I seem to work a lot. At least, I think I work a lot. Like many in the modern world, I find it pretty hard to tell the difference between work and the rest of my life. Apart from when Im sleeping, Im usually reading, writing or thinking (or doing some combination of the three). And since that is essentially what I get paid to do, it is difficult to distinguish between work and leisure. Of course, reading, writing and thinking are features of many jobs. The difference is that, as an academic, I have the luxury of deciding what I should be reading, writing and thinking about. This luxury has, perhaps, given me an overly positive view of work. But I confess, there are times when I find parts of my job frustrating and overbearing. The thing is: maybe thats the attitude we should all have towards work? Maybe work is something we should be trying to abolish?

That, at any rate, is the issue I want to consider in this post. In doing so, Im driven by one of my current research projects. For the past few months, Ive been looking into the issue of technological unemployment and the possible implications it might have for human society. If youve been reading the blog on a regular basis, you will have seen this crop up a number of times. As I noted in one of my earlier posts, there are basically two general questions one can ask about technological unemployment:

Those arguments are inspired by a range of sources, mainly left-wing anti-capitalist writers (e.g. David Graeber, Bob Black, Kathi Weeks and, classically, Bertrand Russell), but do not purport to accurately reflect or represent the views of any. They are just my attempt to simplify a diverse set of arguments. I do so by dividing them into two main types: (i) Work is bad-arguments; and (ii) opportunity cost arguments. Ill discuss both below, along with various criticisms.

1. What is work anyway?If we are going to be abolishing work, it would be helpful if we had some idea of what it is we are abolishing. After all, as I just noted, it can sometimes be hard to tell the difference between work and other parts of your life. In crafting a definition we need to guard against the sins of over and under-inclusiveness, and against the risk of a value-laden definition. An under-inclusive definition will exclude things that really should count as work; an over-inclusive definition will risk turning work into a meaningless category; and a value-laden definition will simply beg the question. For example, if we define work as everything we do that is unpleasant, then we are being under-inclusive (since many people dont find all aspects of their work unpleasant) and begging the question (since if we assume work is unpleasant we naturally imply that is the kind of thing we ought to abolish).

Consider Bertrand Russells famous, and oft-quoted, definition of work:

How might we go about avoiding the sins to which I just alluded? I suggest we adopt the following definition:

Despite this broadness, I think the definition avoids being overly-inclusive because it links the performance of the skill to the receipt of some sort of economic reward. Thus, it avoids classifying everything we do as work. In this respect, it does seem to capture the core phenomenon of interest in the anti-work literature. Furthermore, the definition doesnt beg the question by simply assuming that work is, by definition, bad. The definition is completely silent on this issue.

That said, definitions are undoubtedly tricky, and philosophers love to pull them apart. I have no doubt my proposed definition has some flaws that I cant see myself right now (we are often blind to the flaws in our own position). Ill be happy to hear about them from commenters.

2. Work is bad- ArgumentsIf we can accept my proposed definition of work, we can proceed to the arguments themselves. The first class of arguments proposes that we ought to abolish work because work is bad. In other words, the arguments in this class fit the following template:

Premise (1) is dubious in its current form. Just because something is bad does not mean we should abolish it. If it we can reform or ameliorate its badness, then we might be able to avoid complete abolition. This might even make sense if the thing in question has good qualities in addition to the bad ones. We wouldnt want to throw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater. It is only really if something is intrinsically and overwhelmingly bad that it ought to be abolished. For in that case, its good qualities will be minimal and its bad qualities will be ineradicable without complete abolition. This suggests the following revision to premise (1) and the remainder of the argument:

This raises the bar considerably for proponents of abolition, but it seems to chime pretty well with many of the traditional critiques. For instance, Bob Black issues the following indictment of work:

There are many candidate accounts of works badness. Some focus on how work compromises autonomy and freedom. The classic Marxist critique would hold that work is bad because it involves a form of alienation and subordination: workers are alienated from the true value of their labour and subordinated to the will of another. There is also the complaint that work is a form of coercion or duress: because we need access to economic rewards to survive and thrive, we are effectively forced into work. We are, to put it bluntly, wage slaves. Finally, there is Levines worry that the necessity of work compromises a particular conception of the good life: the life of leisure and gratuitous pursuit.

Moving beyond the effects of work on autonomy and freedom, there are other accounts of works badness. There are those that argue that work is stultifying and boring: it forces people into routines and limits their creativity and personal development. It is often humiliating, degrading and tiring: think of cleaning shift workers, forced to work long hours cleaning up other peoples dirt. This cannot be a consistently rewarding experience. In addition to this, some people cite the effect that work has on health and well-being, as well as its colonising potential. As Weeks points out, one of the remarkable features of modern work is how its seems to completely dominate our lives. This certainly seems to be true of my working life, as I suggested in the intro.

This is far from an exhaustive list of reasons why work is bad, but already we can see some problems with the argument. Ill mention two here. The first, and most obvious, is that these accounts of works badness seem to be insufficiently general. At best, they might apply to specific workers and specific forms of work. Thus, for example, it is not true that all workers are coerced into work. Some people are independently wealthy and have no need for the economic rewards that work brings, and some countries have sufficiently generous welfare provisions to take work out of the coercion bracket (as noted previously, the basic income guarantee could be game-changer in this regard). Similarly, while it is true that some forms of work are humiliating, stultifying, degrading, tiring, and deleterious to ones health and well being, this isnt true of all forms of work. Thats not to say we should do nothing about the forms of work that share these negative qualities; but it is to say that the complete abolition or diminution of work goes too far. We should just focus on the bad forms of work (which, of course, requires a revised argument).

A second problem with the argument is that it seems to fly in the face of what many people think about their work. Many people actually seem to enjoy work, and actively seek it out. They attach a huge amount of self-worth and self-belief to success in their working lives. From their perspective, work doesnt seem all that bad. How does the argument account for them? There is a pretty standard reply. People who derive such pleasure and self-worth from work are victims of a kind of false-consciousness. The virtuousness of the work ethic is an ideology that has been foisted upon them from youth. Consequently, theyve been trained to associate hard work with all manner of positive traits, and unemployment with negative ones. But there is nothing essential to these associations. Work is only contingently associated with positive traits. For example, it is only because society places such value in the work ethic that our sense of self-worth and confidence gets wrapped up in it. We could easily break down these learned associations.

Is this response persuasive? Its a tricky philosophical issue. I think there is some truth to the false-consciousness line. There are at least some strictly contingent relationships between work and positive outcomes. A restructuring or reordering of societal values could dissolve those relationships. For example, during the wave of unemployment that followed the 2008 financial crisis, it certainly seemed to me like unemployment carried less of a social stigma. Many of my friends lost their jobs or found it difficult to get work, but no one thought less of them as a result. Nevertheless, I cant completely discount the pleasure or enjoyment that people claim to get from work. The question is whether this could be disassociated from the pursuit of economic reward, and whether greater pleasures could be found elsewhere. Thats what the next argument contends.

3. Opportunity Cost ArgumentsOpportunity cost arguments are simple. They argue that work ought to be abolished because there are better uses of our time. In other words, they do not claim that work is overwhelmingly and necessarily bad, but simply claim it is a worse alternative. The arguments fit the following template:

Lets go through the premises of this one. Premise (4) may, once again, go too far in arguing that an activity that denies us access to another must be abolished. It may be possible to reform or revise the activity so that it doesnt prevent us from engaging in the other activity. So, for example, shortening the working week dramatically might reduce the obstacle work poses to engaging in other activities. This may be why the likes of Bertrand Russell and Kathi Weeks argue for such reductions (to four hours in Russells case and thirty in Weekss). Another problem with premise (1) is that it ignores the possible need for the less desirable activity. Cleaning my kitchen certainly prevents me from engaging in other more desirable activities, but it is probably necessary if I wish to avoid creating a health hazard. This is something many people argue in relation to work: it may be unpleasant but it is necessary. Without it we wouldnt generate the wealth needed to bring us longer lives, better education, improved healthcare and so on.

That suggests the following revision is in order:

This revision makes it harder to defend premise (5*), but lets see what can be said on its behalf. In his effort to praise idleness, Russell makes the point that leisure and idleness is a better use of our time. To back this up he points out that the leisure classes have historically been responsible for the creation of civilization. They did so at the expense of others, to be sure, but that doesnt defeat the point:

Still, there are criticisms to be made of the argument. Ill discuss three here. The first one is the necessity objection. This links into the revised form of the argument. A critic might concede that non-work is better, all things considered, than work, but argue that work is, unfortunately, necessary for some greater good. After all, we need those tax dollars to support education, healthcare and the self-directed research interests of academics. People wouldnt produce food or houses or other basic necessities without financial reward, would they? This is a fair point, but it is worth noting that far fewer people are employed meeting basic human needs now than there were a hundred years ago. Why? Technology has allowed us to automate most agricultural and manufacturing jobs. Machines can now be used to meet our basic needs. Maybe machines could take over all the other socially valuable aspects of economic activity, and free us up to live the ludic life? One can always dream.

The second objection might be termed the idleness objection. Proponents of this will say that the opportunity cost argument presumes a far too rosy picture of human motivation. It presumes that if left to their own devices, people will pursue projects of great worth to both themselves and others. But this is mere fantasy. If freed from the discipling (invisible) hand of the market, people will simply fall idle and succumb to vice. We know this to be true because people suffer from weakness of the will: it is only the necessity of meeting their economic needs that allows them to overcome this weakness. I find this objection unpersuasive. One reason for this is that it is difficult to determine what is so bad about so-called vice and idleness. But suppose we could determine this. In that case, I have no doubt that in the absence of work many will succumb to vice, but Im pretty sure they do that in presence of work anyway. Its not clear to me that things will be any worse in a world without work. People have basic psychological needs e.g. for autonomy, competence and relatedness that will drive them to do things in the absence of economic reward. Ironically, the major driver of vice and idleness might be advances in automation and artificial intelligence. If AIs dont just takeover the world of work, but also the world of moral projects (e.g. the alleviation of suffering), scientific discovery and artistic creation, then there might be nothing left for us humans to do. I suspect we are a long way from that reality, but it is something to consider nonetheless.

The final objection is the efficiency objection. The idea here is that even though the market does force us to cater to specific kinds of demands, it does have the virtue of forcing us to do things in an efficient manner. We all know the historical mistakes of communism and socialism: central planning and state-directed projects bred (and continued to breed) bloated and inefficient bureaucracies. Wouldnt a world without work lead us to commit the same mistakes? Im not sure about this. I agree that markets can be efficient (though sometimes they arent) but, as pointed out above, its not clear that humans need to be the ones working to meet market demands. Also, in calling for an abolition or diminution of work, it does not follow that one is calling for the re-installation of centrally planned governments.

4. ConclusionSo whats the takeaway? Should work be abolished or, at the very least, diminished? Its too difficult to answer that question in a blog post or maybe in any venue but we can reach some general conclusions. First, its probably wrong to say that all forms of work are sufficiently bad to warrant its abolition. At best, we can say that certain types of work are bad, and their badness is of sufficient magnitude to warrant abolition. That argument needs to be developed at a much more job-specific level. Second, if we are going to make the case for the abolition of work, its probably best to do so on the basis of the opportunity cost argument. The advantage of that argument is that it doesnt commit us to proving that work is irredeemably awful; it just commits us to proving that the alternatives are better. And I think there is some reason to think that freedom from the demands of economic markets would be better for many people. To make the case fully persuasive, however, we would need to show that work is not necessary for greater goods. This is something that technological unemployment may actually help to prove: it we can use technology to meet our basic needs, the necessity of work may slowly erode.

None of this addresses the white elephant in the room: the effects of technological unemployment on wealth and income inequality. A life without work is no good if the economic rewards it brings are necessary to our survival and flourishing. It is only by reorganising the system of wealth distribution that this can be overcome. Whether that is desirable or feasible is a topic for another day.

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Philosophical Disquisitions: Should we abolish work?

Stop all anti-immigrant raids! Abolish ICE and CBP! For a socialist policy of open borders! By Norissa Santa Cruz Socialist Equality Party candidate for US vice president 17 February 2020

As the Socialist Equality Partys candidate for vice president in the 2020 elections, I denounce the dictatorial moves of the Trump administration to deploy militarized border patrol agents to carry out raids and terrorize immigrant neighborhoods throughout the country.

The SEP demands an immediate end to all deportations, along with the abolition of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection.

Trump is deploying teams from the SWAT-like unit known as BORTAC to sanctuary cities, where local governments have ordered police not to fully comply with federal immigration agents. The cities targeted are Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York, San Francisco, and Newark, New Jersey.

These squads, which have received Special Forces-type training, include members trained as snipers. They are directed to tear apart families with brute military force. They are also aimed at creating an atmosphere of intimidation and fear in working class immigrant neighborhoods and cities where Trump is unable to make an appearance due to his extreme unpopularity.

These actions are part of the Trump administrations fascistic measures aimed at stoking extreme nationalism and targeting immigrants and refugees.

The Democratic Party is fully complicit in the Trump administrations anti-immigrant policies. Under President Barack Obama, millions were deported, and a network of concentration camps was established, which Trump is using to imprison tens of thousands, including children.

The Democrats worked systematically to suppress and channel popular opposition to Trump that erupted after his election, including over his anti-immigrant policies. They have ensured the continued funding of the immigrant detention apparatus and have done nothing to oppose the illegal transfer of billions of dollars to build a border wall with Mexico.

Bernie Sanders, who has surged to the top of the polls in the Democratic Party, does not represent an alternative. Sanders is playing a critical role in channeling mass opposition among workers and youth behind the right-wing Democratic Party. Sanders, moreover, infamously called open borders a Koch brothers proposal and has praised Obama, the deporter-in-chief, as a model.

The attack on immigrants is an attack on the entire working class. The ruling class wants the population to get used to the sight of unmarked cars dragging people away in broad daylight to internment camps, never to be seen again. It wants to pit workers against one another along nationalist lines, so that they do not unite against the real enemycapitalism.

The Socialist Equality Party fights for the international unity of the working class against capitalism and an end to the nation-state system. We oppose the attacks on immigrants and the attempt by the far-right movements to blame them for the crisis of American society.

All workers in the United States must take a stand to oppose the bipartisan attacks on immigrants. The measures which are being used against immigrants today, including the deployment of the militarized federal force, will be used against all workers to suppress protests and strikes.

Against the militarization of borders and the persecution of immigrants, the SEP stands for open borders: the right of all workers to live in the country they choose, with full citizenship rights, including the right to work and travel without fear of deportation or repression.

The defense of immigrants must be connected to a socialist program to guarantee everyone has the right to a decent, good-paying job, free healthcare, free education, a clean environment, access to culture, and a world free from war and violence.

The resources exist to meet these social rights for all workers. The problem is the capitalist system and the monopolization of the vast majority of humanitys wealth by a tiny corporate and financial elite.

Capitalism has shown us the only future it can offer: walls, repression, war. Against this madness we call for socialism: a world economy run in the interests of human need, not private profit.

All those who want to defend immigrants and unite the working class in the struggle for socialism against capitalism should join and support our election campaign. Visit socialism2020.org to sign up today!

2019 has been a year of mass social upheaval. We need you to help the WSWS and ICFI make 2020 the year of international socialist revival. We must expand our work and our influence in the international working class. If you agree, donate today. Thank you.

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Stop all anti-immigrant raids! Abolish ICE and CBP! For a socialist policy of open borders! - World Socialist Web Site

In 1810, at the start of the Mexican War of Independence, just over 10 percent of the population of New Spain was Afro-Mexican, according to the Spanish census. They were the descendants of the hundreds of thousands of Africans the Spanish transported to Mexico for slave labor.

By the early nineteenth century, almost all Afro-Mexicans were of mixed race (Indian, African, European) and termed negroes, mulattos, and/or mestizos. Only about one in ten was still bound in slavery, but all suffered under the burden of a caste system that saw pure Spaniards, criollos,at the top.

Abolition of slavery and the caste system were both stated goals of early independence leaders like Miguel Hildago y Costillo, often called the Father of the Nation, and Jos Maria Morelos y Pavn. The latter had African roots.

Mexicos African-descended people, writes scholar Ted Vincent, had a special incentive to fight, were encouraged to join the struggle, and provided many participants and leaders to the cause of Mexican independence.In the war against Spain the decrees of revolutionary leaders induced Afro-Mexican participation by making minority rights integral to the struggle [while] the decrees against slavery and the caste system alienated many white Mexicans from the independence cause.

After a long struggle, Mexico won its independence in 1821, but slavery wasnt formally abolished in the new nation until 1829. The delay was, of course, political: the independence seekers were a politically mixed lot. The leader who first came to power in 1821 was General Agustn de Iturbide, a conservative who spent most of the war fighting for the Spanish before joining the pro-independence side; he declared himself emperor. It some time before the more liberal, republican forces came to power.

The president who did finally issue the decree ending slavery was of African descent himself. Vicente Guerrero had been a mule-train driver who rose to generalship in the War of Independence. He was the new nations second president, briefly reigning before being overthrown in a conservative coup. But in less than a year in office, this man formalized abolition.

Vincent, building on the work of earlier American and Mexican historians, shows that Afro-Mexicans played an outsized role in the independence struggle. In addition to leaders like Morelos and Guerrero, there were foot soldiers. In a struggle where switching sides was a big part of the war because most of the Spanish forces were conscripted locals, Afro-Mexicans conscripted by the Spanish switched to the freedom side more often than did other Mexicans.

This history, however, has been obscured, partlybecause insurgent politics were aimed at minimizing race to maximize unity. If anything was to be advertised, it was interconnectedness, as in making it known that General Guerrero, who was visually of African background, spoke many Indian languages and worked well with Indians.

This Afro-Mexican heritage stayed obscure, at least until more recent times. Some of the early nations laws highlighted the importance of racial equality. One banned the use of racial categories in government documents, including baptism, marriage, and death records. The subsequent lack of racial counts by census takers in Mexico is one reason little is known of Black Mexico, Vincent writes.

There is no gainsaying, however, that Mexico abolished slavery three and a half decades before the United States. Notably, however, President Guerrero couldnt enforce Mexicos anti-slavery law north of the Rio Grande. American settlers, bringing their system of chattel slavery from the South into that part of Mexico, had grown too powerful. These settlers would break away from Mexico in 1836, declaring a new slave republic before joining the rest of the United States in 1845 as a slave state. They called it Texas.

JSTOR is a digital library for scholars, researchers, and students. JSTOR Daily readers can access the original research behind our articles for free on JSTOR.

By: Ted Vincent

The Journal of Negro History, Vol. 79, No. 3 (Summer, 1994), pp. 257-276

The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History

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Black Mexico and the War of Independence - JSTOR Daily

Viewpoint by Katarina Schwarz and Jean Allain, with Andrea Nicholson*

NOTTINGHAM (IDN) Slavery is illegal everywhere. So said the New York Times, repeated at the World Economic Forum, and used as a mantra of advocacy for over 40 years. The truth of this statement has been taken for granted for decades. Yet our new research reveals that almost half of all countries in the world have yet to actually make it a crime to enslave another human being.

Legal ownership of people was indeed abolished in all countries over the course of the last two centuries. But in many countries, it has not been criminalised. In almost half of the worlds countries, there is no criminal law penalising either slavery or the slave trade. In 94 countries, you cannot be prosecuted and punished in a criminal court for enslaving another human being.

Our findings displace one of the most basic assumptions made in the modern anti-slavery movement that slavery is already illegal everywhere in the world. And they provide an opportunity to refocus global efforts to eradicate modern slavery by 2030, starting withfundamentals: getting states to completely outlaw slavery and other exploitative practices.

The findings emerge from our development of an anti-slavery databasemapping domestic legislation against international treaty obligations of all 193 United Nations member states (virtually all countries in the world). The database considers the domestic legislation of each country, as well as the binding commitments they have made through international agreements to prohibit forms of human exploitation that fall under the umbrella term "modern slavery". This includes forced labour, human trafficking, institutions and practices similar to slavery, servitude, the slave trade, and slavery itself.

Although 96 percent of all these countries have some form of domestic anti-trafficking legislation in place, many of them appear to have failed to prohibit other types of human exploitation in their domestic law. Most notably, our research reveals that:

In all these countries, there is no criminal law in place to punish people for subjecting people to these extreme forms of human exploitation. Abuses in these cases can only be prosecuted indirectly through other offences such as human trafficking if they are prosecuted at all. In short, slavery is far from being illegal everywhere.

A short history

So how did this happen?

The answer lies at the heart of the great British abolition movement, which ended the transoceanic slave trades. This was a movement to abolish laws allowing the slave trade as legitimate commerce. During the 19th century, states were not asked to pass legislation to criminalise the slave trade, rather they were asked to repeal that is, to abolish any laws allowing for the slave trade.

This movement was followed up by the League of Nations in 1926 adopting the Slavery Convention, which required states do the same: abolish any legislation allowing for slavery. But the introduction of the international human rights regime changed this. From 1948 onwards, states were called upon to prohibit, rather than simply abolish, slavery.

As a result, states were required to do more than simply ensure they did not have any laws on the books allowing for slavery; they had to actively put in place laws seeking to stop a person from enslaving another. But many appear not to have criminalised slavery, as they had undertaken to do.

This is because for nearly 90 years (from 1926 to 2016), it was generally agreed that slavery, which was considered to require the ownership of another person, could no longer occur because states had repealed all laws allowing for property rights in persons. The effective consensus was that slavery had been legislated out of existence. So the thinking went: if slavery could no longer exist, there was no reason to pass laws to prohibit it.

This thinking was galvanised by the definition of slavery first set out in 1926. That definition states that slavery is the status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised. But courtsthe world over have recently come to recognise that this definition applies beyond situations where one person legally owns another person.

So, let's dig into the language of that definition. Traditionally, slavery was created through systems of legal ownership in people chattel slavery, with law reinforcing and protecting the rights of some to hold others as property. The newly recognised condition of slavery, on the other hand, covers situations of de facto slavery (slavery in fact), where legal ownership is absent but a person exercises power over another akin to ownership that is, they hold the person in a condition of slavery.

This creates the possibility of recognising slavery in a world where it has been abolished in law but persists in fact. Torture, by analogy, was abolished in law during the 18th century, but persists despite being outlawed.

Human trafficking

Because of the remarkably late consensus on what slavery means in a post-abolition world, only very specific practices related to severe human exploitation are currently covered under national laws around the world primarily, human trafficking. And while most countries have anti-trafficking legislation in place (our database shows that 93 percent of states have criminal laws against trafficking in some form), human trafficking legislation does not prohibit multiple other forms of human exploitation, including slavery itself.

Human trafficking is defined in international law, while other catch-all terms, such as "modern slavery", are not. In international law, human trafficking consists of three elements: the act (recruiting, transporting, transferring, harbouring, or receiving the person); the use of coercion to facilitate this act; and an intention to exploit that person. The crime of trafficking requires all three of its elements to be present. Prosecuting the exploitation itself be it, for instance, forced labour or slavery would require specific domestic legislation beyond provisions addressing trafficking.

So, having domestic human trafficking legislation in place does not enable prosecution of forced labour, servitude or slavery as offences in domestic law. And while the vast majority of states have domestic criminal provisions prohibiting trafficking, most have not yet looked beyond this to legislate against the full range of exploitation practices they have committed to prohibit.

Shockingly, our research reveals that less than 5% of the 175 states that have undertaken legally binding obligations to criminalise human trafficking have fully aligned their national law with the international definition of trafficking. This is because they have narrowly interpreted what constitutes human trafficking, creating only partial criminalisation of slavery. The scale of this failing is clear:

Our findings

We compiled the national laws relating to slavery, trafficking, and related forms of exploitation of all 193 UN member states. From over 700 domestic statutes, more than 4,000 individual provisions were extracted and analysed to establish the extent to which each and every state has carried out its international commitments to prohibit these practices through domestic legislation.

The results are shocking. In 94 countries, a person cannot be prosecuted for enslaving another human being. This implicates almost half of all the worlds countries in potential breaches of the international obligation to prohibit slavery.

What is more, only 12 states appear to explicitly set out a national definition of slavery that reflects the international one. In most cases, this leaves it up to the courts to interpret the meaning of slavery (and to do so in line with international law). Some states use phrases such as buying and selling human beings, which leaves out many of the powers of ownership that might be exercised over a person in a case of contemporary slavery. This means that even in the countries where slavery has been prohibited in criminal law, only some situations of slavery have been made illegal.

Also surprising is the fact that states which have undertaken international obligations are not significantly more (or less) likely to have implemented domestic legislation addressing any of the kinds of exploitation considered in our study. States which have signed up to the relevant treaties, and those which have not, are almost equally likely to have domestic provisions criminalising the various forms of modern slavery. Signing onto treaties seems to have no impact on the likelihood that a state will take domestic action, at least in statistical terms. However, this does not mean that international commitments are not a significant factor in shaping particular states national anti-slavery efforts.

The picture is similarly bleak when it comes to other forms of exploitation. For example, 112 states appear to be without penal sanctions to address forced labour, a widespread practice ensnaring25 million people.

In an effort to support their families, many of those forced into labour in developed countries are unaware they are not taking up legitimate work. Travelling to another country for what they believe to be decent work, often through informal contacts or employment agencies, they find themselves in a foreign country with no support mechanism and little or no knowledge of the language. Typically, their identity documents are taken by their traffickers, which limits their ability to escape and enables control through the threat of exposure to the authorities as "illegal" immigrants.

Our database also reveals widespread gaps in the prohibition of other practices related to slavery. In short, despite the fact that most countries have undertaken legally binding obligations through international treaties, few have actually criminalised slavery, the slave trade, servitude, forced labour, or institutions and practices similar to slavery.

A better future

Clearly, this situation needs to change. States must work towards a future in which the claim that "slavery is illegal everywhere" becomes a reality.

While legislation is only a first step towards effectively eradicating slavery, it is fundamental to harnessing the power of the state against slavery. It is necessary to prevent impunity for violations of this most fundamental human right, and vital for victims obtaining support and redress. It also sends an important signal about human exploitation.

The time has come to move beyond the assumption that slavery is already illegal everywhere. Laws do not currently adequately and effectively address the phenomenon, and they must. [IDN-InDepthNews 15 February 2020]

* The full version of this article by Katarina Schwarz, Rights Lab Associate Director and Assistant Professor, University of Nottingham, and Jean Allain, Professor of International Law, University of Hull, with the collaboration of Andrea Nicholson, Rights Lab Research Fellow in Survivor Voices, University of Nottingham, was originally published on The Conversation an independent source of news and views, sourced from the academic and research community and delivered direct to the public under Creative Commons licence.

Photo: Franois-Auguste Biard, Proclamation of the Abolition of Slavery in the French Colonies, 27 April 1848 (1849). Credit: Wikimedia Commons

IDN is flagship agency of the International Press Syndicate.

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Slavery Not a Crime in Almost Half of the World's Countries - IDN InDepthNews | Analysis That Matters

by Frank Burd

Sometimes, we are fortunate enough to dream a future and make it happen. But in most cases, life gets in the way, and we must put those dreams on hold while we deal with the realities of work, of money, and of family. Heather Plank wanted to be an actor since junior high school. Growing up in New Jersey, Minnesota and Middleton, near Harrisburg, she loved to perform, entertain and make her mother laugh.

After her junior year in high school, she went to New York, where she studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. A year later, she was a freshman in NYUs prestigious theater department. But it was too expensive, and she had to leave at the end of the year.

She continued studying acting techniques, particularly the Method approach, at the Lee Strasberg Institute, but after a few years working at all sorts of little jobs, she had to give up her dream in order to support herself. She worked at bookstores and libraries and at a variety of temp jobs. She married and divorced. She got her college degree. Fast forward; she still had to act. Four years ago, she started anew, auditioning again.

She performed in Would You Still Love Me If? with Underbite Theatre in center city. She was featured in the Old Academy Players production of Vanya and Sonya and Masha and Spike in East Falls. At Swarthmore Players, she was cast in Sideman. All were non-professional, non-paying gigs. After Sideman, she made the decision to only go after paying jobs. She was cast in productions at Act 2 Playhouse in Ambler and at Pegasus Theatre in Princeton, among others. She was not only earning a salary, but she was also earning equity points. She was becoming a pro.

Heather, who requested that her age not be mentioned, has done TV, film and commercials and is a member of the company at Liberty City Radio Theatre, where actors present old-time radio as well as new material, geared to todays audiences. She is also a member of Better than Bacon Improv, an improvisational comedy troupe. She says her special skills include singing, accents, impressions, running, playing the tambourine, playing three chords on the ukulele and straightening my naturally curly hair.

When I asked her whether she prefers comedy or drama, she told me she loves both. On the one hand, shed love to play Lady Macbeth, and on the other, she still likes to make people laugh.

Currently, she is playing Lucretia Mott in the Beacon Theatre Production of Under the Bonnet. She admitted that shed never heard of the womens rights activist, Mott, until she auditioned for the role. But she quickly fell in love with the Quaker woman, always seen in a bonnet. Mott (1793-1880), who is buried in Cheltenham Township, advocated giving former slaves who had been bound to slavery laws within the boundaries of the U.S., whether male or female, the right to vote, a revolutionary idea at the time. She remained a central figure in the abolition and suffrage movement until her death.

She was fighting for equal rights for women and for African-Americans decades before the Civil War, Heather said. She was in Philadelphia where, days after it was completed, Pennsylvania Hall, which was to be a venue for womens rights and abolition, was burned down by anti-abolitionists in 1838. Its easy to forget how brave Lucretia Mott was.

Mott was there at the Seneca Falls Convention with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, where in 1848, women first gathered to fight for equality for all and the right to vote. Women of the day had to be twice as strong as men to be noticed, and Mott was renowned for her speaking ability. She would die without having seen the vote given to women. That would take another 40 years, 1920, before the 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote.

Its a special honor to portray this passionate advocate of equal rights in this, the bicentennial of the passage of the 19th Amendment, she said.

Under the Bonnet, by Philadelphia playwright Shelli Pentimall Bookler, will play on Feb. 15, 2 p.m., at the La Mott Library in Elkins Park. The next day, it will be performed at 2 p.m. at The Second Baptist Church of Germantown, 6459 Germantown Ave. After that, it will move to a series of venues around Philadelphia.

For more information: beacontheatreproductions.org or 267-735-1071.

For more information about Plank, visit heather-plank.com

Continued here:

- Audiences can get on board with fine acting by Plank - Chestnut Hill Local

First published 12 February 2020Updated 17 February 2020

Rumours have resurfaced that pension tax relief may be about to change. The former Chancellor Sajid Javid was said to be looking at a flat rate for all but what would this mean for pension savers, and how likely is it? Article by Nick Green.

Some ideas just wont die. Flat-rate pension tax relief looks set to have more comebacks than Tiger Woods. There were whispers that before his resignation,Chancellor Sajid Javid was looking at reforming the UKs system of pension tax relief, a plan favoured by George Osborne back in 2016 before the then-Chancellor ditched it. If it happens under the next Chancellor and it is a huge if it would be one of the most radical Budget announcements ever made by a Conservative government.

Such a change would have the potential to rake in much-needed billions for the Treasury to offset the costs and challenges of Brexit. But it would prove hugely divisive for traditional Tory supporters, many of whom would end up paying for the policy directly.

When you pay money into a pension, the amount is immediately boosted by tax relief. For instance, if you are a basic-rate taxpayer and pay 80 into your pension, the government adds 20 to make it up to 100. This is because your gross income was originally taxed at 20 per cent. Money paid into a pension is free of tax, so that 20 per cent is paid back on each contribution. Therefore all your pension contributions are effectively increased by 25 per cent [sic] automatically (because every 80 turns into 100).

Higher-rate taxpayers (who pay 40 per cent tax) can currently claim back an additional 20 per cent via their self-assessment, while top-rate taxpayers can claim an additional 25 per cent. It is this extra tax relief that may be up for review, either in the upcoming Budget or at some later date.

When the change was first mooted in 2015, it was suggested that tax relief might move to a single flat rate for basic, higher and top rate taxpayers. One recommendation likely to have proven very popular was that it should be set at 33 per cent. Besides being more generous to basic rate taxpayers, this would have been easy to promote as pay in two pounds, get one free. Higher-rate taxpayers would still have taken a small hit, but most would have found it acceptable.

However, the government's main motivation now is saving money, so such generosity today is unlikely. Speculation is rife that the rate of pension tax relief may drop to 20 per cent for everyone. This would go some way towards reducing the governments spending on this relief, which is currently around 35 billion a year. But the cost of this measure would fall exclusively upon high earners, while offering no particular incentive for lower earners to support it either (since some of those will be higher earners one day).

In summary, such a move would be generally unpopular. This is presumably why George Osborne abandoned his plans, fearing loss of support before the EU referendum. But with the Tories now commanding a large majority, and Brexit officially irreversible, the government may conclude that they will never get a better chance to push this through.

It isnt just the unpopularity of this policy that Javid would have to worry about. Pensions in general are the proverbial can of worms, and a change in just one area can have ramifications elsewhere.

For example, switching to a flat rate of 20 per cent tax relief might force the abolition of salary sacrifice schemes. Currently, employees can reduce their National Insurance contributions by arranging to take a smaller salary, in exchange for higher employer contributions to their pension. This is a great incentive for people to save for retirement. However, if the UK had 20 per cent flat-rate tax relief, higher earners would be able to game the system, using salary sacrifice to lower their salaries to below the higher-rate tax threshold. By this method they could save similar amounts of tax, and the Treasury would fail to increase its tax takings. Therefore it seems likely that such a change would spell the end of salary sacrifice.

Another potential hazard comes from defined benefit / final salary pension schemes. These work in a different way from most private sector pensions, which are defined contribution. Applying flat-rate tax relief to DB schemes would therefore be complex and would place a greater burden on employers but failing to do so would lead to accusations of unfairness from those in DC schemes.

Steven Cameron, pensions director at Aegon, warns that reducing or abolishing higher-rate tax relief will deter some higher earners from pension saving. He said, If [the rate is] set below 30 per cent, higher rate tax payers expecting to pay higher rate tax in retirement might find pension saving unattractive, undermining the success of automatic enrolment. He added, When the Government considered such changes back in 2015, it found there are many complexities to consider, and unless these are thought through and solved, changes could do more harm than good.

Gary Smith, a Chartered Financial Planner at Tilney, again raised the issue of disparity between DC and DB pensions which remain widespread in the public sector. He said, If the Chancellor doesnt alter public sector schemes, this potential reduction in pension tax relief might only apply to private sector workers, which would be grossly unfair.

Given how much work and complexity would be involved in such a change, it seems unlikely that this government will have workable plans ready to role in time for the 2020 Budget on 11 March. Nevertheless the writing may be on the wall for higher-rate tax relief, so those in a position to benefit from it should use it while they still can, by maximising pension contributions.

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About the author

Nick Green

Nick Green is a financial journalist writing for Unbiased.co.uk, the site that has helped over 10 million people find financial, business and legal advice. Nick has been writing professionally on money and business topics for over 15 years, and has previously written for leading accountancy firms PKF and BDO.

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Could higher-rate pension tax relief be scrapped? - Unbiased

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More than two centuries after the birth of Frederick Douglass, few men or women have come close to achieving his skills as both an orator and an agent of change. "Why we should remember him is because of what he represents to us even today. His ability to not only to speak truth to power but do so in such an eloquent way that he would challenge anyone who stands against him," says Pellom McDaniels, III, curator of African American Collections at Emory University's Rose Library. The power of Douglass' voice contributed greatly to the end of slavery, expansion of the right to vote and the general push toward equal rights for all that continues still.

So, where did Douglass get that power? Born in 1818 as Frederick Bailey, he was a slave on the coast of Maryland. He recognized the value of literacy from an early age, and so he taught himself to read and write. He was hired out from age 8 to 15 as a body servant, and rebelled when his owner sent him to work in the fields. After a failed escape effort, he was sent back to Baltimore where he connected with Anna Murray, a free black woman. She helped him coordinate his escape and funded his train ticket, and as a result, he was able to make a break for New York City dressed as a sailor, where he was "free," but a fugitive, nonetheless.

Frederick married Anna, and the pair took the surname Douglass, in an effort to keep from being captured. They relocated to Bedford, Massachusetts, and eventually had five children.

Douglass' thirst for freedom didn't end with his own. He began attending abolitionist meetings where he quickly gained a reputation as a gifted speaker and writer and toured on behalf of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. Ironically some of these same abolitionists thought him too well-versed and educated to have been raised a slave. By being so educated they felt he was, "pushing back against the myth of blackness," McDaniels says. "To argue his case and support his case they felt that he had to be not on equal footing [with whites]."

To prove his legitimacy, in 1845 he published the first of three tomes, "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass." The ensuing publicity made him a target, however, and he had to spend time in Europe to prevent being re-enslaved. His freedom was eventually bought on his behalf by kind abolitionists, and he moved with his family to Rochester, New York, to enjoy life as a free black man.

Douglass continued speaking on behalf of the abolition of slavery but also took an interest in women's rights. "He believed that there should be equality across the board," McDaniels says, adding that despite his support of women's suffrage, he wanted it to come in time. "One of the things he argued against was women getting the right to vote first [before black men]. By excluding black men from this equation, it put black men and women in great danger."

While some abolitionists decried the United States Constitution as pro-slavery, Douglass eventually decided that the document was not, and had been conveniently misinterpreted by people who stood to benefit. In his most famous speech "What to the Slave is 4th of July?" he said, "What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us?"

"He saw there was more to the Constitution than was gleaned," McDaniels explains. "He also saw the elements of it that allowed for individuals in the country to be free and pursue the possibilities."

He argued that the idea of universal human brotherhood, that all were created equal, was rooted in Christianity and the Bible. He also maintained that blacks are children of God, and therefore not "subhuman" as argued by many detractors, themselves often devout Christians.

Although Douglass disagreed with the militant ideals of fellow abolitionist John Brown, he eventually came to see that federal military intervention (realized in the form of the devastating Civil War) would be necessary to eradicate slavery.

He aggressively worked to influence the Republican Party, which featured a particularly famous member in President Abraham Lincoln, to prevent slavery's spread into new territories, to attack laws that protected slaveholders and to generally encourage abolitionism. He eventually called Lincoln a friend, and was integral in the process of passing the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which abolished slavery once and for all. The 14th and 15th Amendments eventually followed, which respectively granted national birthright citizenship and established voting rights regardless of race, previous servitude and skin color.

In 1872, Douglass and his wife Anna moved to Washington D.C. to be nearer several of their children, and to continue his activism. He went on to hold a number of prestigious federal positions under five different presidents; continued his public speaking engagements, and published his third and final memoir, "The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass." It was particularly resonant because it acknowledged the continuing inequalities in America, despite abolition and Reconstruction.

In 1882, Anna died and in 1884, Douglass remarried Helen Pitts, a suffragist who was 20 years his junior and white. The marriage was not looked upon favorably by many, but the couple remained wedded until his death from a heart attack in 1895 at age 77.

More than a hundred years after his passing, Douglass and his work are regularly celebrated and he paved the way for hundreds of other civil rights activists.

McDaniels says that Douglass was the most photographed American (of any race) of the 19th century and his was an image of masculinity and African American possibility. "That was one of the challenges of his time, to find ways to represent the humanity of people who aspired to be free and came from the same circumstances," he says. "If he's criticized for anything it's that he presents [in his speeches] as sensational and romantic. But even as we reflect on his life we need to understand that he was essentially an ambassador for a small nation within a nation."

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Why Frederick Douglass Was the Father of the Civil Rights Movement - HowStuffWorks

Almost one in 10 people aged 24 to 30 have left WA in the past five years, signalling more must be done to create a culture of opportunity.

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It may have gone unnoticed until now, but recent data indicates the number of young people choosing to live in this state is shrinking.

There were 9 per cent fewer Western Australians aged 24 to 30 in June 2019 than five years prior, when the population for that group peaked.

In raw numbers, the demographic fell by 26,156 people to about 262,000, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Thats despite growth, albeit slow, in the states population overall, which increased 4 per cent to 2.6 million across that five-year period.

While the millennial exodus will spark concerns of a brain drain for policy makers, a move overseas or interstate can be the opportunity of a lifetime for a young person.

The team from startup Humm moved from Perth to San Francisco in 2018 to participate in the University of California Berkeleys prestigious Skydeck accelerator program.

Last December, the business raised $US2.6 million ($3.7 million) from US-based investors to commercialise its Edge headband technology, which stimulates brain function for learning and work.

Humm had previously graduated from the Spacecubed Plus Eight program in Perth.

We had to leave WA for what were doing, were doing something really weird, chief executive Iain McIntyre told Business News.

To convince people to invest, to be closest to the most customers possible, and be linked up to the science, we had to be in San Francisco.

Mr McIntyre said the attitude towards the brain drain needed to be inverted and that WA actually benefited from people leaving and bringing back new skills and ideas.

He said there was a different business culture in San Francisco and nearby Silicon Valley, the startup capital of the world.

That mentality of doing weird things and seeing if they work isnt in Perth, Mr McIntyre said.

People in Perth want to do it as it is done.

In San Francisco, [you are] encouraged to do it as it has never been done before.

The streets of San Francisco.

Although WA as a whole needed to have a more innovative culture and celebrate entrepreneurship, he said Perths tech ecosystem had been very supportive.

An example was Spacecubed, which had offered quality mentoring programs led by people with business experience.

Another factor in Perths favour was that it was a great place to live, Mr McIntyre said.

Most of the people in San Francisco and around the world think Australia is the best place in the world, he said.

All of us [the Humm team] intend to live in Australia, even if for me its less certain.

Mr McIntyres sentiments were reflected in a Business News survey of Western Australians who had worked or planned to work overseas or interstate, with 57 responses.

About 90 per cent said they had looked to other markets because there were more work opportunities, while 51 per cent wanted to broaden horizons.

Only 27 per cent said they had moved or intended to move because WA was an unexciting place.

But luring all those expats back will be a challenge.

Nearly half of those surveyed responded maybe, when asked if they intended to return to WA.

Of those intending to come back, about 62 per cent said it was a great place to raise a family and 67 per cent cited family already here.

Some of the biggest concerns were about economic diversification, with respondents commenting they felt there were not many opportunities in industries outside resources.

Stairway or circle

In some ways the problem is circular.

Take technology as an example.

Big tech businesses may not set up offices in Perth because of a lack of expertise here, meaning local talent has to look offshore for opportunities, shrinking the remaining technical pool to attract companies in future.

Innovation consultant Lauren Amos said prospects for tech graduates would depend on the type of work they wanted to do.

If you want to work for a [local] company youd be in house doing something for a company thats not their specialty, Ms Amos said.

If you look at the biggest industries in Perth utilities, a couple of banks, resources, oil and gas tech companies dont really have their hubs here.

You can get a job as a data scientist, but youre not really going to be working in Googles DeepMind [an AI subsidiary].

Innovation consultant (and Business News contributor) Kate Raynes-Goldie said some specialty sectors had successful businesses but did not necessarily have clear options for progression.

An example was in digital twin technology, where businesses build virtual replicas of processing plants or mine sites to sharpen operational efficiencies and study responses to equipment failure.

Theres only a few people in WA who have really advanced skills in [digital twin technology], who can combine the digital and the artistic, Dr Raynes-Goldie said.

In a lot of industries theres a pathway, theres a progression in your career to get to a senior level.

We dont really have that clear progression; its hard to build your career here without having to leave and get experience elsewhere.

Attracting talent

Perhaps the challenge for WA is not young people leaving but whether they return, and the states capacity to attract the right people to fill the gap.

A big impediment to innovation in WA has been Australias visa system, DownUnder GeoSolutions co-founder Matt Lamont told Business News.

Weve got a young guy whos got a PhD in computer science from the University of Cambridge, as good as you get in the world, and hes got under two years experience so we cant bring him in, Mr Lamont said.

How silly is that?

Is this a knowledge environment if you cant bring in the best in the world?

Weve got another guy whos got a PhD in computational mathematics and numerical methods from a top Russian university; who wouldnt want to bring him in?

He said these and other highly skilled people did not meet the latest visa requirements, adding that the abolition of the 457 visa, in March 2018, had been a step backwards.

If you have somebody installing plasterboard in your house, a guy who works really hard might install four times more plasterboard than somebody who is average, he said.

Thats not the case in physics, mathematics and programming.

The guy who is top notch, a programmer for example, will produce 50 or 100 times more rapidly than another guy, and produce stuff the other guy cant do.

The difference is just immense and you cant grow a top-tier technical knowledge business without top-tier people.

It drives you to start overseas research and development. How is that good for Australia, driving R&D offshore?

Mr Lamont said Perth was a highly appealing location for skilled workers, and attracting them to WA was not as much of a challenge as working through the immigration system.

The World Economic Forums 2019 Global Competitiveness Report backs up these concerns.

It ranked Australia 138th out of 141 places in ease of hiring foreign labour.

Visa issues have also played havoc with WAs credentials in terms of attracting international students.

For a period the state was excised from the Regional Sponsored Migration Scheme visa subclass.

Although the decision was reversed late last year, the effect had been to reduce incentives for students to choose WA education providers, with fewer employment opportunities after graduation.

Across higher education, vocational training, schools and other providers, commencements fell about 10 per cent over three years to 2019, according to federal education department data.

A place to live

Theres a series of factors to consider for a small and isolated city such as Perth in attracting talent.

One positive is the citys high level of liveability.

Data on this varies, with The Economist Intelligence Unit selecting Perth as the worlds 14th most liveable city in 2019.

But the city has fallen in recent years, with the category of culture and environment reportedly the poorest score.

On other metrics Perth has performed well, such as a March 2019 survey by Ipsos, which ranked the city Australias second most liveable.

The nearby harbour city of Fremantle was ranked in the worlds top 10 places to visit by Lonely Planet.

A big selling point for some has been the Forrest Foundations funding, which has so far brought about 20 highly talented young people to WA with research grants.

Erica Smyth, who is a director of numerous organisations including National Energy Resources Australia, said WA was the pinnacle of where highly skilled people wanted to live.

If you can deal with the isolation, theres not many places like this to live in the world, she said.

There were challenges to be worked through, however, including an element of loneliness for new migrants, and sharpening up the strategy of how universities approached recruiting researchers.

The people we want to attract need to see there are others in that field of expertise they can communicate with, Ms Smyth said.

Having diversity within our universities is key.

Maybe we should consider ourselves as a group of universities of the whole state, rather than individual unis competing with each other.

If they acted in a strategic way to ensure this is a place of skills and learning and innovation, we shouldnt have trouble attracting academics and people who rely on academics.

Theres a relationship between innovation and fundamental research in universities.

That would be similar to the international student market, where there is a level of collaboration between universities already.

But success will be crucial.

There was a real risk WA could face a skills shortage in the decade ahead, Ms Smyth said.

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Rethinking the brain drain - Business News

Australian Trade Minister Simon Birmingham and his Indonesian counterpart, Minister Enggartiasto Lukita, signed the agreement back in March 2019. Photo by the Australian Embassy Jakarta on Flickr.

Economists often state that economic relations between countries are a function of size and distance. Countries with large economies tend to gravitate toward each other, as do countries in close geographic proximity. Maxims like this might seem intuitive, but they do not explain the weak economic relationship between Indonesia and Australia.

Australia and Indonesia are economic giants. They are the 14th and 16th largest economies in the world, respectively, and they sit practically next to each other. But economically, they seem to prefer to ignore each other. Both choose to engage more with the other major economies in the region, such as China, Japan, and India, or even with comparatively smaller economies, such as Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam.

It is not hard to see why. First, the economic structures of Australia and Indonesia are deceptively similar. While Australias GDP is larger than Indonesias, both countries are commodity exporters, which export mostly raw commodities and import manufactured goods. This partly explains their closer economic relationship with more compatible economies that import commodities and export manufactured goods. In many respects, they are more natural competitors than partners in the global commodity market.

Second, they are much further away from each other than their geographical distance might suggest. Cultural, historical and linguistic differences act as barriers that separate these countries much further than the narrow sea between them.

In the past, there have been plenty of efforts from both sides to bolster the political and economic relationship. Arguably, these efforts were born out of strategic necessities rather than a genuine desire for greater economic integration. Moreover, these efforts have not always been proportional. One example is the relatively established tradition for new Australian prime ministers to visit Indonesia as their first foreign visit. Indonesia has never developed this sense of importance about Australia.

According to a 2016 Australia-Indonesia Centre report, 70 per cent of respondents in Indonesia agreed that Indonesia is more important to Australia than Australia to Indonesia. Meanwhile, just 39 per cent of respondents in Australia agreed that Australia is more important to Indonesia than Indonesia to Australia. This is accompanied by a lack of understanding and negative perceptions. A 2019 poll by the Lowy Institute found 59 per cent of Australians disagreed that Indonesia is a democracy, and only 1 per cent of Australians felt Indonesia was Australias best friend in the world, lower than China or Japan, let alone the USA or the UK.

The most recent attempt to strengthen the economic relationship is the Indonesia-Australia Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (IA-CEPA). On 8 February, Joko Jokowi Widodo arrived in Australia, bearing a gift in the form of the ratified IA-CEPA. In his speech to a joint sitting of Parliament on 10 February, he proposed closer ties with Australia, mentioning the need to co-operate amid global uncertainty. IA-CEPA was barely mentioned.

IA-CEPA is nonetheless finalised, with the approval from the Indonesian legislature, the DPR. As its name suggests, it is supposed to be a comprehensive economic partnership agreement, extending beyond a reduction in tariffs to non-tariff measures, trade in services, and investment. Can it be the first step toward the stronger relationship that Indonesia and Australia are looking for? Economic interdependence is important for bilateral relations. Can IA-CEPA achieve this?

The main selling point of IA-CEPA is its reduction in tariffs between the two countries, much more quickly than the schedule in the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement (AANZFTA). Despite competing with Indonesia in the commodity market, Australia is an important source of wheat and beef, two of many highly protected markets in Indonesia. There are also opportunities for Indonesia to supply machinery, electronics, cars and textiles to Australia.

Aside from tariffs, however, the agreements section on trade on goods is not as liberal as it seems. The chapter on non-tariff measures (NTMs) mentions the abolition of NTM, such as quotas, but does not provide a precise list of which goods it will be applied to. It includes caveats such as unless otherwise provided and except in accordance with its WTO rights and obligations or this Agreement, which sound like business as usual. Indonesia already has low tariff levels in general, but NTMs remain the main barrier to trade. Unless NTMs are dealt with, we should remain sceptical about the economic benefits of IA-CEPA.

Judging from the main text of the chapters on trade in services and investment, one might assume the IA-CEPA takes a highly liberal approach to trade and investment. However, these two chapters, again, come with caveats. The caveats are so extensive that they deserve annexes of their own. On the Indonesian side, the conditions mention most of the laws that already restrict trade in services and investment, such as the 2003 Labour Law, the 2007 Investment Law, and 2014 Maritime Law. If IA-CEPA remains subject to the conditions of these laws, it is not clear how Australia differs from other economic partners. Even the establishment of Monash Indonesia, announced during Jokowis visit, will still be based on the existing 2012 Law on Higher Education, not IA-CEPA per se.

The economic importance of IA-CEPA remains to be seen, at least from Indonesias side. Not only are there are many caveats, but implementing IA-CEPA would also require many changes in Indonesian regulations at the ministerial and local levels, which has been very challenging in the past.

The IA-CEPA may, however, provide benefits beyond the economic agreement. The quota of Australian working holiday visas allocated to Indonesian citizens will be increased from 1,000 to 4,100 per year. There are vocational training and reciprocal skill exchange programs embedded in the agreement. IA-CEPA also encourages professional bodies to form a working group to harmonise their standards. The agreement also foresees the establishment of a new Joint Committee, which will require officials from both countries to work together on a regular basis. In the end, elements like this may end up being a platform for more meaningful people-to-people relationships, and ensuring that the IA-CEPA is not just another free trade agreement.

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Will IA-CEPA be the boost to Australia-Indonesia relations leaders are banking on? - unimelb.edu.au

The poet Friedrich Hlderlin once wrote, "Wo aber Gefahr ist, wchst / Das Rettende auch" "Where danger is, grows also what will save us." I take these words as a key to escaping the toxic divisiveness that presently darkens our politics. Jared Diamond, in his new book "Upheaval," writes that the greatest and "most ominous of the fundamental problems now threatening American democracy [is] our accelerating deterioration of political compromise."

But there is a still greater danger, about which Washington is mostly silent,and that is the "state of planetary emergency" of which climate scientists are warning us. That threat is so grave that, when this country is forced to recognize it, it may also, as in the past, unite behind a solution.

I am probably thought of as a political critic of America, not as a cultural defender of it. But I have always been a defender of American culture. It is precisely because there is so much to cherish in this country that attention to its defects is possible, normal and important. This was and remains America's greatest strength. A big reason the Communist governments of Eastern Europe failed was their inability to foster and respond to movements for constructive change. That is still China's great problem today.

At the base of today's hatred is political fear, and the first step towards reducing this political fear is to recognize America's exceptional social and moral strength, including its proven strength in responding to its admittedly great problems. But most current opinion-shapers, including those on TV I most listen to myself, are not calming those fears; they are intensifying them. Here is a not atypical headline last month on a political website, speaking of Sen. Mitch McConnell's announced intention to coordinate his tactics on impeachment with the White House: "We're witnessing the death of the democratic process right before our eyes."

But some of us remember the McCarthy era in the 1950s, and how America shivered in what Justice William O. Douglas then called a "Black Silence of Fear." Similar fears were voiced at the time of Watergate in the 1970s. So let's for a moment match this dangerous pessimism with a minute or two of undiluted optimism.

The American Revolution's legacy: The rule of law, and a dream

Many Americans are reluctant to speak of American exceptionalism; but it is easy for me, because I am a Canadian. And as I wrote in "The American Deep State," "I believe in American exceptionalism, and that at one time America was truly exceptional in its unprecedented replacement of authoritarian with limited constitutional government."

I see the American Revolution as a pivotal moment, not just in American history, but in the history of Europe and ultimately the world. It was a milestone in the consolidation of the principle, now widely accepted, that we should be ruled by laws, not by men.

The founding fathers were mindful of this principle when, after serious debate, they added an impeachment clause to the Constitution. The language they used was taken from English law, but with a major difference. Judges in England could be impeached, but not the king. For the English sovereign was regarded as source and not subject of the law, following the Roman rule established by Ulpian in the third century CE: quod principi placuit legis habet vicem ("Whatever pleases the ruler has the force of law").

The U.S. Constitution was the world's "first complete written national constitution," Today, since World War II, "almost all democratic governments now have written constitutions." For whatever it's worth, even undemocratic nations, like Russia, China and North Korea, also have written constitutions.

But the American Revolution also strengthened more than the rule of law. Unlike Chinese and Judaic law, American legal theory distinguishes between law and morality. But as Raymond Wacks writes:

The legal positivist's quest for a value-free account of law is countered by the naturalist's more plausible claim that this account neglects the very essence of law its morality that "the act of positing law can and should be guided by 'moral' principles."

Thus law in America has not been static, but over the years has struggled towards narrowing the gap between what law is, and what it should be. For the American Revolution also helped consolidate an age-old dream of liberation. Rousseau's "Man is born free, yet everywhere he is in chains" was answered by the opening of the Declaration of Independence: "All men are endowed with the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

This noble ideal was echoed in the French Declaration of Human Rights of 1789, drafted in consultation with Jefferson. It was also echoed in the poetry of Friedrich Schiller, almost literally in his drama of liberation "Wilhelm Tell" (1804), and also in his "Ode to Joy" that Beethoven set to music in his Ninth Symphony:

Joy! A spark of fire from heaven,Daughter from Elysium ...All men will emerge as brothers,Where you rest your gentle wings

The "spark of fire" taken from the American Revolution and Schiller ignited the movement of Young Europe, with its visions of democratic unity, That movement was defeated in the People's Spring of 1848, but led after the First World War to the end of Europe's four great continental empires: Germany, Austria, Russia and Turkey.

Why is this relevant to our crisis? Because if we take this long view of history, I believe we can see that history at a deep level has slowly been evolving towards a more open and just society, just as most of us naturally evolve from squalling infants to become more reasonable adults.

Consider that after World War II the democratic kingdoms of Europe Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands were spared, but the undemocratic kingdoms Greece, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Romania, Italy were all gone. All these changes were not coincidental, but responsive, I believe, to some deep strain in history itself.

As a poet, I would like to venture that history ultimately gets written the same way that deep poetry gets written: that is as Dante said of the poets of the sweet new style "according to what the heart dictates."

Revolution as a product of social persuasion, not violence

These two elements of the American Revolution, the sovereignty of law and the dream of liberty, vitalize each other. Where an equilibrium between them is not established, as in the French and Soviet revolutions, the results can be both disastrous and ephemeral.

What stabilizes these two elements in America is a third element, just as important for today but far less recognized. I am referring to the collective social process which produced the revolution and was strengthened by it.

Many historians, and more ominously many militia movements, regard the revolution as the successful war against England. But this focus on violence, rather than ideas and persuasion, was energetically rejected by John Adams, in a letter he wrote in 1815 to Thomas Jefferson:

What do We mean by the Revolution? The War? That was no part of the Revolution. It was only an Effect and Consequence of it.The Revolution was in the Minds of the People, and this was effected, from 1760 to 1775, in the course of fifteenyears before a drop of bloodwas drawn at Lexington.

Adams then explained that he was referring to "the Steps by which the public opinion was enlightened and informed concerning the Authority of Parliament over the Colonies."

In my book "The Road to 9/11," following Jonathan Schell's masterful work "The Unconquerable World," I paired this quote with a long one from Adam Michnik, who was a leader of the Solidarity movement which successfully and nonviolently expelled the world's largest army from Poland less than 40 years ago. Asking how "Poland'speaceful transformation" from the Soviet Union was possible, Michnik explained, "It was preceded by an almost two-decade effort to build institutions ofcivil society." (Zbigniew Bujak, another Solidarity leader, once said publicly: "The American ideals of human rights are exactly the same as those of Solidarity.")

Scholarly histories, working with the hard evidence of documents, once tended to focus more about problems of leadership from the top down than about responses in civil society from the bottom up. In college I was required to read "The Anatomy of Revolution" by Harvard professor Crane Brinton, a book that is still taught. In what was very much a top-down perspective, Brinton looked at the similarities between four revolutions: the English of the 1640s, the American, the French and the Russian.

And in all four, Brinton summarized the revolutionary process as moving from:

financial breakdown, [to] organization of the discontented to remedy this breakdown ... revolutionary demands on the part of these organized discontented, demands which if granted would mean the virtual abdication of those governing, attempted use of force by the government, its failure, and the attainment of power by the revolutionists.

But the spirit of the American Revolution, as John Adams observed, emerged before the financial crisis that produced the Stamp Act of 1765. Even the development he wrote of, of an improbable political consensus between Puritans and slave-owners, was not the first step.

That consensus has since been attributed by historians to an earlier and even more universal social development, the First Great Awakening of the 1730s and 1740s.

Along with anti-authoritarian principles, the First Great Awakening fostered strong millennial hopes across the entirety of the colonies. Seeing themselves as actors on the stage of salvation history, revivalists understood themselves to be playing a pivotal role in bringing about the Second Coming of Christ. Jonathan Edwards was optimistic that the revivals were the dawning of God's final plans for the earth, a defining moment for America within salvation history. Likewise, Rev. Josiah Smith boasted in a sermon in 1740 from Charleston, South Carolina, "Behold! Some great things seem to be upon the anvil, some big prophecy at the birth; God give it strength to bring forth!

This tide of millennial excitement was of course not an American innovation; on the contrary, similar outbursts had periodically energized European history for two thousand years. But it importantly created among Americans a widespread expectation for, and acceptance of,necessary change.

As I wrote in "The Road to 9/11":

In the background of both revolutions [the American and the Polish] lies the emergence of Western civilization from one of the most successful of all alternative civil societies: the early Christian church.

These two revolutions were moments in the fundamental process of civilization itself, as envisioned by Hannah Arendt and Jonathan Schell: a process of moving from mere force of violence towards institutionalized powers of persuasion.

What was new in the American and Polish Revolutions and is still inspiring was the conversion of social dreams into movements that could defeat the armies of the king in 1783, and the Soviet Union in 1989. And this truth of the American Revolution was also true of the abolition of slavery. The abolitionist movement was abetted in large part by the widespread moral fervor of the Second Great Awakening (circa 1790-1840s). This social movement set in motion the dynamics of a political response: first the new Republican Party, then the Civil War and finally Emancipation.

The strength of American social momentum today

Great Awakenings by that name are no longer fashionable. But the great social momentum of the Revolution and abolitionism has survived, and is still with us. It spilled over into later related movements: such as for women's suffrage (successful in 1918-19), and Prohibition (enacted into law from 1920 to 1933). As Prof. Barry Hankins has observed, "Typically, from the Second Great Awakening to the present, when Americans see a social problem, their impulse is to band together in a voluntary society and fix it." This impulse is found increasingly around the world, but its strength in America derives from its successful track record.

America's dynamic momentum, an invaluable social asset, is still very much with us. The civil rights movement was initially a product of the black churches that grew out of the Second Great Awakening. And from that movement soon emerged what became the nationwide anti-Vietnam War movement, with churches, both black and white, playing a significant role in both.

The importance of these movements' inherited values (shared in America by both theists and atheists) can be seen by the contrast in 1968 between the radical protest movements in America and the failed Paris uprising in France. The civil rights and anti-war movement were largely in support of traditional values, while the ideology of the Paris uprising was essentially nihilist as expressed by its slogan, "Il est interdit d'interdire" ("It is forbidden to forbid").

The historic role of fear in American politics

So far I have focused uniquely on the achievements, in the messy context of politics, of what might be called faith, hope and an altruistic love of humanity. But of course, this cursory account of U.S. history is very one-sided. History may ultimately follow "what the heart dictates," but what the heart dictates is not always good.

We are all very aware that American politics are energized by fear and hatred, as well as by hope and love. Indeed, if we turn our eyes to the current political brawl in Congress and the media, it might seem that in recent years fear and hate have become the predominating forces.

Democrats argue, with conviction, that they had no choice but to impeach the president, because failure to do so might deal a fatal blow to America's system of constitutional checks and balances. Republicans, on the other hand, say that conviction of this president would have set a precedent that effectively converted America from a presidential to a parliamentary system of government.

If we look only at the political factors in this decision, both of these antithetical arguments, paradoxically, have merit. But to see this leads directly to the main point I want to make. As a first step to healing this country, we must stop focusing too narrowly on day-to-day political issues, and think instead of larger ones.

The founding fathers wanted limited government; they got it, and along with limited government they got limited politics. But the great strength of America is its social culture, of which its political culture is only a little part, a constitutionally limited part. So let me paraphrase Franklin D. Roosevelt and say, "As a first step, stop being so fearful. The first thing we have to fear is political fear itself."

The American political scene today, which has been called everything from a madhouse to a cesspool, is indeed increasingly dominated by fear and hatred. Unfortunately, this is true not just of those in Congress, but also of those in the media, especially with the rise of cable TV channels with their separate siloed audiences in their separate siloed realities.

But fear and hatred have repeatedly dominated American politics, going back to at least the presidency of John Adams. This was a period of suspicion that the French were meddling in U.S. domestic politics (including a rumor, quite possibly true, that a Frenchman had helped foment the Virginiaslave revolt of 1800).

Finally John Adams, sick and tired of being accused of treason by Jeffersonians, persuaded the Federalist Congress to pass the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798. The Alien Friends Act temporarily allowed the president to imprison and deport non-citizens who were deemed dangerous. The Sedition Act criminalized making false statements that were critical of the federal government. The Jeffersonian journalist James Callender, after calling Adams a "repulsive pedant, a gross hypocrite and an unprincipled oppressor,"was fined and sentenced to nine months in jail.

After such rhetoric and retaliation, one might have thought that comity and consensus might never be recovered in American politics. But the two acts in question expired after Thomas Jefferson and his Democratic-Republican Party were swept into power in 1800. The American political process staggered on, even after the killing of Hamilton in 1804. And as we saw, Adams and Jefferson, when both were retired, and with adequate distance between them, engaged for two more decades in the most elegant epistolary friendship in American history.

The debates in Congress leading up to the Civil War were no less vitriolic. One abolitionist, George Thompson, cancelled his attendance at a meeting in puritanical Boston, after he was warned that there were plans for him to be tarred and feathered. His replacement, William Lloyd Garrison, was then dragged him through the streets by a rope, amid a crowd that threatened to kill him." Sen. Charles Sumner, an abolitionist from Massachusetts, was beaten almost to death on the Senate floor by a pro-slavery congressman from South Carolina.

The hostilities of the ensuing Civil War, with more than 600,000 deaths, took over a decade to abate. But in 1876 an impasse in the Electoral College led to a dubious quid pro quo. Southern Democrats agreed to the election of a Republican, Rutherford B. Hayes, as president. The Republicans in exchange agreed to withdraw federal troops from the south. This ended Reconstruction and condemned blacks to another century of oppression under Jim Crow laws. The deal was very ugly, but it did achieve a consensus.

In other words, our present crisis of disunity is not at all unprecedented. On the contrary, it is just one more eruption from a deep magma of divisions that have always been in this country, and have always resulted in ugly compromises.

America's recent history of surviving disunity

Think of the last great division in this country, in the 1960s and 1970s. I don't want to sound complacent for a moment about the recent rise in mass shootings. But think back to 1968, when the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. led to major rioting and arson in 110 cities, and the biggest domestic deployment of the U.S. Army since the Civil War. A year before that, in 1967, there were uprisings and riots in more than 150 cities, with at least 83 people dead, and the National Guard deployed in at least 12 states.

Yet by the 1980s America was relatively calm. How did this happen? Jared Diamond points to the political relationship between Republican President Reagan and Democratic House Speaker Tip O'Neill:

Both men were skilled politicians, strong personalities, and opposite to each other in their political philosophies and in many or most questions of policy. Nevertheless they treated each other with respect, acknowledged each other's constitutional authority, and played by the rules.

What Diamond points to is both true and important. Yet Reagan's political change from his earlier firebrand rhetoric, when running for the governorship of California in the 1960s, exemplifies for me a still greater social truth. Both Reagan and O'Neill were indeed skilled politicians, and from this skill both knew that the mood of the nation had changed. By the 1980s most people (like myself) now wanted reconciliation, not yet another decade of conflict.

The dialectics of that change of mood are instructive. During Reagan's 1966 campaign to become governor of California, many like myself on the left thought of him as many think today of Trump, as a vulgar TV personality, exploiting fear and prejudice to defeat the forces of sanity. And early in his campaign, he did say, "If you ask me, the activities of those Vietnam Day teach-in people can be summed up in three words: Sex, Drugs and Treason."

But I failed then to see how the anti-war movement, with its slogan of "Never trust anyone over 30," was already not as sane as I still wanted to think. And by the end of his campaign Reagan had edged away from fully endorsing the slogan "Sex, drugs and treason." His speeches now reflected the growing mood for calm in the country, with statements like "morality is the main issue of the campaign."

In other words, the initial morality of the anti-war movement, soon increasingly veering into violence, was now being opposed by a rising counter-morality. (Our situation today, with the evangelical churches now divided over Trump, is not dissimilar.)

(I still resent Reagan's tax cuts, which helped launch America towards increasing disparity of wealth and income. But I have to acknowledge that Reagan's surprise agreement to freeze emission levels of nitrogen oxide was crucial in resolving what then looked like an urgent but hopeless environmental crisis: the problem of acid rain.)

America's democratic strength is social as well as political

These anecdotal glimpses of U.S. history support my belief that for democracy to work, the actions of government are less important than inspiration and guidance from below. Democracy is interactional. Leaders give direction to the system from above when complex solutions are called for.

But on big simple issues leadership usually begins from below never from the entire people (Rousseau's dangerous myth of the "general will") but from those committed people in society, always a minority, who from their convictions are energetically united in a strong moral cause.

These people of dedication are at first usually opposed both by those in authority and by the people at large. In 1970, for example, when four students were shot and killed by the National Guard at Kent State University, protests immediately erupted at 850 campuses across the entire nation. Yet in a Gallup poll taken shortly afterward, 58% of respondents approved of the shootings. But today those in law enforcement are trained not to repeat the guardsmen's act.

Taking a lead from what Adams wrote to Jefferson, we can say that the greatness of America has always come chiefly from below, and a solution to our present crisis will most likely come yet again from below.

Our most urgent concern today: Not impeachment, but climate change

Movements from below are not always right, for intensity of belief does not bestow infallibility. Especially in America, there have been any number of divisive issues, such as the abortion issue, with decent people of good faith on both sides. Another such issue was Prohibition, and Prohibition's failure to produce consensus soon led to its repeal.

But today nearly all dedicated people are already united behind one cause: for measures to deal with climate change. The science underlying the climate issue is no longer seriously debatable. The European Union's climate monitor has just pronounced the last five years to have been the hottest on record, just like the last decade.

Last November more than 11,000 scientists from around the world declared "clearly and unequivocally that planet Earth is facing a climate emergency." They called for an "immense increase of scale in endeavors to avoid untold suffering."

Especially worrisome are potential irreversible climate tipping points and nature's reinforcing feedbacks . . . that could lead to a catastrophic 'hothouse Earth,' well beyond the control of humans.

If America truly were a functioning democracy, those endeavors would now be being implemented. According to the New York Times, "Americans overwhelmingly believe that global warming is happening, and that carbon emissions should be scaled back." About 75 percent of Americans support regulating CO2, while "In every congressional district, a majority of adults supports limiting carbon dioxide emissions from existing coal-fired power plants." This is an encouraging change from just seven years earlier, when Americans felt that climate change ranked dead last out of 21 issues as a domestic governmental priority.

The climate movement has done a good job of persuading the people, but unprecedented amounts of cash have been raised to combat it politically. This has come from the coalition Ted Roszak warned us of a decade ago: the corporate elite, the (well-funded) neoconservative intelligentsia, and the fundamentalist churches. This is the same coalition that helped elect Trump in 2016. But there are signs that, among the churches at least, their opposition to climate measures may be diminishing.

At present, the political system is still in the clutches of the well-funded climate change counter-movement, funded chiefly by greedy fossil fuel interests like the Koch brothers and Exxon Mobil. According to Scientific American, the counter-movement's foundations "funneled $558 million to almost 100 climate denial organizations from 2003 to 2010." And Trump's electoral campaign was chiefly funded by climate-change deniers Robert Mercer and his daughter Rebekah, who "spent more than $16 million to support his candidacy and his inauguration."

America's real domestic threat: The war on science

The most serious war being fought today in American politics is not the fighting between Democrats and Republicans in Congress. It is the War on Science that has been waged for decades between searchers for truth on the one hand and American superwealth, both personal and corporate, on the other.

Here, the issue, as in the Scopes evolution trial of 1925, is not whether science will win, but when. The social momentum that won against DDT and the tobacco industry will eventually force an energy revolution as well.

It is much less clear whether these changes will occur in time to preserve anything like the climate we are accustomed to. Many who abstractly endorse the need for climate measures, especially politicians, will recoil when it comes to seriously raising the price of gas.

But the dedicated social momentum for change is still with us. Let us hope that the need to deal with our climate will in time produce a consensus through compromise, one that will diminish and replace the dissensus and political jousting that have led to Trump and his policies. Let us hope also that this trend will be reinforced, as Ted Roszak predicted, by the growth of this consensus in the world as a whole.

I expect the energy for that reorientation to come primarily from younger people. But perhaps they will be joined by those of us who can remember the great satisfaction that can come from participating in what Gandhi, and later Martin Luther King Jr., called satyagraha or "truth-force" the energy, and excitement, of working in solidarity for a more decent world.

America of course has many grave problems, and there is no panacea for any of them. But the issue of climate is so grave that its solution must deal with other grave problems as well. One is the absurd vulnerability of our political processes to the influence of unprincipled money, a scandal which favors the election of unprincipled cynics to a Congress that has become what the late political scientist Chalmers Johnson called "a forum for special interests."

And this unprincipled money comes in large part from the disparity of wealth in this country. We are in a new Gilded Age, as much a threat to democracy today as the first Gilded Age was in the late 1800s, until it was partially addressed by the income tax and other progressive reforms under both Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt.

Another major related problem is that of America's bloated defense budget. This is now an international as well as a domestic threat to stability, as resources needed to promote a healthier world order and domestic tranquility are instead diverted into ill-considered and counterproductive interventions. But dealing with climate, to be successful, will necessitate a friendlier American approach to the rest of the world.

Let me return to where I began. I believe that the hatred so widespread in contemporary America arises from fears for this country that are wildly exaggerated. I myself detest and fear the militaristic policies of this country, but not the country itself.

In short, let us, in the spirit of Hannah Arendt and Jonathan Schell, focus less on the divisive issues that Congress is handling, and more on the potentially unifying issues that Congress should be handling.

I am 90 years old. My politics were shaped in the '60s. And

Deep in my heart, I [still] believeWe shall overcome some day.

Continue reading here:

The climate crisis must reunite America and yes, that could happen - Salon

Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Monday cautioned Hemant Soren Government of withdrawing welfare schemes initiated by BJP Government in Centre and State. Shah on the occasion of merger of JVM (P) with BJP at Jagarnath ground said, The new Government should carry forward the welfare schemes initiated by Modi jee and erstwhile Raghubar Das government. If the present government tries to withdraw or roll back any schemes the BJP will stage an agitation from Sadak to Sadan (from road to Assembly) protesting against the decision.

The Union Home Minister also condemned the Soren government for poor law and order situation in State especially Chaibasa incident where seven tribals were killed by pro Pathalgadi supporters last month. Shah on the occasion once again reiterated BJP government commitment in implementing Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in State saying that after the change of Government in State attacks on CAA supporters in State has gone up.

Shah said, Jharkhand has always remained close to BJP as former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee created the State in 2000 and Prime Minister Narendra Modi is working hard for the making the State as one of develop state in country. The Union Home Minister on the occasion urge the BJP cadres to work for the strengthening the party at grass root level.

Shah also raised the issue of abolition of Article 370 from Constitution which granted special status to Jammu and Kashmir and construction of Ram Temple in Ayodhya.

Former Chief Minister Raghubar Das making at scathing attack on Hemant Soren government said that the present government only concern is to defame earlier government. Das said, The government has little interest for people of State as they dont want to initiate any welfare schemes to hide their incompetency they are saying that the state exchequer is empty. The former Chief Minister also dared Soren government of stopping any ongoing welfare schemes. He said, We have come to know that Government is trying to stop the scheme under which there is provision of registry of property at Re 1. The scheme is for empowerment of women and if the government tries to do so the BJP will oppose it. Das also mentioned about government plans to withdraw Mukhyamantri Krishi Ashirward Yojana.

On partys debacle in recent Assembly election, Das said, Victory and lose in election are part for every political parties. BJP is not dejected with Assembly election results as the party will bounce back. The former chief minister also gave the slogan, we will come back soon urging the party leaders and worker to strengthen party at grass root level.

The JVM merger with BJP was a grand affair as senior BJP leaders including OP Mathur, Arjun Munda, state president Laxman Gilua, former state presidents had come to witness the grand affair.

Read the original here:

Shah flays alleged closure of welfare plans - Daily Pioneer

The Senedd. Picture by tthe National Assembly (CC BY 2.0).

Cerith Rhys Jones

Over the weekend, the leader of the Brexit party group in the Senedd, Mark Reckless, gave an interview to BBC Wales, in which he floated the idea of making the position of First Minister directly elected.

This would be a significant departure from the current system, in which Assembly Members or Members of the Senedd, as theyre soon to be known are elected either in constituencies and regions, and it is they who select from among their number the Senedds nominee to be First Minister.

During the course of the interview, Mr Reckless expanded on his suggestion, explaining that people want fewer not more politicians, and that a directly elected First Minister would take care of Wales interests, while the 40 Welsh Members of Parliament would perform the usual functions of the Senedd on a one-day-a-week basis.

What he didnt say so clearly, but which became clear during the interview, is that his suggestion includes the abolition of the Senedd. We no longer need AMs, he contends, because MPs will take their place.

He referred to the current position of Welsh MPs: unable to vote on Welsh laws in devolved areas, and unable to vote on England-only laws.

It is true, of course, that Welsh MPs have difficult jobs. They speak for their constituents, but not in devolved areas. They are full Members of Parliament, and yet their authority does have territorial limits. Not to mention that it is an often thankless job. Its not a job I would care to do.

But Mr Reckless suggestion raises myriad other questions:

1.) To whom would a directly elected First Minister be accountable? Would they answer to the people of Wales? Would they answer to Welsh Members of Parliament? Might they even answer to the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State for Wales, or the Sovereign?

2.) What powers would this new First Minister have? Taking care of Wales interests is one thing, but would they retain the executive competence of the Welsh Ministers at present? Or would they simply be the voice of Wales? If so, to whom would they make that voice known and by which process?

3.) What would be the purpose of a First Minister without a cabinet and without the machinery of government? The mistake implicit in the suggestion is that this new First Minister would be a lone wolf, unshackled from the burden of bureaucracy.

Such a position would be pointless. Without a cabinet, civil servants, and the machinery of government on which to rely, this First Minister would find it nigh on impossible to achieve anything.

4.) In the same vein, its worth including this question, because no clarity was forthcoming here either: would we even have a government? (A proper one, that is.) Or would this First Minister be some kind of ambassador? If so, remember that ambassadors answer to someone. They fly someones flag. They advance someones interest. The question is: whose?

5.) How could 40 Welsh MPs do the job of the Senedd on a one-day-a-week basis? We already have a Senedd where Members find it challenging to properly scrutinise the executive because of their limited time and resources. It simply is not realistic to suggest that this could be further compressed to just one day per week.

Would that one day include committee meetings? Public engagements? Outreach activities? Engagement with civil society? Legislative scrutiny? Scrutiny of the executive?

6.) Similarly, are we really to contend that Wales MPs could even spare the time? These, too, are busy people. On which day of the week do we suggest they should perform the functions of the Senedd? Which of their normal items of parliament or constituency business do we suggest they should abandon because of their new dual mandates?

Which committees should they resign from? Which interests should they refrain from pursuing because they now have to do the job of two legislatures? Given their additional responsibilities, would it not also be prudent to afford them additional pay?

7.) Would Welsh MPs sit in Cardiff when performing the functions of the Senedd? That would naturally incur costs. It would also mean additional travel and time away from home and from their constituencies. Or would they instead sit in Westminster? That would represent the removal of Welsh democracy and representation further away from our communities.

8.) How would they discharge their functions as a quasi-distinct legislature? They would not be the Senedd. They would not even be a parliament. Rather, members of another parliament, performing a discrete set of responsibilities. How would they be held properly accountable in respect of these functions? How would their work be funded?

Would they be granted additional staff support? Would they operate in any organised fashion at all? Would they be some kind of super-charged Welsh Grand? Would MPs be dissolvable, or for that matter proroguable, in respect of their Senedd functions?

9.) Where would executive power now reside? At present, it resides with the Welsh Ministers. Presumably, this suggestion would do away with the Government of Wales Act 2006, and no clarity was forthcoming as to where executive power would sit under these new arrangements.

Would it return to the Wales Office? Be vested in the Prime Minister? In Parliament? Or in this new-look First Minister, accountable to no one, and with no resources to perform their executive duties?

10.) If the suggestion is that the new-look First Minister (perhaps even with a cabinet and machinery of government around them) produces law for the approval of Welsh MPs, what steps would be taken to avoid the whole process becoming a mere rubber-stamping charade? What would happen in the event of deadlock?

What would happen if, for example, a First Minister were elected from one party, and another party had a majority of Welsh MPs, and they made it their work to derail that First Ministers agenda?

While it may be possible to construct a response to some, or even all, of these questions, the net result will always be the diminishment of Welsh democracy. This is achieved by the total destruction of executive competence, and the erosion of legislative scrutiny.

It is achieved by demoting those areas currently devolved to a one-day-a-week add-on to the responsibilities of the members of another parliament. It is achieved by the limiting of engagement and outreach with the public, civil society, and business.

This continues until we reach the point where we have found ourselves back under the direct rule of Westminster, with no respect for the fact that Wales is a distinct de facto if not de jure political, economic, cultural, and legal entity. This can be nothing but a disservice to the people of Wales and their communities.

Disempowered

I would contend that people who use their positions of influence, patronage, or privilege to advance suggestions such as this know full well the answers to the questions listed above. They know that their suggestions are unworkable, illogical, or impossible. They know that what theyre suggesting would mean a rollback on the idea that Wales should make its own laws.

They press on regardless because they also know that they have no intention of seeing their suggestions through. They are nothing but a distraction technique. A con. A ruse. Designed purposefully and carefully to reach people who, for one reason or another, feel unhappy or disengaged and convince them that this will be the panacea to their problems.

Sound familiar?

Few would deny that devolution has achieved all that it was promised to. Regardless of their partisan opinions, I have never met anyone involved with public life who believes that the Senedd and Welsh Government are perfect and that nothing needs to change.

But the answer to our problems is not to do away with the whole thing and place ourselves under the control of Westminster.

The challenges we face are complex. Populism does our citizens a disservice by claiming that they can be solved with simple measures. It doesnt do that because it naively wishes there were such a thing as simple solutions, but because that very idea advances its own political agenda.

And it works. People do feel disempowered. They do feel disengaged. If someone shows you an easy way to fix that, youd take it, wouldnt you?

That is why it is the job of all of us regardless of our own partisan views who believe in the Senedd and in the devolution project to up our game.

Whether our long game is independence, federalism, or simply a cementing of the settlement we now have within the United Kingdom, being pro-devolution is not exclusive to one party or even one school of thought. And we, all of us, must speak with one voice.

Those principles we hold dear that laws are better when theyre made closer to citizens, and that Wales can and should be treated as a country not by gift of Westminster but by right of itself are under attack.

The Assembly [] and the Welsh Government [] are a permanent part of the United Kingdoms constitutional arrangements. [] It is declared that the Assembly and the Welsh Government are not to be abolished except on the basis of a decision of the people of Wales voting in a referendum.

So says the very first clause of the Wales Act 2017.

In these times in which we live, we would be fools to allow ourselves to believe that that which we deem to be unimaginable is not possible. If the past four years have taught us anything, it is that we must consider the unfeasible to be feasible. The inconceivable to be conceivable. The absurd to be rational.

And in response, we must do better, aim higher, reach further, and seek to hold ourselves more robustly to account. We must call out those who seek to diminish our voices and those of our communities. And we must speak truth without compromise wherever we find misinformation.

Not as politicians, or civil society, or media, or business, or vested interests. But as citizens.

Do that, and we might just have a fighting chance.

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Our Senedd is under attack we must all do better to protect it - Nation.Cymru

WASHINGTON Today, Howard University faculty, students and staff of the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center will join people across the country and around the world to celebrate Douglass Day. In honor of the chosen birthday of Frederick Douglass, members of the public, including teachers and students, are invited to join an online crowdsourcing project that will preserve and create African American history. The transcribe-a-thon takes place from noon 3 p.m. and will be live-streamed by DouglassDay.org on their YouTube channel.

We collaborated on the transcribe-a-thon because it is a great way to engage the wider community and it will help improve access to Anna Julia Cooper's papers on Digital Howard. As a result of the project, handwritten documents will now be searchable, says Lopez Matthews, Ph.D., manager of the Digital Production Center at the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center. He will be leading the effort for Howard University.

As a leading voice in the abolition of slavery and a pivotal figure in the founding and development of Howard University, Frederick Douglass is someone that is dear to our heart, says Matthews.

The headquarters for the event will be Howard Universitys Moorland-Spingarn Research Center where the Anna Julia Cooper Collection is held. More than 50 Howard University participants have registered to offer their time to help bring history to digital life. This effort is in partnership with nearly 1,000 people at 35 locations across North America and Europe.

As one of the leading Black feminist scholars of the 20th century, the work and legacy of Anna Julia Cooper needs to be more well known. Any project that seeks to increase the knowledge of her work is alwayswelcome, said Matthews.

This year, Douglass Day will feature a new crowdsourcing project that focuses on Anna Julia Cooper (1858 1964), a visionary Black feminist, teacher, leader, and intellectual. The project will be available online starting February 14. The 2020 edition of Douglass Day is a partnership between numerous universities, research groups, and public-school districts.

It shows that people do care about supporting humanities project, says Matthews.

Partners include:

Presentations will be shared by local schools and organizations in Washington, D.C., including Dunbar High School, the Xi Omega Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., and Soul Sistas musical group.

Visit the locations where the simultaneous transcriptions are taking place, and follow the action online.

Website:Douglass Day

Livestream:Douglass Day on YouTube Live

Twitter:@DouglassDayorg + @CCP_org

# # #

(Photo: Howard University students, Lopez Matthews, Ph.D., manager of the Digital Production Center at the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, and members of the Anna Julia Cooper Digital Project staff prep for the 2020 Douglass Day transcribe-a-thon of Anna Julia Cooper artifacts.)

Why We Are Celebrating Douglass Day?

Although Frederick Douglass (1818 to 1895) often towers above other Black figures of the 19th century, he spent his life deeply invested in public activism. For half a century he was involved as an editor and activist in organizing for African American and womens rights. Celebrating his extraordinary life teaches us to remember him not only as an exceptional individual but as someone who was involved, from 1843 to 1883, in the Black-led Colored Conventions movement alongside many other campaigns for 19th-century justice. Proclaiming Right Is of No Sex, Truth is of No Color from the masthead of his newspaper, he also stood strongly for Black women to be included in Black and womens institutions and organizations as equal partners. Rather than celebrating Douglass as a singular figure, we commemorate this birthday by inviting many people to help create new digital resources for African American history.

What Is Douglass Day?

After the passing of Frederick Douglass in 1895, Black communities across the U.S. gathered to celebrate Frederick Douglass birthday every year on February 14th. Together they gathered to remember and protest against racial violence and attacks on their civil rights. Douglas Day may have been one of the original inspirations for Black History Month, shaped by Mary Church Terrell and Carter G. Woodson. In 2017, the Colored Conventions Project revived Douglass Day on his chosen birthday as a day of collective action and radical love for preserving Black history. Learn more about Douglass Day on this page.

Who Was Anna Julia Cooper?

Anna Julia Cooper (1858 1964) was a visionary Black feminist leader, educator, intellectual, and activist. Born into slavery in 1858, she earned a Ph.D. from University of Paris-Sorbonne. She wrote a foundational text of Black feminist thought, A Voice from the South by a Black Woman of the South. Cooper taught us that Black women should be at the center of the battle for civil rights. Learn more about Cooper on this page.

The Anna Julia Cooper Collection is held by the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center (MSRC) at Howard University. The MSRC is one of the world's largest and most comprehensive repositories for the documentation of the history and culture of people of African descent in Africa, the Americas, and other parts of the world. As one of Howard University's major research facilities, the MSRC collects, preserves, and makes available for research a wide range of resources chronicling the Black experience. These valuable resources are preserved and available to scholars, researchers, and the general public. For more info, visit http://library.howard.edu/MSRC

About Howard University

Founded in 1867, Howard University is a private, research university that is comprised of 13 schools and colleges. Students pursue studies in more than 120 areas leading to undergraduate, graduate and professional degrees. The University operates with a commitment to Excellence in Truth and Service and has produced one Schwarzman Scholar,threeMarshall Scholars, four Rhodes Scholars,11 TrumanScholars,25 Pickering Fellowsand more than 70 FulbrightScholars. Howard also produces more on-campus African-American Ph.D. recipients than any other university in the United States. For more information on Howard University, visit http://www.howard.edu

Media Contact: Imani Pope-Johns, Imani.popejohns@howard.edu

See the original post here:

Moorland-Spingarn Research Center to Lead Nationwide Transcribe-a-thon of Anna Julia Cooper Artifacts on Frederick Douglass Day - Howard Newsroom

Slavery is illegal everywhere. So said the New York Times, repeated at the World Economic Forum, and used as a mantra of advocacy for over 40 years. The truth of this statement has been taken for granted for decades. Yet our new research reveals that almost half of all countries in the world have yet to actually make it a crime to enslave another human being.

Legal ownership of people was indeed abolished in all countries over the course of the last two centuries. But in many countries it has not been criminalised. In almost half of the worlds countries, there is no criminal law penalising either slavery or the slave trade. In 94 countries, you cannot be prosecuted and punished in a criminal court for enslaving another human being.

Our findings displace one of the most basic assumptions made in the modern antislavery movement that slavery is already illegal everywhere in the world. And they provide an opportunity to refocus global efforts to eradicate modern slavery by 2030, starting with fundamentals: getting states to completely outlaw slavery and other exploitative practices.

The findings emerge from our development of an anti-slavery database mapping domestic legislation against international treaty obligations of all 193 United Nations member states (virtually all countries in the world). The database considers the domestic legislation of each country, as well as the binding commitments they have made through international agreements to prohibit forms of human exploitation that fall under the umbrella term modern slavery. This includes forced labour, human trafficking, institutions and practices similar to slavery, servitude, the slave trade, and slavery itself.

Although 96% of all these countries have some form of domestic anti-trafficking legislation in place, many of them appear to have failed to prohibit other types of human exploitation in their domestic law. Most notably, our research reveals that:

In all these countries, there is no criminal law in place to punish people for subjecting people to these extreme forms of human exploitation. Abuses in these cases can only be prosecuted indirectly through other offences such as human trafficking if they are prosecuted at all. In short, slavery is far from being illegal everywhere.

This article is part of Conversation InsightsThe Insights team generates long-form journalism derived from interdisciplinary research. The team is working with academics from different backgrounds who have been engaged in projects aimed at tackling societal and scientific challenges.

So how did this happen?

The answer lies at the heart of the great British abolition movement, which ended the transoceanic slave trades. This was a movement to abolish laws allowing the slave trade as legitimate commerce. During the 19th century, states were not asked to pass legislation to criminalise the slave trade, rather they were asked to repeal that is, to abolish any laws allowing for the slave trade.

This movement was followed up by the League of Nations in 1926 adopting the Slavery Convention, which required states do the same: abolish any legislation allowing for slavery. But the introduction of the international human rights regime changed this. From 1948 onwards, states were called upon to prohibit, rather than simply abolish, slavery.

As a result, states were required to do more than simply ensure they did not have any laws on the books allowing for slavery; they had to actively put in place laws seeking to stop a person from enslaving another. But many appear not to have criminalised slavery, as they had undertaken to do.

This is because for nearly 90 years (from 1926 to 2016), it was generally agreed that slavery, which was considered to require the ownership of another person, could no longer occur because states had repealed all laws allowing for property rights in persons. The effective consensus was that slavery had been legislated out of existence. So the thinking went: if slavery could no longer exist, there was no reason to pass laws to prohibit it.

This thinking was galvanised by the definition of slavery first set out in 1926. That definition states that slavery is the status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised. But courts the world over have recently come to recognise that this definition applies beyond situations where one person legally owns another person.

So lets dig into the language of that definition. Traditionally, slavery was created through systems of legal ownership in people chattel slavery, with law reinforcing and protecting the rights of some to hold others as property. The newly recognised condition of slavery, on the other hand, covers situations of de facto slavery (slavery in fact), where legal ownership is absent but a person exercises power over another akin to ownership that is, they hold the person in a condition of slavery.

This creates the possibility of recognising slavery in a world where it has been abolished in law, but persists in fact. Torture, by analogy, was abolished in law during the 18th century, but persists despite being outlawed.

Slavery may have been abolished, but there are still many who are born into slavery or brought into it at a young age and therefore do not know or recall anything different. Efforts by non-governmental organisations to free entire villages from hereditary slavery in Mauritania demonstrate this acutely, with survivors initially having no notion of a different existence and having to be slowly introduced to processes towards liberation.

This is a country in which the practice of buying and selling slaves has continued since the 13th century, with those enslaved serving families as livestock herders, agricultural workers, and domestic servants for generations, with little to no freedom of movement. This continues despite the fact that slavery was abolished.

Selekha Mint Ahmed Lebeid and her mother were born into slavery in Mauritania. She wrote about her experiences in 2006:

I was taken from my mother when I was two years old by my master he inherited us from his father I was a slave with these people, like my mother, like my cousins. We suffered a lot. When I was very small I looked after the goats, and from the age of about seven I looked after the masters children and did the household chores cooking, collecting water, and washing clothes when I was ten years old I was given to a Marabout [a holy man], who in turn gave me to his daughter as a marriage gift, to be her slave. I was never paid, but I had to do everything, and if I did not do things right I was beaten and insulted. My life was like this until I was about twenty years old. They kept watch over me and never let me go far from home. But I felt my situation was wrong. I saw how others lived.

As this story shows, slavery turns on control. Control of a person of such an intensity as to negate a persons agency, their personal liberty, or their freedom. Where slavery is concerned, this overarching control is typically established through violence: it effectively requires the will of a person to be broken. This control need not be exercised through courts of law, but may be exercised by enslavers operating outside legal frameworks. In the case of Mauritania, legal slavery has been abolished since 1981.

Once this control is established, other powers understood in the context of ownership come into play: to buy or sell a person, to use or manage them, or even to dispose of them. So slavery can exist without legal ownership if a person acts as if they owned the person enslaved. This de facto slavery continues to persist today on a large scale.

The stories of people around the world who have experienced extreme forms of exploitation testify to the continued existence of slavery. Listening to the voices of people who have been robbed of their agency and personal liberty, and controlled so as to be treated as if they are a thing that somebody owns, makes it clear that slavery persists.

In 1994, Mende Nazer was captured as a child following a militia raid on her village in Sudan. She was beaten and sexually abused, eventually sold into domestic slavery to a family in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum. As a young adult she was transferred to the family of a diplomat in the UK, eventually escaping in 2002.

Some people say I was treated like an animal, reflected Nazer, But I tell them: no, I wasnt. Because an animal - like a cat or a dog - gets stroked, and love and affection. I had none of that.

Because of this remarkably late consensus on what slavery means in a post-abolition world, only very specific practices related to severe human exploitation are currently covered under national laws around the world primarily, human trafficking. And while most countries have anti-trafficking legislation in place (our database shows that 93% of states have criminal laws against trafficking in some form), human trafficking legislation does not prohibit multiple other forms of human exploitation, including slavery itself.

Human trafficking is defined in international law, while other catch-all terms, such as modern slavery, are not. In international law, human trafficking consists of three elements: the act (recruiting, transporting, transferring, harbouring, or receiving the person); the use of coercion to facilitate this act; and an intention to exploit that person. The crime of trafficking requires all three of its elements to be present. Prosecuting the exploitation itself be it, for instance, forced labour or slavery would require specific domestic legislation beyond provisions addressing trafficking.

So having domestic human trafficking legislation in place does not enable prosecution of forced labour, servitude or slavery as offences in domestic law. And while the vast majority of states have domestic criminal provisions prohibiting trafficking, most have not yet looked beyond this to legislate against the full range of exploitation practices they have committed to prohibit.

Shockingly, our research reveals that less than 5% of the 175 states that have undertaken legally-binding obligations to criminalise human trafficking have fully aligned their national law with the international definition of trafficking. This is because they have narrowly interpreted what constitutes human trafficking, creating only partial criminalisation of slavery. The scale of this failing is clear:

While there is no shortage of recognition of de facto slavery in the decisions of international courts around the world, the degree to which this understanding is reflected in national laws has not until now been clear. The last systematic attempt to gather domestic laws on slavery was published over 50 years ago, in 1966.

Not only is this report now outdated; the definition of slavery it tested against slavery under legal ownership has been thoroughly displaced with the recognition in international law that a person can, in fact, be held in the condition of slavery. This means that there has never been a global review of antislavery laws in the sense of the fuller definition, nor has there ever been such a review of laws governing all of modern slavery in its various forms. It is this significant gap in modern slavery research and evidence that we set out to fill.

We compiled the national laws relating to slavery, trafficking, and related forms of exploitation of all 193 UN member states. From over 700 domestic statutes, more than 4,000 individual provisions were extracted and analysed to establish the extent to which each and every state has carried out its international commitments to prohibit these practices through domestic legislation.

This collection of legislation is not perfect. The difficulties of accessing legislation across all of the worlds countries make it inevitably incomplete. Language barriers, difficulties of translating legal provisions, and differences in the structures of national legal systems also presented obstacles. But these challenges were offset by conducting searches in multiple languages, triangulating sources, and the use of translation software where necessary.

The results, as weve shown, are shocking. In 94 countries, a person cannot be prosecuted for enslaving another human being. This implicates almost half of all the worlds countries in potential breaches of the international obligation to prohibit slavery.

Whats more, only 12 states appear to explicitly set out a national definition of slavery that reflects the international one. In most cases, this leaves it up to the courts to interpret the meaning of slavery (and to do so in line with international law). Some states use phrases such as buying and selling human beings, which leaves out many of the powers of ownership that might be exercised over a person in a case of contemporary slavery. This means that even in the countries where slavery has been prohibited in criminal law, only some situations of slavery have been made illegal.

Also surprising is the fact that states who have undertaken international obligations are not significantly more (or less) likely to have implemented domestic legislation addressing any of the kinds of exploitation considered in our study. States who have signed up to the relevant treaties, and those who have not, are almost equally likely to have domestic provisions criminalising the various forms of modern slavery. Signing onto treaties seems to have no impact on the likelihood that a state will take domestic action, at least in statistical terms. However, this does not mean that international commitments are not a significant factor in shaping particular states national antislavery efforts.

The picture is similarly bleak when it comes to other forms of exploitation. For example, 112 states appear to be without penal sanctions to address forced labour, a widespread practice ensnaring 25 million people.

In an effort to support their families, many of those forced into labour in developed countries are unaware they are not taking up legitimate work. Travelling to another country for what they believe to be decent work, often through informal contacts or employment agencies, they find themselves in a foreign country with no support mechanism and little or no knowledge of the language. Typically, their identity documents are taken by their traffickers, which limits their ability to escape and enables control through the threat of exposure to the authorities as illegal immigrants.

They are often forced to work for little or no pay and for long hours, in agriculture, factories, construction, restaurants, and through forced criminality, such as cannabis farming. Beaten and degraded, some are sold or gifted to others, and many are purposefully supplied with drugs and alcohol to create a dependency on their trafficker and reduce the risk of escape. Edward (not his real name) explains:

I felt very sick, hungry and tired all the time. I was sold, from person to person, bartered for right in front of my face. I heard one man say I wasnt even worth 300. I felt worthless. Like rubbish on the floor. I wished I could die, that it could all be behind. I just wanted a painless death. I finally decided I would rather be killed trying to escape.

Our database also reveals widespread gaps in the prohibition of other practices related to slavery. In short, despite the fact that most countries have undertaken legally-binding obligations through international treaties, few have actually criminalised slavery, the slave trade, servitude, forced labour, or institutions and practices similar to slavery.

Clearly, this situation needs to change. States must work towards a future in which the claim that slavery is illegal everywhere becomes a reality.

Our database should make the design of future legislation easier. We can respond to the demands of different contexts by analysing how similar states have responded to shared challenges, and adapt these approaches as needed. We can assess the strengths and weaknesses of different choices in context, and respond to problems with the type of evidence-based analysis provided here.

To this end, we are currently developing model legislation and guidelines meant to assist states in adapting their domestic legal frameworks to meet their obligations to prohibit human exploitation in an effective manner. Now that we have identified widespread gaps in domestic laws, we must move to fill these with evidence-based, effective, and appropriate provisions.

While legislation is only a first step towards effectively eradicating slavery, it is fundamental to harnessing the power of the state against slavery. It is necessary to prevent impunity for violations of this most fundamental human right, and vital for victims obtaining support and redress. It also sends an important signal about human exploitation.

The time has come to move beyond the assumption that slavery is already illegal everywhere. Laws do not currently adequately and effectively address the phenomenon, and they must.

For you: more from our Insights series:

To hear about new Insights articles, join the hundreds of thousands of people who value The Conversations evidence-based news. Subscribe to our newsletter.

Continued here:

Slavery is not a crime in almost half the countries of the world new research - The Conversation UK

Slavery is illegal everywhere. So said the New York Times, repeated at the World Economic Forum, and used as a mantra of advocacy for over 40 years. The truth of this statement has been taken for granted for decades. Yet our new research reveals that almost half of all countries in the world have yet to actually make it a crime to enslave another human being.

Legal ownership of people was indeed abolished in all countries over the course of the past two centuries. But in many countries, it has not been criminalised. In almost half of the worlds countries, there is no criminal law penalising either slavery or the slave trade. In 94 countries, you cannot be prosecuted and punished in a criminal court for enslaving another human being.

Our findings displace one of the most basic assumptions made in the modern antislavery movement that slavery is already illegal everywhere in the world. And they provide an opportunity to refocus global efforts to eradicate modern slavery by 2030, starting with fundamentals: getting states to completely outlaw slavery and other exploitative practices.

The findings emerge from our development of an anti-slavery database mapping domestic legislation against international treaty obligations of all 193 United Nations member states (virtually all countries in the world). The database considers the domestic legislation of each country, as well as the binding commitments they have made through international agreements to prohibit forms of human exploitation that fall under the umbrella term modern slavery. This includes forced labour, human trafficking, institutions and practices similar to slavery, servitude, the slave trade, and slavery itself.

Although 96% of all these countries have some form of domestic anti-trafficking legislation in place, many of them appear to have failed to prohibit other types of human exploitation in their domestic law. Most notably, our research reveals that:

In all these countries, there is no criminal law in place to punish people for subjecting people to these extreme forms of human exploitation. Abuses in these cases can only be prosecuted indirectly through other offences such as human trafficking if they are prosecuted at all. In short, slavery is far from being illegal everywhere.

So how did this happen? The answer lies at the heart of the great British abolition movement, which ended the transoceanic slave trades. This was a movement to abolish laws allowing the slave trade as legitimate commerce. During the 19th century, states were not asked to pass legislation to criminalise the slave trade, rather they were asked to repeal that is, to abolish any laws allowing for the slave trade.

This movement was followed up by the League of Nations in 1926 adopting the Slavery Convention, which required states do the same: abolish any legislation allowing for slavery. But the introduction of the international human rights regime changed this. From 1948 onwards, states were called upon to prohibit, rather than simply abolish, slavery.

As a result, states were required to do more than simply ensure they did not have any laws on the books allowing for slavery; they had to actively put in place laws seeking to stop a person from enslaving another. But many appear not to have criminalised slavery, as they had undertaken to do.

This is because for nearly 90 years, from 1926 to 2016, it was generally agreed that slavery, which was considered to require the ownership of another person, could no longer occur because states had repealed all laws allowing for property rights in persons. The effective consensus was that slavery had been legislated out of existence. So the thinking went: if slavery could no longer exist, there was no reason to pass laws to prohibit it.

This thinking was galvanised by the definition of slavery first set out in 1926. That definition states that slavery is the status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised. But courts the world over have recently come to recognise that this definition applies beyond situations where one person legally owns another person.

So lets dig into the language of that definition. Traditionally, slavery was created through systems of legal ownership in people chattel slavery, with law reinforcing and protecting the rights of some to hold others as property. The newly recognised condition of slavery, on the other hand, covers situations of de facto slavery, where legal ownership is absent but a person exercises power over another akin to ownership that is, they hold the person in a condition of slavery.

This creates the possibility of recognising slavery in a world where it has been abolished in law, but persists in fact. Torture, by analogy, was abolished in law during the 18th century, but persists despite being outlawed.

Slavery may have been abolished, but there are still many who are born into slavery or brought into it at a young age and therefore, do not know or recall anything different. Efforts by non-governmental organisations to free entire villages from hereditary slavery in Mauritania demonstrate this acutely, with survivors initially having no notion of a different existence and having to be slowly introduced to processes towards liberation.

This is a country in which the practice of buying and selling slaves has continued since the 13th century, with those enslaved serving families as livestock herders, agricultural workers, and domestic servants for generations, with little to no freedom of movement. This continues despite the fact that slavery was abolished.

Selekha Mint Ahmed Lebeid and her mother were born into slavery in Mauritania. She wrote about her experiences in 2006:

I was taken from my mother when I was two years old by my master he inherited us from his father I was a slave with these people, like my mother, like my cousins. We suffered a lot. When I was very small I looked after the goats, and from the age of about seven I looked after the masters children and did the household chores cooking, collecting water, and washing clothes when I was ten years old I was given to a Marabout [a holy man], who in turn gave me to his daughter as a marriage gift, to be her slave. I was never paid, but I had to do everything, and if I did not do things right I was beaten and insulted. My life was like this until I was about twenty years old. They kept watch over me and never let me go far from home. But I felt my situation was wrong. I saw how others lived.

As this story shows, slavery turns on control. Control of a person of such an intensity as to negate a persons agency, their personal liberty, or their freedom. Where slavery is concerned, this overarching control is typically established through violence: it effectively requires the will of a person to be broken. This control need not be exercised through courts of law, but may be exercised by enslavers operating outside legal frameworks. In the case of Mauritania, legal slavery has been abolished since 1981.

Once this control is established, other powers understood in the context of ownership come into play: to buy or sell a person, to use or manage them, or even to dispose of them. So slavery can exist without legal ownership if a person acts as if they owned the person enslaved. This de facto slavery continues to persist today on a large scale.

The stories of people around the world who have experienced extreme forms of exploitation testify to the continued existence of slavery. Listening to the voices of people who have been robbed of their agency and personal liberty, and controlled so as to be treated as if they are a thing that somebody owns, makes it clear that slavery persists.

In 1994, Mende Nazer was captured as a child following a militia raid on her village in Sudan. She was beaten and sexually abused, eventually sold into domestic slavery to a family in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum. As a young adult she was transferred to the family of a diplomat in the UK, eventually escaping in 2002.

Some people say I was treated like an animal, reflected Nazer, But I tell them: no, I wasnt. Because an animal - like a cat or a dog - gets stroked, and love and affection. I had none of that.

Because of this remarkably late consensus on what slavery means in a post-abolition world, only very specific practices related to severe human exploitation are currently covered under national laws around the world primarily, human trafficking. And while most countries have anti-trafficking legislation in place our database shows that 93% of states have criminal laws against trafficking in some form human trafficking legislation does not prohibit multiple other forms of human exploitation, including slavery itself.

Human trafficking is defined in international law, while other catch-all terms, such as modern slavery, are not. In international law, human trafficking consists of three elements: the act (recruiting, transporting, transferring, harbouring, or receiving the person); the use of coercion to facilitate this act; and an intention to exploit that person. The crime of trafficking requires all three of its elements to be present. Prosecuting the exploitation itself be it, for instance, forced labour or slavery would require specific domestic legislation beyond provisions addressing trafficking.

So having domestic human trafficking legislation in place does not enable prosecution of forced labour, servitude or slavery as offences in domestic law. And while the vast majority of states have domestic criminal provisions prohibiting trafficking, most have not yet looked beyond this to legislate against the full range of exploitation practices they have committed to prohibit.

Shockingly, our research reveals that less than 5% of the 175 states that have undertaken legally-binding obligations to criminalise human trafficking have fully aligned their national law with the international definition of trafficking. This is because they have narrowly interpreted what constitutes human trafficking, creating only partial criminalisation of slavery. The scale of this failing is clear:

While there is no shortage of recognition of de facto slavery in the decisions of international courts around the world, the degree to which this understanding is reflected in national laws has not until now been clear. The last systematic attempt to gather domestic laws on slavery was published over 50 years ago, in 1966.

Not only is this report now outdated, the definition of slavery it tested against slavery under legal ownership has been thoroughly displaced with the recognition in international law that a person can, in fact, be held in the condition of slavery. This means that there has never been a global review of anti-slavery laws in the sense of the fuller definition, nor has there ever been such a review of laws governing all of modern slavery in its various forms. It is this significant gap in modern slavery research and evidence that we set out to fill.

We compiled the national laws relating to slavery, trafficking, and related forms of exploitation of all 193 UN member states. From over 700 domestic statutes, more than 4,000 individual provisions were extracted and analysed to establish the extent to which each and every state has carried out its international commitments to prohibit these practices through domestic legislation.

This collection of legislation is not perfect. The difficulties of accessing legislation across all of the worlds countries make it inevitably incomplete. Language barriers, difficulties of translating legal provisions, and differences in the structures of national legal systems also presented obstacles. But these challenges were offset by conducting searches in multiple languages, triangulating sources, and the use of translation software where necessary.

The results, as weve shown, are shocking. In 94 countries, a person cannot be prosecuted for enslaving another human being. This implicates almost half of all the worlds countries in potential breaches of the international obligation to prohibit slavery.

Whats more, only 12 states appear to explicitly set out a national definition of slavery that reflects the international one. In most cases, this leaves it up to the courts to interpret the meaning of slavery and to do so in line with international law. Some states use phrases such as buying and selling human beings, which leaves out many of the powers of ownership that might be exercised over a person in a case of contemporary slavery. This means that even in the countries where slavery has been prohibited in criminal law, only some situations of slavery have been made illegal.

Also surprising is the fact that states who have undertaken international obligations are not significantly more, or less, likely to have implemented domestic legislation addressing any of the kinds of exploitation considered in our study. States who have signed up to the relevant treaties, and those who have not, are almost equally likely to have domestic provisions criminalising the various forms of modern slavery. Signing onto treaties seems to have no impact on the likelihood that a state will take domestic action, at least in statistical terms. However, this does not mean that international commitments are not a significant factor in shaping particular states national antislavery efforts.

The picture is similarly bleak when it comes to other forms of exploitation. For example, 112 states appear to be without penal sanctions to address forced labour, a widespread practice ensnaring 25 million people.

In an effort to support their families, many of those forced into labour in developed countries are unaware they are not taking up legitimate work. Travelling to another country for what they believe to be decent work, often through informal contacts or employment agencies, they find themselves in a foreign country with no support mechanism and little or no knowledge of the language. Typically, their identity documents are taken by their traffickers, which limits their ability to escape and enables control through the threat of exposure to the authorities as illegal immigrants.

They are often forced to work for little or no pay and for long hours, in agriculture, factories, construction, restaurants, and through forced criminality, such as cannabis farming. Beaten and degraded, some are sold or gifted to others, and many are purposefully supplied with drugs and alcohol to create a dependency on their trafficker and reduce the risk of escape. Edward explains:

I felt very sick, hungry and tired all the time. I was sold, from person to person, bartered for right in front of my face. I heard one man say I wasnt even worth 300. I felt worthless. Like rubbish on the floor. I wished I could die, that it could all be behind. I just wanted a painless death. I finally decided I would rather be killed trying to escape.

Our database also reveals widespread gaps in the prohibition of other practices related to slavery. In short, despite the fact that most countries have undertaken legally-binding obligations through international treaties, few have actually criminalised slavery, the slave trade, servitude, forced labour, or institutions and practices similar to slavery.

Clearly, this situation needs to change. States must work towards a future in which the claim that slavery is illegal everywhere becomes a reality. Our database should make the design of future legislation easier. We can respond to the demands of different contexts by analysing how similar states have responded to shared challenges, and adapt these approaches as needed. We can assess the strengths and weaknesses of different choices in context, and respond to problems with the type of evidence-based analysis provided here.

To this end, we are currently developing model legislation and guidelines meant to assist states in adapting their domestic legal frameworks to meet their obligations to prohibit human exploitation in an effective manner. Now that we have identified widespread gaps in domestic laws, we must move to fill these with evidence-based, effective, and appropriate provisions.

While legislation is only a first step towards effectively eradicating slavery, it is fundamental to harnessing the power of the state against slavery. It is necessary to prevent impunity for violations of this most fundamental human right, and vital for victims obtaining support and redress. It also sends an important signal about human exploitation.

The time has come to move beyond the assumption that slavery is already illegal everywhere. Laws do not currently adequately and effectively address the phenomenon, and they must.

Katarina Schwarz, Rights Lab Associate Director and Assistant Professor, University of Nottingham. Jean Allain, Professor of International Law, University of Hull. Andrea Nicholson, Rights Lab Research Fellow in Survivor Voices, University of Nottingham, contributed to the article.

This article first appeared on The Conversation.

View post:

In nearly half of the worlds countries, slavery has not yet been criminalised - Scroll.in

Marg D'Arcy, Rye

Yes you are right about Australia's deep shame, Loucille McGinley (Letters, 17/2). Surely everyone finds the government's inaction on the plight of the Australian children in the al-Hawl camp in Syria sickening. The Christians in our government could look up their Bible on widows and orphans and how a millstone around the neck is better than hurting little children.

Dorothy Woodward, Ivanhoe

There can be no doubt that the women and children in the al-Hawl camp in Syria are caught up in an appalling situation, victims of every kind of trauma, and suffering in freezing conditions ("Raids as families plan to flee al-Hawl", 16/2).

Instead of being their strongest advocate for a return to normal life, our government has made them political scapegoats in the belief that they pose a security threat, which surely can be defused in a calm and non-threatening environment by the requisite experts, rather than having police conduct heavy-handed raids.

Helen Scheller, Benalla

The Australian government could respond to the families of Islamic State fighters in a Syrian refugee camp in two possible ways. They can maintain their harassment and continue to look for evidence to support their treatment as possible terrorists, or they could do what many people seem to be able to do, visit the camp and rescue them from a terrible, hazardous situation. Once back home they could then maintain continuing support and conversations about how the families can work towards a hopeful future.

The narrow and distrustful current strategy will make it more likely that the families develop or maintain very negative attitudes towards the West. They will certainly give current terrorists, and others who are vulnerable to their voices, plenty of ammunition in the war for minds.

The more naturally humane strategy may seem naive but it has a much better chance of creating a more positive environment for engagement with the "persons of concern".

Howard Tankey, Box Hill North

You report on your front page (16/2) that Australian police have "stepped up investigations" into Australians 67 women and children freezing in the al-Hawl refugee camp in Syria as some may try "to flee and make their way home as conditions deteriorate in the camp". In the same article the government is quoted as having "no plans to rescue the Australians because ... many of the women and families pose an ongoing security risk."

It beggars belief that our security systems could not manage the problem of such a small group, many of whom are little children, living in Australia under surveillance if they were returned here under humanitarian consideration. They are our people, they are Australians for god's sake.

This cold-blooded government prefers to leave them in the mud, sewerage and ice of the camps. I am ashamed to be an Australian at the thought of this. Bring them back now.

Conn Constantinou, Sandringham

Basic arithmetic tells us the abolition of stamp duty ("Ex-Treasury heads slam stamp duty", The Age, 17/2) will not cut the cost of housing.

If you can raise $739,000 now, you can spend $700,000 on a house and pay the government $37,000 in stamp duty (there are some small other costs). If there were no stamp duty, you would still be able to raise the $739,000. The only difference would be you would give an extra $37,000 to the vendor. It is simple supply and demand.

The only reason for the business world to support the replacement of stamp duty with land tax is to force low-income retirees out of their homes so that they can be bulldozed and replaced with apartments as part of the insane notion of squashing 80 per cent of Victorians into the just over 1 per cent of Victoria that makes up urban Melbourne.

Chris Curtis, Hurstbridge

As a Catholic priest for almost 50 years, I'm surprised and disappointed that the forward-looking Pope Francis dismissed the proposal of Latin American bishops to ordain married men in the Amazon so that Catholics in remote areas would have the opportunity to celebrate Mass rather than waiting for years.

I really believed that Pope Francis, being a man of and for the people, would take the relatively small step of ordaining those men who are married deacons in that area of South America, where priests are scarce.

Regular access to the Eucharist is a fundamental right for all Christians and the church has a heavy responsibility to facilitate this. In all sorts of ways, celibacy is breaking down and it's time we trusted in the Spirit and got real.

Marriage won't be compulsory, but it should be an option.

Kevin Burke, Sandringham

I completely agree with Bill Mathew (Letters 17/2) that population growth is missing from the climate debate. But population growth is not just a factor, it is the core problem.

Our domestic economy is hugely dependent upon population growth ... everything from building activity to retail sales and general consumption.

So how is it that Scandinavian and other European countries manage good economies and lifestyles without our sort of population growth? Is there a lower greed factor?

Brian McKay, Albert Park

My Aged Care was established in 2013 by the federal government as a "one-stop aged care shop". It has been such an unmitigated disaster that six years after it was introduced, an Aged Care System Navigator was designed to help people "navigate" the aged care system. The absurdity of needing a second service to assist people to use the first service brings to mind an episode of ABC's Utopia.

"Navigate" has become the new buzzword in aged care. The first discussion paper from the royal commission is titled: Navigating the maze: an overview of Australia's current aged care system. But it was not a maze when local councils, the Royal District Nursing Service and other not-for-profit and for-profit organisations delivered services to older people in their home.

How did the aged-care system become so complex that older people and their family need help to navigate it?

Sarah Russell, director, Aged Care Matters, Northcote

Let's have some clear thinking and cut the hypocrisy involved in criticism of the religious freedom bill.

The LGBTIQ lobby and others claim it gives religious organisations the right to discriminate, but would they employ someone in their organisations, whatever these be, who held views opposed to theirs?

Likewise would the Labor Party employ a Liberal Party member in their offices, and vice versa? And it should be asked what would the motivation be for someone to seek any such employment?

Why, then, should it be OK to impose an LGBTIQ or other opposed person as an employee on a religious organisation? In regard to "hate speech", some things LGBTIQ people say are deeply offensive to Christians, but who condemns that?

John Weymouth, Ringwood East

China is rightly praised for its herculean effort to contain the coronavirus and with the vigour perhaps only possible in a one-party state. However, its authoritarianism is precisely why such precautions are now necessary to check the global cost of Covid-19 in deaths, disruption to daily life and incalculable financial loss to economies, business and individuals.

Had the brave doctors who first raised the alarm not been silenced and forced to confess to spreading rumours, the outbreak may have been contained to the 11 million epicentre of Wuhan, capital of Hubei province. Before the rise of Xi Jinping as leader for life over China's 1.4 billion people , the country was opening up, censorship relaxed, some freedom of speech tolerated and parts of the press permitted to uncover stories, rather than cover them up. President Xi reversed that and tightened the clamps.

With the spread of Covid-19 to Africa, his Belt and Road has expanded beyond his "Chinese Dream".

Helene Chung, Melbourne

The Coalition's ministerial response (Christian Porter and Peter Dutton) to the High Court's decision that an Aboriginal person can't be an "alien" is yet another example of this government's antagonism to Indigenous people.

It would be a relatively simple matter to accept the High Court's decision and legislate that anyone of Indigenous descent to a prescribed level of proof was automatically an Australian citizen.

Surely there are members of conscience in the Liberal Party who will speak out on matters such as this, and climate change, and not be silenced by narrow-minded conservatives.

Rodney Syme, Yandoit Hills

As a resident who lives close to the Clarinda recycling facility, all we ask is that Alex Fraser Group abides by the original conditions of the permit which, was time limited to 15 years to coincide with the phasing out of waste/landfill activities in the area after decades of sand mining ("Minister called in on recycle battle", The Age, 17/2).

Both the local City of Kingston and the state government have committed to the rehabilitation of this area to a long-promised Chain of Parks. This state government commitment has come in the form of a change to the planning scheme (which now prohibits waste activities) and also funding promised by the Andrews Labor government in the last election to commence development of the Sandbelt Chain of Parks.

The minister should call in the application to ensure that these promises are kept.

Silvana Anthony, Heatherton

Long-term plans on how to transition to a coal-free future? Really, how hard is it for a national government to produce a road map?

The Whitlam government in the 1970s established the Industry Assistance Commission to examine issues like structural adjustment and alternative employment for workers transitioning into new employment opportunities.

That was more than 40 years ago when planners had nothing like the data and computing available today.

David Fry, Moonee Ponds

Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg states "you're not going to hold a telco responsible if someone says something harmful on a phone line", but the comparison between Facebook and a telephone conversation could not be more dissimilar.

A phone conversation is normally a dialogue, whereas a Facebook post has the potential to reach millions. He needs to accept responsibility and remove misleading, offensive or libellous comments when requested to do so.

Alan Inchley, Frankston

Peter Hartcher's article expressed concern that a recent High Court judgment creates two classes of citizens ("High Court opens Pandora's box", Comment, 15/2). I would like to note that there were already two classes before this judgment those that could have their citizenship stripped from them and those who couldn't.

The ability to take an Australian citizenship away in some circumstances if the person had citizenship rights in another country was introduced a few years ago with little concern expressed. Peter Dutton has obviously (and conveniently) forgotten his work on that change if he thinks another class of people "is a very bad thing".

Keith Wilson, Rye

John Capel is right about Victoria's need for enlightenment about the the cruelty of duck shooting (Letters, 17/2)

The Andrews government must realise that only a handful of Victorians pursue this blood sport. Most of us enjoy seeing our ducks thrive in peaceful surroundings.

Jan Kendall, Mount Martha

Thank for your letter, John Capel. I had a similar one published by The Age some 20 years ago and have attempted with follow-ups.

How could any responsible government still allow this primitive, cruel practice masquerading as sport to continue, particularly after what has happened to us recently? I despair.

I guess the simple answer is that this is not a responsible, enlightened government.

Roger Vincent, Fitzroy, SA

I can only concur with Rosemary Taylor, who writes congratulating MPs Andrew Wilkie and George Christensen for their planned visit to Julian Assange in prison (Letters, 16/2).

I would add, as a once rusted-on Labor voter: ALP, where are you ... Hello ... Hello?

Vaughan Greenberg, Chewton

Don't be too hard on Scott Morrison, he's just trying to keep it simple. Doing something just complicates things.

Bill Trestrail, St Kilda

The (Queensland) Nationals tail is wagging the (Sydney) Liberal dog.

Greg Curtin, Blackburn South

Truth in politics: It's a Liberal minority government in Canberra, precariously partnered by FIFO members of the so-called National Party. Expect woeful governance.

Frederika Steen, Chapel Hill, Qld

In order to reduce the childish point scoring during question time in Parliament, maybe it should be called "question and answer" time.

Ian Dale, Rosebud

With the dismal lack of leadership across all the major parties, perhaps it is time to try out the Millennials.

Joan Segrave, Healesville

For ducks' sake, cancel the shooting season.

Margaret Ward, Eltham

By accepting the findings of Phil Gaetjens' report over that of the National Audit Office, Scott Morrison is effectively signalling a vote of no confidence in the Auditor-General. There is no other way of looking at it.

Garry Meller, Bentleigh

Should farmers unsuccessfully applying for federal bushfire relief have asked for a swimming pool?

Hans Paas, Castlemaine

I just joined ABC Friends. Under this government they need all the friends they can get.

Carol Reed, Newport

So, the wholesale cost of P2 masks goes from $2.50 to $38.50 a unit. Seems there will always be someone who will recognise any opportunity to cash in on a crisis.

Marie Nash, Balwyn

You're not taking the Kingswood! RIP Holden.

Ed Veber, Malvern East

Coal is OK, cars are not.

Les Anderson, Woodend

*Sign up to editor Alex Lavelle's exclusive newsletter at: http://www.theage.com.aueditornote.

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Give these children a chance to have a life - The Age

Actor Pooja Bedi stirred controversy after tweeting against reservation on Tuesday. Her comments were met with conflicted reactions, with many pointing out that it was probably her privilege - she is the daughter of actor Kabir Bedi - that prompted her to make the statements in the first place.

Pooja had written in a tweet, Dear @priyankagandhi I think its VERY positive that @BJP4India wants 2 end the quota & reservation systems! if we believe in ONE india & merit & an end to divisive politics.... this is definitely a step in right direction. This reservation system cannot be a FOREVER entitlement. She was reacting to a statement made by the Congress Priyanka Gandhi.

One person, reacting to Poojas tweet, wrote, Pooja, Why dont you work for abolition of caste? Thats definitely ONE India. Fight for those who die cleaning the shit from gutters. Thats ONE India. And lovely how you flippantly discard centuries of atrocities committed by upper castes on those lower down the ladder. Responding to this, the actor wrote back, We have graduates sweeping floors because someone with way lesser marks got their job based on quota. Yes, Atrocities were inflicted in past. But Thats no reason 2 punish the good & deserving youth of today. Reward merit & INDIA will flourish! Caste system is a misused vote bank.

Also Watch | Saif Ali Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Alaya F attend special screening of Jawaani Jaaneman

Another person, responding to Poojas original tweet, commented, Like your sheer hardwork and no entitlement or fame you received as a result of your parents? Or like how your daughter has struggled along with all those struggling actors in Mumbai and poor girl is trying to get a role?

The person was making a reference to Poojas daughter, Alaya F, who recently made her debut in the film industry with the film Jawaani Jaaneman, and fielded a barrage of questions about nepotism in Bollywood. We need to realise that even in our struggle, we are privileged. If we got rejected in 10 auditions, someone else has got the thumbs down 100 times. Their struggle is greater than ours. But just because Im privileged, doesnt mean that Im not going to do what I love and work hard at it, Alaya had told Mumbai Mirror.

Follow @htshowbiz for more

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Pooja Bedi stirs controversy over anti-reservation comments, Twitter reminds her of daughter Alayas... - Hindustan Times

Pooja Bedi's anti-reservation tweet triggers controversy

Pooja Bedi took to Twitter to put forward her views on a statement made by Congress' Priyanka Gandhi. This triggered a sort of heated debate on the micro-blogging site. Applauding BJP government, Pooja had written in a tweet, Dear @priyankagandhi I think its VERY positive that @BJP4India wants 2 end the quota & reservation systems! if we believe in ONE india & merit & an end to divisive politics.... this is definitely a step in right direction. This reservation system cannot be a FOREVER entitlement.

This didn't go down well with a certain section of Twitterati who pointed out that she is privileged enough to make such statements. Going brutal, some even took a dig by making a remark on Pooja and her daughter Alaya F's 'struggle' in Bollywood.

Reacting on Pooja's tweet, one wrote,Pooja, Why dont you work for abolition of caste? Thats definitely ONE India. Fight for those who die cleaning the shit from gutters. Thats ONE India. And lovely how you flippantly discard centuries of atrocities committed by upper castes on those lower down the ladder.

Another commented, ''Like your sheer hardwork and no entitlement or fame you received as a result of your parents? Or like how your daughter has struggled along with all those struggling actors in Mumbai and poor girl is trying to get a role?''

''Very convenient words from a rich, upper caste person. Please shed some wisdom by sharing your thoughts on caste system which is the root of discrimination,'' wrote a Twitter user.

For the unversed, Alaya F made her Bollywood debut with Jawaani Jaaneman starring Saif Ali Khan and Tabu.

During the promotions of Jawaani Jaaneman, Alaya while addressing the question of nepotism said that even in their struggle, they are privileged.

We need to realise that even in our struggle, we are privileged. If we got rejected in 10 auditions, someone else has got the thumbs down 100 times. Their struggle is greater than ours. But just because Im privileged, doesnt mean that Im not going to do what I love and work hard at it, Alaya had told Mumbai Mirror.

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Pooja Bedi's anti-reservation tweet triggers debate, netizens remind her of daughter Alaya F's 'struggle' - India TV News

WASHINGTON, DC - FEBRUARY 04: President Donald Trump delivers the State of the Union address as ... [+] House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Vice President Mike Pence look on in the chamber of the U.S. House of Representatives on February 04, 2020 in Washington, DC. President Trump delivers his third State of the Union to the nation the night before the U.S. Senate is set to vote in his impeachment trial. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Leadership literature comprises thousands of works hundreds of which are typologies that categorize leaders in ways to explain their actions. But very few examine Political Leadership. And given the rise of populist parties and alternative facts, advancing understanding of actions taken by politicians is crucial.

And so, last month, ITV's Peston selected a typology from Harvard Business Review famed for its global media coverage and usage by Fortune 500 executives the world over. Researchers, including myself, were tasked with applying the work to the political industry - given its high degree of generalizability. The findings concluded that five types of political leaders exist, which are as follows.

1. Surgeon Leaders

They're incredibly decisive and incisive, somewhat Machiavellian, and rule-breaking by nature. They focus on delivering short term impact by quickly identify what's not working. Then they forensically redirect attention and resources to problems most pressing because they don't prioritize things that aren't mission-critical. Often seen as a ruthless disciplinarian, these leaders believe they're mandated to build performance shifts using their trusted blueprints and rulebooks of which people must obey to the latter. In the short-term, this strategy can work well, and performance typically improves significantly, usually within the first two years they're tenured. Observants will claim to have witnessed an incredible transformation. But this is temporary because the entity has become cult-like in operation, meaning it is heavily reliant and dependent upon one person themselves the "chosen one." And after the Surgeon leaves, performance crashes back to earth. Observants will then blame the new leader, while buoyed up by an undeserved reputation, the Surgeon has moved on to their next patient or Golf Course in the case of Donald Trump a classic Surgeon Leader.

WASHINGTON, DC - FEBRUARY 06: U.S. President Donald Trump holds a copy of The Washington Post as he ... [+] speaks in the East Room of the White House one day after the U.S. Senate acquitted on two articles of impeachment, ion February 6, 2020 in Washington, DC. After five months of congressional hearings and investigations about President Trumps dealings with Ukraine, the U.S. Senate formally acquitted the president on Wednesday of charges that he abused his power and obstructed Congress. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Even post-acquittal, he wears the badge of impeachment somewhat favorably because it provides a useful re-election narrative. Even so, 'the Donald' is one of only three presidents in U.S. history to be impeached and the only president to seek re-election after being impeached. In his recent State of the Union address, he declared, "Our economy is the best it has ever been." Adding, "If we hadn't reversed the failed economic policies of the previous administration, the world would not now be witnessing this great economic success." But critics, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, suggests this claim is unfounded, calling it "a manifesto of mistruths."

LONDON, ENGLAND - DECEMBER 13: Britain's Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Michael Gove speaks at ... [+] QEII before a speech by Boris Johnson as the Conservatives celebrate a sweeping election victory on December 13, 2019 in London, England. Johnson called the first UK winter election for nearly a century in an attempt to gain a working majority to break the parliamentary deadlock over Brexit. As the results roll in the Conservative Party has gained the number of seats needed to win a clear majority at the expense of the Labour Party. Votes are still being counted and an overall result is expected later today. (Photo by Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty Images)

In Britain, Michael Gove has also demonstrated severe mistruths throughout his tenure and should face imprisonment for his lies told during the Brexit campaign, according to critics. The classic Surgeon Leader who infamously stabbed Boris Johnson in the back and David Cameron in the front is hated by many teachers but holds a reputation in and around Westminster as the most effective minister of recent times. During his rise to the top, Gove seemingly developed a canny ability to get things done he's a fixer, just like fellow Westminster Surgeon Dominic Cummings. His track record is of effectiveness occurred across three different government departments, primarily due to his laser-like focus about what he wants to achieve and bloody-mindedness about getting there, again, just like Cummings.

2. Soldier Leaders

They like order and efficiency, hate waste, and subscribe to the view that entities fail because they're fat, lazy, and frivolous. Consequently, they're inclined to trim and tighten, focusing on the bottom line with an insatiable tenacity and heavy-duty focus on tasks. These leaders often cut staff and non-essential activities, automate processes, and fixate on operational details, which in turn drives a culture and climate of fear and uncertainty. Finances typically improve during their tenure because they 'tighten the screws' on people and processes, but this isn't sustainable over time because people and processes are suffocated. By the time they need to breathe again, the Soldier has moved onto their next mission.

COLLEGE STATION, TX - JANUARY 20: Former Defense Secretary and 46th Vice President Dick Cheney ... [+] attends an event honoring the 20th anniversary of the Persian Gulf War on January 20, 2011 in College Station Texas. The Gulf War was waged against Iraq from August 1990 to February 1991 during President George H. W. Bush's administration. (Photo by Ben Sklar/Getty Images)

Dick Cheney optimizes the Solider Leader. Serving as secretary of defense between 1989 and 1993, he directed two military campaigns, receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his leadership. Then, using the contacts he'd made, entered the private sector as Chairman and CEO of Halliburton. Upon returning to Capitol Hill in 2001 with a $36 million severance package, Cheney joined the Oval Office as vice president and began an eight-year tenure of deregulation, self-regulation, and corruption. His orders to subordinates included illegally spying on innocent Americans, introducing a regime of torture, and diverting raw intelligence directly to his office - which manipulated presidential decision making and resulted in mistruths shared about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction war followed. During the run-up to which, Halliburton received a $7 billion contract to provide logistics no other company was allowed to bid - one of the most significant cases of war profiteering ever.

MANCHESTER, ENGLAND - OCTOBER 04: Whilst 80,000 people attend a demonstration organized by the TUC ... [+] and anti-austerity protesters, British Chancellor George Osborne arrives on day one of the Conservative Party Conference (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

In Britain, George 'nine jobs' Osborne optimizes the Solder Leader. Even though his political tenure has ended, at least for now, some would argue it continues under a new guise. His time as Chancellor of the Exchequer was extremely eventful. Entering Downing Street in May 2010, Osborne inherited national growth in a state of recovery and improving public sector finances. But, rather than building on this growth, he ordered sizeable cuts to government expenditure. In doing so, he tightened the screws on the economy and society - millions of working families were left worse off, and some districts had to cut spending by up to 46 percent. His reasoning for such severe levels of Austerity was to manage the public purse, debt, and deficit better. In the short term, fiscal improvements occurred. But two years later, national income declined and wiped out those improvements meaning the government missed all its targets for reducing public debt. The legacy of Osborne's orders remain infamous - those affected by his Austerity measures were receptive to the 2016 Leave campaign - meaning his 'screw tightening' contributed to Brexit. But Osborne, like Cheney, didn't stick around. He left Parliament and began several new missions earning himself millions.

3. Accountant Leaders

They appear more moderate and liked than Surgeons. They're keen to invest and grow, focusing on the top line, unlike Soldiers, because they subscribe to the view that entities fail if they're small and weak. These leaders oppose Austerity Politics and are resourceful leaders who operate systematically, focusing on economic growth. As such, Accountants are often described as creative financiers, are good with figures, and possess a je ne sais quoi. During their tenure, economic performance usually increases and continues to do so after their departure. Consequently, they're typically remembered more favorably than Surgeons and Soldiers even if they do have faults worthy of impeachment.

Former US president Bill Clinton talks during the Special Session on Haiti, on the second day of the ... [+] World Economic Forum meeting in Davos on January 28, 2010, which is to be attended by 2,500 top politicians, captains of industries and civil society leaders. Addressing the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Clinton said the catastrophe could turn out to be an opportunity for the devastated Caribbean island state to emerge from generations of grinding poverty. AFP PHOTO PIERRE VERDY (Photo credit should read PIERRE VERDY/AFP via Getty Images)

Bill Clinton optimizes the Accountant Leader - he presided over one of the most impressive economic turnarounds in modern history. During his presidency, he executed a fiscal strategy that invested in people, innovation, and infrastructuretransforming the weak economy he inherited into a powerhouse, turning deficits into surpluses, and creating a bedrock for strong future growth. He foresaw changes that globalization would bring and began thinking about solutions the nation would need to prosper in the 21st century. By the end of his tenure, 22.7 million new jobs existed. Additionally, unemployment decreased to a 30-year low, and gross domestic product grew by 35 percent overall through the most prolonged period of sustained growth in U.S. history. Also, the Congressional Budget Office reported a budget surplusthe first such surplus since 1969.

CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA - JUNE 05: Gordon Brown, the former UK prime minister and current head of ... [+] the World Economic Forum's infrastructure initiative, delivers a speech on the third day of the 25th World Economic Forum meeting held under the theme "Then and Now: Reimagining Africa's Future" in Cape Town, South Africa on June 5, 2015. (Photo by Ashraf Hendricks/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

In Britain, Gordon Brown optimizes the Accountant Leader. His tenure was certainty eventful and made the bank of England operationally independent when it came to setting monetary policy, ending decades of politically motivated interest rate manipulation. Early on, his strict adherence to the Golden Rule allowed him to be simultaneously fiscally responsible and distributive he even earned the revered title "Flash Gordon." But in the second half of his tenure, possibly in a bid to make himself more popular ahead of becoming PM, he abandoned it, and the deficit increased. Brown's policy of encouraging banks to lend up to 125 percent mortgages inadvertently laid the foundations for the nation's financial crisis. But even so, Ipsos MORI regards him as the county's most successful post-War Chancellor and best in terms of providing economic stability, working independently from the Prime Minister, and leaving a lasting legacy on Britain's economy.

4. Philosopher Leaders

They're passionate debaters and love to discuss the merits of alternative approaches, often guided by principles driven by dogma. They are adept with words and very inspiring to those who share a prevailing ideology but often jarring and stubborn to those who don't. These leaders can appear to marginalise those who are guided by different principles and are somewhat elitist, although they'd never say so because they believe they're anti-establishment. Consequently, they spend most of their time debating and discussing whether a direction of travel is the right thing to do generally with their supporters, which creates echo chambers. Thus, Philosophers can miss the viewpoints held by a wider population. Supporters of Philosophers are very excited when they begin their tenure they believe a revolution will transpire. So much change is promised, but very little is delivered. When asked why Philosophers will never accept fault someone or something else should be blamed even the electorate.

Presidential Woodrow Wilson speaks to a crowd in Union Square. (Photo by Library of ... [+] Congress/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images)

Woodrow Wilson optimizes the Philosopher Leader. He was the first college professor to occupy the presidency. His tenure driven by ideology, but marred by elitism, racism, and white supremacy - desiring to rid the nation of those he classified as "hyphenated Americans." He supported segregation in government departments and did little to end race riots that occurred during his administration even throwing a civil-rights leader out of the White House. He pushed laws to prosecute and imprison those who disagreed with his policies including journalists and presidential candidates. And he made the colossal blunder of entering World War I where his idealism paid a substantial cost and led to unintended consequences in Germany and Russia, contributing to the rise of totalitarian regimes and a second world war.

GLASGOW, SCOTLAND - AUGUST 31: Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn joins hundreds of protestors during a ... [+] Stop the Coup protest in George Square on August 31, 2019 in Glasgow, Scotland. Left-wing group Momentum, remain group Another Europe is Possible and the People's Assembly coordinate a series of "Stop The Coup" protests across the UK aimed at Boris Johnson and the UK government proroguing Parliament. (Photo by Ian Forsyth/Getty Images)

In Britain, Jeremy Corbyn optimizes the Philosopher Leader. During his tenure, the British Labour Party became "institutionally anti-Semitic" and weighed down by allegations of extremism. Despite this, many of his supporters believe he produced "the most wonderful manifesto this country has ever seen." But atypical of a Philosopher echo chamber, it delivered the worst general election defeat since 1935. Labour won 203 seats, down 59, and saw its vote share fall 7.8 percentage points to 32.2, while the British Conservatives won 365 seats, up 47, with 43.6 percent of the vote. Consequently, former home secretary David Blunkett blamed the devastating defeat on Corbyn and his "ultra-left wing sect of losers." Additionally, the three-time election-winning former prime minister Tony Blair called on Labour members to abandon the policies and philosophic ideologies of Corbyn arguing that the Party will never see power again till it demonstrates moderatism.

5. Architect Leaders

They're the most long-termist of the five and focus on redesigning and transforming to build long-term sustainable impact. These leaders are often insightful and visionary, subscribing to the view that entities fail because they don't adequately serve. In many ways, they're a combination of the best attributes of the other four leaders: they exemplify the concept of Servant Leadership an interconnected series of principles coined by Robert Greenleaf in 1977 that focuses on stewardship. Subsequently the tenure of an Architect Leader often produces steady performance improvement, though less so than Surgeon and Soldier Leaders. This is because Architect Leaders refuse to make quick wins - long-term sustainability is their singular agenda item. And for this reason, they're often vilified by those who are seemingly addicted to immediate impact and short term gains. Perversely, this means the work of an Architect Leader is often unappreciated in the moment for it takes time for the fruits of their labor to blossom, and there is, unfortunate reluctance within society to recognize genius in its own time - Surgeon Leaders are valued much more.

Last photograph of Abraham Lincoln, (1809-1865), 16th president of the United States of America and ... [+] Architect Leader, April 1865. Lincoln joined the Republican party in 1858 and was elected president two years later. In 1863, he proclaimed the emancipation of all slaves in the southern Confederate states and later that year restated his anti-slavery views in the Gettysburg Address. During his 1864 campaign for re-election, he embraced the abolition of slavery. He was infamously shot by actor John Wilkes Booth whilst attending the theatre in 1865. (Photo by Ann Ronan Pictures/Print Collector/Getty Images)

Abraham Lincoln optimizes the Architect Leader. He's often regarded as the greatest president ever because of his unwavering stewardship during the Civil War, and subsequent preservation of the Union. He's famed for delivering the Emancipation Proclamation, which led the way to the total abolition of slavery despite many of his cabinet secretaries criticizing it at the time for being too radical. They weren't his only critics and policy was not their only subject matter. Lincoln was ridiculed for not possessing adequate formal learning. His appearance, too, was joked upon words such as 'Idiot,' 'Yahoo,' 'Original Gorilla' frequently used. His wife said that the constant attacks caused him "great pain." Yet despite this, his persistence and courage enabled him to pioneer forward leaving behind a nation transformed and a timeless legacy.

Welsh Labour politician and Architect Leader Aneurin Bevan (1897-1960, right) addressing a National ... [+] Council of Civil Liberties meeting on the freedom of the press in Central Hall, Westminster, London, 24th April 1942. Original publication: Picture Post - 1143 - The Fight To Maintain The Freedom Of The Press - pub. 1942 (Photo by Kurt Hutton/Picture Post /Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

A similar path was tread in Britain by Aneurin Bevan a classic Architect Leader. Unlike the Philosopher style, he was not overly rigid in his approach to politics and was willing to compromise to put his ideas into practice. Though he died in 1960 and never led Party or Country, his legacy lives forever - the National Health Service (NHS). Since coming into being on July 5, 1948, his founding principle that healthcare must be free at the point of delivery based on need, not wealth, has become a bedrock of civic life and British identity. It is more popular now than at its creation, and more popular than the monarchy, the BBC and the military. Yet like Lincoln and many other Architect Leaders, his tenure was not without critics. And his frequent opposition to Winston Churchill made him unpopular with members of the electorate, leading to the regular receipt of excrement parcels at his address. Bevan never achieved the 'top job.' But he accomplished something far more valuable a legacy that continues to affect the prosperity of millions. And ultimately, isn't that what matters?

After all, we should be judging our politicians on their eulogy, not their resume.

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There Are Five Types Of Political Leader. So Which Is Donald Trump? - Forbes

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In the Land of the Rising Sun, samurai movies are a century-old tradition. Pop culture frames the swordsmen as near-mythic figures. We're told samurai belonged to an elite class of Japanese warriors who always fought fair, loyally defended their medieval lords and hewed to a unifying honor code known as "bushido."

Scriptwriters thrill in pitting them against dark-robed ninja assassins. A fearsome mercenary, the standard movie ninja carries razor-sharp throwing stars and has mastered a unique martial art called "ninjutsu." Things get even hairier when the director gives him supernatural powers like flight or invisibility.

Magical talents aside, just how accurate is our modern outlook on samurai and ninjas? To find out, we interviewed three historians and learned some surprising things in the process.

Japanese history is broken down into eras and periods. Particularly relevant to our discussion are the Sengoku Period of 1467 to 1603 and the successive Tokugawa (or "Edo") Period that lasted until 1868.

The Tokugawa Period takes its name from a shogun family that assumed control of Japan in 1603. Shoguns were hereditary military dictators who'd been ruling the country since 1192. On paper, they served Japan's emperors. Yet in practice, these figures were far more powerful and it was they who truly called the shots.

Earlier centuries had been plagued by constant warfare. But things stayed calm under the Tokugawa regime. International trade was tightly regulated and the shoguns took pains to discourage political squabbling.

This was also a time when Japan redefined its relationship with samurai. As Thomas Conlan a professor of East Asian history at Princeton University told us via email, "The samurai became an identifiable social status only in the 1590s. Before then, all of society was militarized and there was no distinction between peasants and warriors."

Such ambiguity didn't sit well with General Toyotomi Hideyoshi. A game-changing warlord, he issued a nationwide "Sword-Hunt Edict" in 1588. This prohibited farmers from owning weapons of any sort. Under the new rules, only samurai and samurai alone could bear arms.

"Basically, people who were known to have fought in battles recently were considered samurai and were forbidden to go back to farming, and people who were known to be currently farming land had to surrender their weapons," says historian Nick Kapur of Rutgers University in an email. "In a lot of cases, it was self-reported and people basically got to choose."

Hideyoshi's reforms carried over into the Tokugawa Period. In effect, they laid the groundwork for a rigid, hereditary caste-like system that put samurai above artisans, peasants and merchants. By then, the feudal wars that defined the Sengoku Period had long passed. With no battles to wage, the samurai were given bureaucratic and administrative roles.

Hindsight has a way of glamorizing warfare. Just ask Sarah Thal, a historian of "early modern and modern Japan" who teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

"During the long peace of the Tokugawa era, when samurai came to work more as administrators than as fighters, many romanticized the earlier times of war (in the 12th to 16th centuries for instance) when samurai actually fought," she says in an email.

The last shogun was overthrown in 1868. Afterward, Japan entered its reformative Meiji Period, which embraced industry and centralized governance. Historically, the samurai had served feudal lords and enjoyed special privileges. But all that soon changed.

"The official status of samurai was abolished in 1869 and their privileges revoked in the early 1870s," Thal explains. "With the abolition of their lords' domains, many former samurai were out of work, unable to get jobs in the new government.

"In the 1890s, they, their children, and many Japanese began trying to define a 'Way of the Samurai' that operated both as a nostalgia for the supposedly moral, good old days and as a critique of the modernizing trends of the time," Thal says.

Enter Nitobe Inaz. A diplomat and author, he radically transformed the way future generations would look at samurai. In 1899, Inaz published an influential book called "Bushido: The Soul of Japan." The text presents itself as an introduction to "bushido." According to Inaz, this was the traditional, universal code of conduct observed by real-world samurai.

Except it wasn't. "The so-called 'samurai code' of bushido did not exist in the [Sengoku] heyday of samurai warfare," Kapur notes. The word "bushido" itself wasn't coined until the peaceful Tokugawa Period.

But it's from "Bushido: The Soul of Japan" that we get some of the most pervasive myths about samurai values and behavior. "Samurai were not all the moral, noble, well-to-do spiritual swordsmen depicted in film," Thal says. "They did not have a single, coherent moral code that defined how they thought and acted."

"Just like warriors anywhere else," adds Kapur, "samurai raped and looted and pillaged and were constantly betraying their lords."

Speaking of misconceptions, it's time to talk ninjas. Supposedly, they were sellswords who performed covert operations, gathered intelligence and last, but not least assassinated people in the cover of darkness.

The neighboring Iga and Kka regions in southeastern Japan are usually cited as the training grounds where all ninjas honed their deadly skills. Sometimes, you'll even hear that ninjas formed a hereditary class or caste, not unlike the samurai.

Scores of Japanophiles, movie buffs and martial artists have embraced ninja lore. Every year, some enthusiasts get dressed up in jet-black garb to celebrate "Ninja Day" Feb. 22.

Not to rain on anyone's parade, but the storied mercenaries are ... kind of fabricated.

"Ninja as we know them today did not actually exist," Kapur says. The word ninja, he says, comes from "two Chinese characters meaning 'stealth' and 'man' ()." By the way, "shinobi" and not "nin" is how most Japanese-speakers pronounce the first character.

Medieval Japan had its share of folks who snuck into castles and embraced undercover warfare. Historical records show samurai weren't above such tactics. "We have a lot of documents about these activities, but [they] were carried out by a variety of people," Kapur says. "There was never any specialized class of assassins living in hereditary ... clans and selling their services for hire. This is pure myth which, like the myths about the samurai, was created during the long and peaceful Edo period."

Despite this, ninja fables are nothing new. "Even by the 18th 19th centuries, ninja had become a pop culture phenomenon in Japan," Thal says. "So there were all sorts of fantastic, fictional depictions in art, literature, drama and the like."

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What's the Difference Between a Samurai and a Ninja? - HowStuffWorks