This year's annual Juneteenth Heritage Festival, recognizing the abolition of slaveryacross the South in 1865, will feature live music, food and children's activities Saturday in downtown Meridian.

Craig Houston, committee co-chair of the festival with Louis Sutton, said the event celebrates when Union soldiers arrived in Texas in 1865, nearly two years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, and told the slaves they were free.

"When they heard, people just started dancing and celebrating," Houston said. "Juneteenth is the oldest celebration of the end of slavery."

Houston said gospel, R&B and blues artists - such as Just A Few Cats, Jeff Floyd, Vick Allen and Darius Ewing &The Groovaholix - will perform at Saturday's event in downtown Meridian's Singing Brakeman Park, on Front Street near the Union Train Station. Vendors, crafts and food will be available.

The event is typically held in thecity's historic African-American Business District on Fifth Street, butthe event had to be movedbecause of ongoing street work, Houston said.Hesaid he hopes the festival will returnto the historic district next year.

Advance tickets cost $10 and are available at Sam's Fashion, at 2301 Fifth Street. Tickets at the gate cost $15. The event opens to the public at 4 p.m. and the entertainment, which starts at 5 p.m., will last until midnight.

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Juneteenth Festival set for Saturday in Meridian - Meridian Star

An Afghan girl works at a fruit market in the Badami Bagh area of the city. PHOTO: ONLINE

LAHORE:Jail Road, which is usually chock-a-block full during the day, is accommodating locals who are out and about the town.

Under the streetlight, there is a makeshift caf where a 10-year-old child is serving tea. It is midnight and one can hear distinct voices repeating Chotay bhai, please bring one more cup of tea.

Supreme Court Lawyer Humayun Faiz Rasool said people around the world are observing World Day against Child Labour today. In Pakistan, however, most children do not even that they have rights. Child labour laws are being openly violated in the heart of the city, he lamented.

According to the Punjab Restriction on Employment of Children Ordinance 2016, the government has set parameters which do not provide cover to adolescents above 14. This is clearly against global laws, including the International Labour Organisation (ILO), United Nations Childrens Fund and UNICECO.

Our children are the worst examples of child labour laws, he said.

There are millions of children, who work as domestic help and the government has failed to implement labour laws, he said. The lawyer added the situation is unacceptable as most kids are subjected to physical and mental torture, sexual abuse or trafficking.

Labour Education Foundation (LEF) Coordinator Jalwat Ali agreed that children in Pakistan are living in the worst conditions.

The population of Ahmed Town an urban slum is almost 40,000, she said, adding around 5,000 children below the age of 12 earn to support their families. We cannot eliminate child labour without social reforms, abolition of poverty, proper social security system and implementation of the minimum wage system, she said.

In 2015, the Punjab government set a target to send all children to schools and abolish all child labour in Punjab. When contacted, Provincial Minister for Education Rana Mashud Ahmed Khan said due to some indifferences and lack of coordination with the federal government, Punjab could not achieve its target of sending all children to school.

The Punjab government has set a new goal and is committed to send all children to school by 2018, he said.

A country-wide labour movement called Red workers Front (RWF) has compiled data of child labour. RWF Coordinator Adam Pal said around 20 million children are working as labour in the country and 50% of them are below the age of 10.

Children in Pakistan work at brick kilns, weave carpets, work in glass bangle factories, apart from making leather and surgical instruments. They are even involved in coal mining, according to the US department of labour.

It is a wakeup call for all working classes as poverty, unemployment, hunger, destitution and ignorance has made the system rotten, he said. Only socialism can bring the needed change in the lives of working-class people.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 13th, 2017.

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World Day against Child Labour: Baby steps needed to eliminate child labour - The Express Tribune

The Turkish nation, Mehmed Ziya Gkalp wrote, belongs to the Ural-Altai [language] group of peoples, to the Islamic umma, and to Western internationalism. Gkalp was an early-20th-century sociologist, writer, poet and political activist whose work was influential in shaping the reforms of Mustafa Kemal Atatrk, the main figure in the founding of modern Turkey. What is striking about Gkalps argument is that it stitches together three elements that today seem to many to be irreconcilable. Islam and Western internationalism, in particular, are often seen as occupying opposite sides in a clash of civilisations.

This sense of a fundamental separation between Islam and the West has been exacerbated by the rise of Islamism and the emergence of Islamic State. Some Muslims are attracted to IS because of a deep loathing for the West. Many in the West regard that support as evidence for the incompatibility of Western and Islamic values. Christopher de Bellaigues The Islamic Enlightenment and Cemil Aydins The Idea of the Muslim World, in very different ways, try to explain the historical shifts that have made what once seemed necessary and rational now appear impossible and self-deluding.

The starting point of de Bellaigues luminous work is the oft-made claim that Islam needs its Enlightenment. The author argues, on the contrary, that for the past two centuries, Islam has been going through a pained yet exhilarating transformation a Reformation, an Enlightenment and an Industrial Revolution all at once. What is distinctive about the Islamic world today, he writes, is that it is under the heel of acounter-Enlightenment, a development visible in particular through the emergence of Islamism, of which Islamic State the group that has claimed responsibility for terror attacks in Europe, including the latest atrocities in London and Manchester is the most grotesque expression.

The Islamic Enlightenment explores the complex relationship between Muslim-majority countries and modernity, a relationship mediated largely through its relationship with Europe, and more generally the West. De Bellaigue begins in three of the great cities of the Muslim world Cairo, Istanbul and Tehran and guides us through the transformation of their intellectual, political and social worlds in the 19th century. He is a wonderful narrator, and these chapters burst with colour and detail.

Each city and nation confronted modernity and the West in distinctive ways. However, in all cases, de Bellaigue observes, The world of Islam was only ready to shed its superiority complex once its supports were revealed to be rotten. In Egypt, that rottenness was laid bare by Napoleons invasion of 1798. In the shadow of the Pyramids, as the French destroyed the Egyptian forces, the fiction of Christian deference to Muslim superiority fell away.

Napoleon brought to Egypt not only soldiers but scholars, too. In Cairo he set up the Institute of Egypt, which became the meeting point for Islam and the Enlightenment. One of the first Egyptians to visit the institute was Hasan al-Attar, who later became Grand Sheikh of al-Azhar, among the most important clerics in Sunni Islam. Egypts first modern thinker, in de Bellaigues words, al-Attar was a polymath who became intoxicated by the learning he found at the institute. He transformed al-Azhar, one of the oldest centres of Islamic learning, into a vibrant university and encouraged a new generation of thinkers versed in Western thinking.

Most notable of this new generation was Rifaa al-Tahtawi, another Egyptian cleric who made it his lifes work to prove that reason was compatible with Islam. After spending time in Paris, al-Tahtawi returned home in 1831 to help lead the statewide effort to modernise Egypts infrastructure and education. He founded the school of languages in Cairo and supervised the translation of over 2,000 foreign works into Arabic the greatest translation movement since that of the Abbasid period, a millennium earlier. His own works introduced to a new audience Enlightenment ideas about secularism, rights and liberties.

It was not just the intellectual sphere that was upturned. The physical and social worlds were transformed, too, at a pace undreamt of in Europe. From the printing press to female graduates, from steam trains to oppositional newspapers, from theabolition of slavery to the creation of trade unions, in the space of a few decades in Egypt, modernity wrought changes that had taken more than a century to happen in Europe, and transformed Cairo, Istanbul and Tehran from semi-medieval markets into modern, semi-industrial cities. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, Marx observed of the disorienting effect of the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution in Europe. How much more so that must have seemed in Islamic states.

Inevitably there was a backlash, as there was in Europe. Yet unlike in Europe, those who promoted Enlightenment values in the Muslim world faced another problem: that of the European powers themselves. European nations may have basked in the light of the Enlightenment but they also insisted that pursuit of ideals such as liberty or democracy should not get out of hand and threaten European imperial interests.

Take Iran. In August 1906, a year-long popular struggle for democracy against the shah and his autocratic government succeeded in establishing an elected national assembly and a new constitution. The radical democrats looked to Europe for their ideals. Iran must both in appearance and reality, both physically and spiritually, become Europeanised and nothing else, claimed one of the leading constitutionalists, Hassan Taqizadeh. But the European powers were fearful that the new, democratic Iran would no longer be a pliant creature, acting in the interest of the West. In August 1907, Britain and Russia signed an accord dividing Iran into two zones of imperial influence. Russian troops invaded Iran, dissolved parliament, and arrested and executed many deputies. Britain established a de facto colony in its area of influence in the south-east of the country.

Four decades later, after democracy had been restored in Iran, Western powers again intervened to destroy it. In 1951 the democratically elected prime minister Muhammed Mossadeq nationalised the oil industry. Britain and the United States engineered a coup dtat that, two years later, overthrew Mossadeq and returned the shahto power and Irans oil industry to Western control.

Such actions of European powers led many people in Muslim countries to see the modernising project as an imperialist imposition. It also led many to elide opposition to imperialism, and defence of the nation, with opposition to Enlightenment ideas of liberty, equality and secularism. Hence the growth of popular support for Islamist groups. The eventual consequence of Western attempts to suppress democracy in Iran was the revolution of 1978-79 and the seizing of power by Ayatollah Khomeini and his supporters.

The Islamic Enlightenment is a dazzling feat of erudition and storytelling. It is also a necessary work, challenging many of the assumptions that animate contemporary narratives about Islam. But for all that it unpicks the myths woven into the conventional narratives, de Bellaigues own narrative weaves in its own myths.

Consider the very notion of the Islamic Enlightenment. The European Enlightenment did not emerge ex nihilo. It was the culmination of centuries of development and struggle and the starting point for a new set of struggles and developments. Those struggles gave meaning to the ideas that flowed out of the Enlightenment.

In Egypt, Turkey and Iran, the outpouring of new ideas in the 19th century came suddenly, largely through confrontation (both physical and existential) with Europe. Intellectuals, social reformers and political revolutionaries found hope and inspiration in the same set of ideas as their peers in Europe. And, as in Europe, these ideas became central to the reach towards modernity.

Yet to call this the Islamic Enlightenment is to mistake what the European Enlightenment was about. I am not suggesting that the Enlightenment in some sense belongs to Europe, or that Enlightenment values do not apply to non-Europeans. Far from it. And yet, there are important differences in the historical trajectories that led to the Enlightenment in Europe and those which led Egypt, Turkey and Iran to adopt those ideas. To call the social and intellectual changes of which de Bellaigue writes so eloquently the Islamic Enlightenment is to erase those differences and hence to undermine his own aim of looking more rationally at the Muslim world.

***

If de Bellaigue wants us to have a more nuanced understanding of the Islamic world, Cemil Aydin of the University of North Carolina challenges the very idea that such a world exists. The expression Muslim world does not derive from umma, a concept as old as Islam, which refers to the Muslim religious community. Rather, it began to develop in the 19th century and achieved full flower in the 1870s. Nor is it the case that Muslims were united until nationalist ideology and European colonialism tore them apart. The truth, he suggests, is the very opposite:

"Muslims never dreamed of global political unity until the peak of European hegemony in the late 19thcentury, when poor colonial conditions, European discourses of Muslim racial superiority, and Muslims theories of their own apparent decline nurtured the first arguments for pan-Islamic solidarity."

For much of the history of Islam, Aydin writes, Muslim leaders had no sense of loyalty to fellow Muslims. He tells the story of Tipu, the sultan of Mysore in southern India who in 1798 sought allies to help push back the forces of the British East India Company. He appealed to the Ottoman caliph Sultan Selim III, in the name of Muslim solidarity; and to Napoleon, to help forge an alliance against a mutual enemy. The French were willing to be allies. The Ottomans were not. Shared religion and culture could not sway the Ottomans from their strategic interests, allied as they were with Britain and Russia against Napoleon, who had just invaded Ottoman Egypt, Aydin writes.

The following year the British invaded Mysore in consort with Indian Muslim leaders whose troops joined battle against fellow Muslims. Muslim political experience from the 7th through the 18th century, Aydin notes, tells a story of multiplicity, contestation and change, leaving the idea of the Muslim world to emerge later.

That is true. But it is equally true of the period from the 19th to the 21st centuries, when the notion of the Muslim world became entrenched. From the Muslim Brotherhood to Islamic State, Islamist dreamers of a unified caliphate are hardly reticent in attacking other Muslims. Saudi Arabia and Iran fiercely rival each other as champions of the Muslim world. The morass that is Syria proves that those who promote the clash of civilisations thesis are as eager to butcher those within their civilisation as those without. Aydin is right, however, that modern conceptions of the Muslim world and the clash of civilisations are different from previous notions, and are products of the changes explored by de Bellaigue.

I am sympathetic to Aydins basic thesis, though many of his specific claims such as the importance of racial theory in creating the idea of unified Muslim world are more problematic. His book, however, is more argumentative than empirical. Where de Bellaigue weaves into his narrative stories and facts to undergird his argument, Aydin is far more polemical. The Idea of the Muslim World has the feel of a work in progress rather than a properly fleshed-out thesis.

Where Aydin and de Bellaigue want to retell aspects of the history of the Muslim world, Tariq Ramadan, a professor of Islamic studies at Oxford, sets himself to describe Islams meaning. Islam: the Essentials is a breezy tour through theology and practice, aimed primarily, it seems, at Western liberals. It is full of vaguely New Agey phrases such as Rediscovery of the Way, in a holistic manner, points to nothing less than an intellectual and psychological revolution. To him, the heart of Islam is diversity. His main criticism is of literalists and traditionalists who ignore the need for the Quran and other prophetic texts to be interpreted in their social and historical context.

There is a defensive tone to the book. I have not sidestepped a single question, no matter how challenging, Ramadan tells us, nor has he attempted to justify the unjustifiable or defend the indefensible.

What he has done, however, is to wish away the difficult issues. Ramadan has two basic manoeuvres. The first is to rewrite history. Take his explanation of why slavery flourished in Muslim societies until the 19th century. The general thrust of the Revelation is a clear requirement to bring the practice of slavery to end, he writes, but God insisted that abolition had to take place step by step, to enable emancipated slaves to find a place in society, rather than ending up free but marginalised and indigent. Hence the timescale for [the abolition of ] slavery is longer than that for alcohol for here nothing less than a thoroughgoing transformation of society was required. This is not quite slavery was maintained for the good of the slaves, but it comes damn close to it.

Ramadans second manoeuvre is to make a distinction between religion and culture. Islamic religious norms (properly understood) are always good. What is questionable about Muslim societies comes primarily from cultural problems. Islam has never placed any limitations on knowledge, the arts and religious diversity, he argues. Hence the great flourishing of Islamic learning between the 8th and 11th centuries. But the cultural and historical context in which Islam found itself forced the faith to turn inwards and put up barriers. Hence the millennium of decay and decline since.

It may be a convenient argument, but it is also one that runs against his own view about the limitations of reason. Ramadans starting point is the revealed truth given to Muhammad, which forms the Quran. Revealed truth, as he has previously observed, is clear and immutable and its legitimacy cannot be challenged by reason. A few years ago, I interviewed Ramadan for a Radio 4 documentary. I asked him about one of the controversies that surround him his refusal to call for an outright ban on the practice of stoning women for adultery, merely recommending a moratorium. Why wont he call for abolition, I asked. Because, he replied, the texts that demand stoning come from God. But isnt that the problem, I asked. Ramadan knows rationally that certain actions are morally wrong but will not say so, because of his attachment to the word of God. Simply to believe in rationality, he responded, is to accept the dictatorship of intelligence and that is a dominant, arrogant posture. Its dangerous.

It is a way of reasoning of which many of the great figures who populate The Islamic Enlightenment would have despaired. Ramadan is often referred to an Islamic moderniser and bridge-builder. Yet the chasm between the vacuity and defensiveness of a contemporary intellectual such as he and the openness and intellectual depth of a 19th-century moderniser and bridge-builder such as Rifaa al-Tahtawi shows how much has been lost.

Kenan Maliks books include From Fatwa to Jihad: How the World Changed from the Satanic Verses to Charlie Hebdo (Atlantic)

The Islamic Enlightenment: the Modern Struggle Between Faith and Reason Christopher de Bellaigue Bodley Head, 432pp, 25

The Idea of the Muslim World: a Global Intellectual History Cemil Aydin Harvard University Press, 304pp, 23.95

Islam: the Essentials Tariq Ramadan Pelican, 336pp, 8.99

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The making of the Muslim world - New Statesman

Nelson Mandela knew that racism, injustice, and the bomb are inextricably linkedand that the arms race can only end in oblivion.

A mock North Korean Scud-B missile, center, and other South Korean missiles displayed at the Korea War Memorial Museum in Seoul, South Korea. (AP Photo / Ahn Young-joon)

When Nelson Mandela walked free, in 1990, after 27 grueling years behind bars, South Africa began the process of emancipating itself from not only from its brutal apartheid regime but also its arsenal of atomic bombs. Like white-minority rule, these awful weapons had weighed heavily on us all, entrenching our status as a pariah nation. Their abolition was essential for our liberation.

Today, North Korea rightly faces the same kind of stigma over its nuclear weaponry. By pursuing such arms, it is behaving as no respectable member of the family of nations should. But too seldom do we hear strong words of censure for others who wield these abominable devices. On the world stage, they present themselves, oxymoronically, as responsible nuclear powers.

To realize a nuclear weaponfree world, we must acknowledge that nuclear weapons serve no legitimate, lawful purpose.

All of those who wield nuclear weapons are deserving of our scorn. The development and stockpiling of weapons of mass destruction by any state is morally indefensible. It breeds enmity and mistrust and threatens peace. The radiation unleashed by an American or British or French nuclear bomb is just as deadly as that from a North Korean one. The inferno and shock waves kill and maim no less indiscriminately.

With sabres rattling and the specter of nuclear war looming large, the imperative to abolish mans most evil creationbefore it abolishes usis as urgent as ever. Further arms races and provocations will lead us inexorably to catastrophe. The overwhelming majority of the worlds nations understand this, and are now developing a treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons under international law.

They began negotiating the accord at the United Nations in March and will resume their work on June 15. Regrettably, however, all of the nuclear-armed nations, along with several of their allies, are refusing to take part. They claim that their bombs help keep the peace. But what peace can be maintained through threats of annihilation? So long as these weapons exist, we will continue to teeter on the brink.

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To realize a nuclear weaponfree world, we must first acknowledge that nuclear weapons serve no legitimate, lawful purpose. That is precisely what the new treaty will do. It will place nuclear weapons on the same legal footing as chemical and biological weapons, anti-personnel landmines, and cluster munitionsall of which the international community has declared too inhumane ever to use or possess.

Some leaders, intent on preserving the status quo, have dismissed this UN process as futile given the resistance of the so-called great powers. But what is the alternative? To wait and hope that the powerful few will one day show enlightened leadership? That would be a very poor strategy indeed for safeguarding humanity. In the absence of tremendous pressure, disarmament will remain but a fantasy.

For too long, the nuclear powers have failed us terribly. Instead of disarmingas they are duty-bound to dothey have squandered precious resources on programs to bolster their nuclear forces. They have held humankind to ransom. But nuclear-free nations are now rising up, asserting their right to live in a safe, harmonious global community, unburdened by this ultimate menace.

Of course, it was not the slaveowners who led the struggle to abolish slavery. Nor was it the Afrikaners who tore down the system of apartheid in South Africa. The oppressed fought for, and ultimately secured, their own freedom. Through collective action, we built the foundations for transformative change, to the benefit of all. This is what we are witnessing today in the arena of disarmament diplomacy.

Every nation will be better off in a world without these terrible and terrifying weapons of mass destruction, as Mandela so aptly described them to the UN General Assembly in 1998. Disarmament was a cause dear to his heart. He saw racism, injustice, and the bomb as inextricably linked, and he knew that the arms race, if not curtailed, could only end in oblivion. What we need now is a disarmament race.

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It's Time for a Disarmament Race - The Nation.

Theresa May pictured with her new chief of staff, Gavin Barwell, in summer 2016. Photograph: Neil Hall/PA

Theresa Mays plan for a loose alliance with the Democratic Unionists to prop up her government was thrown into confusion on Saturday night after the Northern Ireland party contradicted a No 10 announcement that a deal had been reached.

A Downing Street statement on Saturday said a confidence and supply agreement had been reached with the DUP and would be put to the cabinet on Monday. But the DUP last night put the brakes on that announcement, saying talks were continuing, not finalised. The DUP leader, Arlene Foster, said discussions will continue next week to work on the details and to reach agreement on arrangements for the new parliament.

Following talks between May and the DUP last night, a second statement from No 10 clarified that no final deal had been reached. A Downing Street spokeswoman said the prime minister had discussed finalising a confidence and supply deal when parliament returns next week As and when details are finalised, both parties will put them forward.

Earlier it emerged that angry Tory MPs had threatened to object to a formal coalition. The MPs had begun warning party whips they would oppose any formal deal, because of the DUPs position on gay rights, abortion and climate change. The looser deal on offer would see the Northern Ireland partys 10 MPs support the prime minister in key votes but not enter a closer pact with the Tories.

The decision to rule out a formal pact, which could make it harder for May to govern, comes after her trusted joint chiefs of staff, Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill, resigned following her shock failure to secure a majority in Thursdays general election. May had been under pressure from ministers to sack the pair or face an immediate leadership challenge. Gavin Barwell, who lost his Croydon Central seat, has taken up the role of chief of staff.

May is fighting to keep the job she won less than a year ago. As the general election result emerged, senior Tories are understood to have contacted Boris Johnson to sound him out about launching another leadership bid should May be unable to continue. Friends of the foreign secretary dismissed any suggestion that he would try to force May out, stating that he was backing her decision to stay in post. It is nonsense to suggest he is manoeuvring, they said.

Boris Johnson tweeted on Saturday night that reports of a challenge were tripe.

The Observer has learned that the DUP was planning to dodge a row when negotiations began by avoiding the inclusion of any controversial social policies, such as opposition to gay marriage or abortion, in its so-called shopping list of demands to the Tories. Party sources said it would be seeking commitments from May that there would be no Irish unity referendum and no hard border imposed on the island of Ireland.

However, some Tories remained concerned that a pact would damage a brand they have spent years trying to detoxify.

More and more colleagues are becoming distinctly uneasy about the idea of a formal pact with the DUP, said one senior Conservative. It is up to the DUP if they want to support a Conservative government and vote for various measures that we put through, but there is a feeling that we are damaged if we are seen to be entering into a formal agreement with a party whose views on a number of things we just dont share.

Why should we damage what we painstakingly built up through David Camerons work on personal issues, and indeed what the prime ministers own instincts are, with any form of formal linkage with people who plainly have some views that the vast majority of Conservative MPs would not share?

Nicky Morgan, an education secretary under David Cameron, said: As a former minister for women and equalities, any notion that the price for a deal with the DUP is to water down our equalities policies is a non-starter.

An online petition calling for May to resign rather than form a coalition with the DUP had attracted more than 500,000 signatures Saturday night.

The DUP is opposed to abortion and same-sex marriage. It has also appointed climate change sceptics to senior posts within the party. The former Tory cabinet minister Owen Paterson sparked alarm by suggesting that his party might have to enter into a debate on further reduction of abortion times as medical science advances. But it is understood that the DUP will argue that controversial issues such as gay marriage and abortion can be dealt with only in a Northern Ireland context by the Stormont assembly.

Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Tory leader, has expressed concern over the impact of a DUP deal on gay rights and other issues. But one DUP source said: Someone is stirring the pot with Ruth, who we regard as a hero of the union.

The DUP has been at the forefront of opposition in Stormont to legalising gay marriage and reforming the near-total ban on abortion in the region. Seeking a soft border would raise the question of whether or not the DUP backs the UK staying in the EUs customs union. The party will also insist that there are no checks at English, Scottish or Welsh ports and airports on any citizens travelling from Northern Ireland after Brexit.

DUP sources said the list of demands would be similar to its 2015 Northern Ireland plan, when the party laid out its price for supporting either a minority Tory or Labour administration. That included more Treasury cash for Northern Irelands schools and hospitals. Also among the DUPs conditions will be at least a 50% cut or the total abolition of air passenger duty in Northern Ireland.

Discussions between the DUP and the Conservatives will run parallel with negotiations this week involving all the main parties in Northern Ireland. The latter talks are aimed at restoring the power-sharing devolved government in Belfast. Writing in todays Observer, Jonathan Powell, Tony Blairs secret negotiator with the IRA after the 1998 Good Friday agreement, saidon Monday: If Mrs May depends on the DUP Ian Paisleys party, not the old Official Unionists who used to work with the Tories to form a government it will be impossible for it to be even-handed.

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Theresa May's plan to govern with DUP support thrown into confusion - The Guardian

Julian McMahon at an appeal by Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran in Indonesia. He has been made a companion of the Order of Australia. Photograph: Ed Wray/Getty Images

The abolitionist lawyer Julian McMahon and the refugee advocate Paris Aristotle have been recognised in this years Queens birthday honours list.

Julian McMahon, a Melbourne barrister, has been appointed a companion of the Order of Australia for his dedication to defending human rights, in particular advocating for defendants facing the death penalty.

The president of Reprieve Australia since 2015, McMahon has worked pro bono for death-row defendants including: Van Tuong Nguyen, hanged in Singapore in 2005; George Forbes, wrongly accused, then exonerated of murder in Sudan in 2007; and the Bali Nine members Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, who were executed by firing squad in Indonesia in 2015.

His work has raised public awareness globally of the death penalty, as more and more countries abolish capital punishment.

In the wake of Chan and Sukumarans executions, McMahon said the killing of Australian citizens overseas for non-violent drug offences had solidified public opposition in Australia to capital punishment.

I think its been a developing idea basically since the execution of Van Nguyen, which many people rightly thought was an appalling outcome, McMahon told Fairfax Media.

The public consciousness was awakened to the reality of executions, which hadnt really featured in public life for a long time. It was on a slow burn until the lead-up to the executions of Chan and Sukumaran. Their case led to such intense analysis, discussion and political input, it is now beyond dispute that we simply understand as a nation the death penalty is unacceptable.

McMahon, the Victorian Australian of the Year in 2016, has been cited in the Queens birthday honours for eminent service to the law and the legal profession, through pro bono representation of defendants in capital punishment cases overseas, as an advocate for the abolition of the death penalty, and to human rights and social justice reform.

Aristotle has made an officer of the Order of Australia. He founded the Victoria Foundation of Survivors of Torture in 1987 and has been its chief executive since then. He was a member of the prime ministers expert panel on asylum seekers in 2012.

Aristotles citation as the 2017 Victorian Australian of the Year reads: A tireless advocate for refugees and asylum seekers, Paris Aristotle has made an enormous contribution by helping countless people rebuild their lives in Australia after surviving torture and trauma in their countries of origin.

Aristotle has worked with state and federal governments of all political affiliations over decades as well as with the United Nations high commissioner for refugees.

In an address in March, he said the issue of forced displacement will be one of the great challenges of the 21st century for Australia, the region and the world:

Protecting people fleeing war, conflict and persecution is both a moral and legal obligation for a country like ours. Every person should know that they have a right to protection under the refugee convention every refugee should be confident that as a part of that they will be properly cared for and every persecutor should fear that they will be brought to justice.

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Julian McMahon and Paris Aristotle honoured for defence of human rights - The Guardian

British Prime Minister Theresa May addresses the press in London Friday. Her gamble in calling for a snap election backfired.

In the final weeks of the Britains election campaign, Labour party leaders invited young people to claim your future. They did so in massive numbers by voting for the past.

It is hard for anybody with any historical memory to understand how a backbench relic such as Jeremy Corbyn could so galvanize the youth vote and keep the Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May from achieving an overall majority in the snap election Thursday. Bernie Sanders is an obvious comparison. But for it to work you have to imagine a Bernie Sanders who spent his life campaigning alongside every anti-American group going.

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Perhaps in the end the thing about the young is that history is distant to them. Which is partly understandable, of course. British people born after 1998 have lived in the peace created by the Good Friday agreement. To them the conflict in Northern Ireland seems not just distant but baffling. They dont remember the swiftly evacuated pubs and train stations, the daily news of lost lives, and the endless bleak news of civilians murdered. When Corbyn answered critical questions during this election cycle by insisting that he had spent the period of the Troubles working for a peace deal it seems young people believed him. Or didnt care enough about the details to be detained by them. Anyone who pointed out that Corbyn solely spent the Troubles campaigning for the IRA were dismissed as pedants, liars or (in a now familiar abuse of language) against peace..

The same went for Hezbollah, Hamas, and the slew of other Islamists that any observer of British politics from the 1980s onwards knew to be Corbyns allies. But at this election this too was presented as an indication that Corbyn was one of the leading peace negotiators in the Middle East, sent in by the international community as the crack-squad for all sensitive negotiations. To know the fatuousness of this claim you would have to have some historical memory. Again, the young apparently do not. And even three Islamist terror attacks in Britain in 10 weeks turned out not to concentrate their minds and direct them away from a sympathizer and onto an opponent of Islamist terror.

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It would appear that the economics works the same way. Anybody who pays taxes must at some stage intuit that someone must pay for things and that this someone could turn out to be you. When the Conservative manifesto announced plans for the elderly to pay more for their old-age they were making a fiscally logical suggestion. But it turned out to be electorally suicidal. The Labour manifesto, by contrast, promised the young a whole raft of uncosted financial incentives, including the abolition of university tuition fees. And while this might be financially impossible (as the Liberal Democrats discovered to their cost after making the same promise and then going into coalition with the Conservatives in 2010), it was electorally brilliant. Who wouldnt want free university education?

What initially seemed the dullest campaign in memory has been transformed through unexpected missteps, surprise developments and deadly attacks.

And then there is the B word. In last years referendum on Britains membership of the EU, the young disproportionately voted to remain within the EU, but turned out in low numbers. After the country voted for Brexit, a narrative grew that the young had their future stolen from them by ardent and selfish elderly voters. There was even serious discussion that people above a certain age should not have a say in the future of their country it being a place the young would inhabit for longer. When May announced this snap election she did so in order to improve her majority and strengthen as a result her negotiating hand with Brussels. Corbyns Labour party despite him having spent his political life opposed to the EU turned out to be the most viable receptacle of voters opposed to such hand-strengthening. And so they weakened May, and her party, sending her into the forthcoming Brexit negotiations (if she goes in at all) with a worse hand than she had before this ill-chosen race.

What is one to say about all this? The country is waking this morning to a realization that we may be ungovernable, or that crisis will from henceforth be normal. A crisis forced upon us by an anti-selfish generation of students who think the politics and economics of the past are the politics and economics of the future. The young were the future once. Not any more.

Originally posted here:

Britain's young vote for the future by voting for the past - The Boston Globe

General Election result piles more uncertainty on Northern Ireland business: Chamber of Commerce

BelfastTelegraph.co.uk

The shock result in the general election has managed to pile more uncertainty on the world of business, the Northern Ireland Chamber of Commerce and Industry has said.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/general-election-result-piles-more-uncertainty-on-northern-ireland-business-chamber-of-commerce-35808066.html

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/incoming/article34732383.ece/1c656/AUTOCROP/h342/PEYE%20190516KB3%200002%20-%20Copy.JPG

The shock result in the general election has managed to pile more uncertainty on the world of business, the Northern Ireland Chamber of Commerce and Industry has said.

It said business was already facing tricky issues including a shortage of skilled workers, currency fluctuations and Brexit.

But the prospect of a hung Parliament after no party managed to achieve an overall majority had achieved the unlikely feat of making matters worse.

Ellvena Graham, chairperson of the Northern Ireland Chamber, said a speedy formation of a government that can give businesses confidence around both economic management and Brexit negotiations, must be the absolute top priority.

And in Northern Ireland, parties must resume talks in order to restart devolved government. It is now time to put the Northern Ireland economy first.

Whilst there are many positive developments in the Northern Ireland economy, we also have challenges in terms of long term unemployment; low levels of export compared to other UK regions; a shortage of funding for infrastructure development and a serious shortage of skills.

We therefore need the Northern Ireland Executive to reform, agree a final Programme for Government, an economic strategy and establish a single Northern Ireland action plan on Brexit to address key business concerns.

And she said it remained crucial that there is no hard border with the Republic following Brexit.

This would be a major setback in economic, social and political relations between Northern Ireland and its neighbour.

And she said Northern Irelands 18 Westminster MPs now needed to support the priorities of a City Deal for Belfast, the abolition of air passenger duty and a cut in corporation tax.

Overall, business and government need to work more closely together than ever before, to develop the mutual confidence needed to overcome the challenges posed by the Brexit transition, to unlock the economic potential of Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK, and to seize the opportunities beyond.

Results in full:

Belfast Telegraph Digital

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General Election result piles more uncertainty on Northern Ireland business: Chamber of Commerce - Belfast Telegraph

The Ghana House of Port Agents (GHOPA), a group of importers, has asked shipping companies at the Tema port to bring an end to excessive charges on imported goods.

According to the group, since the announcement of the abolition of the 1% Special Import Levy by the Akufo-Addo-led government, owners of shipping lines have introduced new charges at the port.

A statement issued by the group said: On 2nd March, 2017, during the maiden budget statement of President Akufo Addos government presented by Hon Ken Ofori-Atta, we [GHOPA] developed a very strong confidence in the government, having the belief that some of the abolished taxes were going to help us unleash our fabulous policies to help redeem the image of businesses in our nation especially at the port in our various fields of work. Ever since those taxes were abolished, there have been a whole lot of unnecessary charges at the port by the shipping lines of which we [GHOPA] and the freight forwarders, as well as the importers, are not happy about.

Some of those charges that we [GHOPA] believe are unnecessary are: cleaning of container charges, container security charges, demurrage on public holidays, Saturdays and Sundays. What saddens our hearts most is the fact that they dont even work on weekends [Saturdays and Sundays] as well as on public holidays, meanwhile GPHA also charges on the same consignment (security fee)

Again, shipping lines like CMA Line, Maersk Line, Pacific International Line (PIL), and Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) always delay in issuance of their invoices especially when their system goes down and at the end of the day we are being charged for their own technical issues which caused the breakdown of their system. And their demurrage charges are too much. They charge as high as USD100 per day which we think is just too much.

In conclusion, we the Ghana House of Port Agents [GHOPA] wish to convey through this press release that we are pleading with the government, Ministry of Trade and Industry, and other bodies concerned to do something to put an end to all the unnecessary charges at the shipping lines in a month else we will advise ourselves either embarking on a massive demonstration against all the bodies including the government or the law court.

In a subsequent interview with Chief Jerry Forson, host of Ghana Yensom on Accra100.5FM on Wednesday, June 7, Prince Kofi Buamah, Public Relations Officer of the group, said: We are appealing to the government to focus its attention on the shipping lines because they are hurting our businesses at the Tema port. We cannot trust the Shippers Council to deal with this issue because we have put several of our issues before them but they havent handled them properly.

Ampadu Siaw, Secretary of the Secondhand Spare Parts Dealers Association, also commenting on the matter, commended the group for raising the matter.

Also speaking on the show, he said: I will commend them, it is a fight that all of us must support because it affects us. The leadership of spare parts dealers will be meeting on this and see how we can also involve ourselves in this matter.

As for Ghana Shippers Council, they are not serving our interests, they are serving their own interests because most of the issues that come before them are not addressed. Source: GhanaWeb

Link:

Stop unnecessary port charges Shipping lines urged - Hellenic Shipping News Worldwide

Can pro wrestling, a medium with a history of bare-faced antagonism towards leftist politics, exist under socialism?

I think its contingent on the degree to which wrestlers and others in the business identify with the working class.

Its a spectrum. On one end, you have Zack Sabre Jr, who speaks out against neoliberalism and recently raised money for the ACLU. On the other, you have Matt Striker, who was, as I was writing this, using Twitter to mock the reporter assaulted by Greg Gianforte, a Montana Republican who was subsequently elected to Congress, and speak against a living wage for fast food workers.

Where there isnt wrestling, people will create their own. Ive seen enough lips busted on trampoline frames to know this. Whether or not we can develop a class consciousness within this industry will determine whether we have to start from scratch or if that knowledge, training and character that we identify with pro wrestling now will be preserved in this new iteration.

This isnt to downplay the irrevocable influences on wrestling that socialism would have. They are substantial, perhaps even drastic. Still, I think theyre necessary to ensure that the compassionate, sustainable future we advocate for is extended to wrestling (a thing many leftists love, often despite ourselves).

Longer Careers, Shorter Title Reigns

Whatever shape the political apparatus of a socialist America takes, its safe to say that industries and business will be run as worker co-ops, directed and managed democratically by the workers. Theres no reason wrestling would be the exception.

With the abolition of rent and wage labor, the incentive to grind your knees down on multiple house shows a week will be low. And everyone will be involved in local committee projects anyway; theyll need those knees to build houses and plant arugula.

How would you book yourself if you were focused on longevity? More tag matches, triple threats, battle royals. More chances to do spots and wow crowds while getting a few breathers in the corner.

Those add up to a longer, if less illustrious, career. Legacies like Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair and Kazuchika Okada are the result of a singular vision focused on capital. Titles, if they exist, could become a means of collective recognition of labor and talent.

In theory, at least. If you, say, had a habit of defecating in your co-workers gym bags in the previous regime, youre probably gonna be voted to lose. A lot.

The Tag Title Will Become The Top Title

The structures of wrestling reflect our values. The great man babyface perceives that being himself, by himself, reflects American ideals of individualism, distrust of teamwork, and frustration at the weak-willed, ineffectual governing apparatus that exists only to fetter their attempts to win custody of their adopted son.

A collectivist wrestling company living in a collectivist society will reflect that in its booking. An example of this would be CHIKARAs Campeonatas de Parajas, a tag title that preceded its equivalent of a world title by 5 years; I see a correlation in the increasing prestige of a top singles title with the CHIKARA brands transition from that of a local, community-supported indie fed to a destination for indie talent from all over the world.

Its possible this will extend beyond tag teams, and that wrestling promotions will break out into rival factions of varying alignments, like NJPW has right now. For one, it accurately reflects political discourse in a multi-tendency, big tent organization like the DSA.

On that note, it never fails to crack me up to see Bullet Club, a faction formed to antagonize a homogenous, xenophobic society with multiculturalism, in the Twitter avatars of white nationalists.

A Return To Rasslin

Wrestling has long run on a particular cycle of acquisition. The big companies see a trend in the smaller that they want to appropriate, and then buy up all the wrestlers they can who fit that trend, incorporating it into the mainstream style and forcing the remaining indies to find something new. CCK subtly references to this occurring to the new British style in their recent promo for PROGRESS.

Without this engine of imposition, the need for a rapidly developed diversity of hyper-specialized wrestling styles will be low. And some wrestlers, a demographic that leans hard to the right, will just quit the sport entirely. Less knowledge to be passed on to wrestlers who work less matches and travel less.

That will facilitate a return to basics. More rasslin, more catch-as-catch-can, more literal amateur hour.

I think this can be good. Part of what makes Lucha Underground, Hoodslam and Party World Rasslin beautiful is their ability to reach people who dont necessarily identify as wrestling fans by focusing on crafting their own narratives and culture instead of maintaining a certain fluency in current wrestling trends. Another part: they make Jim Cornette mad.

The Revolution At Ringside

What does it mean to distribute wealth? A capitalist might say Its whenever I have $2 and you have $0, you take $1 from me to make it even. Which isnt inaccurate.

A more fleshed out realization of it (in the simplest terms) would be if, whenever you have $2 and I have $0, I take that $1 while we work to abolish the things that require money (rent, lack of food access, etc) and then the money, now evenly distributed, is worthless.

So, in an economy that is in the process of, or has even completed the destruction of currency, who gets the best seats in the house? Maybe its the workers. Maybe its the syndicate or commune that collectively own the stadium.

I like to think that, if we use the Marxist axiom of from each according to their ability to each according to their need, we could start giving those ringside seats to the people who need them mostkids, seniors, disabled people.

Whatever we decide, it means some tall asshole in an nWo shirt who refuses to sit down cant block your view and ruin the show. We call that improving material conditions.

In Soviet America, Ref Bumps You

Pro wrestling referees are the definition of failing upward. Theyre prized for their incompetence, cowardice and impotent biases.They largely exist to prevent the face from achieving their goals or enact justice on heels.

This is what people like Vince McMahon and your neighbor who watches too much Fox News thinks about institutions who want to hold people to playing by the rules: weak-willed, easily circumvented, and unable to do whats necessary to bring the ill-willed to heel.

The process by which we achieve socialism in America would fundamentally change this systemic perception of justice. A bloodless grassroots revolution could lead to referees being heroic mediators who desperately try to keep carnage from all sides from boiling over.

An authoritarian vanguard could mean referees who impose order through force. A multi-tendency revolution could lead to sectarian refs endlessly feuding over slight variations of ideology.

Not all of these outcomes would necessarily make the product compelling. Thats the bad news.

The good news is the abolition of wages means thered be no one to sell contraband t-shirts to, so Earl Hebner can have his job back.

In a capitalist system, projects and institutions exist according to their capacity to generate (and/or extract) capital. If socialism is enacted in the United States, it will fundamentally change the social contract and conditions by which industries and institutions function. Anything you want to preserve amidst such a sea change needs a plan of adaptation.

If the thought of adjusting pro wrestling to accommodate a socialist society fills you with disgust or rage, I think its worth interrogating whether your attachment is actually to wrestling or to the society it reflects (before you answer: remember, we are revolting against that society).

Whatcha gonna do, comrade, when the proletariat dismantles the systems of exploitation running wild on you?

Jetta Rae is a writer and organizer based in Oakland. She runs the leftist food blog FRY HAVOC and can be found on Twitter.

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What Pro Wrestling Would Look Like Under Socialism - Paste Magazine

Jeremy Corbyn

AS members of Holborn and St Pancras constituency we would like to endorse the experience and feelings of optimism that other members and activists of the Labour Party around the country have spoken about.

What we are seeing when we go door to door on estates in Camden is a renewal of interest in politics across generations.

This is a remarkable phenomenon given the really hard times the many have had to put up with because of the enforced austerity policies of the last 10 years, alongside watching the wealth of the few grow like its on hormones.

Given that austerity and its terrible twin children, enforced debt and political disillusionment, have hit the youngest the hardest, their willingness to join the party in tens of thousands and get involved is wonderfully inspiring. We also have a new social movement, Momentum, that has been integral to the repositioning of socialism as the beating heart and soul of the party.

With this quiet revolution on the estates and in the streets is the transformation of the Labour Party into a mass membership organisation since Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader. It has quadrupled in size to become the biggest socialist party in Europe.

Some of the new members are returnees but many are young people energised by the hope, optimism and decency of Jeremy Corbyn practising a kind of politics that they have not seen intheir lifetime.

His vision of socialism represents a break from the war-torn neo-liberalism of the last 30 years. He has provided a life-support system to insecure, indebted, despairing people and laid out in the manifesto a blueprint for restoring society to full health.

Knocking on doors on council estates in Somers Town, Kentish Town, Gospel Oak and other working class areas of Camden, we find people enthusiastic about the policies of building one million homes to deal with the chronic shortage; renationalising our overpriced railways and other key utilities that we all rely on, properly funding both schools that nurture our young and the NHS that cares for us when were ill, and ending insecurity at work with the abolition of zero-hours contracts and the strengthening of trade union and employment rights.

These are improvements that benefit the 99 per cent, so selling the manifesto has not been difficult. A lot of voters tell us that for once they have a clear choice between more of the same and a chance to change direction.

Every Labour MP has an unprecedented number of party, Momentum and trade union activists helping in the campaign. It is face-to-face contact that is the most influential component in getting across policies, especially for a party like Labour that, while it has trade union support, has very few friends in the mainstream media and cannot rely on rich oligarchs to pay for infinite amounts of advertising and publicity.

People talking to each other is how well win this election and it is Jeremy Corbyns leadership that has led to hundreds of thousands joining and rejoining, enabling us to do this.

There is a world to win, a world where the unleashed creativity and imagination of everyone in our society is given the opportunity to flower and contribute, where co-operation not greed characterise us, where the young and old are cherished not impoverished, and where all feel valued, not just the few.

PHIL VASILI, Highgate, Holborn and St Pancras CLP SARAH WISE, Bloomsbury and Kings Cross, Holborn and St Pancras CLP SAM GISAGARA, Primrose Hill, Holborn and St Pancras CLP AMANDA SEBESTYEN, Highgate branch, Holborn and St Pancras CLP SHEZAN DIN RENNY, Highgate, Holborn and St Pancras CLP PAUL RENNY, Highgate, Holborn and St Pancras CLP JO ROSTRON, Primrose Hill, Holborn and St Pancras CLP LINDA SAYLE, Bloomsbury and Kings Cross, Holborn and St Pancras CLP ZULMA WICKENDEN, Highgate, Holborn and St Pancras CLP PETE WICKENDEN, Highgate, Holborn and St Pancras CLP REBEKAH BALL, Highgate, Holborn and St Pancras CLP MABEL SUMNER, Highgate, Holborn and St Pancras CLP SIMON GUNN, Highgate, Holborn and St Pancras CLP

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Corbyn's quiet revolution - Camden New Journal newspapers website

Chief Elections Officer, Keith Lowenfield and former GECOM Chairman, Dr. Steve Surujbally.

The Chief Elections Officer of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), Keith Lowenfield says the absence of a Chairman is affecting key decision-making by that elections management agency.

The absence of a Chairperson, no doubt, curtails the work of the Commission one way or the other, Lowenfield told Demerara Waves Online News.

The delay has also raised concerns by former President Donald Ramotar that President David Granger has embarked on a plan to delay the next general elections to dole out goodies from oil revenues that are expected to flow in 2020- the same year that general and regional elections are due.

They want to wait until they start to get oil flowing and, therefore, they will try to do a lot of splurging if they get oil money and use that as their excuse of what they did here and there to give them the kind of results that they would be looking for, Ramotar told Demerara Waves Online News.

Charging that the two-year old Granger-led administrations track record has been poor in the areas of good governance and transparency, Ramotar said the government was eagerly finding an excuse to delay the next general elections. The longer they take to put a Chairman in place, the longer the preparations for elections will be delayed, he added. The former Guyanese leader and veteran politician recalled that back in 1990 the voters list had been deliberately bungled, causing the then Peoples National Congress (PNC) government under President Desmond Hoyte to postpone the elections to 1992 bywhich time the Carter Centre-brokered electoral reforms had been also put in place. Those reforms had included a new voters list and the counting of the votes at the place of poll, and abolition of overseas voting.

Since the retirement of Dr. Steve Surujbally from the post of Chairman in late February, 2017, the commission has not met, and his successor has beenmired in a disagreement between President David Granger and Opposition Leader, Bharrat Jagdeoover the acceptability of the latters 12 nominees so far. The two political leaders are due to meet on Jun 12, four days ahead of another High Courthearing on a case to offer a legal interpretation of Guyanas constitution on the eligibility of nominees.

Lowenfield explained that any additional activity such a fresh house-to-house registration would have to be dealt with whenever the seven-member body meets.No doubt that will be on the agenda when the new Commission is properly constituted and you will move ahead with that, all depends on the priority of the Commission, he said.

The GECOM CEO said after the commissiondecides whether to hold a new house-to-house registration exercise in 2018 or 2019, it would have to be factored intobudget preparations. In the absence of that, I cannot arbitrarily say that we are doing that because that decision is a decision of the board, he said. GECOM had last year signaled that it would have been probably been held this year, as that process has to be held every eight years; the last one having been conducted in 2008.

The Chief Elections Officer said in the absence of a sitting Commission, GECOM was currently in the final stages of another round of continuous registration, as authorised by the Commission, issuing replacement national identification cards, and conducting internal training.

New initiatives- I cannot do that because those are decisions of the board so for us, the earlier the board is there, the composition is in order, I think GECOM can proceed in those many things that it wants because the direction will be provided to the Secretariat by the Commission, he said.

The GECOM Chief Elections Officersaid even though Local Government Elections are due again next year, the Commissioners would have to pronounce on that and supervise the operationalisation of its decisions.

Asked whether he believed the now almost three-month delay in appointing a new GECOM Chairman would adversely affect the elections schedule, Ramotar said it was unclear how much longer the President and the Opposition Leader would be locked in this dispute.

President Granger has rejected two lists of six nominees each. In the first instance, he had said that that list was not in keeping with his interpretation that the constitutional preference is for judges, retired judges or someone eligible to be a judge. Granger subsequently added other criteria including integrity and and independence including that that person will not be an activist in any form (gender, racial, religious etc) and that person should not have any political affiliation or should not belong to any political party in any form, apparent or hidden.

Those on the second rejected list areRetired Justice of Appeal B.S Roy, Retired Justice William Ramlall;Attorney-at-law and a former Magistrate, Ms. Oneidge Walrond-Allicock; Attorney-at-Law,Kashir Khan; Attorney-at-law,Nadia Sagar and businessman,Gerald Gouveia.The first rejected list had been made up of Governance and Conflict Resolution Specialist, Lawrence Lachmansingh; Attorney-at-Law and Chartered Accountant, Christopher Ram; Retired Major General, Norman Mc Lean; Business Executive, Ramesh Dookhoo; Indian Rights Activist, Rhyaan Shah and History Professor, James Rose.

Oil and politics

The former Guyanese leader ruled out politically pressuring ExxonMobil to stall plans to extract oil commercially if it is perceived that revenues would be used by the incumbent government to give it an unfair advantage at the polls and enrich itself.

He said ultimately that oil company would be more interested in maximising its revenues if the price of oil is high, but might be inclined to delay production only if there is a slump.

My view is thatI dont think Exxon will be concerned about our local politics and my view is that they will not be influenced by this. Maybe, they prefer to operate in an environment that is more stable and democratic but that is not their main priority. Their business is pumping oil and making big profits so I think it is futile to call on Exxon not to pump oil, he said.

Ramotar prefers to bank on mobilising civil society, religious and other organisations if the PNC-Reform-dominated coalition stalls the holding of general elections.

He noted that the PNCR has said that President David Granger is committed to the ideals of his partys founder leader, Burnham. This is not a regime that is thinking about the welfare of the country. This is what I would describe as a bureaucratic elite that is using the State apparatus to enrich themselves and that is why they just dont care that when they go to an undemocratic system that it will eventually impact on the country and the deterioration of every aspect of life will be horrible, Ramotar said.

The then PNC-led administration had been consistently accused of holding on to power tenaciously through rigged elections and human rights abuses of its opponents including privately-owned media.

On the other hand, the PNCR, Alliance For Change and the Working Peoples Alliance had repeatedly accused the then PPP-led administration of presiding over state-sponsored death squads in associating with shady characters such as convicted drug lord, Shaheed Roger Khan; suppression of privately-owned media that were critical of the government of the day, misuse of State resources for private gain and turning a blind eye to drug trafficking.

Original post:

No GECOM Chairman curtailing Commission's work- Chief Elections Officer; Ramotar says Granger probably ... - Demerara Waves

NEW YORK (CHASING NEWS) -- Hunter College is offering a course next fall called The Abolition of Whiteness. The course will examine whiteness, white supremacy and violence.

The class will be taught by Jennifer Gaboury, associate director of the school's Women and Gender Studies Program.

According to her bio on the Hunter College website, her work is related to issues of masculinities, feminisms, and politics; she is currently working on a project related to race and sex segregation in public bathroom facilities.

"As a white person the best thing I can do with this kind of issue is educate myself," said Hunter College student Jessica Creason.

But is the class potentially divisive or is it a way to challenge young people to think freely? There was a spirited discussion in the Chasing News studio.

"Is it how to abolish whiteness? Is it a racist class?" host Bill Spadea asked.

"Our infrastructure is built on everything Western that comes from Europe," chaser Ashley Johnson explained. "There is the notion that you and I are not the same, and it's understanding what role that has played in society. You don't see me like you see your cousin.

"When you first see me, you see me as a black woman," Johnson told Spadea.

"How do you know I see you as a black woman first?" Spadea asked.

University of Penn professor Chad Dion Lassiter, a national expert on race relations and president of Black Men At Penn, joined the discussion.

"We've always had 'whiteness courses' at Penn," Lassiter said. "We need courses like this. They shouldn't be rooted in making whites feel bad. They should definitely be rooted in talking about the intersectionality of white privilege.

But does white privilege even exist?

"I don't think so," Spadea said.

More:

NYC college offers Abolition of Whiteness course - My9NJ

A public college in New York City is offering an undergraduate class called the "Abolition of Whiteness," adding to what critics say is a growing number of courses aimed at the study of "whiteness" at colleges and universities around the country.

Hunter College -- a public school in Manhattan that is part of the City University of New York -- is advertising a course in its Fall 2017 catalog that examines "how whiteness and/or white supremacy and violence is intertwined with conceptions of gender, race, sexuality, class, body ability, nationality, and age."

The "Abolition of Whiteness," taught by Prof.Jennifer Gaboury, can be taken as either a women and gender studies course or a political science class, according to the school's online course catalog.

Hunter College in New York City.

The class has drawn ire on conservative media sites, such as the Daily Caller and Campus Reform, where some readers expressed outrage over the course's title. Critics say the course is part of a rise in white studies classes in higher education, which they claim are "divisive" and detrimental to student learning.

"These courses really pound a wedge between people based on race," said Arizona State Rep. Bob Thorpe, who had tried to ban a course at Arizona State University called "Whiteness and Race Theory."

"They're not bringing people together and creating unity on the college campus," Thorpe told Fox News.

"The taxpayers are funding these kinds of courses as well," said Thorpe, claiming, "You're not really seeing these classes in private institutions."

But educators and those who work in academia say such classes are being distorted and critics are failing to recognize a fundamental purpose of higher education:to make students think for themselves.

"Academic freedom protects the right for people to teach things that some might consider divisive," said Hans-Joerg Tiede of the American Association of University Professors.

"A provocative title may encourage students to really think about the issues," said Tiede, who likened criticizing course titles -- like the one at Hunter College -- to judging a book by its cover.

These courses really pound a wedge between people based on race.

Georgetown University, for instance, a private Catholic school, offers a popular theology course called, "The Problem of God," which "grapples with deep and difficult questions about life, meaning purpose and fulfillment," according to Georgetown's website.

"It explores the notion of God and fundamental aspects of belief in such a being," says the school, where theology courses are a requirement for undergraduate students.

"I am sure there may be people who look at Georgetowns course catalog and consider the class title to be offensive," noted Tiede.

Tiede said he was not familiar with the "Abolition of Whiteness" course being offered at Hunter College but said the class was likely reviewed by a committee of people before it was approved. Neither the school nor the professor was immediately available for comment when contacted by Fox News. A syllabus for the course was not available online.

"A course like this could investigate a number of issues regarding race relations in the United States," Tiede said.

"Unfortunately, you have a far-right, outrage machine out there that is trolling the internet for titles that may upset some readers and to use that to sort of stoke resentment against higher education," added Tiede. "Im not questioning the right to do that I just don't think its productive or promotes the rights that higher education seeks to encourage."

Thorpe, meanwhile, disagrees, saying such "white studies" courses only reinforce prejudices -- and may in some cases spur violence -- against a particular group.

Thorpe and other critics note that such "polarizing" courses on white studies are on the rise across higher education institutions around the country.

A class at Ohio State University, titled "Crossing Identity Boundaries," teaches students how to detect microaggressions and white privilege. And the University of Wisconsin-Madison offers a course called, "The Problem of Whiteness," which has been roundly criticized by state Republican lawmakers.

"I am extremely concerned that UW-Madison finds it appropriate to teach a course called, The Problem of Whiteness, with the premise that white people are racist,Rep. Dave Murphy, chairman of the Wisconsin Assemblys Committee on Colleges and Universities,told theMilwaukee Journal Sentinel in a December 2016 interview.

"If you had a class that said 'the problem with women' or 'the problem with blacks' it would never happen," Thorpe said of the course at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

"I think of Martin Luther King's famous words about how we should judge a person based on the content of their character and not the color of their skin," said Thorpe. "You would think that this would be a fairly settled issue but it is not."

See original here:

New York public college offering course called 'Abolition of Whiteness' - Fox News

Sex work is adult consensual provision of sexual services for money. What part of this definition challenges the notion of work? A service provided for money? A service provided by adults for money? A service provided consensually by adults for money? None of the above. The minute the service is described as a sexual one, the understanding that it is work changes drastically. This article would like to explore the nature of work in Dhanda (sex business).

Sex work is also monogamous or polygamous sexual partnerships within a commercial context. These two constructions, one of provision of sexual services and the other of sexual partnerships, both for the exchange of money remain contentious mainly because of the perception of the easy availability of women to cater to male lust. Arguments of the market controlling the sexual terrain and power equations that privilege men over poor women both as economic and social victims dominate the discourse.

Sex work is adult consensual provision of sexual services for money. What part of this challenges the notion of work?

Moralists are offended by the notion that casual sex with multiple partners could be a physical act stripped of emotion, could be initiated by women, used in a commercial context and even be pleasurable. The immoral whore image followswomen who are ostracised by a judgemental society that approves the criminalisation of sex work.

Within India, the Dalit movement has held that upper caste men use women from lower castes to satisfy their carnal needs mainly as an expression of caste dominance. The caste-based Devadasi system in many parts of India, and the Bedia tribe are the examples used in this analysis. The forced rehabilitation of devadasis and the anti-devadasi lawin Karnataka has forced devadasis to leave their natal homes in Karnataka and migrate for work to Maharashtra in large numbers.

Another strand of thought, as Cheryl Overs explains, is expressed by conservative feminist attitudes which are arranged around a theory in which sex work is defined as both indivisible from slavery inevitably involuntary and inherently violent and as a driver of the objectification and oppression of women.The idea that no woman can come into sex work on her own and that all women are forced, deceived, lured, bonded to loan sharks and trafficked into sex work for sexual and economic exploitation is also firmly held.

The advent of HIV/AIDS in the 1980s saw governments make great efforts to target sex workers in global and national responses to the HIV epidemic. Sex workers were considered vectors of the spread of HIV, and governments were determined to save the bridge population of men, using sex work interventions only as a means of protecting respectable women from HIV. In small pockets around the world, sex workers turned this around and made it an opportunity to mobilise attention to the health, safety and rights of sex workers.

The idea that no woman can come into sex work on her own and that all women are forced is firmly held.

However, as Joanne Csete points out, this picture was complicated by politically powerful faith-based constituencies, an anti-trafficking movement that denied the agency and rights of sex workers, and powerful funders. The United Nations positions demonstrated some leadership on sex worker rights early in the epidemic but later appeared to acquiesce to prohibitionist views.

Anti-trafficking activists who have gained support from radical feminists have argued that sex work itself is violence mainly because the entry into sex work is involuntary, forced, and through deception women are lured and sexually exploited by unscrupulous traffickers. Their argument especially about minor girls is valid but the underpinning of abolitionism that governs their arguments takes the focus away from finding and punishing the traffickers to rescuing and rehabilitating sex workers without consent.

The fracture in this method comes from the idea that all women are trafficked and thus consent is not necessary in such an indiscriminate rescue and rehabilitation plan. Needless to say, though sex workers are the best placed to fight traffickers there are no programmes to strengthen them by the anti-trafficking, anti-sex work organisations.

Most laws and policies on sex work reflect that though sex work is not illegal in India, there are laws such as the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act that continue to criminalise women in sex work and those who support her work such as third parties. The Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, enacted in 1956, was initially the Suppression of Immoral Traffic Act (SITA), and in 1986, the name was changed to Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act or ITPA. The legislation (ITPA) penalises acts such as keeping a brothel, soliciting in a public place, living off the earnings of prostitution and living with or habitually being in the company of a prostitute.

consent is not seen as necessary in such an indiscriminate rescue and rehabilitation plan.

In a departure from criminal jurisprudence, which clearly indicates the stigmatisation of sex workers, the ITPA has paradoxical offences like detaining a personwith or without his consent in premises where sex work is carried onor taking a person, with or without his consent for the purpose of prostitution. Again, the provisions dealing with raid and rescue make no distinction between adults and minors. Ordinarily, in the case of adults, consent or the lack of it is a crucial factor in offences like abduction or illegal confinement which determines whether or not an act is to be dubbed criminal. The legislation gives power to a magistrate to order the removal of a prostitute living within the local limits of his jurisdiction from the area.

Abolitionists who hold dear some or all of the above positions on sex work argue that sex work is violence against all women and should be done away with altogether. The most powerful argument is the one that links poverty, caste, pure womanhood, sacredness, force of circumstances and unscrupulous traffickers to argue for the abolition of sex work and the rescue of the unfortunate victim from an uncaring state and an indifferent society.

Also Read:Sex Workers Discuss & Give Suggestions To The Anti-Trafficking Bill Draft 2016

Overs, C. Sex Workers and Feminists: Personal Reflections in The Business of Sex, ed. Laxmi Murthy and Meena Saraswathi Seshu, 2013, Zubaan Books.

Csete, J. Victimhood and Vulnerability: Sex Work and the Rhetoric and the Reality of the Global Response to HIV/AIDS inThe Business of Sex, ed. Laxmi Murthy and Meena Saraswathi Seshu, Zubaan Books, 2013.

A Walk Through the Labyrinths of Sex Work Law, The Business of Sex, ed. Laxmi Murthy and Meena Saraswathi Seshu.

Featured Image Credit: Kolkata On Wheels

Continue reading here:

Why Is Sex Work Not Seen As Work? Part 1 - Feminism in India (blog)

On Thursday, Britain heads to the polls to cast a vote that will determine which political party will shape the next five years. Here is why the Tories are absolutely not my cup of tea:

Conservatives put the 'n' in cuts

Conservative cuts have ruthlessly hurt society in a number of ways, particularly the most vulnerable people:

1. Since the Tories took office in 2010, homelessness has doubled. Their failure to build affordable housing, cuts to social services and inaction on soaring private rental costs have plunged us into a housing crisis.

There is the highest number of people in work without a home than ever before. This completely undermines the Tory rhetoric of 'hard workers will be rewarded'. While helping out at a winter homeless shelter for the past couple of years I have been horrified to discover how many of the guests have jobs - on minimum wages and zero-hour contracts.

2. Tory austerity has caused disabled people deep distress. Policies like "fit to work" and the abolition of disability living allowance has left people like Alex in a degrading and humiliating state, unable to afford necessary medicine and facilities.

3. May's cuts to essential services such as the police force has hindered our security and put our lives in danger. Watch this former senior Met officer expose the Tory lies about officer numbers following the London Attacks:

The list of detrimental cuts goes on.

Conservative means backwards Conservative literally means keeping old-fashioned traditions in place. This prevents progress. Their pledges reflect the extent to which Tory priorities are outrageously past their sell by date; take for instance:

Fox hunting Colonialist sentiment Bizarre war with Spain regarding Gibraltar Stiff blue passports (anti-EU cohesion)

I sit here wondering: How have Theresa May's political priorities outgrown her haircut?

Brexit divisions and distractions

Under David Cameron, the Tories unintentionally triggered a departure from the EU which has deeply and detrimentally divided the nation. Brexit has fostered, perpetuated and normalised a climate of xenophobic hatred and violence, evident in figures that reveal a rise of up to 100% in hate crime across England and Wales since the referendum.

Here is the cherry on the cake: instead of focusing on Brexit negotiations, Theresa May decided to call a snap general election. This has totally detracted from Brexit negotiations. Yet she audaciously attacked Jeremy Corbyn for having the wrong priorities when he called on her to do a TV debate. Interestingly, she agreed to do a TV Q&A instead.

Big business breaks are bad business: from BHS to bathroom births

Symptomatic of the lack of corporate regulation we have the wonderfully corrupt and greedy Philip Green, Mike Ashley's inhumane third world factories and empty houses owned by foreign property moguls amidst a housing crisis. The only thing trickle down about the Tories policy on conglomerates is the poor lady's water that broke in a Sports Direct toilet where she had to give birth because of their harsh penalties for missing work. Yet the Tories adamenty refrain from regulating and taxing big businesses more effectively.

Our human rights are at risk

Tories want to scrap the Human Rights Act (HRA) after Brexit. I don't know about you, but I like my human rights. The HRA helps to protect the most vulnerable people, from domestic violence victims to LGBT people. The Tories proposed Bill of Rights will allow the government to pick and choose which rights to protect, essentially jeopardising many of our current rights.

"Difficult and embarrassing" deadly foreign policy

Saudi relations *cough*. It is time to talk about who is funding and fuelling the war on terror Theresa; stop dealing arms with Saudi Arabia if you want to tackle extremism.

Additionally, Saudi is using UK bought cluster bombs to explode innocent children and civilians in Yemen. Complicity in Yemen's civil war, is not a good look for a first world democracy that should set an example when it comes to human rights standards.

Theresa Dismay, dark leader of the underworld

She has proved herself to be highly uncertain, untrustworthy and unstable. That is not a strong leader. How can you vote for a politician in a general election who lied about calling an election in the first place? As Captain SKA's #2 hit goes - she's a LIAR LIAR.

What to do?

DO vote. We are privileged to have the opportunity to exercise our democratic right to vote. Even if you want to spoil your ballot, turn up to your polling station. It really, really matters.

DON'T be politically tribal. Party politics is petty. Be tactical with your vote. You can find out how to be tactical here.

Under the Conservatives, since 2010 the fat cats have got fatter at the cost and neglect of the poor and most vulnerable in society. Let's not let them continue. Cheers to anti-Tory cuppas!

Read this article:

Why The Tories Are Not My Cuppa - HuffPost UK

2017-04-06T17:21+02:00 17:21 06.04.2017

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has said that a positive vote in the European Parliament on granting the visa-free regime for Ukrainians by the European Union still does not mean the abolition of visas, but the Ukrainian authorities are working to ensure that the final introduction of the visa-free travel is not postponed to a later date.

"I want to emphasize that this doesn't yet mean the opening of the border. We are still waiting for a decision of the EU Council, we are working hard so that no one postpones it or drags out this process," Poroshenko told journalists on the sidelines of the 10th Kyiv Security Forum, which takes place in Kyiv on Thursday.

According to him, "pro-Putin representatives" in the European Union are trying to prevent Ukraine from receiving the visa-free regime and the latest debate in the European Parliament confirmed this.

"Only the joint work of all political forces within the state and beyond gives us a firm belief that everything will be fine," the Ukrainian president said.

Poroshenko also believes that the presidential elections in France cannot affect the process of granting the visa-free regime to Ukrainians.

See the rest here:

European Parliament vote doesn't mean abolition of visas yet - Poroshenko - Interfax

Henry Scott Tuke (1858-1929), The Critics, 1927, Oil on board, 412 x 514 mm, Warwick District Council (Leamington Spa, UK)

Queer British Art is the title of an exhibition that reveals itself to be a tamely closeted affair. And, if you bother to read the smaller subheader, giving the timespan covered youll see why. Despite its bold promise, this is a survey spanning an almost-century from 1861 to 1967 so well before queer theory and the reclaiming of a word that, by the 20th century, was a pejorative for any male who was slightly effeminate.

Starting from the year that saw the abolition of the death penalty for sodomy, the exhibition marks the 50th anniversary of the decriminalisation of male homosexuality under the Sexual Offences Act (lesbianism was never criminalised). And that end date doesnt just predate queer as a word embracing a radical political identity, but also the word gay, which doesnt really gain mainstream currency until as late as the early 70s (again, mainly for men).

This is why TV sitcoms and light entertainment programmes throughout that decade were full of gay double entendres. Gay lives were so under the radar that even though gay camp was the defining part of Saturday night entertainment, heterosexual audiences could still labour under the illusion, remarkable though it now seems, that camp entertainers were simply straight men pushing the envelope a bit with titillating What a gay day catch phases. Four years after decriminalisation, sober audiences could watch a serious film about a middle-class straight-bi-gay mnage in John Schlesingers Sunday Bloody Sunday (in which the two male characters were denuded of any sign of camp), but popular light entertainment was still straight out of music hall.

So naturally, camp, musical hall, vaudeville, and theatre all play a part in this exhibition, under the gaily euphemistic heading theatrical types and no surprises that its women, again, that this title excludes. Men dressed as women and women as men were a 19th century music hall staple for family audiences, though clearly once trousers, shirts, and short hair became common female attire, there was little demand for women as male impersonators. Meanwhile, drag acts such as Danny La Rue, as we see here, could go on to become one of the most highly paid and visible entertainers of the 60s, all the while keeping their sexuality under wraps, years after it was legal or, as were gently reminded, partially decriminalised. However bizarre the illusion La Rue, for instance, was known for starting every show with his gruff navvys catchphrase, Wotcha mates heteronormativity had to be maintained.

Keith Vaughan, Drawing of two men kissing, 195873, Tate Archive DACS, The Estate of Keith Vaughan

Meanwhile, plays still came under the censorship of the Lord Chamberlains Office until the 1968 Theatres Act abolished the censor. And its the ephemera that comes with all these details, the plays that escaped the cuts or which were performed uncensored in private clubs, the real lives of those depicted in largely dull, forgotten portraits, the details of the masquerades that were maintained for the sake of ones standing in society (though many seemed to be surprisingly open and unfettered) that prove absorbing; that is, its the reading between the pictures and the photos and the artefacts that largely detains you.

Youll find that Robert Harper Penningtons full-length portrait of Oscar Wilde, c. 1881, isnt half as absorbing as the story of its commission and its sorry fate after Wildes disgrace. Nor are the stilted pre-Raphaelite paintings of androgynous figures by Simeon Solomon, an artist who suffered a similar fate to Wilde and who died in disgrace in Solomons case he was arrested in a public lavatory for attempted buggery. Though even here the law has a human face. Duncan Grants portrait of PC Harry Daley, portrayed in his buttoned-up uniform and helmet, is identified as E.M. Forsters sometime casual lover, who later wrote a memoir detailing his exploits on both sides of the law. Forster had a thing for working-class bobbies, and indeed the sexually fetishised nature of both class and race are coyly hinted at.

But theres a difference between an exhibition that shows work by artists who are gay or queer or lesbian, and a thematic show that illustrates its subject or opens up a way of understanding its subject through mainly visual means. The former needs a lot more framing and scaffolding, and this is an exhibition that manages to work largely because of this framing though it also chooses to muddy the waters by including artists who dont fit under any queer labels at all. The heterosexual (probably) and married Laura Knight pops up, though of course, shes also an artist who punctured gender norms, albeit in a much broader sense, that is, by simply being a woman artist breaking the mould by painting female nudes in the first half of the 20th century. However, theres nothing really gender fluid about this.

Laura Knight (1877-1970), Self-Portrait, 1913, Oil on canvas, 152.4 x 127.6 cm, National Portrait Gallery (London, UK)

In the end, ones left with the impression that shes included because there simply arent enough women in this show so thank heavens for the overworked Bloomsbury Set and their associates for making up the numbers, I guess. Even so, one can have too many genteel drawing room paintings. And that the exhibition ends with its two biggest names, Hockney and Bacon, in a kind of showdown, underlines how much its skewed towards the male presence.

One could wish for any number of different exhibitions, more exciting than this one, to celebrate a half a century of increasing visibility. One from 1967 to now might have served its title better. Or one less willing to dilute its subject. Some private, graphically erotic drawings by Duncan Grant, perhaps, shows another alternative. One thinks of the private, erotic drawings and paintings of artists such as Turner or Rodin which have long fascinated curators. How much more intriguing it would it be to explore the more intimate nature of queer desire that such a possibility presents. Another time, perhaps, and in a smaller space.

Queer British Art is at the Tate Britain until 1 October 2017

Read the original here:

The Quietus | Features | Craft/Work | Colouring Out: Queer British Art ... - The Quietus

The Japan News 11:52 a.m. PT April 7, 2017

President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping walk together after their meetings at Mar-a-Lago, Friday, April 7, 2017, in Palm Beach, Fla. Trump was meeting again with his Chinese counterpart Friday, with U.S. missile strikes on Syria adding weight to his threat to act unilaterally against the nuclear weapons program of China's ally, North Korea. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)(Photo: Alex Brandon, AP)

The Japan News by The Yomiuri Shimbum published this editorial on April 3:

Uncertainty over U.S. President Donald Trump's ability to implement his policies has grown further.

The repealing of the U.S. health insurance system, known colloquially as Obamacare, which Trump had touted as one of his campaign pledges, has foundered.

The Republican Party, the force that supports Trump, has been divided over a bill to replace the health care system. Despite the party having a majority in the House of Representatives, prospects for the bill's passage were dim, leading Republicans to give up taking a vote on the bill on the House floor. This was a blunder putting off a vote on a key policy.

The president is not authorized to submit a budget or other bills to Congress. The president is required to make approaches to Congress for the passage of these bills and make efforts to win support from a wide range of legislators on them. It can hardly be deniable that Trump, who had no political experience, underestimated such a reality and neglected to coordinate views with Congress.

Obamacare was enshrined into law under the previous administration led by President Barack Obama. In order to reduce the number of uninsured people, which was estimated to total as many as about 50 million, the government and other entities grant subsidies, while making it mandatory for people to be covered by the health care plan. Even those who had been denied coverage on the grounds of their medical history have become eligible for it.

During the presidential campaign last year, Trump criticized Obamacare as bringing about increased fiscal burdens and skyrocketing insurance premiums, and his slogan was "repeal."

Yet the Republican Party's hard-line conservatives regarded it problematic that some public subsidies are still kept in place in the replacement bill, saying this would not constitute a repeal of the present program, and opposed the bill.

Also among moderates, a rebellious move spread as they were concerned about a possible increase in the number of the uninsured, due to the abolition of mandatory insurance coverage and cuts in subsidies.

The issue of how deep government should get involved in social welfare programs is one that leaves U.S. public opinion divided. This is also at the root of ideological antagonism within the Republican Party. Trump may have failed to recognize that it would not be easy for the party to unite over this issue.

The building of a wall on the border with Mexico another of Trump's campaign pledges has also been put on hold. House Speaker Paul Ryan has announced that the chamber will put off budgeting for the cost of the work.

It is also inevitable that hard-line conservatives, who attach importance to a balanced budget, would oppose other campaign promises targeted next for approval: large tax cuts, massive infrastructure investments, and higher defense spending. The state of "indecisive politics," with Congress not functioning, is likely to continue.

Trump will not be able to retain his supporters if he only issues one executive order after another, which would only negate the previous administration in such areas as a review of global warming measures.

His approval rating has fallen below 40 percent. The rating, just over two months since taking office, is a record low compared with those of past presidents. The so-called "Trump rally" of higher stock prices and stronger dollar has lost momentum.

These demonstrate the fact that people's hopes over Trump's experience as a businessman and his negotiating skills have been betrayed, with his political capability being questioned. Top-priority issues for Trump would be to make up for the delay in his Cabinet appointments and solidify the lineup of policy experts and go-betweens to connect the Cabinet with Congress.

Read the original version of this onine at http://the-japan-news.com.

Read or Share this story: http://desert.sn/2oaVNN9

Read more:

President Trump needs to score some legislative wins - The Desert Sun

Sometimes I wonder if we appreciate how much tax we actually pay and for what collective or personal benefit.

PAYE workers pay 25% (30% on earnings over $6m/annum) of taxable salary. What we can sometimes overlook - unless we carefully review our payslips - are the additional deductions (2.5% of total emoluments to NIS; 2.25% as Education tax; and 3% to NHT). So our intrepid PAYE worker finds at least 32.75% of his/her taxable salary separated at birth. Then he/she goes out into the world and pays another 11% of gross (16.5% of 67.5% left in the pay packet) as GCT.

It gets worse. If the frugal worker manages to save some 'what lef', Government gleefully slurps up 25% of any interest paid by his/her greedy banker, who has already extorted excessive 'fees' (plus GCT) for putting your money in a teller's drawer (or cashing your NIS pension cheque). By this time, our glassy-eyed PAYE worker ends up paying almost 50% of weakly (pun intended) sweat and tears to Government. Self-employed hacks pay over 50%, and companies pay 33.3% profits tax, plus matching contributions to the rest. In addition, companies are put to administrative cost as Government's tax collector for free as they must deduct these payroll taxes from employees' salary for remission to Government.

It's in this context that we should consider the feasibility of 2017-18 budgetary estimates that predict a massive increase in collections of 'old taxes', PLUS $14b in new taxes from the empty pockets of beat-up taxpayers already raped to the tune of 50%+ of their earnings. Also, before we roll over, wiggle our legs in the air, and apply Vaseline, we should carefully review what we're receiving in return for these taxes.

1. Income tax: This is the most egregious of all taxation because it literally represents Government picking the pockets of the poor to fund its operations while the wealthy and connected get away with murder. It's well known that Jamaica nurtures and nourishes flourishing underground economies (including a vast religious economic macrocosm) from which not a penny of tax is collected.

Income taxes should ensure that Government can provide, inter alia, educational, health, security, and infrastructural services. The philosophy underpinning this agreed pickpocketing exercise is that if taxpayers are prepared to utilise public-health services or public educational services, the additional expense should be as close to zero as makes no difference. Furthermore, infrastructural improvements should come with ongoing maintenance, so, for example, minefield-like potholes don't put harried taxpayers to unnecessary additional expense out of the 50% of salary he/she's permitted to keep, and modern, efficient, effective security forces should keep taxpayers safe.

Bottom line: We pay taxes to ensure we can spend the rest of our earnings as we like and not to repeat spend on things our taxes should be funding in full.

The premature abolition of hospital 'user fees' results in a broken-down public health system exemplified by the Cornwall Regional fiasco. Long before that particular kerfuffle, I was again prophetic when I wrote on January 29 ('The truth about leadership'):

"Leaders, tell us the truth about health care. Jamaica's health minister can make love to a camera better than Gary Cooper at high noon but only to broadcast babbling platitudes. Want to know the TRUTH? None of our public hospitals deserves the designation. All should be closed down for causing more disease than they cure."

Interior road surfaces destroy our ancient cars and eliminate taxis from participating. Key infrastructure is neglected until it becomes dangerous.

The JCF is so corrupt that no 'crime plan' can succeed or even be fairly assessed. CISOCA declared that the majority of high-profile perpetrators of alleged sexual intercourse involving underage persons were pastors and policemen.

Jamaica's education system focuses on standardised tests and cramming students through narrow tunnels to graduation like cattle with foot-and-mouth disease.

2. Education Tax: This 'dedicated tax', introduced with much fanfare for the express purpose of improving education, has instead been unceremoniously dumped in the Consolidated Fund with the same 'benefit' to taxpayers as income tax. No MP condemns this pusillanimous pilfering of taxpayers' earnings.

3. NIS: Miserly NIS pensions give senior citizens no social security. The delays in starting pension payments and the trouble seniors endure to collect make matters worse. Then seniors try to lodge their pension cheques in a bank that charges them twice the cheque's value (+ GCT).

4. NHT: This must be the Guy Lombardo Show! Created to provide low-cost housing solutions for the poor, the 'Trust' has proven most untrustworthy. When it isn't bailing out party hacks ('Outameni'), it's meekly handing over its surplus funds to central government for 'fiscal consolidation'. Bah, humbug!

All this is why one of the worst things done by this Government is the pernicious gas tax imposed on Thursday by Audley 'Are You' Shaw. Another was lowering the threshold for GCT on electricity. We know what this means. Deceptive devices like boasting 61% of JPS customers still fall below the threshold are cruel and unworthy.

No taxpayer can avoid this gas-electricity tax hike combo. If you don't drive, you must take buses or taxis, whose fares are about to shoot up commensurate with their increased petrol expenditure. If you decide to 'walk foot', you'll still buy bread, patty, yam, or flour, which will all be affected by increased transportation or electricity costs. Every business falls above the electricity threshold and must also pay the gas tax. Every business will pass along its increased expenditures to its customers. Tell us the truth, Audley.

All this is why one of the best things done by this Government was the significant increase in the income tax threshold to $1.5 million. This makes a real difference in people's disposable income. It's more than regrettable that the tax relief is given by the right hand and retrieved by the left, but Government does have a point that, at least, the additional taxation imposed to pay for '1.5' affects discretionary spending rather than coming directly from salaries.

Although this isn't what was promised, it's a reasonable compromise in all the circumstances, and one can easily read between the lines to see why it became necessary.

Speaking of reading brings me to Booklist Boyne's latest flight of fantasy. Either completely failing to comprehend my meaning or maliciously misrepresenting it, Booklist commented obliquely on my column on Vybz, suggesting that I supported Kartel's apparent ability to corrupt the prison system. Exposing himself as either a devout dunce or an incorrigible illiterate, Booklist wrote: "A silly comparison is made with Oku Onuora, who was allowed to do his poetry and to perform outside of prison as part of Manley's progressive prisoner rehabilitation programme in the 1970s. That was not done secretly. It was a part of government policy."

Really, Booklist? Seriously? I strongly recommend a course of JAMAL classes followed by a reread of my column when you'll discover I said EXACTYLY THAT. Oku Onuora, who I used as an example of creative work pursued while imprisoned, did so (in the main) within the rules, unlike Kartel, who appears to be breaking the rules.

THIS is what I wrote:

"There's nothing wrong with any artiste producing while in prison if it can be done within the rules. The 1970s dub poet Oku Onuora (born Orlando Wong) wrote while serving a 15-year sentence for armed robbery. In 1974, he was permitted by prison authorities to read his poetry with Cedric 'Im' Brooks' Light of Saba band performing in the prison. Afterwards, his work had to be smuggled out of prison (labelled 'subversive'). By 1976, all was forgiven and he won three prizes in the Jamaica Literary Festival. In 1977, he was allowed to perform in public at Tom Redcam library.

"If Kartel has corrupted the prison system to make this music, he should be convicted and sentenced along with prison officers found helping him.

"Any music produced by this method should be withdrawn from all aspects of the market. The fundamental characteristic of a prison sentence is that it's decided by a judge, not the convict. Also, it's meant to restrict the convict's freedom. Why should Vybz be free to bend prison rules as he likes while police hunt down robot taxis and strip off their tints?"

C'mon, Booklist! There are no multisyllabic words used. What REALLY is your problem?

Peace and love.

- Gordon Robinson is an attorney-at-law. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.

Go here to see the original:

Gordon Robinson | Taxed up the ass - Jamaica Gleaner