singh of the Patiala royal family is the main contender, voters are open for an alternative in the form of the Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP. In the 2014 general elections – the only election AAP fought in the state – of the 13 parliamentary constituencies, Shiromani Akali Dal and AAP had won four seats each, Congress won three and BJP won two. And this third contender has been gaining ground in the state since then. Singh believes AAP could reap the benefits of the public anger towards the ruling party.
Certainly, AAP should be given the credit for raising the issue of drugs during the elections in 2014. “I see the AAP getting clear-cut majority among the youth, which is emerging as the big vote base. AAP is also gaining in Malwa region. And with 68 assembly constituencies out of total 117 in this region, the party building a base here cannot be ruled out of [electoral fray],” he explains. The region has traditionally formed the base of the Akalis.
Farmers living in the Malwa region, known as the cotton belt of Punjab, have been suffering health problems for more than a decade. They have been exposed to toxins because of the excessive use of pesticides over the years. There is also high content of cancer-causing agents in water and soil. And the region has seen continuous increase in the number of cancer patients. In order to seek affordable treatment, poor farmers have been forced to travel to Bikaner in Rajasthan for years. The government, though, recently inaugurated the Advanced Cancer Research and Diagnostic (ACRD) centre in Bathinda.
“AAP is in a stronger position today. Though there is nothing revolutionary about their programmes or manifesto. All the parties are talking in the same [language]. But they are playing with the sentiment of change. What that change will be, nobody knows,” says Singh. n
The Moral Contagion By Julia Hauser and Sarnath Banerjee HarperCollins, 140 pages, Rs 699 The world has lar
Addressing the Viksit Bharat Viksit Uttar Pradesh program in Lucknow on Monday, prime minister Narendra Modi launched 14,000 projects across the state, worth more than Rs 10 lakh crore at the fourth groundbreaking ceremony of UP Global Investors Summit held in February 2023. The projects relate to sectors
During the four days from Feb 16, more than a thousand birdwatchers throughout India are coming together with the goal of documenting as many birds as possible across the country’s diverse locations. Over one lakh birdwatchers globally participate in the annual Great Backyard Bird Coun
The Central Consumer Protection Authority has sought public comments on the ‘Draft Guidelines for Prevention of Misleading Advertisement in Coaching Sector’. The draft guidelines are placed on the website of the Department of Consumer Affairs and are accessible through the link:
In a landmark judgment, the Supreme Court of India has held the anonymous, unregulated and unlimited funding through electoral bonds and companies as unconstitutional. The five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court comprising chief justice DY Chandrachud and justices Sanjiv Khanna, B
The world is at the cusp of a revolution based on Industry 4.0 and green technologies, including AI, big data, IoT, EVs, solar power, etc., which offer developing countries the opportunity to leapfrog into economic prosperity. However, India’s gross expenditure on R&D (GERD) still stands at a mea
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Indian-Americans are experiencing unprecedented political success in the US, where the community comprise one per cent of the total population and for the first time ever they now also make up one per cent of the Congress, an Indian-American Harvard University academic has said.
US Congress has 535 voting members: 435 Representatives and 100 Senators. And during last year’s elections four of the community members were elected to the Congress, while a fifth member won re-election to a third-term, Ro Khanna, Pramila Jayapal, Raja Krishnamoorthi and Kamala Harris were elected to the US Congress last year, and Ami Bera won re-election to a third term.
This represents the largest number of Indian Americans to ever serve in Congressional history, Ronak D Desai wrote in Forbes.
Judge Dilip Singh Saund became the first Asian American to be elected to Congress in 1956. Nearly four decades later, Bobby Jindal was elected to the House of Representatives from Louisiana before launching a successful gubernatorial bid in the state.
“Indian Americans are approximately one per cent of the US population and for the first time ever they now make up one per cent of the US Congress,” said MR Rangaswami, the founder of the San Francisco-based nonprofit Indiaspora.
“This doesn’t count the scores of Indian-Americans senior staffers serving on Capitol Hill working for dozens of members on both sides of the aisle,” he said.
Beyond the legislative branch, Donald Trump’s election to the White House is also proving a boon to some members of the community. South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley has been tapped to become the first ever Indian-American US Ambassador to the UN while Indiana native Seema Verma has been nominated by the president-elect to run the Center for Medicare and Medicai Services, Desai wrote.
Since American immigration laws were liberalised in 1965, Indians travelled to the US in record numbers and the Indian American community has become the wealthiest, most educated diaspora in the country, according to Desai.
While they have dominated the medical, engineering and computer science industries for decades, Indian Americans are only recently experiencing a commensurate level of achievement in public life, Desai said.
Desai is an Affiliate at the Belfer Center’s India and and South Asia Program at Harvard University and a Fellow at New America.
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Nepal: spiralling protests against a draft constitution
NEW ALERT FROM CRISIS GROUP, 2-IX-15
Nepal: Conflict Alert
Kathmandu/Brussels: Spiralling protests against a draft constitution have left 23 dead and hundreds injured in Nepal in two weeks. An over-militarised security reaction and inadequate political response from the centre threaten to fuel deep-seated ethnic, caste and regional rivalries less than a decade after the civil war’s end. The major parties should recognise the depth of discontent and the fundamental challenge this poses to the legitimacy of the proposed constitution. A hastily-passed document, weeks after mobilisation of security forces to counter citizens’ protests against it, is unlikely to be the social contract Nepal needs.
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Updated again Saturday morning
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports: Court upholds Episcopal Diocese’s claim to assets.
The Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court has upheld an Allegheny Common Pleas decision awarding centrally held property of the Episcopal diocese that split in 2008 to the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh rather than to the rival Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh.
About $20 million in endowment funds and other assets is at stake. The ruling has no direct impact on ownership of parish property, other than indicating that Anglican parishes must apply to the Episcopal diocese to negotiate for their property, rather than vice versa.
The Anglican diocese has not decided whether to pursue a further appeal.
Lionel Deimel has further details of this, see Details of Commonwealth Court Ruling.
The full text of the judgment can be read from a PDF file here.
There is now a fuller story from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Episcopal diocese wins a legal round.
Episcopal Bishop Kenneth Price Jr. welcomed the decision, which arrived the day his diocese reached the first settlement with an Anglican parish. It required that parish to cut ties with the Anglican diocese for five years.
“We are pleased with the court’s findings and hope this will be the final legal challenge concerning this issue,” he said.
He invited Anglican congregations “to join us in negotiating a settlement to our differences.”
Archbishop Duncan, who is also primate of the theologically conservative Anglican Church in North America, hasn’t decided whether to appeal.
“The decision of the appellate court is deeply disappointing,” he said. “In the next hours and days the bishop and standing committee will pray and take counsel about our corporate path forward.”
The Episcopal Diocese has issued this press release: Appeals Court Upholds Diocese in Assets Case
Update This press release has been issued: A Pastoral Letter to the Clergy and People of the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh which includes the following paragraph:
…The Standing Committee met on Wednesday night, February 2nd. Three important decisions were made. First, we will petition the appellate court for a re-hearing, which means the lower court’s ruling will not yet be final. Second, the Standing Committee and Diocesan leadership (Bishop’s Office, Trustees and Council) will do everything we can to keep all our congregations working together. Third, the Standing Committee will work tirelessly for a negotiated end to the strife between the Anglican and Episcopal Church Dioceses…
Pittburgh Post-Gazette Anglican diocese asks court to rehear case
The filing, which must be made within 14 days, is not an appeal but an outright request for the same court to hear the case over, citing errors of fact in the ruling which was authored by Judge Renee Cohn Jubelirer.
“There are some points of fact that are incorrect in the ruling,” said David Trautman, a spokesman for the Anglican diocese. “We are giving the court a chance to correct those errors.”
He did not specify the errors the Anglicans contend are in the ruling.
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“A woman opened fire at YouTube headquarters in San Bruno, Calif., shooting three people with a handgun before taking her own life and causing widespread panic in the technology hub south of San Francisco.
“A law enforcement source identified the alleged shooter as Nasim Aghdam.
“Investigators initially believed the shooting was a domestic incident, with the shooter targeting someone who worked on the YouTube campus.
“But one law enforcement source said the investigation is now looking into a website in which someone with a similar name complains about YouTube stifling traffic and suppressing videos.
“The source stressed that the investigation is in its preliminary stages.”
Read more at LA Times
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Oil prices take a dive as the Dubai crisis unrolls.
MERLIN FLOWER | 2009/12/04
Of course, the oil prices fell immediately. On November 27, the January contract for benchmark US light sweet crude slid to $76.05/bbl, a decline of 1.91.
Dubai, the land of luxury is one of the seven states in the UAE. Its property boom grew at a frenzied pace, piling up debt but also building dream projects like the Palm shaped islands, a new urban metro, the world's largest tower, a waterfront to the size of Hong Kong, a leisure park called 'Dubailand' and more. The now infamous 'Dubai World' has stakes in holdings around the world from New York to Las Vegas. Many business enterprises from Iran, India, Pakistan, and within the Arab world flocked to Dubai to do business due to the liberal policies and incredible returns.
Now, many of the works have come to a standstill and Dubai is seeking a bailout from Abu Dhabi another of the seven states in the UAE. The crisis could end if Abu Dhabi helps. But Abu Dhabi, guessing from the initial reaction will not cover for the debts completely but rather "look into each case on its own".
Critically, this crisis comes at a time when the world economy was recovering from the financial crisis. Needless to say, markets around the world tumbled on hearing the news-stock markets in London, Asia, New York, Hong Kong and South Korea fell. Construction companies from Australia, Japan, South Korea involved in Dubai were affected because of their presence in Dubai. Banks like HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland and Standard Chartered could lose because of their substantial operation in the Middle East and understandably their shares have fallen since.
Dubai crisis and Oil
Of course, the oil prices fell immediately. On November 27, the January contract for benchmark US light sweet crude slid to $76.05/bbl, a decline of 1.91, and the February contract dropped to $77.36/bbl, declining by $1.83, this after the thanksgiving holiday on Thursday (November 26). In London, though the January delivery of Brent crude dropped on Thursday (November 26), it gained nineteen cents closing at $77.18 in the ICE Futures exchange.
For a bit of background, Dubai's oil reached its peak in the eighties. The country has only two percent (at about 80,000 barrels a day now) of the about 98.2 billion barrels of UAE's oil, and oil contributes to less than six percent of its economy. Dubai became a wall street of the Middle East to diversify away from oil since their reserves were getting exhausted. It wanted and almost succeeded in becoming the service centre of the world. But real estate proved to be a sore point, and analysts believe that the correction had to happen as the debts were hovering dangerously.
Against this backdrop comes the scheduled meeting of OPEC in Luanda on December 22, where discussion on prices and output quotas would take place. OPEC contributes about forty percent of word's oil. The last meeting of OPEC saw the cartel leavings its production quotas unchanged. Would there be any change this time?
The signs point otherwise; some of the rhetoric:
"Given the circumstances, there will not be an output increase and OPEC will not permit members to do it," Iran's Oil Minister Masoud Mirkazemi said at a press conference, "These days the market situation is not right to raise output. This is my forecast" he added. Venezuela which has a quota of 24.84 million barrels per day is also expected to maintain the same production level. Kuwaiti Oil Minister Sheikh Ahmad al-Abdullah al-Sabah said "The oil prices at $75-80 per barrel are good and acceptable". Iran, the second largest oil producer in OPEC, has said that his country didn't expect the oil cartel to increase output.
Possible effects of the crisis on Oil
In winter, as often is the case, the oil prices go northward but this time around oil prices may slide. Of course there are many voices trying to play down the effects of the crisis. The British Prime Minster, Gordon Brown said that the Dubai crisis will not cause major damage to world economy. "My own view is the world financial system is stronger now and able to deal with the problems that arise," said Brown. Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said that he also forecasts only minor effects, if any, on the Israeli economy from the Dubai crisis.
Fine, the oil prices did bounce back the next week, but it came on the backdrop of the standoff between Iran which detained five British soldiers (since been released from custody). So, oil prices recovered as investors feared a standoff between the crude exporter and western powers. And also, Pirates seized a tanker carrying crude oil from Saudi Arabia to the US.
There will be demand from China, India, Russia and Brazil. In fact it's, at least, a cover for China to buy oil and gold as there is a need to invest in oil and other resources needed for the growing economy. As most of the $2.27 trillion in foreign exchange reserves have been held in dollar-linked U.S treasuries, it poses a high risk as they don't have stable value like oil and gold. Economic Information Daily from China published comments of Ji Xiaonan, Chairman of the Supervisory Committee saying that Dubai's debt crisis could be a good opportunity for China to purchase gold and oil assets. Ji Xiaonan was quoted as saying that the Dubai debt crisis "could give China an opportunity to put some of its foreign exchange reserves into gold or oil".
Yet, not to forget, the investor confidence is low while the anxiety is more, as the markets-commodities as well as equities- believe there is more chances of Dubai defaulting on its other debts. Yes, outside the Middle East Dubai does not, indeed, have that much influence but this could be the beginning of further defaults. For instance, countries like Bulgaria, Hungary and the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia have debts exceeding their GDP (Gross Domestic Products).
Since there is still a big black hole in investor confidence, demand may not rise in the immediate future. Furthermore, banks may tighten their lending for investors and investments are a huge risk in the real estate sector. As of today, no one is able to predict the impact on the banking sector. A report in Sucden Financial Research said "It should be noted that fundamentals remain weak, as current above-average temperatures raise concerns for oil demand levels in the US".
Analyst in KBC market services, a division of KBC Process Technology Ltd. in the UK, have this to say, "We keep making the point that for the developed economies there is little sign that demand is improving - yet. Everybody talks about demand recovery but lift-off keeps being postponed."
Remember, Dubai has already achieved its peak in oil and it will be hard to raise capital with knowingly depleted oil wells. This crisis is a setback pushing them to rely more on oil revenue. They will have to pump more oil out to finance their debt. And, as OPEC is not expected to increase the production quotas, expect oil prices to go even lower.
Published on 2009/12/04 by MERLIN FLOWER
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HOUSTON (WPVI) -- We live in a time where people can be highly dependent on social media. After all, it's an outlet for career growth and support. It's also made many quite vulnerable.
Now, cyber security experts are seeing how scammers and hackers are taking advantage of that vulnerability in a new era of scams.
"It's much easier for criminals today," said cyber security expert Ondrej Krehel.
Krehel is talking about hackers on Facebook and Instagram.
"Instagram seems to be a platform, which has a high level of trust," said Krehel.
Users go live on social media, they're able to post stories in real time, and many share personal moments and grief.
Shortly after well-known Houston promoter Keith Nelson asked his 34,000 followers to pray for his mom, who was suffering from a stroke, his Instagram account was hacked.
The scammer messaged hundreds of friends requesting money to help Nelson's mother. In several messages, the hacker, who posed as Nelson, would write, 'I'm here with my mom and doctors.'"
"It's kind of frustrating, using my mom," said Nelson. "People were texting me while I'm in the hospital like, 'Hey, do you still need that money?'"
Here are some tips cyber security experts say will help keep you from becoming a victim.
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Earlier on Wednesday, it appeared that the post-Thanksgiving surge of COVID-19 cases had come in full effect as the Mississippi State Department of Health (MSDH) initially reported 3,658 new cases, however, State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs quickly recanted those numbers, citing a “data field issue.”
In this afternoon’s press briefing, Dobbs provided the accurate numbers while apologizing for the “erroneous” numbers that were prematurely and inaccurately released this morning, citing that the true number of cases from the department’s most recent report consists of 2,746—nevertheless the state’s highest one-day rise since the onset of the pandemic.
“I would like to apologize for the erroneous numbers we released this morning,” Dobbs said. “There was a data field issue where we didn’t get birthdays for many of the patients, and it interfered with our automated portion of our de-duplication algorithm. When we did our quality control measures by hand thereafter, we did find the error and went back and corrected that, but still, 2,746 is a phenomenal number.”
Wednesday’s report brings the state’s total number of positive cases up to 170,672. With the confirmation of 25 additional deaths, 4,041 Mississippians have now passed away from the virus.
Overall hospitalizations continue to rise well beyond the previous peak of the summer months. Back in June, Dobbs stated that for every 1,000 new cases, they expect around 170 hospitalizations, meaning that today’s caseload signals continued challenges ahead for the healthcare system.
Governor Tate Reeves also announced his newest executive order, which places 61 of the state’s 82 counties under a mask mandate while placing further restrictions on both indoor and outdoor gatherings.
On Tuesday, Dr. Dobbs gave an update on the arrival of Mississippi’s first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine. While the state may have its first 25,000 doses by next week, he reiterated that now is not the time to let up.
“We want to bring as many people across the finish line as we can. I think there is a good chance that 1,000 more people can die between now and 2021. Those are people we can save. There are people who are going to be after that that we can save. We’ve got a vaccine on the horizon, and now is just the time to maintain patience,” he explained.
New MSDH guidance recommends that Mississippians avoid all nonessential gatherings including parties, weddings, funerals, sporting events, and in-person church services.
As of Monday, an estimated 136,627 Mississippians have recovered from the virus.
The post MSDH confirms 2,746 new COVID-19 cases, setting new record appeared first on News Mississippi.
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The 2024 Congressional Outlook
2024 started with two spending deadlines looming on January 19 and February 2. With lawmakers working to avert a government shutdown and make progress on other big-ticket items they didn’t get to in 2023, including the Farm Bill, we’re left wondering what the year will bring.
On January 9, Bloomberg Government’s Loren Duggan and other members of our news and analysis team gathered to share updates and discuss what Congress can get done in an election year – watch the webinar replay now to hear their insights and learn more.
Deputy News Director
Senior Reporter, Congress Team
Deputy Team Leader
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Media Release: Primary Producers South Australia
Date: Thursday 13 February, 20174
SA Fire Recovery Assistance
Primary Producers SA (PPSA) and Livestock SA are working together to create a register to match donations of assistance with those most in need.
PPSA Chair Rob Kerin said, “Last week was a very difficult week for many SA landholders. We greatly appreciate the huge efforts of the CFS Volunteers, and without them the damage would have been much worse. However, there are still significant losses of stock, infrastructure, fences and feed”.
Livestock SA Chair Richard Halliday added, “It is a difficult time for many livestock owners, and we would like to facilitate assistance to ensure that feed and fencing needs are met. I encourage those more fortunate to consider how they may assist”.
PPSA and Livestock SA would welcome any donations of:
· Fencing Materials
· Volunteer help with clean up or fencing
We also invite those who have suffered losses to register. In the first instance, fencing requests should be restricted to boundary fences which are not insured.
Both Mr Kerin and Mr Halliday said that SA farmers had a proud record of helping each other out in a time of need, and acknowledged the many who have already hopped in to help their colleagues at this difficult time.
Livestock SA is the peak body for sheep and cattle. PPSA is the peak body for primary producers in SA, of which Livestock SA is one of the six major commodity groups who are members.
Please contact PPSA or Livestock SA on 08 8297 0899 or 08 8297 2299 to register for assistance or to register donations and/or your time.
Contacts: Rob Kerin Chair Primary Producers SA – Mob: 0439 933 103
Richard Halliday President Livestock SA – Mob: 0428 854 759
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Former South African Paralympic champion Oscar Pistorius, convicted of killing his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp a decade ago, will remain in prison after a prison board denied his request for parole on Friday.
The prison services informed, to the surprise of everyone and in a brief statement, that the refusal was related to the fact that the convict had not yet served a sufficient part of his sentence to be able to obtain an early release.
“The inmate has not completed the minimum period of detention, as decided by the Supreme Court of Appeal,” the last court to sentence Pistorius in 2017 after multiple appeals, the statement said.
In a brief memo obtained by Africanewsguru.com, and dated Tuesday, that court explains that it considers the sentence imposed to start from the date of his conviction in 2017 and not from his first conviction in 2014.
“The request was denied” and “will be reviewed in a year,” said with Africanewsguru.com the lawyer of the victim’s family, Me Tania Koen, welcoming the decision.
The spokesman for the prison services, Singabakho Nxumalo, said to the press that Oscar Pistorius will have completed the minimum required only in August 2024, when he will be able to apply for early release.
He was eligible since July 2021, although the prison administration had announced for months.
An ad hoc committee met on Friday morning at Atteridgeville prison near Pretoria, where the 36-year-old ex-athlete is serving a sentence of more than 13 years. Under South African law, a convicted murderer is eligible for early release after serving half his sentence.
Reeva Steenkamp’s parents had made their opposition to her early release known, believing that Oscar Pistorius never told the truth.
“I don’t believe his story,” said a visibly distressed mother, June Steenkamp, as she arrived outside the prison.
She did not testify in front of her daughter’s murderer, as the commission decided to hear the latter in a second time, said her lawyer Tania Koen.
The parents of the victim are living “a life sentence” since the violent death of their daughter, said Koen. “They miss her every day.
They “believe that he should not be released” because “he has shown no remorse and he is not rehabilitated, because if he were, he would have been honest and would have told the true story of what happened that night,” she insisted.
– Judicial saga –
In the early hours of Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2013, Pistorius fired a gun through his bedroom bathroom door. Reeva Steenkamp, a 29-year-old model, is killed by four bullets.
Rich, famous, the six-time Paralympic champion had entered the legend of sport a year earlier by lining up with the able-bodied in the 400 meters of the London Olympics, a first for a double amputee.
“Blade Runner”, his nickname in reference to his carbon prostheses, was arrested in the early morning. He pleads misunderstanding, saying he thought a burglar had broken into his ultra-secure residence.
During his trial, broadcast live on television in 2014, the ex-star appears in tears, vomiting when reading the autopsy report. He gets five years in prison for manslaughter.
The prosecution finds the justice too lenient and appeals and re-characterizes as murder. The judicial saga kept the media in suspense, the world was fascinated by this unusual case.
On appeal, Pistorius presented himself on his stumps to try to win the sympathy of the judge. He was sentenced to six years in prison.
The prosecution still considers the sentence insufficient. In 2017, the Supreme Court of Appeal sentenced him to 13 years and 5 months in prison. Dropped by his sponsors, and ruined, the fallen idol sells his house to pay his lawyers.
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Bono, the lead singer of the Irish band U2, said he told Pope Francis that in Ireland "it looks as though the abusers are being more protected than the victims. And you could see the pain in his face."
Bono met the pope Sept. 19 to sign an agreement between his charity, ONE, and the Scholas Occurentes educational charity supported by Pope Francis.
During the half-hour meeting, Bono said, he brought up Pope Francis' recent trip to Ireland and the concerns there about the sexual abuse crisis.
The pope was "aghast," Bono said. "I thought he was sincere."
"I think he is an extraordinary man for extraordinary times," the singer said.
ONE is a campaign and advocacy effort working to end extreme poverty, especially in Africa. One of its current focuses, Bono told reporters Sept. 19, is education for girls and young women. Some "130 million girls around the world do not go to school, because they are girls," he said.
"Poverty is sexist" is the campaign slogan, he said.
Scholas began in Pope Francis' Archdiocese of Buenos Aires, supporting education in poor neighborhoods by pairing their schools with private schools and institutions in wealthier neighborhoods. The organization has grown to other countries and supports a variety of exchange programs aimed at promoting education, encouraging creativity and teaching young people about respect, tolerance and peace.
"We haven't figured out what we are going to do together," Bono said, "but we sort of have a crush on each other."
Describing Jose Maria del Corral, president of Scholas, Bono said that "honestly, he is quite a radical thinker and I felt quite old-fashioned sitting next to him." Bono was talking about teaching children how to read and write and "get to advanced math and art later. And he was like, 'Start with art. And start with the creative life and you'll get a better result.'"
Bono said the conversation with the pope touched on many topics, including poverty, commerce and meeting the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals.
They spoke, he said, "about how we have to rethink the wild beast that is capitalism and how, though it is not immoral, it is amoral and it requires our instruction. He's very keen on that."
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I. Legislative Branch
1) Personnel and Correspondence
Representatives Sarbanes and Pallone Express Opposition to Turkey F-16 Sale. On January 17, Representative John Sarbanes (D-Maryland) expressed opposition to the Biden administration’s potential sale of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey. Representative Sarbanes said that the United States “should not reward, accommodate or seek to cajole the Erdoğan regime, given its ongoing demonstration of contempt for international standards, human rights and the sovereignty of nations.” On January 18, Representative Frank Pallone Jr. (D- New Jersey) called for congressional action to block the sale, citing Erdoğan’s human rights abuses and aggressive foreign policy. Representative Pallone said that he plans to work with Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Bob Menendez (D-New Jersey), who has promised to block the $20 billion sale. Lawmakers from both parties have expressed opposition to US fighter jet sales to Turkey in the past.
Senator Rosen Asks Not to Meet with Far-Right Israeli Parties During Visit. Senator Jacky Rosen (D-Nevada), who co-chairs the Senate Abraham Accords Caucus, reportedly asked not to meet with any far-right Israeli politicians during a bipartisan Abraham Accords Caucus trip to Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Morocco. Senator Rosen reportedly asked officials to avoid meetings with members of Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit party and Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism party. Former Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid responded to the news of Senator Rosen’s request, saying, “The United States is no longer Israel’s closest ally.”
Representatives Tlaib and McCollum Condemn Construction of US Embassy in Jerusalem on Palestinian-Owned Land. On January 17, Representative Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan) said that she was “outraged” over State Department plans to build the US Embassy in Jerusalem on stolen Palestinian land and called on President Biden to reverse the policy immediately. Representative Betty McCollum (D-Minnesota) criticized the plan as well, tweeting a quote from Palestinian American historian Rashid Khalidi’s New York Times op-ed, which states, “The Biden administration should reject building on seized land, showing that the United States won’t tolerate, let alone be complicit in, the theft of any more Palestinian property.” On January 20, Representative Ritchie Torres (D-New York) reportedly responded to his fellow Democrats, tweeting in support of the State Department’s decision “to build an embassy where it belongs, in a country’s capital.”
US-Lebanon Friendship Caucus Leadership Calls for Political Accountability in Lebanon. On January 13, Representatives Debbie Dingell (D-Michigan), Darrell Issa (R-California), and Darin LaHood (R-Illinois), Co-Chairs of the Congressional US-Lebanon Friendship Caucus, sent a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging the Biden administration to address the presidential vacuum in Lebanon. In the letter, the representatives called on the administration to use “additional diplomatic tools to hold responsible those who are continuing to obstruct democratic processes in Lebanon,” and urged the Biden administration to make its expectations clear to the international community.
Incoming House Republican Committee Members Hold Strong Pro-Israel Views. On January 17, the Republican Steering Committee announced committee assignments for the House Foreign Affairs, Homeland Security, Armed Services, and Judiciary Committees. Many incoming committee members have previously expressed pro-Israel views, including Representative John James (R-Michigan), who expressed support for the annexation of the West Bank, and Representative French Hill (R-Arkansas), who supported the Israel Relations Normalization Act of 2021.
Senator Brown and Representative Carey Seek Immigration Relief for Mauritanians. On January 18, Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Representative Mike Carey (R-Ohio) sent a letter to President Biden and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas requesting that US-based Mauritanians be included in the department’s Temporary Protected Status (TPS) or Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) programs due to the risk of slavery in Mauritania. TPS protects refugees who cannot safely return to their home countries, and a DED designation from President Biden would ban the repatriation of US-based Mauritanians to Mauritania. The lawmakers argued that such an action would protect 8,000 US-based Mauritanians and send a clear message that the United States condemns slavery.
II. Executive Branch
1) The White House
National Security Advisor Sullivan Travels to Israel and Palestine, Discusses Saudi-Israeli Normalization. From January 18–20, White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan traveled to Israel and the West Bank, meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and members of his cabinet, as well as with Bahrain’s and the UAE’s national security advisors. In his meeting with Netanyahu, Sullivan discussed recent Israeli provocations at Jerusalem’s holy sites and encouraged Israel to maintain the historic status quo. Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office also said that he and Sullivan discussed the expansion of the Abraham Accords to include Saudi Arabia. Sullivan’s visit also coincided with the temporary cancelation of settlement expansions in occupied East Jerusalem, following reported US pressure. Sullivan traveled to Ramallah as well, where he met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to discuss de-escalation in the occupied West Bank and steps to improve the lives of Palestinians. President Abbas reportedly urged US intervention following recent rhetorical escalations from the new far-right Israeli government. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is also set to travel to Israel later this month.
Biden Administration Commemorates One-Year Anniversary of Attack on Abu Dhabi. On January 17, President Biden commemorated the one-year anniversary of a Houthi drone strike in the United Arab Emirates that killed three people. In his statement, President Biden reaffirmed the United States’ commitment to the UAE’s defense and the close friendship between himself and Emirati President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan (MBZ). President Biden also vowed to end the war in Yemen and to provide security to the Emirates and other regional allies. Later that day, Vice President Kamala Harris spoke with MBZ to commemorate the attack. Vice President Harris reaffirmed the United States’ commitment to its bilateral relationship with the UAE and the two leaders discussed their partnership to address climate change and invest in clean energy as the UAE prepares to host the COP28 climate conference later this year. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and US Central Command (CENTCOM) Commander General Michael “Erik” Kurilla also commemorated the anniversary of the attack.
Biden Administration Officials Meet with Iraqi Prime Minister in Baghdad. On January 16, White House National Security Council Coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa Brett McGurk and Special Presidential Coordinator for Global Infrastructure and Energy Security Amos Hochstein met with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani in Baghdad. The talks focused on coordination to support Iraqi reforms in energy, infrastructure, and climate, as well as the Iraqi military’s abilities to fight the so-called Islamic State (IS). Two days prior, Prime Minister al-Sudani had called for the indefinite presence of US troops in Iraq, citing their importance to the country’s ongoing fight against IS. There are currently about 2,000 US troops in Iraq, and the prime minister has faced pressure from pro-Iranian militia leaders to reconsider this US presence.
White House National Security Coordinator McGurk Meets with Jordanian FM. On January 16, White House National Security Council Coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa Brett McGurk met with Jordanian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Ayman Safadi. The two leaders discussed US-Jordan relations, US aid to Jordan, and the most recent memorandum of understanding between the two countries. Foreign Minister Safadi reaffirmed the importance of the United States’ support for the two-state solution in Palestine and its clear rejection of unilateral Israeli actions that threaten the status quo at Jerusalem holy sites.
2) Department of State
Secretary Blinken Meets with Turkish Foreign Minister Amid Potential F-16 Sale. On January 18, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu met in Washington for the fourth meeting of the US-Turkey Strategic Mechanism. The two leaders discussed a potential F-16 sale to Turkey, the two countries’ support for Ukraine, methods to bolster NATO cooperation, and the civil war in Syria. At remarks before the meeting, Foreign Minister Cavusoglu mentioned the fighter jet sale, saying that his government anticipates its approval.
Ambassador Nides Says Israel Must Enable Palestinian American Travel for Visa Waiver Deal. On January 18, US Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides said that Israel must ensure that Palestinian Americans can freely travel to Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank in order for Israel to qualify for the US visa waiver program, which would allow Israelis to travel to the United States without obtaining a visa. Ambassador Nides reiterated the importance of reciprocity in the visa waiver program, stating, “Reciprocity will mean that Palestinian Americans will be able to freely travel from Detroit to Ben-Gurion to Ramallah. And Americans who live in Ramallah will be able to go from Ramallah to Ben-Gurion back to Detroit.” His comments follow congressional opposition last year to Israel’s entry into the visa waiver program due to its restrictive regulations in the West Bank, which would affect American citizens.
Palestinian Affairs Office Condemns Settler Attack Involving US Citizens near Jericho. On January 17, the State Department’s Office of Palestinian Affairs in Jerusalem condemned an Israeli settler attack on Palestinians and others, including US citizens, near Jericho in the occupied West Bank. Days before, Israeli settlers had attacked a group of Palestinian, French, American, and Italian hikers, reportedly threatening to kill them. The US Office of Palestinian Affairs in Jerusalem called the act a “brazen assault,” and urged a stop to actions that exacerbate tensions in the area.
Deputy Representative Mills Delivers Speech During UNSC Briefing on Yemen. On January 16, Deputy US Representative to the United Nations Richard Mills spoke at a UN Security Council (UNSC) briefing on the war in Yemen, expressing the United States’ hope for a renewed truce agreement and peace process in 2023. During his speech, Mills criticized the Houthis for their attacks on maritime ports, arguing that they harm Yemen’s economy and raise the cost of living. Mills also criticized Iran for its support of the Houthis amid a relative peace in Yemen, citing last week’s discovery of thousands of AK-47 assault rifles being shipped from Iran to Yemen.
Climate Envoy Kerry Supports UAE Decision to Put Oil Company President in Charge of COP28. On January 15, Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry supported the UAE’s decision to appoint the head of Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., Sultan al-Jaber, to lead the planning for COP28, the global climate conference set to take place in the UAE next fall. In response to criticism from activists, Kerry justified the decision, stating, “I think that Dr. Sultan al-Jaber is a terrific choice because he is the head of the company. That company knows it needs to transition.”
Secretary Blinken Comments on JCPOA in Joint Press Conference with UK Foreign Secretary. On January 17, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken gave a joint press conference with UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, wherein the two officials discussed partnership and support for assistance to Ukraine, peace for the people of Northern Ireland, and support for demonstrators in Iran. Most notably, Secretary Blinken commented on a potential US return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the Iran nuclear deal, stating that “Iranians killed the opportunity to come back to that agreement swiftly many months ago.” On January 19, Secretary Blinken again spoke about Iran with EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell.
UN Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield Speaks at UNSC Briefing on Israel-Palestine. On January 18, US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield spoke at a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) briefing on the new Israeli government. During her speech, Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield reiterated the United States’ commitment to the two-state solution, condemned any unliteral actions at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound that would threaten the status quo in Jerusalem, called for the release of two Israelis imprisoned in Gaza, and called on UN member states to bolster financial support for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the chief UN aid mechanism to Palestine.
Ambassador Hussain Travels to Mauritania. On January 19, US Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom Rashad Hussain traveled to Mauritania to meet with Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani, political leaders from Nigeria, and the secretary-general of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. The leaders discussed human rights, security issues, religious freedom, and efforts at interfaith tolerance.
Secretary Blinken Discusses Ukraine, DRC Peace Efforts with Qatari FM. On January 21, Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with Qatari Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani. The two discussed international cooperation in Ukraine and peace efforts in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, as well as Qatar’s continued support for Afghanistan.
Special Advisor Minkara Travels to Saudi Arabia and Jordan. On January 21, the State Department’s Special Advisor on International Disability Rights Sara Minkara traveled to Saudi Arabia and Jordan to meet with government officials, civil society and business community members, and representatives from the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. The meetings were set around the advancement of human rights for persons with disabilities.
Assistant Secretary Sison Travels to Algeria and Morocco. On January 21, Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs Michele Sison traveled to Algeria and Morocco to discuss human rights as the two states prepare to join the United Nations Human Rights Council. Sison will meet with government and civil society leaders and will underscore the importance of the UN-led effort for a political process in Western Sahara.
3) Department of Defense
US Coalition Outpost in Syria Attacked by Drones. On January 20, the al-Tanf Garrison in Syria was attacked by three one-way attack drones. According to US Central Command (CENTCOM), one drone struck the compound, injuring two members of the Syrian Free Army. No US forces were injured in the attack.
US Signs $4.21 Billion F-16 Deal with Jordan. On January 19, Deputy Chief of the US Mission to Jordan Rohit Nepal signed a $4.21 billion F-16 fighter jet deal with Royal Jordanian Air Force Commander Brigadier General Mohammed Hiasat. The State Department had approved the sale in February 2022.
CENTCOM Commander Kurilla Welcomes Iraq’s Repatriation of al-Hol Residents. On January 18, US Central Command (CENTCOM) Commander General Michael “Erik” Kurilla commended the Iraqi government’s January 14 repatriation of 580 Iraqis from the al-Hol displaced persons camp in northeastern Syria. General Kurilla stated that al-Hol is a “flashpoint of human suffering and a recruiting opportunity for ISIS,” and argued that repatriation is the best course of action to reduce the camp’s population.
Department of Defense Moving US Artillery from Israel to Ukraine. The Department of Defense has reportedly decided to move a stockpile of American artillery from Israel to Ukraine for the latter’s use in its war against Russia. In the wake of Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the Israeli government has followed a strict policy of not providing Ukraine with lethal weapons in order to avoid upsetting Russia. But Israeli officials insist that this new weapons transfer is not a change in policy because the ammunition is American. The US ammunition stored in Israel dates to the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, and Israel has used the weaponry, with American approval, during both its 2006 war against Hezbollah and its 2014 war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
CENTCOM Partners with SDF to Capture Islamic State Operative. On January 18, US Central Command (CENTCOM) partnered with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to conduct a helicopter assault resulting in the capture of a Syrian provincial media and security operative from the so-called Islamic State (IS). According to a CENTCOM statement, the captured operative was involved with IS operations in the Middle East and elsewhere, and also contributed to global recruiting efforts.
CENTCOM Commander Kurilla Meets with Israeli Army Leadership. On January 18, US Central Command (CENTCOM) Commander General Michael “Erik” Kurilla met with the new Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi in Tel Aviv. The two leaders discussed the US-Israel military partnership and upcoming joint training exercises. The same day, General Kurilla met with Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant and visited Israeli Air Force headquarters.
CENTCOM Launches Naval Security Exercise with Bahrain. On January 15, US Central Command (CENTCOM) forces launched a 10-day maritime security exercise with Bahrain. The naval exercise consisted of a bilateral training event between the Bahrain Defense Force, Bahrain’s Ministry of the Interior, and 200 US personnel from US Naval Forces Central Command (NAVCENT). The training seeks to enhance cooperation between the Kingdom of Bahrain and the United States.
CENTCOM Marks One-Year Anniversary of IS Attack on Ghuwayran Detention Facility. On January 20, US Central Command (CENTCOM) marked the one-year anniversary of the so-called Islamic State’s (IS) attack on the Ghuwayran detention facility in Hasaka, Syria. The attack on the facility and the ten-day battle that ensued resulted in the deaths of 425 IS militants and of 121 members of the US-supported Syrian Democratic Forces.
4) Department of Homeland Security
Secretary Mayorkas Extends Temporary Protected Status for Somali Residents. On January 12, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas announced the extension of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Somalia until September 17, 2024. TPS designations are intended to protect refugees in the United States who cannot safely return to their home countries due to ongoing conflict, and this announcement will extend the protections for 430 current TPS holders and allow an additional 2,200 Somali residents of the United States to apply for the status. Representative Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota), who is herself a Somali refugee, called for the TPS redesignation in December and then praised last week’s decision.
III. Judicial Branch
Supreme Court Considers Turkish Bank’s Iranian Sanctions Evasion Case. On January 17, the Supreme Court considered the case of Turkish state-owned lender Halkbank, which has been charged for allegedly helping Iran evade US sanctions. The Turkish bank is claiming sovereign immunity for protection against the lawsuit, and the justices are reportedly weighing in on whether the bank’s ties to Turkey would allow for future litigation against foreign states. Foreign governments have sovereign immunity in US courts under the 1976 Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. Halkbank was originally charged in 2019, and US prosecutors accuse the bank of helping Iran to launder at least $1 billion through the US financial system.
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Egypt’s Public Prosecution has ordered the detainment of three people pending investigation for attempting to loot a 10-ton colossus depicting pharaonic era king Ramses II after they sneaked into the southern quarry area in Upper Egypt governorate of Aswan to illegally excavate for antiquities.
The trio were caught red-handed two days earlier by the provincial security forces while trying to lift the heavy statue and excavate other artefacts in the district, the prosecution said in an official statement on Tuesday.
Manual digging tools, heavy equipment and a forklift were found in their possession.
Following examination of the site, the prosecution found traces of drilling on the three metres high and one metre wide pharaonic statue.
Basins from the Graeco-Roman era were also located there, according to the prosecution.
The quarry area, amounting to over 34 acres, is subject to the country’s Antiquities Protection Law.
The statement added that video footage sent via social media apps were found on the defendants’ mobile phones showing “statues suspected to be archaeological, and other clips of excavation work.”
The prosecution also ordered the speedy investigation of others involved in the crime.
According to the Egyptian penal code, crimes related to illegal excavation of antiquities are punishable by harsh prison sentences that amount to life imprisonment (25 years in prison) and by hefty fines.
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It sounds like it’s the plot summary of an episode of Law and Order: SVU. Since 2009, hundreds of Thai women have been enslaved in a sex trafficking ring across 11 states – including right here in the Chicago area.
Unfortunately, this isn’t a TV show. It’s real life. Which means we’re dealing with serious criminal allegations.
Supposedly, hundreds of women from Thailand were trafficked to cities across the United States for prostitution purposes. The women were held on over $60,000 of bondage debt. That’s when a person agrees to provide work or services in exchange for the repayment of a debt or some other obligation. To pay for their passage to the United States, these Thai women allegedly had to engage in daily prostitution.
Obviously, it is illegal to force people to be prostitutes, so that’s one crime. Then, along with sex trafficking, the perpetrators also had to launder the money coming in so it would appear as if they received it from a legitimate source.
Six Chicago area suspects were taken into federal custody, including two women and one man who served as house bosses, and three other men who served as facilitators. All six were charged with:
- One count of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking;
- One count of conspiracy to commit transportation to engage in prostitution;
- One count of conspiracy to engage in money laundering; and
- One count of conspiracy to use a communications facility to promote prostitution.
So sex trafficking is a crime, but what exactly are the specific Illinois laws and penalties for sex trafficking?
Involuntary Servitude and Trafficking: Laws
Illinois law is very detailed when it comes to involuntary servitude and trafficking, saying:
A person commits involuntary servitude when he or she knowingly subjects, attempts to subject, or engages in a conspiracy to subject another person to labor or services obtained or maintained through:
- Causing or threatening physical harm;
- Physical restraint;
- Tampering with a passport, immigration document, or ID;
- Exerting financial control; and
- Making the debtor believe they will suffer serious harm if they don’t perform the labor or services.
Under this law, “labor” means work of economic or financial value, and “services” means activities resulting from a relationship between a person and the actor in which the person performs activities under the supervision of or for the benefit of the actor. Commercial sexual activity – prostitution – is an activity that is considered “services.”
A person commits trafficking in persons when he or she knowingly:
- Recruits, entices, harbors, transports, provides, or obtains by any means, or attempts to recruit, entice, harbor, transport, provide, or obtain by any means, another person, intending or knowing that the person will be subjected to involuntary servitude; or
- Benefits, financially or by receiving anything of value, from participation in a venture that has engaged in an act of involuntary servitude or involuntary sexual servitude of a minor.
Involuntary Servitude and Trafficking: Penalties
All involuntary servitude and sex trafficking crimes are felonies, but the class of felony can differ.
For example, if you threaten or cause physical harm, you can be charged with a Class X felony, punishable by 6-30 years in prison. However, if you damage someone’s passport or government-issued ID, you will be charged with a Class 3 felony, punishable by 2-5 years in prison. Exerting financial control is a Class 4 felony, punishable by 1-3 years in prison.
Trafficking in persons is a Class 1 felony, punishable by 4-15 years in prison.
As you can see, sex trafficking and involuntary servitude are serious crimes with severe penalties. If you want any chance of getting these charges reduced, dropped, or dismissed, reach out to an experienced Chicago defense attorney for the best possible outcome.
About the Author
Sami Azhari has been working as a lawyer since 2007, after receiving his Juris Doctor from the Michigan State University College of Law. He has handled numerous state and federal cases, and is known throughout the Chicago and Rolling Meadows area for providing his clients with high-quality, skilled representation. He has been recognized by SuperLawyers, the National Trial Lawyers Association, and other notable organizations, and has spoken at a number of legal conferences.
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I know that it’s late in the day, but maybe it is time to reconsider fundamentals.
In Scotland, perhaps we should support not a YES campaign, but a YES, BUT campaign.
A YES, BUT campaign would (as I picture it) recommend a “yes” vote as our least worst option on September 18th. And – most important – it would support the autonomy of social movements REGARDLESS OF WHICH SIDE IN THE REFERENDUM WON. (By the “autonomy” of social movements, I mean their freedom from all institutional structures – for example, states and corporations. I mean social movements’ freedom to develop in their own interactive terms.)
For me, a focus on the tension – more, the contradiction – between institutions and interaction is fundamental to radical politics. Institutions have a built-in, hierarchical dynamic: they obey an iron law of oligarchy that generates role definitions – role definitions which claim authority and cluster together at the top. By contrast, interaction which follows its own inner logic is unrestricted and unconstrained and in principle free. As in conversation which follows its argument wherever this argument leads, interaction broadens into openness and a non-predetermined world. Thus understood, can institutions and interaction combine? They can. In the real world, rather than in a world of concepts, a range of hybrids can and does obtain. But the combination has an oil-and-water character. Most often, it is institutions which succeed in channelling interaction: they force interaction into patterns which institutionally-approved role definitions approve. Emancipation occurs when, on the contrary, interaction gives the rule to institutions. My proposal is that, if the left loses a sense of the institutions/interaction contrast, the prospect of moving towards an emacipated future is lost.
How does this apply to the debate on Scottish independence? The implications are, I think, all too clear. A nation – even a small nation, even an ethically “good” nation – is an institution. As such, it belongs in an institutional system. A state disciplines its citizens, and it conforms to (and is disciplined by) a larger world order. In 2014, the world order to which states belong is neoliberalism. This point may be developed: whether domestically or internationally, a state is complicit in discipline and coercion. A non-complicit state either is, in fact, complicit despite its protestations – or it ceases to be a state. In the neoliberal world, a state is not merely complicit in coercion and discipline. Courtesy of a barbaric world order, it possesses teeth.
Here, issues which are close to home concern me. An unqualified YES campaign – a campaign without the “BUT” which I favour – celebrates an institution. It celebrates an institution in the sense which I have tried to make clear. This should make us uneasy. It should make us more than uneasy when we find the institution concerned (an independent Scotland) being praised to the skies. Institutional thinking is, I suggest, insidious: all too easily, it may cloud perspectives which should be interactive and open and free. Gordon Asher and Leigh French point to a striking instance of this clouding in their Crisis Capitalism and Independence Doctrines: they point out that a struggle for national independence ‘maintains a referent to state-foundational individualism’. Asher’s and French’s point can be stated in a number of ways. It suggests that, in a pro-national independence campaign, the spectre of institutional thinking appears in the close and intimate space between an individual and his or her self. It suggests that, in a pro-national independence struggle, the individual is pictured in a specific (a specifically institutionalist) way. It suggests that, in a phrase, the distinction between institutionalist and interactive thinking is being blurred.
If Asher and French are right, then all pro-national independence struggles run the risk of becoming institutionalist. In 2014, it runs the risk of consolidating (rather than questioning or undermining) a neoliberal order of things. If the NO campaign wins, then neoliberalism will be safe under Cameron. If the unqualified YES campaign wins, neoliberalism will be safe under Salmond and his friends. Neoliberal co-option is present in the form – the deeply institutional form – that a question about national independence takes. The question which is asked on September 18th is a mystified and mystifying question.
Hence my recommendation: our campaign should not be for YES but for YES, BUT. We should, indeed, vote YES as the least worst option that is before us: no-one in their right mind should give succour to Cameron. But this YES should be a YES, BUT – in the sense that caution and reserve and doubtfulness should be present from the very start. A YES, BUT result refuses to give institutionalist politicians room for manoeuvre – whereas an unadorned YES campaign (or an unadorned NO campaign) operates in institutionalist politicians’ terms. A YES, BUT campaign gives notice that both the notions of Scottish government and Westminster government are mistrusted. Such a campaign warns not merely Cameron but whoever rules Scotland after September 18th that a peace movement, an ecologically-sensitive movement, a movement for social justice and a movement for participatory democracy flourish at a grassroots level. It warns that movements of this kind have their own, interactive dynamic and are in no way are beholden – in their inspiration and their life – to the structures of a Scottish or UK state. It warns that social movements are not merely quangos, or quangos in the waiting, but sites where interaction and emacipation lie.
Both an unadorned YES campaign and an unadorned NO campaign endorse neoliberal positions. By contrast, a YES, BUT campaign reformulates issues in an interactive way.
I end with a comment on the formulation that I have favoured. When I have discussed the notion of a YES, BUT campaign with friends the response has, mainly, been favourable. But two rejoinders have given me thought. One offers a reformulation of my suggested slogan: in place of YES, BUT should we not say YES, AND or YES, NEXT – or, perhaps, YES, THEN? My feeling is that YES, BUT is better – much better – than the rival formulations. YES, BUT remains cautious, and introduces political conditions, whereas the other (more positive) formulations embrace national independence wholeheartedly and attempt to go on from there. I worry that, for the left, national independence is a semi-poisoned chalice – as I have argued. To a dangerous degree, an independent Scotland remains (like a non-independent Scotland) a neoliberal Scotland. If this is so, it is important for us to say that social movements even in a independent Scotland must remain independent from corporations and states.
The second rejoinder that has given me pause for thought is more dismissive. Is the addition of “BUT” to the word or slogan “YES” merely a self-indulgent nicety? In place of YES, BUT or, really, “yes, anything” should we support YES, WHATEVER? This rejoinder gives me pause because it introduces – or seems to introduce – a note of my country right or wrong into current political debates. So far, this note has been refreshingly absent from recent debates on Scottish independence. The circumstance that the note can still be sounded makes it all the more important to campaign for a YES, BUT – rather than for an unqualified YES.
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3 JPs' casino dealings cleared
Tuesday 26th November 2019
The Arkansas Ethics Commission has dismissed casino-related ethics complaints filed against two Pope County Quorum Court members and authorized the withdrawal of a complaint against a third member of the Quorum Court.
Jacksonville attorney William J. Ogles filed the complaints against the three justices of the peace after the Quorum Court on Aug. 13 endorsed Cherokee Nation Businesses for a casino license in Pope County. The Quorum Court chose the Cherokees over four other casino operators.
The Cherokees and Choctaw Nation, both of Oklahoma, have each submitted applications for a casino license in Pope County under the Arkansas Racing Commission's second window for applications that closed last week. The Choctaw Nation's application doesn't have the endorsement of local elected officials in Pope County.
Justices of the Peace Ernie Enchelmayer, Caleb Moore and Doug Skelton said in a joint news release that they're glad to get the ethics complaints behind them. Ogles could not be reached for comment by telephone on Monday afternoon.
"Now that we have been cleared, it's time to get back to the business of serving Pope County and our constituents," Enchelmayer said.
[RELATED: See complete Democrat-Gazette coverage of casinos in Arkansas at arkansasonline.com/casinos]
The Ethics Commission voted 4-0 to dismiss the complaint against Enchelmayer, commission Director Graham Sloan said in a letter to him.
Ogles alleged that Enchelmayer used his position to secure a $10,000 payment to the River Valley Arts Center -- an entity whose board includes his wife, Valerie Enchelmayer -- under the county's Economic Development Agreement with Cherokee Nation Businesses.
Sloan said the evidence showed that, while Ernie Enchelmayer voted for the resolution supporting the development plan, his wife is an unpaid volunteer at the arts center and the Enchelmayers "do not appear to have a substantial financial relationship with the River Valley Arts Center."
Enchelmayer said the 4-0 vote to dismiss the complaint "confirms what we already knew: that our character and our integrity are intact.
"I'm grateful for the thorough investigation that was conducted and that my name and my wife's name have been cleared," he said in a news release.
In another complaint, Ogles alleged that Caleb Moore, who works as a real estate agent in his father's firm, Moore & Co. Realtors in Russellville, used his elected position to provide the firm with a benefit in the form of a land sale involving the planned location of the Cherokees' casino.
In a news release in August, Cherokee Nation Businesses said the casino would be located on 130 acres just north of Interstate 40 along Hob Nob Road outside Russellville, between the Weir Road exit and Alaskan Trail. Ogles provided no documentation that Moore or his father's firm were involved in the land deal.
(The Cherokee Nation Businesses' amended license application also includes a site inside the city limits of Dover, which start about 3 miles north of Interstate 40.)
The Ethics Commission voted 4-0 Friday to dismiss the complaint against Moore, Sloan said in a letter to him.
Evidence showed that William Wetzel, an agent for Moore & Co. Realtors, represents four of the five casino operators that initially applied to the Racing Commission for a license for Pope County, Sloan said.
"While none of the operators has actually bought any land, it is likely that Mr. Wetzel will earn a commission from a sale in the future," Sloan wrote in his letter to Moore.
"However, Mr. Tony Moore, the sole owner of Moore & Company Realtors, executed a contract with Mr. Wetzel on November 28, 2018, to have all money over Mr. Wetzel's normal commission go to four (4) different charities," according to Sloan.
"Mr. Moore, in a sworn statement, stated that he was vehemently against having a casino located in Pope County and adamantly in favor of a ballot initiative to allow the voters of Pope County to approve which casino operator got a resolution of support from the county. Mr. Moore's assertions were backed up by filings with the Ethics Commission reflecting that he was an officer in a ballot question committee called Citizens for Better Pope County. Mr. Moore also made financial contributions to that group," Sloan said.
"There was no evidence available indicating that you would make any money from Mr. Wetzel's commission," Sloan said in his letter to Caleb Moore. "You and Mr. Wetzel each said in sworn statements that you were not related to each other."
Caleb Moore listed Moore & Co. Realtors as a source of income -- but not a business or holding -- on his statement of financial interest for 2017 and 2018 as a Pope County Quorum Court member, Sloan said.
"This is consistent with Tony Moore's statement that he is the sole owner of the company," Sloan said in his letter to Caleb Moore. "You and Mr. Moore each characterized your role as an independent contractor with the company. Even if the commission interpreted the the relationship between the respondent and the company to be a 'trustee, partner or employee,' that relationship is readily apparent on your [statement of financial interest] because you listed the company as a source of income."
Caleb Moore said in the joint news release that "this is the absolute vindication we sought.
"We knew these allegations against us, and by extension, our families and businesses, were baseless, but the best way to demonstrate our innocence was to let this process play out with the Ethics Commission."
Ogles contended in another complaint that Skelton had committed "misconduct" because his law firm, Skelton Law Firm, previously provided legal representation to Gulfside Casino Partnership of Mississippi. Ogles' complaint offered no proof.
After the Racing Commission in June rejected five applicants for the casino license in Pope County because none contained endorsements by current local officials, Gulfside filed a lawsuit on Aug. 15 challenging the rejection of its application, which included letters of endorsement from local officials issued right before those officials left office in December. The Racing Commission's rules and laws enacted this year say that endorsements must come from officials in office at the time of the application.
Sloan said Monday that Ogles asked to withdraw the complaint, and the Ethics Commission voted 4-0 Friday to allow the withdrawal.
Skelton said in the news release that "I think most people in our community knew the allegations of ethics violations were politically motivated.
"I want the people of Pope County to know that the Pope County Quorum Court is where the words 'honesty,' 'integrity,' and 'duty' are given meaning by all members," he said.
Metro on 11/26/2019
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In a big setback for Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu, the opposition party which holds a majority in the country’s Parliament, has gathered enough signatures to submit a motion to impeach the President. According to a statement attributed to a legislator from the MDP, the MDP and Democrats have collaborated to collect signatures for an impeachment resolution. A collective endorsement of 34 members, comprising representatives from both the MDP and Democrats, has been secured for the motion seeking the president’s impeachment, which was interrupted amid yesterday’s turmoil in the Maldivian parliament.
According to reports, the MDP had decided it would deny approval to Ali Ihusan, the home minister, and Mohamed Ghassan Maumoon, the defence minister, if government lawmakers continued to disrupt the Parliament. Meanwhile, after a skirmish between political leaders inside the Maldivian Parliament, heavy police arrangements have been made to tighten the security in the parliament ahead of today’s session, according to Adhahdhu.
A video disseminated by the media depicted police personnel gathering outside the Parliament complex, equipped with protective shields. On Sunday, the Maldives Parliament experienced unrest as members of the government’s PPM/PNC party disrupted the proceedings and the Speaker. A pivotal vote regarding parliamentary approval for the Muizzu government was slated for that Sunday.
As dramatic visuals surfaced on social media from Male, a fight between MDP MP Isa and PNC MP Abdullah Shaheem, Abdul Hakeem was seen. According to reports, one video showcased Shaheem gripping Isa’s leg and the two falling together, whereas another visual that went viral on social media showed Isa kicking Shaheem’s neck and pulling his hair.
The ruling coalition parties, the PNC and the PPP, released a statement portraying the ministers’ refusal as an impediment to the delivery of public services.
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With Dubuque’s status as a metropolitan area in jeopardy, local leaders are sounding the alarm about what that could mean for the city.
A committee of representatives from federal statistics agencies recently recommended that the Office of Management and Budget make a change that would downgrade 144 cities across the U.S., including Dubuque, from metropolitan areas to “micropolitan” designations.
They proposed changing the definition of a metropolitan statistical area. A metro area would have to have at least 100,000 people in its core city to count as an MSA, double the 50,000-person threshold that has been in place for the past 70 years. Cities formerly designated as metros with core populations of 50,000 to 99,999 people would be changed to “micropolitan” statistical areas instead.
The city of Dubuque is part of the broader Dubuque metropolitan statistical area, which encompasses all of Dubuque County. The county had an estimated population of 97,311 in 2019, while the city of Dubuque stood at 57,882 residents — far short of the proposed threshold.
Molly Grover, president and CEO of Dubuque Area Chamber of Commerce, pulled no punches when framing the potential impact of such a change.
“Should something like this go into effect, it would wipe Dubuque off the map,” she said.
Such fears were echoed by other local leaders, who emphasized that companies often begin their search for a new community by broadly assessing the nation’s metro areas and then narrowing down their options.
Rick Dickinson, president and CEO of Greater Dubuque Development Corp., explained that many companies contract with “site selector” firms that help clients identify possible areas to which they can relocate.
“Site locators across the U.S. use MSAs as sort of a touchstone, a starting point to find areas that could have the workforce, the infrastructure and the overall capacity to be a serious contender for relocation or expansion,” he said. “Either you are on that list or you’re not.”
Overall, if the guidelines are changed, 37% of the 392 current metro areas would lose their status.
Throughout the U.S., potential changes to the metro designation also have sparked concerns about changes in federal funding.
Dubuque City Manager Mike Van Milligen said he has been assured that transportation funding and Community Development Block Grant funding would not be impacted in the event that a community’s metro status is removed, despite the fact that disbursement of such funds has been tied to a city’s metropolitan standing in the past.
“We’re being assured it won’t affect federal funding streams,” he said. “I’m not convinced that is the case.”
Other municipal leaders throughout the country have expressed a similar sense of trepidation, voicing concerns that stripping the “metropolitan” status from communities would be the first logical step down the road of stripping associated funding.
From an economic development perspective, Dickinson emphasized that the MSA designation remains a key differentiator.
Dickinson said there are about 19,500 incorporated communities in the U.S., and only 392 have a population in excess of 50,000 and are designated MSAs. He noted that the Dubuque area has maintained its MSA status since 1950.
Federal officials have said possible changes to the “metro” definition are merely being considered for statistical purposes.
Even after looking further into the proposal, Dickinson said the motivations for such a change remain unclear.
“There’s no apparent reason why they would do this,” he said. “But the impacts — the potential loss in revenue and the way it would take communities off the map — is clear. We believe it should stay the way it is.”
Local leaders have sprung into action in response.
Grover said the chamber reached out to federal leaders, contacted the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and will continue to work with representatives from GDDC and the City of Dubuque in hopes of stopping the change before it occurs.
“We are trying to work together to leverage our voice on this issue,” she said.
Grover noted that the Office of Management and Budget is continuing to take public comments on the matter through March 19.
Van Milligen said he is pleased that economic development organizations such as the chamber and GDDC have taken notice of the proposed changes and taken steps to stop them.
Similar to the leaders of those organizations, he shares concerns that such a change would result in a hit to Dubuque’s visibility on a national scale.
“On the East and West coasts in this country, they often call us fly-over country,” he said. “Most people there have little knowledge or experience with the middle of the country. So unless you have a way onto their radar screen, you become invisible.”
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It’s big news (in anth circles) right now. The business meeting of the AAA voted by about 1000 to 150 to put a motion on the ballot of the general membership supporting BDS this spring. It really was the talk of the meetings. Every where I went friends and colleagues were discussing it. They weren’t unanimous in the positions. Some were opposed to it, others were unconditional in their support, still others took the hold your nose and vote yes approach. I opted out of participating in the vote.
I find much to agree with Maximilian Fortes‘ position on the AAA resolution. Here’s a key quote from his detailed blog post:
My point is that there is a surplus of misdirection, mendacity and hypocrisy at work among AAA members who support the academic boycott of Israel, and that the boycott is being supported using not just specious reasoning, but also by endorsing imperial political and moral narratives. The wrong conclusions are being drawn from preceding AAA actions, so as to better take the AAA on a new turn: international arbiter of human rights and protector of endangered others (and only those who are endangered by others). The same logic used in the pro-boycott petition could justify calls for regime change and sanctions against other nations that are the targets of US imperialism. All of the markers of an imperial narrative of protection and intervention are present in the motion to boycott Israel: support for “civil society” (thus reinforcing the neoliberal undermining and bypassing of Palestinian national authorities); and, asserted universals about “human rights”. The notion that violations of Palestinian rights can be traced to the work of Israeli universities—while downplaying the role of the US universities in the same endeavour—is fraudulent. I am also accusing the AAA of serving not just as an agent for imperialism, but as an agent of imperialism in its own right—by reasserting the US’ neo-feudal hold over Israel (and reminding its leaders of their proper place in the international hierarchy), and by validating US anthropology’s sense of its own superiority and indispensable centrality. The exercise is ultimately one of legitimating “American Exceptionalism,” and it almost certainly has nothing to do with concern over “human rights violations”.
. . .
“I think the AAA has damned itself, and its supposed support and solidarity for Palestinians. Dishonest gestures guided by ulterior motives hardly serve Palestinians, at least not as much as they may insult their struggle. What is best served by this motion, however, are (neo)liberal politics and a vindication of “American Exceptionalism”. The motion is effectively and primarily one that expresses US solidarity with US anthropology.”
Fortes’ critique is direct, definitive, and damning. The issue lurking beneath the AAA resolution (one that did not really come out in the discussions reported by colleagues and through social media) is that this is really more about a variant of US Imperialism.
In the early 1980s central american support activities were a big issue amongst leftist activists in Vancouver. We were all familiar with groups like the FMLN (El Salvador) or the FSNL (Sandinistas, Nicaragua). The actions of the US government in supporting the contras and fueling counter revolution were soundly decried. We saw in this class struggle a clear and obvious set of choices: either support or struggle against US imperialism and destruction of the lives of working people and agrarian poor. This sense of the struggle manifest itself in the brief emergence of a home-grown militant group, Direct Action (also known as the Squamish Five). At least two milieu activists also ended up joining the struggle directly and were sentenced to long jail terms for their efforts. The underling idea for all of us was that real social transformation included social justice struggles at home (to change local exploitative settings) and political campaigns of support for fellow militants in theatres of armed and intense social struggle. Boycotts were conceived as a weak and low order tactical choice. More direct engagements, focussed in sites of production and at locales of governance were considered the more strategically appropriate approach.
This was also the moment in which the South African divestment and boycott campus movement started up. While the underlying issues were similar – local struggles against oppressive situations- the support movement activities were of a different order. Whereas the central american support activities were based in a shared idea of class struggle at home and away, the campus south african divestment/boycott movement elided concerns with class struggle and focussed instead upon moral issues and an inherently anomic tactic of corporate divestments and individualized consumer boycotts.
In the contemporary BDS debates the south african example is held up as an example of a successful deployment of tactics like divestment and symbolic boycotting. Such a conclusion is curiously ahistorical. The role played by the collapse of the Soviet Union , the rising tide of neo-liberal austerity measures and liberalizing of international trade and capital flows is quite likely a far more reasonable explanation for the end of minority rule in South Africa. While correlations can be made between south african capital and US university divestment the overall set of causes can not be strongly linked to the divestment campaign. Though, the story of divestment leading to majority rule in south africa is an elegant tale that gives juice to current fiscal activists who find it easier to support neo-liberal economics than getting their hands dirty in real social struggles that build better social just communities.
The current BDS campaign simplifies the issue into a narrative of two great actors: the Imperialist Israeli State and the Oppressed Palestinian. The antagonists are reified and held in an almost ahistorical amber of cultural entrapment. Much like an old style anthropology monograph on a ‘village’ the only possibility of change is seen to come from outside. Thus enters the possibility of a white crusader from the west. This is a strange parody of a fight within the semitic family: Jew/Muslim/Christian. The reality lives far away from this simple story spun by BDS advocates. To a large extent the possibility of their being both an Israeli and a Palestinian identity has only conceivable in recent centuries. These modern fraught social identities are ones that have emerged out of a common historical moment and they seem to rely upon the continuation of the other for their own existence. Perhaps the only real solution is to transform these separate identities into one common identity, one nation without religion?
There is much that is wrong with our world. There are a great many people who will stand up to say that this struggle, that concern, is the most important. What I have seen as I move through my life is that the further away – socially, intellectually, geographically, etc- an issue is then the more intense the rhetoric around it. At least that’s what it looks like from my vantage point. Point is we can’t solve every problem everywhere. We need to focus, to select, to be discerning. Ideally we should also be consistent. For me that leads to focusing on community activism at home and within arenas that I have some small modicum of potential in making what I hope are positive changes.
So when a major national professional association makes a decision with potential global reach we need to think very carefully about this. At the most simplistic, if it is right to divest from Israel and to boycott Israeli cultural and academic institutions why not other nations as well? One also needs to ask if the tactic that is being advocated will have the desired outcome. What are the underlying principles that are being activated to make all of these decisions?
My sense is that a vague combination of liberal guilt (the worry that despite being progressive one is also implicated in oppression), a desire to be ‘on the right side of history,’ and a sense of wanting to do something that might ‘make a difference,’ came together in a room in which 1000+ members of the U.S. Association of Anthropologists voted to initiate a boycott and divestment campaign. I’m not convinced BDS is the elixir that will make our world a better place.
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When the banking law went into effect, the Commissioner found several banks that were embarrassed by doubtful investments, and whose capital was impaired by losses and bad debts, which have since been made good, and they are now in a flourishing condition.
Two or three banks are still contending with unprofitable investments, and cumbered with property involuntarily acquired previous to the adoption of the present banking law, which under the provisions of section 34, they are gradually working off, or changing to other investments.
Very much has been accomplished in this respect during the past year, and we have been assured and have reasons to believe, that more will be effectuated during the year to come.
Aside from the two or three banks above referred to, the State banks of Michigan are in a prosperous condition, and entitled to the respect and confidence of the public.
That the people are satisfied, and have respect for the banking law, is evident by the increasing demand for banking institutions, and the increase in the volume of business as shown by the following comparative abstract of the December reports of the State banks in Michigan for the years 1889, 1890 and 1891, as made to the Commissioner of Banking: 3
Through the courtesy of Hon. E. S. Lacey, Comptroller of the Currency, I present you herewith an abstract of the December reports of the national banks of the State of Michigan, as reported in 1889, 1890 and 1891. For reports of individual national banks see succeeding pages.
For the purpose of showing the growth of the banking business of the State for the past two years, I present herewith a comparative abstract of reports of incorporated banks, as made in December of the years 1889
Four times during the year, on passed days unknown to the officers of the several banks, I have called upon them to report to me their condition as shown by their books, May 4, July 9, September 25, and December 2. An abstract of these statements are presented herewith, and are given in detail in the succeeding pages of this report.
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Serious collision in Sittingbourne Kent Police is appealing for witnesses
Written by karen on 26 October 2017
Serious collision in Sittingbourne Kent Police is appealing for witnesses after a teenage boy was seriously injured in a road traffic collision in Sittingbourne. The collision happened at the junction of Newman Drive and Puttney Drive and was between a silver Vauxhall Astra and the teenage pedestrian. It happened at 5.25pm on Wednesday 25 October 2017. The boy sustained injuries to his head and shoulder and was air lifted to a London hospital, where he remains in a serious but stable condition. Officers from Kent Police’s Serious Collision Investigation Unit would like to speak with anybody who saw either the teenage boy or the car in the moments leading up to the collision. Anyone with information is asked to call 01622 798538 quoting reference MH/AH/244/17. Alternatively email [email protected].
supplied by Kent Police
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President & Chief Executive Officer
AGT Food and Ingredients Inc.
Murad Al-Katib is President, CEO and a Board member of AGT Food and Ingredients Inc. A strategic business and financial thinker in an international agri-food commodity trading business, Murad founded AGT Foods in 2001, building a Canadian start-up into a global billion dollar value-added pulses, staple foods, and ingredients company.
Murad serves as Chair of the Government of Canada National Agri-Food Strategy Roundtable, and as the Economic Development Regina Board Chair. Past Boards Murad has served on include the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, CSCA, Pulse Canada and a number of Canadian Government advisory boards and panels including Chairing the Advisory Board for Small and Medium Enterprise for the Canadian Minister of International Trade, participating as a panel member for the Government of Canada’s renewal of Canada’s Global Commerce Strategy, and on the Advisory Committee for the Review of the Canada Transportation Act for the Minister of Transport.
Murad has received a number of prestigious awards including the 2017 Saskatchewan Order of Merit, an Honorary Degree from the University of Regina recognizing his work as a humanitarian and entrepreneur, the 2017 “Oslo Business for Peace” Honouree, 2017 EY “World Entrepreneur of the Year” after being named National and Prairie Region “Entrepreneur of the Year”, 2016 UN Association of Canada “Global Citizen Laureate”, PROFITGuide Magazine’s “30 Most Fabulous Entrepreneurs of the Past 30 Years” list, The Globe & Mail “Canada’s Top 40 under 40” and the Western Producer “44 Innovators Who Shaped Prairie Agriculture.”
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Legislation negotiated and sponsored by Rush passed the House last Monday, now heads to President Biden’s desk to be signed into law.
On Monday, March 7, 2022, the Emmett Till Antilynching Act (H.R. 55), legislation sponsored by U.S. Representative Bobby L. Rush (D-Ill.), passed the United States Senate unanimously. The legislation previously passed the House of Representatives on February 28 by a vote of 422–3. Three House Republicans voted against the bill: U.S. Representatives Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.), Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), and Chip Roy (R-Texas). The legislation now heads to President Biden’s desk to be signed into law.
The Emmett Till Antilynching Act would, for the first time in U.S. history, designate lynching as a federal hate crime. Despite more than 200 attempts since 1900 to codify federal antilynching legislation, it has never previously been done. More than 6,500 Americans were lynched between 1865 and 1950, according to a report from the Equal Justice Initiative.
“Lynching is a longstanding and uniquely American weapon of racial terror that has for decades been used to maintain the white hierarchy,” said Rep. Rush. “Perpetrators of lynching got away with murder time and time again — in most cases, they were never even brought to trial. Legislation to make lynching a federal crime and prevent racist killers from evading justice was introduced more than 200 times, but never once passed into law.
“Today, we correct this historic and abhorrent injustice. Unanimous Senate passage of the Emmett Till Antilynching Act sends a clear and emphatic message that our nation will no longer ignore this shameful chapter of our history and that the full force of the U.S. federal government will always be brought to bear against those who commit this heinous act.
“I am glad to see this bill receive unanimous support in the Senate — and near-unanimous support in the House of Representatives — and look forward to President Biden signing the Emmett Till Antilynching Act into law very, very soon. At this moment, I am reminded of Dr. King’s famous words: ‘The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.’”
The Emmett Till Antilynching Act first passed the House of Representatives for the first time during the 116th Congress — in February 2020 — with overwhelming bipartisan support but was blocked in the Senate. Rep. Rush reintroduced the Emmett Till Antilynching Act on the first day of the 117th Congress and has worked closely with the House Judiciary Committee and the Senate throughout the past year to reach agreement on the text of the legislation.
Under the bill that passed the Senate today and the House last week, a crime can be prosecuted as a lynching when a conspiracy to commit a hate crime results in death or serious bodily injury. The legislation differs from the antilynching legislation passed during the 116th Congress in two primary ways:
- The maximum sentence for a perpetrator convicted under the Antilynching Act is 30 years; the previous version of the legislation set the maximum sentence at 10 years. These charges would be in addition to any other federal criminal charges the perpetrators may face.
- The legislation applies to a broader range of circumstances. Under the legislation passed last Congress, a crime could only be prosecuted as a lynching under very specific circumstances, such as if it took place while the victim was engaging in a federally protected activity.
Rush is also the lead sponsor of bipartisan legislation that would award a posthumous Congressional Gold Medal to Emmett Till and his mother Mamie Till-Mobley (H.R. 2252) and legislation that would direct the Postmaster General to issue a commemorative postage stamp in honor of Mamie Till-Mobley (H.R. 4581).
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Since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his premeditated, unprovoked, unjustified, and brutal war on Ukraine, the ceaseless bombardment of Ukraine’s cities and critical infrastructure by Russia’s forces has created one of the fastest-growing humanitarian crises in decades. This is a tragic and catastrophic war of choice entirely of Russia’s making, and the United States, its Allies, and partners will stand in solidarity with the people of Ukraine in their just cause ̶ the defense of their country and their democracy. Together, we continue to support Ukraine’s defense of its sovereignty and territorial integrity and to strengthen Ukraine’s position on the battlefield and at the negotiating table.
Today, as Russia begins its renewed offensive in Ukraine’s east, I have authorized, pursuant to a delegation from the President, a drawdown to provide further immediate military assistance to Ukraine, valued at up to $800 million worth of arms and equipment from U.S. Department of Defense inventories. This authorization, building on last week’s $800 million package, is the eighth drawdown of arms, equipment, and supplies from Department of Defense inventories for Ukraine since August 2021.
We will continue to provide Ukraine the arms its forces are effectively using on the ground to defend themselves. These efforts, combined with direct U.S. humanitarian and financial support to Ukraine, support documenting evidence of Russia’s war crimes against Ukraine’s civilians, and continued efforts to ratchet up pressure on Putin’s crumbling economy together will help weaken the Russian Government’s position and further isolate them from the world until Russia ends its unprovoked and unjustified war on Ukraine.
For almost eight weeks, Russia has waged its savage assault against Ukraine, its sovereignty, its independence, its freedom, and its people. From Bucha to Kramatorsk, from Kharkiv to Mariupol, we have seen Russia’s brutalities and its atrocities laid bare for the world to see. And yet Ukrainian Winter has turned to Ukrainian Spring. The people of Ukraine will prevail.
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For many people, the pandemic lockdowns increased feelings of boredom, anxiety and loneliness. So it's hardly a surprise that marijuana use increased, just as alcohol consumption did.
But you might be surprised at just how much more cannabis Washingtonians are using now than they were before the pandemic.
Data from the Washington State Alcohol and Cannabis Control Board shows sales increased statewide by $450 million, or about 43%, from the 2019 to 2021 fiscal years. The total retail sales in 2021 were nearly $1.5 billion.
Cannabis sales also generated more than $550 million in excise taxes for the state, most of which will be spent on public health programs, as prescribed by Washington's 2012 marijuana legalization measure.
Fiscal year 2019 covers the period from July 1, 2018, to June 30, 2019, and fiscal year 2021 covers the period from July 1, 2020, to June 30, 2021.
Of Washington's 39 counties, all but Garfield and Franklin counties have at least one cannabis retailer. In all of these 37 counties, sales increased by percentages in the double digits from the 2019 to 2021 fiscal years. Still, there was a wide range in the amount that sales increased from county to county.
The sales data suggests that cannabis use increased the most in more rural parts of the state during the pandemic, particularly in Eastern Washington. The biggest jump in sales was in Lincoln County, just west of Spokane County, where sales more than doubled from around $800,000 in 2019 to nearly $1.4 million in 2021.
"That doesn't surprise me at all," said Elijah Hubert, a budtender at Molecule Cannabis, one of two retailers in Davenport, Lincoln County's largest city. "I'd have six cars out front and 10 customers in the store ... in the early spring when the pandemic first hit."
He says that many of the new customers were folks who had been laid off and who didn't know when they'd be going back to work.
"It may have been the first time they could use cannabis in 10 years," Hubert said. "They didn't know what they were looking for because they hadn't smoked in so long."
He says a lot of customers used their unemployment payments to stock up on weed, sometimes spending $300 to $400 on the first day they came in.
Sales are not as brisk at Molecule right now as they were earlier in the pandemic, Hubert says. He thinks that may be because things are starting to return to normal, but it could just be a normal winter slowdown.
The other counties where retail sales of cannabis increased by more than 100% were Pend Oreille and Stevens, both north of Spokane.
Klickitat County, in southern Washington just east of Vancouver, saw a modest 18% increase in cannabis retail sales, the smallest growth in the state.
As you'd expect, King County had the greatest volume in sales in 2021, at almost $383 million, and also the largest increase in dollars — up $85 million from the 2019 fiscal year. But as a rate of growth, that pencils out to 29%, which is a slower than the statewide average.
Although three rural Eastern Washington counties had the most impressive spikes in retail sales, these areas were not large consumers of marijuana to begin with.
I calculated per capita sales data for each county using the 2020 Census population figures for the 18-and-older population (21-and-older figures are not available). Even with the spending more than doubling in Lincoln, Pend Oreille and Stevens counties, all three remain below the statewide average for 2021, which was $251 per person. In fact, Pend Oreille still had the lowest per capita spending among all the counties in 2021, at just $67.
Retail spending in King County pencils out to $211 per person, lower than the statewide average, and lower than the two other counties in the Seattle metro area, Snohomish ($245) and Pierce ($268).
The highest spending per capita was in Asotin County, and it's an eye-popping figure: $866 per person. That's more than double the per capita amount of the next highest county. In Asotin, there were $15 million dollars in sales for an adult population of less than 18,000 in the county.
So what's happening in Asotin?
Most likely, this figure is inflated by sales to folks from neighboring Idaho, where marijuana is illegal, whether for recreational or medical use. Clarkston, the largest city in Asotin County, is part of the Lewiston, Idaho metro area, which has an adult population of about 51,000. I suspect that the cannabis retailers in Clarkston are largely supported by customers from across the state line.
The No. 2 county is Spokane, where per capita sales were $388 — that figure, too, is probably buoyed by sales from Idaho, although more modestly. The city of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho is just minutes away from a number of cannabis retailers in Spokane County.
Unlike Idaho, Oregon has legal marijuana, so Washington's counties along the southern border are not as likely to be picking up out-of-state business.
The highest per capita spending in a Washington county not bordering Idaho was in Grays Harbor, a coastal county in Southwestern Washington, and home to the city of Aberdeen. The county's 60,000 adults spent more than $21 million on cannabis in 2021, for a per capita figure of $347. And I suppose that makes Grays Harbor the true marijuana capital of Washington.
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