5 Facts to Help You With the Bridgerton Backstory – Lifehacker Australia

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If you, like me, absolutely smashed through Bridgerton on Netflix, you were probably left wondering about a few things and went down a rabbit hole of what really happened?! afterwards. Well, here are a few gems to help you sort the fact from fiction.

Sorry to be the party pooper, but Bridgerton is not a true story. The Netflix series is based on the historical romance novels by Julia Quinn. So, inspired by what life was like centuries ago, but with a heavy layer of fantasy added. Think of it like Jane Austen meets Mills & Boon. Its a similar story with Outlander, which is based on the saucy novels by Diana Gabaldon. Although if the time travelling in Outlander didnt serve as a tip-off to its fiction status for you, we have bigger issues to deal with.

Bridgerton is set in the early 19th century during the Georgian era (because King George III was on the throne). For some context of the mood in England at the time, the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act became law in 1807, making the slave trade illegal throughout the British Empire, but it took 20 years to get through parliament.

Yep. Old mate was officially delusional. So much so that his son, also George, a.k.a. Prince of Wales, acted as regent for nine years until King George III died in 1830.

Ok, so this issue has been a heated debate since the 1940s when Joel Augustus Rogers, a.k.a. J.A. Rogers, wrote Sex and Race Volume 1. Queen Charlotte was born Sophia Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz in 1744, and many portraits of her point to her African heritage. Frontline investigated the issue, reporting that Charlotte was directly descended from Margarita de Castro y Sousa, a Black branch of the Portuguese Royal House. But even though Charlottes great-great-great-great-granddaughter is the current Queen, Elizabeth II, the British Royal family has seemingly never gone on the record to clarify the matter. And we probably shouldnt hold our breath waiting tbh.

Women who did work back then were pretty much limited to domestic services (shout out to Daphnes ladys maid, Rose, who schools the poor Duchess in sex ed) or the textiles industry (like Bridgertons dressmaker, Genevieve, and her dubious French accent). It wasnt until the Industrial Revolution later in the 1800s that women had more options for work, but the conditions were woeful. So back in Bridgerton times, a proper ladys prime job was to marry well and procreate. Hence why Lady Whistledown is absolutely living her best life, earning her own coin incognito.

Side note: when Ive had a bad day, I go and watch the 2005 Pride and Prejudice (much quicker than the 6-hour BBC series) to remind myself that I am not Charlotte forced to marry the awful Mr Collins because she is a burden on her family. Perspective is everything. Youre welcome.

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US film featuring A-bomb survivor Setsuko Thurlow to hit Hiroshima theater on Jan. 22 – The Mainichi

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A scene from the U.S. documentary film "The Vow From Hiroshima." (C) 2019 Not Just a Survivor Film, LLC

HIROSHIMA -- A U.S. documentary film featuring Setsuko Thurlow, a Hiroshima atomic bomb survivor who has dedicated herself to the nuclear weapons abolition movement, is set to hit the screen in this city on Jan. 22.

"The Vow From Hiroshima" focuses on 88-year-old Thurlow's life from her young days to the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), for which she gave an acceptance speech along with the ICAN's executive director that December. The start of the film's run at the Hatchoza theater in Hiroshima's Naka Ward will coincide with the day the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons takes effect.

The film depicts Thurlow's memories of her days at what is now Hiroshima Jogakuin Junior & Senior High School and her atomic bomb experience, her marriage and move to Canada, where she got involved in the antinuclear movement and has lived ever since. The documentary also shows her witnessing the adoption of the nuclear weapons ban treaty at the United Nations in July 2017.

The film' American director, Susan Strickler, co-produced the work with Mitchie Takeuchi, the granddaughter of the director of Hiroshima Red Cross Hospital at the time of the August 1945 U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Her mother is also an atomic bomb survivor. The movie portrays how Takeuchi, a resident of New York, came to face up to her family's bombing experiences through her exchanges with Thurlow.

During a preview screening held at the end of November 2020, Thurlow, Takeuchi and Strickler addressed the audience via online video. Thurlow said with deep emotion, "Happy moments are occurring at a surprisingly fast pace, such as the Nobel Peace Prize for ICAN and the nuclear weapons ban treaty being set to come into effect. I wished I could've reported these developments to my schoolmates who perished that fateful day. We can move the world if we strive together."

Director Strickler expressed her hope that the movie will work to change the position of the Japanese government, which has not ratified the nuclear weapons ban treaty, with grassroots power. Meanwhile, co-producer Takeuchi commented, "I hope this film will provide an opportunity for us to think about what we can do."

(Japanese original by Noboru Ujo, Hiroshima Bureau)

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US film featuring A-bomb survivor Setsuko Thurlow to hit Hiroshima theater on Jan. 22 - The Mainichi

3 COVID trends predicted to stick around for the long-term – Smart Property Investment

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As the world adjusts to the new norm, property investors who want to outperform the market will need to adapt to new consumer demands, a property expert has said.

According to Pure Propertys founder and director, Paul Glossop, three key trends have emerged in the property market during the COVID-19 pandemic, which are likely to continueafter the health crisis.

The property investor highlighted the growing trend of Australian workers using their home as an office, with COVID-19 forcing Australians to adapt to working from home.

Before COVID-19, working from home was, for most, a one or two-day-a-week occurrence at best and done at an individual employee level, Mr Glossop said.

The recent events have seen this change, and it is now generally commonplace to work full-time from home.

He explained that this means new home owners will be focused on extra rooms and extra space as they continue to use their home as an office.

The director also said consumer preferences have changed, with lifestyle locations becoming a premium as workersspend less time in the office.

More and more people are thinking about where they want to live in a post-COVID-19 world that made areas with connectivity to social hubs, transport, schooling and, above all, space (inside and out) more appealing than ever, Mr Glossop explained.

This will lead to a continued push to value above proximity to office towers.

Finally, Mr Glossop believes incentives for first home buyers to get into the market are likely to be accommodating for the foreseeable future.

With incentives for first home buyers at record highs and the proposed abolition of stamp dutyin many states, first home buyers will be out in force, upgraders will also become far more active, seeking larger houses with more amenities (pools, extra rooms for work-from-home options, cafes, beaches waterway access), Mr Glossop concluded.

Investors will also make a comeback towards the second half of the year as the responsible lending laws are proposed to be amended by April 2021.

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3 COVID trends predicted to stick around for the long-term - Smart Property Investment

Five things the Legislature can do to make Pennsylvanians’ lives measurably better in 2021 | John L. Micek – Pennsylvania Capital-Star

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In just a few days, lawmakers in the state House and Senate will be sworn into office, kicking off a two-year legislative session that, if past is prologue (and it almost always is), will be replete with bridge and bypass renamings, votes to declare June the official month of something-or-other, and plenty of partisan sound and fury signifying nothing much at all.

But if 2020, for all its horror, pain, trauma and frustration taught us anything at all, its that government, when it functions at its best, can move swiftly and reasonably efficiently to do the most good for the largest number of people.

As I observed back in April, congressional authorization of the CARES Act was an affirmation that government can move affirmatively to make peoples lives measurably better. And once that door was thrown open, there are fewer excuses not to do it again.

Its also a truism that the Legislature, whose mitts are in almost every sector of life here in the Commonwealth, is best-positioned to improve the lives of nearly 13 million Pennsylvanians as the level of government thats closest to the people.

And, as my friend and colleague Jan Murphy, of PennLive, reported earlier this week, lawmakers did just that, as they enacted a law cracking down on human trafficking, among other measures. As the Capital-Stars Stephen Caruso reported back in July, lawmakers also approved, and Gov. Tom Wolf signed, a suite of police training and hiring reforms that were a first step on a much longer road.

So as the 203 members of the House and 50 members of the Senate get ready to return to work in 2021, here are a few modest suggestions on how they can best channel their energies to do the maximum amount of good right away.

Republicans who control the General Assembly spent much of 2020 squabbling with the Wolf administration over its pandemic management policies. By years end, that squabbling had devolved into a series of pointless and time-wasting veto override votes and mask-less and symbolic rallies that failed to produce measurable change. And given the choice during Novembers budget debate, lawmakers who pleaded for assistance to business owners socked by the pandemics economic ravages, instead opted to spend the states remaining $1.3 billion in CARES Act money to backfill state police, corrections officers and public health employees salaries, the Capital-Stars Stephen Caruso reported at the time.

In December, Democrats in the state Senate rolled out an ambitious, $4 billion, debt-funded relief proposal that would, among other things, provide nearly $2 billion in enhanced unemployment benefits and aid to businesses. A few weeks later, two Democratic lawmakers in the state House proposed a $200 million grant program, funded through the states Rainy Day Fund, for restaurant and bar owners struggling under the weight of indoor dining restrictions and rising case loads.

While its true that Congress has approved, and President Donald Trump has signed, a $900 billion stimulus program, lawmakers should treat that federal action as the beginning, rather than the end, of the good they can do for Pennsylvania.

Republicans have spent much of the past six weeks bleating about non-existent fraud in races that not only saw them safely re-elected, but also resulted in GOP wins in two of the three statewide row offices. Imagine if they put as much energy into solving a problem that actually exists.

Pennsylvania hasnt executed anyone since Philadelphia torture-killer Gary Heidnik went willingly to the death chamber in 1999. A moratorium on executions imposed during the first year of Gov. Tom Wolfs administration brought the states already grinding and expensive machinery of death to a complete halt. And as a new report by the Death Penalty Information Center makes clear, executions nationwide fell to historic lows during the pandemic as public opinion continued to turn against societys ultimate sanction. And policymakers listened. Colorado, for instance, became the 22nd state to abolish capital punishment, this year.

There is no question now that the death penalty is racist and classist, with with almost half the defendants executed in 2020 being people of color, and 76 percent of the executions were for the deaths of white victims. There is also a profound innocence problem, as the DPIC report makes clear: Five people were exonerated from death row in 2020, bringing the number of people exonerated from death row to 172 since 1973. In each of the five cases, prosecutorial misconduct contributed to the wrongful conviction, researchers found.

Last session, the unlikely pair of Rep. Chris Rabb, a Black progressive from Philadelphia, and Frank Ryan, a white conservative from Lebanon County, partnered on an abolition bill. Capital punishment remains the last criminal justice reform blindspot in a General Assembly that has taken some admirable steps to fix a broken system. For all practical purposes, Pennsylvania does not have the death penalty. There should be no issue, save for a lack of political courage, in getting rid of a non-functioning statute.

I mean, cmon, if New Jersey can do it and itll give Lt. Gov. John Fetterman one less thing to tweet about. Senate Republicans could take that, and the roughly $600 million in revenue gleaned from legalization, and declare a win.

Quick can you rattle off the names of the appellate judges you voted for in 2019? Can you even name four members of Pennsylvanias Superior or Commonwealth Courts? Im guessing no which just underlines the inanity of our current system of electing judges, which forces allegedly impartial jurists to raise money and wage nearly information-free campaigns for office, where the real beneficiaries are members of the trial bar and deep-pocketed corporate interests and not the voters.

Now, theres real movement afoot to make a bad system even worse with a GOP-backed effort to amend the state constitution to elect judges by region, rather than statewide. Critics warn that such a change would result in a dangerously politicized court system, WHYY-FM reported this week.

The lack of strict mapping criteria, in the proposal, or any protections for racial and language minorities combined with a total lack of transparency in the mapping process amounts to an open invitation to legislators to engage in partisan gerrymandering in order to increase the likelihood that candidates of their political party will be elected to the courts, Patrick Beaty, of the good government group Fair Districts PA, wrote in a Dec. 6 op-Ed for the Capital-Star.

If lawmakers are going to expend the energy on the rightfully difficult process of amending the states foundational document, their attention would be better directed to a proposal by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairwoman Lisa Baker, R-Luzerne, that would open a two-year window for civil litigation filed by the adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse. The proposed amendment won approval in the House and Senate in this years legislative session. Another round of approval in the 2021 session would put it before the voters as early as next springs primary election.

If the intent is to do the most good for the most people, Bakers proposed amendment, which would impact thousands of people statewide, is the obvious priority over a nakedly political amendment that no one, save partisans and special interests, is crying out to have passed.

Ive always been a huge fan of Hubert Humphreys maxim that the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in shadows of life, the sick, the needy, and the handicapped.

So even as many Pennsylvania school districts struggled to tame rising pension costs and deal with stagnant tax revenues, the state also saddled them with shouldering the rising cost of educating students living with disabilities without giving them the financial assistance to handle it, a new report concludes.

The states 501 school districts boosted their special education spending by $2 billion between 2009 and 2019, but state aid during that same period grew by just $110 million, concludes the Dec. 3 report by the Education Law CenterandPA Schools Work, citing the most recent state data.

The state budget approved in November includes more than $1.1 billion in funding for special education programs. Because of the pandemic, the line item is funded at the same level as it was in the 2019-20 fiscal year.

Advocateshave complained for years that the state is underfunding special education, and have called for the funding formula to be updated to provide a more level playing field for students with special needs.

In 2019, a joint analysis by theEducation Law CenterandResearch for Action, a policy research group in Philadelphia, concluded that the formula does not accurately account for district poverty. As a result, state special education funding does not fulfill its intended purpose of addressing funding disparities resulting from differences in local wealth.

Analysts argued that the state neededannual funding increases of $100 million a year or more to keep pace with rising costs. This is a debate that should be moved to the front of the queue in 2021.

As I also noted in April, merely reopening after the pandemic isnt enough. This new time calls for a reset on everything. The dawning of a new year offers just such an opportunity. The 253 members of the General Assembly should not squander it.

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Five things the Legislature can do to make Pennsylvanians' lives measurably better in 2021 | John L. Micek - Pennsylvania Capital-Star

Roger Moore’s 007 would have lost licence nearly eight times in his seven films – Mirror Online

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Never mind a licence to kill, its a miracle 007 even had a licence to drive judging by Roger Moores record in his seven films as Bond.

Shaken and stirred experts spotted enough law-breaking to clock up 91 points and get the super-spy banned nearly eight times.

The worst film offender jumped a river in The Man with the Golden Gun, drove a Mercedes on rail tracks in Octopussy and wrecked a Renault in Paris in A View to a Kill.

And Jardine Motors study found lots of crazy driving by other heroes.

But dishonourable mentions must go to Steve McQueen, Michael Caine and his pals, and Ansel Elgort who in one film each clocked up 50, 72 and 75 points respectively.

Vin Diesels 68 over nine Fast & Furious films seems positively safe in comparison.

Neil Greig, of UK Road Safety charity IAM RoadSmart, said: In the UK anyone attempting to drive fast and furiously will soon run out of rubber, run out of empty streets and run out of luck with the law.

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Roger Moore's 007 would have lost licence nearly eight times in his seven films - Mirror Online

On the frontline: How the government has made BAME lives dispensable – Varsity Online

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BAME people are over-represented as essential workers on the frontline of the pandemic. Tim Dennell | Flickr

Under the cover of the pandemic, the actions of the UK government have reinforced systems of racial oppression. The virus discriminates based on race: Public Health England data has established that BAME people are dying in disproportionately higher numbers compared to their white counterparts. BAME communities are on the frontline. They are overrepresented as essential workers, being placed in the most dangerous lines of work and, as a result, are more likely to die of the virus. The pandemic has both highlighted structural inequalities and seen government inaction help to reinforce these systems of oppression. The governments failure to protect BAME workers on the frontline has left them vulnerable to a virus which discriminates.

The actions of the government were indicted in a recent report by Baroness Lawrence, the mother of Stephen Lawrence, the black British teenager who was murdered in a racially motivated attack in London in 1993. Commissioned by Sir Keir Starmer, the Lawrence Review condemned the government for perpetuating racial inequalities through its response to the pandemic. She states:

Black, Asian and minority ethnic people have been overexposed, under-protected, stigmatised and overlooked during this pandemic... The impact of Covid is not random, but foreseeable and inevitable the consequence of decades of structural injustice, inequality and discrimination that blights our society.

Lawrence sends a clear message: the governments response to the pandemic has highlighted, enforced and entrenched existing structural inequalities.

The racial discrimination of the virus is evident. Those of Bangladeshi origin are 50% more likely to die of the virus according to Public Health England data. Almost three times as many black males and twice as many black females were infected with the virus compared to their white counterparts. The disproportionate impact of the virus can be explained by the overrepresentation of BAME people in frontline professions, particularly in the health sector, education and the food industry. The government designating certain workers as essential saw many BAME people put on the frontline against a virus that the government has failed to control.

The BAME lives lost in the pandemic cannot be reduced to statistics; daily death tolls are dehumanising and have left the public desensitised to this still unfolding tragedy. The death of TfL worker Belly Mujinga, a black woman who was spat on by a passenger and denied PPE by her employer, exposes the shocking neglect perpetrated by those with a responsibility to protect essential workers. Her death further ignited Black Lives Matter protests earlier this summer. Areema Nasreen, a brown woman, was one of the first nurses to die of the virus. She worked tirelessly in the intensive care units in a hospital near Birmingham. These stories remind us of the lives behind every statistic and demonstrate the overexposure of BAME people on the frontline and the failure of the government to protect them.

The most vulnerable communities experience the greatest impact of the virus, while the government continues to deny them protection.

The racial disparity in the effects of the virus has been investigated and some have suggested that biological factors can partially explain why BAME people are more likely to die of the virus. The August PHE report states that once comorbidities such as cardiovascular disease, hypertension and type II diabetes are taken into account, the disproportionate impact of coronavirus on BAME people is less pronounced. The link between these conditions and poverty highlights the connections between material conditions, race and risk of suffering from the virus. The report fails to investigate the intersection between occupation, deprivation, race and coronavirus deaths, a gross oversight that prevents us from gaining a holistic understanding of the risk posed by the virus. This type of simplification reduces the issue to genetics and fails to take into account the way in which deliberate actions taken by the government have reinforced structural inequalities.

Socio-economic inequalities have exacerbated the racial inequalities entrenched by the pandemic. The option to work from home simply isnt available for many, meaning that not just those workers deemed essential have had to travel, often on public transport, to unsafe workplaces, putting themselves at risk in order to survive. Poor and crowded housing has aggravated this crisis. Half of all Bangladeshis and Pakistanis live in poverty, limiting their ability to self-isolate or shield and putting their lives at greater risk. Like the Grenfell Tower tragedy, poor housing has exposed the intersection between poverty, government neglect and institutionalised racism, which has ultimately led to the avoidable loss of BAME lives. The most vulnerable communities experience the greatest impact of the virus, while the government continues to deny them protection.

Not only has the government put BAME workers on the frontline, it has actively targeted their communities during the pandemic. The Conservative MP Craig Whittaker stoked backlash by suggesting that Muslims were to blame for the spread of the virus, with the Prime Minister failing to denounce the comments. Furthermore, an investigation by Liberty revealed that the police are more likely to fine black and brown people for breaking coronavirus rules. This targeting of BAME communities by the Conservative government predates the pandemic and can be seen by the hostile environment policies that led to the Windrush scandal. The Equality and Human Rights Commission recently stated that these discriminatory actions were against the law. Racism is deeply ingrained in the states consciousness, meaning the simultaneous targeting and neglect of BAME communities is far from incidental.

As with the Grenfell tragedy, the Windrush scandal and the hostile environment policies, the governments response to the pandemic indicates that it does not value BAME lives. These systems of oppression however, are part of a wider malaise. Entrenched structural inequalities, both in institutions and wider society, have been highlighted by the pandemic. This is a time of crisis, and BAME lives are on the frontline.

Varsity is the independent newspaper for the University of Cambridge, established in its current form in 1947. In order to maintain our editorial independence, our print newspaper and news website receives no funding from the University of Cambridge or its constituent Colleges.

We are therefore almost entirely reliant on advertising for funding, and during this unprecedented global crisis, we expect to have a tough few months and years ahead.

In spite of this situation, we are going to look at inventive ways to look at serving our readership with digital content and of course in print too.

Therefore we are asking our readers, if they wish, to make a donation from as little as 1, to help with our running costs at least until this global crisis ends and things begin to return to normal.

Many thanks, all of us here at Varsity would like to wish you, your friends, families and all of your loved ones a safe and healthy few months ahead.

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On the frontline: How the government has made BAME lives dispensable - Varsity Online

Turkish politics and discussions on Islamic headscarf | Daily Sabah – Daily Sabah

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Hardly anyone in Turkey thought they would bid farewell to 2020 amid a fresh controversy surrounding the Islamic headscarf.

The response to Ali Babacan, who chairs the Democracy and Progress Party (DEVA), tearing up while talking about his sister's removal from the university during the infamous Feb. 28 process, fueled the debate anew. At the same time, Fikri Salar, a main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) heavyweight and former Cabinet minister, sparked controversy by publicly targeting women who cover their hair.

That Babacan, who cozied up to secularists and liberals for a while, reached out to conservatives with a reference to the headscarf ban unsettled skeptics, who have been urging him to engage in "self-criticism." Some have accused the former Justice and Development Party (AK Party) politician of "exploiting the past suffering of religious people." Others have said Babacan is "a follower of political Islam in the guise of a liberal."

Babacan could not even appease his critics by charging the ruling party for "using political power to oppress other groups." Instead, he was promptly asked to come clean and criticize his own political career.

Ironically, the former finance minister had emerged as a vocal critic of the AK Party government, brushing aside Generation Z's demand for reconciliation and mild language much like his former colleague, Ahmet Davutolu, who currently chairs the Future Party (GP).

The secularist backlash against Babacan's latest attempt to maintain his ties to conservatives speaks volumes about the dilemma facing Turkey's recently established political parties. Their fellow opposition figures do not tolerate the slightest outreach to conservatives Muslims, even if former AK Party politicians jump on the CHP's "dictatorship" bandwagon and agree to the restoration of a parliamentary system. In other words, they are strictly forbidden from paving a third way between the ruling party and the anti-government coalition, dominated by the CHP, the Good Party (IP) and the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP).

To make matters worse for them, the AK Party remains the true representative of conservative voters. President Recep Tayyip Erdoan abolished the headscarf ban that made Babacan weep. They cannot embrace the charge of authoritarianism or other liberal demands because everything is already taken.

Spokespeople for the DEVA and the GP target the government with the CHP's rhetorical ammunition, but they haven't uttered a single word yet to criticize opposition parties. One thing is clear: They cannot speak a genuine political language under that ultra-secularist oppression. They will end up further alienating conservatives, from among whom they emerged, and failing to make liberals and secularists happy.

I was deeply troubled by Salar expressing doubt about a judge, wearing a headscarf, protecting his rights and delivering justice. Those comments may have been dismissed as an act of ultra-secularist militance, not uncommon on the pro-CHP network Halk TV's shows, had the commentator been a leftist with extreme views. Instead, those words came from Salar, a prominent Social Democrat, revealing the deeply entrenched anti-headscarf sentiment among CHP's ranks.

It seems that the dream of reinventing the oppression that Turkey's religious citizens endured during the Feb. 28 process is still alive. That sentiment not only revives the outdated headscarf debate specifically, the arbitrary distinction between the providers and recipients of public services but also shows that the idea of "the reactionary threat" is very much alive in secularist minds.

To be clear, I do not expect the secularism debate in Turkey to come to an end. It is quite surprising, however, that such primitive interpretations of that principle are still so popular. One would have at least hoped that the crude, French-Jacobinist version was replaced by the Anglosaxon approach.

The fierce opposition to the religious headscarf, which Salar reaffirmed, clearly demonstrates that Turkey's Kemalists, leftists and secularists have not undergone the transformation necessary to appeal to voters. That's enough to understand why they cannot win elections.

The obvious question is whether conservatives should be concerned. It is no secret that conservative voters could experience another Feb. 28 process once the AK Party is no longer in power. The CHP leadership manages to conceal its thirst for revenge yet, perhaps, fortunately, pro-CHP networks like Halk TV kindly share the movement's real thoughts with the general public. There is a broad spectrum of CHP figures from those advocating a coup to those who want the call to prayer to be recited in Turkish and those who want to convert the Blue Mosque into a museum.

In contrast, the state's relationship with religion underwent a serious period of normalization under the AK Party. Muslim demands came to occupy a certain space in the public domain legally, as the secular lifestyle remained widespread. Outside the aggressive realm of politics, a fresh interaction between secularists and religious people became possible in socioeconomic life.

A brand of politics, which respects the religious demands of conservatives, will remain at the heart of Turkish politics. There is no reason to worry, as Erdoan's brand of struggle (rather than the liberal impostors bullied into self-critique) will be Turkey's strongest political current in the future.

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2020 marked with Indian oppression of Kashmiris – The Express Tribune

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ISLAMABAD:

Pakistan on Friday said for Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK), the year 2020 was marked with "Indian brutalities and oppression" of Kashmiris.

"The military siege, communications blockade, media blackout, incarceration of the Kashmiri leadership, and every possible violation of human rights of the Kashmiri people continue for 515 days since Indian's illegal and inhuman actions of August 5, 2019," Foreign Office Spokesperson Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri said in his weekly media briefing.

The spokesperson said in their brazen acts of state terrorism, the Indian occupation forces martyred more than 300 innocent Kashmiris, including women and children, in fake encounters and staged cordon-and-search operations.

He said during the same period, 750 Kashmiris were critically injured, while 2,770 innocent Kashmiris were arbitrarily detained and 922 houses destroyed as part of collective punishment inflicted on the Kashmiri communities.

In pursuit of its agenda to convert the Muslim majority of IIOJK into a minority, he said, the Indian government issued more than two million fake domicile certificates to non-Kashmiris under the so called "Jammu and Kashmir Grant of Domicile Certificate (Procedure) Rules, 2020".

The spokesperson said Pakistan reiterated its call for a UN Commission of Inquiry, as recommended by the OHCHR in its two reports in 2018 and 2019.

"The commission should thoroughly investigate the Indian crimes against the Kashmiri people during the past three decades," he stressed.

The spokesperson expressed Pakistan's deep concern over the health condition and continued incarceration of Kashmiri leadership, including founding leader of Kashmiri organisation Dukhtaran-i-Millat and the "Iron Lady of Kashmir" Asiya Andrabi, leader and founder of the Jammu & Kashmir Democratic Freedom Party; Shabbir Ahmed Shah; and prominent leaders such as Yasin Malik, Masarat Alam Bhat, Mohammad Ashraf Sehraie, Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq.

He recalled that Pakistan had written to the UN Secretary General and the UN Human Rights Commissioner, particularly highlighting the inhuman and illegal treatment of Andrabi.

Chaudhri said to divert attention from its internal failings and the situation in IIOJK, India continued to escalate tensions along the Line of Control (LOC).

"During 2020 alone, Indian occupation troops made 3,097 ceasefire violations, deliberately targeting the civilian populated areas. In these unprovoked Indian violations, 28 innocent civilians embraced shahadat, while 257 sustained serious injuries," he said.

The spokesperson said the Indian government with its illegal and inhuman actions had failed and "will continue to fail in breaking the will of the Kashmiri people".

"The brutalisation of innocent Kashmiris at the hands of Indian occupation troops, will only further strengthen their resolve for freedom from illegal Indian occupation.

I wish to reassure our Kashmiri brothers and sisters that they are not alone in their rightful struggle," he said.

He said Pakistan would continue to stand with them till the realization of their inalienable right to self-determination.

APP

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2020 marked with Indian oppression of Kashmiris - The Express Tribune

Democracy Will Never Be Delivered From Above. It Must Be Built From Below. – Truthout

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We are beginning a new year, yet the 2020 election is still raising questions about the future of democracy in the United States. Professor Camila Vergara is a postdoctoral research scholar and lecturer at the Eric H. Holder Jr. Initiative for Civil and Political Rights at Columbia Law School. She has written an important book, Systemic Corruption: Constitutional Ideas for an Anti-Oligarchic Republic, and says the U.S. is an oligarchic democracy, a system designed to serve some but not all. In this interview, Dr. Vergara discusses how we can implement real democracy, beginning at the local level.

Tom Bauer: Why does Joe Biden say U.S. democracy is the best system in the world?

Camila Vergara: The representative system that we call democracy was established for social hierarchies to be preserved and for elites who govern to be insulated from popular pressures. The founders had money and resources, and they wanted the people kept far away from power so they were not forced to redistribute. This was explicit in the design. The object of the liberal state was the preservation of private property. The working classes are always going to try and elect someone that will redistribute property. They needed a political system which would filter popular demands. They were afraid of the tyranny of majority when the real threat was the power of the wealthy. It was rotten from the beginning.

So, this is how the system is rigged.

Yes. Systemic corruption is a constitutional issue. I measure it by what the system is producing. The constitution organizes power, and power is paired with wealth. We can think of the level of inequality in a society as the degree of corruption that society has. If a big chunk of the GDP is being appropriated by the 1 percent, and the majority of the people are being relatively dispossessed, then the system is not working for the majority, but for the 1 percent.

Does democracy work at all?

We are not a democracy, we are an oligarchic democracy, a system with free and fair elections, and free speech [within certain limits], but run by the powerful few for the benefit of the powerful few. This is not done in a direct manner. They might say they are preserving a system or fail to change the system to benefit the majority. They receive money from corporations to not do anything because the best way to preserve the system is to leave everything as it is. Corruption is not just an action; it is also negligence.

By negligence, do you mean the signs of systemic corruption are revealed by what isnt done? By societal neglect like letting people die and environmental racism? And not protecting people from police violence? Not changing the laws?

Laws are never neutral. A law never benefits everyone the same. Here in the United States, police kill Black people in the streets on a daily basis. But I dont feel fear, even if Im not American, because Im white. The right to life or to live free from fear is not equally distributed. Moreover, the idea that our legislators are these neutral people who will make the best law is just absurd. It doesnt happen. There is always an agenda. We need to think about corruption more broadly, not merely as when a public official receives money in exchange for benefits, as it is currently understood. Corruption is built into the structure. It is how the system works. It is false that we are in a democracy and that the system works for the majority. The framers of the Constitution sold us an ideal that has never materialized. The ideal of formal equality is an illusion. Were not equal in society, only on paper. We need to re-politicize inequality because inequality is not natural but a by-product of our constitutional frameworks.

The law serves the elites, in a system which was designed to serve elites, and this is why the system maintains inequality. So, are we going to be able to do anything about things like systemic racism and climate change before we solve this problem of systemic corruption?

I dont think so. Think about the problem of the environment. It needs to be solved, people are all on board, but the governments are not doing enough, and theyre never going to do enough. In an oligarchic democracy, the oligarchs have the grip on power. The congress and the laws that are made, the judges and how they apply the law everything works for the benefit of the few. Not because individual judges are bought, not only because special interests buy individual lawmakers; its because the laws are made and applied in an unequal manner. They come predetermined. Its not about the specific judge being a racist, its because the law allows for inequality and discrimination. So, without solving the problem of how to make laws able to foster equality and control the power of oligarchs, who benefit from the current state of things, it will be difficult to achieve radical change.

If you want to tackle climate change, and you want to tackle it in a manner that is going to avert destruction, you need the people themselves making the judgement. The government cannot be trusted because the government is oligarchic. It is in the grip of oligarchy. It doesnt matter who you elect because they are not independent. You would have to change the elite in all the institutions, and that is more difficult than organizing popular power.

By popular power, you mean local assemblies, right? Can you explain a bit more about those?

Local assemblies in which people meet and make decisions. Theyre autonomous and can connect to other local assemblies. You had town hall meetings in the United States. These were instances in which the people met and made decisions, engaging in self-government. Thomas Jefferson lamented that the Constitution didnt institutionalize the town halls as it did with the other state powers. Jefferson is influenced by the tradition of popular government in the Roman Republic in which the common people had their own assembly. Today, we are talking about huge states. You cannot have one assembly of the people. You need to have assemblies in every district, connected in a network that works like a plant.

You mean like an organic plant, something that grows?

Yes. Government is hierarchical. It works like our own animal structure. It has a brain that commands, and it has the extremities that do. Plants have brains in each root and in each leaf, and they can communicate with other trees and plants. For example, if you have a plague or disease, trees produce a chemical reaction through the roots and the leaves that communicate to others to protect themselves by creating a kind of immunity response to that pest that is coming. So, there is solidarity in plants, and they go off in all directions. Basically, theres no central command in the tree. The roots go wherever they want, and if they find water they communicate to the others, so they can turn around in that direction. I think a network of local assemblies should mimic this decentralized structure.

Have you read Moral Tribes, by Joshua Greene? His solution to answering moral questions when youre not part of the same team may be similar to what you just described. One root has the skill that says the waters that way, but wait a minute, theyre Republican. So, in this decision were going to follow the Republicans; in the next decision we might follow the Democrats. It sounded like he was saying the ideal would be a bit more on a case-by-case basis, and the moral decision would be based on meeting the practical demands of the decision at the time to maximize benefit for all.

It is similar to what I propose. There should be no central command, and if there are assemblies that believe in something, theres no authority to make the others conform. If youre going to respect creativity and spontaneity, you need to allow for issues to arise organically, from the ground up. Take the case of Canada or Chile, where there is a minority of Indigenous people. If you ask citizens in Canada or Chile what are the 10 most important issues that need to be discussed, the majority would not put Indigenous issues because there are other things more important to them. Maybe health care or environmental things would be first. Maybe Indigenous issues, if they make the cut, would be way in the bottom. But if you have a decentralized network, it is likely that a resolution that has to do with Indigenous peoples will come from an Indigenous assembly. And even if your white, middle-class assembly would not actively sponsor Indigenous issues, it could vote in favor of that because it makes sense. But if you centralize decision making then the majority, who are not Indigenous, will have their issues bumped up, basically, and the others will never be discussed, or will be discussed in the margins without much consequence. However, if you are presented with an issue that makes sense to you, even if it doesnt benefit you directly, you are likely to support it. Then social change could come from one assembly that is marginal in proportion to the population.

So, what I propose is not a government of the majority, in which only the majoritys interests are primal, but a government in which the majoritys judgement and common sense rule. There is a kind of plant-like solidarity, in which we could support issues for the benefit of others. The same as the tree that is dying with a pest produces chemicals to alert others and save them, people organized in local assemblies could approve motions in solidarity with others. I think solidarity is part of human nature. Of course, greed is also part of human nature, but while greed is fostered by our current system, solidarity is not enabled because it doesnt have a space or an institution through which people could engage in it.

It sounds amazing. But how are we supposed to do this?

The only way to fight against systemic corruption which I define as the progressive oligarchization of power in society is to set up a counterpower, like the one in the Roman Republic in which the plebeian people those who were not aristocrats, like the majority of us today, who do not have privilege and live paycheck to paycheck had their own institution and their own representatives, the tribunes, who had the power to veto anything coming from the government as well as to initiate legislation. Today, we dont have that. Niccol Machiavelli said that for a republic to be really free, it needs to empower the plebeian people, those who are today de facto second-class citizens. A republic that does not give institutions to the common people to resist oppression ends up decaying into an oligarchy, a government of the few for the benefit of the few. Therefore, the constitution of liberty is a constitution based on institutional conflict, on dissent and struggle. Imagine if we had the power, as citizens, to veto laws that we believe are oppressive, or push for reform when elites are acting as gatekeepers of the status quo?

How do we get that power?

The power of assemblies comes from people acting together politically; we dont need permission to assemble, deliberate and decide. Historically, popular power has been the power of numbers, the power of being in the street, or in assemblies. If we could have local assemblies, even if they dont have any legal power, they could pressure government to comply. If, for example, a motion for repealing a law is voted and aggregated, and the majority of assemblies in a country agree to this repeal, I would say the government and the system need to respond to that. If youre the government and do not comply, youre going to lose in the next election. So even if local assemblies dont have legal power, the people by their number, their presence, exert pressure on elites. But ideally local assemblies need to have their power incorporated into the Constitution.

So, it sounds like theres going to be all these votes from all these different assemblies. How does it all shake out? Again, who decides?

When you vote as an individual, youre voting within the system, and within the logic of the system. Youre part of the system. When you are together and you can deliberate, and have arguments and testimony and experiences that are shared with people that you trust and people that you respect in your neighborhood that you already know, or that you start knowing, then something new can happen. Thinking with others, common sense arises, a common sense that is not constrained by the individualist system. Hannah Arendt says coming together, political action, can trigger a new beginning.

But how would this change the system? Can you walk us through the process a bit of how this might happen?

From any local assembly, a great idea could come out, and if that assembly approved a resolution, it could also be discussed in neighboring assemblies and then aggregated into a popular demand that could force government to comply. But the only way to do this is to do it through politics of presence: to be with others in the same space and reason together and not be mere passive receptors of the media. The media are selling you crap all the time, and the majority of the people buy it and end up voting to legitimize bad decisions. Its very easy to manipulate individuals to vote and legitimize a terrible policy if you are not in concert with others and sharing information. The only way to actually have a power that is going to be a counterpower that is going to rectify the bad things government does, is to have a network of primary assemblies from where common people can push back collectively.

But, ideally, power for assemblies will come from the Constitution?

Ideally. And, ideally, people would be paid. The only time ancient Athens was really a democracy was when Pericles established payment for going to the assembly. Everybody had the right to go to the assembly and vote and do government, but only the nobles had the time to go to the assembly to spend a day deliberating. If you were a farmer, which was the majority of the people, you needed to be farming. You couldnt spend a day going to the city to be deliberating. Pericles understood that the only way for the working classes to be able to attend the assembly for this to really be a democracy of the demos, the people was to pay them a salary. I pair this with the universal basic income (UBI) initiative.

Ive heard this before, the idea of making the people do something in exchange for UBI, like some kind of public service. Since UBI is about giving everyone a base income, is this like some kind of jury duty thing? Anyone and everyone could be called to attend public assembly as a trade-off for getting UBI?

Yes. If youre going to pay people, pay people for being political, and not just for being consumers. UBI is just receiving money and spending it, so you are reinforcing the system in being a private consumer. If you made the payment conditional to going to the assembly, theres an extra incentive to go and do politics. Its also a fiscal stimulus. This is also the only way for the poor to vote. The poor tend to abstain from voting. If youre going to have the poor engage in politics, you need to pay them. You need to give them food. You need to give them child care. They will go if you do this because they are deprived of this.

They are deprived because they are living in a corrupt system, which means they will have a lot to say about it. And free food is always a draw.

Its a great incentive. For the upper-middle classes, maybe not, because they have nannies and receive a good paycheck. So why would they waste their Saturday going to the assembly? But if you dont have any of those things, and you are going to have free food, even if just coffee and cookies, you probably will go. Its like the ark of Noah. If you build it, they will come. I hope that if we built the appropriate infrastructure to engage in politics at the local level, it will happen, and people will be engaged. And you dont need constitutional change for that. You can have a mayor from a city doing this, because it doesnt need to be by law.

The mayor of my city, Montreal, is Valrie Plante. What could she do to make this happen?

Have neighborhood assemblies. For that you need spaces where people can gather. Of course, COVID is difficult and winter is coming. But in summer, you can do it outside.

Can you Zoom assemblies?

Yes, you can have a Zoom assembly. And actually, Zoom can accommodate more than a hundred people. So you can have an assembly. The mayor would need to yield power.

Yield power?

This is the point. Its difficult. Mayors dont like to be told what to do. But youre not going to waste your time going to a Zoom assembly if you know your vote doesnt mean anything. Why are you going to waste your time if you have no power? In order to have assemblies work, they need to have power. A mayor would have to say, Okay, lets organize these neighborhood assemblies, and whatever is decided in these assemblies, I will do within my scope of power.

Insofar as she is able.

Yes.

After all, she needs wiggle room to deal with oligarchs, right?

Yes. When you have progressive leaders, they are generally trapped and powerless. If they want to push for something radical, they need to deal with the opposition of oligarchs. But if you have assemblies behind you, then you can say to the oligarchs: Look, the assemblies decided X and therefore I need to implement X, and if you go against them, it is probable you will mobilize them further.

Sounds a lot like what Bernie Sanders is trying to do.

If Bernie Sanders would have come to power and he wanted to put a wealth tax or whatever he wanted to do, how would he manage? Congress is completely deadlocked and you need super-majorities to do anything. So even if he would have been elected, he would not have been able to do much without the support of mobilization and assemblies. Having an organized popular power is a complement to our democracy, and having this new actor would really materialize democracy.

By new actor, you mean a new peoples institution of constitutionally mandated assemblies?

Yes. Democracy is the rule of the people, but the people today do not rule. We pay six figures to mayors, the president and legislators to do their jobs, but if theyre not doing their jobs, we dont have any mechanism to control them. Thats why we need a new popular institution to be a counterpower to resist the oligarchic tendencies of the system.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

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Democracy Will Never Be Delivered From Above. It Must Be Built From Below. - Truthout

German cultural institutions oppose government’s antiBDS resolution aimed at quashing criticism of Israel – WSWS

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On December 9, 30 leading German cultural institutions issued a statement opposing a resolution directed against the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement passed by the German parliament (Bundestag) a year and a half ago. More than 1,000 artists from Germany, Israel and around the world have lent their support to the statement.

The Bundestag resolution Resolutely confronting the BDS movementcombating anti-Semitism was put forward by the parliamentary groups of Germanys governing grand coalition of the conservative Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) and Social Democratic Party (SPD), together with the opposition parties Free Democratic Party and the Greens. The resolution accused the BDS of anti-Semitism.

Modelled on the movement against apartheid in South Africa, BDS calls for a boycott of Israel and demands, among other things, an end to the occupation of Arab lands, the demolition of the wall around the occupied territories, legal equality for Jews and Arabs and the right of return for Palestinian refugees, as agreed in UN Resolution 194.

The Bundestags condemnation of BDS served to denounce and suppress as anti-Semitic any criticism of the policies of the Israeli government, which is at the centre of imperialist preparations for war in the Middle East. The Bundestag resolution demanded the withholding of any public spaces and financial support to organisations and individuals with any sort of connection to BDS, or who sympathise with its aims. This meant, de facto, the suppression of any criticism of the foreign policy of the German government, which, despite occasional tactical differences, pursues its own imperialist goals in the Middle East in close cooperation with Israelone of the most important markets for Germanys arms industries.

It is highly significant that the Bundestag resolution also received support from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which plays down the crimes of the Nazis and tolerates numerous anti-Semites and neo-Nazis in its ranks. When it came to the vote, the AfD faction abstained only because it had put forward its own, even harsher motion, calling for a ban on BDS. The Left Party also introduced its own motion, which condemned BDS in the same manner as the government motion but included a few phrases about reconciliation between Jews and Palestinians.

The December statement by the cultural institutions now makes clear that the real aim of the all-party Bundestag resolution was not to combat anti-Semitism, but rather to suppress freedom of expression. Since the passing of the Bundestag resolution, numerous artists and intellectuals, including Jews, have been disinvited from scheduled events or boycotted because they criticise the policies of the Israeli government or defend the rights of Palestinians.

A key part of the statement by cultural institutions reads: In the name of this resolution, significant voices and critical positions are being suppressed on the basis of false accusations of anti-Semitism. The cultural institutions formed a working group titled Initiative GG 5.3 Weltoffenheit, in whose name they published their declaration. The name refers to the clause dealing with the freedom of art and science enshrined in Article 5 (3) of Germanys Basic Law.

The cultural initiative was supported by internationally renowned institutions such as the Berliner Festspiele, the Deutsches Theater Berlin and the Alliance of International Production Houses, academic institutions such as the Einstein Forum Potsdam, the Berlin College of Science, the Centre for Research on Anti-Semitism at the Technical University of Berlin, as well as state-related organisations such as the Goethe-Institute, the Federal Cultural Foundation, the Humboldt Forum Foundation and Berlins House of World Culture.

The latter organisations fear that the suppression of all criticism of Israel will endanger their work in other countries, but the main driving force of the declaration is the concern that suppressing critical views plays into the hands of right-wing, authoritarian tendencies and stifles the freedom of culture.

The common fight against anti-Semitism, racism, right-wing extremism and any form of violent religious fundamentalism is at the heart of our initiative, the statement reads. Germanys historical responsibility should not lead to a blanket moral or political delegitimisation of other historical experiences of violence and oppression. Confrontation and debate must be possible, especially in publicly funded cultural and discursive spaces.

The declaration ends with the statement that a society open to the world and that permits public discourse and dissent is the basis which allows the arts and sciences to continue to exercise their own function: i.e. critical reflection on the social order and an opening up to alternative world concepts.

As an example of the negative consequences of the Bundestag resolution, the declaration cites the case of the Cameroonian historian and political researcher Achille Mbembe. Mbembe was invited to give the opening speech to this years Ruhrtriennale but was then confronted with a wave of accusations of anti-Semitism after he described the Israeli occupation of Palestine as a form of colonialism and compared it to the apartheid policy of South Africa. The artistic director of the Ruhrtriennale refused to turn down his invitation and the administration of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia cancelled the meeting in the meantime, citing the coronavirus pandemic.

Mbembe is only one of many who have been accused and censored as a result of the Bundestag resolution. Artists who have been accused of anti-Semitism include the London-based author Kamila Shamsie, who was stripped of the Nelly Sachs Prize by the city of Dortmund, and the rapper Tali Kweli, whose invitation to participate at the Open Source Festival in Dsseldorf was withdrawn. The most recent and notable case involved Israeli students at Berlins Weiensee Art Academy, who were prevented from carrying out a series of meetings critical of Zionism by the university administration.

There have been previous cases of attempts to suppress the BDS. On December 13, 2017, Munichs city council banned by a large majority any meetings in municipal premises that deal with, support, follow or promote the BDS. A motion opposing this ban was initially rejected by Germanys Administrative Court. Following an appeal, Germanys Higher Administrative Court justified the plaintiffs motion in November 2020.

In 2018, the director of the Jewish Museum in Berlin, Peter Schfer, was forced to resign after holding a podium discussion with the Jewish philosopher and feminist Judith Butler and the anti-Zionist professor Micha Brumlik. More than 400 Jewish scholars, mainly from the United States, Israel and Germany, protested against Schfers resignation, which came in the wake of huge political pressure from the Israeli embassy. Brumlik criticized the accusations against Schfer as a sign of the decline in left-liberal cultural circles, likening it to a new form of McCarthyism directed against all those suspected of some sort of support for the BDS.

The artistic director of the Berliner Festspiele, Thomas Oberender, who signed the declaration against the governments BDS resolution, said in practice it led to revoking invitations to artists and scholars who have worked in Germany for many years and whose work has never violated the values of our Basic Law.

Hartmut Dorgerloh, the general director of the Humboldt Forum Foundation in Berlin, pointed to the growing influence of far-right radicalism in German public life and declared, We are living at a time when rational behaviour is being disregarded at the highest political level. [...] a time when critical positions toward the Israeli government are equated with anti-Semitism, while nationalist and openly racist forces gain momentum.

The American philosopher Susan Neiman, director of the Einstein Forum Potsdam for the past 20 years, told Deutschlandfunk radio that as a Jew she reacted angrily when no reference was made of the broad range of Jewish discussion worldwide, but instead only very conservative voices could be heard. Criticism of the Israeli government must be possible, she said: According to the logic of the BDS resolution, neither Albert Einstein nor Hannah Arendt would be allowed to give a lecture in Germany because, although they supported the state of Israel, they were both very critical of the unjust treatment of the Palestinians.

The accusation of anti-Semitism against leftists and intellectuals plays into the hands of right-wing radicals and fascistssuch as Donald Trump, Viktor Orbn, Matteo Salvini, Rodrigo Duterte and the AfDwho identify with the racist policies of the Israeli government and have been greeted jubilantly as state guests in Jerusalem. In Germany, the number of anti-Semitic crimes by far-right radicals increased sharply last year and more and more cases of anti-Semitism and pro-Nazi tendencies have been uncovered in the German police and the armed forces. At the same time, accusations of anti-Semitism are levelled against any leftist who criticises the policies of the far-right Israeli government.

The German government and its anti-Semitism commissioner, Felix Klein, have sharply rejected the statement by cultural activists. The German government repeated its mantra that the State of Israels right to exist was non-negotiable. A spokesman for the Foreign Office said that its officials had ruled out any cooperation with the BDS movement before the resolution was passed and had refrained from supporting any means which could promote the BDS. The CDU faction of Leipzig City Council is seeking to take action against the director of the citys annual Documentary Film Festival (DOK), who signed the statement by cultural bodies.

The basis for this slanderous campaign is the definition of anti-Semitism laid down by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), which is enshrined in the Bundestags BDS resolution and bluntly criminalises political criticism of the state of Israel.

Internationally, the accusation of anti-Semitism is being used to persecute even the mildest critics of Israel. In the UK, former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn was suspended temporarily and tens of thousands of his supporters purged from the party on drummed-up charges of anti-Semitism.

BDS co-founder and well-known Palestinian politician Omar Barghouti was denied entry to the US where he was scheduled to give a lecture at Harvard University, while the Netanyahu government denied entry to US members of Congress Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib. The Israeli state has drafted an extensive blacklist of individuals who are denied entry to the country due to links to BDS.

Anti-Semitism, i.e., the racial hatred of Jews, is an ideology associated with the extreme right. In Germany, it assumed the most pernicious, murderous form with the Holocaust. But in other countries, it also serves the ruling class as a means of deflecting the anger of mostly petty-bourgeois layers of the population threatened with social decline by directing them against the Jewish part of the population. Socialists, on the other hand, have always fiercely fought against the poison of anti-Semitism and repeatedly opposed all forms of discrimination against Jews.

The denunciation of left-wing criticism of the reactionary, anti-democratic policies of the Israeli government as anti-Semitic, alongside the political campaign to denigrate Islam, reflects the rightward shift of the ruling class. Domestically, it is aimed at criminalising those critical of the government and, in terms of foreign policy, justifying militarism and oppression in the Middle East and other parts of the world.

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German cultural institutions oppose government's antiBDS resolution aimed at quashing criticism of Israel - WSWS

Indigenous rights bill weak, but necessary – ThePeterboroughExaminer.com

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The case for passing Bill C-15, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, was crystallized last week with Conservative Party Leader Erin OTooles ignominious remarks sanitizing the residential schools.

OToole suggested the intent of the schools was educational and snidely advised using the record of Liberal governments as a means to silence debate. While the comments betray OTooles whitewashing of Canadian history, he was right about one thing: discrimination, dispossession and denial of Indigenous rights is a proud bipartisan tradition in Canada.

Like every significant advance for Indigenous rights within Canada, Bill C-15 results from decades of activism, organizing and struggle led by Indigenous peoples. It is a short, relatively simple piece of legislation that affirms the UN declarations application in Canadian law. The bill also provides a framework for aligning laws and policies to be consistent with the declaration through a mandated action plan with annual progress reporting. Bill C-15 is based on a similar private members bill tabled by former NDP MP and residential school survivor, Romeo Saganash.

The UN declaration defines the minimum standards for dignity for Indigenous people as human rights related to culture, identity, language, health and education. It also includes articles on self-determination and self-government, redress and restitution, and the requirement to secure Indigenous peoples free, prior, and informed consent for developments within their lands. It is these clauses that have the potential to transform Crown-Indigenous relations and begin to undo hundreds of years of Crown veto and the attempted destruction of Indigenous cultures, governance system and legal orders.

The Trudeau government has long espoused commitment to the declaration. Every day, however, thousands of decisions are made by the Crown that directly contradict it. Case law has set some minimum legal requirements to consult and accommodate should Indigenous rights be infringed. In our experience, even this minimum standard is often unmet, the Crown preferring to force Indigenous people to prove that their rights have been infringed after the fact.

The courts can only do so much to remedy the conflict between the Crown and Indigenous peoples. Bill C-15 moves the country in the direction of resolving the conflicts proactively. As required under the bill, the first action plan is to identify and prioritize which laws and acts to harmonize.

Bill C-15 also makes explicit the need to address state-led racism and violence. The governments actions and inactions have created inequities that cry out for action every day. Weve all seen the reports: the unequal funding of housing and infrastructure; the overrepresentation of Indigenous people in the criminal justice system; the race-based oppression inflicted on Indigenous people in the Canadian health-care system; and the continued removal of Indigenous children from their communities by child service agencies, to name a few.

Even by its modest objective of aligning laws with the declaration over time, the bill is weak. It gives the government three years (!) for the action plan to be developed. The tabling of that plan and the annual progress reports to Parliament are vague and do not provide any remedy beyond public pressure should there be no progress to speak of. Perhaps Trudeau thought better of an ambitious timeline after unconscionably missing the target to end boil-water advisories in First Nations?

The limitations of the legislation run deeper. In 2019, British Columbia passed its law implementing UNDRIP that includes mechanisms to enable shared decision-making with First Nations, including statutory powers. Statutory decisions are generally defined by legislation, and power often rests with a minister or civil servant. B.C.s law enabled the Crown to negotiate agreements that share decision-making with Indigenous governing bodies and require their consent before the Crown executes decisions that could affect them.

Bill C-15 does not have any tools to help operationalize consent or create new ways for Indigenous title to be implemented. Its slow, incrementalist approach is frustrating. Nevertheless, it has merit. Despite shortcomings, the bill will provide new avenues and contestation sites for Indigenous rights movements to advance.

Most importantly, it binds any future government, no matter its political stripe, to the high standard of consent and the inevitability of Indigenous self-determination. Until the fundamental structures for how decisions are made, Indigenous political movements will continue to challenge Canadas authority and the myth of Crown land.

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Khelsilem is an elected leader for the Squamish First Nation. Jonathan Sas is an honorary witness to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He was an adviser to B.C.s minister of Indigenous relations.

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Indigenous rights bill weak, but necessary - ThePeterboroughExaminer.com

Tennessee Continues COVID-19 Vaccination – tn.gov

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NASHVILLE Tennessee continues efforts to administer COVID-19 vaccinations as described in the states COVID-19 Vaccination Plan. Tennessee county health department staff members administered more than 25,000 COVID-19 vaccinations during the New Year weekend, and more than 157,000 total vaccinations have been administered statewide to date.

We are pleased with the overwhelming interest Tennesseans are showing in receiving COVID-19 vaccinations, and are working as quickly as possible to provide vaccinations as we receive additional shipments of vaccines, said Tennessee Health Commissioner Lisa Piercey, MD, MBA, FAAP. Some Tennesseans are now receiving their second doses of vaccine as well, so they will be well protected against COVID-19.

COVID-19 vaccine supplies remain limited at this time, and availability of vaccines varies by county. Tennessee is currently working to vaccinate Phase 1a populations and individuals aged 75 and up as vaccine supplies are available.It is important to note Tennessee counties may progress through COVID-19 vaccination phases at different times, depending on supplies of COVID-19 vaccines. To learn what phase your county is in, visit https://covid19.tn.gov/covid-19-vaccines/vaccine-phases/.

This week shipments of COVID-19 vaccines are expected to begin arriving at Tennessee pharmacies that are partnering with long-term care facilities to vaccinate their residents and staff members onsite, as outlined in Phase 1a1 of Tennessees COVID-19 Vaccination Plan. As county health departments vaccinate phase 1a2 and begin to vaccinate those aged 75 years and older, pharmacies will also be administering vaccines for long-term care facility residents and employees. Although this may result in smaller shipments to county health departments, it is critical to get vaccines to those who are the highest risk of severe illness and death from COVID-19 as quickly as possible.

TDH reminds all Tennesseans that in addition to vaccination, wearing a face mask, maintaining social distance and getting tested when exposed or sick are critical to controlling the pandemic.

The Tennessee Department of Health updated the Tennessee COVID-19 Vaccination Plan Dec. 30. The plan is available online at http://www.tn.gov/content/dam/tn/health/documents/cedep/novel-coronavirus/COVID-19_Vaccination_Plan.pdf Find answers to frequently asked questions about COVID-19 vaccination at http://www.tn.gov/content/dam/tn/health/documents/cedep/novel-coronavirus/COVID-19_Vaccine_FAQ.pdf.

The mission of the Tennessee Department of Health is to protect, promote and improve the health and prosperity of people in Tennessee. Learn more about TDH services and programs at http://www.tn.gov/health.Connect with TDH on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn @TNDeptofHealth!

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Tennessee Continues COVID-19 Vaccination - tn.gov

FDA Statement on Following the Authorized Dosing Schedules for COVID-19 Vaccines – FDA.gov

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For Immediate Release: January 04, 2021 Statement From:

Statement Author

Leadership Role

Commissioner of Food and Drugs - Food and Drug Administration

Leadership Role

Director - Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER)

Two different mRNA vaccines have now shown remarkable effectiveness of about 95% in preventing COVID-19 infection in adults. As the first round of vaccine recipients become eligible to receive their second dose, we want to remind the public about the importance of receiving COVID-19 vaccines according to how theyve been authorized by the FDA in order to safely receive the level of protection observed in the large randomized trials supporting their effectiveness.

We have been following the discussions and news reports about reducing the number of doses, extending the length of time between doses, changing the dose (half-dose), or mixing and matching vaccines in order to immunize more people against COVID-19. These are all reasonable questions to consider and evaluate in clinical trials. However, at this time, suggesting changes to the FDA-authorized dosing or schedules of these vaccines is premature and not rooted solidly in the available evidence. Without appropriate data supporting such changes in vaccine administration, we run a significant risk of placing public health at risk, undermining the historic vaccination efforts to protect the population from COVID-19.

The available data continue to support the use of two specified doses of each authorized vaccine at specified intervals. For the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, the interval is 21 days between the first and second dose. And for the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, the interval is 28 days between the first and second dose.

What we have seen is that the data in the firms submissions regarding the first dose is commonly being misinterpreted. In the phase 3 trials, 98% of participants in the Pfizer-BioNTech trial and 92% of participants in the Moderna trial received two doses of the vaccine at either a three- or four-week interval, respectively. Those participants who did not receive two vaccine doses at either a three-or four-week interval were generally only followed for a short period of time, such that we cannot conclude anything definitive about the depth or duration of protection after a single dose of vaccine from the single dose percentages reported by the companies.

Using a single dose regimen and/or administering less than the dose studied in the clinical trials without understanding the nature of the depth and duration of protection that it provides is concerning, as there is some indication that the depth of the immune response is associated with the duration of protection provided. If people do not truly know how protective a vaccine is, there is the potential for harm because they may assume that they are fully protected when they are not, and accordingly, alter their behavior to take unnecessary risks.

We know that some of these discussions about changing the dosing schedule or dose are based on a belief that changing the dose or dosing schedule can help get more vaccine to the public faster. However, making such changes that are not supported by adequate scientific evidence may ultimately be counterproductive to public health.

We have committed time and time again to make decisions based on data and science. Until vaccine manufacturers have data and science supporting a change, we continue to strongly recommend that health care providers follow the FDA-authorized dosing schedule for each COVID-19 vaccine.

The FDA, an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, protects the public health by assuring the safety, effectiveness, and security of human and veterinary drugs, vaccines and other biological products for human use, and medical devices. The agency also is responsible for the safety and security of our nations food supply, cosmetics, dietary supplements, products that give off electronic radiation, and for regulating tobacco products.

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01/04/2021

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FDA Statement on Following the Authorized Dosing Schedules for COVID-19 Vaccines - FDA.gov

Austin infusion center to open this week to help treat COVID-19 patients – KXAN.com

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Austin infusion center to open this week to help treat COVID-19 patients - KXAN.com

Oregon Health Authority reports 728 new COVID-19 cases, six additional deaths linked to the virus – KPTV.com

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Oregon Health Authority reports 728 new COVID-19 cases, six additional deaths linked to the virus - KPTV.com

I-Team: McCarran ranks among top airports for TSA COVID-19 infections – KLAS – 8 News Now

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Airport takes step to address passenger spread; TSA installs barriers

by: David Charns

LAS VEGAS (KLAS) Las Vegas McCarran International Airport ranks among the top in the United States where Transportation Security Administration screeners and employees have been infected with COVID-19, new data the I-Team obtained shows.

Out of nearly 300 airports in the country with confirmed COVID-19 cases, McCarran ranks tenth for the number of TSA employees and screening contractors who have gotten sick with the virus.

As of Monday, there were 117 recorded cases of COVID-19 in TSA at McCarran since the agency began tracking the number. Four employees who do not screen passengers had also been infected, data said.

McCarran is among the nations busiest airports, ranking No. 9 for passenger volume in 2018, according to FAA data.

The nations busiest airport, Atlantas Hartsfield-Jackson International, reported 151 cases. The airport with the most recorded cases as of Monday was Los Angeles International, with 310 confirmed cases.

TSA screeners are required to wear masks and gloves, as well as some sort of eye protectant.

More than 850 TSA employees across the country were actively infected with COVID-19 as of Monday, the TSA reported. Thirteen TSA employees across the country and one screening contractor have died from the virus.

All passengers are required to wear a mask in the airport. Officials at McCarran have also taken steps to disinfect high-traffic areas, provide hand sanitizer and limit capacity on shuttle buses.

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I-Team: McCarran ranks among top airports for TSA COVID-19 infections - KLAS - 8 News Now

Worker at hospital with inflatable costume dies of COVID-19 – Los Angeles Times

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An employee working the Christmas shift at Kaiser Permanente San Jose Medical Center has died after falling ill with COVID-19. The person was one of at least 43 staff members who tested positive for the coronavirus in recent days, an outbreak possibly linked to an employee who wore an inflatable holiday costume to lift spirits.

The staff member who appeared briefly in the emergency department on Christmas Day wore an air-powered, holiday-themed costume, according to a hospital executive. KNTV-TV, the San Jose NBC station that first reported the outbreak, reported that the costume was an inflatable Christmas tree.

Inflatable costumes are typically battery-powered and use a fan to keep the costume puffed up. Such a fan can propel virus particles in a room.

The person who wore the costume subsequently tested positive for the coronavirus, the hospital confirmed Monday.

KNTV-TV reported that the person who died was a woman who worked as a registration clerk in the emergency department.

Our thoughts and prayers are with those affected by this terrible loss. We are providing support to our employees during this difficult time, said a statement issued by the hospital late Sunday.

In a statement Saturday, Irene Chavez, senior vice president and area manager of Kaiser Permanente San Jose Medical Center, said officials were investigating whether the costume contributed to the outbreak.

Any exposure, if it occurred, would have been completely innocent and quite accidental, as the individual [wearing the costume] had no COVID symptoms and only sought to lift the spirits of those around them during what is a very stressful time, Chavez said. If anything, this should serve as a very real reminder that the virus is widespread, and often without symptoms, and we must all be vigilant.

Chavez said the hospital would no longer allow air-powered costumes at its facilities and was taking steps to reinforce safety precautions among staff, including no gatherings in break rooms, no sharing of food and beverages and the wearing of masks at all times.

The highly contagious coronavirus usually spreads through droplets sprayed from a persons mouth and nose, such as through breathing, talking, coughing or sneezing, and usually land six feet or so from a person before falling to the ground. People can be highly contagious with the virus without showing signs of illness.

Strong drafts of air can help the coronavirus infect others. In one such case in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, a pre-symptomatic person who had just returned from Wuhan the first hotbed of the global pandemic was eating lunch at a restaurant. Scientists concluded that the person infected two other families sitting at neighboring tables about three feet away; they suspect that infected droplets from the index patient hitched a ride on air flows powered by an air-conditioning system.

In the heart of Silicon Valley, San Jose is the largest city in Santa Clara County, Northern Californias most populous county, which has hospitals dealing with severe overcrowding in its worst surge of the pandemic. On New Years Day, 97% of Santa Clara Countys available ICU beds were occupied.

Santa Clara, home to nearly 2 million people, had the worst rate of coronavirus cases and COVID-19 deaths in the last week of any county in the Bay Area, according to a Times analysis. It recorded more than 74,000 cases and 740 deaths.

Last week, county officials said hospitals were stretched to the limit, with 50 to 60 patients each day stuck in emergency rooms waiting for beds.

Often, the only time a patient can be moved into an ICU bed is after a COVID-19 patient has died, said Dr. Marco Randazzo, an emergency room physician at OConnor Hospital in San Jose and St. Louise Regional Hospital in Gilroy.

Every ICU bed at St. Louise Regional Hospital was full, and patients were in so-called surge beds, Chief Operating Officer Gloria de la Merced said last week. This level of hospitalizations has never happened during my career, she said. If we go beyond the surge capacity, everyone will be affected more people in our community will know someone who died.

Across Santa Clara County, the daily coronavirus case rate is more than 10 times what it was Oct. 30. What we are seeing now is not normal, Dr. Ahmad Kamal, director of health preparedness for Santa Clara County, said last week.

This has been the state of the pandemic for the last several weeks, he added, and it is showing no signs of letting up.

Kamal pleaded with the public to continue to wear masks, stay socially distant and cancel gatherings.

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Worker at hospital with inflatable costume dies of COVID-19 - Los Angeles Times

COVID-19 Surge Forces Ambulances to Have Wait Outside South Bay Hospitals – NBC Bay Area

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Santa Clara County hospitals have been hit so hard with so many COVID-19 cases, ambulances have had to wait outside -- with patients -- for hours in some cases before those patients can be admitted. And those hospitals say they're expecting another, post New Year's surge.

If we have another surge on top of that, it's going to be devastating, said James Williams from Santa Clara County Council. "Sometimes that has occurred sporadically in the past, but this is happening at an increasing frequency, across the board, across all the hospitals."

The Regional Medical Center of San Jose has been especially busy.

"We make sure that everyone who is critical is seen and seen right away, but there are waits for some, said Sarah Sherwood, Regional Medical Center spokesperson. Fearing that the post Christmas and New Year's rush is days away.

"We're bracing for a huge onslaught of patients, said Sherwood. We're prepared for this, and we know how to deal with this, we're trained for this, but it is very difficult, our staff is tired."

Meanwhile, there is a triage system in place to do its best to divert an ambulance on its way to a hospital that's too crowded. Instead, sending that ambulance to a different hospital nearby that has a bed open.

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COVID-19 Surge Forces Ambulances to Have Wait Outside South Bay Hospitals - NBC Bay Area

Department of Health Provides Update on COVID-19: 5,529 Patients Hospitalized and 1,149 Patients in the Intensive Care Unit – Pennsylvania Pressroom

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Harrisburg, PA - The Pennsylvania Department of Health today confirmed as of 12:00 a.m., January 4, that there were 3,226 additional positive cases of COVID-19, in addition to 4,579 new cases reported Sunday, January 3 for a two-day total of 7,805additional positive cases of COVID-19, bringing the statewide total to 665,097. The case counts today are atypically low as a result of technical maintenance to the data server on Sunday. This technical maintenance did not impact the death reporting system on Sunday or Monday as the death data comes from a different server.

There are 5,529 individuals hospitalized with COVID-19, near double the peak in the spring. Of that number, 1,149 patients are in the intensive care unit with COVID-19. Most of the patients hospitalized are ages 65 or older, and most of the deaths have occurred in patients 65 or older. More data is availablehere.

The trend in the 14-day moving average of number of hospitalized patients per day has increased by nearly 5,400 since the end of September.

Statewide percent positivity for the week of December 25 December 31 stood at 15.0%.

The most accurate daily data is available on the website, with archived data also available.

As of 11:59 p.m. Saturday, January 2, there were 56 new deaths and as of 11:59 p.m. Sunday, January 3, there were 66 new deaths reported for a total of 16,361 deaths attributed to COVID-19. County-specific information and a statewide map are available on the COVID-19 Data Dashboard.

Mask-wearing is required in all businesses and whenever leaving home. Consistent mask-wearing is critical to preventing the spread of COVID-19.

There are 58,275 individualswho have a positive viral antigen test and are considered probable casesand 637 individualswho have a positive serology test and either COVID-19 symptoms or a high-risk exposure.

There are 3,301,186 individuals who have tested negative to date.

In nursing and personal care homes, there are 54,465 resident cases of COVID-19, and 9,827 cases among employees, for a total of 64,292 at 1,479 distinct facilities in all 67 counties. Out of our total deaths, 9,023 have occurred in residents from nursing or personal care facilities. A county breakdown can be found here.

Approximately 19,437 of our total cases are among health care workers.

COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution

Pennsylvania hospitals began receiving shipments of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine the week of Dec. 14 and Moderna COVID-19 vaccine the week of Dec. 21.

Through Jan. 3:

A spreadsheet of facilities that have received vaccine can be found here.

Statewide The Wolf Administration has since noon, Jan. 3:

The Wolf Administration stresses the role Pennsylvanians play in helping to reduce the spread of COVID-19:

Updated Coronavirus Links: Press Releases, State Lab Photos, Graphics

All Pennsylvania residents are encouraged to sign up for AlertPA, a text notification system for health, weather, and other important alerts like COVID-19 updates from commonwealth agencies. Residents can sign up online at http://www.ready.pa.gov/BeInformed/Signup-For-Alerts.

MEDIA CONTACT: April Hutcheson - RA-DHpressoffice@pa.gov

# # #

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Department of Health Provides Update on COVID-19: 5,529 Patients Hospitalized and 1,149 Patients in the Intensive Care Unit - Pennsylvania Pressroom

Mayo Clinic study shows lower mortality rates among its COVID-19 patients compared to the world – KTTC

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ROCHESTER, Minn. (KTTC) -- Patients receiving COVID-19 treatment at Mayo Clinic have a better outcome compared to hospitals around the world. That's according to a study released by Mayo on Dec. 22.

The study looked at 7,891 COVID-19 patients within the Mayo Clinic Enterprise (Minnesota, Florida, Arizona and outcare systems). Of those patients, 77 percent received some kind of COVID directed therapy, 11 percent of patients were hospitalized, 4.5 percent were admitted into the ICU and 1.1 percent died.

"How this compared to other center is that it's lower than anything else that's been reported," Mayo Clinic COVID Research Task Force Dr. Andrew Badley said.

Dr. Badley compared Mayo's numbers with the latest numbers this last week. Around the country, there were more than 20.5 million cases and 350,000 deaths, for a 1.7 percent death rate. Around the world, there have been 79 million cases and 1.7 million deaths, making for a mortality rate of 2.1 percent.

"At Mayo we saw 1.1," Badley said. "So why are these results different?"

Badley credits Mayo's success with a variety of advantages.

"We had the opportunity to learn from experience," he said.

With the deadly virus making itself known on the West coast, he leading health organization also had time to plan and prepare before outbreaks starting occurring where its hospitals were.

"So, the approach we put together was a multi-layer integrated approach. We brought together experts on everything we could think of," Badely said. "So, COVID, and immunology, and intense care unit and kidney disease and blood clots, to make sure we always had, at our fingers tips, the most up to date information about COVID."

Clinical trials also played a role in the hospital's success.

"Early in the epidemic, there weren't a lot of clinic trials. Within several months there were a lot. We had the option of choosing between clinical trails, and we could select the trails that most likely would have a meaningful impact."

This let the enterprise lead other hospitals in the fight. For example, creating a separate location to treat COVID-19 patients with antibodies.

"What we have done, and what other centers have started to do, is we have created out patient centers that are only for COVID patients," Badley said. "So, we can administer these antibodies to COVID patients and not risk infecting other patients."

Perhaps the biggest feat though, is the teamwork mentality demonstrated by those on the frontlines.

"It's a true testament to the teamwork of Mayo employees everyday, even pre-COVID. So, everybody from janitorial staff, to secretarial staff, nursing staff, to specialties; when there has been a request -- and there has been a lot of requests these last ten months -- they jump up to do it without hesitation. Because it's in the best interest of our patients."

The study took place between March 1 and July 31, 2020.

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Mayo Clinic study shows lower mortality rates among its COVID-19 patients compared to the world - KTTC