This Week in Agribusiness, July 18, 2020 – Farm Progress

Posted on by

Part 1

Matt Jungmann, manager, Farm Progress Show, joins Max to talk about the virtual Farm Progress Show.

Jerry Gulke, The Gulke Group, joins Mike Pearson to talk market insight, including weather influence, price adjustments and more.

Part 2

Jerry Gulke is back, talking more about markets, including soybean demand and prices and wheat.

Chad Colby shares a special project: the world's largest ag tractor, Big Bud. Scott Sloan, ag product manager, Global LSW, talks about the project and tire technology.

Part 3

Jamie Johansen reports on the timber industry from Missouri, and what happens to logs once harvested.

Part 4

Tom Cassidy, Ag Radio Network, joins Mike to talk about a lumber shortage in the timber industry during the COVID-19 crisis.

Greg Soulje is in to share is weekly weather forecast.

Part 5

Greg is back with an extended weather outlook.

Part 6

In Max's Tractor Shed, he talks about the passing of Bill Borghoff and his 1965 Farmall 806 Diesel.

Mark Stock shares what's coming up on the auction block for Big Iron Auctions.

The FFA Chapter Tribute goes to Fowlerville FFA, Fowlerville, MI.

In place of Samuelson Sez, Max talks about Owen Newlin, a longtime U.S. seed industry executive who passed away this week, and his impact on the ag industry.

Part 7

Max shares the interview Chad Colby had with Jerry Mez, owner, Farmall Land, about his Farmall tractor collection in Iowa.

See the rest here:

This Week in Agribusiness, July 18, 2020 - Farm Progress

Kevin Jennings on What’s Next: Change That Makes Concrete Progress’ – NBC Bay Area

Posted on by

Kevin Jennings has been fighting for equality for decades. In 1988, he created the first school-based Gay-Straight Alliance Club while working as a history teacher in Concord, Massachusetts. He went on to serve as the assistant deputy secretary for the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools at the U.S. Department of Education from 2009 to 2011. Today, he is the chief executive officer of Lambda Legal, a legal and civil rights organization focused on equality for LGBTQ people and persons living with HIV. Jennings has been recognized for his documentary film work and has authored seven books, including "Mamas Boy," his memoir. Hes a first-generation college graduate and earned his undergraduate degree from Harvard College, a masters from Columbia Universitys Teachers College, and an MBA from NYU Stern School of Business.

This is the eighth part of a series wherecivil rights leaders, cultural influencers, advocatesand critical thinkersexplain race relations, societal change, community protest and the political awakening happening in the United States following the tragic deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and other Black Americans.The group, including NAACP President Derrick Johnson and #OscarsSoWhite Creator April Reign, pose their thoughts on race relations during the summer of 2020 and how America may move forward less divided. Join the conversation on social media using #PassTheMic.

Kevin Jennings, Chief Executive Officer, Lambda Legal

We need to see demonstrable changes in outcomes for Black people in American society. Nothing less will do.

Q: How would you describe the civic unrest occurring in America right now?

A: Given our ongoing failure to come to terms with our history of racism and its insidious impact on our society, the word that comes to mind is inevitable. I am reminded of the poem "Harlem" by Langston Hughes, now nearly 70 years old but still relevant.

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry uplike a raisin in the sun?Or fester like a soreAnd then run?Does it stink like rotten meat?Or crust and sugar overlike a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sagslike a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

Q: Is this a fleeting moment or have we reached an inflection point where lasting change is possible?

A: Thats up to us. It will only be an inflection point if we, the people and our leaders commit to making serious, systemic changes in response to this moment. Its possible, but it will take commitment and hard work for real change to happen. Only we can decide if we are committed to so doing.

Q: Is there another moment in history that relates to the moment we are living through now?

A: During Reconstruction (1865-1877), the United States made rapid progress towards racial equality. Formerly enslaved Black men were given the right to vote, numerous Black people took office (including as US Senators and as Governors), and the first schools for Black people were established. But then the federal government withdrew its support for such efforts, and through a campaign of both physical and political violence by white people the gains made by Black people were largely erased as legal segregation was imposed, Black people were disenfranchised, and the white elite regained its power in the South. That teaches us a lesson, i.e. that progress is neither inevitable nor irrevocable, and wed do well to remember that now.

A civil rights activist, attorney and writer explain race relations, societal change and the political awakening happening in the United States following the tragic death of George Floyd. When it comes to race, systemic problems have plagued the nation for not only decades, but for centuries, says Derrick Johnson, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The summer of 2020 is proving to be a moment for multiracial coalitions to come together, according to Fatima Goss Graves, TIMES UP Legal Defense Fund co-founder and National Womens Law Center president and chief executive officer. Bestselling author George Johnson explains the revolution is being televised.

Q: What specifically needs to happen for Black lives to matter in the United States?

A: We need to see systemic change, change that makes concrete progress towards erasing the continued disparities between white people and Black people in education, income, and wealth. Just giving Juneteenth as a holiday is not enough. We need to see demonstrable changes in outcomes for Black people in American society. Nothing less will do.

Q: What does social justice mean to you personally and why should others care?

A: I am proud to be an American, and I understand that even that pride is part of my privilege as a white person in this country. I grew up pledging allegiance to a flag that stood for liberty and justice for all. As Langston Hughes wrote above, this dream of liberty and justice for all has been a dream deferred for too long for Black people as well as a host of others disabled people, LGBTQ people, religious groups such as Muslims, the list could go on. Social justice to me means we decide, as a society, that we are finally going to live up to that pledge with no exceptions based on race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, ability or any of the other myriad ways people are held back in the United States.

Q: What solutions will heal racial divisions and disparities?

A: People must see concrete changes. As long as Black people have fewer opportunities to get a quality education, to get good jobs, and to walk safely down the street, racial division will persist. We need to invest in Black communities, providing high quality schools and more, and better career opportunities, things that make a tangible difference in peoples lives. We need to fix a criminal justice system that yields different outcomes for people based on race. And we need to come to terms with, acknowledge, and atone for an ugly history of 400 years of systematized racial oppression in the United States.

Q: How do you feel about the future?

A: Depends on the day, to be brutally honest. There are days when I feel like we may be on the verge of truly meaningful change, and then others when it all feels hopeless. I routinely see signs for hope as well as signs for despair. I am in the hope business anyone working for social justice is, as we deep down believe that change is possible, or else we couldnt do this work but Id be lying if I said hopeful was the only way I was feeling. Like that relationship status on Facebook, its complicated.

Read the original post:

Kevin Jennings on What's Next: Change That Makes Concrete Progress' - NBC Bay Area

Update: Water rescue teams continue to make progress for those stranded along rocks in Audra State Park, in Buckhannon WV – WV News

Posted on by

BUCKHANNON The 12 people stranded along rocks in the Middle Fork River in Audra State Park near Buckhannon were all rescued by firefighters by about 7:30 p.m., according to a Barbour County 911 supervisor.

The supervisor also said 911 dispatchers were not told of any medical transports from Belington EMS or Barbour County EMS.

Initially, firefighters responded to rescue a half dozen people, but more individuals were reported stranded along the rocks in multiple locations as the water rescue continued.

The supervisor said multiple fire crews from Barbour, Harrison, Taylor and Randolph counties were requested to assist after the initial dispatch about 4:30 p.m. Crews on scene included fire departments from Belington, Junior, Philippi, Nutter Fort, Bridgeport, Grafton and Elkins.

No first-responders were reported injured during the water rescue either.

The Barbour County Sheriffs Department and the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources were on scene Friday and spearheading the investigation.

Staff Writer Jonathan Weaver can be reached at (304) 626-1446 or jweaver@theet.com. Follow me on Twitter @jweaver_theet

View original post here:

Update: Water rescue teams continue to make progress for those stranded along rocks in Audra State Park, in Buckhannon WV - WV News

Stuck in neutral; Faith leaders frustrated by lack of forward progress – LEX18 Lexington KY News

Posted on by

LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX 18) The hope they walked with on June 4 was blatant. Five weeks later, that seems to have dissipated a bit. Faith leaders from Lexington gathered on the steps of the First African Baptist Church in Lexington to update the progress in their fight for racial equality.

"There are things that can be done strategically that can bring about change right now," said Rev. Dr. David Peoples of Jabez Missionary Baptist Church. But those things aren't being done, at least not yet.

Photo by Michael Berk

The city has placed a moratorium on no-knocks warrants, so that step is in the right direction concerning that issue. But these leaders want to see them eliminated, or at least have a chance to sit down and discuss why there's a need to keep them in place.

"If you communicate, you can solve anything," said Dr. CB Akins from First Baptist Bracktown Church. "If there are some instances in which he (Police Chief Lawrence Weathers) needs no-knocks warrants, communicate that. Sell us on that," Akins continued.

Dr. Akins also feels there's a ceiling at the University of Kentucky related to the promotion of qualified Black faculty members.

"What weve seen at the University of Kentucky for years is that our African American faculty there have to leave to move up, Akins said. He referred specifically to one employee to who left to become a Provost elsewhere.

That position has been open three times in the last six years," Akins said.

Akins implored the University's Board of Directors to take the lead on this situation because, as he said, a Board doesn't make suggestions; instead, its members can give orders.

Other issues remain in the business sector. Rev. Nathl L. Moore of First African Baptist Church, which hosted Thursday's briefing, cites a recent inquiry when saying the city isn't accurately reporting its numbers when it comes to the number of contracts awarded to African American-owned businesses. Moore said the 20 percent that's shown is closer to one percent.

"That is both shameful and unconscionable," Moore said.

But the biggest of all atrocities, as far as these men and women see it, would be to once again fall victim to something that's plagued this country for three centuries as it pertains to racial equality.

"What we don't want is to get in a kicking-the-can-down-the-road process," Peoples said.

Read the original:

Stuck in neutral; Faith leaders frustrated by lack of forward progress - LEX18 Lexington KY News

Analysis: For the job market, signs of progress but a long way to go – Buffalo News

Posted on by

The region's economy was entering phase two of the reopening process in mid-June, when restaurants such as Forty Thieves in Buffalo were opening to outside seating.

It is going to be a long, hard climb out of the hole the Covid-19 pandemic carved into the Buffalo Niagara job market.

While the region has made good progress recovering the jobs that were lost when the pandemic sent much of Western New York into lockdown in March, the gradual reopening of the economy has meant that the recovery has been equally gradual.

New data released Thursday by the State Labor Department shows just how gradual it has been, and how far we have to go to get back to where we were.

So far, we've regained about 42,000 of the jobs that were lost since the coronavirus plunge began. That is good progress, but it means we have only regained about 40% of the 104,000 jobs we lost during the first month of the pandemic. We're still down 77,000 jobs from a year ago, which means about 1 of every 7 local jobs vanished in a matter of months.

We still have a long way to go to get them all back.

"You initially thought it was going to recover fairly quickly, but now it doesn't look like that will be true," said Fred Floss, a SUNY-Buffalo State economist.

The jobs report provides a snapshot of the Buffalo Niagara job market in mid-June, just as the economy was entering phase three of the reopening process. That's when restaurants were opening to inside seating and places like nail salons and massage therapists reopened.

Go here to see the original:

Analysis: For the job market, signs of progress but a long way to go - Buffalo News

UAE Mars mission brings hope amid challenging year – The National

Posted on by

Fourteen years ago, the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre was founded in Dubai, establishing the country's nascent space programme. Since then, the UAEs interplanetary ambitions have soared. Three years ago, the nation had no professional astronauts, but in less than a year, an Emirati astronaut has already been to space and the country will imminently send a probe to Mars, in co-operation with Japan.

These missions, accomplished in a remarkably short time, embody the determination and spirit of the Emirates to lead the Arab world's achievements in space. The space programme is also testament to the UAE's will to invest in new technology, contributing to the expanse of humankinds knowledge beyond the realms of Earth, and nurture a new generation of homegrown scientific talent. Since the start of the space programme, universities have introduced new areas of scientific study and the interest in STEM subjects have soared.

Last September, Hazza Al Mansouri became the first Emirati astronaut to go to space. He boarded a Soyuz rocket from Kazakhstan and reached the International Space Station, where he represented his country alongside scientists from around the world. Maj Al Mansouris mission has made Emiratis proud and inspired an entire generation of young men and women to pursue careers in astrophysics and other scientific fields so that they could follow in his footsteps.

The success of the countrys first space mission has also laid the ground for other ambitious projects. Early on Wednesday morning, at 12.51 am, the UAE will launch the Hope probe, the first Arab mission to Mars.

At a time when the coronavirus pandemic has forced nations to curb budgets that are not veered exclusively to developing a vaccine, the UAEs commitment to space ventures and continued investment in new technology stands out.

It is the aim of Hope to study the upper and lower atmosphere of Mars, where in the coming century, the UAE aspires to build a colony.

Despite the world being thrown in turmoil because of the pandemic, the UAE has remained undeterred in its space ambitions. The UAE has been at the forefront of efforts to contain the spread of Covid-19. It is the country where the most tests have been carried out per capita. Last month, an Abu Dhabi company invented a rapid coronavirus laser testing technology that could make it possible to conduct mass screenings and deliver results in mere seconds.

That the launching of the Hope probe was not delayed or cancelled due to the pandemic is a major achievement in and of itself. But science is not the only driver of the UAEs space programme.

Despite the world being thrown in turmoil because of the pandemic, the UAE has remained undeterred in its space ambitions

According to Nidhal Guessoum, an Algerian astrophysicist at the American University of Sharjah, the prime objective of the Hope probe is to catalyse this generation".

The Mars mission, along with the rest of the UAEs space programme, is another chapter in the UAE's ambitious story. These accomplishment set a positive example in a a region riddled with conflict and economic mismanagement, and serve to prove that Arab nations have what it takes to thrive.

In the words of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President and Ruler of Dubai: Our journey to space represents a message of hope to every Arab citizen that we have the innovation, resilience and efforts to compete with the greatest of nations in the race for knowledge.

Updated: July 14, 2020 09:52 AM

Read the original here:

UAE Mars mission brings hope amid challenging year - The National

Five Scientific Achievements That Happened During Coronavirus Lockdown – Smithsonian Magazine

Posted on by

On the afternoon of March 23, Jagath Ekanayake was finishing a cup of tea when his supervisor, James Barringer, told him to clear out. Ekanayake, a scientist, engineer and inventor at Manaaki Whenua - Landcare Research Institute in New Zealand, is in charge of collecting data on soil moisture and temperature with wireless sensors. He was about to embark on a two-year ecological study to measure the health of soil on several farms stretching across country when the government moved to alert level four and his experiment was put on hold indefinitely. Ekanayake spent the remainder of the afternoon going back and forth from his lab to the parking garagecarrying his multimeter, his soldering station, his oscilloscope and numerous bags of cables, wires and circuit boards. He filled his trunk and slowly drove away.

By the first week of April, roughly four billion peoplehalf the global populationwere in lockdown. The lockdown had the impact of a blunt force injury, leaving researchers all over the world reeling and disoriented. At the University of Antioquia in Colombia, herpetologists working with critically endangered reptiles carried the temperature- sensitive unhatched eggs to their homes. NASA engineers quickly learned to pilot the Mars Curiosity rover remotely.

Anyone would be forgiven for feeling lethargic and overwhelmed during a global pandemic. But some among us were wildly productive. They found ingenious workaroundsinventing, cataloging and even making significant scientific breakthroughs, from the comfort of home. In England, a team of archeologists at the University of Exeter analyzing images generated by LiDAR sensors, and partnering with volunteers working from home, impressively discovered more than 20 Roman settlements buried across Devon and Cornwallall on their laptops.

Ekanayakes garage was too cold to work in, so the engineer spent his confinement constructing a wireless sensor network on his living room table. Agricultural production ravages ecosystems; his network pinpoints terrain that can deliver high yield crops with minimal fertilizer, preserving New Zealands unique biodiversity. Ekanayake ran out of space on the table, so he dragged all the familys furniture out and used the floor. Eventually, his wife, Chitra, let him use the kitchen counters too. Over the course of the lockdown, Ekanayake would happily work 12-hour days, boring dozens of holes in his front yard with a handheld auger, then burying and testing each sensor hed constructed.

Roughly 11,000 miles away, Amruta Gadge, a quantum physicist at the University of Sussex in England, was bitterly disappointed to learn that her lab was closing indefinitely. She told her husband, a theoretical physicist, that the lockdown would derail her career. Several weeks later, working from home, she became the first scientist in history to create a Bose-Einstein Condensate (BEC)the exotic, elusive fifth state of matterremotely.

The condensate is a cloud of rubidium atoms that has been cooled to nanokelvin temperatures. The procedure involves several rounds of radio and laser cooling. During the process, the clump of atoms is held into place in a trap of electromagnetic fields, displayed inside its ultra-high vacuum chamber like a tiny Baked Alaska. When the minimum possible energy level is reached, the particles slow to a near stop and merge, behaving as a single wave with weird quantum properties. Still stuck in her living room two miles from her lab, Gadge controls the conditions of the BEC from her computer.

Gadges leap into quantum physics was (appropriately) random. She had entered a university program planning to study another field, but had been accidently placed in the wrong module. Nonetheless, the moment she entered the lab she was hooked. I liked doing things by handit was all very cool, she says. I got to play.

Her lockdown triumph hints at a near-future of remote lab work in far-flung, inhospitable environments, such as outer space or the deep sea. But at the moment, Gadge is focused on her next objective - using the condensate as an ultra-efficient sensor to measure the magnetic fields holding it in place, with an eye towards advancing new technologies in neuroimaging.

Brian Browns heart leapt when the California lockdown was announced. It seemed like a dream come true, says the chief entomology curator at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles. He loves his job, which he has held for 28 years, but it involves meetings. The lockdown was an opportunity to focus on lab work with no distractions. He was able to prepare long in advance, bringing home his microscopes and plenty of specimens, particularly of Phorid flies. Browns passion for flies has driven him halfway around the world. Hes written countless papers on them. Hes examined specimens preserved in 100-million-year-old pieces of amber. In his spare time, he runs a blog called flyobsession.net where he touts their admirable qualities, like their diversity. They can be parasites, predators, scavengers, fungus feeders, he says. Theyre the ones who pollinate cacao plants, which is the source of chocolate!

If flies are his guilty pleasure, the lockdown gave him an excuse to indulge . . . perhaps too much. Browns initial enthusiasm for the confinement has started to flag; over time, hes been surprised to find that he misses interacting with people. But working remotely with assistant entomology collection manager Lisa Gonzalez, Brown has discovered nine new species of phorid flies in just under two months, bringing his personal total to 600 new insect species discovered. Theres a downside to being so prolific. You start running out of things to use for names he says.

When she was seven years old, Stephanie Lizy-Destrez received an illustrated book about Marie Curie from her grandfather. She was a shy child in Villars-sur-Var, a village of less than 100 people in the French Alps. She had few friends. She spent long stretches of time looking up at the sky. Far from the city lights, shooting stars were visible at night. After closing the book, she dreamt of her future. Marie Curie was the only girl among a lot of guys and she succeeded; she ran experiments, she did testing, Lizy-Destrez says. [I thought], yeah I can do that too.

Years later, in March 2020, Lizy-Destrez was in the midst of coordinating a Mars mission simulation with an international teamrepresentatives from NASA, Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) and Roscosmos (Russias space agency). As a space researcher at ISAE-SUPAERO, an aeronautics university in Toulouse, Lizy-Destrezs study was scheduled to start within days. She was investigating the psychological impact of confinement and isolation on crew members during long duration missions. The participantsthree men and three womenhad been selected and were about to be sealed into a Moscow facility for eight months. Everyone was ready. Then French President Emmanuel Macron announced the confinement. Lizy-Destrez pivoted quickly. Two days into lockdown she began a modified version of the Mars study using 60 of her students.

Her pupils performed tasks, completed psychological testing and kept daily journals on their computers. Strictly confined to their small dormitory rooms, they made ideal test subjects. When French news media reported on her work, she was contacted by members of the public wanting to volunteer. After a careful selection process, she expanded the study. The average space mission simulation has four to six participants. Lizy-Destrez signed up over a hundred subjects, ranging in ages from 13 to 50 years oldmaking hers the largest space mission study in history. Still barred from her lab, shes now analyzing her findings.

At the Church of San Lorenzo in Venice, Ann-Sofi Ronnskog and John Palmesino were putting the finishing touches on Oceans in Transformationthe result of three years of hard work. The 30-screen video installation consists of raw oceanographic datacurrent and historicalthat the pair has collected and converted into images. The images are then layered, one on top of the other, to striking effect. The art piece required collaboration with scientists all over the world, from small labs to large research institutions (including the Smithsonian). In late February, only weeks before their exhibition was to open, the Finland-based citizen scientists were forced to flee Italy.

As human activity decreased, shoals of tiny fish began to return to the deserted canals surrounding the church. Similarly, changes appeared in the marine data the pair continued to accumulate. As the lockdown unfolded, they noted the rapid shift, worldwide, in carbon and nitrogen oxide levels. It was all right thereunfolding on their laptops, visible in the atmospheric datasets theyd acquired from a European Space Agency satellite. Trapped inside during March 2020, animal tracking GPS data enabled them to see the migration of a colony of Emperor penguins, marching steadfastly across Antarctic sea ice.

Ronnskog and Palmesinoboth architects by tradehave continued to study the marine environment closely, collecting and cataloging everything they can. Still locked down in Finland, their passion for documenting the anthropocene through the medium of oceanographic data is all-consuming. It takes up all the time were awake, says Ronnskog.

Lizy-Destrez can relate. She loves being at home with her space engineer husband; she says their children are excellent colleagues. Ive always worked a lotevery day, every night, every weekend, she says. The confinement has had no [impact] on my time.

Fifteen years ago, Ekanayake, always inventing, developed a system to measure the moisture retention properties of soil. Later he built an infiltrometer to measure the rate of soil water seepage. He currently has four patents in progress. He estimates that his efficiency increased 300 percent during lockdown.

Finally back in the lab, his evening hours are spent on a new project. Hes building a portable, battery powered spectrometer to identify urea and nitrogen in water. And next on the horizon? Now that Im 65, retirement is one option, he says. But I would like to continue working until I die.

That probably comes as no surprise to his colleagues, and his wife.

The rest is here:

Five Scientific Achievements That Happened During Coronavirus Lockdown - Smithsonian Magazine

The Expanse Season 5 Cast, Trailer And What Can We Expect? – World Top Trend

Posted on by

- Advertisement -

The Expanse is an American sci-fi TV series which is created by Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby. The series is based on the novel of the identical identify by James S.A. Corey. The Television show is about a future the place humanity is in a photovoltaic system, and it gives us details about whats going to occur sooner or later and the way its colonized. We see the rising tensions between Mars and Earth, resulting from many political and enviro worldtoptrendntal causes. The season was aired on December 14, 2015, at Sify. After three seasons the present was abolished, however. Nonetheless, it was retrieved on July 27, 2019.

There isnt any official release date announced however all of the followers are hoping to look at it by the tip of 2020. Productions had been slowed down because of the pandemic by proved to be a giant impediment. For now, we simply know that theres going to be a season 5. However, we have no idea when.

Since the show relies on books, we can predict the stuff thats going to happen. The followers count on a vivid or vital season 5. The collection is about the future and because the human colony develops and the way its maintained. The Martin Congress Republic of Mars manages these actions, United Nations Safety council Luna, the earth, and the Arterine planets alliance.

Because the release date of season 5 is not sure thus for apparent causes the trailer will not be released too. All we are able to do is hope for it to come back out quickly.

- Advertisement -

Read the original post:

The Expanse Season 5 Cast, Trailer And What Can We Expect? - World Top Trend

Government should freeze assets of Chinese officials involved in oppression of Uighurs, says Labour – PoliticsHome.com

Posted on by

Lisa Nandy said the Government should freeze the assets of Chinese officials involved in human rights abuses (BBC)

3 min read19 July

Labour is urging the Government to freeze the assets of any Chinese officials involved in the oppression of the Uighurs.

Shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy also said safeguarding national security has got to be the "plank" upon which all policy is based.

It comes amid worsening relations between the UK and Beijing after high-profile rows about Huawei and Hong Kong.

And on Sunday it was reported the Chinese media giant TikTok is ditching plans to open a global headquarters in London due to the "wider geopolitical context.

Speaking to Sky News Sophy Ridge on Sunday, Ms Nandy said she is "appalled" at alleged human right abuses by China against the mainly Muslim minority ethnic Uighur group.

"One very concrete thing the UK could do is freeze the assets of any Chinese officials involved in human rights abuses in China," she added.

"The UK should not be a haven for people who abuse human rights overseas.

But Chinas ambassador to the UK Liu Xiaomingdismissed such claims, saying every ethnicgroup in China is treated equal.

Speaking on BBC Ones Andrew Marr Show he was shown footage appearing to show Uighurs being blindfolded and loaded onto trains, and an interview with a woman who said she was forced into a sterilisation operation.

He replied by saying: "I do not know where you got this video tape.

Sometimesyou have a transfer of prisoners, as in any country."

Meanwhile, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab stopped short of decribing the treatment of Uighurs in China as genocide, but told the BBC it was "clear there are gross, egregioushuman rights abuses going on".

He added:"The reports of the human aspect of it - from forced sterilisation to the education camps - are reminiscent of something we have not seen for a long, long time.

"This from a leading member of the international community that wants to be taken seriously and in fact who we want a positive relationship with. But we cannot see behaviour like that and not call it out."

On the wider issue of relations with China,Labour frontbencher Ms Nandy said: "We've got to be in a position first and foremost to safeguard our national security.

"And whilst Chinese investment is very welcome in the UK, there are serious concerns, which I've been raising actually for four years now.

"I was the shadow energy secretary who raised concerns about Hinkley Point nuclear power station, that we shouldn't be handing over large chunks of our key infrastructure to Chinese Government-backed firms here in the UK.

"And that's what has prompted the row about Huawei. For several years now, we've been saying to the Government that this is a high-risk vendor.

Three consecutive Conservative prime ministers have been told by their own security services that this is a high risk vendor and yet have done nothing to try and reduce their reliance in this company in our 5G network.

She added: "It doesn't help Britain's economic prosperity to have failed to safeguard national security, that's got to be the plank on which we base everything else.

"If we'd acted sooner, if the Government had paid heed to the warnings, not just from Labour, but from Conservative backbenchers as well and from our own security services, then we wouldn't be in a position now where the roll-out of 5G is delayed and where the costs have increased because we just didn't have a plan.

Read more here:

Government should freeze assets of Chinese officials involved in oppression of Uighurs, says Labour - PoliticsHome.com

Pakistan urges world to push India to end oppression in IOK – The News International

Posted on by

NEW YORK: The universal values of freedom and peace are under assault in Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK), Pakistan's Ambassador to the United States Asad Majeed Khan has said, and he called for ending New Delhi's "egregious human rights violations" in the disputed region.

"India has occupied the region and brutally oppressed its people since 1947," he said in an opinion piece published in Newsweek, a leading American weekly magazine, pointing out that random and senseless killing remains a fact of life in Kashmir. "The international community, particularly the United States, cannot let India get away with its brutal oppression of the Kashmiri people under the cover of the coronavirus pandemic," the Pakistani envoy wrote.

Last year, he said, the spirits of millions of Kashmiri people were lifted when President Donald Trump offered to mediate the Kashmir dispute, when he met Prime Minister Imran Khan in Washington. "The president recognized that peace in South Asia would remain elusive until Kashmiris are able to choose their own destiny," he said, adding, "This would not be possible without US leadership."

But, Ambassador Khan said that in August 2019, India unilaterally annexed Jammu and Kashmir, making a mockery of international law and the reams of UN resolutions that recognize Kashmir as an international dispute, violating bilateral agreements, as well as its own commitments to the Kashmiri people. Even before the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, he said, Kashmiris were reeling under an oppressive lockdown. "Instead of easing restrictions, India doubled down on its lockdown and oppression in Kashmir."

Imagine having no internet access, no information, no contact with your loved ones, while a pandemic rages outside," the Pakistani envoy added. "As if that was not enough, we also witnessed a rise in fake encounters, extrajudicial killings and intensified crackdown on the media, and renewed internet restrictions in Kashmir, duly documented by credible international organizations. Eight million Kashmiris would have lived a full year in a state of complete lockdown this Aug 5, turning Kashmir into the largest prison on earth.

Most ominously, he said India, through a recently promulgated ordinance, wants to change Kashmir's demographics by force, turning its majority into a minority. This domicile law, for those of us who still care about international law, is a blatant violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which expressly forbids an occupying power from transferring its own civilian population into a disputed territory.:

Highlighting the present Indian government's agenda, Ambassador Khan said, "Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was once banned from entry into the United States because of his role in a 2002 religious pogrom that left more than 1,000 people dead in the Indian state of Gujarat," noting that his party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, is the political arm of a Hindu paramilitary organization that promotes an ideology of racial purity.

The BJP wants to remake India into a Hindu Rashtra (a Hindu nation), with no place for religious minorities including Muslims, Christians and others, he wrote. Referring to the Citizenship Amendment Act, which granted citizenship rights to several minorities while specifically excluding Muslims, the Pakistani envoy said, "Large detention centers have been constructed across India to house minorities who would be stuck off the National Register of Citizens in a drive reminiscent of ethnic cleansing that the world saw in the late 20th century."

Underling that Kashmir is a burden on the conscience of the international community, he wrote, "The world cannot remain a bystander while systematic attempts are underway to deprive Kashmiris of their identity as well as fundamental rights through stealth and deceit." The world must join the United Nations and other international human rights organisations in demanding an end to India's egregious human rights violations in Kashmir."

See more here:

Pakistan urges world to push India to end oppression in IOK - The News International

39 Quotes on Liberty, Power, and the Constitution From America’s ‘Preeminent’ Originalist | Gary M. Galles – Foundation for Economic Education

Posted on by

While many of Americas founders are justifiably famous, others have received too little attention. St. George Tucker is one.

Born July 10, 1752, in Bermuda, Tucker was a militia colonel in the American Revolution, who even wrote Liberty: a Poem, on the Independence of America that George Washington said was equal to a reinforcement of 10,000 disciplined troops. Afterward, his service included his appointment to the 1786 Annapolis Convention that led to the Constitutional Convention, and his opposition, with Patrick Henry and George Mason, to adopting the Constitution in the absence of a bill of rights.

Tuckers greatest service to posterity, however, involved the law. Not only was he a law professor and judge on three different Virginia courts, historian Clyde Wilson noted that,

St. George Tuckers View of the Constitution of the United States was the first extended, systematic commentary on the Constitution after it had been ratified by the people of the several states and amended by the Bill of Rights. Published in 1803 by a distinguished patriot and jurist, it was for much of the first half of the nineteenth century an important handbook for American law students, lawyers, judges, and statesmen.

David Kopel wrote, St. George Tucker is perhaps the preeminent source of the original public meaning of the Constitution. His 5-volume American edition of Blackstones Commentaries was by far the leading legal treatise in the Early Republic.

Tom DiLorenzo summarized it as laying out the Jeffersonian interpretation of the Constitution, which was replaced by the centralizing, big governmentinterpretation after 1865. The fact that the Supreme Court has cited Tucker 40 times illustrates the importance of his work.

Today, with St. George Tuckers commitment to limited government, states rights, and the judiciarys role of preventing government oppression a too-dim memory, his insights into liberty and the original understanding of government under our Constitution are worth revisiting.

St. George Tucker searched for the criterion that distinguishes laws from dictates, freedom from servitude, rightful government from usurpation.

And Clyde Wilson suggests that his answer is best summarized in his statement that, It is the due [external] restraint and not the moderation of rulers that constitutes a state of liberty.

Given that today, the federal power to oppress has clearly increased at the expense of Constitutional restraints, we should give Tuckers understanding as much serious thought now as our forefathers did when our great experiment in liberty began.

See more here:

39 Quotes on Liberty, Power, and the Constitution From America's 'Preeminent' Originalist | Gary M. Galles - Foundation for Economic Education

Proclamation on Captive Nations Week, 2020 – Imperial Valley News

Posted on by

Washington, DC -Tragically, hundreds of millions of people around the world continue to suffer under repressive regimes. During Captive Nations Week, we condemn the cold grip of tyranny that holds nations under unjust rule, and we reaffirm our commitment to allwho are fighting to overcome oppression. We renew our deep devotion to the principles of liberty, justice, and the rule of law, and we know the United States will continue to shine as an unparalleled example for all nations.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower first proclaimed Captive Nations Week in 1959 to declare our Nations steadfast support forpeople throughout the world who are denied fundamental rights by their governments. The belief that a just governments powers are derived from the consent of the governed is sacrosanct in our country, but it is not shared universally. In many countries, citizens who peacefully speak their views, practice their religion, or strive to hold their governments accountable for abuses experience reckless disregard for their rights. Recently, authoritarian regimes have used the coronavirus pandemic to justify increased restrictions on individual human rights. These regimes have suppressed the free flow of timely and accurate information about the pandemic by censoring or imprisoning people who dare to share unapproved information or opinions. The most notable example today is China, where the virus originated and government suppression led directly to this global pandemic. In addition, theChinese government has seized upon this opportunity to snuff out freedom in Hong Kong, which had been the only bastion of liberty in that captive nation.

The United States encourages all nations to respect individual liberty, uphold the rule of law, and be accountable to their people through consent-based governments. Authoritarian regimes that donot respect the inherent dignity of every individual hold the dreams and potential of their people captive, enabling poverty, repression, and anguish to flourish as they deny their people their God-given rights. We will never waver in our firm belief that liberty, justice, and the rule of law unleash the fullness of life that God intended for everyone. This week and always, we stand with all people who yearn to live freely, securely, and prosperously under rights-respecting, transparent, and accountable governments rooted in the consent of the governed.

The Congress, by Joint Resolution approved July 17, 1959 (73Stat. 212), has authorized and requested the President to issue aproclamation designating the third week of July of each year as Captive Nations Week.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the UnitedStates of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim July 19 through July 25, 2020, as Captive Nations Week. Icall upon all Americans to reaffirm our commitment to supporting those around the world striving for liberty, justice, and the rule of law.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this seventeenth day of July, in the year of our Lord twothousandtwenty, and of the Independence of the UnitedStates ofAmerica the twohundred and forty-fifth.

DONALD J. TRUMP

Link:

Proclamation on Captive Nations Week, 2020 - Imperial Valley News

Teaching changed almost instantly due to COVID-19. How long will it take to revolutionize equity in education? – Seattle Times

Posted on by

When the coronavirus forced Washington school buildings to close in March, the changes to education were swift and complete. Class went online. Parents became de facto teachers. Lesson plans were replaced by a focus on student well-being and safety.

The transformation left many wondering: Why havent we made changes overnight or even over decades so education is truly equitable for all children?

This story is the first in a series about how to revamp the education system to improve equity in the wake of the pandemic.

Puget Sound education leaders, especially people of color who have long known schools set up Black and brown children for failure, say its past time to reimagine how education could better serve their communities.

But they see a dawning awareness among mostly white leaders that the countrys education system is rife with racism and inequity. The inequities are structural the training and diversity of teachers, what children are taught and how they are disciplined and are all rooted in methods that harm Black and Latino students more than their peers and fail to help them succeed.

The pairing of a pandemic that changed the basic structure of school indeed, no ones certain whether or how schools will reopen in just a few weeks with a simultaneous conscience-raising social movement has opened a window where radical change is possible.

We have this rare moment. Everything is so disrupted, can we really refocus and re-center on students of color? said Erin Okuno, executive director of the Southeast Seattle Education Coalition. It might look really, really different and its going to be really uncomfortable. But everything already is uncomfortable.

But change wont happen unless more people of color are given power to reshape education. And based on Washingtons response so far, some fear that when school resumes, change will be focused solely on new health and safety requirements, not substantive reforms geared toward education equity.

What would change look like? Heres what nearly a dozen education experts said theyd like to see:

For most of the past decade, the state was involved in a fierce debate over the adequacy of school funding, a saga known as the McCleary case. Its resolution forced lawmakers to pour billions more into the K-12 system, but the bulk of that money targeted inadequate teacher pay, not racial equity.

The current system was designed to educate a largely middle- and upper-middle class white population. To change it, those people with power who have not faced oppression because of their race will have to give something up perhaps sharing the bounty their PTA can raise, or changing a cherished program that tends to serve mostly white students; the current system has arguably forced students of color to give up basic aspects of a fair education for decades.

White parents and leaders came out in June to support Black Lives Matter protests, often with their children, carrying hand-lettered placards. But if people are serious about anti-racism, said University of Washington College of Education associate professor Ann Ishimaru, they cant just make signs. Ishimaru is co-principal investigator for the Family Leadership Design Collaborative, a national effort to re-center nondominant families in racial equity efforts.

Those seeking change dont want things to get back to normal. They want a new normal.

The speed of logistical changes schools made in response to coronavirus led Heidi Schillinger, founder and principal at Equity Matters, a racial equity consulting firm in Seattle, to think, Oh, it is possible, and there is the will to do things differently. We can do this.

But Sharonne Navas, executive director of the Equity in Education Coalition, a member of a Washington work group charged with devising plans to reopen school, said the group missed an opportunity to have big conversations about inequity in education.

What Im afraid of is when we come back from this were still going to be sending [Black and brown] children to a system and a building that looks at them like, What are they going to need from me? as opposed to, How do we cultivate the best out of this child? I think thats such a mind shift and culture shift that needs to be taking place in education.

To make education truly equitable, many experts say, those who have built it and benefited from it must reckon with its dark history.

To scratch the surface: In the 1850s, states began passing compulsory public education laws over growing concerns about child labor, but also to instill civic values in new waves of immigrant children. A decade later, education was again a tool of assimilation, when boarding schools were set up to forcibly take Indigenous children away from their families and train them in English and strip them of their language and culture.

For generations of Black people, public education was illegal, and then segregated. After the Supreme Courts 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision outlawed segregation, integration happened on the terms of white communities, Schillinger said. Today, schools are still highly segregated by race and class.

This adds up to nearly two centuries of inequitable practices to undo, said Navas.

We keep thinking that because of Brown vs. Board of Education, we have fixed education and that its no longer harmful for students of color, Natives, immigrants and refugees, Navas said.

Thats not true, she said.

So what does such a reckoning look like?

It could mean having a national conversation about systemic racism much like whats beginning to happen amid the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and many other Black people. In practice, Navas said, it means centering reform around what students of color say they want and need.

Many critics say educators need to stop searching for silver-bullet fixes and magical programs that promise to repair education. The problems go beyond education, to the way society is structured.

That addiction to stopgap measures, coupled with a failure to fully fund education, has stymied real change, said Trish Millines Dziko, a former Microsoft executive who founded the nonprofit Technology Access Foundation (TAF) in the late 1990s. TAF started as an after-school program and morphed into a school model used in a handful of local schools, including Federal Ways TAF@Saghalie, and is coming to Seattles Washington Middle School this year.

Dziko said educators have tried to fix one thing at a time within the system, and now we have this system thats full of patches and Band-Aids, and it doesnt work for everybody. We like Band-Aids, and we like the easy stuff that makes people look good.

These approaches tend to target students of color. Programs devoted to lifting up certain student groups such as a new Seattle Public Schools department for Black boys and teens, which is aimed at empowering them and recently received nearly $2 million in philanthropic support might be well-intentioned, and in some cases, effective. But they dont amount to remaking the system.

They bring in these programs that are targeted toward Black and brown students and the mission is to fix the student while not addressing the structures, said Tracy Castro-Gill, executive director of Washington Ethnic Studies Now.

Theres a difference between trying to program your way out of racial inequity and true racial justice, others say.

Shortly after schools shut down in March, Erin Jones, an educational consultant who ran an unsuccessful campaign for superintendent of public instruction in 2016, held a Zoom class for students who wanted to discuss systemic racism and education. About 20 students of different races showed up.

Jones said that failing to teach about racism and oppression harms white students as much as students of color. For one class, she asked her students to watch a video that unpacked the reasons why Black communities have significantly less wealth than white families.

The students were so angry they had never heard any of this stuff in our classrooms, she said. For example, they were incensed to learn about redlining, the government-backed policy that caused many African Americans to be denied mortgages to buy property in their own neighborhoods, and perpetuated segregation in the U.S. for decades.

Jones is hopeful that this moment will lead to change. She said, Its the first time in my lifetime weve had an opportunity to dramatically shift public education.

In Seattle, some teachers are making conversations about race integral to their lesson plans.

When protests over the killing of George Floyd erupted here and across the country, Shraddha Shirude, a math teacher at Garfield High School, asked her students: If police were defunded, where should that money go? They examined the citys budget and dreamed up solutions.

Shirude is secretary director of the nonprofit Washington Ethnic Studies Now, leads workshops and runs a blog called Woke Math, where she writes about racial justice and ethnic studies in education. Keeping students interested from afar during the shutdown wasnt easy, and few were participating. But the police project brought many back into the fold.

The message is so clear: Kids want us to talk about things that matter, she said. Schools prioritize punitive policies, she said, like truancy and tardiness. We dont need those things if we can actually get kids invested through lessons that are relevant to their lives.

Scrutinizing the way students are assessed is important, too: Many educators interviewed said tests and grading systems can harm students of color more than white peers. Instead of tests, they suggested, students could demonstrate their skills through projects.

Critics say districts and colleges of education rarely have students undergo a personal journey to examine their own biases and make changes, said Dziko. Its especially important to do that work because about 88% of Washingtons teachers are white, whereas nearly half of all public school children are not.

Most equity training takes a form that Niral Shah, a former high school math teacher turned assistant professor at the University of Washingtons College of Education, calls the inoculation model: Lets do a three-hour session on implicit bias, and people wont be biased anymore.

But Shah, a professor of the learning sciences and human development, says studies show that awareness of bias isnt enough to change it. And it is at the heart of disproportionate discipline and stereotypes about academic ability.

Shah has developed a coaching method that helps teachers see racial bias by flipping the training on its head. A coach first observes a teacher in class, watching interactions with students. Spotting bias and fixing it comes next.

If you dont believe Black students have value, or immigrant students have value, all the programs in the world cant change that, said Jones, the education consultant.

To make broad, systemic change, school districts need to listen to, and empower, people who have lived experience with systemic racism and oppression, says Julia Warth, director of policy and research for the League of Education Voters, a 19-year-old Seattle nonprofit that has worked to make education more equitable. But at least so far, she says, those communities are being left out of the conversation even now, during this critical window for change.

Jones echoed Warths thought. The most marginalized people are never invited to the table, she said. So stuff continues to happen to them, instead of with them.

Warth also thinks all of the education players unions, parent associations, districts, legislators need to take a hard look at the role they have played. Many have issued high-minded equity statements, yet nothing changed.

Families with more wealth and power work to give their children every advantage, often to the detriment of families who cant a concept known as opportunity hoarding. People are actually beginning to confront these dynamics, said Ishimaru, who pointed to the example of PTAs in Seattle that have started sharing funds they raised with less-fortunate schools.

The states schools chief, Chris Reykdal, said he agrees with many of the changes called for by experts interviewed for this article: He sees a need for more teachers of color and changes to school curriculum, he said. Changes based on safety and equity can happen simultaneously, he added, and said districts are already making such choices when they decide who to prioritize for in-person instruction in the fall. We clearly have a strange year coming, he said. But lets face it, thats the first opportunity for big transformation.

Others say the education system should be judged by the success of those it leaves out. It isnt this idea of, Im going to take from you so I can do better and youre going to do worse. Thats not what were talking about. Were talking about making the system work for everybody, said Lynn Jennings, senior director of national and state partnerships at The Education Trust.

Both Ishimaru and Shah, the UW professors, see hopeful signs that things could change.

People are awakening to the breadth and harm of systemic racism, and for the first time theyre having tough conversations among friends and family, Shah said. If those conversations can evolve into specific actions, thats where things go beyond making signs and going to a protest.

Your stories and experiences are crucial to our storytelling. As we cover schools reopening and structural racism in the education system, wed like to hear from you.

You can also answer these questions via email atedlab@seattletimes.com. As we consider planning a virtual live conversation on what going back to school this year will look like, please feel free to also tell us what times work best for you.

Excerpt from:

Teaching changed almost instantly due to COVID-19. How long will it take to revolutionize equity in education? - Seattle Times

COMMENT | More than just nasi lemak and teh tarik – Malaysiakini

Posted on by

COMMENT | Malaysia is full of non-Malay parents who complain about how the government has been very oppressive with the New Economic Policy (NEP). As a result, they made it their life's mission to send their kids overseas and told them not to return to this racist country.

But in the process of doing so, many of them (not all) robbed their kids of not only the joy of childhood but also the experience of living and growing up in Malaysia.

These children may have been growing up in Malaysia physically but they have not a clue about what being Malaysian is really like. Their worldview is mainly shaped by books written by Westerners instead of by their lived experiences of growing up in Malaysia.

Worse still, they grow up despising anything they see around them that does not "measure up" to the Western standards they have read so much about from their books. They know more facts about the states in America than any well-read New Yorker.

And yet they know nothing about the states of Malaysia other than the one they live in. Or maybe just their home district within their home state. All they know about Malaysia is nasi lemak, teh tarik, and maybe kuih lapis.

And when they finally get to live abroad, they realise that so many things there are so familiar - just like what they read in books or watched on TV. But eventually, as time goes by, they begin to discover that no matter how familiar the Western world may seem to them, they somehow do not fit in. They somehow feel like aliens to the people they heard so much about.

They may think they are more Westernised than the new Chinese migrants who speak broken English but to the Westerners, both Johnny Teoh (from KL) and Johnny Zhang (Beijing) are the same because they look the same.

Banana or not banana, the westerner can't tell if you are white or not on the inside. Maybe when you open your mouth, then they can tell the difference. But as long as you don't speak in English, the only difference between these two Johnnies is the spelling of their names.

This unfortunate consequence was caused by their parents, not them. In trying to give their children more options by equipping them with Western education in Malaysia, parents have inadvertently robbed their kids of a culturally rich experience growing up in a multi-racial country.

Worse still, they harbour a very unhealthy aloofness, ignorance, and even hatred against people from races other than their own.

They also look down on members of their own race by prohibiting their kids from playing with their "not-so-educated" neighbours. To them, that means people who can't speak proper English. It does not matter if you can speak perfect Beijing Mandarin, Maharaja's Telugu, or classic Vedic Sanskrit. No English means "not educated"!

This is so wrong.

The saddest part of the story is this. Their children end up as strangers in their home country and later as unwelcome guests in their adopted countries in the West which they thought they could just fit in like fish in water. It's still water but highly toxic. Too much fluoride and chlorine in it.

In giving your children an "advantage" of good English, don't rob them of the opportunity to learn other Malaysian languages well, such as Malay, Mandarin, Cantonese (and other dialects), Tamil, Punjabi, Hindi, and whatever languages your children will naturally pick up in the process of growing up in Malaysia. Only then, you can pride yourself in genuinely giving your children more options.

Equipping children with the Queen's BBC English at the expense of other languages and cultures that are readily accessible in Malaysia is not giving them more options nor more freedom. You are merely replacing the ultra Malay oppression with an equally ultra Anglo-Saxon form of oppression.

In truth, the oppressors are not those of other races but those in the government and the people who wrote and implemented oppressive policies - regardless of what race they may belong to.

Those politicians and policy-makers oppress under-privileged non-Malays as much as they oppress under-privileged Malays. I know it's hard to agree with me on this, but trust me. If you are Chinese Malaysian, you only know how you're being oppressed as a Chinese Malaysian but you cannot know enough how other races are being oppressed, including the Malays.

Do all those kiasu parents out there get what I'm saying? If you know one, just explain to them. No need to share this post. They won't agree with me anyway. Nor do I need their approval. But they will be doing their children a big favour, if only they would consider looking at things from their children's point of view.

Being successful in life is not only about being able to speak fluent English or being Westernised. It's also about being yourself, being able to accept everything about yourself.

If you were born and grew up in Malaysia, you need to understand what being Malaysian really means - more than just understanding intellectually. Being Malaysian is more than just loving nasi lemak and teh tarik.

More importantly, it is experiencing what being Malaysian truly feels like, in your heart, gut, and soul!

KEN SOONG is a Malaysian living in Australia since 2004.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.

See the rest here:

COMMENT | More than just nasi lemak and teh tarik - Malaysiakini

Conservative student government candidates penalized for criticizing communist opponent – Campus Reform

Posted on by

In the midst of coronavirus pandemic, an election complaint to the Arizona State University Associated Students Student Government was filed against two candidates in response to a statement one of them made during an Instagram live video between the two conservative candidates.

The statement in question was posted on Instagram and made byCampus Reform correspondent Cameron Decker, who told Campus Reform he said the following of his opponent: It speaks to the credibility of a candidate when they support Stalin and their communist regimes. Especially when they are spouting that they want to purge non-leftist students, theres not a place in USG for individuals who wont welcome a free market of ideas."

"With every new case, free speech was redefined, and with every new instance, a new precedent was set. I was disappointed in their inability to follow a set of concrete rules, let alone their own!

[Related: Free speech zones galore: 5 Times students First Amendment rights were violated on campus in 2019]

Deckers opponent in the student government race, Alexia Isais, whose Twitter profile bio states that she is a "Marxist-Leninist," alleged that Deckers comments violated article 21 of the student code of conduct, which prohibits engaging in discriminatory activities, including harassment and retaliation, as prohibited by applicable law or university policy.

In her official complaint, Isias called the behavior of Decker and running mate Joe Pitts absolutely disgusting.

They chose to use their platform in spreading pure lies and hatred against our campaigns candidates, calling us anti-Semitic, establishing that we are not exactly qualified for office, she added. These candidates state that our candidates have 'expressed support for Joseph Stalin,' this is unrelated to the campaign and again is a smear against the personal political views of some candidates on the ticket.

Isias then brought race and sexual orientation into the equation, insisting, It is extremely discriminatory for two white, cis, heterosexual, right-wing men to decide whether a coalition that includes black and brown people, LGBTQ+ people, women, and progressive people is qualified for office.

[Related: [VIDEO] Professor praises Stalin, claims he never committed one crime]

But one of these two white, cis, heterosexual, right-wing men is in fact a proud and outspoken member of the LGBTQ+ community, as Decker clarified. in his response to the complaint, Decker said, In fact, I, Cameron Decker, am a proud and outspoken member of the LGBTQ+ community. I identify as gay, and to say the least, my journey of coming to terms and coming out to the world has been a journey I wish no LGBTQ+ person has to deal with anymore."

Subjecting me to the same discriminatory smears through baseless assumption reveals the very nature of oppression that LGBT people face on a daily basis, Decker continued. This assertion places me as an excluded member of the community I relate with and come to for comfort. Moreover, being gay and being open about it has placed me in the very shoes of the people who are victims of systemic oppression. In a time when I thought I had acceptance, the claim rooted in false accusations has subjected me once again to exclusion from a community I so admire and belong to."

Elections Commissioner Carla Naranjo and Tempe Assistant Elections Commissioner Amanda Andalis ultimately punished Decker and Pitts by issuing them a three-point election infraction. The students have nine points before they are prevented from running for office.

[Related: Survey: Most students favor colleges restricting speech]

"The elections department has determined that the plaintiff has sustained injury from the comments made on Instagram by defendants, Cameron Decker and Joseph Pitts. Given that the alleged discriminatory comments were in reference to the United Voices for ASU senate candidate coalition, the defendants will be given one (1) level one (1) three (3) point infraction despite the multiple plaintiffs on the United Voices for ASU coalition that sent in identical complaints.

Isais v. Decker & Pitts by Campus Reform on Scribd

But when Decker made a similar complaint against Isias just weeks before, he was told by Andalis that the Article 21 complaint was outside my jurisdiction as the Assistant Election Commissioner.

Deckers complaint was also in reference to violations of Article 21, citing a tweet by Isias saying: Going to purge all the non-leftist friends Ive made in poli sci classes/ This girl just argues [sic] with me about how colonization never happened. White liberalism is toxic."Another tweet from Isias cited in Decker's complaint involved her telling her followers "ur gonna get decked" for wearing something she didn't like. Yet another one of Isias' tweets read, "stop objectifying the 'okay boomer' girl or else," followed by a knife emoji.

Andalis, the Assistant Elections Commissioner who charged the two conservative students, stated in emails obtained by Campus Reform that I have received this complaint. This is outside my jurisdiction as the Assistant Election Commissioner and has been forwarded to Assistant Director Rosenkratz. This will be sent to the Student Rights and Responsibilities as there is a possible violation of the ASU Student Code of Conduct. Interpreting the Code of Conduct is outside of my authority and therefore I will not be able to render the decision on this case."

[Related: POLL: Millennials would prefer to live in a socialist country]

However, another email obtained by Campus Reform shows that the ASU election commission determined that Isias' tweets referenced in Decker's complaint did not constitute a violation because they are "free speech." Just a few weeks before, Isias and her running mates were issued infractions for tweets the university described as "threatening" to ASU President Michael Crow and "several student organizations."

Screenshots obtained by Campus Reform show that Isias has previously shared another person's tweet that read, "Israel has no fucking right to exist." In another tweet, she acknowledged that Twitter locked her account after she tweeted "Fuck you @DougDucey literally you deserve to eat shit and die." Twitter cited its rules against "abuse and harassment" as justification for locking the account.

Isias makes no secret of her affection for communism, either. In a December 2019 opinion editorial published by the Arizona State-Press, she explained to readers "why I am a communist." She quoted Leila Khaled, a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine who hijacked an airplane in 1969. The United States designated the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine as a terrorist organization in 1997.

Months later, as the storm of the coronavirus continues to blow over, Pitts said the dust of the election controversy has relatively settled.

The actions taken by the Elections Department were a muddle of refusing to establish (or adhere to) precedent, incompetence, and inconsistency in rule-making and enforcement. With every new case, free speech was redefined, and with every new instance, a new precedent was set. I was disappointed in their inability to follow a set of concrete rules, let alone their own!Pitts toldCampus Reform.

When I asked for clarification regarding their free speech policy after several incongruous rulings, I was met 5 days after the fact one day before Election Day with a one-sentence response: just dont run a negative campaign, said Pitts. If it was this simple, I had been fooled! But of course, it wasnt. And in their attempt to subtly slander our campaign, they ended up once again rewriting a code that seems not to be enforced by the Commission at all.

Decker toldCampus Reform that he inquired about why he was disciplined for his Instagram live comments while Isias was not disciplined for her tweets cited in Decker's complaint. Decker said he never received a response from the school.

Follow the author of this article on twitter:@allisonrobison_

The rest is here:

Conservative student government candidates penalized for criticizing communist opponent - Campus Reform

It’s the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution’s birthday* – Top Gear

Posted on by

Happy 20th birthday, Mitsubishi Evo. Well, happy really specific 20th anniversary, Mitsubishi Evo. On 11 July 2000, the first rally-rep Lancer saloon to be officially imported into the UK landed on ourshores.

Until that point wed had plenty of grey imports of the first five generations of Lancer Evolution, but it wasnt until the Evo VI arrived at the start of the new millenium that Mitsubishi sold one of the all-time greats in its own showrooms. British cars got better rust protection, a speedometer in MPH, a UK-specific owners manual and proper dealer support over cheaper, unofficially procuredcars.

If that sounds like an extremely tenuous reason to run a load of pics of an Evo VI Tommi Makinen Edition, you might be right. But do you care? Ogle the pics and try and tell us youcare

The first officially imported car was indeed a rednwhite Tommi, too. The car stuck around for four more generations, its power source never changing from a 2.0-litre turbo, but its output swelling from the 276bhp of the Evo VI to beyond 400bhp in later EvoXs.

In 15 years, Mitsubishi UK sold 5,728 Lancer Evolutions. When you consider Ford sells that many Fiestas in Britain most months, itd be easy to conclude the Evos beyond niche. But would we have circa-400bhp AWD hot hatches like the Focus RS, Audi RS3 and Mercedes A45 without its existence on UK price lists, and its ensuing transformation of what form accessible performance was served up in? Wed debate not. So three cheers for the Evo, however many caveats this particular birthday celebration comeswith

Images: MarkRiccioni

Read the rest here:

It's the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution's birthday* - Top Gear

Watch the United Arab Emirates launch its first mission to Mars – The Verge

Posted on by

The United Arab Emirates is counting down to the launch of its first interplanetary space mission today one that will send a spacecraft called Hope to orbit Mars. The Emirates Mars Mission will aim to provide a global snapshot of the weather on the Red Planet. It will also be a source of pride for the UAE as the country celebrates the 50th anniversary of its founding in December of 2021.

To ensure that Hope is actually at Mars by the anniversary, the UAE must launch this summer. Planetary scientists have a very small window every two years to send spacecraft to Mars, when the Red Planet and Earth closely align on their orbits. If Hope launches in July, the spacecraft will spend the next seven months traveling to Mars, arriving sometime in February leaving it plenty of time in orbit before the anniversary.

Hope is launching on top of a Japanese H-IIA rocket out of Japans Tanegashima Space Center, located on an island off the southern coast of the country. At Tanegashima, the launch is taking place in the wee morning hours of July 20th, at 6:58AM. On the East Coast of the United States, the launch is at 5:58PM ET this afternoon.

About one hour after the launch, the H-IIA rocket will deploy Hope in space, putting it on its course toward Mars. The probe will then stretch out its solar panels and point them toward the Sun to start generating power. The Emirates Mars Mission team operating the spacecraft will also try to get in touch with the vehicle, while it attempts to stabilize itself and then heads out into deep space.

About 28 days after the launch, Hope will correct its course slightly by burning its onboard thrusters the first of many correction maneuvers it will do on the way to Mars. Such burns are necessary to keep Hope on track to meet a tiny window at Mars and then insert itself into the planets orbit. Its a very small target, Pete Withnell, the program manager for the mission at the University Colorado Boulder, which partnered with the Emirates Mars Mission, said during a press call ahead of the launch. Its equivalent to an archer hitting a two-millimeter target, one kilometer away. So this is not for the faint of heart.

The Emirates Mars Mission plans to provide multiple livestreams of the launch, and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, which operates the H-IIA rocket, will also provide a livestream. Most of the streams begin at 3PM ET and will provide plenty of coverage leading up to the UAEs first attempt to put a vehicle in deep space.

View post:

Watch the United Arab Emirates launch its first mission to Mars - The Verge

NASA prepares to launch rover to Mars on July 30 ‘to seek signs of ancient life’- here’s how to watch – Cambridgeshire Live

Posted on by

It's been a few weeks of exciting space events, from Comet Neowise lighting up Cambridgeshire's skies to the SpaceX rocket launch many of us saw last month.

And NASA is now preparing for its next big mission: sending a rover to Mars, with a provisional launch date of July 30 set.

The mission is designed to better understand the geology and climate of Mars and seek signs of ancient life on the Red Planet, the NASA website explains.

It will use a "robotic scientist" weighing just under 2,300 pounds and the size of a small car, to collect and store a set of rock and soil samples that could be returned to Earth by future Mars sample return missions.

It also will test new technologies to benefit future robotic and human exploration of Mars.

NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory, managed by Caltech in Southern California, built the Perseverance rover and will manage mission operations for NASA. The agency'sLaunch Services Program, based at NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Florida, is responsible for launch management.

Mars 2020 Perseverance is part of Americas larger Moon to Mars exploration approach that includes missions to the Moon as a way to prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.

Charged with sending the first woman and next man to the Moon by 2024, NASA will establish a sustained human presence on and around the Moon by 2028 through NASA'sArtemis program.

To get involved, you can send questions via social media with the hashtag #CountdownToMars, and Live launch coverage will begin at 7 a.m., on NASA Television and the agencys website.

View post:

NASA prepares to launch rover to Mars on July 30 'to seek signs of ancient life'- here's how to watch - Cambridgeshire Live

Mars is about to be invaded by planet Earth – Yahoo! Voices

Posted on by

Three countries the United States, China and the United Arab Emirates are sending unmanned spacecraft to Mars beginning this week, in an effort to seek signs of ancient microscopic life while scouting out places for future astronauts. (July 13)

[MUSIC PLAYING]

MARCIA DUNN: Earth is sending three robotic explorers to Mars-- US, NASA from here at Cape Canaveral, Florida, China, and the United Arab Emirates.

The whole plan is for this rover to not only look for signs of ancient microscopic life, but to pick the best samples where there might be some microscopic life preserved, stash them on Mars in these super sterile tubes, and NASA hopes to send another spacecraft to go retrieve them and bring them back to Earth possibly in 2031.

If there was life on Mars, then that opens up the whole possibility for planets and other solar systems. And I think that's the question that we all wonder every day, every night is like, "Are we alone in this huge universe or could there be other life out there that we just don't know about yet?"

More here:

Mars is about to be invaded by planet Earth - Yahoo! Voices

To VIP or not VIP, that’s the question – Macau Business

Posted on by

Does Macau need better tourists or does it need to bet more on the high rollers? Is the future of tourism in China or abroad?

MB July 2020 Special Report | CrossroadsofMacautourism

It is known that the former Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture had an easy time producing soundbites.

But when, just over a year ago, Alexis Tam said that, we have to attract better tourists who come to Macau to appreciate our world heritage, our culture and gastronomy, they come to consume, to stimulate the economy, the phrase was far beyond the headlines that occupied the news at the time.

The sentence itself summarizes many of the questions that mark the crossroads of Macaus tourism at this time: diversification is necessary, but how can we attract these tourists? Are there enough new tourists interested in Macau to make the local economy viable? Saying these tourists are better suggests the ones that exist are bad, namely the high rollers (or from the premium sector as they are usually called; those who come to gamble and leave a lot of money)?

What truly needs to happen for Macau to achieve real longterm growth is to wean itself off its dependency on the mainland. Only when that happens will we achieve true diversification, states Macau businessman Ben Lee, Managing Partner, IGamiX Management & Consulting Ltd.

At first glance, Mr Lees phrase sounds like a utopian dream.

But he understands that it doesnt. It is a mission impossible only if we maintain our current mindset.

What truly needs to happen for Macau to achieve real longterm growth is to wean itself off its dependency on the mainland. Only when that happens will we achieve true diversification Ben Lee

Imported labour skills and knowledge

To wean ourselves off the mainland he explains, would require two factors. The first is the political dimension i.e. the mainland tells us that they are no longer feeding us and that we have to learn to sink or swim.

The second thing that has to happen is that, we must vacate our position of labour supremacy and accept that Macau needs a whole lot of imported labour skills and knowledge to be able to diversify our economy away from gaming. Our current management and knowledge base is increasingly being skewed towards gaming rather than away from it. And to reinforce what he says, he cites the example of Singapore where, with a population ten times that of Macau, constantly refreshes their labour pool to evolve and maintain their prominence as an international destination.

Andrew Pearson, Founder and Managing Director of Intelligencia Limited, also understands that in general, the Chinese who come to Macau are not very sophisticated and are not prepared to spend the money that American and European consumers are.

But Mr Pearson explained to Macau Business that this doesnt call into question the idea of tourist diversification. Its about evolution, he stated, comparing the first set of Chinese gamblers, a few decades ago, with the Chinese tourists who come now. They are a completely different breed. Las Vegas didnt evolve into a world class capital of fine dining, high-end bars, raging nightclubs, and musical residencies overnight, he adds, it took decades for Vegas to evolve into a mecca of high-end nightclubs, expensive restaurants, and DJ residencies that are now proving to be massive financial drivers. Its all about entertainment and the Chinese will evolve just as the Americans and Europeans did, and Macau must continue to push for diversification.

Contrary to Ben Lee, Andrew Pearson understands that Macaus advantage is still the 50M people within a fifty-mile radius of here, and this is a bigger advantage than ever because of the recent pandemic.

Why is this?

The answer is the high rollers, the premium mass, and the Grind as some have dubbed them. I like to joke that the high rollers exist in a rarefied world, Never have so few meant so much to so few, I jokingly say, i.e., the high rollers who frequent the junket rooms drop small fortunes every time they land in Macau. However, the casinos and junket rooms are having to offer increasingly generous incentives to get them to play, and the casinos are finding that the premium mass is where the profit is.

VIP/premium segment has to be our short term recovery solution

VIP and premium mass customers made up of only one percent of visitors in 2018, yet drove around 70 per cent of total Gross Gaming Revenue.

When the suspension of the IVS and group tours is lifted, it is unlikely that Macau will want to see the sort of traffic we used to have pre-Covid, and we have also seen our Chief Executive talking up IVS as our immediate focus. Ergo, the low traffic/high value VIP/premium segment has to be our short-term recovery solution out of sheer practicality, adds Ben Lee.

David Green, the founder of Macau Newpage Consulting, a specialist on regulations in the sector, stated last May that Macau is in a better position than its main rival, Las Vegas, to overcome the crisis in the gambling sector, because it has substantial financial reserves and it can count on the VIP gamblers.

It is for these reasons that some people, in addition to the mass market, defend a clear bet on the VIP market.

Macau should distinguish itself from other competing destinations by providing differentiated gaming service products, is the opinion of Zheng Gu, from the College of Hotel Administration, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Enhancing its traditional VIP room operations is an effective way to achieve this goal. Implementing such a revenue management strategy, Macau will be able to preserve its risk-taker market and minimise the revenue risk posed by upcoming competition in the region, he wrote in a research paper called Product Differentiation: Key to Macaus Gaming Revenue Growth.

At same time, Macau is a unique market unlike any other jurisdiction, such as Manila, Singapore, Sydney or even Las Vegas for the simple fact that we dont have a bank of local residents able to visit the casinos anytime they like without constraints of any form, explains Ben Lee to Macau Business, it is naturally unsurprising that the top strata of mainland Chinese society are the ones to have the greater means and flexibility to gamble more frequently and at greater levels than the mass.

Historically, the VIP segment has always been the first to rebound, as the players in that segment are the ones with not only the financial means but more importantly the flexibility in terms of personal schedule, to travel whenever they want, add Mr. Lee, stating Mass [market] historically lags behind VIP somewhere from six months to twelve, however the question of the comfort level we raised before [Covid-19], will pose the biggest barrier to normalisation of the market. Social distancing in some form of other will likely remain, and will present new challenges for mass market focused operators for some time to come.

Tourists spend little

There is only a slightly significant correlation between GDP in Macau and visitor expenditure, say two Chinese researchers. This may indicate that more attention should be paid to how to raise the level of visitor expenditure, and this means tourists could and should spend more when they visit the MSAR.

Wang Jingwen and Liang Mingzhu, from Jinan University, conclude that a better transportation system, female consumption and cultural tourism products are, the key points associated with high pulling function [affecting] visitor expenditure. These findings may provide strategic insights for diversifying Macau tourism development, with the aim of achieving a greater economic impact and competitive advantage under the guiding of positive features of the consumer society.

Continue reading here:

To VIP or not VIP, that's the question - Macau Business