Forbes | Artificial Intelligence-Driven Robots: More Brains Than Brawn Forbes Automation and robots for manufacturing have come a long way since Unimate was introduced in the 1960's. The machines that manufacturers are using today are smaller, safer and able to perform more than a single task without expensive programming. |
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Artificial Intelligence-Driven Robots: More Brains Than Brawn - Forbes
Mashable | Forget lessons, these smart skis are loaded with artificial intelligence Mashable Forget lessons, these smart skis are loaded with artificial intelligence. 833. Shares. Share. Tweet. Share. What's This? Image: Piq. 2016%2f09%2f16%2f8f%2fhttpsd2mhye01h4nj2n.cloudfront.netmediazgkymde1lza3.c1888 By Karissa Bell 2017-02-07 ... |
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Forget lessons, these smart skis are loaded with artificial intelligence - Mashable
Eighty years ago, professor emeritus of biochemistry Boyd ODell began taking classes at MU. Now 100 years old, ODell, who has made many discoveries and inspired generations of colleagues, can still be found in his office in Eckles Hall.
I have some questions I really would like to answer, and Id rather think about answering those questions than retiring, ODell said.
ODell technically retired in 1988, but still does part-time research on campus.
In September, a celebration honoring the 40th anniversary of the biochemistry department served as an early 100th birthday party for ODell. In December, a plaque was unveiled, naming the bridge connecting Schweitzer Hall to the Schlundt Annex the Boyd ODell Bridge of Discovery.
I hope the bridge will be a bridge to the future for all the students and progress will be made in research and learning, ODell said at the unveiling.
Over the years, ODell has served as a mentor and a friend for many of his colleagues and students. Biochemistry professor Judy Wall first met ODell when she joined the MU faculty in 1978.
Hes an incredible gentleman, very professional, a great scholar and a truly kind person, Wall said.
Wall remembers when she and ODell were assigned to evaluate a graduate students grant proposal for a comprehensive exam. This was Walls first time evaluating this type of exam, and the only other female faculty member in the department did not attend their presentations.
I was the sole female faculty member and, you know, a silly person who was in the process of thinking about impressing all of my peers and making sure they didnt think I was an idiot at the evaluations, Wall said. So I was all set for getting this guy because I didnt think his proposal was great.
ODell went first. He discussed the importance of the problem the student had addressed and the strengths of the work before introducing criticism.
That was a wonderful experience for me because I thought thats exactly the way you should do it, Wall said. You have to earn the right to criticize by showing that you understand whats going on and you have to earn the right to begin to make constructive suggestions. Dr. ODell had shown me that was the professional way of going about it.
Wall uses this same approach anytime she has to evaluate anything in a similar manner.
He didnt realize, and I dont think I realized at the time, that he was mentoring me, but he certainly was, Wall said.
ODell decided to pursue education because he admired his teachers, who were his first role models.
I always had an ambition to be a teacher, ODell said. What did a farm boy in Carroll County have as role models? There was two things that I can think of, teacher was the most obvious one, and veterinarian.
ODell was born on a farm outside of Hale, Missouri, on Oct. 14, 1916. Becoming a veterinarian wasnt an option he considered, because it wasnt a financial possibility.
My parents were just poor farmers, and they couldnt help me, he said. I had to pave my way.
The summer after he graduated high school, ODell took an examination to become a teacher.
I passed all subjects with high scores except one, and that was pedagogy, ODell said. I didnt even know what pedagogy was. I suppose its the art of teaching.
That summer, ODell took classes at the University of Central Missouri, which was known as Warrensburg Teachers College at the time. He then began working in a one-room schoolhouse, where he taught first through eighth grade.
It was kind of fun in retrospect, ODell said. And that was in the depths of the Depression, to be paid $50 a month was a very good job. A lot of people were unable to even find a job.
Because he wanted to continue his education, ODell left the grade school after four years.
After a few years I transferred to the university here and got jobs one way or another and was able to support myself, he said.
He wanted to study bacteriology, but MU didnt have a program, so ODell was advised to become a chemistry major.
I worked for Dr. A.G. Hogan, who was my mentor for my Ph.D. At that time, he was interested in a vitamin that now is known as folic acid, ODell said.
ODell went on to work for a pharmaceutical company in Detroit after receiving his degree. With the end of World War II, MU saw an increase in students and invited ODell back to become a professor.
Coming back to Mizzou was kind of an easy choice because that was home. Im a Missourian through and through, ODell said.
ODell then studied the existence of unknown vitamins as an assistant professor.
At that time, an assistant professor was really an assistant to the professor, ODell said. When I became a little further along and had the independence, I still followed the question of, are there still unknown vitamins?
ODell went on to study the role of copper and zinc in the body. Among his discoveries was the revelation that copper deficiencies in animals can cause death through the rupture of the aorta, in the heart.
The opportunity arose for me to go on a sabbatical to Australia, ODell said. And why would I want to go to Australia? If youre interested in copper, its the place to go because much of the soil in Australia is copper-deficient.
In Australia, ODell saw that copper deficiency in sheep can cause symptoms similar to Parkinsons disease. He later observed the same results in rats.
We became interested in zinc deficiency around the same time, ODell said. We found that zinc deficiency in animals stops growth and causes increased subject to disease. Diarrhea is a common complaint of zinc-deficient animals and children.
He then discovered that phytic acid, which appears in plants such as soybeans and corn, can actually impact the way the body absorbs zinc.
Scientists want to know why does zinc deficiency cause these signs and symptoms in humans and animals, ODell said. Ive been interested in trying to solve that question for quite a number of years.
ODell is currently researching the importance of zinc in maintaining calcium channels.
If you think back of all the factors that a cell does, a cell divides, a cell secretes, contracts and carries messages, ODell said. All of this is dependent on a calcium channel, and if you take away zinc, the channel fails and you get all these symptoms. I think that that is the true, fundamental function of zinc to maintain the calcium channel.
ODell and Wall, a professor of biochemistry, have since worked together on a variety of committees and both taught biochemistry to first-year medical students.
He was always incredibly prepared, just beautiful lectures and so absolutely timely, Wall said. He knew the literature and was just great.
Another of ODells colleagues, professor emerita of biochemistry Grace Sun, also spoke of ODells role as a mentor.
Right now, Ive been retired for two years only and hes been retired for many more years, Sun said. I would say that hes a role model for me, and I wish I could do half as much like him.
The two became friends in the 80s, when a colleague Sun had met while working as a visiting professor in Taiwan came to MU to study with ODell.
ODell and his wife used to throw parties around the holidays where they would serve American foods, Sun said.
We loved it because we have a lot of international students and he has always a group of them, Sun said. At the time, he was like a hub for the international students.
Sun says ODell still interacts with colleagues and former research assistants by attending seminars and events on campus.
I remember one time, this must have been four or five years ago, and hes way over 90 and he wrote me an email, Sun said. He read a paper and then he said, Hey, Grace, maybe we can work together to do something on this area. I was so shocked. I was really amazed how he must be reading a lot of papers at home or in his office.
Now, ODell does experiments once or twice a week with cells that are grown in the Life Science Building.
I asked to use the equipment and I think they decided they better volunteer to do some of the work rather than trust me, ODell said with a laugh.
An undergraduate was assigned to help ODell grow and transfer the cells, Wall said.
It came holiday time, and the undergraduate was coming up on holiday, and so instead of imposing on this woman, Boyd decided he would just teach himself how to culture the human tissue culture, and so he did it, Wall said. Every day he would come over and transfer his cells and work with his cells. He walks over form Eckles to the Life Sciences Center and back again and has learned how to do this. What a terrifically fearless person he is when it comes to science.
ODell doesnt just walk across campus; he also walks from his house every time he comes to do research.
Most of my career I rode a bicycle to work, ODell said. I dont have a car, and I dont ride my bicycle anymore that leaves walking. I like walking. I think its good exercise, and I need exercise.
ODells daughter Ann, who lives in Columbia, helps drive him when he needs to go shopping and eats with him every week. ODell has a son, David, who lives in California, as well as four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Outside of science, ODells hobbies include photography and bird-watching.
I was always interested in bird-watching and nature work; I guess that might fall from the science, ODell said. Even when I was teaching at the grade school, I had projects for the kids where wed collect plants.
After 100 years, ODell recognizes the importance of lifelong learning and following ones interests.
I think you should, in general even beyond science, you should pick a job or do what you have a real passion for, ODell said. I think if you really are keenly interested in it you will be successful.
Edited by Kyle LaHucik | klahucik@themaneater.com
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Biochemistry professor continues to follow passions at 100 years old - The Maneater
Dr. LightCosmetic surgery and hormone replacement address the same issue from different vantage points. As such, bioidentical hormone replacement therapy, or BHRT, is a powerful tool that should be incorporated into all successful cosmetic practices, according to Kevin Light, DO, MBA, a cosmetic surgeon and age management specialist in Dallas, Texas. Dr. Light presented Bioidentical Hormone Replacement Therapy and the Cosmetic Surgery Practice yesterday at the American Academy of Cosmetic Surgerys (AACSs) 2017 annual scientific meeting in San Diego, Calif. Dr. Light, author of the book OutSmart Aging, tells Cosmetic Surgery Times that, from a cosmetic perspective, aging negatively impacts the skin, with thinning, wrinkling, age spots and pigmentation, as well as loss of elasticity, resiliency and glow. Cosmetic aging results in soft tissue volume loss, in the face, breast and abdomen. It also results in bone loss, or shrinkage of the skull and mandible; hair loss, weight gain and fat redistribution. Hormone loss causes impaired wound healing and immune function, which can impact cosmetic surgery patients. Hormone loss also results in quality of life issues, from energy and sleep, to concentration, memory, libido and sexual function, he says. BHRT can halt or reverse all of this. This is no longer 'magic' and is well documented in the literature, Dr. Light says. From a business perspective, bioidentical hormone therapy is a $15 billion business and trending positively, Dr. Light says. Patients are aware of it and are demanding it. Several early adopter plastic and cosmetic surgeons around the country already offer it, Dr. Light says. BHRT is a powerful adjunct to age management and enhances patient 'stickiness' for the cosmetic surgery practice. The business model is easy and can be delegated to others. It presents incredible cross-sell opportunities.
NEXT: Dr. Lights Tips for Getting Started
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BHRT: A match made in anti-aging - ModernMedicine
Weve long been fascinated with the ideas of immortality and eternal youth. Around 220 BCE, Emperor Shihuangdi searched for the elixir of life. Juan Ponce de Len searched for the Fountain of Youth in the 1500s, and in 1890, Oscar Wildes Dorian Gray sold his soul for a perpetually pretty face. The Methuselah Mouse Prize, an award granted to teams that engineer older and healthier mice, took the fantasy out of our myths and put it into our laboratories.
Recently, a controversial $8,000 blood transfusion treatment shows that its also moved into our clinics.
Anti-aging technology isnt limited to groundbreaking medicine.
The provider, Jesse Karmazin, based the idea on a study that suggested aging in mice could be reversed, after old mice that were given blood from young ones for four weeks showed changes in hallmark signs of getting older. Participants can pay for an infusion of young peoples blood and plasma in the hopes itll rejuvenate their own systems.The study itself is unreliable, the treatment unproven, and the cost toclients is astronomical. Karmazin himself isnt a medical professional, but an entrepreneur who sees anti-aging research as a market opportunity. The business has the potential to garner $4.8 million.
Anti-aging technology isnt limited to groundbreaking medicine. It lines pharmacies and makeup counters. Wrinkle creams, skin repair formulas, vitamins, Viagra; these are small but concrete examples of the money poured into researching, packaging, and selling youth.Our aversion to aging has enabled the commercialization of immortality, despite its impossibility.
Given our current enthusiasm for staving it off, we may not realize age didnt always terrify us, perhaps because we didnt live long enough for it to.
Senectitude in 1481 originally meant old age; senescence was used in 1695 to mean growing old; and senile was used in 1661 to signify what was suited to old age. The term senility was used in 1791 to mean a state of being old or infirm due to old age. But by 1848 senile meant weakness, and by the late nineteenth century it indicated a pathological state. The term has taken on greater medical negative connotations ever since.
As our lives have grown longer, life span and health span have become crucially different. Although age brings benefitsfamilies, wisdom, stabilitythe accompanying physical degeneration, and its correlating limitations, make us hyperfocused on old ageas the signpost for the approaching end of life.
The fixation on defeating death has had the sideeffect of vilifying age. John A. Vincent writes, science as culture misdirects the way in which old age is understood. Rather than valuing life in all its diversity, including its final phase, it leads to misguided devotion of resources to solving the problem of death. The focus on biological failure sets up a cultural construction of old age which leads to the low esteem in which it is currently held.
Our desire for youth isnt just a fear of dying; its the desire to keep a life worth living, and for us, that means immortality is not merely living to 150. It means living to 150, perpetually age 30.
By: John A. Vincent
Sociology, Vol. 40, No. 4 (AUGUST 2006), pp. 681-698
Sage Publications, Ltd.
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Marketing Immortality - JSTOR Daily
In nature, there are weather conditions, referred to as perfect storms, arising from a rare combination of adverse meteorological factors creating violent storms that significantly affect the socio-economic conditions of an area. Social scientists refer to similar adverse factors as cultural amplifier effects. History shows that when leaders of empires were unable to adequately maintain a stable economy, govern diverse subcultures, and care for marginalized populations, these failures led to a socio-economic perfect-storm of cultural amplifier effects that resulted in the collapse of their respective empires.
The unprecedented and raucous 2016 presidential campaign, and its aftermath, suggests that there are several cohort pressure systems developing within the US felons of mass incarceration, their children, and the aging baby boomers. Unbeknown to most citizens, these cohorts are significantly influencing the American culture in unpredictable ways. These pressure systems are likely to develop into cultural amplifier effects that will converge over the US, leading to a socio-economic perfect storm, and possibly leading to the collapse of the US as a world empire.
In his book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (2005), Jared Diamond, believes that the elite leaders of nation-states develop a type of group-think whereby they do not notice the warning signs of social storms or, if they do notice, they may not be motivated to change the status quo. Currently, there are approximately 2000 correctional and detention facilities in the US with over 450,000 employees, and thousands of businesses with millions of employees supporting their operations. Obviously this is a large group of constituents interested in continuing the status-quo.
Rewards and sanctions are necessary for maintaining social order. However, they become counter-productive when they no longer create benefits. While only about 6% of the population is or has been incarcerated, the hidden problem is the cost to the US infrastructure when this percentage transitions from being taxpayers to tax-users. The percentage of the population effected is even higher when you consider the collateral effects to the families and communities of the incarcerated. In 2014, a little less than 3% of the US population was under some type of corrections supervision, many with non-violent offenses and mentally ill who would be fiscally better served in the community. By 2026, if policies remain the same, this population will be over nine million people, along with an estimated 24 million former felons at a budgetary cost in the trillions of dollars.
A second cultural amplifier effect is the children of prisoners (including parents previously in prison), numbering approximately 13 million in 2014, according to the National Resource Center on Children & Families of the Incarcerated. In their book, Children of the Prison Boom (2014), Wakefield & Wildeman identify, that before 1990, children grew up within four main contexts: family, neighborhood, school, and family stressors. Afterwards, a new context was added imprisonment of a parent. This exponentially increasing cohort of children will be raised in poverty and many in foster care. They have a greater potential for mental illness and addictions, post-traumatic stress, to drop out of school, and to become involved in domestic terrorism. Many will follow their parents into prison. The generational effect has and will continue to create a significant cultural group that is outside the American norm, even as a subculture.
A third amplifier effect is the aging baby boomer population, and the substantial decrease in tax income along with an increase in tax use. In 2015, the National Association of State Budget Offices reported funding for Medicaid, public aid, and corrections increased by 16% while education increased by only 8%. By 2026, these three budgets will significantly increase along with a 77% rise in social security and a 72% rise in Medicare; three-quarters of the Federal budget will be allocated for mandatory expenditures. One does not have to be a genius to understand that the price tag for the prison industrial complex will also rise exponentially. History shows us that economics played a major factor in the collapse of most fallen empires.
While the nations elite continue to focus on the controversial results of the 2016 presidential election, saving their respective statuses and their political parties, they fail to see the darkening storm clouds on the horizon. Shall we pretend that all is well and watch the American culture be swallowed up in a socio-economic perfect storm? Or should we have the courage to end the status quo, to tear down the structures that create apartheid groups and build cooperative, thriving communities that will sustain America through the next century?
Image credit: Chainlink fence metal by Unsplash. Public domain via Pixabay.
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Mass incarceration and the perfect socio-economic storm - OUPblog (blog)
The Uncertainty That Could Cause an Economic Crash 2017 Has Begun
There is a distinct possibility, if not an actual probability, that the world will soon analyze the causes of the great economic crash 2017 or economic crash 2018. Indeed, the keyword is economic crash. The point is that the next two years are mired in uncertainty. Investors would be wise to review the general causes of economic depression or the Great Depression itself.
No economic depression, stock market crash, or economic collapse are exactly alike. But they share points in common which fall in one of two categories: exuberance or socio-political disruption. Exuberance and socio-political disruption have already stamped their marks this year. Thats why no keen observer could simply dismiss the chance of an economic crash 2017.
The combination of factors is easy enough to identify, but analyzing the various aspects of an economy crash can take decades. For example, determining the causes of the Great Depression of 1929 continues to keep analysts as busy as understanding the causes of the Wall Street crash of 2007/08.
If we had a complete understanding, we might better determine the chance of an economic crash 2017. But we dont because there are still contradictory positions. There are also different ways to interpret the causes of a stock market crash, especially one that leads to economic depression.
The more recent the crash, the more complex and intertwined the causes. The effects are always global, and if theres any difference, for example, between 1929 and 2008, its the speed of the domino effect. One of the keys to understanding the ever more complex system is that no market exists in risk isolation.
That means that the current market includes a substantial amount of risk resulting from the social, political, economic, and financial interplay between the United States, the European Union and the Big Asian economiesincluding the Tigers.
The gloomy outlook had more to do with the economy and the markets than politics. Now, barely two weeks into Donald Trumpspresidency, the Dow Jones is at record highs. But the risk of a total economic collapse and an implosion of the current world order seems almost inevitable.
The Trump policy, mainly focused on infrastructure investments, the recovery of the domestic economy, and tax relief for businesses, could yet have positive effects on the American economy. Economists expect GDP to exceed 2.2% in 2017. There are even those who believe the United States can resume its role as the locomotive of the world economy.
This would certainly benefit from an accommodating monetary policy. But the market is not betting on this now. The Fed seems determined to increase the nominal interest rate. Shy of charging like a bull, last New Years Eve, the realistic trader could have expected an initial rate hike and a subsequent stabilization in the face of predictable but moderate growth.
But that was before Trump played his hand. It was also before the media, and an entire hardly ad-hoc protest machine, revealed itself. Indeed, 2017 promises to be a very interesting year not only from the economic point of view, butand most of allfrom its political developments and repercussions.
So far, Trump has done what no other politician has dared try before. Hes done exactly what he promised during the campaign, diluting or softening none of his radical stances. This has caught pundits by surprise. The chances of the elections in four major European states (Germany, France, Holland, and probably Italy) going to parties espousing Trump-like views has increased.
But how shall these and other events influence the markets and financial investments? More significantly, how will these events spark a stock market crash of such proportions as to leave an economic collapse in its wake?
Its a chance of timing that all the likely turmoil of 2017 comes on the centenary of the October Revolution of 1917 in Russia. Thats an anniversary like no other. Surely, the socialist forces of the world are preparing to remember it. They could not have asked for a better 2017 to mark the occasion.
To many liberalsand conservativesTrump must appear like a veritable combination of Lenin and Czar! The centenary will take place in a world that, apart from the market euphoria, is still experiencing a profound socio-economic crisis. Nobody has yet to show the solution and the possible ways out.
Part of the problem is that the media has masked the extent of the crisis. Its more than simply economic, there are deep sociological effects. Indeed, the sheer value of wealth amassed through the markets defies the imagination. There are more billionaires than ever. But the disparity of wealth is equally flabbergasting.
Its not even an issue of the fabled one percent. The entry fee to that club is an income of no less than $350,000/year in the United States. (Source: The .1 percent are the true villains: What Americans dont understand about income inequality, Salon, April 14, 2016.)
However, the one percent is nothing compared to the 0.1 percent. They own as much wealth as the bottom 90% of America combined. (Source: Ibid). These include some of the Silicon Valley tech CEOs and a few speculators (George Soros comes to mind) who have championed the anti-Trump cause so vociferously.
Thats a key to predicting just how disruptive the anti-Trump protests could become. Indeed, a rough estimate of the 0.1 percent suggests Trump has at least half of those billionaires against him. Therefore, they have plenty of funds to keep the protest and disruption machine running. Trump will push his agenda, but he could end up like the captain of a ship that lost its rudder.
The reason why Trumps contested administration can affect the markets and prompt an economic crash is the unknown. Former U.S. defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld once attributed the difficulties of the Iraq campaign to the difference between known unknowns and unknown unknowns.
Many pundits made fun of the seemingly nonsensical statement, but Rumsfeld was brilliant in his description. There are risks you can expect and risks you never even considered. The Trump era has brought us the latter situation. Markets thrive in volatility, but markets dont like uncertainty for long. Global economic growth has depended ever more on a stable America.
The U.S. political scene will play a key role in determining whether global growth will accelerate. Trump has proposed a mixed bag of policies; they are both pro-growth and anti-growth.
The fact that the new president has started from day one trying to actuate some of his more radical proposals has frightened the world. He has launched the Wall, blocked immigration from seven countries, put Iran on notice, stripped Americas participation in the TPP, and reversed over fifteen years of hostile politics toward Moscow in a matter of days.
It remains to be seen if Trump proceeds with tax reform and reducing regulations. But the markets seem to believe him on that front. Indeed, hes done nothing if not keep what he promised his voters.
But while investors like some of the policies, its unclear what effect they will have in the medium term. For example, Trump will, by choice, focus on restricting global trade and deporting illegal immigrants. Inevitably, this policy will catch up with basic economics, such that the economy will start slowing down. It may even enter a phase of recession.
Trump will essentially take America away from global pro-growth policies. These have sometimes helped counter the effects of misguided government policies. Now, America will have to endure a bigger slice of the risk.
And what risk indeed: President Trump wants to lift or significantly revise the Dodd-Frank Act. This was a cornerstone of President Obamas mechanisms to reduce the risk of another Lehman Brotherscollapse and economic depression. The new president has already announced steps to roll back the rules that have ostensibly reduced market risk but reduced gains since 2008. (Source: Trump Moves to Roll Back Obama-Era Financial Regulations, The New York Times, February 3, 2017.)
Apart from the risk, its telling that Trump is moving like a peregrine falcon on his prey on this policy, which benefits the one percent. Indeed, Trump appears to have forgotten the forgotten man of the campaign that earned him so many votes from the less privileged Americans.
The Dodd-Frank Act was one of the cornerstones of the Obama administration. Trump wants this to revive the spirit of entrepreneurship, but it might prove a surprise that could catch all of us unprepared.
At first there will be growth. But speculation-based growth produces surprises, not all of them of the good kind. Risky investments might appear to be safer than they are. Investors tend to see the risk of a stock as a potential deviation from the expected level of profits. They pay little attention to price in the sense of the P/E ratio.
Trump has other priorities; he has preferred the banks to the common man. But financial deregulations could produce veritable fireworks. The Dodd-Frank Act has limited the extent that banks can speculate. Soon, they will be back in the financial Wild West, reviving the conditions that led to the subprime collapse.
Finally, Trump has started to sound the first salvos of a potential intervention in Iran. Of all the risks, this is the biggest. Iran is a unified nationalist country with a patriotic military. It wont be a cakewalk like Iraq. Getting bogged down in Iran would be far costlier. Its not clear where Trump wants to go by taunting Iran, but so far, it appears like the kind of risk that could cause economic collapse 2017.
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Economic Crash 2017 and How the Next Financial Crisis Could Be Worse Than 2008 - Lombardi Letter
The Winter Universiade, or World Student Games, which opened on January 29 in Almaty, saw 109 billion tenge ($330 million) worth of investment in related infrastructure, including the 12,000 capacity Almaty Arena. As part of its major PR push to portray Kazakhstan as a global player, Almaty hopes to use media coverage of the games to bolster the nations international credentials. (Photo: Paul Bartlett)
Kazakhstan made the front pages of international newspapers last month when it hosted the first round of Syria peace talks. The diplomatic initiative is kicking off a year that will see a major PR push to portray Kazakhstan as a global player. For some years now, Kazakhstan has embraced soft power with a vengeance, as part of its mission to gain a prominent spot on the world stage. It is taking things to a new level in 2017. With one session of peace talks already under its belt, the capital city, Astana, is readying for the EXPO-2017 international fair. Down in the business capital, Almaty, the winter version of the World Student Games closes this week. Meanwhile, in New York, Kazakhstans diplomats have just begun their two-year stint on the United Nations Security Council. The initiatives are intended for a domestic audience, as much as to draw the attention of the outside world. Over the last decade, President [Nursultan] Nazarbayev has engaged in diplomatic 'badge-collecting' hosting international prestige events, partly as a component of his legacy-building strategy, but also as a bread-and-circuses tool domestically, Central Asia analyst Kate Mallinson told EurasiaNet.org. Kazakhstan has expended huge financial and diplomatic capital on its reputation-burnishing exercises, promoting the country as a responsible member of the international community and a multicultural bastion of tolerance. Analysts believe these efforts are now beginning to earn diplomatic dividends. Kazakhstans portrayal of itself as a geopolitical player and a multicultural, multi-ethnic society has paid off in a number of instances, and a recent example is the fact that Astana hosted international negotiations on Syria, Anita Sengupta, an expert on the Eurasian region at the Calcutta Research Group, told EurasiaNet.org. By hosting the peace talks in Astana for which Kazakhstani ally Russia was a driving force Nazarbayev is positioning himself as a peace broker. He has already won plaudits for his efforts in nurturing the rapprochement between Turkey and Russia last year that culminated in these talks the first to bring the Syrian government and some selected rebel groups together to negotiate after six years of warfare. Relations between Russia and Turkey collapsed following the downing of a Russian fighter plane by Turkey in November 2015, and Nazarbayev, an ally of both, was credited with bridging the divide. Kazakhstan pulled off another diplomatic coup in 2016, when it secured Asias vacant non-permanent member seat on the Security Council for two years, beginning this January. To secure the council seat, Astana successfully countered concerns over the countrys deteriorating record on protecting basic individual rights. While Kazakhstan has scored some points on the international arena, officials are also harnessing soft power initiatives to deflect attention from such concerns at home. This allows them to distract public attention for a time from pressing problems in the economy and in the social sphere, political commentator Amirzhan Kosanov told EuraisaNet.org. Astana is battling to keep the public onside after two years of economic stagnation, brought on by the collapse of energy prices in 2013-14. Economic growth slowed to just 1 percent in 2016, according to preliminary figures its lowest level since 1998. The government is also eager to dampen any protest moods in the country. Last year, authorities were caught off guard, when peaceful demonstrations erupted across Kazakhstan over contentious land reforms that were later shelved. There are signs that these soft power initiatives are not having the desired effect on domestic audiences. Events such as the winter student games are hoped to distract the domestic population from ailing socio-economic conditions, but the omnipresent billboards advertising the forthcoming games in Almaty hold little resonance for Kazakh citizens who have become jaded, suggested Mallinson. Kosanov also pointed to the fact that events like EXPO-2017, which have required huge input in public funds on the part of the state, are taking place against a backdrop of a general downturn in the economy and a deterioration in the lives of ordinary people. And naturally this gives rise to some dissatisfaction among the public, especially since the preparations for the exhibition have been marred by huge corruption scandals, Kosanov added. Kosanov was alluding to a graft scandal that rocked the Astana EXPO-2017 fair, an international exhibition, previously staged in Milan and Antalya, which the government lobbied hard to win, and which opens in June, featuring the theme of Future Energy. Last year, Talgat Yermegiyaev, the former head of the events organizing company, was sentenced to 14 years in jail after he was found guilty of embezzling 10.2 billion tenge ($31 million) from the fairs funds. Despite this scandal, the death of three workers on construction sites for the exhibition and the collapse of one of its buildings, the government still sees Astana EXPO-2017 as a chance for Kazakhstan to showcase itself to the world. In the hope of enabling an inflow of visitors, authorities have abolished visas for citizens of a host of countries. That move helped Kazakhstan secure a place on The New York Times list of top places to visit in 2017. The newspaper described the country as a luxury eco-destination. Then there is the Winter Universiade, or World Student Games, which opened on January 29 in Almaty and saw 109 billion tenge ($330 million) worth of investment in related infrastructure. Almaty hopes to reap the benefits from international media coverage highlighting its credentials as a winter sports destination. To sell the games to the public, the government is touting their legacy. The city now boasts new, state-of-the-art facilities, such as the 12,000 capacity Almaty Arena, and what will become a new residential district, which was built to house the athletes. EXPO-2017 is estimated to have cost around $3 billion, financed by a mix of public and private money. After critics raised fears that the futuristic glass and steel pavilions were a potential white elephant, Nazarbayev intervened personally, earmarking the site for the Astana International Financial Center, which is intended to make his glitzy new capital a regional banking hub. With the Syria talks drawing a satisfying level of global attention, the Winter Universiade winding down and EXPO-2017 on the horizon, Kazakhstan will hope that this year it can remain in the international headlines for all the right reasons.
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Jadaliyya | New Texts Out Now: Helga Tawil-Souri and Dina Matar, eds. Gaza as Metaphor Jadaliyya Concomitant to territorial, aerial, and maritime enclosure is the range of socio-economic and psychological impacts of the process of rendering Gaza isolated, impoverished, marginalized, always on the edge of collapse. As many of the contributors ... |
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New Texts Out Now: Helga Tawil-Souri and Dina Matar, eds. Gaza as Metaphor - Jadaliyya
Chief peace negotiators Fidel Agcaoili of the NDFP and Silvestre Bello III of the Philippine government shake hands after signing supplemental guidelines for the conduct of peace talks. Looking on is Elisabeth Slattum, Norwegian special envoy. (Photo by KARLO MANLUPIG/Inquirer Mindanao)
DAVAO CITY Can parties in conflict negotiate and reach agreements even without a ceasefire?
A consultant of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines said that the issue on the withdrawal of the unilateral ceasefire declarations should not be a reason to totally suspend the peace negotiations between the revolutionary movement and the Philippine government.
President Duterte on Friday withdrew the governments indefinite unilateral ceasefire following the announcement of the New Peoples Army to end its own ceasefire effective February 10.
The NPA cited President Dutertes refusal to release 400 political prisoners and the continuing presence of government forces in the communities as reasons it terminated its ceasefire.
Randy Malayao of the NDFP told the Philippine Daily Inquirer that despite the absence of any ceasefire orders during the terms of former Presidents Fidel Ramos, Joseph Estrada, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Benigno Aquino III, several important agreements and documents were signed.
During the time of Ramos, at least eight agreements were signed after the formal talks was initiated following the collapse of the attempt to negotiate during the administration of Corazon Aquino.
During the exploratory talks between the NDFP and the Ramos administration, both agreed on the The Hague Joint Declaration in September 1, 1992.
This agreement serves as the foundation of the negotiations where parties agreed to tackle in a successive manner the different substantive agenda including human rights and international humanitarian law; socio-economic reforms; political and constitutional reforms; and the end of hostilities and disposition of forces.
Major breakthroughs, in the absence of a ceasefire, were also achieved from 1994 to 1995 when both peace panels agreed to sign three essential documents including The Breukelen Joint Statement of June 14, 1994; the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG) of February 24, 1995; and the Agreement on the Ground Rules of the Formal Meetings of February 26, 1995.
Following the start of the formal talks in 1995, both parties signed the Additional Implementing Rules Pertaining to the Documents of Identification in June 26, 1996, the Supplemental Agreement to the Joint Agreement on the Formation, Sequence and Operationalization of the Reciprocal Working Committees in March 18, 1997 and the Joint Agreement in Support of Socio-economic Projects of Private Development Organizations and Institutes in March 16, 1998.
The Additional Implementing Rules of the JASIG Pertaining to the Security of Personnel and Consultations in Furtherance of the Peace Negotiations were also signed in March 16, 1998.
Under Ramos, the Comprehensive Agreement on the Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law, the first in the four substantive agenda, was forged. It was signed though during the term of President Estrada. There was no ceasefire then, Malayao said.
Several joint statements were signed during the Arroyo administration where the past agreements were reaffirmed.
One of the major developments during Arroyos presidency was the signing of the Joint Monitoring Committee that puts into action the monitoring of human rights abuses.
It was also during the Arroyo administration when both parties signed a memorandum of understanding with the Royal Norwegian Government as the third party facilitator.
During the term of President Aquino, a joint communique and a joint statement were inked to reaffirm the previously signed agreements until the talks hit a snag and was in impasse by the time Duterte was elected.
A source involved in the peace process, who requested anonymity for not having been authorized to speak publicly on the issue, said that while a ceasefire would create better conditions for the negotiations, the entire peace process should not be doomed just because both parties could not immediately address unresolved issues on the temporary cessation of hostilities.
There are other more significant substantive agenda that are being discussed on the table. And these, the CASER (Comprehensive Agreement on Socio-Economic Reforms) and the CAPCR (Comprehensive Agreement on Political and Constitutional Reforms), are the much-needed reforms that would address the causes of this conflict, the source said.
The source, however, said that forging a bilateral ceasefire agreement would accelerate further the present peace process adding that optimism had been high between two parties that a final peace agreement could be achieved under the present government.
Royal Norwegian Government Special Envoy Elisabeth Slattum, during the closing ceremony of the third round of talks between the Philippine government and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines in Rome last January 25, said that setbacks including clashes were expected.
The statement came after government forces and communist guerrillas clashed in North Cotabato as talks were being held in Rome.
I have yet to witness a peace process where there have not ever been ups and downs, a peace process that has not been messy, where there havent been any clashes on the ground or violations of ceasefire or publicly expressed frustration, Slattum said.
Peace remains the only way even if negotiations become extremely challenging, according to Slattum.
In those difficult moments we have to remind ourselves that the way to deal with these challenges is by meeting, by dialoguing, talking, discussing, arguing. This is the only way to move forward here at the negotiations table, Slattum said. SFM
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PH gov't, communists urged to pursue talks even without ceasefire - Inquirer.net
The real priorities of a foreign policy of any state should reflect the overall dynamics of the international context (i.e. threats for national security or opportunities for the expansion of the states role vis-a-vis other players). This should also apply to alliances and inter-state groupings.
Today, the V4 faces the sort of challenges which lay at the very root of the group emergence. The European political and security system is again in a state of flux with the institutional framework is unfit for the present and future developments in and outside of Europe. The V4 is hence confronted with, or indeed put in between, three overlapping crises.
The first is the crisis of the west (i.e. European integration), followed by the end of the east as we know it (the Ukrainian Conflict and the end of the post-Soviet model of socio-economic development) and lastly the collapse of the south (i.e. war, terrorism and the refugee crisis).
At the same time, any room to manoeuvre in these external actions has never seemed so narrow as it is today. Strategic priority should be given, therefore, to the task of not being squeezed by the aforementioned arc of crisis to the extent in which the V4 member states would opt for individual ways to cope with the challenge.
Poland may be inclined to focus on the eastern dimension with Slovakia, and to respond to an ever closer eurozone integration with Hungary and the Czech Republic, while neglecting the migration and the Balkans issues of the south, an area of importance for the Hungarians, Czechs and Slovaks.
Preserving unity inside the V4 and avoiding situations where they could be played off of one another by those outside of the group should become the priority of all priorities. In these times of profound crises to the European order, nothing else is worth the time and energy of Central Europe.
OlafOsicais a Polish sociologist and political scientist, chairman of the Centre for Eastern Studies (OSW) Board, director for risk assessment at Polityka Insight.
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Where Should the External Priorities of the Visegrd Lie? - Visegrad Insight
On 9 October 1964, a baby girl was born at Philadelphia general hospital. She arrived early, when her mother was about 32 weeks pregnant. The baby weighed 3.2lb and was noted to be blue, floppy and not breathing. The only sign of life was her slow heartbeat. Nonetheless, she clung on, and her 17-year-old mother named her.
One month later, the baby was still in the hospital, and a doctor listening with a stethoscope heard a harsh heart murmur. A chest X-ray showed that she had a massively enlarged heart because a hole in the organ was preventing it from pumping blood efficiently. It also emerged that the baby had cataracts blinding both eyes. Later, other signs indicated that she was profoundly deaf.
The baby also suffered from recurring respiratory infections and had trouble gaining weight. A psychologist who assessed her in July 1965 judged the nine-month-old to be the size of a two- or three-month-old infant and at about that stage of development, too. She needed heart surgery if she was going to survive. Just before her first birthday, surgeons made an incision in her chest wall and repaired her heart. After the operation, she remained in hospital. The chronic respiratory infections continued. The baby was 16 months old and weighed just 11lb when she died of pneumonia on 18 February 1966.
The young mother had told the doctors that when she was one month pregnant, she had contracted German measles, also known as rubella.
The early 1960s marked a coming of age for the study of viruses such as the one that causes rubella tiny infectious agents that invade cells and hijack their machinery in order to reproduce themselves. Biologists, with new tools in hand, were racing to capture viruses in throat swabs or urine or even snippets of organs from infected people and to grow them in lab dishes. Isolating a virus in the lab made it possible to make a vaccine against it. And making antiviral vaccines promised huge inroads against common childhood diseases such as measles, mumps and rubella, along with less common killers including hepatitis. The principle of vaccination is simple: if a person is injected with, or swallows, a tiny amount of a virus either a killed virus or a weakened live virus that person will develop antibodies against the virus. Then, if he or she is exposed in the future to the naturally occurring, disease-causing form of the virus, those antibodies will attack the invader and prevent it from causing disease.
But if the concept is simple, making effective vaccines is anything but. In the early 1960s, that reality was all too evident. In 1942, as many as 330,000 US servicemen were exposed to the hepatitis B virus in a yellow fever vaccine that was contaminated with blood plasma from infected donors (the plasma was used to stabilise the vaccine). Around 50,000 of the vaccinated servicemen contracted the liver disease and up to 150 died.
In 1955, a California-based company named Cutter Laboratories made a polio vaccine with the live, disease-causing virus in it. As a result, 192 people were paralysed many of them children and 10 died. Every senior US government employee involved in the Cutter incident lost his or her job, right up to the director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the secretary for health, education and welfare.
Then, in the summer of 1961, Americans learned that cells used to manufacture the widely used Salk polio vaccine, harvested from monkey kidneys, harboured a virus named SV40. Tens of millions of American children had already received contaminated injections, and while the jury was still out on the tainted vaccines long-term health consequences, the risks were of great concern to regulators in the US and further afield.
It was against this backdrop that, on a drizzly June morning in 1962, a 34-year-old scientist named Leonard Hayflick went to work in his lab at the Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology an elegant 1890s brownstone tucked in the heart of the University of Pennsylvanias campus.
A serious, slight man with close-cropped dark hair, Hayflick was a product of working-class Philadelphia and hungry to make his name. He was in love with biology and had come to believe that he was extremely smart a fact that was far from appreciated. Hayflicks boss, the polio-vaccine pioneer Hilary Koprowski, saw him as a mere technician, hired to serve up bottles of lab-grown cells to the institutes scientists.
The ambitious Hayflick was undeterred. That day, he planned to launch a group of human cells that would revolutionise vaccine-making. He was convinced that, compared with monkey cells, which were often laden with viruses, human cells would serve as cleaner, safer vehicles for producing antiviral vaccines.
Several days earlier, a woman living near Stockholm had had an abortion. The eight-inch-long female foetus was wrapped in a sterile green cloth and delivered to a yellow brick outbuilding on the grounds of the National Biological Laboratory in north-west Stockholm. The lungs were removed, packed in ice and flown to the Wistar Institute.
Hayflick had been waiting months for this opportunity. These lungs would be the source of the new cells he needed to make antiviral vaccines. Viruses cant multiply outside living cells, and huge quantities of virus were needed to produce vaccines.
Now, at last, the lungs were here in his bustling second-floor lab, two purplish things floating in clear pink fluid in a glass bottle. They had been sent to Hayflick by a top virologist at the prestigious Karolinska Institute in Stockholm.
Hayflick knew that he was uniquely positioned to produce a long-lasting supply of these cells. He had spent the previous three years perfecting the procedure that would do it.
Hayflick took the lungs into a tiny room just off his lab what passed for a sterile area in 1962. He picked up a pair of tweezers, dipped them in alcohol and passed them through the flame of a Bunsen burner. He waited for them to cool and then, gently, one at a time, lifted the organs and placed them on a petri dish. Each was no larger than his thumb above the knuckle. He began carefully slicing them into innumerable pieces, each smaller than a pinhead.
Hayflick nudged the minute pieces of tissue into a wide-mouthed glass flask. The translucent pink fluid was full of digestive enzymes from slaughtered pigs. These biological jackhammers broke up the mortar between the lung cells, separating millions upon millions of them. Later, he transferred those cells into several flat-sided glass bottles and poured a nutritious solution over them. Hayflick then loaded the bottles on to a tray, and carried them into an incubation room where the temperature was a cosy 36C. He laid the bottles on their sides on a wooden shelf and closed the door carefully behind him. There the cells began to divide. He already had a name for them: WI-38.
The WI-38 cells that Hayflick launched that day were used to make vaccines that have been given to more than 300 million people half of them preschool children in the US. A copycat group of cells, developed using the method that Hayflick pioneered, has been used to make an additional 6bn doses of various vaccines.
Together these vaccines have protected people the world over from the gamut of viral illnesses: rubella, rabies, chickenpox, measles, polio, hepatitis A, shingles and adenovirus a respiratory infection that flourishes in situations where people live in close quarters. (Every US military recruit more than nine million of them since 1971 is given an adenovirus vaccine made using WI-38 cells.) In the US, a vaccine made in WI-38 cells that is still given to young children has wiped out homegrown rubella. It was developed at the Wistar Institute by Hayflicks colleague Stanley Plotkin, during a rubella epidemic that swept the country in 1964 and 1965.
The WI-38 cells Hayflick launched that day made vaccines that have been given to more than 300 million people
The WI-38 cells are still in use today partly because Hayflick made such a large initial stock of them: some 800 tiny, wine-bottleshaped ampoules were frozen in the summer of 1962. When frozen, cells stop dividing, but then gamely begin replicating when they are thawed. Each glass vial that Hayflick froze contained between 1.5m and 2m cells. The cells in those vials had, on average, the capacity to divide about 40 more times. Early on, Hayflick determined that the newly derived cells in just one of his small glass lab bottles, if allowed to replicate until they died, would produce 20m tonnes of cells. In those 800 vials, he had created a supply of cells that for practical purposes was almost infinite.
In addition to their use in vaccine making, the WI-38 cells became the first normal cells available in virtually unlimited quantities to scientists probing the mysteries of cell biology. Because they were easily infected with human viruses, they became important to disease detectives tracking viruses in the 1960s, before more sophisticated technology came along. Biologists still reach for WI-38 cells when they need a normal cell to compare against a cancerous one, or to test the toxicity of new drugs. They are a workhorse of research into ageing, because they so reliably age and die in laboratory conditions. Original ampoules of WI-38 cells, and of polio vaccine made using them, are now part of the collection of the National Museum of American History.
But in the 1960s and 70s, a bitter feud broke out between Hayflick and the US government over who owned the cells.
As the importance of the WI-38 cells grew, Hayflick was only too happy to promote them. Human Cells Given Role in Vaccines, the New York Times proclaimed after the scientist spoke at a vaccine conference in 1966. The article quoted Hayflick explaining that his cells were cheaper, cleaner and safer than the animal cells then used in vaccine manufacture.
As his profile rose, Hayflick ran out of patience with Koprowski. The disconnect between his contributions and his treatment by the Wistar Institutes director had become too much to bear. Nine years after Koprowski hired him, Hayflick remained stuck as an associate member of the institute, in sharp contrast to many colleagues who had been made full members despite, to his mind, making contributions no greater than his own.
Hayflick began looking around. He applied for a position as a full professor of medical microbiology at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. His application for the job was backed by a recommendation from a senior virologist who regarded his work as reliable, trustworthy and original. He was offered the post.
As Hayflicks departure approached, there was probably only one thing that concerned Koprowski: the fate of the hundreds of ampoules of WI-38 cells that were still stored in liquid nitrogen in the Wistar Institutes basement, under Hayflicks watchful eye. Hayflicks proprietary feelings about the cells were well known he once described them as like my children.
Koprowski had designs on the cells from the beginning. Nancy Pleibel, a lab technician who worked for Hayflick, recalls that more than once Koprowski had turned up in the lab within a day or two of Hayflick leaving on a trip, smiling and asking her for an ampoule of WI-38 cells. Politely but firmly, she refused his requests, explaining that only her boss could hand out WI-38 ampoules. After a while, Koprowski stopped asking.
Minutes from meetings of the Wistar Institutes board of managers in the early and mid-60s make clear that Koprowski tried repeatedly to cash in on Hayflicks human diploid cells (defined as cells that carry the normal complement of 46 chromosomes). The institute sought payment not only from Norden, a Missouri company that was interested in using WI-38 to develop a rabies vaccine, but also from Pfizer for the use of Hayflicks cells to make a measles vaccine, and from Wyeth, another Philadelphia-based drug manufacturer that by 1965 had used the WI-38 cells to make an adenovirus vaccine to protect US army recruits during basic training.
Koprowskis attempts to turn a profit with the WI-38 cells were far from successful. By 1965, the board of managers had appointed a special committee of lawyers and scientists to deal with problems in selling the Hayflick cells to industry. The only backing that the institute landed, according to budget documents from 1965 to 1967, was $5,000 in each of those years from Norden.
Today it seems incredible that an institution like the Wistar, full of eminent scientists, was so at sea when it came to profiting from unique and desirable cells produced under its roof. But in that era living things, such as the WI-38 cells, could not be patented. It would take a landmark supreme court decision in 1980 to change that.
However, what could be patented was a method of using the cells to produce a novel vaccine. Koprowski had already applied, back in 1964, for such a patent for another, improved rabies vaccine that he was developing using the WI-38 cells. Soon the Wistar Institute would apply for a patent on a method of making a rubella vaccine with the WI-38s, devised by another of its scientists, Stanley Plotkin.
If and when the rabies and rubella vaccine patents were granted, Koprowski would need access to at least some of the original ampoules of WI-38 frozen in the Wistar Institute basement. Vaccine companies would want original ampoules full of the youngest cells, which could be expanded into a nearly endless supply.
By the autumn of 1967, Hayflick vaguely suspected that Koprowski intended the WI-38 cells to serve something more than the good of mankind. Hayflick believed that his boss hoped to turn any vaccines made with the cells into sources of cash, boosting the Wistar Institutes income and freeing him from fundraising duties that he detested and considered beneath him.
Hayflicks instincts were right. As 1967 drew to a close, a financial vice was tightening on Koprowski. While the Wistar Institute had remained solvent, it had never been flush with funds, especially after Koprowski blew through $271,506 to fund major renovations that were completed in 1959. By the mid-60s, his struggle to find cash not tied to specific grants was becoming desperate. Badly needed repairs to the roof and the air conditioning system were deferred.
In the autumn of 1967, when officials at the NIHs National Cancer Institute (NCI) learned that Hayflick would be moving to Stanford, they decided to take the production, storage, study and distribution to researchers of human diploid cells out of his hands. The NCI had been paying the Wistar Institute hundreds of thousands of dollars for Hayflick to produce and distribute the cells since 1962, shortly after his paper announcing his human diploid cell strains to the world had sent demand soaring. The agencys contract with the Wistar Institute had specified that the government would take ownership of the cells when the contract was terminated. Now, NIH officials set 1 January 1968 as the end date. The timing seemed right, and not only because of Hayflicks impending move. The sense at the NCI was that the demand for the WI-38 cells had been sated. Those scientists who wanted them, it seemed, had them by now, more than five years after Hayflick had first produced them. They were being used widely and had already been cited in scores of papers.
On 18 January 1968, several men travelled to the Wistar Institute to sort out the physical disposition of the WI-38 cells now that the contract had ended. Koprowski summoned Hayflick to meet with them. Also present were senior scientists from the American Type Culture Collection (ATCC). This independent, nonprofit organisation was the countrys highest-profile cell bank, and was often where biologists turned when they needed a particular type of cell for an experiment. According to records, the assembled men agreed that all but 20 of the roughly 375 remaining original ampoules of WI-38 cells would be transferred to the ATCC, which would maintain them, deeply frozen, on behalf of the NIH. Hayflick would be permitted to take 10 ampoules with him to Stanford, and the Wistar Institute would also be allowed to keep 10.
The group also decided that any use of the 355 original ampoules being transferred to the ATCC they were precious because the WI-38 cell populations in them had divided only eight times, and so could be expanded into untold billions of cells for vaccine making should be totally arrested. By this, they meant that there was to be no more thawing of the ampoules, no more planting of these young cells into lab bottles, and no more splitting of those bottles over and over to generate multitudes of cells at higher doubling levels for scientists to use. Scientists could use the older cells that were already in circulation. The remaining 355 original ampoules needed to be kept safely frozen at the ATCC until such time as companies began winning US licences to make WI-38based vaccines.
Some time during his last months at the Wistar Institute, Hayflick was working in one of the tiny sterile rooms that adjoined his lab. Plotkin squeezed through the door and pulled up the only chair. The two chatted for a while, then Plotkin showed Hayflick a document. It was a letter, on Wistar-headed paper, from Koprowski, written to a senior official at Burroughs Wellcome, the British pharmaceutical company. Koprowski was offering to provide to the company ample supplies of WI-38 cells, along with the recipe for making a vaccine with the cells and the virus itself, all in exchange for royalties.
'To have the vultures descend on whatIhad struggled to give value to most people would understand why I was upset'
Hayflicks suspicions had been confirmed. He was profoundly upset. He had spent the previous decade deriving the cells and opened up a new, important field in the study of cellular ageing. He had derived enough WI-38 cells to serve vaccine makers into the distant future and worked as hard as was humanly possible to win acceptance of the cells for vaccine making. In the process of all of this, he had been ridiculed and been forced to struggle for respect and validation.
This letter signalled that not only was he not valued but that he was also being sidelined in major decision-making and likely profit-making connected to the WI-38 cells. As Hayflick said, to have the vultures descend on what I had struggled so hard to give value to and [for them to] try to take it for their benefit I think that an average person would understand why I was, to put it mildly, concerned.
On or around 1 March when, under the January agreement, the ampoules were to have been moved from the Wistar Institute to the ATCC a specially outfitted station wagon arrived from Maryland, carrying the NIH project officer, Charles Boone, and John Shannon, the ATCCs curator of cell lines. Hayflick turned them away, saying he wasnt ready to hand over the cells because he had not prepared an inventory of them.
Not long after this, Hayflick, unobserved, visited the Wistar Institutes basement. There he packed every single one of the remaining original WI-38 ampoules 375 frozen vials: the largest stock of young WI-38 cells on earth into one or more portable liquid-nitrogen refrigerators and departed the premises. He left nothing behind not even the 10 ampoules that Koprowskis institute had been promised in the January agreement.
Hayflick stored the frozen cells temporarily with a friend, a vaccinologist at the nearby Wyeth Laboratories who, from time to time, topped up the liquid nitrogen that kept the cells frozen. Hayflick says that he took the ampoules with the intention of keeping them only until the ownership of the cells could be properly sorted out. He believed that there were several potential stakeholders who might reasonably claim ownership: himself and his early collaborator at the Wistar Institute, the chromosome expert Paul Moorhead; the estate of the WI-38 foetus, by which he meant the WI-38 foetuss parents; the Wistar Institute; and, just possibly, the NIH. But he was not going to be so naive as to leave the cells in the NIHs possession while these matters were decided. If he did that, he was sure that he would never see them again.
In mid-1968, Hayflick left for his new job in California. Moving a family of seven 2,900 miles was no small undertaking. The Hayflicks split the travel. Ruth flew out to the San Francisco Bay Area with their two youngest daughters. Hayflick drove the three older children cross-country in their dark green Buick sedan. They drove west through Pittsburgh, stopped to see drag races in Joplin, Missouri, and then headed on to Arizona, where they gazed at the worlds best-preserved meteor crater and marvelled at the Grand Canyon. All along the way, some extra cargo travelled with them. Carefully strapped on the backseat beside his children was a liquid-nitrogen refrigerator stuffed with ampoules of WI-38.
Hayflicks flight with the cells would make him the target of a career-derailing investigation by the National Institutes of Health. Hayflick counter-sued eventually, in 1981, settling with the government. He was allowed to keep six original ampoules of the cells, along with $90,000 that he had earned by charging researchers and companies for them after he left the Wistar Institute. A letter from supporters published in the journal Science, described the happy outcome of Dr Hayflicks courageous, sometimes lonely, emotionally damaging and professionally destructive ordeal.
But just as the tug-of-war over ownership of the WI-38 cells peaked, profound changes occurred in attitudes and laws governing who could make money from biological inventions. In the space of a few years, biologists went from being expected to work only for their salaries and the greater good to being encouraged by universities and the government to commercialise their innovations for the benefit of the institutions, the US economy and themselves.
Although the WI-38 cells were launched long before these changes took place and 18 years before the supreme court decreed that a living entity, such as a WI-38 cell, could be patented a lot of money has been made from them. The drug company Merck, in particular, has made billions of dollars by using the WI-38 cells to make the rubella vaccine given to more than seven million American children each year. The Wistar Institute too enjoyed a handsome royalty stream from vaccines made by its scientists using the cells including a much-improved rabies vaccine that replaced sometimes dangerous injections. Cell banks today charge several hundred dollars for a tiny vial of the cells.
During the long battle for ownership of the WI-38 cells, Koprowski sent a Wistar scientist across the country to collect them from Hayflicks Stanford lab. But Hayflick refused to part with them. A second emissary was more successful, returning with the 10 ampoules originally allocated to the institute. But later, while the NIH was still asserting its title to WI-38, Koprowski seems to have given up. Perhaps this was because Hayflick was now so far away. Maybe it was because, despite his propensity for it, Koprowski actually disliked direct conflict. Possibly, it was because several companies already appeared to have adequate supplies of the youngest WI-38 ampoules. On the other hand, though, it might have been because Koprowski had finally realised just how persistent, obdurate and dedicated Hayflick could be.
This is an adapted extract from The Vaccine Race by Meredith Wadman, published by Doubleday on 9 February in the UK and in the US by Viking.
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Germ warfare: the battle for the key to modern vaccines - The Guardian
Luanda The minister of Former Combatants e Veterans of the Motherland, Cndido Pereira Van-Dunen, Saturday, in Luanda, that the Angolans' courage and bravery in the struggle for national liberation has broken the chains of oppression towards freedom.
The Government official who was speaking on the sidelines of the central event of the celebrations of the 56th anniversary of February 4, the Day of the Beginning of the Armed Struggle for National Liberation, said it was necessary to thank and praise the courage of the Angolans who have done everything to achieve national freedom.
In his view, the event should serve as a commitment to the maintenance of peace, democracy and national unity.
For the municipal administrator of Cazenga, Victor Nataniel Narciso, the current memorial is a gesture that symbolizes a place where started part of the execution of the actions that led the Angolans to the prisons of Luanda to save the political prisoners.
He said it was a great privilege that there were still survivors of these heroes who continue to pass the testimony to the new generation on what they did, went through and achieved in this heroic deed.
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Angolans Bravery Broke Down Chains of Colonial Oppression - Minister - AllAfrica.com
If youve been waking up recently and feeling as though youve landed in the middle of George Orwells 1984, youre not alone. Trumps familiar dismissal of the media with regard to his character, actions and policy has gone beyond the expected display of petulance. The Trump administrations actions of late reflect tactics of censorship, gaslighting and downright absurdity that can only be defined as information oppression.
Trumps war on environmentalism has begun with glaring censorship. Of course, Trump and his administration make no secret of their disinterest in issues regarding climate or the environment, and the institutions dedicated to protecting both.
To begin, one of the very first actions made by the Trump administration was to remove pages concerning climate change, among many others, from the White House website. During the Obama administration the page had been filled with factual evidence regarding human accountability, and detailed the government projects in place in that work to combat further environmental degradation and climate change. The vital information was previously freely available to the public and it ceased to exist less than a day after Trumps inauguration.
The White House page outlines the administrations agenda, and this elimination clearly announced that not only does the Trump administration not see climate change as a concern, but that the public shouldnt either. This restriction actively prevents public knowledge of, and thereby discussion about an issue with which Trump and his team disagree.
The administration has since forwarded its acts of censorship onto the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Numerous reports reveal that the Trump administration has been impeding the free exchange of information from several agencies including the EPA, and that the EPA has been ordered to limit its speech regarding climate change.
Two EPA communications officials were ordered to remove information about climate change from the agencys website. While this information would still exist in archives, it would be effectively inaccessible to the public.
Moreover, after the National Park Service retweeted messages that negatively compared the crowd sizes at Barack Obamas 2009 inauguration to Donald Trumps inauguration, representatives from the Trump administration asked the Interior Departments digital team to halt all use of Twitter. The National Park Service complied, and the White House claimed that they ordered the tweeting halt out of fear that the Twitter was hacked.
The idea behind this action is unsurprising as Trump has never taken a joke at his expense lightly. Yet to require a nation organization to suspend its use of public social media is a bevy of censorship and a blatant infringement on freedom of speech. Just days after the inauguration, a suspension of an organizations social media privileges is indicative of an administration that already feels it can abuse its power by imposing censorship on its federal organizations if and when it feels threatened.
The Badlands National Park Twitter gave Trump a taste of his own medicine by posting a slew of tweets reporting scientifically accurate information regarding climate change. Almost amusingly, the Badlands National Park service retaliated against Trump in the presidents preferred forum for bullying and distributing false information. The Park Services tweets have since been removed.
Other agencies are also targets for future liquidation. Trump and his administration also plan to eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), as well as privatize The Corporation for Public Broadcasting in an effort to substantially slash government spending. This massive elimination would entail syphoning virtually all funding to programs such as The Institute of Museum and Library Services, which provides grants to the countrys public museums and libraries.
Eliminating the NEA and NEH keeps intellectual and artistic resources from the public and would effectively suppresses public discussion about, exploration of and investment in the humanities. And in reality, these spending cuts amount to a very minimal portion of the overall government budget. So why go to such lengths to inhibit the public from utilizing artistic and educational services?
Defunding these departments simply compounds a frightening message that has been in the making for months: the accessibility of public information is not necessary if it does not actively support Trumps agenda.
Two weeks ago, the Trump administration temporarily blacklisted CNN for allegedly promoting fake news about the administration. A White House spokesperson addressed the matter, explaining that the administration will be sending surrogates to places where we think it makes sense to promote our agenda.
After one week of refusing to allow Trump officials on CNN, a White House spokesperson explained that the ban would not be permanent, but gave no indication as to when it will be fully lifted. Until this freezing out comes to an end, the Trump administration is vigorously ostracizing a news media source for challenging, sometimes opposing, and demanding explanation from new White House representatives.
And of course, the media has not be able to forget about Kellyanne Conways use of alternative facts as a defense against accusations that the White House had knowingly lied to the press about inauguration turnout, among other trivialities. Rightfully so, the media has not let up on the administration for its defense of alternative facts as a legitimate case for knowingly distributing falsehoods en masse.
While the concept of alternative facts seems rightfully absurd and even laughable, it actually serves as one of the most terrifying stunts the administration has pulled to date. If Trump and his cronies have been attempting to blur the line between fact and fiction all along, theyre succeeding, and its a kind of evil genius.
It is easy to dismiss Trumps relationship with the media as petulant, in some cases even amusing. But what has been unfolded and escalating in the few days since Trump has taken office has proven to be more than one mans feud with the media. The administrations actions are a threat to responsible journalism, public faith in its elected officials, and even logic itself in cases where terms like alternative facts are seen by a presidential administration as unproblematic.
The U.S. Holocaust Museum felt so compelled by the Trump administrations recent actions as to publicize a poster outlining the Early Warning Signs of Fascism. One of the principal steps in this process: controlled mass media.
In isolation, each of the administrations tactics reflect the same sort of cynicism about the media which Trump displayed throughout his entire campaign. But this pattern of shady actions that seem to excommunicate information and opinion deviant from the views of the Trump administration, and Trump himself suggests and end goal of homogenous thought.
So is Trump waging war on the media? Science? Facts, themselves? It may be too early to tell. However, the administrations escalating techniques for media control and information suppression require an escalating imperative for the defense of truth above all else.
This volatile situation play out in a variety of ways, certain messages must be upheld loud and clear: facts are not at anyones discretion to debate, science does not cease to be true simply because you give it the cold-shoulder, and the disruption of free exchange of information should be fought in every capacity.
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Understanding Information Oppression in the Era of Trump - MediaFile
In what could be coined a tale of two countries, recent demonstrations in Washington, D.C., reflected very disparate versions of what some Americans value.
The Jan. 27 March for Life was a peaceful gathering of hundreds of thousands of people, including huge numbers of young people, to renounce Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that made abortion legal nationwide.
The March for Life was and is a joyful embrace of life and a way of voicing our rights not to pay for abortion or other anti-life measures with our tax dollars or through mandated health care plans. Its about exposing the dangers of abortion euphemistically called womens health care when, in fact, more than 120 independent studies show the link between abortion and increased breast cancer risks. (It took only seven studies linking tobacco use to cancer for the federal government to mandate a warning on all tobacco products).
Because overturning Roe v. Wade doesnt outlaw abortion it only returns abortion laws to the states the March for Life is not so much about taking away a womans rights as it is about helping women in despair to pursue less harmful options.
Above all, the March for Life is about standing up for the voiceless and restoring America to a nation that doesnt kill its unborn and frail, but rather affirms the dignity and value of all human lives, from conception to natural death.
In stark contrast, the recent Womens March, which took place to protest President Donald Trump, exposed a foul-mouthed, furious display of leftist ideology, and in particular, a rabid obsession with a womans right to prevent and/or terminate pregnancy at taxpayer expense.
As one protester put it, Were here because Donald Trump doesnt reflect our countrys values. But which values do they mean? Do they reject Trumps values of tighter national security, increased jobs, lower taxes, and better access to more affordable health care? Do they dismiss our presidents call for unity, an end to prejudice, the upholding of law, limited government, and the elimination of terrorism? Do they spurn free speech, self-defense, and freedom of religion? Or do they just object to the fact that the lefts previously uninhibited march toward a less free, one-world socialist government was essentially stopped in its tracks by Trumps victory?
Regardless, from the unmentionable body-part-shaped balloons and threats to blow up the White House, to the degrading use of f-bombs and one hysterical, screaming celebrity meltdown over womens personal biology, I didnt just see hateful behavior in the way these women expressed themselves; I saw self-hatred.
Instead of encouraging women to embrace their dignity, know their value, and celebrate the God-given miracle of their bodies ability to bring forth life, the most vocal protesters depicted themselves as angry, poorly mannered ruffians infatuated with the entitlement to sexual relations without personal responsibility. But doesnt this just reduce women to the sex-object status that feminists of the Sexual Revolution originally claimed to despise?
If these women so adamantly want government to stay out of our bedrooms, why do they then demand government to financially support what goes on in those bedrooms via taxpayer-funded contraception and abortion? Are they so spoiled by Americas benevolence that theyre blinded to their own hypocrisy? If they want a real cause, how about when they scream for government to keep its hands off our bodies, they point the finger at certain foreign governments that actually force women to undergo abortion?
While some of these angry Womens March protesters berated Americas treatment of women (ostensibly all due to Americas election of Donald Trump), I wonder if it ever occurred to them that in some countries, like Sharia-compliant ones, theyd never even be able to voice their complaints so freely. Certainly theyd never be allowed in public without the presence of, or at least the permission of, a man.
Where is their outrage about this, or about young girls getting shot for simply trying to go to school in some countries? Why dont they scream in protest over the genital mutilation of baby girls in Sharia-law countries? Why dont these cushioned American women demand their fellow females rights in certain countries to drive a car, travel freely, or obtain higher education without the need for male consent? I can see why the Womens March co-chair, Linda Sarsour, an outspoken advocate of Sharia Law, would remain silent. But what about the rest?
Its embarrassing to see free American women going ballistic over perceived oppression when real oppression exists. And while anti-Trump protesters repeat their mantra that Love Trumps Hate, all I can say is, if vulgarity, death threats, and worship at the altar of abortion are signs of love, I shudder to think of what their version of actual hate would look like.
(Julie Szydlowski is a resident of Shelby Township and has a blog, The Right Track, on the Source website.)
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In 1939, a bill was placed before Congress seeking to allow 20,000 Jewish refugee children into America to escape the horrors of the Holocaust. In a flurry of America-first sentiment, the bill died on the Senate floor, and the would-be refugees were left to their fate. Seventy-one years to date after the largest Nazi death camp was liberated, on Holocaust Remembrance Day, President Trump signed a new executive order once again leaving refugees to their plight, this time in war-torn Syria. Though a federal judge has temporarily stayed Trumps order, its moral consequences and implicit forewarnings cannot be ignored.
International Holocaust Remembrance Day is not the only event at odds with the signing of Trumps executive orderjust one day prior, around half a million people marched on Washington in a so-called March for Life, protesting abortion. The juxtaposition of this march, endorsed at the highest levels of the current administration, and the signing of an executive order the very next day which could essentially be a death warrant for thousands, is striking. The pro-life movement characterizes itself as fighting for the human right to life for those who by definition can have no voice in American political discourse: the unborn. But by and large, pro-lifers voted for Donald Trump and supported his most recent executive order. In doing so, they denied some of the most powerless people in the world, those lost and struggling in war zones, facing government oppression, and rampant violence, the possibility of escape. At the same time as the March for Life, those boarding planes to America, so close to safety, were turned away before they could reach Americas golden door.
What assurances could have allowed people so committed to preserving life to vote overwhelmingly for the man who, from the beginning, promised to limit all Muslim entry into the country? Could simple math have convinced them to decide avoiding nearly one million abortions per year is more worthwhile than saving tens of thousands of potential Syrian refugees? More likely, voters were persuaded by the rhetoric behind Trumps executive order, which prioritized American lives over all others. This sentiment eerily echoes the denial of the Wagner-Rogers bill in 1939 which was designed to protect Jewish refugees but deemed less important than prioritizing American problems. Today, widespread fear of Islamic terrorists has led many to believe foreigners and refugees pose a substantial threat to public safety. While this fear may be legitimate, if overstated or even misguided, the relief some may feel as a result of Trumps newest action is certainly not.
Neither of the 9/11 hijackers, nor the San Bernardino and Orlando shooters, nor the Boston bombers came from any of the seven countries included in Trumps 90-day travel ban. In the name of national security, Trumps executive order mysteriously exempted Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Lebanon, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates, countries from which terrorists who targeted the United States originated. Besides its inaccurate targets, the executive order attempts to decrease a threat thats not that large to begin with. There is only a 1 in 3.6 billion chance of being killed by a refugee terrorist. In fact, in 2015 more people in the United States were killed by toddlers than by terrorists. Given these facts, this executive order represents nothing more than an arbitrary display of power. It is a poorly-executed, poorly-designed attempt to combat a systemic problem that cannot be fixed by changing any current immigration standards, since the most recent terror attacks on U.S. soil were perpetrated by Americans. This executive order is nothing more than a band-aid to make the public feel like a wound has been healed, an action for actions sake. While the Trump administration can pat itself on the back for beginning to carry out one of its most controversial, yet central, campaign promises, the largest impact of the order will not be protecting American lives, as purported, but instead upturning the lives of green-card-holding American nationals and abandoning refugees in need.
Trumps clear disregard for the material consequences of this executive order can be seen in his administrations rapid attempts to backtrack on the policy. In response to a flurry of nationwide protests, administration officials have backpedaled and claimed green-card holders will now be allowed back in. However, they will still be subject to random questioning, and nothing can erase the night of fear they faced, thinking they would not be re-admitted, nor the lingering uncertainty that will continue to haunt them. This kind of rash action cannot be the new normal. It seems that peoples lives and futures are now subject to the whims of a man evidently quick with action but slow with thoughta demagogue few within his adopted party are prepared to confront.
As we remember the mistakes America made during the Holocaust and the lives this country could have saved, we must also consider how we are helping those most in need of empathy and aid: the tempest-tost and huddled masses displaced by war and horror. We must stand for our ideals instead of being cowed by fear or overtaken by nationalistic rhetoric. Two events this week, Holocaust Remembrance Day and the anti-abortion march on Washington, have asked us to consider life; let us consider it, and realize that this executive order is as anti-life as it is un-American.
Image Credit: Flickr/Takver
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Dealing with trade union mobilization in the Congo - without looking at the politics - is to refuse to understand the current apathy of social actors. Despite the widespread impoverishment and programmed precariousness of the living conditions of the workers - that contrast with an exponential enrichment of the ruling elite - the trade union movement is idle and does not contribute to the formation of the active mass. This form of trade union indolence prompts us to ask three questions at the centre of our thinking: how to explain the paradoxical spasms of unions? What is the current situation of the trade union movement in the country? Which path exists for the emergence of the workers movement in the Republic of the Congo?
The emergence of the workers movement in the Congolese political field
The history of trade unionism is inseparable from the advent of modern political life. The birth of the first unions in the Congo, and more generally in French-speaking black Africa, merges with that of the first political parties. The first unions appear between 1947 and 1949, and three federations affiliated to metropolitan trade unions, concentrated most of the mobilization of workers until 1963: The Confdration africaine des travailleurs croyants (CATC - African Confederation of Believing Workers), the Confdration gnrale africaine des travailleurs (CGAT - General African Confederation of Workers) and the Confdration africaine des syndicats libres (CASL- African Confederation of Free Trade Unions).
From the year 1961, trade union action was already beginning to blend in with the political opposition to the powers that be. Indeed, following the adoption in April 1963 by the National Assembly of the law on the creation of a single party, the unions eventually united and challenged the tendency to regimentation and deprivation of freedom. The arm-wrestling between the unionists and the power of Abb Fulbert Youlou, the first President of Congo, began. The traditions of struggle of the Congolese working class and the fighting spirit of the labour movement mingled. It was the general strike initiated by the three unions, which changed the course of history of the Congo. Unions led the popular action that led ultimately to the overthrow of Youlou.
After their victory, the three unions could not agree on the terms of government that they just won. Although they were aiming for the same goal, namely, better working conditions, these three federations didnt agree on the role they would play in the ongoing process.
After the overthrow of the Youlou government and the establishment of a single party - the National Movement of the Revolution (MNR), Congolese unionism headed into a new direction. The single Union was born in 1964 under the name of the Confdration Syndicale Congolaise (CSC - Congolese Trade Union Confederation).
The trade union movement in the era of the single-party system (1963-1991)
For nearly thirty years, the Union - being both an appendix of the revolutionary government and the defender of the interests of the proletariat - was not particularly decisive. Its role of change agent was blunt and was only shown sporadically. Union leaders abandoned the collective challenge, namely, the defence of the material and moral interests of workers, for other needs: accession to positions of power and the accumulation of economic and symbolic capital. The era of monolithic Union was both the gravedigger of democracy - as an appendage of the State party, the MNR, and later the Parti congolais du travail (PCT - Congolese Party of Labour) - and the promoter, the bearer of a new ideology. It remains the leader of socio-political changes.
In the preamble to the founding document of the CSC, it is written: the Congolese working-class in connection with its party, the MNR, wanting to save the achievements acquired at the price of an uphill struggle, culminating in the revolution of 13,14 and 15 August 1963, engages firmly to maintain its unwavering organic unity and to achieve scientific socialism.
The struggles amongst the single trade union leadership would succeed. Idriss Diallo, first Secretary of the CSC is fired in 1966, compromised in a financial case. He is replaced by Paul Banthoud, who seems to be best placed to embody and strengthen unity within the working class. There is, within the trade union movement, latent rivalries between several trends that can be found in the political sphere.
Unity once more takes a hit after the movement to readjust the revolution in July 31, 1968, when Captain Marien Ngouabi ousts President Massamba-Debat. Some unionists coldly welcome this movement, which seems a sharp turn to the right. Marien Ngouabi, who chairs the Conseil national de la Rvolution (CNR - National Council of the Revolution) undertakes to tyrannize mass organizations. He wants to have a truly revolutionary Union behind a vanguard party.
From 1973, the PCT, a party of the vanguard of the working class that has been created on January 1, 1970, and the CSC, a mass organization, opt for a decisive trilogy called collegial management mode, which translates into neo-patrimonial state management. It would take till 1976 before the Central Union keeps its distances from the single party. The general strike on March 24, 1976, is stifled by the Special Revolutionary Headquarters, set up by President Marien Ngouabi on 12 December 1975, to ensure the purge of the PCT, i.e. the exclusion of all the degenerate elements that hampered the good march of the revolution.
On March 18, 1977, Marien Ngouabi, president of the PCT and President of the Republic, was assassinated in his residence. In this difficult political situation, the Central Committee of the PCT entrusted power to an interim body, responsible for restoring calm in the country. It was named Comit Militaire du Parti (CMP Military Committee of the Party) and headed by Joachim Yhombi Opango. The new political leader found himself facing an even more acute financial crisis. The watchword was live in harsh conditions today for better living tomorrow. As a result, all sectors of national life came to a standstill. The working class became very nervous and the strikes were common, despite the official discourse concealing these work refusals and reassuring the population of the ability of the government to rectify the situation. The Union then found its back to the wall, stuck between its allegiance to the party and its duty as a defender of the interests of the working class. The Central Union, now led by Jean-Michel Bokamba Yangouma, who was elected as Secretary General at the end of the 5th Ordinary Congress held from August 31 to September 2, 1977, in Brazzaville, became more radical.
The trust which had always prevailed between the CSC and the PCT began to deteriorate when the economic crisis became more severe. State-owned enterprises, short of breath by the weight of their burdens, were unable to pay the salaries of their numerous and expensive staff. Workers from this important sector, who had never known such a situation, thus joined their public service counterparts whose monthly salaries were paid haphazardly according to the amount of tax revenues of the Treasury. These parastatal companies then became fertile breeding grounds on which any speech could elicit dreams of all kinds. This quite gloomy social climate doubled as a serious political crisis. The Union, which had been partly responsible for economic failings, was like the arsonist who shouts fire and accuses the first person who comes into sight.
The meeting of January 30, 1979, at Freedom Square, was a great opportunity to denounce mismanagement of the country and insecurity of employment. Trade unionists took a great risk to their own safety and had to find hiding places. The pressure of the Union, that could quickly win over youth, then led to the convening of a session of the PCT Central Committee that put an end to the existence of the CMP. A new political leadership placed Denis Sassou Nguesso at the head of the Party and the State. Jean Michel Bokamba Yangouma restored good relations between the union, the government and the party.
For ten years (1979-1989), the CSC acted as the sounding board of the government. The international context born of perestroika gave a fatal blow to the regime. The Central Union demanded autonomy from the single political party. The call for a general strike in 1989 was followed on the national territory. This would push President Denis Sassou Nguesso to take into account a number of trade unionists claims. It was the sovereign national conference held from February 25 to June 10, 1991, which put an end to the single union and allowed the plurality of trade unions.
The workers movement in democratic regime
The National Sovereign Conference of 1991 endorsed a multiparty system, and as a result multi-unionism. Since then there is a struggle between, on the one hand, trade unions seeking to assert and defend the interests of the workers, and on the other hand, the government coming up with indoctrination strategies. The euphoria of the early 1990s, when trade unions were a threatening force, was short-lived.
Under the transition plan led by the Prime Minister Andr Milongo (July 1991-August 1992), the Union is divided. There is on one side, the historical CSC hosted by Behnaz-Yangouma, leader of the UDPS, and the Confdration syndicale des travailleurs du Congo (CSTC - Trade Union Confederation of Workers of Congo) of Louis Gandou. These confederations would struggle to get the government to increase the index point of the salaries of civil servants from 110 to 160.
Under the mandate of Pascal Lissouba, elected in August 1992, the trade union mobilizations keep multiplying. When in March 1993, the CSC asked the government to pay wages of three months, it would seem that its leader, being close to the presidential milieu, had information on the talks of President Lissouba with the American company, Oxy. This case would serve as a trigger of the armed crisis between the militiamen of the opposition (Ninjas and Cobras), led by Bernard Kolelas, and those of the presidential environment (Aubevillois and Cocoyes) between June 1993 and February 1994.
Social demands continue despite economic conditions caused by the devaluation Devaluation A lowering of the exchange rate of one currency as regards others. of the CFA franc. In February 1995, the CSC called a general strike and claimed 13 months of back wages. The CSTC followed suit. Lissouba agreed to pay two months of wages and the CSC put an end to the strike, while the CSTC kept the movement in the public service. It is in this context that the government ordered, in June 1995, the decrees to reduce indexed wages and to stop the financial effects of advancements, in line with the application of the Reinforced Adjustment Program (PARESO). This reduction amounted to 27.5% for administration officers and 15% for national education officers. The CSTC, which seemed to participate in the manoeuvres to destabilize the regime, weakened increasingly, and Lissouba eventually won the sympathy of its leader.
The regimentation of the labour movement
The civil war of 1997 and the dangerous climate that prevailed in the country until 2002 dealt a blow to union organizing. For security reasons, all confederations were put on hold. With Pascal Lissouba and Jean-Marie Michel Bokamba Yangouma having become exiled opposition, political and trade union activities were low.
Yet, the fundamental act adopted in October 1997 allowed unions to conduct their activities without interference. This text recognized the right to strike for workers, provided that they had exhausted beforehand the long and complex conciliation procedures and non-binding arbitration, and had filed a request within the legal time limits. As a result, when planned demonstrations were against the interests of the government, it persuaded union leaders to put an end to workers protest.
It was thanks to the strike movement of so-called temporary teachers, i.e. unemployed graduates assigned to schools in exchange for a scholarship (started in September 2000) that the authorities were pushed back. President Denis Sassou Nguesso agreed to their claims and promised to repeal the advancement-freeze measures. The government signed on 10 June 2001 an agreement with the CSC and the CSTC for a two-year social truce. Louis Gandou of the CSTC accused the government of wanting to create devoted trade unionists so as to avoid giving benefits to workers and to extend the social truce.
The dialogue between the unions and the government about work issues, such as basic salary scales and bonuses, continued. Wage increases, promised by government officials during the 2013 negotiations, have not yet materialized for certain categories of officials.
Strikes are often repressed and intimidation is used by the government. In addition to the arrest of some union leaders, threats of suspension of wages and stopping the negotiation process, there is the problem of professionalism of the trade unions. The overnment has generally not been able to effectively enforce laws. Resources, inspections and corrective actions are still inadequate.
What future for the rights of workers?
For many observers, the rights of workers are being increasingly violated in the Republic of the Congo in the context of the current economic situation. Fearing repression, several union leaders generally choose to whisper their suffering. They have no other remedies than to submit to the tentacles of the political party in power in the hope of collecting dividends.
The situation of public finances is becoming increasingly worrying. The tumble in the price of a barrel of oil reveals all the amateurism of the public authorities, unable to face the yet predictable recession for many years. After being accustomed to a great lifestyle, thanks to oil wealth, the country should prepare for lean periods ahead with a barrel below $50, especially since the famous economic diversification has barely taken place, despite the insistence of the World Bank World Bank WB The World Bank was founded as part of the new international monetary system set up at Bretton Woods in 1944. Its capital is provided by member states contributions and loans on the international money markets. It financed public and private projects in Third World and East European countries.
It consists of several closely associated institutions, among which :
1. The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD, 180 members in 1997), which provides loans in productive sectors such as farming or energy ;
2. The International Development Association (IDA, 159 members in 1997), which provides less advanced countries with long-term loans (35-40 years) at very low interest (1%) ;
3. The International Finance Corporation (IFC), which provides both loan and equity finance for business ventures in developing countries.
As Third World Debt gets worse, the World Bank (along with the IMF) tends to adopt a macro-economic perspective. For instance, it enforces adjustment policies that are intended to balance heavily indebted countries payments. The World Bank advises those countries that have to undergo the IMFs therapy on such matters as how to reduce budget deficits, round up savings, enduce foreign investors to settle within their borders, or free prices and exchange rates.
http://worldbank.org , the International Monetary Fund IMF International Monetary Fund Along with the World Bank, the IMF was founded on the day the Bretton Woods Agreements were signed. Its first mission was to support the new system of standard exchange rates.
When the Bretton Wood fixed rates system came to an end in 1971, the main function of the IMF became that of being both policeman and fireman for global capital: it acts as policeman when it enforces its Structural Adjustment Policies and as fireman when it steps in to help out governments in risk of defaulting on debt repayments.
As for the World Bank, a weighted voting system operates: depending on the amount paid as contribution by each member state. 85% of the votes is required to modify the IMF Charter (which means that the USA with 17,68% % of the votes has a de facto veto on any change).
The institution is dominated by five countries: the United States (16,74%), Japan (6,23%), Germany (5,81%), France (4,29%) and the UK (4,29%). The other 183 member countries are divided into groups led by one country. The most important one (6,57% of the votes) is led by Belgium. The least important group of countries (1,55% of the votes) is led by Gabon and brings together African countries.
http://imf.org (IMF) and the African Development Bank (AfDB).
The social climate may deteriorate if drastic measures are not taken. Strikes are not to be excluded, despite the fact that most of the unions are weak and subjected to the influence of the government because of corruption. Since the beginning of 2016, disturbed by the contrast between governmental expenditures and requirements of austerity, trade unionists are not prone to give up on organizing. When workers can no longer trust the union leaders and poverty becomes unbearable, there is no barrier to corporate claims.
The fundamental problem concerns the change of the relationship between the regime and the forces of opposition. Yet, union activism appears more and more as a source of income, a business. The policy of repression and the corporatisation of the trade unions during the monolithic era seem to have traumatized the social actors.
Unions were often agents of socio-political change. In addition to the defence of the material and moral interests of workers, poverty and homelessness, they often demanded, and received, in a context of widespread dissatisfaction, some reform policies: the fall of Fulbert Youlou and the introduction of the socialist option in 1963; the fall of Yhombi Opango in 1979 and the end of the single-party system and the re-establishment of political pluralism.
[Translated into English by Jean Yves Dick of LALIT, Mauritius]
Notes and references See on this subject: Wagret, J.M, Histoire et sociologie de la Rpublique du Congo, Paris, LGDJ, 1963 The fall of President Fulbert Youlou, on 15 August 1963, has been the subject of several works: Banzenguiissa-Ganga, R., Les voies du politique au Congo. Essai de sociologie historique, Paris, Karthala, 1997. Kissita, A., Congo, Trois dcennies pour une dmocratie introuvable (Congo, Three decades for an untraceable democracy), Brazzaville, SED, 1993, page54 Confdration Syndicale Congolaise, Histoire du syndicalisme au Congo (CSC, History of trade unionism in the Congo), SD, SL, Editions Voix de la classe ouvrire Declaration of President Marien Ngouabi, at the 3rd Congress of the CNR, April 27, 1969. See, Missie, J.P., Union and Power in the Congo (1990-2005) in Gamandzori, j., Congo Brazzaville: State and civil society in a situation of post-conflict.", Paris, LHarmattan, 2009, p.61 Lissouba through this contract had obtained $150 million by selling 75 million barrels of oil on the Nkossa deposits. For more information on this case, see Charles, E., Oil and Geopolitics in Central Africa, Paris, LHarmattan, 2008. Native Menga, J.M., Congolese Political Chronicle. The Mani Kongo to the civil war, Paris, Harmattan 1997, pp.344 - 345 Missi, J.P., op.cit, p.63 Begun in 2001 and extended in 2003, this social truce seems to be at an end. The Trade Union base has stopped to ask its leaders to not give in to Government pressure. The rating agency Rating agency Rating agencies Rating agencies, or credit-rating agencies, evaluate creditworthiness. This includes the creditworthiness of corporations, nonprofit organizations and governments, as well as securitized assets which are assets that are bundled together and sold, to investors, as security. Rating agencies assign a letter grade to each bond, which represents an opinion as to the likelihood that the organization will be able to repay both the principal and interest as they become due. Ratings are made on a descending scale: AAA is the highest, then AA, A, BBB, BB, B, etc. A rating of BB or below is considered a junk bond because it is likely to default. Many factors go into the assignment of ratings, including the profitability of the organization and its total indebtedness. The three largest credit rating agencies are Moodys, Standard & Poors and Fitch Ratings (FT).
Moodys : https://www.fitchratings.com/ U.S. Moodys note a marked deterioration of public accounts that could, besides "deteriorate substantially in 2015-2016, in a context of declining oil prices and because of the limited capabilities, wrote the Agency in its report published on April 29, 2016.
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Labour movements in Congo Brazzaville: Between oppression and self determination - CADTM.org
Peter Cruz, 24, lies dead on the pavement after being gunned down while he was biking by unknown assailants on Guyabano street in Manggahan, Pasig City on Tuesday. Unexplained killings continue even as President Duterte ordered the halt in police operations against drug suspects on Monday. Fernando G. Sepe Jr., ABS-CBN News
Senator Alan Peter Cayetano has denied that the Duterte's administration war on drugs is a war against poor people in the Philippines, as claimed by Amnesty International.
In a speech before the Filipino community in New York City on Monday (Philippine time), Cayetano said the Duterte administration's policy against drugs and criminality actually aims to alleviate poverty since "no family with a drug addict as a brother, son, or father can get out of poverty."
"The poor have become common victims of the drug pushers. When they become hooked on drugs, they engage in other crimes to sustain their vices. If the government will not intensify its drug operations, the poor will continue to be exploited by the drug pushers. The poor cannot defend themselves, they need us most," he said.
Cayetano also called on international organizations to help the Duterte administration in its war against drugs instead of "wasting their energy criticizing its strong policies."
""Instead of criticizing us and trying to stop international funding, why don't you give us bullet-proof vests for our police? And why don't you give us cameras like they use in the SEAL teams, so you could see the drug bust and you could see why they fire at these people?"
In its report "If you are poor you are killed: Extrajudicial Executions in the Philippines", Amnesty International detailed how the Philippine police have systematically targeted mostly poor and defenseless people across the country while "planting evidence, recruiting paid killers, stealing from the people they kill and fabricating official incident reports."
In a number of cases witnesses to killings or victims' relatives told Amnesty that the person shot dead was unarmed and had not resisted arrest. Police also planted drugs and weapons that they later "seized" as evidence, Amnesty said.
Amnesty also warned that the lists of drug suspects that police were using to target people were deeply flawed.
This was partly because many people were placed on the lists simply after being reported by fellow community members, without any further investigation, according to Amnesty.
After a series of scandals emerged over the past month in which police were caught committing murder, kidnapping, extortion and robbery, President Duterte week ordered them to stop all activities related to the drug war.
He described the police force as "corrupt to the core" and vowed to cleanse it.
But he also vowed the drug war would continue until the last day of his term, in 2022.
He said police would return to the drug war after he reorganized the force and, in the meantime, the military would become more involved. With Agence France Presse
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Eliot L. Engel and Matt Salmon, AZ We See It 5:32 p.m. MT Feb. 6, 2017
A narcotics-detection canine led border patrol agents to discover heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine in a front wheel well.(Photo: U.S. Customs and Border Protection)
In 2015, opioid deaths in the United States exceeded 30,000 for the first time in recent history. As both parents and members of Congress, we find this unacceptable.
Our first duty as lawmakers confronting this epidemic is to ensure that Americans have access to the drug treatment services that they need. At the same time, we have a responsibility to take a fresh look at our international efforts to fight the drug trade in Latin America and the Caribbean.
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By doing so, we can ensure that we have the best strategy moving forward. That is why we authored the Western Hemisphere Drug Policy Commission Act, which passed the House and Senate last month.
As former chairmen of the House Western Hemisphere Subcommittee from opposite ends of the political spectrum, we have supported U.S. efforts over the years to enhance citizen security and fight drug trafficking in Latin America and the Caribbean. Billions of dollars later, some of those efforts have been successful while others have not brought about the results we hoped.
As American lives continue to be lost to the scourge of drug abuse, it is only fair to make an honest assessment of how we spend our counter-narcotics dollars abroad. Our families deserve no less.
The Western Hemisphere Drug Policy Commission will be an independent U.S. government commission that will evaluate our drug policies in Latin America and the Caribbean and make recommendations to the president and Congress on which of our policies need to be scaled up and which need to be scaled back.
So why focus on the Western Hemisphere? Nearly all cocaine consumed in our country originates in South America, while most heroin consumed here is from Colombia and Mexico. And Central America and the Caribbean are key transit regions for drugs entering the United States.
As just one example, poppy cultivation in Mexico is on the rise. Poppiesarebeing used to produce the heroin that is flooding our streets.
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As we look to support our friends in Mexico in moving away from poppy production and into more viable economic sectors, it would serve the United States well to learn from our multi-year investment in Colombia. Specifically, we must ask what worked and what did not work when it came to coca eradication and alternative development programs over the past 20 years.
Drug consumption in the United States has wreaked havoc on our communities and impacted countless lives. Butit has also fueled violence throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.
We can and must do better, and the Western Hemisphere Drug Policy Commission will help us to take the next steps towards a better future for all of us in the Americas.
Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY) is theranking member onthe House Committee on Foreign Affairs. Former Rep. Matt Salmon (R-AZ) was the chairman of the House Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific. Bothpreviously served as chairmen of the House Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere. Follow them on Twitter,@repeliotengeland@repmattsalmon.
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Congressmen: Let's take a new look at the war on drugs - AZCentral.com