liveaction--2019-08-04--Never morally justified New Jersey Bishop condemns states Medicaid-covered assisted suicide

‘Never morally justified’: New Jersey Bishop condemns state’s Medicaid-covered assisted suicide

New Jersey’s Medicaid-covered assisted suicide law drew strong words of condemnation from one Roman Catholic bishop in New Jersey Monday. Governor Phil Murphy, a Catholic who claimed he didn’t support the law, nonetheless signed it in April, calling it the “right thing to do.”  The new law, which took effect August 1st, allows anyone over the age of 18 with a terminal illness and 6 months or less to live to end their own life on the taxpayers’ dime, either through self-administered drugs or by information about lethal doses of drugs.  But legality does not imply morality, as Bishop James F. Checchio of Metuchen reminded his flock. “Assisted suicide is a grievous affront to the dignity of human life and can never be morally justified,” Bishop Checchio said in his letter on July 29th. “The legal permission now granted to this practice does not change the moral law.”  Because the state of New Jersey has refused to uphold the moral law with this new measure, it has failed its primary duty, he says. “Passage of this law points to the utter failure of government, and indeed all society, to care truly, authentically and humanely for the suffering and vulnerable in our midst, especially those living with an incurable disease as well as the frail elderly, the infirm and those living with disabilities.”  And in fact, the vulnerable do suffer under legal assisted suicide. The Netherlands, which legalized assisted suicide in 2002, is a sobering case study of social degeneration through the slippery slope of euthanasia. What started out as a law intended for terminal conditions has in recent years been used to euthanize people who have conditions like dementia, mild disabilities, or even autism. Legalized euthanasia creates a culture in which vulnerable populations are pressured to kill themselves, a situation that led a prominent former euthanasia advocate in The Netherlands, Theo Boer, to warn, “Look closely at the Netherlands because this is where your country may be 20 years from now.”  Instead of euthanizing those at the end of their lives, Bishop Checchio urged instead a new commitment to caring for those suffering at the natural end of their lives.  “As Catholics, we are called to show a different approach to death and the dying; one which accompanies every person as they are dying and allows them to love and to be loved to the very end.” And because “the purposeful termination of human life via a direct intervention is not a humane action,” the bishop pointed out that, since Saint Peter’s University Hospital is a Catholic hospital compliant with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services (ERDs), it is prohibited from condoning or participating with euthanasia or assisted suicide, and thus is would not be complying with the law.  Respecting human dignity and human life from conception to natural death is at the core of Catholic healthcare, the bishop said. “We ought to look instead to minimizing the pain and suffering of the dying and those who are tempted to end their lives,” he said. “Let us, as a society and as individuals, choose to walk with them, in their suffering, not contribute to eliminating the gift of life.”  “Like” Live Action News on Facebook for more pro-life news and commentary!


liveaction--2019-08-08--Death with dignity Woman throws grandmother an assisted suicide party

Death with dignity? Woman throws grandmother an assisted suicide party

As assisted suicide grows in popularity across the world, advocates continue to insist it is necessary to prevent people from dying long, painful deaths from terminal illnesses. This, they say, is death with “dignity.” Rather than dying of cancer, it is better for someone to commit suicide with the help of a doctor, they claim. Yet this is rarely what ends up happening; the supposed safeguards in place fail to limit assisted suicide to those who are dying, and it instead becomes a free-for-all for anyone who is vulnerable to suicidal thoughts. In Canada, one woman’s editorial in Toronto Life served as a perfect example, as she wrote about throwing her grandmother an assisted suicide party.  Susie Adelson wrote about the decisions that led her grandmother, Sonia Goodman, to decide she wanted to die. Goodman wasn’t dying, but had lost her husband and two of her children. Other issues were also affecting her decision. “Over the years, she had suffered a few serious falls. One resulted in a broken hip, and the subsequent procedures to restore her mobility had taken their toll,” Adelson wrote, adding that Goodman felt she was “done” with life at 88.  It’s important to note that Goodman was not dying when she made this decision, although she had become ill. “During a visit to the ER with sepsis and extreme pain, she informed the team at Sunnybrook that she wanted help ending her life,” Adelson explained. “At first, the doctors suggested palliative care, but she was adamant: no more surgeries, no more drugs, not even antibiotics. She had watched her friends pass away and my mother suffer, and she didn’t want to go through that.”  READ: Study: Assisted suicide can be painful, prolonged and inhumane  So doctors agreed she could go through with assisted suicide, in just 10 days. Adelson said no one in her family argued, because they knew Goodman was “strong-willed.” And Adelson helped throw her grandmother a party, where she would die in front of her family and friends. Everyone toasted her and shared memories, and watched as doctors killed her.  On Twitter, one of her doctors shared her story as an example of what a “good death” could be, despite noting that Goodman was not dying; she was simply elderly. Goodman was septic, yes, but her doctor told her this was treatable with antibiotics. She was also in pain, but her doctor said the pain was alleviated with other procedures, and she improved — but still wanted to die. “She foresaw being confined to her apartment, in pain, struggling with her walker,” the doctor tweeted. “No more walks outside. No trips to the grocery store. No playing bridge with her friends, as she had done for years. She wasn’t interested in living like that.”  He then said that Goodman’s death was “the best death” he had ever witnessed.  Here we have a woman who was, without a doubt, very much loved and who led a rich and fulfilling life. But this is what assisted suicide does: it makes it possible for people to kill themselves — or be killed by their doctors — simply because they are elderly.  Goodman was not dying. The conditions she had were treatable. Quality of life is a valid issue, but it is seemingly only when someone is a member of an undesirable class that it becomes an issue worthy of death. If a young, able-bodied person sees their life as no longer worth living, citing what they feel is a poor quality of life, suicide is rightly seen as a horrific thing, and we fight against it. There are countless resources and support systems in place to show this person that life is still worth living, and that their death would be a tragedy. In other circumstances, for other people, suicide is seen as party-worthy.  If someone is elderly, like Goodman, then no longer do we fight to convince them that life is not worth living. And if they are poor, sick, disabled, or mentally ill, death is considered acceptable — even dignified. This is not a good death. It’s a tragedy.  “Like” Live Action News on Facebook for more pro-life news and commentary!


liveaction--2019-08-10--Sick First assisted suicide in Australian state of Victoria called an historic moment

Sick: First assisted suicide in Australian state of Victoria called ‘an historic moment’

A mother in the Australian state of Victoria has become the first casualty of the state’s legalization of assisted suicide.  Kerry Robertson, 61, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2010. In March of this year, she decided to stop chemotherapy and other treatments, as the side effects had become too much to bear. According to BBC News, her family claimed she had “the empowered death that she wanted.”  Victoria’s Parliament passed the Voluntary Assisted Dying Act in 2017, and the law went into effect in June of this year. The law requires that a person wishing to legally commit suicide must be terminally ill with no more than 6 months left to live, or 12 months if they have a neurological condition that is degenerative. The patient must make three requests, and have two doctors sign off on the requests.  Robertson became the first person to use the law, and her family called it the “perfect” death, according to The Telegraph. “Mum has always been been brave – a real ‘feel the fear then do it anyway’ mentality to life – it’s the legacy she leaves with us,” Nicole Robertson said in an interview with The Guardian. “That was the greatest part, knowing we did everything we could to make her happy in life and comfortable in death.”  Yet as the Catholic bishops in Victoria wrote in a pastoral letter in June, the legalization of assisted suicide is not a cause for celebration. “We object to the unnecessary taking of a human life; we object to the diminishment of the love that can be given and received in the last days of our loved ones; we object to the lack of adequate funding for excellent palliative care; we object to state-sponsored practices that facilitate suicide; and most of all we object to the lazy idea that the best response our community can offer a person in acute suffering is to end their life,” the letter read. The bishops stated that Catholic hospitals and all people of “principled opposition to euthanasia” can and must continue to resist the new law as “conscientious objectors.”  Jenny Mikakos, Victoria’s Minister for Health, called Robertson’s use of the state’s Voluntary Assisted Dying Act “an historic moment.”  “The Victorian parliament legalised voluntary assisted dying so that Victorians with an insufferable, terminal and incurable illness can have a genuine and compassionate choice at the end of their lives,” Mikakos said, according to the Telegraph.  The experience of other nations where assisted suicide has been legalized, however, paints a grisly picture of the unintended effects on society’s most vulnerable members. As Peter Abetz of the Australian Christian Lobby said, according to Right to Life Australia, despite the safeguards, “what we do know is that in every jurisdiction that has gone down the path of physician-assisted suicide, there have been wrongful deaths.”  In The Netherlands, where assisted suicide has been legal for nearly two decades, the situation has become so fraught with unintended consequences and abuses that people with disabilities, developmental disorders, autism, mental illness, sexual abuse, and other non-terminal conditions are being euthanized.  The perverse social incentives set in motion by the law are so bad that former Dutch euthanasia advocate-turned-vociferous skeptic, Theo Boer has warned other nations to study first the horror that has gripped his country: “Look closely at the Netherlands because this is where your country may be 20 years from now.” In 1995, Australia’s Northern Territory became the first political entity in the world to legalize assisted suicide. Eight months later, the law was overturned by the federal government.  Other Australian states, including Western Australia and Queensland, are now considering similar legislation, according to BBC News.  “Like” Live Action News on Facebook for more pro-life news and commentary!


liveaction--2019-08-19--Canadian man commits assisted suicide after struggling to afford care

The Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) reports that a man in British Columbia has ended his life by assisted suicide after years of struggling to secure the 24-hour care his condition required. Sean Tagert, 41, was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in 2013. After suffering cardiac arrest in 2017, he was resuscitated and required a ventilator. He leaves behind an 11-year-old son, Aidan.  Tagert and his family set up his home to allow him to stay there and spend weekends with his son. Tagert had shared custody of his son with Aidan’s mother and refused to move to an institutional care setting because his son would not be able to stay with him. He told the CBC in an interview last year, “My boy is everything to me. I wouldn’t still be here if it weren’t for him.”  Because Tagert refused to move to an institutional care facility, he had to piece together the 24-hour care his condition required with Vancouver Coastal Health only providing 20 hours after Tagert lobbied for more care. While struggling to live with ALS, Tagert had to use all of his personal savings to pay an additional $263.50 per day to receive adequate care at home.  In April, Tagert was featured in a local news video regarding the fight for the health care needs of those with disabilities in Canada:  READ: Puzzled officials say minorities are shunning assisted suicide. Here’s why.  In a Facebook post following his death, friends and family wrote, “Ensuring consistent care was a constant struggle and source of stress for Sean as a patient. While he succeeded, with the help of many, in piecing together a suitable care facility in his own home… gaining the 24-hour care he required was extremely difficult.” The post said that leaving his home for care “likely would have hastened his death.” The post urges on Sean’s behalf “that the government recognize the serious problems in its treatment of ALS patients and their families, and find real solutions for those already suffering unimaginably.”  Sean’s decision to end his life by assisted suicide was undoubtedly encouraged by the chronic shortage of adequate care. Many people do not realize that assisted suicide laws may be interpreted such that the inability to afford care is considered a valid reason for assisted suicide. Even patients suffering from a condition that would not be fatal with appropriate care could be eligible for assisted suicide if they could not afford the care or insurance denied coverage.  Increasingly, insurers are refusing promising treatment while offering to pay for assisted suicide.  Assisted suicide is marketed as increasing choice; the reality is that legal assisted suicide pushes patients to opt for suicide.  “Like” Live Action News on Facebook for more pro-life news and commentary!


liveaction--2019-08-20--Judge temporarily blocks New Jerseys new assisted suicide law

Judge temporarily blocks New Jersey’s new assisted suicide law

A judge in New Jersey has issued a temporary restraining order blocking the state’s new assisted suicide law. The Medical Aid in Dying for the Terminally Ill Act, which took effect August 1, allows patients to self-administer lethal medication if they are deemed by a doctor to have less than six months to live. Because there was a two-week waiting period before a physician could administer the medication, no individuals in the state have yet fallen victim to the law.  State Superior Court Judge Paul Innes granted the order last week in response to a lawsuit filed by Yosef Glassman, a physician who opposes the new law on religious and professional grounds.  In the lawsuit, Glassman says that the law interferes with his religious beliefs as an Orthodox Jew and his training as a physician. He also objects to the law’s stipulation that a physician who refuses to participate in the life-ending practice must refer the patient to another doctor.  “The Aid in Dying law, which we think should be called the Assisted Suicide Act, is something that goes completely against what a doctor is,” said E. David Smith, the lawyer representing Glassman, according to NJ 101.5. “A doctor has the mission to heal and to continue life as long as possible. It’s not for a doctor to be any way involved in ending life.”  READ: Study: Assisted suicide can be painful, prolonged and inhumane  During a news conference on Thursday, New Jersey governor Phil Murphy defended the law, saying the state would fight back against the recent court decision. Murphy supports the law despite the teaching of his Catholic faith.  According to Fox News, Murphy said, “It is really hard for me, particularly given growing up as a Catholic. This one was not an easy one to get to, but I got convinced that it shouldn’t be the law that dictates how things end. But it should be you and your loved ones.”  Last Friday, the state Attorney General’s office asked the Supreme Court to remove the temporary injunction.  “Those terminally ill patients and their families that have taken affirmative steps in reliance on the timelines in the Act, which became effective August 1, 2019, will be forced to continue in the intense suffering, pain, and indignity of terminal illnesses from which they seek immediate relief,” the AG’s office wrote in a court filing.  While the state insisted that it would fight to have the law reinstated, many pro-life advocates praised the recent court order.  “New Jersey’s assisted suicide law is a bad public policy that leaves many New Jersey residents at risk of abuse and coercion,” Kristen Hanson, a community advocate for the Patients Rights Action Fund said in a statement to Fox News. “The temporary restraining order issued, which prevents the policy from going into effect, is a welcome reassessment of a law that threatens the lives of the poor, older people, the terminally ill, and people with disabilities. New Jersey deserves better end-of-life-care, not assisted suicide.”  The restraining order is in effect until at least the next court date, which is scheduled for October 23.  “Like” Live Action News on Facebook for more pro-life news and commentary!


pinknewsuk--2019-04-01--Ofsted chief Parents protesting LGBT education set terrible example for kids

Ofsted chief: Parents protesting LGBT education ‘set terrible example for kids’

Signup to receive a daily roundup of the top LGBT+ news stories from around the world  Ofsted chief inspector Amanda Spielman has said that parents protesting against LGBT-inclusive education are setting a “terrible example” for their children.  The official spoke out in a speech to the Muslim Teachers’ Association on Sunday (March 31), after Birmingham schools faced weeks of protests against LGBT-inclusive relationship education led by largely-Muslim groups of parents.  Spielman, the head of the UK’s education watchdog, specifically noted the protests outside Parkfield primary school, explaining: “This is precisely where dialogue is essential.  “I understand the strength of feeling in that community. But it serves no one well to intimidate teachers and start protesting outside the school gates.  “All that does is make a difficult situation worse, while setting a terrible example for the children.”  She added: “It is children’s voices that always get lost when adults stop talking and start shouting.  “It must be better to engage in calm discussions in order to find a sensible middle ground – one that means children are prepared for life in a diverse, modern, progressive country like ours, but it’s done in a sensitive and careful manner that respects the concerns of age, religion or any other background or context.In such circumstances dialogue can be our ally.  “It is through dialogue that we advance understanding and find common solutions.”  Spielman added that it is “the duty of all schools in England” to promote “democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty [and] mutual respect for and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs.”  She added: “I believe this is right.  “These values make sure that government works for all citizens; they provide for a multi-racial society, building on what is already held in common.  “They promote both trust and the willingness to contribute to the common good; and create a space in which different beliefs, lifestyles and cultures can exist freely and in harmony.  “For us at Ofsted, making sure that the next generation understands, respects and is willing to adopt these values is an essential part of our work. It is about preparing children for life in modern Britain.”  Spielman has been one of the few public figures to actively condemn the protests.  Prime Minister Theresa May and opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn both came under scrutiny for failing to weigh in on the row.  Meanwhile, Education Secretary Damian Hinds has backed the schools but stressed the ability for teachers to decide what is and is not taught as part of relationship and sex education lessons.


anonymousconservative--2019-12-19--News Briefs – 12/19/2019

News Briefs – 12/19/2019

I always see lots of r/K related stories I think might interest the readers here, but I only have time to blog about a few, so here are some additional news stories that might be of interest. Most articles will be more or less summarized in the description. For unknown reasons, in some browsers the tweets in these posts display best if you click on the post instead of viewing it on the main page. You can skim the titles and summaries, and click the links if they are of interest. Keep in mind, many of these reports are products of the Fake News, so although they will be what people are hearing and talking about, there is no guarantee any one of them is necessarily correct, and we have had cases of outright lies make it onto these pages, especially about President Trump.  Q is going again. The format for Q’s posts will be a screenshot image of Q’s post, and immediately below each post will be any links reprinted as text hyperlinks so you can click them, and then my comments in bold. As always, you can see Q’s posts aggregated live, and new ones which may have gone live after our print deadline at http://www.qanon.pub  It is funny though. The entire story of Cabal is basically the background of the story arc of the TV Show Burn Notice. When Management wanted some things done, they were actually sending active duty Green Berets out of Fort Bragg, who would moonlight on their downtime as Management operations guys in the US civilian theater. You’d see the show, and think how could there ever be anybody in the Military working for some extra-governmental covert operations organization? Surely the government would keep all of its high-speed assets on lockdown, and never let them develop divided loyalties. But every facet of that show was actually based on reality, just with Cabal scaled back dramatically and renamed Management, because if they had made it fully accurate, nobody would ever have believed it even vaguely possible.  Link to the DARPA resignation. I don’t know the relationship of this guy to lifelog/facebook, but here is some on him from this link:  A former DARPA program manager, deputy office director, and office director, Walker has devoted 13 of his more than 30 years of public service to the Agency and been a key figure in advancing the science and technologies associated with hypersonic flight and rapid access to space.. Walker served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Science, Technology and Engineering… He was responsible for developing the technology investment strategy for the Air Force’s annual $2 billion science and technology program… Walker is a member of the Senior Executive Service.  Martha McCallum’s interview with Barr was preempted by the Impeachment vote, and will be re-aired tomorrow instead. There was a rumor her twitter was also briefly suspended when she indicated they might air the interview there, but I saw it afterward and it was either an error, or it was reinstated. Whatever Barr says, Cabal must think it might be devastating.  It was an impressive operation. Once revealed, it should permanently conspiracy-pill everyone in the nation, because it will show that all the things they would say are impossible, to argue that conspiracies are impossible, are actually fully possible, and exactly how conspiracies work.  The are moving slowly and methodically, but they are progressing and producing results.  Prosecutors say surveillance footage of the outside of Jeffrey Epstein’s cell during his first suicide attempt has disappeared.  Schiff may have broken the law with his subpoena of Nunes’ phone records.  Devin Nunes says the FISA Court did ‘absolutely nothing’ when he warned of FBI abuse last year. The biggest redpill you can have on what was going on, is to encounter not only law breaking, but gratuitous, unnecessary law-breaking that accomplishes nothing, bring it to the attention of authorities who should be responsible for policing it, and see them completely unable to do anything about it. It tells you, in a matter of seconds, the entire story you were told about how things worked was a lie. The fact the FISA Court tried to cover itself with an accusatory letter to the FBI is a sign things are changing.  Linsey Graham says FISA as it is today can not be allowed to exist.  AG Barr says Federal Law Enforcement is going to surge out into 7 major cities to quell violence. He portrays it as an operation to quell existing crime, but you wonder if they are getting a grip on those sectors now before Cabal can launch final last ditch chaos operations there.  Mark Levin thinks part of the Impeachment Plan is to try and prevent President Trump from potentially getting another SCOTUS pick in, if Ginsberg keels over.  Flashback to 2012 – $1.5B contract in Iraq for Biden’s little brother exposes Obama ahead of debate.  Judge rules in favor of U.S. effort to take Edward Snowden’s book money.  Midland County officials just found a missing ballot box hidden on a lower shelf, and it may change the result of a $569 million bond election. It is OK, it is just an election. It is not like it is something important, or something. Also, it is in Texas.  FBI Director Christopher Wray lied in a 2018 statement under oath to Congress, about the FBI’s complicity in deceiving the FISA Court and smeared Congressman Devin Nunes in an effort to cover for his agency’s FISA abuses.  NY Post points out, by fostering disrespect for cops (and prosecuting them gratuitously) it reduces recruitment and retention of new officers. Which would make it easier for Cabal to infiltrate their ranks and take over departments fully, especially since Cabal agents would be immune to any of the shenanigans. A lot of what we have seen, has not been organic. It was part of a complex plan. Why would Hillary be able to CC all of her emails to China as Secretary of State, and sell access through the Clinton Foundation for hundred of millions, if not billions, with zero consequence, and yet Cops, who could fuck up all sorts of people’s days for the rest of their lives for trying to fuck up their Officers, are constantly getting the shit end of the stick with no recourse whatsoever? Only an intel operation which had carefully set the stage could create that set of circumstances.  CBS/YouGov poll says Biden leads in Super Tuesday states, while Bloomberg trails in fifth place.  Bank Of England “hijacked” audio feed was used to secretly leak confidential information to hedge funds.  The Swedish government announced that it will be investing 1.7 million Swedish Krona (around $175,000) to encourage drag shows for kids in libraries, schools, and daycares around the country. The money will come from the Swedish Inheritance Fund, a fund that seizes the inheritance money of Swedish citizens who die without a written will and without any heirs. Notice how the media always tells us how these things are wonderful. That is not random. It is organized propaganda produced and supplied by paid agents of the conspiracy. It is not how the public feels about this kind of degeneracy, and if things were random, and not carefully organized by a well structured intel operation, some of the media would come out speaking the truth about it. But that doesn’t happen, because of the level of control Cabal created.  ACLU calls for tampons in men’s rooms in order to achieve ‘menstrual equity.’  In a trial, Libella Gene Therapeutics says it will administer volunteers with a gene therapy that it claims can reverse aging by up to 20 years, however, despite the fact that this is the first human trial of the treatment, the company is charging volunteers $1m to take part. Oddly enough, the FDA put out a notice ordering people to stop injecting young blood, though they have no evidence about the procedure’s effect in humans and it has worked in mice. But they are allowing all sorts of other therapies which are much, much less likely to have any effect, and which are much more likely to have side effects.  Singer Marc Anthony’s 120 foot yacht catches fire and capsizes in Miami. Maybe nothing. But you have to wonder if there are any videos out there that would have featured the inside of the yacht, which now cannot be positively identified.  The Rise of Skywalker praised for featuring the first gay kiss in a Star Wars movie. In a movie where the hero is a 95 lb girl who is better at everything from swordplay to telekinesis, to long range sharpshooting, without trying, than the people who have worked hard and done it all their lives. I actually like seeing all of this captured for posterity in the most cringe-inducing form possible. When things turn K, and the MK Ultra programming is removed, let it all be put on display. I’m not sure real K’s could believe it was this silly and ever-present, without seeing it firsthand.  Medical schools are beginning to include leftist indoctrination in their curricula.  The International Association of Exorcists has issued a statement warning parents of the dangers of a 2019 children’s book that gives instructions on how to summon demons.  French cops fire tear gas and charge protesters as tens of thousands take to the streets to fight President Macron’s pension reforms.  Lisa Page, in her interview, exhibits extreme disgust with the left side of her face while not exhibiting it at all on her right. In general, no matter right or left handed, or the nature of the emotions, extreme facial asymmetry means one side of the face is consciously expressing an emotion to produce a response in the listener which is very different from the real baseline state on the other side of the face. These things are never 100%, but I would generally assume that is a deceptive personality who may operate often based on manipulation. Of course Page was reportedly boning both McCabe and Strzok behind her husband’s back, while maintaining her marriage through deception, and those are just the two we heard about because they were related to the biggest case of treason in American history. Multiple simultaneous affairs, while still wanting to keep the marriage as well through deception, is usually going to be a sign of a fairly aberrant psychology, of the sort which will exhibit extreme facial asymmetry in polite conversation. As an example fo the opposite of this, where emotion and presentation are fully congruent, picture an enraged glare preceding a violent attack, and how symmetrical it would be, compared to this social manipulation:  FBI in Puerto Rico is offering $25,000 for anyone who recognizes three guys in a black Sedan who robbed an FBI agent of his wallet, FBI ID, and duty weapon. Blurry pic of the crew in a black sedan at the link for PR anons.  On this next tweet, Breitbart says, Senate can acquit even if House withholds articles of impeachment:  This next one could be true, if you flash back to Amy Robach having to stop and compose herself when she recalled hearing Epstein killed himself, and realizing (((They))) killed him. She was overtaken with emotion not because she felt bad for Epstein, but because that killing made her think about her own situation, and how helpless she was, and how some frightening entity she did not like had such massive power over her:  Update on this next one is it was a 56 year old female Chinese national who was arrested after taking photos, possibly of security measures:  90% of Virginia counties become gun ‘sanctuaries,’ expanding movement to nine states.  In a stunning, unexpected ruling, a judge on Wednesday tossed out New York State charges of mortgage fraud against Paul Manafort because of ‘double jeopardy’ laws.  European leaders warned Friday that Britain could become a formidable rival now that Johnson has won.  $312 million of cocaine seized from ‘go-fast’ vessels, narco sub, US Coast Guard says.  Gallup polling finds, on House Democrats’ big day, Trump’s approval improves even more as a majority opposes impeachment.  The U.S. stock market shrugged off the impending impeachment vote Wednesday morning, pushing major U.S. stock indexes to record highs.  I never got how Flynn’s FISA or Carter Page’s FISA Declass would touch off enough outrage to bring down the house. But 33,000 FISA warrants, with three hops each bringing in an additional 25,000 targets on average per primary target, according to a study, and multiple targets per FISA, means there would be a minimum of 825 million people under surveillance, in a nation of 300 million people. Even with overlap, it means nearly everyone has a FISA. Declassifying that everyone has a warrant, and then declassifying their files, with all the surveillance in them, will bring down the house, and produce the kinds of effects Q has been promising – basically a unification of conservatives and liberals against a common enemy – the Cabal which was using our own government against us. This show has just begun:     Spread r/K Theory, because we’re all about to get very, very pissed off.


chicagosuntimes--2019-01-16--Daley College opens 45 million manufacturing and engineering center

Daley College opens $45 million manufacturing and engineering center

City Colleges of Chicago opened the doors to a new $45 million manufacturing and engineering center with the mission of exposing students to technology being used in the field today.  The 57,000-square-foot facility at Richard J. Daley College, 4101 W. 76th St., will replace mobile classrooms put in place nearly five decades ago.  The Manufacturing Technology and Engineering Center is the largest and most advanced facility at any of the City Colleges campuses. It will serve as the hub for students looking to earn certification, an associate’s degree or transfer opportunities to four-year colleges for careers in manufacturing and engineering technology.  “What you will see in the center is the kind of advanced equipment, robotics equipment, process controls, quality-control equipment, the kind of technology you are going to see in today’s high-tech advance manufacturing floors,” said Juan Salgado, City Colleges chancellor.  City Colleges also modernized its curriculum to meet industry needs to make students strong prospects when they enter the job market.  Guadalupe Escamilla, 24, said he is excited to use the new equipment while pursuing advanced certifications in welding. He received his basic certifications in 2016.  “The classes I’m taking now can also be applied to an associate’s degree, and I am really considering that for the future,” Escamilla said.  About 250 people attended the opening of the center, including Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Chicago Public Schools CEO Janice Jackson, Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan, D-Chicago, and several aldermen.  Emanuel, who isn’t seeking re-election, called attention to the city’s efforts to improve City Colleges since he took office in 2011.  “Today we open the doors to a new future at Richard J. Daley College, from right here to Truman to Malcolm X to Olive Harvey, we’ll have modernized four of our seven campuses and invested more than $560 million in capital projects to bring our community colleges into the 21st century,” Emanuel said. “What all this adds up to is a city that stands with the students who’ve been overlooked and underestimated, pushed to the side because ‘They weren’t our kids.’”  “You’re our children, your future is our future, and we are going to invest in that future.”  Only some manufacturing classes will be held at the new facility this semester as City Colleges continues to add equipment and put some finishing touches on the building.  Manny Ramos is a corps member in Report for America, a not-for-profit journalism program that aims to bolster Sun-Times coverage of issues affecting Chicago’s South and West sides.


chicagosuntimes--2019-01-21--2 new libraries in housing developments to be unveiled by Mayor Emanuel

Watch for Mayor Rahm Emanuel to officially cut the ribbon Tuesday on two buildings containing libraries within housing developments on the city’s North and South sides — highlighting the modernization and growth of Chicago’s library system during his tenure.  The co-located developments of shared spaces provide residents with both a state-of-the-art community anchor and mixed-income CHA housing, which will provide a total of 44 senior apartments, including 30 public housing and 14 affordable apartments at each site.  While the library in Little Italy will be located at 1336 W. Taylor St., while the Independence branch is at 4024 N. Elston Ave. The Independence branch had been close in fall 2015 after a fire. A new West Loop library opened last week.  Highlighting the more than $275 million in new investments to Chicago Public Libraries during his time in office, Emanuel tells Sneed:  “When I was a kid, my mom would drop my brothers and me at the library to check out books that detailed the past.”  He added: “Today, kids go to the library to turn on computers to explore the future. Albert Einstein once said, ‘The only thing you absolutely have to know, is the location of the library.’  “It is truer today than it was when he said it. Chicago’s libraries are community anchors and early learning centers,” he said. “They are places to get homework help and search for a job.”  Emanuel, who is this/close to former President Barack Obama and was his chief of staff, also emphasized upcoming plans for the planned Obama Presidential Center in Woodlawn.  “Chicago will be the first city in the country to have a neighborhood library in a presidential library,” he said. “We are writing the next chapter on what a library looks like and does.”  Sneed hears upcoming speeches will cover the park system, education and public housing.  Our mayoral rocket man has already given two major speeches outlining his legacy of achievement at the Chicago Transit Authority and the City Colleges of Chicago at the grand openings of the new North Terminal at the 95th/Dan Ryan Red Line Station and the new Daley College Manufacturing Technology and Engineering Center.


conservativehome--2019-08-04--Daniel Rossall-Valentine Tech now underpins prosperity in every sector so to thrive we need more

Daniel Rossall-Valentine: Tech now underpins prosperity in every sector – so to thrive, we need more engineers

Daniel Rossall-Valentine is Head of Campaign for This is Engineering at the Royal Academy of Engineering, and Deputy Chairman of Sevenoaks Conservative Association. He writes in a personal capacity.  “It’s the same formula: it is education, infrastructure and technology —those three things”, so said Boris Johnson in June when interviewed by the Evening Standard about his agenda for government. According to Boris, those are the three principles which informed his time as Mayor of London and will be his priorities as Prime Minister.  These priorities are very welcome because they recognise the essential connections between three vital elements of wealth generation, and represent a more sophisticated view of economic growth than the one-dimensional and idealistic catchphrase of “education, education, education” which prevailed under a previous government.  The UK is involved in a long running battle to raise its productivity. We have long needed a better vision of what we need to do to boost productivity and I believe that this vision is now being developed.  Engineers and technicians must be at the heart of this new vision. Engineers are essential for innovation, they design, build and improve technology and have become central to national productivity, economic growth and living standards. Engineers are the people who turn scientific principles into practical application, social benefit and economic value. Our world is being unified in a new way; by a series of threats that know no borders. We face big challenges, including overpopulation, environmental degradation, malnutrition, biodiversity loss, cyber-terrorism and global warming, and technology is central to building solutions for each of these and making our world work better for everyone.  In truth, technology is not a sector anymore; it is now the driver of productivity and economic success (and indeed survival) for organisations in every sector. The analytical and design skills of engineers have become more and more valuable as the rate of technological change accelerates. No sector of the economy is now protected from the forces of technological change; healthcare, agriculture, retail, and education are just four examples of sectors which are currently experiencing rapid technological change; change that offers significant improvements in productivity and benefits for users.  Growing our domestic tech capacity offers great benefits to the UK. Tech firms have shown that they can scale very rapidly. The rise of “tech unicorns” (recent startups valued at over $1 billion) demonstrates the economic and social potential offered by tech. Engineering has been proven to be a very effective multiplier of economic growth. The UK should not be modest about its future in tech because we have significant advantages, including a trusted legal regime, access to capital and credit, access to support services, unparalleled access to tech customers, an educated workforce, world class universities, stable taxation and intelligent regulation.  However, the UK has one great and persisting tech weakness which threatens to impede our growth, and that is an inadequate number of engineers and technicians. The UK needs to grow its pool of engineering talent, to ensure that UK-based tech companies can remain in the UK as they scale rapidly, and to enable engineering companies to win big projects. If the UK doesn’t expand its pool of engineering talent we risk losing tech firms, tech projects and tech investment and the huge economic and social value that they bring. The proportion of jobs that require technical skill is growing and Britain should aspire to a growing share of this growing pie.  Young people are avid consumers of technology, but we need more of them to aspire to mastering the engineering that underpins the technology so that they can become developers, makers and creators of technology, rather than mere users. We also need more young people who combine engineering skills with the entrepreneurial and managerial skills that will enable them to form and scale business enterprises; so that the UK can capture an increasing share of lucrative engineering value-chains; and provide the GDP and employment that flow from end-to-end technology development. Increasingly people who are not tech-savvy are at risk of being automated out of a job, so the need for upskilling the UK in technical skills is pressing.  This technical skills shortage has long been recognised and a multitude of projects have been started to encourage young people to consider engineering. And yet despite the number of initiatives, the shortfall of talent has not only persisted but seems to have grown larger over the last decade. We also need to diversify our talent pool and ensure we are attracting young people from all backgrounds; because only a diverse profession guarantees the diversity of ideas that technical fields rely on.  The UK has made good progress in raising the profile of engineering in the last few years. The Industrial Strategy and Grand Challenges of 2017 were very welcome developments at putting technology centre-stage. The Year Of Engineering 2018 led to a very significant change in the perception of engineering amongst school pupils. This year-long Government campaign also encouraged greater collaboration between the many professional engineering institutions that make up the UK’s complex engineering landscape. We can be optimistic that the UK has got into the good habit of paying far more recognition to the engineers and entrepreneurs who enable, create and democratise the technology which improves lives, saves time and generates wealth.  Too often we allow our natural British reserve about talking about wealth to prevent us talking about wealth creation. Social benefit and commercial success are too often portrayed as trade-offs, when they are mutually reinforcing; the best technology delivers for investors as well as society-at-large. Technological success is a stool with three legs; technical progress, commercial success and social benefit. Technology is more than technology: technology is inherently social, and inherently financial, and we need more technologists who look at the full picture rather than the purely technical aspects of technology. Without profit, technology is the greatest creator of loss and debt known to mankind, and without social benefit technology can be a force of social division, rather than a democratising force.  To maximise the benefits of technology we need to close the technology skills gap, and this requires action by many players. We cannot rely on Government alone to solve this persistent problem. We know that too few young people are studying engineering related degrees and apprenticeships. One major factor is the image of engineering. Unfortunately, a number of unappealing stereotypes have become attached to the profession of engineering. Many young people assume that engineering involves hard, manual work, and male-dominated workplaces. Too many young people also believe that engineering is a narrow specialism that offers only a limited range of job opportunities. The problem is particularly acute with female students. Inspiring more girls to pursue STEM subjects and careers will not only help us to address the skills gap in science and technology, but it will also help us to create a more diverse workforce that truly represents the world we live in.  The UK has a great tradition of innovation and enterprise but only by unlocking the interest of our young people by presenting a positive vision of business enterprise and technology can we continue to succeed in this increasingly competitive field. One recent example of success is the This is Engineering campaign which was developed by a number of the UK’s leading technology companies and launched in January 2018. The campaign presents young people with positive, modern, authentic images of careers in technology and engineering, through the medium of short films which are available on many social media platforms. The films also highlight the societal benefits that new technology delivers, the team-work that technology and engineering projects rely on, and the creativity that is required at every stage in the design and build process.  By helping to promote careers in technology and engineering we can ensure that more and more young people see technology not just as a range of products to be consumed but also as a range of careers to be considered.


eveningstandard--2019-04-30--Evening Standard Business Awards 2019 Meet the Judges

Evening Standard Business Awards 2019: Meet the Judges

Producing our shortlist of nominees for the Evening Standard Business Awards, in association with London City Airport, entailed ferocious debate and compromises among our usually sceptical editorial business team and guest judges.  Everyone who made it to the shortlist is doing something very special, and each of these businesses were able to demonstrate activity, innovation and commitment out of the ordinary - impressing our team.  We’ve compiled an expert team of judges, consisting of CEOs and acclaimed business leaders, to help select a worthy winner in each category. The winners will then be announced at the Awards Ceremony and Lunch on 28 June 2019 at The Landmark London.  Editor of London’s Evening Standard newspaper, George was previously the UK’s Chancellor of the Exchequer from 2010 to 2016 and First Secretary of State from 2015 to 2016.  George is also the Chair of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, a not-for-profit organisation he established with business and civic leaders to promote economic development in the North of England. He is an honorary professor of economics at the University of Manchester and a visiting professor at Stanford University. He is an adviser to the BlackRock Investment Institute and he is the Chair of the EXOR Partners Council. He received the Companion of Honour from Her Majesty the Queen in 2016.  Annette started as CEO of Publicis Groupe in the UK in May 2018, overseeing all of the Groupe's operations. She joined them from Ogilvy, where she spent 17 years in various different roles, ranging from running and building OgilvyOne in the UK and then EMEA to leading Ogilvy UK Group's ten operating companies for the last four years. In this role, she was responsible for integrating the UK group's capabilities to partner clients such as American Express, IBM, Philips and Unilever as well as leading the teams to win new clients such as British Airways, Boots and Vodafone.  Prior to that she worked for Wunderman in London and New York. She has worked with clients from most industries and has experience across all marketing capabilities, given her most recent role.  Ulric Jerome is the CEO of MATCHESFASHION.COM, the leading global luxury fashion retailer for men and women. Ulric also sits on the Board of Zooplus AG, a European online leader of pet supplies with close to €1 billion in sales.  Ulric has also served on the Board of Paddy Power plc from 2012 to 2016, where he was appointed as a Non-Executive Director and additionally sat on the Nomination and Audit Committees.  Ulric was a founding partner of PIXmania.com, a €1 billion pan-European online retailer, spanning more than 30 products categories with operations across 26 European countries; the business was sold to Dixons Retail in 2006.  Born in Paris, Ulric studied in France before completing his degree in Economics in Montréal. He lives in London with his wife and daughter.  Wol has been instrumental in developing the Livingbridge strategy, leading the spin out from its parent F&C in 2005, building the team and a strong internal culture. He joined a predecessor of Livingbridge in 1993 and has led the business since 1998. His role encompasses overall responsibility for the leadership and strategic development of Livingbridge, senior-level involvement in winning deals and active involvement in selective key investments.  Wol initially trained as an engineer, having studied civil and structural engineering at Kings College, London. After obtaining an MBA from Exeter University, he spent three years with Barclays before joining Livingbridge. Wol takes an active role in private equity industry initiatives and issues. He was previously a Chairman of the British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association in 2007/2008, a Council Member from 2002 - 2009 and Chairman of the Responsible Investment Advisory Board from 2009 - 2010.  Wol is Chairman of the Guys and St Thomas' Charity, which has assets in excess of £800 million, making it one of the largest medical charities in the UK. The charity awards grants to facilitate improvements to healthcare services in the London Boroughs of Lambeth and Southwark. In 2018 he was also appointed as a Non-Executive Director to the NHS Improvement Board.  Wol received an honorary doctorate from the University of Exeter in 2014.  Viswas ("Vis") Raghavan is the Chief Executive Officer for J.P. Morgan in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). He is also the Head of Banking for the region’s Corporate & Investment Bank. Based in London, he has over 25 years of corporate finance experience.  As CEO for EMEA, Vis works with the Senior Country Officers and business heads across J.P. Morgan, to ensure that clients are able to take full advantage of the firm's local knowledge and global capabilities, across all businesses. In addition, as Head of Banking for EMEA, Vis leads a team of coverage and product bankers across the region responsible for corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, capital markets, treasury services and transaction banking.  Before being appointed to his current role, he was head of Global Equity Capital Markets at J.P. Morgan. Prior to that Vis was head of J.P. Morgan’s Debt and Equity Capital Markets' businesses for Europe & Asia Pacific. Vis has been an integral part of J.P. Morgan’s EMEA business since joining from Lehman Brothers in 2000, where he was Head of Equity-Linked Capital Markets for Europe & Asia.  Vis graduated from The University of Bombay, India with a BSc in Physics and holds a BSc Honours degree in Electronic Engineering & Computer Science from Aston University, Birmingham, UK. He is also a Chartered Accountant with the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales. In 2016, he was awarded an honorary Doctorate in Science (DSc) by Aston University.  Suranga joined Balderton as a General Partner in 2014. He was previously an entrepreneur and engineer. Suranga founded blinkx, the intelligent search engine for video and audio content in Cambridge in 2004. He lead the company for eight years as CEO through its journey of moving to San Francisco, building a profitable business and going public in London where it achieved a peak market capitalisation in excess of $1Bn. Before founding blinkx, Suranga was an early employee at Autonomy Corporation - joining as an engineer in the Cambridge R&D team and ultimately serving as the company's US CTO in San Francisco..  Suranga has a MA in Computer Science from the University of Cambridge. He holds patents in the area of video discovery and online video advertising and was awarded the Royal Academy of Engineering’s annual Silver Medal for his work in the field.  He was also elected a Fellow of the Academy in 2012 and was chosen as one of the World Economic Forum's Young Global Leaders in 2009.  In 2017, Suranga joined the UK Government's Council for Science and Technology.  Suranga was granted an OBE for services to technology and engineering in the 2018 UK New Year's Honours.  Richard joined the Merian Global Investors as head of UK equities in 2013. In early 2019, he announced his intention to step down from the CEO role (which he took on in 2015) and will remain with the business as head of UK equities. Richard was previously at Schroders, where he managed the Schroder UK Alpha Plus Fund for over 10 years.  Prior to Schroders he spent more than a decade at Baring Asset Management, having commenced his investment career in 1985 at Brown Shipley Asset Management.  Richard was awarded the Outstanding Contribution to the Industry honour at the Morningstar OBSR Awards in 2012 and has a degree in English language and literature from the University of Oxford.  Helen Gordon is Chief Executive of Grainger plc the UK’s largest listed residential landlord and Vice President of the British Property Federation.  Helen was appointed Chief Executive of Grainger in January 2016 from RBS where she had been Global Head of Real Estate Asset Management since October 2011. Prior to that Helen was Director of Legal and General Property, responsible for the Main Life Fund and c.8 smaller Funds, and Group Property Director of Railtrack and Managing Director of John Laing Developments.  Helen sits on the Board of Derwent London as a non-executive Director and is currently a Board Director of the European Public Real Estate Association.  Helen has held a number of non-exec positions and Government appointments including the Board of Covent Garden Market Authority, Board of British Waterways and was a Trustee for The College of Estate Management for nine years.  June O'Sullivan MBE is Chief Executive of the London Early Years Foundation (LEYF), a social enterprise which currently runs 37 nurseries across ten London boroughs.  An inspiring speaker, author and regular media commentator on Early Years, Social Business and Child Poverty, June has been instrumental in achieving a major strategic, pedagogical and cultural shift for the award-winning London Early Years Foundation, resulting in increased profile, new childcare model and stronger social impact over the past ten years.  As CEO and creator of the UK's leading childcare charity and social enterprise since 2006, June continues to break new ground in the development of LEYF's scalable social business model. She remains a tireless campaigner, looking for new ways to influence policy and make society a better place for all children and families.  June is a champion of community-based, multi-generational early years education as the basis for greater social and cultural capital to deliver long-term social impact. She continues to advise Governments as well as a range of organisations, academics and services at home and overseas about how best to implement a social enterprise vision for Early Years.  June is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Director of Early Years Nutrition Partnership, Director of Social Enterprise UK, Member of the London Mayor’s Child Obesity Taskforce, and Founding Member of International Early Years. June was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday honours in 2013, for her services to London’s children. She won the Social Enterprise UK Women’s Champion Award in November 2014 and in February 2015 she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Middlesex. In 2016 she was named one of the 500 influential People in the UK by Debretts. In 2017 she was delighted to receive the Most Influential Person In Early Years Award and joined the top 10 of the WISE100 – an initiative from the NatWest SE100 Index which recognises100 of the most inspiring and influential women in social enterprise, impact investment and social innovation.  June is a published author, with an MA in Primary & Early Childhood Studies and MBA from London South Bank University.  Jill is currently Chief Executive of Boden and is also a Non-Executive Director on the Board of Auto Trader. She was previously a member of the Executive Committee at Tesco PLC where she held a variety of strategic and operational leadership roles. Jill started her career at Marks & Spencer in buying and merchandising and also spent time as a management consultant with Cap Gemini Ernst & Young.  Jayne Anne Gadhia was Chief Executive of Virgin Money from 2007 - 2018.  A Chartered Accountant, she spent six years at Norwich Union (now Aviva) before becoming one of the founders of Virgin Direct in 1995. Three years later, she set up the Virgin One account, which was acquired by the Royal Bank of Scotland in 2001.  She subsequently spent five years at RBS as part of its Retail Executive Committee, before returning to Virgin as the CEO of Virgin Money. In 2012, Virgin Money acquired Northern Rock, and in 2014 it successfully listed on the London Stock Exchange.  In November 2016, she was appointed as the UK Government’s Women in Finance Champion, and in July 2017, she became a founder member of its Business Diversity and Inclusion Group.  She sits on the UK Government’s Industrial Strategy Council, Scottish Business Taskforce and Scottish Policy Foundation’s Advisory Board. She is also a member of the Mayor of London’s Business Advisory Board and the Financial Conduct Authority’s Practitioner Panel.  Jayne Anne was made a Dame in the 2019 New Year’s Honours list and has been appointed as an external member of the Financial Policy Committee.  Jayne-Anne is a firm believer in the importance of businesses making a positive contribution to society. She won Leader of The Year at the Lloyds Bank National Business Awards in 2018 in recognition of her personal impact on the culture and success of Virgin Money as a force for good in the banking industry.  A committed supporter of The Prince’s Charities, she is a Trustee of the Tate, Chairs the Dumfries House Trust and has previously served as Chair of Scottish Business in the Community.  Jayne-Anne is married with one teenage daughter.


eveningstandard--2019-10-03--The Progress 1000 Dina Asher-Smith and the Rebel Alliance power into our top 20 Londoners for 2019

The Progress 1000: Dina Asher-Smith and the Rebel Alliance power into our top 20 Londoners for 2019

Newly-crowned world champion sprinter Dina Asher-Smith today raced into the top 20 of the Standard’s annual celebration of London’s most influential people for the first time. She joined Fleabag acting and writing star Phoebe Waller-Bridge and members of the “Rebel Alliance” group of MPs blocking a no-deal Brexit.  The full line-up for the Progress 1000, produced for the fifth year in partnership with the global bank Citi, is revealed today ahead of a glamorous party this evening.  Orpington-born Asher-Smith, who stormed to the 200-metre gold medal in a UK record time in Doha last night, is ranked as the seventh most powerful Londoner after becoming the first British woman to win a major global sprint title.  At the top of the list are the courageous MPs who put their careers on the line to stop a potentially disastrous departure from the European Union without an agreement with Brussels.  They are collectively celebrated as London’s most influential men and women in 2019.  Among those honoured are politicians who gave up Cabinet posts, such as Tories Amber Rudd and David Gauke, or were outspoken Labour critics of Jeremy Corbyn’s position on the great issue of our age, such as Stephen Kinnock and Luciana Berger.  Some went on to set up a new centrist movement, including Anna Soubry, leader of the Independent Group for Change. Others, such as Sir Oliver Letwin and Dominic Grieve, were stripped of the Conservative whip after they refused to toe the party line on Brexit and now sit as independents.  Yet more, such as former Conservative Sam Gyimah, quit their parties to join the Liberal Democrats. The other rebel MPs who are honoured are former Conservatives Nick Boles and Justine Greening, and Labour’s Stephen Doughty.  All have played key roles in the spirited Parliamentary opposition to Boris Johnson’s pledge to lead Britain out of Europe on October 31 even if no agreement can be reached over Brexit. The price for them has been personal abuse and, in some cases, even threats of physical violence.  The theme of this year’s list is the future and technology,  embracing whole new sectors including augmented and virtual reality and cyber security, as well as a wide range of activists challenging inequality and helping the environment.  Also featured are the social media stars shaping our spending habits and influencing our work and home lives.  The names are curated by the Evening Standard editorial team led by Editor George Osborne, who said: “This year’s list is a celebration of the talent, diversity and energy of a future-facing London. Here are all the movers and shakers in our great capital. Prepare to be surprised!”  The Rebel Alliance follow in the footsteps of last year’s winner,  Sajid Javid, then Home Secretary and now Chancellor of the Exchequer.  Previous top Londoners include Mr Johnson, London Mayor Sadiq Khan and 2017’s Everyday Heroes, who were given accolades for their courage and compassion in the face of terror and disaster.  In second place this year is Waller-Bridge, the multi-award-winning actress, playwright, producer, and writer behind comedy drama Fleabag and spy thriller Killing Eve. Her extraordinary work has dominated the TV schedules this year.  In third place is the Metropolitan Police Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick, whose challenges this year have included tackling the rising toll of knife murders and the Extinction Rebellion protests.  Fourth are the Prime Minister, Mr Johnson, and his chief adviser Dominic Cummings, while fifth is Sir David Attenborough.  The top 10 is completed by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Asher-Smith, London Mayor Sadiq Khan, GlaxoSmithKline chief executive Emma Walmsley and BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg.  The technology section includes AR/VR, biotechnology and engineering. It features chief executives and start-up founders such as Joseph Shepherd, co- founder of Lettuce Labs, which aims to prevent London throwing away nearly 900,000 tonnes of food each year, and Sophie Thompson, co-founder of VirtualSpeech, which uses VR to improve sales pitches and public speaking skills.  As well as Brexit this has been the year of the activist. One of the youngest is 17-year-old schoolgirl and environmental activist Noga Levy-Rapoport, who helped organise the UK-wide school strikes in a bid for action on climate change — London’s answer to Greta Thunberg. Caroline Criado Perez, whose book Invisible Women exposed gender data bias, is in the equality section while the hero imam Mohammed Mahmoud, recently awarded an OBE for helping calm the Finsbury Park terror attack in 2017, earns a place in the faith category.  Those who rule our social media apps have never been more powerful and it is not only the millennials dominating this arena. Charlie Mackesy is an artist who has found fame in his late fifties by becoming an Instagram sensation with more than 150,000 followers. This section also includes the gamer and boxer KSI, knitter Susan Cropper and podcaster Hannah Witton.


fortune--2019-07-23--Microsoft Invests In Artificial General Intelligence CEO Daily

Microsoft Invests In Artificial General Intelligence: CEO Daily

Good morning.    Microsoft demonstrated yesterday it is focused on the far future by investing $1 billion in OpenAI, the organization co-founded by Elon Musk in 2015, to help develop Artificial General Intelligence. Most A.I. work today is focused on specific tasks, like identifying images or translating language. But “A.G.I” refers to the kind of non-task-specific thinking and problem solving that humans do.  That’s the stuff science fiction is made of, and most computer experts say it is likely to be decades before the capability is well developed.    The Microsoft investment ensures OpenAI development happens on Microsoft’s Azure Cloud services, so there’s an immediate commercial lift there. It gives Microsoft the inside track on developing business applications based on breakthroughs OpenAI makes along the path to developing AGI. It also gives the company a say in developing rules of the road for scary-sounding AGI itself. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said the goal is to “democratize A.I.—while always keeping A.I. safety front and center—so everyone can benefit.”     Microsoft, by the way, moved up to number 60 on the Fortune Global 500 list, from 71 a year earlier, with its impressive 23% revenue gain in 2018.    Some other fun facts from the Fortune Global 500, out yesterday:    -One third of the Fortune Global 500 companies are based in just five cities: Beijing, Tokyo, Paris, New York and Seoul.    -Air Liquide, the French industrial company, was last on the list this year, making its revenue total of $24.8 billion the new threshold. That’s up 5% from last year’s threshold.    -Meanwhile, one-time Fortune 500 star GE earned a dubious honor: it lost more money than any other company on the list, with a $22 billion loss in 2018.    More news below.    Alan Murray    alan.murray@fortune.com    @alansmurray  Boris Johnson was announced as the new leader of the U.K.’s Conservative party this morning, and therefore prime minister of the U.K. It was not a shocking announcement (though technically it was down to two: him and Jeremy Hunt.) That means it’s worth revisiting this profile in The Atlantic of Boris, whose leadership style while the mayor of London, the foreign minister, and as an early Brussels irritant will likely hold lessons for Brexit, amid repeated warnings that a no-deal this fall would likely plunge the U.K. into recession. BBC / The Atlantic  Apple is in advanced talks with Intel to acquire its smartphone modem chip business, WSJ reports—a crucial step in Apple differentiating its iPhone, and getting a head start on the growth of 5G. That deal could be worth $1 billion, giving Apple access to technology and engineering talent, while Intel would shed a part of the business that’s been weighing on its bottom line. WSJ  The White House and congressional negotiators have avoided hitting the debt ceiling, after reaching an agreement last night for a two-year budget that would raise the existing cap on borrowing. The deal still needs to be passed by Congress and signed by President Trump, and if that happens, it would push the showdown over debt past the 2020 elections, with the deficit already approaching $1 trillion. New York Times  Leo Hindery Jr, the former CEO of AT&T Broadband, makes the case for Elizabeth Warren’s proposed bill to restrict the private equity industry. “Today, too many PE fund managers are generalists, with little or no experience in the industry they’re investing in,” he writes. “And we’re seeing them use a much-discredited playbook: cut costs, take out cash for their own short-term benefit, add little genuine competitive value, and then slash jobs and worker benefits in a desperate bid for greater operating cash flow.” Fortune  The under-construction Oyu Tolgoi copper mine in Mongolia, funded by Rio Tinto and the Mongolian government, is set to be the world’s third-largest, and a significant contributor to the country’s economy. But in 2013, a “special advisor” to Rio named Henry Steel, a young Oxford grad who was doing a PhD funded by the company, concluded that the mine was a bad investment for Mongolia. He went on to work for the London hedge-fund manager Crispin Odey, and make high-profile bets against the project. FT The Economic Roots of the Hong Kong Protests Incredibly low wages, long hours, and very tiny apartments: these are some of the economic strains behind the Hong Kong protests, which are the most extreme since the former British colony was returned to China in 1997. That also means a gap between rich and poor that is at its widest in nearly 50 years, paired with the world’s longest working hours and highest rents, which have leapfrogged wage growth. New York Times  An unexpected casualty of the U.S.-China trade war? American cherries. Demand for the fresh, imported fruit soared to nearly $200 million in 2017—from nothing seven years before—and has now shrunk back to a tenth of its size at its peak. The import tariffs on U.S. cherries are 50% of the price, and Beijing has lowered regulations for tariffs, instead, from Central Asia: a key Belt and Road Initiative region. But the numbers of imported cherries are now so small that fruit-lovers can’t get their fix. Reuters


france24--2019-11-06--France to 'take back control' of immigration, says French PM

Dominique Faget, REUTERS | French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe leads a meeting focused on immigration policies, next to French Justice Minister Nicole Belloubet, at the Hotel Matignon in Paris, France November 6, 2019.  French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe on Wednesday unveiled the government's new immigration measures, including the first ever quotas for migrant workers, as President Emmanuel Macron's administration seeks to toughen its stance in response to right-wing criticism.  Philippe said France needed to “take back control” of migration as part of a government push to listen to voters' worries about migration that risk playing into the hands of the far right.  “It’s about sovereignty. We have to take back control of our migration policy," Philippe told a news conference, adding that the government’s new approach would offer a "fair balance between rights and obligations."  The prime minister confirmed reports that the government planned to fix quotas on certain aspects of migration, without elaborating.  "Our will is to make choices in how we welcome [immigrants]: set quantitative goals or quotas, both expressions suit me, for professional immigration", Philippe said.  His announcements came a day after Labour Minister Muriel Penicaud said France would introduce migrant quotas for the first time next year.  In a major policy shift, authorities working with employers will identify industries lacking qualified candidates and facilitate the hiring of foreigners to fill the gap, Penicaud said.  "This is about France hiring based on its needs. It's a new approach, similar to what is done in Canada or Australia," Penicaud told BFM television.  Currently employers have to justify why a French citizen cannot be hired in a complex administrative process, which resulted in around 33,000 economic migrants being granted visas last year.  Construction, hotels and restaurants, and some retailing sectors have long complained of a shortage of people willing to take what is often low-paying work.  Information technology and engineering industries, by contrast, say France does not produce enough qualified candidates.  Penicaud did not say how many foreign workers would be granted visas, nor if an applicant's nationality would be taken into account, a proposal aired by Philippe last month.  Philippe is spearheading Macron's move to toughen rules on immigration in a bid to woo right-wing voters who accuse the government of allowing in too many foreigners despite unemployment at 8.5 percent in the second quarter.  Analysts say Macron's prime political rival in the run-up to 2022 presidential elections remains the far-right National Rally (RN) leader Marine Le Pen.  The prime minister is to unveil a raft of measures Wednesday signalling the tougher line, after France received a record 122,743 asylum requests last year, up 22 percent from the year before.  The measures could include restrictions on migrants bringing over family members, or limiting access to health care for asylum seekers while their claims are processed.  France has also called for overhauling the EU's efforts to halt the surge of migrants fleeing conflict and misery in Asia, the Middle East and Africa since 2015.  Macron also wants more EU members to share the burden of taking in migrants allowed to stay, a move opposed by several countries in Eastern and Central Europe.  Macron drew the ire of Bulgaria's government last week after saying in a magazine interview that he wanted migrants from Guinea or Ivory Coast, who worked in a legal way, rather than "clandestine networks of Bulgarians and Ukrainians".


npr--2019-01-25--In A Hot Labor Market Some Employees Are Ghosting Bad Bosses

In A Hot Labor Market, Some Employees Are 'Ghosting' Bad Bosses  If you've ever applied for a job, chances are you never heard back from some prospective employers — even after an interview. But now that jobs are plentiful, it seems the tables have turned on employers.  In a report last month, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago said a number of employers reported being "ghosted" by workers — that's right, like how a Tinder date might stop answering your texts.  The Fed defined ghosting on the job as "a situation where a worker stops coming to work without notice and then is impossible to contact."  There's no official data on ghosting at work. But analysts say the uptick probably has something to do with the low unemployment rate and a hot labor market that's given workers more job options.  Workers such as Kris say there's another reason: being disrespected on the job.  Several years ago, when he was in college, Kris worked as a lifeguard at a water park in Cincinnati. After about a year, his bosses promoted him to a managerial role and promised him a raise.  His new duties were more than just keeping an eye on the water. Kris managed the daily schedule for all lifeguards and tested the water's chemical levels. Each morning when he opened the park, he would be the first one down its waterslides — testing them for safety.  More than six months into his new position, Kris' paycheck remained the same — $8 an hour instead of the $10 he was promised.  "Week after week I would ask about it," he says, "and management would keep making excuses."  Then came a corporate announcement. Kris' managers said they would cut employees' pay by 10 percent due to financial difficulties. Kris felt slighted — now his pay was less than what he started out earning, despite his managerial duties.  "I decided, OK, if they really don't care about me and they don't value me and what I do for the water park, then maybe I'll just stop doing it," he says.  So on a busy summer day, Kris didn't show up to open the park. He let the flood of subsequent texts and voicemails from his managers go unanswered. No one else with his level of training was able to come in that morning.  "I ultimately caused the shutdown of the water park for that Friday," Kris says.  He estimates he cost the park between $15,000 and $20,000 in customer revenue "for what would have been a yearly raise of a few thousand dollars."  Soon after he ghosted, Kris landed a job making more money as a pizza delivery driver. He now works for a Fortune 500 company. Though Kris doesn't regret ghosting, he doesn't want his current or future employers to know about it. So NPR is not using his last name.  As the Fed and others have noticed, Kris' exit strategy is becoming more common.  Recruiters say applicants are increasingly ghosting on interviews and job offers. Raquel Anaya, a recruiter at a real estate company in Florida, says she's seen a spike in no-shows in both interviews and first days on the job over the past year.  "I think most of the time it's that people interview more than one place concurrently and we get edged out on offers," she says. "So instead of just saying 'I got a better offer,' they just stop."  Lydia, now an accountant, has been there before. NPR is not using her last name. As a "desperate for work" 20-year-old college student, she applied for a job at a small factory that makes plastic.  When she arrived for her interview, Lydia says, she "immediately knew the atmosphere was off." The company's owner, a large and "aggressive" man, made her practice assembling parts for half an hour in view of a foreman.  After she completed the task without a hitch, the owner took her and the foreman to a cramped room. He offered Lydia the job, but told her his expectations were low, all the while getting "way too close" to her, she says.  "I was in a dark office with both of these large, intimidating men anticipating my answer," Lydia says. "I croaked a 'sure,' and they told me when to start and where to meet them. I almost ran out, knowing that I wasn't going back."  And Lydia never did. She was able to get a different job where she felt safer, and she never mentioned the brief experience to other employers.  Anaya, the recruiter, says that if an applicant who disappeared reapplies to her firm, she remembers who has ghosted. "And that doesn't look good," she says.  She blames the increase in ghosting on a solid labor market with lots of opportunity.  So does Andy Challenger, a vice president at the job outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. He says he most often hears of ghosting in industries "where jobs are the most plentiful and good employees are the most scarce," including technology and engineering.  Ghosting is a learned behavior, Challenger says. After all, employers ghost applicants all the time and can fire workers without two weeks' notice.  "Candidates today are saying, 'I'm just going to ghost them, I'm not going to respond to the calls and texts and voicemails that they leave me' because in some ways it feels like revenge," Challenger says.  No matter how bad a boss is, both Challenger and Anaya don't recommend ghosting. As job searchers know, future employers do ask past ones for recommendations.  Plus, sometimes quitting in person can be fun.  "In some ways, people who leave without notice are missing out on one of the most satisfying parts of the human experience, which is quitting a job that you hate," Challenger says. "Even if you do it politely, that can be cathartic."  Kris, the former lifeguard, cites one big reason for not telling off his bosses — the direct, financial impact his ghosting had.  "I feel like I made a bigger dent than I would have if I just said, 'OK, I'm done,' " he says.  But he says he'd never ghost on an employer that treated him with respect.


rawstory--2019-09-20--Trump may get much of the worlds manufacturing out of China but it wont be coming back to the US

Trump may get much of the world’s manufacturing out of China — but it won’t be coming back to the US

“Chimerica” is a term originally coined by the historian Niall Ferguson and economist Moritz Schularick to describe the growing economic relationship between the U.S. and China since the latter’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001. In the words of Ferguson: “The Chinese did the saving, the Americans the spending. The Chinese did the exporting, the Americans the importing. The Chinese did the lending, the Americans the borrowing.” Much of the pre-crisis boom in global trade was driven by this economic symbiosis, which is why successive American presidents tolerated this marriage of convenience despite the increasing costs to the U.S. economy. The net benefits calculation, however, began to change after 2008, and the conflict has intensified further after the 2016 presidential election result. Today, the cumulative stress of Donald Trump’s escalating trade war is leading to if not an irreparable breach between the two countries, then certainly a significant fraying. The imminent resumption of trade talks notwithstanding, the rising cost of the tariffs is already inducing some U.S. manufacturers to exit China. But in most instances, they are not returning to home shores.  It may have taken Trump to point out the pitfalls of the Chimerica link, but coming up with a coherent strategy to replace it is clearly beyond the president’s abilities. America is likely to remain a relative manufacturing wasteland, as barren as Trump’s own ill-conceived ideas on trade. At the same time, it’s not going to be an unmitigated victory for China either, as Beijing is increasingly suffering from a large confluence of internal and external pressures.  Chimerica helped to launch China as a global trade power. To the extent that this marriage helped the U.S. economy, it skewed toward the largely blue state coastal regions. Wall Street banks located on the East Coast happily collected lucrative commissions and investment banking fees, as China’s export proceeds were recycled into U.S. treasuries, stocks, and high-end real estate while the capital markets boomed; on the West Coast, “new economy” companies thrived, their growth and profitability unhindered by the onslaught of Chinese manufactured exports. By contrast, facilitated by technological advances that permitted large-scale outsourcing by U.S. manufacturers, Chimerica laid waste to much of what was left of America’s Rust Belt, and the politics of many of the displaced workers mutated to the extent that Donald Trump became an appealing alternative to the establishment in 2016.  The major legacy of Chimerica, then, is that too many American workers have been semi-permanently replaced by low-cost offshored labor. Prior to great advances in technology, along with globalization, displacement of the current labor force could only have occurred through immigration of workers into the country. Historically, displacement by immigrants generally began at the menial level of the labor force, and became more restrictive as when it became correlated with significant unemployment. Given the rise of globalization and the corresponding liberalization of immigration in the past few decades, however, policy no longer arrests the displacement of American workers. The policy backlash has consequently manifested itself more via trade protectionism. Trump has sought to consolidate his Rust Belt base of supporters by launching a trade war, especially versus Beijing, the ultimate effects of which he hoped would be to re-domicile supply chains that had earlier migrated to China.  Early on in his presidency, there was some hope that Trump’s protectionism was at best a bluff or, at worst, an aberration, and that the return of a Democrat to the White House in 2020 would eventually reestablish the status quo ante. But the president still can’t get a wall, and his protectionism has become more pronounced almost as if to compensate. The problem today is that even if Trump is voted out of office in 2020, corporate America is becoming less inclined to wait out the end of his presidency to return to the pre-Trump status quo of parking the bulk of their manufacturing in China. There is too much risk in putting all of one’s eggs in the China basket, especially given growing national security concerns. Hence, U.S. companies are taking action. In spite of decades of investment in these China-domiciled supply chains, a number of American companies are pulling out: toy manufacturer Hasbro, Illinois-based phone accessories manufacturer Xentris Wireless, and lifestyle clothing company PacSun are a few of the operators who are exiting the country.  But they are not coming back to the U.S., relocating instead to places like Vietnam, Bangladesh, Mexico, the Philippines and Taiwan. The chief financial officer of Xentris, Ben Buttolph, says that the company will never return to China: “We are trying to have multiple locations certified for all of our products, so that if all of a sudden there’s an issue with one of the locations, we just flip the switch.” Likewise, the CEO of Hasbro, Brian Goldner, recently spoke of “great opportunities in Vietnam, India and other territories like Mexico.”  All is not lost for the U.S., however, as Goldner did celebrate the success of Hasbro’s facility in East Longmeadow, Massachusetts, which has resumed production of Play-Doh in the U.S. for the first time since 2004. It is doubtful, however, that this represents the recapturing of the high value-added supply chains that Trump envisaged when he first launched his trade assault on Beijing.  In general, as Julius Krein, editor of American Affairs, writes: “United States industry is losing ground to foreign competitors on price, quality and technology. In many areas, our manufacturing capacity cannot compete with what exists in Asia.”  These are not isolated examples. Defense One also notes the following development:  “It came without a breaking news alert or presidential tweet, but the technological competition with China entered a new phase last month. Several developments quietly heralded this shift: Cross-border investments between the United States and China plunged to their lowest levels since 2014, with the tech sector suffering the most precipitous drop. U.S. chip giants Intel and AMD abruptly ended or declined to extend important partnerships with Chinese entities. The Department of Commerce halved the number of licenses that let U.S. companies assign Chinese nationals to sensitive technology and engineering projects.”  This development consequently makes it hard to proclaim Beijing a winner in this dispute either. The country still needs access to U.S. high tech. The government announced yet another fiscal stimulus to the economy earlier this month in response to a cluster of weakening economic data, much of which is related to the trade shock. It is also the case that China is being buffeted politically, both externally and internally: externally, in addition to the escalating trade war, China’s own efforts to counter the effects of rising protectionism by creating a “reverse Marshall Plan” via the Belt and Road Initiative is floundering. China’s “iron brother,” Pakistan, is increasingly being victimized by India’s aggressive Hindu-centric nationalism. It is hard to imagine the Modi government opportunistically taking the step of annexing Kashmir and undermining Pakistan, had it not sensed Beijing’s increasing vulnerability.  Internally, Beijing is finding it increasingly challenging as it seeks to enforce its “One China” policy in Hong Kong and Taiwan. The withdrawal of the controversial extradition law that first precipitated widespread demonstrations in Hong Kong has not alleviated the political pressures in the territory, but simply allowed an even bigger protest culture to take root and strengthen an independent political mindset. Similarly, Taiwan has also openly supported the Hong Kong protesters, pledging help to those seeking asylum. Both regions now constitute both a huge humiliation and challenge to the primacy of China’s ruling Communist Party. And now on top of that, foreign manufacturers are leaving the country, weakening a totally leveraged manufacturing complex.  The implications of this divorce go well beyond the U.S. and China. They constitute another step toward regionalization, another step away from a quaint ideological “post-history” construct that saw Washington, D.C., as the head office and the rest of the world as a bunch of branch plants for “America, Inc.” It’s hardly comforting to contemplate that the last time we reached this historic juncture was the early 1900s, when a similarly globalized economy broke down, followed by the Great War. As Niall Ferguson points out, “a high level of economic integration does not necessarily prevent the growth of strategic rivalry and, ultimately, conflict.” There’s no doubt that both Washington and Beijing will likely making soothing noises to the markets in order to create favorable conditions for the trade talks in October, but their actions suggest that they are both digging in for a longer struggle. Today’s trade wars, therefore, are likely to morph into something more destructive, which is a lose-lose in an era where human advancement depends on greater integration between economic powers.  This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

Marshall Auerback, Independent Media Institute


skynewspolitics--2019-09-11--International students to be allowed a two-year stay after graduating

International students to be allowed a two-year stay after graduating to look for work  International students to be allowed a two-year stay after graduating to look for work  International students will be able to stay in the UK after graduating to look for work, under new proposals outlined by the prime minister.  The changes, which would come into effect for those starting undergraduate courses or above in 2020/21, represent a loosening of the rules introduced by the then home secretary Theresa May in 2012, which stated that overseas students had to leave within four months of finishing their degree.  The extension would be conditional on the students studying at institutions with a track record in upholding immigration checks.  However Migration Watch UK described the move as an "unwise" and "retrograde" step which would "likely lead to foreign graduates staying on to stack shelves, as happened before".  Chairman Alp Mehmet said: "Our universities are attracting a record number of overseas students so there is no need to devalue a study visa by turning it into a backdoor route for working here."  The announcement of the rule change by Boris Johnson coincided with the launch of the world's largest genetics project, the £200m whole genome sequencing project in the UK Biobank, which aims to transform genetic research.  Mr Johnson said: "Britain has a proud history of putting itself at the heart of international collaboration and discovery.  "Over sixty years ago, we saw the discovery of DNA in Cambridge by a team of international researchers and today we are going even further.  "Now we are bringing together experts from around the globe to work in the UK on the world's largest genetics research project, set to help us better treat life-threatening illnesses and ultimately save lives.  "Breakthroughs of this kind wouldn't be possible without being open to the brightest and the best from across the globe to study and work in the UK.  "That's why we're unveiling a new route for international students to unlock their potential and start their careers in the UK."  The new rules are being seen as a particular boost for the so-called STEM subjects - Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths - where international students account for half of all full-time post-graduates.  Home Secretary Priti Patel said: "The new Graduate Route will mean talented international students, whether in science and maths or technology and engineering, can study in the UK and then gain valuable work experience as they go on to build successful careers.  "It demonstrates our global outlook and will ensure that we continue to attract the best and brightest."


sputnik--2019-11-06--Very 'Fresh' Idea! PM Philippe Urges France to Get Back in Control of Migration Policy

Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said that France needed to "take back control" of migration policy, following his presentation of 20 new measures to potentially toughen immigration control, before parliament on Wednesday.  The new plan would potentially include toughening the rules around asylum seekers' instant access to healthcare, closer control of migrants' claims to benefits and an introduction of quotas for migrant workers.  On 5 November French Labour Minister Muriel Penicaud said that France would introduce the quotas based on the shortages in certain industries that lack qualified candidates, such as information technology and engineering. Some hospitality industries, including the restaurant and hotel segments, are also believed to require workers willing to take low-paying jobs.  It is not clear so far whether these measures would be more attractive or repulsive to the country's potential immigrants, as currently, French employers have to go through a lengthy and complicated administrative process to hire non-French citizens. Penicaud also did not specify whether the applicant's nationalities would be taken into account according to the new plan.  Around 33,000 economic migrants were granted French working visas in 2018 according to AFP, while a record 122,743 asylum requests were received by France, surging by 22% in comparison to 2017.  The news comes following President Emmanuel Macron's recent bid to toughen immigration policy, and his calls on EU members to share the burden of asylum seekers. Macron also got into hot water with Bulgarian politicians last week, after the president argued that France was willing to accept migrants from Guinea or the Ivory Coast, rather than "clandestine networks of Bulgarians and Ukrainians".  Emmanuel Macron, who is seeking re-election in 2022, is expected to see fierce competition from the nationalist party leader Marine Le Pen who has long criticised the French president for being too "soft" on immigration policy.  France has been one among many European countries that recently moved to tighten its migration policies, following the unfolding of the European migration crisis in 2015, when many Middle Eastern and North Africa refugees crossed the Mediterranean Sea to arrive on the continent.  Several countries, including the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia, refused to support the EU's "open border" policies, both in terms of illegal migration and welcoming economic migrants.  In 2018 Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban pledged to protect his country's borders from illegal migration, with Budapest harshly opposing European Union mandatory migrant relocation quotas, and banning non-governmental organisations from providing aid to undocumented migrants.  Italy has also adopted a series of measures against illegal migration, including the so-called "Salvini Decree", after the current government assumed office in June 2018.  While France initially pledged to follow the EU "solidarity mechanism" for relocating migrants across the bloc, it now seems that Macron's government has become more cautious in its migration stance.