Disembarking the container – The News International

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There are least two areas in which this government, despite the odds, seems to have done some stellar work the first is the diplomatic work by Mohammad Sadiq that is helping forge Pakistans seriousness as Afghanistans most reliable partner and neighbour, and the second is the work to contain Covid-19 by Asad Umar and the NCOC that has clearly eased the post Ramazan/Ramadan and Eidul Fitr spike of Covid-19 infections and fatalities.

Both represent major successes for Pakistan, tenuous and temporary as they may be. Yet PM Khan and his supporters will find little to no traction for celebration. Hardly anyone has even acknowledged these positive developments. It all seems a little unfair. The big question is: why?

Well, lets imagine Prime Minister Imran Khan waking up every morning to assess his stature as the countrys undisputed leader. How would he be feeling? He has a cabinet in which members go after one another harder than they do the opposition. He has a press and media that has stopped gushing at his every smile and soundbyte (for the most part). He has a regional security situation in which Indias oppression in Kashmir is intensifying, with reports of thousands of RSS thugs being shipped to further intimidate and cow ordinary Kashmiris. He also has to consider the world after a US withdrawal from Afghanistan, with worrying reports of TTP consolidation and public threats being made by a mysteriously free and liberated Ehsanullah Ehsan.

Most of all, PM Khan is going to be held responsible, rightly or wrongly, for a broken and dysfunctional economy in which Covid-19 has wreaked untold havoc scores of unemployed Pakistanis will either not be covered by the BISP/Ehsaas programme, or will not find a one-time Rs12,000 cash grant to be enough to survive on.

If you think about all this from PM Khans perspective though, it would seem a little bit unfair. Covid-19 wasnt invented by PM Khan, and yet he has taken a lot of flak (for off-the-cuff speeches and misstatements) and received little credit (for relatively better than expected infection and fatalities numbers in July, and a swift passing of the post Ramazan/Ramadan and post-Eid spike).

Indias annexation of Kashmir on August 5, 2019 was not enacted by PM Khan. Yet many question what the government and PM Khan have done for Kashmir and Kashmiris.

The economic mess that PM Khan inherited has certainly not been fixed, but prior to Covid-19 he and his team had certainly managed to lend greater stability to the macroeconomic numbers leave aside the fact that I believe deficit reduction to be a misguided setting of tactics as strategic objectives (fiscal and external balances are tools to achieve policy goals, they cannot and should not be goals in and of themselves).

In so many things, whilst this government has been ill-prepared to govern, incapable of grappling with the wider challenges, and undeniably bereft of a grip over its own ambitious reform agenda: it has not been terrible at everything. Indeed, in perhaps the issue that should matter most to all Pakistanis the well-being of our fellow citizens the expansion of the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) under the Ehsaas umbrella, has been one of the truly great moments in Pakistani statehood. With over 16 million households now having received an unconditional cash transfer of Rs12,000, the path to a universal basic income in Pakistan is now clearly defined. This alone can (and should) stand as an outstanding achievement for this government.

Yet Islamabad is abuzz with rumours. The intensity of the whispering ebbs and flows, but there certainly continues to be an intense sense of foreboding in the air. Smart money knows that the three pillars of the current regime are not going anywhere. But there is constant uncertainty and a wider sense of instability that makes the monsoon air thick with intrigue and anticipation. Again, the big question is: why?

PM Khan and his supporters will claim that the criticism of the government is rooted in vested interests as he and his cabinet enact major reforms to the countrys system of governance. When asked for proof, they will offer up the declaration of assets by the special assistants to the prime minister, and the publication of the sugar and wheat pricing scandals. But publishing these lists is neither a reform nor particularly reformist. From Hamood-ur-Rehman to Quetta, to Abbottabad to Faizabad, if the publication or leaking of facts and analysis was the same thing as reform, Pakistan would look very different than it is. This government either doesnt want to, or worse, is not capable of distinguishing between noise-making and system-making.

And this, at its heart, is the problem. The current government is not nearly as incompetent and incapable of governing as it seems. Its most profound and serious challenge is not Maryam Nawaz Sharif, or Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, or Maulana Fazlur Rehman, or any other political competition. This governments most profound and serious challenge is the undiagnosed and untreated case of verbal dysentery that afflicts almost every single member of PM Khans inner circle, and especially aspirants to this inner circle.

This is a killer flaw, and it is why there is so much political uncertainty in Islamabad. On its merits, the Pakistani opposition today cannot even violate the gag orders that restrict the primary leaders of the most potent opposition party, the PML-N. They are not about to enact some grand scheme to take down PM Khan. But what the PML-N, PPP, JUI-F and every other opponent do have going for them is PM Khan himself. They know that, for example, a series of slogans shouted at him in the assembly can distract him from his agenda, and set him and his core PTI support base on a destructive path.

Opponents of PM Khan have figured out the killer formula. You dont need to beat Imran Khan indeed, given how power is configured in Pakistan today, you cant. All you need to do is let Imran Khan beat himself. And beat himself he will.

The most important challenge facing the PTI government and its survival is not politics. It is economics. Covid-19 has exposed the foundational mess the economy is in. Daronomics, whilst perhaps unsustainable, and certainly costly, worked. It produced the one thing that this country needs more than any other thing: GDP growth.

Ask PM Khan: what is your economic vision? You will get a flurry of feel-good soundbytes. The word corruption will appear early and often. Why? There is no vision. Ask PM Khan: how will Pakistan enact a jobs-heavy recovery from Covid-19? You will get more soundbytes. More corruption blah-blah. Why? There are no jobs. Not now. Not in six months. Ask PM Khan: what is the plan for Pakistan to take advantage of the economic opportunities Covid-19 creates in international trade? You will get some feel-good soundbyte about diaspora and the PTIs fundraising prowess. Why? There is no plan.

This government will not go down because it is incompetent. It is not dramatically more incompetent than any previous government. It will go down because it is stuck on a container, nearly six years after the container almost sunk the entire political capital of the PTI. Being PM or a member of the cabinet is not a performance on a container. It is real. The ultimate test of the Pakistani leader is how many jobs she or he helps create, and how much more money he can put in pockets, in showrooms and on the streets.

Take a good look at the words and actions of PM Khan and his cabinet and ask yourself: where will the jobs come from? Where will the growth come from? How will more money get into more Pakistani pockets?

Silence.

Thats why this government is in trouble. The rest is just noise. And most of it is coming from the government itself.

The writer is an analyst and commentator.

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Disembarking the container - The News International

This is what reconciliation looks like: Why Discovery Day needed to go – CBC.ca

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Kim Campbell-McLean is the executive director of the AnnauKatiget Tumingit Regional Inuit Women's Association. (Submitted by Kim Campbell-McLean)

When I heard the Newfoundland and Labrador government decided it was no longer appropriate to have a holiday celebrating John Cabot, I was shocked and ecstatic, both at the same time.

Needless to say, as an Indigenous woman, I have never celebrated Discovery Day.

In June, Premier Dwight Ball announced that the government will no longer call the holiday nearest June 24 "Discovery Day." For now, it will be called "the June holiday."

Ball also stated that in the spirit of reconciliation, the government will consult with Indigenous governments and organizations before a new name is chosen.

I am excited for the prospect of a holiday we all can celebrate and enjoy as a province, and I was shocked because the issue finally got the attention it needed to bring about positive change and reconciliation.

I thought about my ancestors.

I thought about the oppression they went through and how strong and resilient they were.

The writings of my great-great-grandmother, Lydia Campbell, came flooding through my mind like from a burst dam.

She wrote about the first race of Inuit people and how tall and beautiful they were. She wrote about how many Inuit families there used to be and on her travels seeing 20 or more sealskin tents all together. She wrote about seeing the Innu in their beautiful red birchbark canoes paddling beautiful Lake Melville, with the Innu men steering from the back, the women helping by paddling, and the children in front singing songs in their mother tongue.

She wrote about seeing Inuit after they returned from a world's fair, and how much they had changed. They no longer spoke Inuttitut and no longer dressed like Inuit.

She went on to write that over the years there was only one kayak left in the bay and hardly any Inuit or Innu around like there used to be. In her published diaries, she blames the European settlers for their demise.

I reflected, and then I whispered, "This one is for you."

I quietly thanked two very strong women who made a major influence on my life while growing up. They taught me that when you go forward in life with the purest of intentions for the betterment for all, profound change can happen.

It was with that teaching in mind, when I agreed to contribute my thoughts to Maclean's magazine last year. A reporter was working on an article last summer about Discovery Day.

That experience led me to write Premier Dwight Ball, who is also minister of Indigenous and Labrador affairs, just days later, officially asking for the name of the Discovery Day holiday to be changed.

After all, it was the premier himself who stated that if he received an official request to change the name of Discovery Day, his government would be open for discussion.

A few weeks ago, I was a guest on CBC Radio's CrossTalkto talk about this very issue once again. The timing of the show was as profound as the message:the need for reconciliation with Indigenous peoples and the need to decolonize our province.

Three days later, the premier announced that indeed, the holiday would be changed as of at that moment. Humbly, I have to wonder: did I help to make that change happen?

Well, folks, this is what reconciliation looks like in the year 2020. Decolonizing, one step at a time.

As a society, it is up to us to bring about reconciliation. It is up to us to look at and call out systemic racism for what it is and to advocate for change. The colonialistpolicies that make up government structures and institutions in our province and within Canada need to be challenged, by us.

It is up to us to do the work and hold our government accountable.

It is up to us.

Over and out.

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This is what reconciliation looks like: Why Discovery Day needed to go - CBC.ca

The Mississippi state flag and the Confederate Flag Symbols of oppression – moosejawtoday.com

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A look at the Confederate Flag and 'Jim Crow Laws' in the United States from historian Richard Dowson

The last official remnant of the Confederate Flag has ended. This comes 155 years after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union General Ulysses Grant at Appomattox, Virginia on April 9, 1865. Slavery ended September 22, 1862 when President Abraham Lincoln and his government passed the Emancipation Proclamation.

The Confederate States economy was agrarian. It relied heavily on slaves to work the plantations and farms. Confederates wanted to continue slavery.

The Confederate Flag is associated with Slavery and Jim Crow Laws.

After the Civil War during reconstruction, southern states passed laws that marginalized African Americans. State and local laws were passed legalizing segregation in schools, public places, washrooms, restaurants, pubic transit and more and people became indentured farm workers with limited economic opportunity. The right to vote was curtailed by Jim Crow Laws.

The Confederate Flag continued as a symbol of slavery, and the segregationist Jim Crow Laws enacted in many Southern States after the Civil War.

The name Jim Crow was the stage name of entertainer Thomas Dartmouth Daddy Rice. In the 1830s he put on black face and pretended to be an ill-educated, stereotype African American Slave. The Jim Crown name came from the song, Jump Jim Crow he preformed.

Changes to segregation began in 1948 with President Harry Trumans Executive Order 9981 that abolished discrimination in the American Military based on race, colour, religion or national origin. This led to the end of segregation in the military in 1950, during the Korean War.

A notable story is that of Rosa Parks. In 1955 she was riding a Montgomery, Alabama public transit bus after work, heading home from her job. Coloureds had to sit in the back of the bus, Whites in the front. When the front section was full, White people sat in the Coloured section and those there had to give up their seat.

Rosa would not give up her seat when asked. She was arrested.

The case went to the Supreme Court and Rosa won the busses were de-segregated.

Change has been slow. Many of the remnants of Jim Crow continue, including efforts to limit voter registrations and voting opportunity in some Southern States.

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The Mississippi state flag and the Confederate Flag Symbols of oppression - moosejawtoday.com

Roberto Mangabeira Ungers Alternative Progressive Vision – The Nation

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(Courtesy of Verso)

What is the way forward for progressives in a time when it seems both centrism and authoritarianism are resurgent? What should be the character and scope of a national program that progressives in and outside the Democratic Party can and should embrace? There are many places to look for answers to these questions, and no doubt the answers will have many inspirations.Ad Policy

One of the most incisive articulations of an American progressive alternative is that of Roberto Mangabeira Unger, a Harvard Law professor, philosopher, and former Brazilian politician. He has written over two dozen books addressing an unusual diversity of topics, including critical legal theorywhich he helped developeconomics, philosophy, and religion. Given this range, it would be unfair to reduce Ungers work to one core idea. But perhaps the major theme of his work is summed up in his argument that society is made and imagined, that it is a human artifact rather than the expression of an underlying natural order.

What this means is that nothing in our societythe economy, liberal democracy, the legal order, etc.is predetermined toward some definitive end. They are human creations, artifacts whose forms can therefore be challenged, transcended, and ultimately reoriented for the purpose of greater human liberation, individually and collectively.

What makes Ungers progressive vision of society unique are its religious and prophetic elements. He sees human beings as having a divinelike capacity to transcend their societal circumstances to achieve greatness. What prevents them from doing so is the false assumption that there can be no substantial alternative to inherited political institutions. His work exposes this false necessity while providing progressive social, political, and economic alternatives to it. In this regard, his work can offer progressives key resources for exposing the false necessity of the American liberal status quo and thinking constructively about a different progressive vision for the United States.

The Nation recently spoke with Unger about his proposal for an alternative progressive track for American politics. Along the way, we discussed racial injustice in the United States, Donald Trumps election, democratizing new technologies, the future of education, and progressive taxation. Of pressing importance is the topic of structural economic and political change, and in turn, whether Ungers vision is impractical. This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins

Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins: Right now the streets are filled with protesters demonstrating in the aftermath of George Floyds brutal killing by Minneapolis police. Progressives have long struggled to confront and overcome racial injustice in the United States. You have criticized their approach, the dominant approach, to racial oppression. What is your understanding? And what is your proposal?

Roberto Mangabeira Unger: To grasp the meaning of this moment for the future of the country, it is useful to begin by distinguishing the immediate backgroundthe failure of the established approach to racial injustice in the United Statesfrom the larger context of which this failure forms a part: the disorientation of American progressives and the long-standing absence in American politics of any program responsive to the needs, interests, and aspirations of the working-class majority of the country, white or black.

The prevailing response to racial injustice in the United States has been the integrationist orthodoxy. It treats racial injustice as a threshold issue, to be addressed before all problems of economic equality and opportunity. Its signature expression is affirmative action. It has done little for those who most require protection, the vast number of black people who languish in prisons and dead-end jobs. This approach has offended the white working-class majority, who believe themselves to be victims of a conspiracy between sanctimonious white elites and the representatives of black workers. And it has provided a model for the identity politics that has addressed legitimate demands for respect and recognition only by diverting the country from engagement with its structural problems.

There is an alternative. The alternative is to distinguish individualized racial discrimination from the advancement of the unequipped, the excluded, and the impoverished. Individualized racial discrimination should be criminalized, as it is in many countries. Social advancement should be predicated on real disadvantage or exclusion, wherever it is found. Racial stigma should serve as only one of the standards that, together with other forms of disadvantage, trigger such advancement. Race should be combined with class rather than separated from it.

DSJ: How did the country arrive at its present situation, with the presidency in the hands of Donald Trump, after decades in which millions of working-class voters abandoned the Democratic Party? MORE FROM Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins

RMU: The principal vehicle of American progressives, the Democratic Party, failed to come up with a sequel to Franklin Roosevelts New Deal. The sequel would have had to be very different from the original, which focused on economic security rather than economic empowerment and offers no model for how to bring more American workers into the good jobs of the most productive parts of todays economy.

Let us look coldly at what has happened since then. Having begun under Lyndon Johnson by treating the poor as an insular minority in need of support and blacks as another insular minority in need of rights, progressives offered nothing to the working-class majority of the country other than later to dissolve them into a series of group identities and special interests. Conservatives responded with the formula by which, under Democratic as well as Republican administrations, they won and wielded power for half a century: combining material concessions to the moneyed class with moral concessions to the moneyless classes. For this whole period, the United States has had no economic growth strategy other than cheap money, delegated by the federal government to the central bank, and productivity growth has stagnated. The majority of American workers have feltand beenabandoned.

Into the expanding vacuum that resulted from these successive abdications came the plutocratic populism of Donald Trump: a big fat hoax, given that it has done nothing for the abandoned majority other than to wage war against low-skill immigrants while continuingit must be acknowledgedto get high employment, with relatively few good jobs, on the basis of the cheap-money policy. What an opportunity for the progressives, if they had a program. They dont.

DSJ: What, then, should be the character of a national alternative that progressives in and outside the Democratic Party can embrace?

RMU: The progressive program the country needs would address the supply as well as the demand sides of the economy, production as well as consumption. It would seek to innovate in the economic, educational, and political arrangements that shape the primary or fundamental distribution of advantage and opportunity rather than devoting itself solely, as the humanizers of the supposedly inevitable have, to the after-the-fact correction, through progressive taxation and redistributive social spending, of market-generated inequalities. More generally, the individual should be secured in a haven of capability-assuring educational and economic endowments and of safeguards against private and governmental oppression. Society all around him, however, should be opened up to contest, experiment, and innovation. In that storm, the individual, once safe and equipped, can move unafraid. The storm does not arise spontaneously. It needs to be arranged.

The true aim of the progressives should be a deep freedom, achieved by changing the structure of social life, rather than a shallow equality. The struggle against entrenched and extreme inequality is subsidiary to the larger goal, to become bigger together. And the method should be structural changethe criterion of depthchange in the established institutional arrangements and ideological assumptions. Real structural change is not the replacement of one indivisible, predetermined systemsocialism for capitalismby another. It is fragmentary but cumulative. The goal of shared empowerment and the refusal to take the established institutional form of society as an unsurpassable horizon are what together oppose the progressive to the conservative.

These generalities mark a direction. They do not excuse us from proposing the initial steps by which to begin to move in that direction in a particular society and time. A combination of innovations in the economy, education, and democratic politics would start to give shape to the alternative that the country lacks.

DSJ: You have argued in your most recent book, The Knowledge Economy, that progressives need an approach to the supply side of the economy. What does such an approach entail for the future of the American economy and the situation of American workers?

RMU: At the heart of the economic part of a progressive program must be the attempt to develop a socially inclusive form of todays most advanced practice of production, the knowledge economy, informed by science and devoted to perpetual innovation. It exists in every sector of the American economyin intellectually dense services and even in precision agriculture, as well as in the high-tech industry with which we tend, too narrowly, to identify it. In every sector, however, it appears only as a fringe, a series of insular vanguards of production excluding the overwhelming majority of businesses and workers. Practices, more than technologies, are what set the knowledge economy apart. These practices bring production closer to discovery. The insularity of the knowledge economy results in both economic stagnation and economic inequality. It causes economic stagnation by denying the most advanced practice to most economic agents. And it roots economic inequality in a lengthening chasm between the advanced and backward parts of production.

To move toward an inclusive knowledge economy, the country needs to develop a 21st century equivalent to the 19th century system of agricultural extension by which it created, on its agrarian frontier, family-scale agriculture with entrepreneurial attributes. That would require establishing between the government and the producers an intermediate cadre of support centers, with wide autonomy and professional management and financed by a combination of subsidies and fees, to give a wider range of small- and medium-size enterprises broader access to advanced practice and technology, as well as to capital, and to identify and disseminate best practice.

But it is not enough to lift up businesses. It is also necessary to reach out, by analogous means, to people who have little or no relation to business organizations. The best place to begin is the middle part of the job structurethe part most hollowed out by the economic changes of recent decadesimproving the equipment and skills of people such as machine repair technicians and nurse practitioners. The goal would be to turn them into technologically equipped artisans. From there, it is possible to move, with similar methods and intentions, both up and down the job hierarchy.

This second wing of the productive uplift effort in turn merges into initiatives designed to strengthen labor in its relation to capital. No dynamic of inclusive rise in productivity can flourish against the background of low-wage and insecure labor. In the United States, as around the world, stable employment is ceasing to be the norm. More and more jobs are temporary, part-time, or otherwise insecure. The reality of labor performed under decentralized contractual arrangements, rather than as part of a stable labor force assembled in large productive units, cannot be reversed. It results from changes in the forms of production. But it can be mastered by the law to prevent flexibility from meaning insecurity. The free-for-all gig economy must not become the rule. The counterpart to productive uplift is new labor lawto organize, represent, and protect unstable labor.

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DSJ: Progressive politicians like Bernie Sanders and progressive academics like Thomas Piketty have emphasized the role of redistributive taxesincluding taxes on wealthin diminishing inequality. Why do you resist? And what do you see as the proper place of taxation in a progressive program?

RMU: No progressive program is feasible without a substantially higher tax than the United States now implements. Comparative fiscal experience reveals the truth about taxes. Structural or institutional change reshaping the fundamental distribution of opportunity and advantage decisively overshadows anything that can be achieved by retrospective redistribution through tax and transfer. Moreover, in determining the overall impact of the budget on both its revenue-raising and spending sides, the aggregate level of the tax take and how it is spent count for more than the progressive profile of taxation. A tax that is neutral toward relative prices may make it possible to raise much more public revenue with much less economic trauma, as the European social democracies do through heavy reliance on the avowedly regressive value-added tax, and then to spend it on redistributive public services.

That is not a reason to reject the steeply progressive taxation of both individual consumption and wealth, so long as we understand that the redistributive effects of these taxes are likely to be modest unless we have the power and will to radicalize them and to tolerate the resulting economic disruption. Evidently, many progressive politicians prefer pietistic gestures to transformative effects. Bereft of a structural program, they simply want to show on whose side they are. And some of them are now distracted by the pleasant thought that, regardless of special circumstances, they can evade the whole problem by printing money instead of raising it.

DSJ: The economic changes that you propose, including a socially inclusive knowledge economy, seem to have far-reaching implications for education. What are they, and how can they be reconciled with a class divide that is also an educational divide in America?

RMU: The United States suffers from a severe form of educational dualism. Its schools are some of the best and the worst among high-income countries. There are two tasks. The first task has to do with the institutional setting of the school system. In this vast, unequal country, organized as a federation, the priority is to reconcile the local management of the schools with national standards of investment and quality. Such a reconciliation is incompatible with the exclusive dependence of the schools on local public finance. And it requires cooperation within the federal system to take over failing schools and school systems, fix them, and return them fixed.

The second task is to recast education on a model of teaching and learning that gives primacy to the acquisition of analytic and synthetic capabilities over the mastery of information. That does so by preferring selective depth to encyclopedic superficiality in dealing with content. That puts teamwork among students, teachers, and schools in the place of individualism and authoritarianism in the classroom. And that deals with every subject from contrasting points of view. This approach is no less suitable to practical, vocational training than to general education, once the focus of such training shifts from job-specific and machine-specific skills to the higher-order capabilities required by the knowledge economy and its technologies. But it does depend on the creation of a nationwide teaching career through cooperation within the federal system.

The school under democracy should not be the instrument of either government or the family. It should be the voice of the future and recognize in each young person a tongue-tied prophet.

DSJ: Can these alternatives in the economy and in education advance unless we remake our political institutions? Our democracy was not organized to facilitate structural change unless crisis forces transformation.

RMU: A deepening of democracy must accompany, in a progressive project, the economic and educational changes for which I have argued: Political institutions set the terms under which change in all other areas can happen. The mark of such a deepening is to strengthen our collective ability as citizens to master the shape of society rather than to have it imposed on us by history or necessity. As a result, it diminishes the need for crisis to serve as the enabling condition of change and weakens the power of the past to determine the future.

Here there are three major focal points for institutional innovation. The setup of the government, as defined in the Constitution, which powerfully shapes our ability to change society through politics: the pace of politics. The arrangements that influence the level of popular engagement in political life: the temperature of politics. And the relation of the national government to the states and towns: the federal system.

A defining feature of the constitutional architecture of the United States is its combination of a liberal principle of fragmentation of power with a conservative principle of the slowing down of politics, expressed in Madisons plan. Americans believe mistakenly that these two principles are naturally and necessarily bound together. They are not. They are connected by design to inhibit the transformation of society by politics. We can reaffirm the liberal principle but repudiate the conservative one, for example, by allowing either of the political branches to call early elections for both branches in the presence of an impasse. But it is futile to raise this issue in the United States now. The constitutional setup is revered as part of the national political identity. Those who have dissented from this view, beginning with Thomas Jefferson, have gone unheard.

Of the other two areas of possible innovation in the arrangements of democracythe level of participation and the reshaping of federalism, progressives have given priority to the first and dismissed the second as marginal to their aims. The initiatives that would raise the level of organized popular engagement in political life would reform the relation between money and politics, the terms of free access to the means of mass communication by political parties and organized social movements, and the electoral regime. They are indispensable to a progressive program. Placing them first, however, is a misjudgment. All are highly contentious, legally as well as politically. By contrast, the reenergizing of federalism has immense potential appeal, cutting across divisions between left and right and offering a wonderful device for developing the economic and educational alternatives the country needs.

Cooperative federalism, vertically among the three levels of the federal system and horizontally among the states and municipalities, can serve as the initial stage of determined and broad-based experimentation in American public life. Contrary to common prejudice, strong initiative by the national government and the empowerment of state and local government are not opposites. It is possible to have more of both at the same time, so long as we define clearly which responsibilities of each part of the federal system are exclusive and which are concurrent. Later on and within limits designed to prevent oppression and abuse, parts of the United States should be able to diverge from the predominant policies and arrangements in the country and create countermodels of the national future. Without such a dialectic of dominant and dissident solutions, no vital democratic experimentalism can take hold.

DSJ: Arent you demanding and expecting more than political reality allows? Cant your views be dismissed as utopian? For a leftist or any sort of progressive, isnt there a choice in the end between inadequate reform and impossible revolution?

RMU: I am a revolutionary by conviction as well as by temperament. I believe it is likely that I am living in a counterrevolutionary interlude in a long revolutionary period in the history of humanity. I am determined that my thoughts and actions not be controlled by the biases of the interlude. But I understand that revolutionary change today must differ in form and method as well as in substance from what it was in the past. For any program, the direction and the choice of the initial steps are crucial. It does not matter that the steps are longer or shorter. It matters that they be the right moves in the right direction. My criticism of the American progressives is not that the steps they take are too small. It is that they are steps in the wrong direction, taken under the influence of bad ideas about the future, the present, and even the past. The notion of a sudden leap into another regime of social life is a fantasy. Its practical role today is to serve as an excuse for its opposite. Once its fantastical nature has been exposed, what remains for the disappointed fantasists is to sweeten the world that they have despaired of reimagining and remaking.

DSJ: For the alternative you defend to advance, step by step, it needs a social base, a coalition, that doesnt yet exist. What base does your program imply? And how can it become a majority coalition without winning support from groups, such as the small-business class, that have been mainstays of American conservatism?

RMU: Every consequential agenda for change in society builds its own base over time. But that effort has to begin by engaging the classes, communities, and forces that exist. It must move them to revise, little by little, their imagination of the possible as well as their understanding of their interests and identities. A program like the one that I have outlined must go in search of a transracial progressive majority. That convergence needs to include large parts of the blue-collar and white-collar working class, of the racially stigmatized underclass, of the small-business class, and even of the restless aspirants of the professional and business class. Such a majority is within reach. Nothing in the alternative direction that I have described is incompatible within any part of this majority. The single most dangerous bias of the left is its prejudice against the small-business class, which has always had an outsize influence on the countrys self-understanding. That class now shades into the growing legions of the self-employed. To give up on it and on them is to prepare defeat.

DSJ: Even when you deal with economic and political practicalities, your ideas have a prophetic undertone. Another recent book of yours is called The Religion of the Future. The country has had its prophets. Does it really need new ones?

RMU: When politics is most serious, it is also about who we are and what we can and should become. It turns into a struggle over consciousness as well as over institutions. The message of the American prophetsincluding Emerson, Whitman, and Lincolnwas that the individual shares in the divine attribute of transcendence over context and becomes more human by becoming more godlike. Under democracy, which puts its faith in the constructive genius of ordinary men and women, this idea comes down to earth and informs the organization of society.

It is not good enough to say that the message has failed to be enacted and that the country should return to its founding ideals. The message itself should be rethought. From the outset, it bore a double taint, which compromised and corrupted it. It misrepresented the relation between self-construction and solidarity, failing to do justice to the presence of the latter within the former. As a result, it tempted Americans to think of themselves as little self-crowned Napoleons. The second stain on the prophetic teaching was to exempt American institutions from the reach of challenge and change and hold them up as the definitive form of a free society. The exemption amounted to a species of idolatry, for which the American republic has paid and continues to pay a terrible price. The prophetic voice must speak again in the United States. In breaking its silence, it must also correct its message.

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Roberto Mangabeira Ungers Alternative Progressive Vision - The Nation

Remembering Nelson Mandela, Who Honoured the Power of Reconciliation – The Wire

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On July 18, we remember and celebrate the life and achievements of a great leader Nelson Mandela.

But rituals of memorialising are hollow unless we ask ourselves the question, why do we recollect this and not that leader?

Nelson Mandela led the struggle against an inhuman political system in South Africa, and he skilfully piloted the transition from apartheid to democracy despite dire predictions that the country would descend into civil war. There is however much more to Mandela; a man of extraordinary courage, tremendous generosity, and remarkable vision.

Mahatma Gandhis doctrine of non-violence influenced Mandelas political strategy to some extent. In an essay on his political guru in The Time magazine of December 31, 1999, Mandela wrote of Gandhi who advocated non-violence when the violence of Nagasaki and Hiroshima had exploded upon us.

Both Gandhi and I, wrote Mandela, suffered colonial oppression, and both of us mobilised our respective people against governments that violated our freedom. I followed, accepted Mandela, Gandhian strategy as long as I could, but then there came a point in our struggle when the brute force of the oppressor could no longer be countered through passive resistance alone. We founded Umkhonto we Sizwe and added a military dimension to our struggle.

On December 16, 1961 Umkhonto cadres launched five bomb attacks on power stations, and government buildings in Port Elizabeth, Durban and Johannesburg. Mandela and other leaders were tried and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1964, in what came to be known as the Rivonia Trials.

Umkhonto weSizwe founder Nelson Mandela, receives military training at an Algerian FLN camp in Morocco, 1962. Credit: South African History Online

In the 1980s the apartheid regime had begun to negotiate with the African National Congress. In South Africas dreaded prisons Mandela began to conceptualise peace for his tortured land. The question that now confronted him was: how do social groups that a perverse history has locked into roles of the oppressor and oppressed learn to live together as fellow citizens?

A political community cannot be founded on the empty language of legal entitlements; it has to be based on reciprocal obligations.

Mandela had entered prison as a rebellious young man. By the 1980s reflection transformed him into a wise leader who was to steer his people through the valley of shadow into the sunlight of freedom.

As his release date drew nearer, he recognised that after the 1960 Sharpeville massacre his country had changed. Violence had been unleashed by some groups. Settlers began to demand an assured place at the high table of power. International commentators prophesied civil war. Given the context, Mandelas speech on his release in 1990 is incredible.

During my life time, he said, I have dedicated myself to the struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. My ideal is a democratic and free society in which persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunity. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and achieve, but, if need be, an ideal for which I am prepared to die.

Also read: When Nelson Mandela Said Viva Fidel!

This was an amazing statement from a man who had suffered imprisonment for 27 years.

A free South Africa for Mandela had to be a compassionate country. People had to understand the frailties and the ambiguities of the human condition. Though his jailers in the three prisons were Afrikaners, he realised that their ideologies were not freely chosen. The sensibilities of human beings are shaped by the society they live in. That society is fashioned by state power. South Africa would see no peace until the whites realised they had to forsake their ambitions of domination, and unless the blacks recognised that Afrikaners could not be banished; they had nowhere to go.

Cuban President Fidel Castro, right, and African leader Nelson Mandela gesture during the celebration of the Day of the Revolution in Matanzas. Credit: YouTube

In a second significant speech, Mandela established the foundations of a democratic political community. On April 10, 1993, one of South Africas most beloved leaders Chris Hani, was murdered by a Polish immigrant Janus Walus. Walus was connected with a white right-wing group opposed to majority rule. Hanis assassination sparked off major protests, arson and violence across the country. He had been a popular leader of the South African Communist Party, and the Chief of Staff of Umkhonto we Sizwe.

Hani possessed great moral authority and played a crucial role in the multi-party negotiations that cleared the way to democracy. It was generally accepted that Hani would succeed Mandela as President in 1999. Anthony Sampson in his Mandela, The Authorised Biography observed that the assassination deepened perception among whites, and some blacks, that Mandela would not be able to control the tide of violence that threatened to swamp South Africa, let alone establish and head a stable government.

In the days following the assassination, cadres of the African National Congress tried to restore peace and calm passions by holding rallies and demonstrations. Mandela, determined to end the spiral of violence that could dislodge negotiations and the enactment of a Constitution, stepped into the charged atmosphere.

Today, he said in a speech broadcasted by the South African Broadcasting Corporation on April 13, 1993, an unforgivable crime has been committedThe calculated cold-blooded murder of Chris Hani is not just a crime committed against a dearly beloved son of our soil. It is a crime against all the people of our country.

Mandela took care to register that grief affected each inhabitant of the country white, black and coloured. What has happened is a national tragedy that has touched millions of people across the political and the colour divide. Now is the time for all South Africans to stand together against those who from any quarter wish to destroy what Chris Hann gave his life for, freedom of all of us.

A woman flies a South African flag during the Nelson Mandela: A Life Celebrated memorial service at Cape Town Stadium December 11, 2013. Credit: Reuters

Mandela adeptly turned the raging debate between white and black into one that pitched peace against violence. This is a watershed moment for all of us. Our decision and actions will determine whether we use our pain, our grief and our outrage to move forward to what is the only lasting solution for our country-an elected government of the people, by the people, for the peopleWe, must not let the men who worship war, and who lust after bloodwhen we, as one people, act together decisively, with discipline and determination, nothing can stop us.

Mandela emphasised that all mourned Hanis death, all were overcome with grief irrespective of the colour of their skin, each citizen sympathised with her fellow citizens. Now it is the time for our white compatriots from whom messages of condolences continue to pour in, to reach out with an understanding of the grievous loss to our nation to join in the memorial services and the funeral commemorations.

The speech takes us right back to the eighteenth century, when Adam Smith spoke of sympathy as a bond that united humanity in his famous Theory of Moral Sentiments. People possess the ability to feel pain because they can imagine themselves in the position of others. In the same mode Mandela said:

Tonight I am reaching out to every single South African, black and white, from the very depths of my being. A white man, full of prejudice and hate, came to our country and committed a deed so foul that our whole nation now teeters on the brink of disaster. A white woman of Afrikaner origin, risked her life so that we may know and bring to justice, this assassin.

He turned the political discourse of racism upside down. Human nature cannot be seen in essentialist terms. We can connect to each other because we have the gift of imagination and sympathy. This is the foundation of society, this is the foundation of common citizenship, and this is the foundation of solidarity.

Students of South African history and politics suggest that this was the day when Nelson Mandela was accepted as the undisputed leader of the country by the blacks, the coloured and the whites. This was the time that South Africans begin to walk on the path that led to healing, and peace through reconciliation.

Also read: Your Ideas Have Spread Like Wildfire: A Letter to Dr Anand Teltumbde on His Birthday

In a third momentous statement Mandela outlined his vision for a democratic South Africa. This was in the aftermath of the first all-race elections on April 27, 1994, and the victory of the African National Congress under his leadership. In his inaugural speech Mandela said.

The time for the healing of wounds has come, the moment to bridge the chasms that divide us has come, and the time to build is upon usWe know it well that none of us acting alone can achieve success. We must therefore act together as a united people for national reconciliation, for nation-building, for the birth of a new world. We enter into a covenant that we shall build the society in which all South Africans both black and white will be able to walk tall, without any fear in their hearts, assured of their inalienable right to human dignity-a rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world.

Under Mandelas stewardship South Africa initiated the project of reconciling with the past rather than retributive justice. The logic of reconciliation is that the past, howsoever harrowing it might be, cannot be forgotten or set aside. In order to know where we are at the present moment, we must know where we have come from. We cannot understand the present, or plan for the future without knowledge of history and awareness of roads taken and roads not taken.

Forgetting, in sum, is not an option for history has a way of relentlessly intruding into collectively induced amnesia. Someone, somewhere, will recollect past injuries and pain. Someone, somewhere, will deploy these memories to light a conflagration, and punish the descendants of groups who committed these horrific crimes. If conflict in history is not addressed and accepted, memories of violence will continue to fester and deepen the wounds of the body politic.

The Freudian assumption that suppressed trauma will inevitably remerge in destructive ways has to be taken seriously. Societies that cannot come to terms with the past, or those who prefer to forget the past are fragile, ready to burst asunder at the mention of a pain-wracked history.

We never know when violence will break out around some or other grievance of wrongdoing and injustice. Societies can be set on fire if they fondly believe that they have forgotten, a mere spark is enough to do so. They have to acknowledge and accept that there is need to move on. Members may not forget, or forgive, but they should be able to accept the history of their country as irreversible.

A scene from 2009 film Invictus, Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon played President Nelson Mandela and Francois Pienaar, captain of rugby team, respectively. The film speaks of the aftermath of the apartheid and how one sport united the country. Photo: IMDb

Notably the process of reconciliation does not offer a magic mantra. The process is attended by a great deal of trauma and anxiety. Yet a number of theorists have advocated and supported the concept. The very realisation that perpetrators of human rights violations have conceded that they did wrong, has proved, in recent history, a therapeutic process. Victims feel that their pain, their humiliation and their trauma has been recognised or simply that they count.

At the core of the concept of reconciliation is the centrality of human rights, what should not be done to people, and what should be done for them. Reconciliation does not provide comprehensive solutions to the problems of the past; it seeks to change attitudes to historical injustice. Forgiveness may not be a key issue in reconciliation, it is more important to accept that wrong has been done, that the wrongdoer has accepted his crime, and that societies should now carry on. This was the lesson Mandela taught humanity. For this he should be remembered.

The process of reconciliation was set in place in South Africa under the leadership of Mandela, and guided by the same principles that he had expressed publicly, his earnest desire and his determination that South Africa belonged to all irrespective of race and class. The transition from apartheid to democracy was largely peaceful in as much as there was no open civil war or large-scale bloodshed as international commentators had forecast.

This is the genius of Mandela; this is why we remember him.

Neera Chandhoke is former professor of political science, Delhi University.

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Remembering Nelson Mandela, Who Honoured the Power of Reconciliation - The Wire

A view from the Bar: Race and the British justice system – Open Access Government

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The British just system has taken over 1,000 years to evolve into the one we recognise today. Its foundations and principles have been retained by so many countries that 30% of the worlds population live under its rule[1], and for those who are not fortunate enough to be governed by such, I suspect, envy those who are.

Yes we have miscarriages of justice and as a Barrister I dont dismiss these lightly but we have to accept, that no system, built by humans for humans, can ever be perfect. However, as a person of colour, I think I would rather hedge my innocence being proven through the balance and checks of our legal system than one from, say, in Guangzhou, China or perhapsMinneapolis, USA, but am I right to feel this way?

China is well versed in the criticisms levied against it by the world for inhumane treatment of particular ethnic groups in its society. In United Nations findings, 2018, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Amnesty Internationals Deputy East Asia Director Lisa Tassi said:

The Committees findings highlight the systematic oppression of ethnic minorities in China, including the mass arbitrary detention of Chinese Uighurs and others in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR)

The Committee found that the Chinese government were mass detaining certain groups under the pretext of countering terrorism, with the estimated number of those being detained ranging from tens of thousands to the unimaginable number of a million. Because of the broad way in which terrorism has been defined in legislation, this has meant that an act of peaceful or religious expression could be defined as a threat to the state, having the effect of targeting particular ethnic and religious groups.

In the USAs report of the same year (2018) to the UN Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance, this report also made some troubling findings.

In 2016 (the last figures), Black Americans made up 27% of the prison population, double their share of the total population. The USA criminal justice system caters for the largest prison population in the world (2015, over 6.7 million people were incarcerated). The figures collated in this report provide a clear picture of the disparity between the races.

African Americans were more likely than white Americans to be arrested; once arrested, they are more likely to be convicted; and once convicted, were more likely to experience lengthy prison sentences. African-American adults are 5.9 times as likely to be incarcerated than whites and Hispanics are 3.1 times as likely.As of 2001, one of every three black boys born in that year could expect to go to prison in his lifetime, as could one of every six Latinos compared to one of every seventeen white males.

This report concluded that the impact of systemic racism was a broad reason for the above findings, however, that deprivation also played a part where the USs legal system ran a two tier system one for the rich and one for the poor, essentially, if youre rich, you can buy your way to freedom. There is an over representation of individuals from poor areas in the criminal justice system who tend to come from ethnic groups.

In attempting to evidence its findings, the report compared and contrasted those arrested for drugs. Use rates of drugs in the States are largely comparable, and yet if you are African American, you are 3.7 times more likely to be arrested than a white person. The same disparities arise when you consider the USs equivalent to stop and search.

Closer to home, in France, the justice system based on the principles of freedom and fairness is also under scrutiny. French state policy rejects any references to a person being identified by his nationality, racial, ethnic, religious or linguistic difference. Anyone in contact with the State is faceless and cannot be judged on who they are or what they look like, purely for the deed they are being accused of committing.

This starts off well doesnt it? However, the experience of ethnic groups is very different. They describe themselves as being ignored, suffering racism (both direct and indirect) at community and state level, but with little clear path to seeking redress, because as is often the case, it is very hard to prove the causative reason for an act, merely that the act has occurred.

The French government refuse to conduct research on the experience of those that may be linked to their race. For example, it doesnt know how many of its people follow the muslim religion or identify as a member of an ethnic group.

Legally, the constitutional principle of equality has been interpreted as prohibiting the government from collecting data or statistics on the racial, ethnic or religious backgrounds of its citizens, in any context. This means for example that the socioeconomic status of groups across any indicators based on racial, ethnic, religious or other grounds is unknown, and that the national census does not include any questions about race or ethnicity.

So the French government, and its citizens, have no idea whether one group is suffering from discrimination, or to consider a more positive slant if the state is getting it right for all its citizens. There are few anti discrimination laws, but of the ones that exist there are even problems identified within those. In particular they refer to immigrants, even when the person who is attempting to rely on the protective law is a second or third generation French national and member of society.

In 2017, David Lammy MP undertook an 18 month review of ethnic groups and their contact with the English criminal justice system. Im sure you wont be surprised at what he discovered: Just 3% of people in England & Wales are Black, and yet 12% of our prison population is Black. Going further, 25% of our prison population, and over 40% of our youth prison population, come from ethnic minority backgrounds. That compares to 14% of the overall population, and for those facing imprisonment and identified as Asian or Black, were associated with a 50-55% increase in the odds of imprisonment, compared to those self-reporting as White.

You may also be familiar with the figure that a black male is twice as likely to die during an arrest than a white male and that he is 47 times more likely to be stopped and searched.

Clearly, my feeling that I would fair a better chance navigating my way through the criminal justice system in this country than any other is not based on the empirical evidence.

However, I take hope: in 2019 the EU undertook research into the experiences of racism suffered by black and other ethnic groups in the member states. It found that the level of racism experienced in Britain was relatively low in comparison to the other member states and even in the US.so maybe my feeling, although not completely justified, should at least be hopeful?

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Tania Brugueras Most Famous Works: How the Artist Has Challenged Oppressive Forces with Incisive Performances – ARTnews

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In 2016, the Museum of Modern Art acquired one of Tania Brugueras most famous works, Untitled (Havana 2000), which debuted at the 7th Havana Biennial. The theme of that exhibition was Closer to One Another, an exploration of mass communication since the new millennia. The artist had set up her presentation inside amilitary vault within the Cabaa Fortress, which had historically been a site where Cuban counterrevolutionaries were imprisoned, tortured, and in some cases even killed. Visitorswere met with a quietly explosive piece: a vast, darkened space, its floor lined with milled sugarcane.

As viewers made their way through the darkened space, they would discover nude male performers seeming to scratch themselves while a video of Fidel Castro played on a tiny monitor. With its provocative critique of the strange power dynamics that guide life in post-revolution Havana, the work embodies Brugueras practice, which often involves provoking viewers into considering visible and invisible means of governmental oppression.

Bruguera was born in 1968 in Havana, Cuba, where she observed failings of the Cuban revolution, which gave way to economic hardship, creative censorship, and unchecked forms of power for officials. At the age of 12, she enrolled at the Escuela Elemental de Artes Plsticas in Havana; her mother, according to Bruguera, believed it would keep her daughter out of trouble. Brugueras early work focused on her own body as a site for social critique, often by subjecting herself to physical pain. In the 1996 performance, titled Studio Study,a nude Bruguera stood atop a high pedestal while pinned to the wall by metal restraints buffered by cotton. In her hands were slabs of raw meat.

In time, Bruguera expanded the definition of performance art into participatory events. Her audiencessometimes unknowinglybecame her collaborators. She has staged elaborate performances with institutions that have garnered her a Guggenheim fellowship in 1998 and a showcase at the Venice Biennale in 2015. In 2003 she developed the notion of arte til, roughly translating to useful artart that transcends representation to offer practical solutions to social issues. Art and ethics cannot be separated in this practice, Bruguera once said. They are interdependent, they define each other.Such art has invited backlash from the Cuban government, who regularly curtail her performances. Bruguera was arrested three times between December 2014 and January 2015, and was detained most recently last month en route to a Black Lives Matter protest in Havana.

Below is a guide to some of Brugueras most incisive performances.

Tribute to Ana Mendieta (Homenaje a Ana Mendieta), 198596

Among Brugueras most provactive early works are her site-specific reenactments of performances and unrealized projects by Ana Mendieta, the feminist Cuban artist who fell to her death in 1985 at the age of 36. Bruguera started by producing these reenactments for her thesis at the Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana, and she continued doing them for the next 10 years, re-creating works such as Mendietas famed series Siluetas (Silhouettes), from 197381. Mendietas practice centered the spiritual marriage of abstract female forms and earth, and in the Siluetas, she left imprints and made carvings of her body into the earth, decorating the silhouettes with natural materialssuch as twigs, flowers, fire, and even animal hearts.

Bruguera performed her tribute to Mendieta in Havana, during a period where a heightened number of Cubans were immigrating to the United States. The act symbolically reclaimed Mendieta, who experienced a traumatic migration to the U.S. as a child and who has traditionally been considered largely with respect to U.S. art history, for Cubas artistic heritage.

El peso de la culpa (The Burden of Guilt), 1997

Bruguera debuted this performance in 1997 at her home in Havana as part of the series titled Memorias de la posguerra (Memories After the War). During the performance, which spanned roughly an hour, a nude Bruguera slowly consumed native soil mixed with salt water meant to symbolize tears. Throughout, a headless lamb carcass hung around her neck. The act was an allusion to the myth that, during the Spanish colonization of Cuba, Indigenous people ate nothing but dirt, a choice of death over captivity.

Eating dirt, which is sacred and a symbol of permanence, is like swallowing ones own traditions, ones own heritage, its like erasing oneself, electing suicide as a way of defending oneself, Bruguera said of the performance. What I did was take this historical anecdote and update it to the present. In later versions of the performance, a Cuban flag woven from human hair hangs behind Bruguera, a literal representation of the audience.

Desierro (Displacement), 199899

Much of Brugueras early work used her body to emphasize physical strain as a catalyst for political action. In Desierro, she encased herself in a suit of layered Cuban earth in the likeness of Congolese Nkisi Nkondi, mystical idols which, according to legend, housed spirits tasked with hunting wrongdoers and oath-breakers. The power figures became common among Afro-Caribbean religious practices. In Brugueras performance, the Nkondi becomes metaphors for the unfilled social and economic promises of the Cuban Revolution.

Untitled (Havana, 2000)

Artists participating in the 7th Havana Biennial were expressly forbidden to present work that criticized Fidel Castros regime. When Bruguera first proposed Untitled (Havana, 2000) to the biennial, she withheld plans to include in the work a looped video of the dictator unbuttoning hismilitary uniform to reveal that he is not wearing a bulletproof vest. All the while, Castro is smiling. Bruguera looks to highlight the dictators act of bravadofeigned vulnerability made possible only through his privileged position and military-grade protection.

Surrounding the video are nude male performers who stand atop mounds of sugarcane mash, Cubas most lucrative export. The video was not played until the Biennials opening day, when lines formed outside the dank military vault for a glimpse. In response, the exhibitions organizers shut off electricity around the vault, leaving the entirety of the biennial in darkness. Ultimately, the power was turned back on, but Bruguera wasnt allowed to show the video.

Department of Behavior Art (Ctedra Arte de Conducta) 200209,

In the early 2000s Bruguera founded Ctedra Arte de Conducta, a public artwork that also functioned as a participatory art school. The goal was to foster a new generation of less commercially-driven, more politically active artists of the sort that did not typically appear at Cubas traditional art schools, few of which taught performance art. Department of Behavior came about shortly after Bruguera returned from Kassel, Germany, where she showedUntitled (Kassel, 2002) at Documenta 11. The artist felt that, because the exhibition was so crowded, she was unable to activate the works message, and thus it was unsuccessfulbut it led to a breakthrough.

I started thinking about appropriating the structure and the resources of power as my medium, as my material, she toldTom Finkelpearl, author and New York Citys former cultural affairs commissioner. Instead of representing them, I wanted to put them in action; that would be my work. The curriculum focused on art as a tool for political and social action. The school opened in her home in January 2003 as a two-year program comprising weekly workshops on Behavior Art and discourse. In 2009, believing that the work had served its purpose, Bruguera closed the school.

Tatlins Whisper #5, 2008

For the performanceTatlins Whisper #5, visitors to Tate Moderns Turbine Hall were confronted by two mounted police in uniform, who aggressively patrolled the space, at times using crowd-control tactics such as closing off gallery entrances and corralling small groups into tight circles. Notions of power are the core of the workits title refers to Constructivist artist and architect Vladimir Tatlin, who designed the Monument to the Third International, an abstract structure meant as a tribute to Communist power. The performance, which occurred at unannounced times, was contingent on the participation of the museums visitors, many of whom did little to resist the officers. The piece was an attempt to bring lived realities of some oppressed communitiespolice brutality, riot suppressioninto an art space.

Immigrant Movement International, 201015

This five-year project, presented in partnership with New Yorks Queens Museum and Creative Time, asked a simple but heady question: What makes a person in the United States an immigrant?For the first year of the project, Bruguera shared a a small apartment in in Queenss Corona neighborhood with five undocumented immigrants and their six children. During that time, she lived on a minimum wage, without health insurance, to better understand what many U.S. immigrants went through daily. Another aspect of the project saw volunteers offering educational programming, including language, nutrition, dance classes, and free healthcare and daycare services from a beauty shopturnedart space.

10,148,451, 2018

In 2018, Bruguera returned to Tate Modern to stage 10,148,451 for its Turbine Hall Commission. The number, which was stamped in red ink on each visitors hand, referred to the amount of people who migrated between countries in 2017, plus those who died during their journeys that year. Like many of Brugueras later works, 10,148,451 turned viewers into participants, inviting them to leave impressions on a heat-sensitive floor or to step inside a room next to the Turbine Hall pumped with an organic compound that induced tears. The commission also included the creation of the group Tate Neighbors, a group of 21 people tasked with imagining how the museum could be in dialogue with Londons local community. In response, they renamed Tate Moderns main building after local activist Natalie Bell. The change was originally intended to be temporary, but the name was formally adopted after the performance concluded.

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Tania Brugueras Most Famous Works: How the Artist Has Challenged Oppressive Forces with Incisive Performances - ARTnews

30 Years After Saba Saba – The Citizen

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Three decades ago, driven by a quest to reclaim their sovereignty and recalibrate the power relations between the state and society, the people of this country went to the streets to push for political and constitutional reforms, a major inflection point in the history of our nation. Through a protracted, peaceful struggle by Kenyans in the country and in the diaspora, the country finally transitioned into a multi-party democracy.

The struggle is not over; Kenyas politics have taken a backward trajectory, moving towards dictatorship in the midst of an intra-elite succession struggle that could descend into violent conflict, chaos, and even civil war.

Kenya is a fake democracy where elections do not matter because the infrastructure of elections has been captured by the elites. There is a danger of normalizing electoral authoritarianism, where the vote neither counts nor gets counted. The judiciary is under constant attack and disparagement by the executive while parliament is contorted into a body increasingly unable to represent Kenyans and provide oversight over the executives actions.

The security services are unleashed on the poor and the dispossessed as if they are not citizens but enemies to be hunted down and destroyed.

A range of constitutional commissions are in a state of contrived dysfunction while our media business model is failing, accelerated by political interference. Grand corruptionperpetrated by a handful of families and by the elites collectivelyhas been normalized and the fight against corruption has been politicized. In the creeping descent into dictatorship, civilian public services have been militarized and the 2010 Constitution that was in many ways a culmination of the struggle that started on July 7, 1990 when the late Kenneth Matiba and Charles Rubia called for a meeting at the Kamukunji grounds in Nairobi, is being deliberately undermined.

We have a duty and a responsibility to defend Kenyas constitution; to resist efforts to undermine devolution in particular; to resist those determined to continue looting an economy already on its knees; to stand up against efforts to brutalize, dehumanize, and rent asunder the essential human dignity of Kenyans as a people.

Three decades is a generation. The generation that voted for the first time in 1992 is a venerated demographic that is 48 years old today. It is the generation of freedom (the South African equivalent of the born-frees), and a significant part of the cohort that participated in the struggle as teens or young adults.

It is the generation that bore the brunt of the struggle for freedom but which has been denied the opportunity for real political leadership. That part of its membership that has had access to state power is drawn from the reactionary wing of the groupthe scions of the decadent YK92 and drivers of the NO campaign against a new constitution.

Despite having successfully fought for a new constitution, three decades after Saba Saba, the frustration felt by this generation and its children runs deep. Why? Power is still largely imperial, exercised in a brutal and unaccountable manner, as institutions flail and falter.

The country is still ethnically divided, the fabric of our nationhood is fraying and its stability remains remarkably and frighteningly fragile. Foreign domination, exploitation, and oppression is still with us. Poverty and inequality still reign as a tiny economic aristocracy consolidates wealth at the top, while a large pool of the poor underclass expands at the bottom. Why is this the case? Why, after three major successful transitions over three decadesmultipartyism in 1992; power transition in 2002; and a new constitution in 2010are we still being frustrated by our politics and economics? Why is our quest to advance Kenya as a prosperous, democratic and stable country floundering? I see five main reasons why Kenyas democratization and development have been stymied.

First, and most importantly, is the moral bankruptcy of Kenyas elite. It is the loyal facilitator of our continued colonization by the imperialism of the West and the East. We have a political elite whotogether with their acolytes in the middle classesview this constitution as inconvenient and who have in the last decade taken every step to undermine it, now even audaciously threatening to overhaul it.

This mythmaking of how the constitution doesnt work for us; or how it is expensive (despite analytical evidence to the contrary), or how it does not promote inclusivity, is basically political mischief-making that must be roundly denounced and firmly rejected.

But this hostile attitude by the political class towards the constitution should not surprise us. The constitution was imposed on them by the people through a people-driven process. And we must remember that they proposed more amendments to it on the floor of the House than there were articles in the constitution. To be sure, when the political class finds a constitution, a law or an institution to be an inconvenience, that is a clear indicator of success.

We must actively resist the schemes by the political class to hijack, mangle and wreck the constitution, and thus remove the checks that make the exercise of political power onerous. The constitutional product is only as goodand as secureas the process that creates it.

And whereas we must salute the decision of Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga to stop the grandstanding and step back from the brink to save lives, the framework for dealing with the issues that created the problem in the first place (such as electoral theft right from the party primaries to the general election, ethnicity, police brutality, and vigilante massacres) should have been broader, more structured, and more inclusive than the present process which is private, exclusionary, unstructured, and partisan.

The moral bankruptcy of the political elite is pushing us into a false choice between dynasties and hustlersa very superficial and shallow narrative masquerading as a class-based political contest yet it is merely a joust between gangs. It is a (mis)-framing that obscures the underlying forces that create underdevelopment, instability and violence and those who benefit from the end result.

We must not buy into this misframing of our political choices, whose guile in placing a confederacy of familiar surnames on one side, and a well-known economic rustler of public assets on the other, seeks to hide the common denominator of those two groups: the plutocrats within the state that are the beneficiaries.

Both are extractive and extortionist, only distinguished by the differences in their predatory styles and their longevity in the enterprise of shaking down the Kenyan public. This is a club, a class of state-dependent accumulationists and state-created capitalists united by a history of plunder of public resources and unprincipled political posturing, and only divided by the revolving-door cycle of access to the public trough.

My second argument as to why, despite the many progressive political and constitutional transitions the country still feels restless and dissatisfied, has to do with the performance and the posture adopted by parliament. Whereas the judiciary has emerged as an effective and consequential arm of government since 2011, simultaneously playing defender and goalkeeper of the constitution, parliament, has since 2013, and even more so now, acquiesced as an adjunct to the executive. In a complete misreading of the presidential system, parliament sees itself as an extension rather than a check on the executive.

The senate is even worse; instead of playing its constitutive role of protecting devolution against the excesses and encroachment of the national government, senators got into the most parochial contest of egos with the governors, bizarrely siding with the executive to stream-roll and undermine devolution. It took the judiciary, through a number of bold decisions, and the public, who rallied around devolution, including in the ruling partys backyard, to save devolution from an early collapse.

Third is the suboptimal output from devolved governments. Devolution has been good but is not yet great. Because of a hostile national government and endemic corruption in the counties, devolved governments have not performed optimally although, compared to the central governments record of the last 50 years, they have made a big difference in peoples daily lives.

Although devolution has been revolutionary, a combination of frustration from the top (especially from the Treasury, the Devolution Ministry (particularly the first one) and the Provincial Administration) and the extremely poor and corrupt leadership of some governors have delayed the devolution dividends.

I dare say that without the strong backing of the judgesa raft of decisions by the High Court and two decisions by the Supreme Court on the Division of Revenue Billdevolution would long have unraveled. These decisions are part of the reason for the animosity towards the judiciary that we have witnessed in the last decade.

Fourth, political parties have not been operating optimally. Political party primaries have been heavily rigged and violent, which has undermined peoples faith in the democratic process. Further, the Political Parties Fund is operated in an opaque manner, with the size of the allocations to some parties being equal to the allocations that are given to some counties.

The disorganization and privatization of parties is nurturing a feeling of despondency and a lack of belief in parties, yet our constitution envisages a party-based constitutional democracy.

Fifth is the countrys economic collapse due to mismanagement. This economic failure preceded the COVID-19 pandemic. Never before has the country witnessed such a spectacular mismanagement of the economy. There is absolute incoherence and inconsistency in the public policy priorities.

From a glitzy manifesto that has been honored more in the breach than in the observance, to the Big 4 Agenda, the Nairobi Regeneration Team, the Anti-Corruption, we are all over the place, and are now consumed by succession politics. We have a ballooning debt that is unprecedented in stock (over Sh6 trillion), in composition (much of it expensive commercial debt); and in impact (Eurobond monies are yet to be accounted for).

In this context, it would be extremely foolish to think that individuals who have been partners in this mismanagement could be plausible alternatives. The authors of the last seven years of corruption, debt, and underdevelopment are known and so, if the country is to stand a chance of realizing the benefits of the transitions that it has undergone, then it would be utter tomfoolery to consider parading any of these characters as the agents of that change.

Our constitution is not defective. The quality of our elite isfatally so.

The problem is not in the structure of power as expressed in our constitutional architecture, but in the exercise of power in the conduct, choice and decisions that leadersand to some extent the massesmake.

The structure of power does not command us to have a President, Speaker, Prime Minister (that is what the Majority Leader would be in a parliamentary system), Attorney General, Chief of Defense Forces, Director General of Intelligence, Head of Kenya Police, Director of Directorate of Criminal Investigations, Governor of Central Bank, Commissioner General of Kenya Revenue Authority, and Auditor General, all from one region.

It is the exercise of that power, both by the nominating and confirming authorities, that allows for this construction of an ethnic hegemony at the heart and in the commanding heights of state affairs. This is not to question the competence and patriotism of these compatriots; it is to question the effect of this apparent singular concentration of competence in one ethnic identity on the fabric of our nationhood.

The absolute necessity for diversity and inclusion in public positions and policy cannot be gainsaid. That is how you create a strong and united nation. The argument that changing the constitution will, ipso facto, foster inclusivity is a false one. With an already expansive government of 22 ministers, over 40 Principal Secretaries, parastatal chiefs, and an expanded leadership in both Houses of Parliament, how come we are still not able to be inclusive?

Vuguvugu la Mageuzi (VUMA) or Kongomano la Mageuzi. These are possible names of a transformative movement made up of all the social movements that exist in the country and that, going forward, would tackle a number of issues.

First, the middle class civil society must reactivate its engagement and build strategic and effective alliances with grassroots movements and the over 40 social justice centers countrywide to keep both national and county governments in check and create a strong central defense for the constitution. Indeed, the countervailing power of the civil society must be strengthened.

VUMA should be the crucible for the development of alternative leaderships drawn from such movements as The Artist Movements of cartoonists, film makers, singers, poets, and song writers; 100 Days of the Citizens Assemblies; Congress for the Protection of the Constitution; DeCOALonise; Friends of Lake Turkana; Inuka Kenya Ni Sisi, Okoa Mombasa, Kenya Tuitakayo Movement, and SwitchOffKPLC.

There are many others in formation: the movement to protect the rights of tea workers in Kericho; the movement to protect the cane farmers in western Kenya; the movement to protect devolution in the NFD; the movements that defend community land from commodification; farmers revolts against crony capitalism in the Rift Valley and central Kenya; and the movement to withdraw our troops from Somalia, among others.

Second, the movement must give voice to and support the Council of Governors demands for the arrears in development funds that the national government continues to refuse to disburse.

Third, this is a good moment for the emergence of an alternative leadership for Kenya. The political elites are in fear of each other and there is a hurting stalemate in their relationship and negotiations. We need to invest in the rupture of those negotiations.

Fourth, we need to support a principled and fair fight against corruption, both at the national and county levels, and establish whether public policy and the law have been used for public good or private gain.

Fifth, we also need to set up at least three judicial commissions of inquiry, the first one being on the public debt incurred since independence so that we can establish the rationale, basis, terms, impact, and beneficiaries of these debts. This includes Ken-Ren, Goldenberg, Anglo Leasing, SGR, Eurobond, and other scams. The second one should investigate all government technology projects from IFMIS to OT-Morpho, to Huduma Number to E-Citizen. The third should target police brutality and the vigilante and police massacres of 2017, especially in western Kenya and in the slums of Nairobi.

Sixth, we should revisit all the solutions devised by the Saitoti Report; the Akiwumi Ethnic Clashes Report; the Ndungu Land Report; the InterParty-Parliamentary Group Report (particularly its unfinished business); the Truth and Justice Commission Report; the Kreigler Report; the Kroll Report; Kofi Annans Agenda 4; the Waki Report and all the reports developed by the civil society as solutions to our societal problems. That rich and robust material should be debated and refined for implementation.

Seventh, we must undertake mass civic education on the contents of the 2010 Constitution with a view to triggering the citizenry to demand its implementation;

Eighth, we must form a united front with political parties that are against imperialism and baronial rule and their respective narratives.

Ninth, we must nurture a political party or political parties that will contest for political power in the interests of the motherland.

And lastly, we must ensure that the failure of the ruling elite to secure the social and economic rights of the Kenyan people as provided for under the constitution (the right to food, housing, water, education, health, social security, and employment) during the ongoing pandemic is an important lesson about the kind of leadership this country should not have.

The future of the constitution and our democracy will depend on the quality of leaders the country elects. That is when the full dividends of Saba Saba and 2010 will be fully realized. As the United States has shown, even constitutions, institutions, and customs that have been nurtured over hundreds of years can come easily undone by a rogue leadership and a pliant public.

Dr Willy Mutunga is a public intellectual and former Chief Justice of Kenya

First published in The Elephant

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30 Years After Saba Saba - The Citizen

Worried About Crowded Planes? Know Where Your Airline Stands – The New York Times

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As of mid-July, the average flight only carries about 60 people, flying at an average of about 50 percent capacity, according to the trade group Airlines for America, making it easier for the more generous airlines to guarantee open space.

Rather than blocking seats, American and United are offering rebooking for travelers on crowded flights through pre-flight notifications, though some fliers have complained that changing plans at the last minute is inconvenient. Joy Gonzalez of Seattle, a recent flier on American, said the options shed been given to change involved long trips with two or three layovers.

We have multiple layers of protection in place for those who fly with us, including required face coverings, enhanced cleaning procedures and a pre-flight Covid-19 symptom checklist and were providing additional flexibility for customers to change their travel plans, as well, wrote Ross Feinstein, an American spokesman, in an email.

A United spokesman, Charles Hobart, wrote in an email that the overwhelming majority of our flights continue to depart with multiple empty seats.

On airlines that arent blocking seats, carriers say they allow passengers, once boarded, to move to an empty seat within their ticketed cabin, even if that seat is a premium seat, assuming there isnt an issue with balance and weight distribution.

But there have been some incidents on American planes in which passengers complained that they were not allowed to move to premium seats. They made it very clear that if you are trying to sit in empty seats to socially distance, you are still not permitted to sit in exit row seats because you have to pay for them, commented John Schmidt, a Times reader, on July 8, about an American flight from Austin to Los Angeles. This was a public announcement. Is definitely their policy, he wrote.

On July 10, American said it sent a reminder to its flight attendants that read, For now, its OK for customers to move to different seats in the same cabin.

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Worried About Crowded Planes? Know Where Your Airline Stands - The New York Times

Travel to the stratosphere and back with Space Perspective in 2021 – Lifestyle Asia

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Space X and Virgin Atlantic have been on everybodys radar for making commercial space flights viable. Now Florida-based space tourism firm Space Perspective wants you to have a different perspective, of earth. The company will be offering a trip to the edge of space onboard the Neptune Space Balloon.

It will function very much like the high-altitude weather balloons, only at a much larger scale. There will be an attached pressurised capsule below, able to accommodate up to eight passengers at once. It will launch from the NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Florida, USA and head in an upwards trajectory towards the Milky Way Galaxy.

You will travel upwards of 100,000 feet above the ground before stopping at the very edge of outer space. Here, the balloon will anchor itself for two hours, allowing you to take in the entire view from all angles. This suborbital flight will allow you to experience and witness firsthand the true curvature of the planet. To sweeten the deal, amenities like an onboard bar will also be available.

Dont worry about attire or dress codes with this trip, Space Perspective offers a shirt-sleeves environment this means that you wont have the chance to put on a spacesuit.

As you descend, the balloon will make a sea landing, from which you will transfer onto a ship and taken back to shore. The entire experience begins at the break of dawn and will go on for roughly six hours. According to Space Perspective, the Neptune balloon could be starting commercial flights as early as 2021.

If youre a true flat earther, this is the best way to know for sure if the earth truly is flat.

All images: Courtesy Space Perspective

This story first appeared on Lifestyle Asia Kuala Lumpur.

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Travel to the stratosphere and back with Space Perspective in 2021 - Lifestyle Asia

The Morning After: Warner Bros. postponed the release of ‘Tenet’ indefinitely – Engadget

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It is the 21st, which means were about to see the OnePlus Nord launch event. Its scheduled for 10 AM ET, marking the companys return to midrange phones and probably the arrival of some wireless earbuds.

OnePlus

Is it a little weird that this unveiling will come through an augmented reality app? Maybe, but by next year, this could just be how things are done, since were through with in-person events for a while.

Richard

Warner Bros.

Despite the best efforts of Warner Bros. and director Christopher Nolan to bring the movie to theaters this summer, coronavirus-related shutdowns have shattered those plans. The studio has delayed the spy/sci-fi blockbuster several times, and now its firmly back on the shelf Warner Bros. has postponed it indefinitely.Continue reading.

Nikon

Nikons newest Z series camera packs in full five-axis stabilization, the same Expeed 6 processor as the pricier Z6 and Z7, and a 24-megapixel CMOS sensor. The Z5 does have some video chops; it can record in 4K, but it will crop what the sensor picks up thats not a good thing. The Z5 arrives in August and costs $1,400 for the body only.Continue reading.

SpaceX

Now SpaceX can reliably launch and then land the first stage of its Falcon 9 rockets, what else can it do to make space travel cheaper? Apparently the answer is to catch the rocket fairing in ships equipped with huge nets. Recovering the pieces undamaged so they can fly again will save millions of dollars, and on Monday, SpaceX managed to catch both halves for the first time.Continue reading.

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The Morning After: Warner Bros. postponed the release of 'Tenet' indefinitely - Engadget

After All: May you never need the services of a ‘Horizontal Travel Agent’ – E&T Magazine

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As the continuing Covid War keeps millions of people away from travel, Vitali Vitaliev reviews his readers techno-travel reveries.

It is nice to see our lives getting back to normal after the pandemic, slowly but surely (or so I hope). Alas, so far, the Covid War not to be confused with the Cold War is still raging in many parts of the world. There is one striking similarity between the two wars: they both impose heavy restrictions on our freedom of movement and travel.

As a Cold War child, who grew up on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain, I know how painful the forced immobility could be. To be told where and when you can and cannot travel is humiliating and dehumanising it makes you feel trapped, no matter where the restrictions come from: a totalitarian state, or a merciless and unpredictable and hence also totalitarian virus.

As an experienced armchair buccaneer, however, I was always aware of a set of tricks which never failed to make my entrapment bearable travels of the mind.

That is why, since the start of the pandemic, when the first restrictions came into force, I have been sharing with After All readers my most memorable techno-travel impressions. I also invited you to email me your own memoirs.

What is techno travel? It is any travel adventure which involves technology in particular, transport (cars, planes, trains, ships etc.). As reader Alan George wisely noted in his email, All worthwhile travel is techno.

Readers reaction has surpassed my expectations. Unfortunately, space restrictions (yes, more restrictions, sorry) would not allow me to recount even the very best of your stories. Below is just a succinct digest of them.

Reader Graham Little points out one techno detail in the Falklands that I must have overlooked during my visit there some years ago: ...the remains of the original Falklands telephone system in the form of long single-wire (earthreturn) overhead lines stretching away over the moorland. Dating from around 1907, it was connecting to subscribers in Port Stanley and to all the main properties in the Camp. Lines were shared, so one had to count the rings before answering or not...

In my defence I can say that the whole system was dismantled in the late 1980s, so it would have been hard to spot in 1999, the year of my visit.

Among the main joys of real-life travel are unexpected encounters, like the one described here by Richard Walker. While flying with his wife from a tiny Great Barrier Reef island in Australia (in a two-prop 8-seater Britten-Norman Islander, with front four seats accessed by opening a side door and tipping forward the back of the front pair of seats to access the pair behind... which reminded me of getting into a two-door Morris Minor), he bumped into another British engineer, who had visited the island to check the correct functioning of the effluent plant, and his wife who were both from Loughton a few miles up the road from Woodford, where Mr Walker himself lived! Was it worth travelling to Australia only to run into a couple of fellow Essers over the Pacific?

One of the three fascinating stories sent by Peter Gill (who, incidentally, was on the shortlist to become Britains first astronaut, or, more correctly, cosmonaut as the Juno Mission was Mir space station, [but] in the end the gig went to Helen Sharman..., so that particular techno-travel story never got written) was about his brother, ...known in the family as the Horizontal Travel Agent.

This brother has, for many years, been a specialist in repatriation of the dead. People who inconveniently die in the wrong country, become classified as Dangerous Goods and require special handling to get them home. He was, for a long time, responsible for all the MoD repatriation. Most people do not realise that the military cannot bring home their own dead, it all has to be handled by civilian contractors, and during the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan he was that contractor... He made several trips there often flying on C130 transport planes, sleeping on packing cases under Chinook helicopters...

On a more cheerful note, heres a techno-travel snippet inspired by my Driverless Russian train story from Ken Owen, who lived and worked in Moscow in the 1990s: When we first arrived in the depths of winter, we travelled by taxi from Sheremetyevo Airport to our hotel in central Moscow. About 10 minutes into the journey, we felt the most overpowering smell of vodka... I nudged my wife & whispered oh-oh, this driver must be absolutely full of alcohol, and so we stayed deathly quiet, not wanting to distract him. It was only later, as we settled into life in Moscow, that we realised that [putting] the cheapest vodka into car screen washers was much preferred to buying the expensive antifreeze screen wash!

Had my call for your travel reveries been a competition and not just an attempt to cheer you (and myself) up in the middle of the pandemic, the winner would have certainly been Peter Brookes, MIET, my frequent correspondent from Palm Bay, Florida, who recalled how he first met his wife on a flight from Heathrow to New York in 1963. She was the last late passenger on the seat next to Mr Brookes. The couple have now been married 55 years!

Lets hope that the Covid Warwill be over soon, that wellall be able to resume real-life (as opposed to virtual and vicarious) and importantly strictly vertical travels, and that Peter Gills Horizontal Travel Agent of a brother will beindefinitely furloughed for lack of work!

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After All: May you never need the services of a 'Horizontal Travel Agent' - E&T Magazine

Clean beauty products: What it means and why brands ban certain ingredients – CNET

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Some people are swapping traditional beauty brands for "clean" versions -- here's why.

When I was in college about five years ago, I started doing more research about the ingredients in food and how they can affect your health. I did the Whole30 challenge, which basically forces you to read the label of everything you eat and focuses on eating mainly whole, unprocessed foods for 30 days. I felt really good after the 30 days of nixing processed food, even though I found the program pretty unrealistic for real life. Still I learned a lot and developed a new sense of empowerment about what ingredients I wanted to put in my body. Fast forward a few more years and I started to take the same approach to my skincare and cosmetics and largely started using "clean beauty" products or beauty products formulated without what are thought to be potentially harmful or toxic ingredients.

One of the big drivers in my desire to change my products was this one fact: your skin is the largest organ in your body. And it's largely thought that at least some of the ingredients that you put on it absorb into your bloodstream. Not to mention all of the (increasingly growing) science on how some ingredients in beauty products are endocrine disruptors, which means they can disrupt your hormones. For example, parabens are linked to hormone or endocrine disruption, which is linked to hormone disorders, thyroid disorders, obesity and even hormone-related cancers. So if ingredients I put on my body can be absorbed and potentially go into my bloodstream, why would I want to eat healthy but not care about the other chemicals coming in?

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For many clean beauty brands, sustainability is a priority -- whether that means using sustainable ingredients or choosing packaging that is biodegradable and better for the environment. The Environmental Working Group is a key civic group known for providing groundbreaking research on how toxic ingredients and other practices can harm people and the environment.

It didn't make sense for me so I slowly made the switch and changed out all of the products one by one -- I didn't throw everything away, but when something ran out, I would replace it with a "clean" option. When I did this, I learned that even though clean beauty is largely made up of expensive luxury brands, more affordable brands are available now, especially as the demand for clean beauty increases.

When shopping for these products, I found that the labels in the industry can get really confusing: there's "clean," "natural," "non-toxic," -- and I could go on. So what do all of these terms actually mean and how do you know what products are worth investing in? The answer is complicated. Which is why I talked to two brands that are leaders in the clean beauty world -- Drunk Elephant, founded in 2012 by Tiffany Masterson and Beautycounter, founded in 2013 by Gregg Renfrew.

Keep reading to learn more about what clean beauty means, why Masterson and Renfrew decided to start their brands and how they choose ingredients plus more on how ingredients are regulated.

Drunk Elephant is a highly popular clean beauty brand founded by Tiffany Masterson.

In the United States, the beauty and cosmetics industries are largely unregulated when it comes to what ingredients they can and cannot use, and also how they can market and label products as "clean," "natural" or "non-toxic."

Compared to 40 other nations in the world, in a recent Environmental Working Group report, the US is lagging behind when it comes to enacting measures for safety in ingredients in personal care products. The FDA currently only bans nine Ingredients from beauty products for safety reasons, and Congress has not updated laws on personal care and beauty product safety in about 80 years. By contrast, the European Union bans over 1,300 ingredients from personal care products. The FDA also has no standards or guidelines that require personal care and beauty brands to test ingredients for safety before they are sold and marketed.

More than 40 nations around the world have tighter restrictions on the ingredients used in personal care products than the United States.

Since there is little regulation for ingredients in the US and no standard definition for clean beauty -- then what does it mean? The answer varies depending on each brand.

"Since there is not one industry wide definition of 'clean' beauty, every brand defines it a little differently. To me 'clean' means using only ingredients that are safe and not known or thought to be linked to internal disease or disruption if they are able to get into the blood stream," Masterson tells CNET. She developed the "Suspicious Six," a list of six potentially harmful ingredients, as a guideline for what the company will never use in their products.

But for Masterson, those six ingredients aren't just about safety in terms of potential links to endocrine disruption or other health issues, it's also about "respecting and supporting the healthy function of skin. The ingredients in Drunk Elephant products won't cause irritation or congestion and they keep the acid mantle intact that's what makes them biocompatible. My mission is to help people by delivering products that work and can improve the quality of their skin when the philosophy is strictly adhered to," Masterson says.

For Beautycounter, "clean beauty" means much more than the list of ingredients that the company bans from their products, which they call the Never List. "For Beautycounter, it's more than just formulating safe ingredients. It means we look at how we are sourcing the ingredients, and how people are treated along the supply chain and how we select packaging, making sure that we keep sustainability in mind and that we screen all of the packaging materials for potential ingredients that could leach into our clean formulas.," says Lindsay Dahl, SVP of Social Mission at Beautycounter.

One common misconception in the clean beauty space is just because something is labeled "natural," does not necessarily mean it's totally safe to put on your skin. This is why it's helpful to research ingredients and know a company's standards before purchasing a product if you are concerned with ingredient safety.

"I've always found it odd that natural is associated with safety, because nature creates some of the most powerful toxins and poisons," Masterson says. "Not all natural ingredients are good for you (poison ivy and arsenic) and not all synthetics are bad. The concept of synthetic gets a bad rap, but your body is synthesizing ingredients all the time from the nutrients you feed it. Vitamin C, for example (as ascorbic acid) is synthesized from citrus fruits. The Vitamin C we use in C-Firma and C-Tango is nutritionally identical to the C that comes from an orange, but the synthesis that we use creates a more stable and concentrated version for skin," Masterson says.

Another example of this is the reason why Drunk Elephant does not use essential oils in their products, even though you might deem them relatively harmless. "We believe their purported benefits are far outweighed by their ability to sensitize and inflame the skin. When you can use non-fragrant plant oils and extracts that deliver the same and better benefits, why risk it? For Drunk Elephant it isn't about natural vs. synthetic, it's about effectiveness, compatibility and safety," Masterson says.

Since the US does not ban many ingredients, it can be helpful to read labels before purchasing products if you are concerned with ingredient safety.

Even though there are over 1,300 ingredients that are commonly banned in clean beauty products, there are a few specific ones that are most commonly called out as harmful and left out of clean products.

Phthalates: Phthalates are commonly used in nail polish, hairspray and perfume to make fragrance stick to the skin. They are linked to endocrine disruption and may cause birth defects.

Parabens: Parabens are commonly used as preservatives in beauty products like makeup. These mimic estrogens in the body, which is why they are known to disrupt the endocrine system.

Triclosan: An anti-microbic pesticide that is found in antimicrobial and antibacterial products like soap and toothpaste. Triclosan was banned by the FDA in 2016 and companies are not allowed to use it without a premarket review. It is also known as an endocrine disruptor.

Fragrance: Manufacturers don't technically have to say what chemicals are in fragrance since according to Beautycounter, "Fragrance formulas are protected under federal law's classification of trade secrets and therefore can remain undisclosed." But most clean brands ban fragrance since they can contain allergens or other chemicals that disrupt hormones.

Formaldehyde: Formaldehyde is used as a preservative in some personal care products like body wash. It's a carcinogen, meaning it's known to cause cancer, and also linked to other health problems like asthma and neurotoxicity. Formaldehyde-releasers can also be found in some products, and sometimes they are not labeled on the ingredient list.

Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (SLS): Sodium lauryl sulfate is a surfactant or cleansing agent found in products like shampoos. They are known to be irritating to the skin and harsh, which is why many clean companies remove them.

Polyethylene glycol (PEG): PEGs are commonly used in beauty products for a variety of functions, including to thicken products or as moisture-carriers. According to Beautycounter, depending on how the product is manufactured, the PEGs can be contaminated with known carcinogens.

Since there is little regulation in the beauty industry, many people are working to pass laws that would help take more ingredients off the market that are scientifically linked to adverse health effects like endocrine disruption. It's one of the causes that Beautycounter is most known for.

"Our ultimate goal as a company is not only providing people safer options today, but to pass legislation to make sure that the entire beauty industry is cleaner and safer. We know that not everyone is going to have access to find or afford our products, so our ultimate goal is to disrupt the beauty industry once and for all, through passing meaningful legislation," Dahl says.

In fact, Beautycounter's CEO, Gregg Renfrew, testified as an expert witness at a hearing on cosmetic reform in Congress in 2019.

Clean beauty is definitely trendy in the wellness space. But the appeal can lose its luster if you are skeptical about the science behind the claims or if the luxury branding for many brands seems out of reach for your budget. At the end of the day, it's up to you to read labels and make the decision since there are no official health authorities regulating ingredient safety for you (at least, not yet). Personally, I'd rather clean up my products and not risk the chance that they could lead to problems down the line -- I'd rather use products I don't have to worry about vs. potentially problematic ones or ones with controversial ingredients.

Clean beauty has a bad rap for being expensive and inaccessible, but as the trend continues to rise, it's clear that clean beauty is now expected from consumers -- it's not just something only a few people demand. Case in point: Target adopted a clean beauty seal in 2019, and Sephora launched a "Clean at Sephora" category and seal in 2018 to help shoppers decipher which products are formulated without controversial ingredients. The market has room for more affordable and accessible brands for sure, but long gone are the days of clean beauty products solely sitting on a luxury product shelf.

The information contained in this article is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as health or medical advice. Always consult a physician or other qualified health provider regarding any questions you may have about a medical condition or health objectives.

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Clean beauty products: What it means and why brands ban certain ingredients - CNET

The Revolution will be Televised: Pioneer of Black Economic Empowerment Dr. DeForest B. Soaries, Jr. to be Joined by Media Mogul Tarik Brooks, Media…

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Soaries promises that attendees will leave this live virtual experience with solid steps for collective mobilization and individual action items to begin or continue their journeys toward financial freedom. Also joining the conversations will be Shane Harris, VP Social Responsibility & Partnerships and President of the Prudential Foundation, as well as Michellene Davis Esq., EVP & Chief Corporate Affairs Officer of RWJ Barnabas Health to discuss the stances their respective corporations have on the state of Black America. Both Prudential Financial and RWJ Barnabas Health serve as sponsors of the virtual event.

Black America is experiencing a catharsis moment and weve got to move! said Soaries, CEO and Founder of dfree, who has worked on civil rights issues for the Urban League as a community organizer and Operation PUSH as the national coordinator. These two national crises COVID-19 and the continuation of racial injustices that weve experienced over the last few months have made it abundantly clear that we must control our own narrative. Until we control whats ours our communities, our politics, our economics well never be truly free. dfree is armed to combat social reform on behalf of Black people because real social justice is impossible without economic empowerment!

The dfree From Crisis to Clarity Virtual Conference will include power-packed panels and discussions featuring change agents in the Black community, solid steps for attendees to begin their journeys toward financial freedom including access to the free dfree classes and curriculum, resources and tools to help attendees achieve their financial goals and more. The event will feature special guests from different sectors of the Black community including leadership from national fraternities and sororities, major corporations, pastors and clergy, as well as dfree Members who have adopted dfree principles into their lifestyles and have had major success.

Highlights include:

Attendees will also be able to chat live with the dfree Team on activating curriculum and principles into their personalize lives, community groups and churches. dfree Partners from across financial and lifestyle industries will be on hand in the virtual exhibition hall with tools and services to help attendees achieve their personal goals.

Weve been led to believe that knowing more makes us do better. But when it comes to finances, having a plan and sticking to it is what makes us do better. Knowledge is power, but knowledge without strategy is just acquired information, continued Soaries. We are on a critical mission to annihilate the wealth gap statistics that have been placed on us as a race. And, thats just what were going to do.

dfree is the premier financial freedom movement designed specifically for African Americans that focuses on cultural, spiritual and psychological spending influences. Through training, content, curriculum, tools and resources, dfree offers solid strategy on how to become debt free and provides the blueprint to build legacy and secure a positive financial future. Celebrating its 15th anniversary this year, the dfree movement has grown globally and is used by more than 4,000 churches and organizations, and 200,000 individuals. The organizations strategies are effective and proven. More than 6,000 people have taken the free online dfree course which has resulted in true life transformation. Through the dfreeBillion Dollar Challenge alone, the organization has guided more than 10,000 African Americans to rid themselves of nearly $25 million of consumer debt.

Admission to the dfree From Crisis to Clarity Virtual Conference is free. For more information to reserve tickets, please visit mydfree.org.

About the dfree Financial Freedom Movement: As the only faith-based, wealth-building system specifically designed with the black community in mind,dfree delivers access to financial freedom.dfreeuses a variety of tools to educate, motivate and support people who make the choice to achieve and sustain financial freedom. Featured in CNNs Almighty Debt: A Black in America Special, dfreebegan as a faith-based initiative to help stem an epidemic of overspending, particularly in the African-American community.dfreehas grown into a movement that gives participants the: ability to handle their own financial responsibilities; willingness to help others do the same; and, capacity to leave assets for future generations.

In the tradition of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,dfree also is a movement to help achieve economic justice in America. Rev. Dr. King once said, We must never let it be said that we spend more for the evanescent and ephemeral than for the eternal values of freedom and justice.dfree emphasizes controlling money matters so that individuals have the freedom to focus on more purposeful pursuits.

About DeForest B. Soaries, Jr. Rev. Dr. DeForest B. Soaries Jr. is known as an active agent for change and is a widely requested speaker. He is the Senior Pastor of First Baptist Church of Lincoln Gardens in Somerset, New Jersey, former chairman of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission and former New Jersey Secretary of State. His pastoral ministry focuses on spiritual growth, educational excellence, economic empowerment and faith-based community development. Soaries is the founder and CEO of the dfreeGlobal Foundation and author of several books including Say Yes When Life Says No. Soaries currently serves as an independent director at three companies: Independence Realty Trust, Federal Home Loan Bank of New York and Ocwen Financial Corporation.

SOURCE dfree Global Foundation

http://mydfree.org/

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The Revolution will be Televised: Pioneer of Black Economic Empowerment Dr. DeForest B. Soaries, Jr. to be Joined by Media Mogul Tarik Brooks, Media...

Scheer says Liberals’ choice to give WE contract was ‘corruption or incompetence’ – The Province

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Leader of the Opposition Andrew Scheer removes a face mask as he makes his way to the podium for a news conference, Wednesday, July 8, 2020 in Ottawa.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

OTTAWA The Opposition Conservatives accused the Liberal government of either corruption or ignorance Monday as they pressed for more answers around a decision to hand control over a major student grant program to an organization with longtime ties to the Trudeau family.

The House of Commons was sitting to pass a new bill to extend the wage subsidy program, send a special COVID-19 top-up to some people with disabilities and to extend legal deadlines for court cases.

While those measures were expected to pass with the support of all opposition parties, the same collegial spirit did not extend to question period.

There, the dominant line of inquiry was around the Liberal governments decision to award WE Charity the responsibility for a $900 million student job program.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus mother, in particular, has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees for participating in WE events, and Finance Minister Bill Morneaus daughter works for an arm of the WE organization.

The organization has handed the program back to the government and both Trudeau and Morneau have said they should have recused themselves from the decision.

But the international development and youth empowerment group is now under scrutiny for its internal practices, adding further fuel to the oppositions charges that the decision to grant the contract to WE was suspect.

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer pointed Monday to a report by Canadaland that red flags had been raised in 2018 by auditors reviewing WEs financials, as well as the fact that their board had undergone a major shakeup earlier in the year as evidence the Liberals had not done their due diligence in deciding to sign off on the contract.

Either the Liberals were aware of these issues and still approved the decision or they were incompetent, he said.

Its either corruption or incompetence, which is it?

It is neither, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland replied repeatedly, nearly reading verbatim from a sheet of paper with the Liberals current top-line talking point on the issue: that the idea of having WE run the Canada Student Services Grant was brought forward by the non-partisan public service.

The way this unfolded was regrettable and the charity will not longer be administering the project, she said.

The House of Commons had been recalled to pass the latest suite of COVID-19 measures.

The Liberals are seeking to extend the wage subsidy program to December and have its criteria loosened a little, so business can reopen and employ workers, even if trade is slow at first as the COVID-19 pandemic continues.

The original program covered 75 per cent of wages, up to a weekly maximum of $847, for eligible companies and non-profits. Companies had to show a 30 per cent drop in revenues.

The proposed changes will see the program pay on a sliding scale based on revenue drops due to the pandemic, with the hardest-hit businesses eligible for a 25 per cent increase to the previous maximum payment.

The Tories said the new approach is too convoluted.

We have major concerns around the wage subsidy, weve highlighted ideas to make it simpler, Scheer said ahead of the Commons sitting.

You need a degree in mathematics to fully understand all the permutations and combinations theyve come up with.

Since the Bloc Quebecois has said its MPs will support the bill, the Liberals have the majority of votes required to ensure it passes the Commons.

Scheer said the Tories do support the elements of the bill that grant up to $600 for people with disabilities and allows the court extensions and dont want to hold those up.

But all parties have now agreed to turn what was supposed to be a one-day sitting to pass the bill into two days to allow for more time to debate the measures.

That could also open up an opportunity for the Conservatives to do something else they were hoping to achieve Monday, but couldnt press the prime minister himself.

Trudeau did not show up for the sitting Monday, his itinerary listing him as taking a personal day.

Scheer suggested Trudeau was deliberately ducking any questions on the ongoing controversy around his personal connections to WE.

(Trudeau) picked today to come back to debate this bill and also to participate in question period, then he decided to take a personal day, Scheer said.

Well, its completely unacceptable that he doesnt show up for work on the day that he chose, its an insult to Canadians who have very serious questions about the WE scandal and who still are suffering because of the gaps in Mr. Trudeaus programs.

Trudeau is expected to be in the Commons on Tuesday, as well as for the special COVID-19 committee of MPs that is scheduled to meet Wednesday.

A lingering question is whether Trudeau will also appear at the House of Commons finance committee, where MPs want to grill him on the WE issue.

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Supreme Court must revisit its earlier position on the legitimacy of the two-child norm – The Leaflet

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The discussion on population control is omnipresent in India and quite so often strengthened by the discussions on law and policy. The author explores the parliament and Supreme Courts approach to population control policies.

On the occasion of World Population Day recently, we witnessed the all too familiar chorus of demands for a population control law. Unfortunately, most of these demands involve making the two-child norm compulsory such that a wide gamut of individual rights and benefits can be denied in case of non-compliance, thus allowing for unreasonable state interference in the private sphere.This rhetoric has also become a potent tool for blaming religious minorities and economically weaker sections, leaving little room for a nuanced discussion based on the changing socio-economic realities of India.

Since Independence, more than 35 bills have been tabled in Parliament by MPs from various parties urging the government to enact a law to control the rising population.

As recently as March 14, Congress MP and Senior Advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi moved a private members bill in the Rajya Sabha for enforcement of the two-child norm through a host of incentives like a preference for admission in higher education institutions and selection in government jobs and disincentives like barring the non-compliant couple from contesting elections, receiving government subsidies, etc.

Not long before, in February, Shiv Sena MP Anil Desai introduced a private members bill which proposes to insert Article 47A into the Constitution as follows: The State shall promote small family norms by offering incentives in taxes, employment, education, etc., to people who keep their family limited to two children and shall withdraw every concession from and deprive such incentives to those not adhering to small family norms, to keep the growing population under control. The insertion of Article 47A had also been recommended in 2002 by the National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution (NCRWC).

In July 2019, a private members bill titled, The Population Regulation Bill, 2019, had been introduced by BJP MP Rakesh Sinha in the Rajya Sabha. The Bill proposed that the two-child norm be compulsorily enforced and that failure to comply be penalised with higher interest rates on loans, debarment from contesting Parliamentary elections, and reduced government benefits. It also proposed income tax rebates, free healthcare, subsidies, and loans for housing and plots for those who complied with the two-child norm.

In 2018, around 125 parliamentarians wrote to the President of India asking for the implementation of the two-child norm.

In 2016, another BJP MP Prahlad Singh Patel had also tabled a private members bill on population control.

A slew of petitions has also been filed before the courts. In November 2019, BJP leader and lawyer Ashwini Kumar Upadhyaya had filed a Special Leave Petition in the Supreme Court against a Delhi High Court order which dismissed his PIL seeking implementation of the two-child norm. In his plea, Upadhyaya sought directions to the centre to enact a law that makes the two-child norm a criterion for government jobs, aids, and subsidies. The plea had also sought withdrawal of statutory rights like the right to vote, right to contest elections, right to property, right to free shelter, right to free legal aid, for those who failed to comply. In January this year, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court issued notices on the SLP to the centre and state governments.

The demands for a population control law are based on Entry 20-A in the Concurrent List of the Seventh Schedule, inserted through the 42ndconstitutional amendment in 1976, which permits both union and state legislatures to enact laws on population control and family planning matters. They further derive legitimacy from various state laws which set the two-child limit as a criterion for certain government jobs and elected posts and have been upheld as constitutionally valid by the courts.

In the last two decades, around 12 state governments have enacted such laws.

The two-child norm was first tested before the Supreme Court in the 2003 case ofJaved vs State of Haryanawhich involved a challenge to Section 175(1) of the Haryana Panchayati Raj Act, 1994. The impugned provision read as follows: No person shall be aSarpanchor aPanchof aGram Panchayator a member of aPanchayat SamitiorZila Parishador continue as such who has more than two living children. In effect, it disqualified a person having more than two living children from holding specified offices in Panchayats.

The petitioners argued that it violated the right to equality under Article 14 as it did not disqualify persons with two or less than two children and right to life and also personal liberty under Article 21 as it prevented persons from freely choosing the number of children they want of the Constitution.

A three-judge bench of the SC upheld the law, saying that the classification created by it was founded on intelligible differentia and based on the objective of controlling population growth. With respect to the Article 21 argument on reproductive autonomy, the SC said that the lofty ideals of social and economic justice, the advancement of the nation as a whole and the philosophy of distributive justice cannot be given a go-by in the name of undue stress on fundamental rights and individual liberty.

This precedent has ensured that similar state laws on eligibility forPanchayatelections have passed muster when challenged before courts. It also provides fertile ground for the government to further entrench the two-child norm by making it compulsory for all citizens and imposing a range of penalties on those who do not comply, as has been proposed on numerous occasions.

In order to curb such attempts, the SC must revisit its earlier position on the two-child norm, especially in light of the 2017 case ofJustice KS Puttaswamyvs Union of India. ThePuttaswamyjudgment recognised the right to privacy as a fundamental right under Article 21 of the Constitution and defined privacy to include personal autonomy relating to the body, and by extension, the right to reproductive choices. It further held that any State action which interferes with the right of privacy must meet the threefold requirement of (i) legality; (ii) the need for a legitimate aim; and (iii) proportionality.

Admittedly, unbridled population growth must not go unchecked but restrictions like the two-child norm interfere with the free exercise of the right to privacy and dont adequately satisfy the three-pronged privacy test since less coercive measures like promotion of contraceptive use, access to abortions, reduction in infant mortality rate, eradication of child marriage, promotion of female literacy and empowerment can be implemented to achieve the same ends.

(The author is a lawyer and legal journalist. Views expressed are personal.)

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Supreme Court must revisit its earlier position on the legitimacy of the two-child norm - The Leaflet

GlobalNanotechnology in Drug Delivery Market Report 2020 Sales Forecast to Grow Negatively in Western Regio post COVID 19 Impact Analysis Updated…

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Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery Market report involves all together a different chapter on COVID 19 Impact. The Covid-19 (coronavirus) pandemic is impacting society and the overall economy across the world. The impact of this pandemic is growing day by day as well as affecting the supply chain. The COVID-19 crisis is creating uncertainty in the stock market, massive slowing of supply chain, falling business confidence, and increasing panic among the customer segments. The overall effect of the pandemic is impacting the production process of several industries including Life Science, and many more. Trade barriers are further restraining the demand- supply outlook. nicolas.shaw@cognitivemarketresearch.com or call us on +1-312-376-8303.Download The report Copy form the webstie: https://cognitivemarketresearch.com/medical-devicesconsumables/nanotechnology-in-drug-delivery-market-report

The major players profiled in this report include: Access Pharmaceuticals, Alkermes, Aquanova, Camurus, Capsulution Pharma, Celgene

Market segment by type can be split into: Targeted Delivery, Drug Package

Market segment by the application can be split into: Cancer, Tumor, Other

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As government of different regions have already announced total lockdown and temporarily shutdown of industries, the overall production process being adversely affected; thus, hinder the overall Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery globally. This report on Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery provides the analysis on impact on Covid-19 on various business segments and country markets. The report also showcases market trends and forecast to 2027, factoring the impact of COVID-19 situation.

Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery Market report provide an in-depth understanding of the cutting-edge competitive analysis of the emerging market trends along with the drivers, restraints, and opportunities in the market to offer worthwhile insights and current scenario for making right decision. The report covers the prominent players in the market with detailed SWOT analysis, financial overview, and key developments of last three years. Moreover, the report also offers a 360 outlook of the market through the competitive landscape of the global industry player and helps the companies to garner Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery Market revenue by understanding the strategic growth approaches.

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Report provides industry analysis, important insights, and a competitive and useful advantage to the pursuers. The report analyzes different segments and offers the current and future prospects of each segment. Furthermore, this research report contains an in depth analysis of the top players with data such as product specification, company profiles and product picture, sales area, and base of manufacturing in the global Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery market. The impact on the supply and demand of the raw materials, due to the COVID-19 is also analyzed in the global Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery market.

Additionally, report consists of product life cycle, which discus about the current stage of product. Further, it adds manufacturing cost analysis as well as complete manufacturing process involved. Report also adds supply chain analysis to ensure complete data of market.

Objectives of Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery Market Report:To justifiably share in-depth info regarding the decisive elements impacting the increase of industry (growth capacity, chances, drivers and industry specific challenge and risks)To know the Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery Market by pinpointing its many sub segmentsTo profile the important players and analyze their growth plansTo endeavor the amount and value of the Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery Market sub-markets, depending on key regions (various vital states)To analyze the Global Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery Market concerning growth trends, prospects and also their participation in the entire sectorTo inspect and study the Global Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery Market size form the company, essential regions/countries, products and applications, background information and also predictions to 2027Primary worldwide Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery Market manufacturing companies, to specify, clarify and analyze the product sales amount, value and market share, market rivalry landscape, SWOT analysis and development plans for the next coming yearsTo examine competitive progress such as expansions, arrangements, new product launches and acquisitions on the market

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Follow is the chapters covered in Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery Market:Chapter 1 Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery Market OverviewChapter 2 COVID 19 ImpactChapter 3 Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery Segment by Types (Product Science)Chapter 4 Global Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery Segment by ApplicationChapter 5 Global Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery Market by Regions (2015-2027)Chapter 6 Global Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery Market Competition by ManufacturersChapter 7 Company (Top Players) Profiles and Key DataChapter 8 Global Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery Revenue by Regions (2015-2020)Chapter 9 Global Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery Revenue by TypesChapter 10 Global Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery Market Analysis by ApplicationChapter 11 North America Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery Market Development Status and OutlookChapter 12 Europe Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery Market Development Status and OutlookChapter 13 Asia Pacific Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery Market Development Status and OutlookChapter 14 South America Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery Market Development Status and OutlookChapter 15 Middle East & Africa Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery Market Development Status and OutlookChapter 16 Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery Manufacturing Cost AnalysisChapter 17 Marketing Strategy Analysis, Distributors/ TradersChapter 18 Global Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery Market Forecast (2020-2027)Chapter 19 Research Findings and ConclusionGet detailed TOC for Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery Market Report @ https://cognitivemarketresearch.com/medical-devicesconsumables/nanotechnology-in-drug-delivery-market-report#table_of_contents.

Customization of the Report:This report can be customized to meet the clients requirements. Please connect with our sales team, who will ensure that you get a report that suits your needs. You can also get in touch with our executives on to share your research requirements.nicolas.shaw@cognitivemarketresearch.com or call us on +1-312-376-8303.

About Us: Cognitive Market Research is one of the finest and most efficient Market Research and Consulting firm. The company strives to provide research studies which include syndicate research, customized research, round the clock assistance service, monthly subscription services, and consulting services to our clients. We focus on making sure that based on our reports, our clients are enabled to make most vital business decisions in easiest and yet effective way. Hence, we are committed to delivering them outcomes from market intelligence studies which are based on relevant and fact-based research across the global market.Contact Us: +1-312-376-8303Email: nicolas.shaw@cognitivemarketresearch.comWeb: https://www.cognitivemarketresearch.com

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Microscopy Devices Market Study 2020-2025 with Profiles of Bausch Health, Bruker Corporation, Carl Zeiss, Thermofisher Scientific, and Olympus…

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DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The "Microscopy Device Market - Growth, Trends, and Forecasts (2020 - 2025)" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The market for microscopy devices is being driven by factors such as a rising number of inventions in the field of microscopy, growing focus on nanotechnology and life science research.

Several studies have suggested that microscopy was seen performing better than the rapid diagnostics test (RDT) in the diagnosis of malaria in children under the age of five. It also suggested that microscopy, if available and possible should be done for all patients suspected of having malaria, even with negative RDT result, as it remains the gold standard for malaria diagnosis.

There has been an increasing number of patients using microscopic techniques, when compared to the other diagnostic tests as it is cost-effective and is consistently accurate. Hence, these increasing trends in the usage of microscopic diagnosis, along with its acceptance in the emerging regions are acting as major factors responsible for the growth of the market studied.

Key Market Trends

Electron Microscopy to Witness Rapid Growth

The regional organization for the United States, CIASEM (the Inter American Committee of Societies for Electron Microscopy, or Comit Interamericano De Sociedades De Microscopa Electrnica) holds an inter American congress of microscopy, every two years, and also sponsors and organizes regional meetings and conferences, in order to spread knowledge and awareness regarding electron microscopy.

Recent times have observed many significant developments in the field of electron microscopy, across various countries. For instance, the Brazilian Center for Research in Energy and Materials (CNPEM) has become the first center in Latin America to install a Thermo scientific krios G3i Cryo transmission electron microscope (Cryo-TEM), in July 2018, bringing the power of this instrument to Latin American structural biology researches. This, in turn, is expected to help transform the medical and pharmaceutical industries.

There have been several successful cases of HBT (health biotechnology) investment, globally. For example, Argentina's domestic industry synthesized biological health products by applying recombinant DNA technology. These are likely to involve electron microscopy as an integral part of research during the forecast period. The electron microscopy market is dominated by companies, such as FEI (Thermofisher Scientific), Hitachi, Carl Zeiss, and JEOL Ltd.

North America to Dominate the Market

As per the report of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the healthcare spending in the United States has been increased by 3.9% in 2017, and around 18% of the total GDP is spent on healthcare in the country. In the total healthcare spending, 32% is spent on the hospitals care and CMS has reported that this spending is increasing, as the hospitals are the major components of the healthcare system.

The United States has a large amount of geriatric population and high incidence rate of chronic disorders, such as cancer and cardiovascular disorders. The International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health has reported that 7 out of 10 deaths in the United States are caused by chronic diseases, which accounts for around 1.7 million people each year.

With increasing geriatric population and chronic diseases, the diagnosis rate has also increased. This, in turn, has helped in the growth of the usage of the microscopes in the country. Additionally, government support for the research and development of the nanotechnology has further influenced the growth of the market studied.

Competitive Landscape

The Microscopy Devices market includes global players such as Bausch Health, Bruker Corporation, Carl Zeiss, Thermofisher Scientific, Olympus Corporation, etc. With the rising focus on nanotechnology and the significance of microscopy devices in disease diagnosis, certain small to mid-sized companies are also coming in the market with product innovation. It is expected that such smaller companies will hold a substantial share of the market studied in the coming future.

Key Topics Covered

1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Study Deliverables

1.2 Study Assumptions

1.3 Scope of the Study

2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

4 MARKET DYNAMICS

4.1 Market Overview

4.2 Market Drivers

4.2.1 Increasing Number of Inventions in the Field of Microscopy

4.2.2 Increasing Demand for Focus on Nanotechnology and Life Science Research

4.3 Market Restraints

4.3.1 High Cost of Technologically Advanced Microscopes

4.4 Porter's Five Force Analysis

5 MARKET SEGMENTATION

5.1 By Type

5.1.1 Electron Microscopy

5.1.2 Optical Microscopy

5.1.3 Scanning Probe Microscopy

5.1.4 Ultramicroscopy

5.1.5 Other Types

5.2 By Application

5.2.1 Pathology

5.2.2 Nanotechnology

5.2.3 Life Science

5.2.4 Semiconductor

5.2.5 Material Science

5.3 By End-user

5.3.1 Hospitals

5.3.2 Academic Organizations

5.3.3 Diagnostic Laboratories

5.3.4 Other End-users

5.4 Geography

5.4.1 North America

5.4.2 Europe

5.4.3 Asia-Pacific

5.4.4 Middle-East & Africa

5.4.5 South America

6 COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE

6.1 Company Profiles

6.1.1 Bausch Health Companies Inc.

6.1.2 Bruker Corporation

6.1.3 Carl Zeiss

6.1.4 Thermofisher Scientific (FEI Company)

6.1.5 JEOL Company

6.1.6 Leica Camera AG

6.1.7 Nikon Corporation

6.1.8 Olympus Corporation

6.1.9 Park Systems

6.1.10 Steede Medical

7 MARKET OPPORTUNITIES AND FUTURE TRENDS

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/oxq2e6

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Microscopy Devices Market Study 2020-2025 with Profiles of Bausch Health, Bruker Corporation, Carl Zeiss, Thermofisher Scientific, and Olympus...

Transparent Conductive Films Markets and Technologies 2019-2025 – Yahoo Finance UK

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Dublin, July 21, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Transparent Conductive Films: Technologies and Global Markets" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

In this report, the publisher examines the global transparent conductive films and technology market's revenue potential and the current state of the market. The analysis includes a detailed survey of upcoming organizations in the market as well as existing players. At the industry level, the publisher identifies, examines, describes, and provides global and regional market sizes for 2019, 2020, and 2025.

While a wide range of companies operates in the market, these companies can be classified as:

In terms of market size, the Asia-Pacific region is the largest market for transparent conductive films. The Asia-Pacific region is also witnessing the strongest growth rate and is expected to continue to be the strongest growing region in the coming years. North America is the second-largest market. Europe is the third-largest market and is expected to see a moderate growth rate. The market for transparent conductive films and technologies is expected to be moderate to low in the Middle East and Africa, and South America. However, these regions are witnessing a higher growth rate than North America and Europe. The Middle East and Africa, with a higher growth rate, will see some increase in its market share.

Segmentation by application shows that smartphones are the major segment and are among the strongest growing segments. Smartphones are followed by wearable devices. Wearable devices are expected to see the strongest growth as the wearables market/industry itself is a strong-growing market. The wearables market is witnessing strong growth worldwide and among various use areas; demand for transparent conductive films will see strong growth. Wearables are followed by tablets, other LCDs, and laptops.

Report Scope

Key Topics Covered

Chapter 1 Introduction

Chapter 2 Summary and Highlights

Chapter 3 Market and Technology Background

Chapter 4 Market Breakdown by End-use

Chapter 5 Market Breakdown by Material

Chapter 6 Market Breakdown by Application Segment

Chapter 7 Market Breakdown by Region

Chapter 8 Industry Structure

Chapter 9 Company Profiles

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/jjn8v

Research and Markets also offers Custom Research services providing focused, comprehensive and tailored research.

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Transparent Conductive Films Markets and Technologies 2019-2025 - Yahoo Finance UK

EV Group Completes State-Of-The-Art Cleanroom – I-Connect007

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EV Group, a leading supplier of wafer bonding and lithography equipment for the MEMS, nanotechnology and semiconductor markets, announces that it has completed construction of its new Cleanroom V building at its corporate headquarters in Austria.

Built from top to bottom with the latest cleanroom design and construction technology, the new building nearly doubles the cleanroom capacity at EVGs headquarters, and will be used for product and process development, equipment demonstrations, prototyping and pilot-line production services. The Cleanroom V building, which is part of a 30 million Euro investmentannounced last year, will officially open in August.

The new Cleanroom V building is directly connected to EVGs existing cleanroom and applications lab, and provides approximately 620 square meters of additional Class 10 cleanroom floor space. The new building also houses a modern training center with multiple dedicated areas for training customers and field service engineers on EVG equipment platforms. As part of the expansion investment, the existing cleanroom and applications lab facility have also been upgraded, including the creation of redundant systems to ensure the highest availability and new safety features.

Enhancing EVGs centers of technology excellence

The added capacity afforded by the new Cleanroom V building will strengthen the capabilities of EVGs NILPhotonicsCompetence Center and Heterogeneous Integration Competence Center, which provideworld-class process development services, and serve as open access innovation incubators for customers and partners across the microelectronics supply chain. Through these centers of technology excellence, EVG helps customers to accelerate technology development, minimize risk, and develop differentiating technologies and products through the implementation of nanoimprint lithography and heterogeneous integration, respectively, while guaranteeing the highest IP protection standards that are required for working on pre-release products.

We are extremely proud of the technical innovation and know-how that went into the construction of this new cleanroom. It is truly a world-class, state-of-the-art facility down to the smallest detailsarguably on par with some of the most technically advanced cleanrooms in Europe, stated Markus Wimplinger, corporate technology development & IP director at EV Group. For EVG, this new facility will greatly enhance our ability to co-develop future applications and technologies with our customers. In particular, we see it benefiting our competence centers, which have seen particularly strong activity and demand. The unique services offered at our NILPhotonics and Heterogeneous Integration Competence Centers enable our customers and partners to shorten development cycles and create novel products in these critical application areas.

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EV Group Completes State-Of-The-Art Cleanroom - I-Connect007