Daily Archives: August 6, 2017

Lehman Bankruptcy Ruling Shows Risk of Deferred Compensation – New York Times

Posted: August 6, 2017 at 3:39 am

Photo A Lehman Brothers company sign being brought into Christies auction house in London for a sale in September 2010. Credit Ben Stansall/Agence France-Presse Getty Images

Judge Shelley C. Chapman of the Federal Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan has issued an opinion that provides an important reminder for employees throughout the United States who participate in deferred-compensation plans.

The opinion is from the long-running Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, but it applies to employees of all sorts of companies.

In short, the tax benefits you get from a deferred-compensation plan are not free, and by deferring compensation, you are taking on the credit risk of your employer.

In 1985, Shearson Lehman Brothers Inc. which later became Lehman Brothers Inc., Lehmans regulated broker-dealer established the deferred-compensation plan. In the plan, each employee agreed that:

the obligations of Shearson hereunder with respect to the payment of amounts credited to his deferred-compensation account are and shall be subordinate in right of payment and subject to the prior payment or provision for payment in full of all claims of all other present and future creditors of Shearson whose claims are not similarly subordinated.

The wording not only gives us some insight to gender issues on Wall Street in the 1980s, but also drives home the point that the employers obligation to pay the deferred compensation is an unsecured obligation. In this case, a deeply subordinated one. These employees were no better than subordinated bondholders of Lehman Brothers.

The employees had several novel arguments for why they should, at least, get out from under the subordination provision in the agreement, but the court rejected them all. The court also rejected the argument that Lehmans alleged breach of the deferred-compensation agreement would remove the employees obligation to subordinate their claims. The court explained that unlike an ordinary contract dispute, the present case involved the simple question how to treat the employees claim in bankruptcy.

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We will protect Free SHS, NHIS, others from collapse Ofori-Atta – GhanaWeb

Posted: at 3:39 am

General News of Monday, 31 July 2017

Source: citifmonline.com

play videoKen Ofori Atta, Finance Minister

The Minister for Finance, Ken Ofori Atta has given assurances that government will do whatever it takes to protect its socio-economic development programs from collapse.

He said the programs including the flagship Free SHS program, National Health Insurance Scheme, Planting for Food and Jobs among others, will be provided with the needed financial resources to ensure that they achieve the desired results.

Presenting the governments mid-year budget review to Parliament on Monday, Mr. Ofori Atta said despite the governments plan ensure fiscal discipline and prudent spending, it is committed to growing the economy through its various social intervention projects.

Mr. Speaker, despite the measures being taken to ensure that we maintain fiscal discipline, the government remains strongly committed to growing the economy and delivering services to our people through strategic allocation and efficient use of resources.

Our flagship programmes such as the Free SHS, NHIS, School Feeding, LEAP, Planting for Food and Jobs etc will be protected, he said.

The New Patriotic Party government secured the mandate to govern the country on the back of a number of social intervention programs including the Free Senior High School, Planting for Food and Jobs among others.

The Free SHS policy, which is expected to take off from September, will ensure government pays tuition among other fees for all students in public Senior High Schools for their three-year stay in school.

It is expected that the program will increase access to quality education and as well as reduce the rate of senior high school drop-outs due to nonpayment of fees.

The planting for food and jobs program, which was announced earlier this year by the Minister for Agriculture, Dr. Afriyie Akoto, is aimed at revolutionizing the countrys agricultural sector and creating jobs.

As part of the program, government will provide farm inputs, fertilizer, and improved seeds among other resources to boost agricultural production.

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Former House Majority Leader worked with the CIA to use a Congressional investigation for propaganda – and it … – MuckRock

Posted: at 3:38 am

August 3, 2017

Agency felt investigation into Soviet war crimes might have led to charges of U.S. biological warfare in Korea

Declassified CIA documents describe the Agencys agreement to work with a Senators plan to use a 1952 Congressional investigation into Soviet war crimes for propaganda purposes. Congress was looking into the Katyn massacre in which the KGBs predecessors, the NKVD, murdered thousands of Polish prisoners of war and which the Soviet Union denied responsibility for until 1990. In 1952, the Majority Leader of the House of Representatives sought to use the investigation of very real Soviet war crimes as a propaganda opportunity, and while it may have worked in the short run, documents indicate that both CIA and State Department personnel believe it may have backfired, and led to charges the U.S. was using biological weapons in Korea.

According to the formerly TOP SECRET CIA document describing the February 28, 1952 Directors Meeting, then Deputy Director Allen Dulles was approach by John Mitchell, the Counsel of the Committee which was investigating Katyn (no relation to Nixons John Mitchell). Mitchell, who discussed the matter with Congressman McCormack, hoped the Agency would be cooperative with the probe to their mutual benefit.

However, those attending the Directors Meeting had some concerns -someone whose name is redacted, likely Mitchell or McCormack, was seen as unreliable and not worth trusting with Agency operational details. Previously, the Agency had expressed concern that Mitchell would ask them to provide a lot of assistance with the probe. Regardless, the Agencys senior staff decided they couldnt let the opportunity go by in view of its propaganda value. As a result, Deputy Director of Plans Frank Wisner agreed to follow through on the matter. While a memo was apparently written from Dulles to Wisner memorializing the conversation with Mitchell, it has not yet been declassified.

Wisner had earlier recommended against working with Mitchell or any Congressional investigation. Several months earlier, Mitchell had approached Wisner when he first became the Counsel for the Committee investigation. According to a formerly SECRET memo from Wisner to the Department of State, Mitchell had approached Wisner about cooperating on the probe with no apparent mention of propaganda except a desire to avoid investigating government officials (presumably of G-2) who had been accused of having suppressed certain highly relevant documents. Wisner appropriately referred him to the Office of Legislative Counsel without commenting. In his memo, Wisner added that he did not consider it appropriate for this Agency to become involved in Congressional investigations - Wisner felt that was this was the Department of States jurisdiction.

According to another formerly SECRET memo, which had curiously been referenced two days before it was written, Congressman McCormack followed up with CIAs Legislative Counsel when the hearings had all but concluded, with only two days and five of eighty-one witnesses still to testify, to discuss the Katyn propaganda effort. While he wanted to know how CIA evaluated the overseas propaganda value of the Congressional Committee investigating the Katyn Massacre, he felt that it had been extremely successful from the standpoint of favorable United States propaganda.

While neither the hearings nor Mitchells liaising with CIA had come to an end, Congressman McCormack already his eye on the future. To his view, the effort had been more than successful enough to warrant considering doing the same thing again. McCormack openly speculated as to whether it might not be helpful if other Congressional investigations might be undertaken with a view towards utilizing them for psychological warfare purposes. Where the cooperation over the Katyn investigation had coalesced around an already existing effort on the part of Congress, McCormack now suggested forming new committees with that explicit expectation. In particular, he was considering a special Congressional Committee to investigate atrocities against American soldiers in Korea, with broad enough authority to include examining into [sic] the germ warfare charges.

In response, CIA Director General Walter Bedell Smith responded that the Agency should have no interest in this matter. The Directors refusal to cooperate may have had several motivations. The first may have simply been a refusal to create Congressional investigations for propaganda purposes - using an existing investigation into war crimes as an opportunity for propaganda was one thing, but creating Congressional investigations with that purpose in mind was something altogether different.

Assuming that McCormack had meant investigating Communist use of biological weapons in Korea, then the Agency had a major obstacle to pursuing that propaganda angle. According to the formerly TOP SECRET record of another Directors Meeting held soon after, the Agency already had a proposed propaganda plan involving Communist bacteriological warfare in Korea. The problem was that the State Department and the Joint Chiefs of Staff had disapproved of the plan since the Agency had been unable to prove there was a Communist bacteriological warfare unit in Korea.

There was another reason for the Agency to show no interest in the matter - some staff members of CIA and the State Department believed that the propaganda relating to the Katyn investigation had backfired. According to a formerly SECRET issue of the Current Intelligence Digest from April 12, 1952, the Italian Embassy reported that the Communist press was continuing an intensive propaganda campaign that alleged U.S. use of biological warfare in Korea. The Embassy believed that the campaign may have been designed in part to draw public attention away from the investigation of the Katyn massacre.

The Embassy and the CIA analysts reviewing their information werent the only ones to see such a link as plausible. A declassified Psychological Strategy Board memo written several months later describes an October 1952 conversation between John Elliott and Charles Bohlen, who was then the Counsellor to the State Department and would be named, several months later, as the Ambassador to the Soviet Union. In their discussion, Bohlen brought up the U.S.s past propaganda against the Soviet Union. In Bohlens mind, the propaganda tended to be too strident and shrill. Bohlen believed that this resulting in alarming the U.S.s allies more than any intimidation to the Kremlin. Worse, the sharp attacks reinforced the incipient impression lurking in the minds of the peoples of the democratic world that the U.S. was a warmongering nation trying to incite hostilities with the Soviet Union. Creating this image, Bohlen noted, was a goal of Soviet propaganda - one that the U.S. had inadvertently been helping them with.

Bohlen cited that Katyn massacre investigation as a specific example of this. He felt that the barrage of propaganda released in connection with the investigation had backfired. Like the Embassy staff members several months earlier, Bohlen felt that it may have been responsible for the launching of the Communist bacteriological warfare charges against the United States in reprisal.

Perhaps the Agency should have listened to Frank Wisner in 1951.

You can read additional CIA documents discussing Katyn here, the seven volumes of Congressional hearings here, the interim report here and the final report here. The Directors Meeting memo is embedded below.

Like Emma Bests work? Support her on Patreon.

Image by Eleanor Lang via Wikimedia Commons and licensed under Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0.

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Sanctions and Threats against North Korea. All Options are on the Table – Center for Research on Globalization

Posted: at 3:38 am

In a press briefing on Monday, ending Chinas July Presidency of the UN Security Council, Chinese Ambassador Liu stated the firm Chinese position that the United Nations resolutions sanctioning the DPRK require all parties, not only the DPRK, to refrain from threats exacerbating tensions on the Korean Peninsula, and require all parties to engage in dialogue and negotiations to resolve the inflammatory situation in Northeast Asia.

The new U.S. travel ban, which takes effect on September 1, preventing U.S. citizens from traveling to the DPRK, is in direct and flagrant violation of the sanctions resolution requiring all parties to engage in dialogue: this unconstitutional U.S. travel ban intends precisely the opposite escalating hostility and crushing the rich opportunity for understanding provided by direct person-to-person exchanges, which reduce deadly fear and prejudice between peoples. It is not only the DPRK that is allegedly violating U.N. resolutions by testing nuclear weapons, it is also the U.S. that is in violation of these resolutions by aggressively prohibiting dialogue between U.S. citizens and the citizens of North Korea. Resolution 1718 explicitly encourages further the efforts by all States concerned to intensify their diplomatic efforts, to refrain from any actions that might aggravate tension.

Repeated U.S. threats that: all options are on the table obviously referring to military intervention, greatly exacerbate tensions, and are provocations motivating the DPRK to increase its efforts to protect itself militarily, especially with advanced nuclear weapons. U.S. threats provoke a vicious spiral of violence, and the possibility cannot be excluded that this is intentional. The U.S. placement of THAAD missiles in the Republic of Korea destabilizes China and Russia, and is a thinly disguised assault on the national security of both these countries. And the US-ROK military exercises this month constitute an existential threat to the survival of North Korea, and raise the level of tension in the area to a tipping point intolerable to the DPRK.

Aside from the fact that this U.S. travel ban is also a brazen violation of the United States Constitution, an infringement upon the First Amendment right of freedom of association, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and freedom of the press, this prohibition of United States citizens right to travel has no justification, whatsoever, and is intended deliberately to tighten the noose strangling the economy of the DPRK.

Last week the New York Times quoted numerous U.S. citizens who had traveled to the DPRK and attested to the complete safety of travel to North Korea. As usual, the U.S. will exploit the tragic death of Otto Warmbier in an effort to claim that its travel ban is intended to protect U.S. citizens. This is preposterous. United States tourists, businessmen, journalists, politicians traveling in various countries throughout the world, have occasionally (and in some places frequently) been arrested, kidnapped, tortured or murdered , and no travel ban has been enacted to prevent U.S. citizens from traveling to these often perilous areas.

There is no travel ban against any country in the Middle East or Africa, where there has been great danger to American citizens. Many American citizens, including James Foley and Steven Soloff, have been beheaded by ISIS in the Middle East, but U.S. citizens continue to enjoy unrestricted travel there. The U.S. frequently tries to justify its acts of aggression with the rationalization that it is protecting U.S. citizens, such as during the invasion of Grenada, which Ronald Reagan attempted to justify as protecting U.S. medical students studying in Grenada, despite the fact that these medical students publicly stated they were in no danger, and did not want U.S. military protection.

Any attempt to exploit the death of Otto Warmbier as justification for this unconstitutional travel ban is deceitful. In early 2016 the DPRK had repeatedly sought peace talks with the United States. President Obama repeatedly refused to meet with North Korea to discuss matters of urgent mutual concern. In March, 2016 Otto Warmbier was at trial in Pyongyang. If the Obama administration was sincerely concerned with Warmbiers life, they could have urged his release during peace talks with the DPRK. They failed to do so. The DPRK was so anxious for this meeting, to discuss substantive matters, such as the sanctions and efforts to normalize relations between the US and the DPRK, that they would have undoubtedly agreed to release Warmbier, whose detention was of less significance in a much larger crisis, the ongoing war between the two countries, locked in and frozen by the armistice. By contrast, Bill Clinton traveled to North Korea, and successfully obtained the release of two Americans detained there.

China is correct in stating that the problem of North Korea can only be resolved between the United States and the DPRK, and only a peace treaty finally agreed to by these two nations will accomplish this.

Too often, Americans and Europeans fail to place current crises in historic context. One hundred years after the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Armenians by the Turks, Armenians still feel the rage and the raw wounds of that horror. Operation Nemesis by Eric Bogosian describes the masterminds of the assassination of the Turkish leaders who commanded the massacre. All the assassins were ultimately acquitted of the murders, which were acknowledged as a form of justice. Seventy years after World War Two, Jews and citizens of the former Soviet Union still remember the terror of the monstrous atrocities inflicted upon them by the nazi scourge. And the Nuremberg trials imposed the death sentence upon many of the naziwar criminals. But these are Europeans and Americans.

Why have no war crimes tribunals been established to hold to account the soldiers who perpetrated massacres against the North Korean people between 1950-1953?

It is obligatory that the horror suffered by North Koreans, the murders and tortures inflicted upon them by American soldiers be acknowledged and compensated for.

Between 3 to 4 million Koreans died during the U.S. invasion between 1950-1953. Every town in North Korea was reduced to ashes, as a result of saturation bombing, napalm and germ warfare. Korean prisoners were used as human guinea pigs to test new forms of germ weaponry, in complete violation of the Geneva conventions. (See:Thomas Powell,Biological Warfare in the Korean War: Allegations and Cover-up,Socialism and Democracy April 2017)

The massacre at Sinchon county is only one example of the savage obliteration of North Korea, and can never be forgotten.

Where is there a tribunal offering justice to the people of North Korea?

Why have no war reparations been made to the North Korean victims?

And how can they ever forget this agony inflicted upon them by American and South Korean soldiers, with UN collusion?

Citizens of the DPRK live with the foreboding terror of a repetition of the atrocity they were forced to endure between 1950-1953.

Ironically, on August 1, The New York Times op-ed section featured an editorial stating:

Mr. Trump should drop the bluster and dispatch Secretary of State Rex Tillerson or some other high level envoy to explore whether there is any basis for negotiations. In May, the president raised the possibility of meeting the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, himself under the right circumstances to defuse tensions..The Norths program is advanced and its leadership deeply distrustful. Talks should begin without preconditionsAre the North Koreans even interested in talks? American experts who study the issue say there have been repeated signals in recent weeks that they are. That cant be known, however, unless someone goes and asks them.

And ironically, more than 10 years ago, in an astoundingly moving exercise of the Right of Reply at the UN Security Council, on Saturday, October 14, 2006, North Korean Ambassador Pak Gil Yonanswered every conceivable question, regarding the DPRKs position [including nuclear weapons]:

The delegation of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea expresses its disappointment over the fact that the Security Council finds itself incapable of saying even a word of concern to the United States, which threatens the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea with a nuclear pre-emptive attack and aggravates tension by reinforcing armed forces and conducting large-scale joint military exercises near the Korean peninsula The Democratic Peoples Republic of Koreas nuclear test was entirely attributable to the United States nuclear threat, sanctions and pressure. The Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea has exerted every possible effort to settle the nuclear issue through dialogue and negotiations, prompted by its sincere desire to realize the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. The Bush Administration, however, responded to the Democratic Peoples Republic of Koreas patient and sincere effort and magnanimity with a policy of sanctions and blockade. The Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea was compelled to substantially prove its possession of nukes to protect its sovereignty and the right to existence from the daily increasing danger of war from the United States.

Although the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea conducted the nuclear test due to the United States, it remains unchanged in its will to denuclearize the peninsula through dialogue and negotiations. The denuclearization of the entire peninsula was President Kim Il Sungs last instruction and is the ultimate goal of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea.

The Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea has clarified more than once that it would feel no need to possess even a single nuclear weapon once it was no longer exposed to the United States threat and after that country had dropped its hostile policy towards the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea and confidence had been built between the two countries..The Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea is ready for both dialogue and confrontation. If the United States persistently increases pressure upon the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, my country will continue to take physical countermeasures, considering such pressure to be a declaration of war. (emphasis added)

North Koreas commitment to peace was flawlessly expressed in Ambassador Paks statement, on behalf of the people and government of the DPRK. He presented a peace initiative both to US and the UN Security Council. Their failure to address and discuss this initiative eleven years ago was irresponsible, and has jeopardized the stability of Northeast Asia. As a result, today the fate of the world depends upon the United States cooperation and respect for the right of the people of the DPRK to live securely in an economic system of their own choosing.

The first step will be dialogue and engagement. And this requires person-to-person encounters at the highest levels of government, as well as citizen diplomacy. It is imperative that the unconstitutional United States travel ban perpetuating groundless fear and prejudice must be immediately removed.

Carla Steais Global Researchs correspondent at United Nations Headquarters, New York, N.Y.

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‘Double standard’: Exiled Tibetan president calls for support – Daily Advertiser

Posted: at 3:36 am

6 Aug 2017, 4:26 p.m.

He demanded China allow Tibetans to vote for their Chinese leaders.

The president of the Tibetan government-in-exile called on the Australian government to lobby for full Tibetan autonomy in China.

Dr Lobsang Sangay is set to make a speech at the National Press Club in Canberra on Tuesday on the back of a Sydney Opera House talk on Saturday.

Speaking to Fairfax Media, Mr Sangay called for the Chinese government to embrace the 'Middle Way' approach, allowing Tibetan people to vote for their representatives in China.

"If the Chinese government ends the oppression and gives genuine autonomy as per Chinese laws, then we will not seek separation from China," Mr Sangay said.

"We welcome the support and appeal to the Australian government."

Mr Sangay said no Australian government officials had offered to meet him while he was in the country.

Officially, Tibet is a province of China headed by a Communist Party-appointed administrator.

"He is a Chinese person ruling over Tibetan people and I am a Tibetan who has the mandate of the Tibetan people," Mr Sangay said.

Tibet's famous Buddhist spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, announced in 2011 he wished to hand his political functions to an elected official.

???"So the Tibetan movement will be taken forward by the Tibetan people and not be dependent on a single person," Mr Sangay said.

Exiled Tibetans have twice voted Mr Sangay as sikyong-or president-of the India-based Central Tibetan Administration.

Mr Sangay said the Australian government feared to formally recognise his position out of fear of upsetting China, one of the nation's leading trading partners.

"That's why we say it's a double standard, the exile status is not the reason but who you are dealing with is the reason," he said.

Mr Sangay pointed to the international community's embrace of the exiled Syrian government as contradictory despite his government's embrace of non-violence.

"We use non-violence as a means and dialogue as a process," he said.

Mr Sangay added that heavy industrialisation of the Tibetan plateau due to an influx of Chinese migrants and Chinese state-sponsored mining in the region was damaging the local environment.

The degradation is endangering the "water tower of Asia" for 1.4 billion people who rely on water flowing from the plateau.

"The first casualty will be China and the Chinese people," Mr Sangay said.

Mr Sangay himself has never been to Tibet. His father fled Tibet at the same time as the Dalai Lama in 1959. Mr Sangay was born in a refugee camp in India in 1968.

???Ultimately, Mr Sangay hoped to see the Dalai Lama return to his "rightful place" in Lhasa, Tibet's capital and he thanked Australians for their support.

"Continue to be with us for this march of justice, which will be resolved sooner than later."

The story 'Double standard': Exiled Tibetan president calls for support first appeared on The Sydney Morning Herald.

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Rising Kashmir News – Rising Kashmir Daily English Newspaper (press release)

Posted: at 3:36 am

Arrests, torture meant to divert attention from killings in Kashmir

Two Hurriyat factions and JKLF leaders Saturday staged a joint sit-in protest here at Maisuma against the National Investigation Agency (NIA) and Enforcement Directorate (ED) for arresting their leaders.

A joint Hurriyat statement issued later said the leaders and activists who participated in the protest included Noor Muhammad Kalwal of JKLF, Meraj Ud din Rabbani of Hurriyat (G) Muhammad Yaqoob Masoodi of APHC (M), Hilal Ahmad war, Mukhtar Ahmad Sofi, Siraj ud din Mir, Mushtaq Ahmad Sofi, Zahoor Ahmad Butt, Sheikh Abdul Rashid, Ghulam Qadir Baigh, Syed Imtiyaz Hiader, Advocate Yasir Dalal, Farooq Ahmad Sodagar, Muhammad Shafi Khan, Bashir Ahmad Kashmiri, Muhammad Sideeq Shah, Professor Javed, Gazi Javed, Imran Ahmad Butt, Muhammad Haneef, Sajad Ahmad Butt, Muhammad Rafiq Owaisee, Mudasir Nadwi, ,Showkat Ahmad Dar Mushtaq Ahmad Dar and Imtiyaz Ahmad Shah. Statement said many other people from varied walks of life also marched towards Budshah Chowk and later sat on a peaceful sit-in there. Terming NIA and ED arrests, torturing and prolonging the incarceration of jailed leaders including Shabir Ahmad Shah, Altaf Ahmad Shah, Shahid ul Islam, Akbar Ayaz, Peer Saifullah, Raja Meraj ud din Kalwal, Naeem Ahmad Khan, Farooq Ahmad Dar, and Devendar Singh Bhel as a ploy to deviate attention of people from ongoing genocide of Kashmiris and demonize and defame Kashmiri resistance and leadership, the leaders said that on one hand killings of innocents is continuing unabated and on the other hand arbitrary arrests , false and concocted media trial of resistance leadership and other oppressive measures continue without any break. The oppressive ploy and deceitful tactics played through NIA are only meant to hide Indian oppression and divert attention of the international community and Indian people from ongoing innocent killings and genocide of Kashmiris, statement quoting the protesting said.

Statement quoting Hurriyat leaders said that NIA and ED is being used as a tool of oppression against resistance leadership and through intimidations, harassment, torture, fictitious cases and continued media trial, Indian rulers and the local government dream to defeat Kashmiri resistance and put leadership into submission. We want to convey to Indian rulers and the local government that these oppressive measures and deceitful tactics will yield them nothing but shame. Kashmiris have and are rendering valuable sacrifices for their self determination and tactics like these can never break the will and valor of our nation, statement quoting Hurriyat leaders said, adding: Rhrough NIA and ED arrests, rulers are also dreaming to defame and demonize Kashmiri resistance leadership and hence gag the genuine voices of Kashmiri nation.

Besides arresting resistance leadership, the rulers have also turned whole Kashmir into a big prison. Nocturnal raids, arresting innocent young and old and prolonging the incarceration of these thousands languishing in jails and police stations have become an order of the day which is highly undemocratic and unethical, Statement quoting the Hurriyat leaders in joint protest said, adding: History bears a witness to the fact that killings, incarcerating people and unleashing oppression have never succeeded in breaking the will of a people who have resolved to strive for their right to self determination and the oppressive tactics employed by the Indian rulers and the local government is also bound to fail.

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On the EFF and gender – News24

Posted: at 3:36 am

2017-08-06 06:06

Simamkele Dlakavu

Four years ago, South Africa was introduced to the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) in a press conference that was dominated by a significant majority of Black men wearing red berets.

The EFFs commander in chief, Julius Malema, made a promise: We will fight against white supremacy and we will fight for restoration of Black African dignity.

Many of those disillusioned with the chosen political direction by the ANC government, which prioritised superficial racial unity without justice for the Black majority , joined the movement. We heard the echoes of our past as it continued to speak.

Our past spoke through our material realities, where the faces of poverty continue to be ours, while three white men continue to own the same wealth as the bottom half of the population, according to an Oxfam report.

We became Fighters (publicly and privately).

Since its formation, the EFF has grown to secure its position as the third largest political party in South Africa and the official opposition party in two provinces, the North West and Limpopo.

In last years local government elections, the party increased its share of votes by 20%.

For us, members of the party, the past few years carry many moments of significance.

Remember the celebration we had when our members of Parliament took office and demanded the return of our land, as well as engaging in land occupations? I do.

We were satisfied when Primrose Sonti reminded the political elite in Parliament that families of miners murdered by the police in Marikana could not feed themselves, while they lived lavishly.

We cheered at our TV screens when Sonti told Jacob Zuma that he was heartless and a thief.

Remember? We also took pride in the fact that the EFF wholeheartedly supported #FeesMustFall.

The mass-based movement continues to grow and, through its media-savvy techniques and political tactics, it captures our national imagination daily.

However, the crucial internal and political challenge that the EFF is yet to confront with the same vigour is gender justice.

Class and race

I have spent the past two years looking into the partys gender discourse for my Master of Arts thesis.

Through my research, it became apparent to me that the EFF centres class and race in their theoretical grounding.

This theoretical foundation informs the partys interpretations to structural exclusion facing the Black majority in South Africa, as well as their political programmes and, as we know, theres a definite connection between theory and practice.

By centring race and class systems of oppression in their theoretical outlook, the EFF presents gender oppression as a supplementary factor in their radical, leftist, anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist character.

The privileging of race and class as the main sources of systematic oppression can be located in the EFFs chosen ideological grounding of Marxism, Leninism and Fanonism.

This has allowed for the EFF to give pedagogical authority to men who failed to speak to the forms of gender oppression experienced by Black South Africans.

It has resulted in an ideological vacuum in the partys approach to structural challenges facing Black women in the country.

Marxism, Leninism and Fanonism, as theories developed by men, are inadequate interpretative tools to analyse the systematic forms of oppression experienced by the majority of the population in the country: Black women.

This theoretical limitation in relation to gender has influenced the EFFs election manifesto and political programmes.

After the 2016 local government election, Gender Links gave the EFF a 28% rating on the promotion of gender awareness in their manifesto.

The EFF was even surpassed by the ANC, which was rated as the leading political party for promoting gender awareness in their election manifesto, at 44%.

Therefore, as the EFF continues to grow, it is my view that the party needs to broaden its ideological footing.

That process should begin by looking at and amplifying theories developed by Black and African feminists.

In doing so, the EFF will be challenging the entrenched colonial myths and exclusionary practices that mark African women as persons who dare not imagine themselves as intellectuals and makers of theory the very stuff that informs both policy and access to critical resources in our societies (Patricia McFadden).

If the party continues to underplay and ignore these theories, it will be ill-equipped to achieve economic freedom for all Black people, especially Black women.

Furthermore, it will be unable to dismantle patriarchy and sexism, which it defines as enemies of the revolution envisioned by the party.

Another limitation has been the partys failure to hold toxic and violent forms of patriarchy accountable within its own ranks.

Gender justice

Recently, two of its male student leaders (current and former) were accused of rape, yet there has been no internal political consequence for their actions.

Instead, the University of Cape Towns Students Representative Council was the body that provided accountability; they were able to act quickly and they suspending one of the accused from his position until investigations were finalised.

Both these accused rapists continue their daily political work for the party with confidence.

Furthermore, in the recent leadership elections of the EFF Student Command, some of the women candidates were tormented on social media by men within the party.

Black women candidates were called whores and accused of sleeping with leadership for positions, instead of these men analysing their political messaging and track record.

Again, there have been no disciplinary actions taken against these men. How are these inactions a demonstration of a commitment to anti-sexism by the EFF? Why are toxic forms of masculinity allowed to flourish within the party without any cost?

The face of the party and its leadership have made a significant shift in the last four years. There were only three women present in the pool of men during the EFFs first press conference.

Today it is the leading political party to achieve gender parity, according to Gender Links, in the 2016 local government elections, at 49%.

There are provinces like the North West where over 60% of EFF counsellors are women.

Although significant, the partys commitment to gender justice cannot solely be reflected in Black womens representation in leadership positions within the EFF, and I say this because of the genuine emancipatory project to exist for us.

I appeal to the EFF that gender justice needs to move beyond acquiring balanced numbers.

Dlakavu is a student

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In what way can the EFF broaden its ideological footing to promote gender equality?

SMS us on 35697 using the keyword FIGHT and tell us what you think. Please include your name and province. SMSes cost R1.50

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Facing ‘narcotics emergency’, Indonesia ramps up war on drugs – The Sydney Morning Herald

Posted: at 3:35 am

Jakarta: Within days of Indonesian President Joko Widodo ordering police to shoot drug dealers who resist arrest, the government last week announced a radical shake-up of the nation's narcotics-riddled prisons.

Amid revelations that prisoners continue to operate drug syndicates behind bars, the Ministry of Law and Human Rights has come up with an ambitious plan to consolidate drug felons in four jails across the nation.

According to Corrections data the level of drug activity behind bars in Indonesiais extraordinary: of the nation's 225,000 prisoners there are 54,000 dealers and 32,000 users.

The head of the National Narcotics Agency (BNN)BudiWaseso-who advocates imprisoning drug offenders on a remote island guarded by crocodiles- goes so far as to say 50 per cent of drug circulation is controlled from prisons.

Jokowi, as he is popularly known, is once again claiming Indonesia is facing a narcotics "emergency", with the BNN pointing to five million drug users, 27 per cent of whom are "active users".

The last time Jokowi invoked this war rhetoric was in 2015, when he used a national drugs emergency to justify the executions of drug felons including Australians Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan.

The latest crackdown has alarmed human rights activists who point to "sinister echoes" of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's "war on drugs", which has seen more than 7000 drug dealers and users killed.

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"From practice in the field, we see that when we shoot at drug dealers they go away," the National Police Chief, General Tito Karnavian was quoted saying in The Jakarta Post, in an apparent reference to the Philippines.

General Tito vowed police would be particularly firm on foreign drug traffickers, whom Indonesians largely blame for the scourge of drugs.

Shortly afterJokowi's edict,police showered an alleged crystal methamphetamine dealer, who they said resisted arrest, with seven bullets in Pekanbaru on the island of Sumatra on July 29.

However some question whether the tough stance on drugs is more about political populism than a spiralling drug emergency.

"According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, general population prevalence rates of most illegal and illicit drugs in Indonesia largely remained stable since the early 2000s," Claudia Stoicescu, a doctoral researcher at University of Oxford's Centre for Evidence Based Intervention, writes in Al Jazeera.

"Far from constituting an outlier, Indonesia's annual rates of drug consumption are similar to rates in other South-East Asian countries such as Vietnam and Myanmar and much lower than rates in the United States and much of Europe."

The Indonesian Drug Users Network (PKNI), an NGO established to fight the stigma and discrimination faced by drug users, believes Jokowi's order to shoot drug dealers who resisted arrest was made in haste.

His comments - in a speech to a political party meeting - came after four Taiwanese men were arrested and another shot dead for allegedly distributing one tonne of crystal meth in Jakarta.

"Shooting at drug dealers is a violation of human rights," PKNI project manager Arif Iryawan told Fairfax Media.

"Besides, by shooting them to death the police cannot uncover their network properly. So I think killing them should be the last resort."

But GERAM - the People's Movement Against Drugs - said when the police shot dead drug dealers in the 90s the business was drastically reduced.

"Whenever the government wants to uphold the law human rights stand in the way," GERAM founder Sofyan Ali told Fairfax Media.

He said Jokowi was a good president, who unlike previous presidents, "knows what he does because he goes down to the field".

"Other countries like the Philippines or the US take action whenever they see a situation that threatens their people. They forget human rights because the situation is causing a real problem," Sofyan said.

"But it doesn't happen here. We fight against our own people on human rights so we may achieve nothing."

Meanwhile the plan to contain drug offenders in four prisons in West Java, North Sumatra, Central Java and Central Kalimantan was hatched after a prisoner named Aseng on Nusakambangan - Indonesia's equivalent of Alcatraz - was linked to 1.2 million ecstasy pills seized by police.

The four jails would have heightened security, including weapons and x-ray machines. Prison officers, who are often involved in jail-run drug syndicates, would be strictly vetted.

"The biggest problem right now is drug dealers [inside jails] and our officers are overwhelmed," the Security Director from Corrections, Sutrisman, told reporters.

He said the ratio of officers to prisoners was one to 62, when the recommended ratio was one to 20.

"So we must take extraordinary steps by strengthening the officers, by collaborating with BNN [the national narcotics agency] and the police."

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Facing 'narcotics emergency', Indonesia ramps up war on drugs - The Sydney Morning Herald

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Trump and Sessions just jump-started the war on drugs that’s also a war on immigrants – Salon

Posted: at 3:35 am

Speaking before a large crowd of law enforcement officers on Long Island on Friday, President Trump invoked the MS-13 gang in yet another attempt to paint his administrations crackdown on immigrants as an effort to control gang violence. MS-13 is notorious for using brutal intimidation tactics to maintain control of illegal drug and smuggling markets from Long Island to Central America, and Trump seemed to know that the gangs sensational reputation could be used to scare people.

Theyre animals, Trump said of MS-13. He also urged police not to be too nice when arresting suspects and boasted about deporting immigrants.

In 2016, violent crime rates remainednear the bottomof a 30-year downward trend, with spikes in violence sequestered to a few individual cities. However, in the world according to Trump, violent crime is on the rise across the country, and gangs made up of immigrants and drug dealers are to blame. Never one to be deterred by hard data, Trump said on Friday that American towns must be liberated from the grips of criminals one by one.

Can you believe that Im saying that? Trump said. Im talking about liberating our towns. This is like Id see in a movie: Theyre liberating the town, like in the old Wild West, right?

Angie Junck, the supervising attorney at the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, told Truthout that Trump continues to exploit tragedy in furthering his political agenda. Murders and disappearances do occur at the hands of gangs such as MS-13, but Trumps heavy-handed response does nothing to promote local solutions to the problem. Instead, it makes communities less safe: Many victims are the same people authorities want to deport.

People are fearful to come out and speak with police, and thats what MS-13 and other gangs capitalize on, Junck said. People want to get out of MS-13, but what are they going to do go to local law enforcement, who will turn them over and expose them so they can die in El Salvador?

For years, the war on drugs and the cartels that traffic in them has been criticized for filling US prisons to the brim and fueling horrific violence in Latin America, all while failing to reduce drug consumption at home. By criminalizing immigrants and framing its law and order agenda around the specter of violent international gangs, the Trump administration is threatening to repeat the same mistakes drug warriors have made for decades.

For example, Trump supports legislation in Congress known asKates Law,which enhances penalties for immigrants who illegally cross the border and have a criminal record in the US, even if that record is simply prior attempts to enter the country without permission. Critics say the legislation would cause the population of people held in privately run immigration jails to explode.

The war on immigrants grew out of the war on drugs, Junck said.

Meanwhile, last week, the new Task Force on Crime Reduction and Public Safety created by Trump and answering to Attorney General Jeff Sessions was expected to release recommendations for addressing violent crime. Civil rights and immigration reform groups, along with the growing legal marijuana industry, hoped the recommendations would provide insight into just how deep the Trump administration will dig into the war on drugs.

The recommendations never materialized, at least in public. Instead, Sessions said in a statement on Wednesday that the task force was providing him recommendations on a rolling basis, and that he would continue to review and act on them, suggesting that the task force has already shaped recent moves to reverse Obama-era policies that made moderate progress towards de-escalating the drug war.

The Justice Department did not respond to an inquiry from Truthout. Still, its becoming increasingly clear in what direction the administration is heading.

Crafting a crackdown behind closed doors

Despite the presidents angry outbursts over Sessions decision to recuse himself from the investigation into the Trump campaigns ties with Russia, Sessions and the president are in lockstep when it comes to the war on drugs. Sessionstraveled to El Salvadorlast week to congratulate his counterpart for arresting hundreds of alleged MS-13 members. Back at home, he has shown interest in sending federal officers to states where marijuana is legal, in search of violent, transnational crime rings that he suspects are diverting legal cannabis into the black market.

Again, there isno hard evidencethat marijuana legalization drives violent crime rates; in fact, it may have theopposite effectin some areas. A recentstudyin The Economic Journal shows that crime rates near the southern border dropped after southwestern states legalized medical marijuana a sign that legalizing weed may actually hamper the same international cartel operations Trump and Sessions have pledged to fight.

Unfortunately for cannabis fans and the many thousands of people who are criminalized for using the drug, the attorney general hasseriously outdated views on cannabis, which remains illegal under federal law. The legal marijuana industry has every reason to worry about a crackdown, and lawmakers from legal states are already taking action.

Last week, lawmakers in the Senate Appropriations Committee approved legislation that would prohibit federal funds from being used to prevent states from implementing their own medical marijuana laws, effectively barring the Justice Department from intervening unless there is a clear violation of state law.

The same legislation has passed as an annual budget rider since 2014, but Sessionsrecently asked his former colleaguesin the Senate to ditch it. However, many senators hail from one of the 29 states that has legalized medical weed, and advocates expect the legislation to pass. Thevast majorityof voters supports access to medical marijuana and oppose federal intervention in states where marijuana is legal.

Junck said advocates are pushing for similar legislation that would protect immigrants and citizens alike from being harassed and arrested by the Department of Homeland Security for using state-legal medical marijuana. Immigrants and their family members have reported that border patrol and immigration officers will use lawful marijuana use as an excuse to detain and interrogate them.

In regards to marijuana, Sessions said in April that he was surprised the people didnt like the idea of him cracking down on the states that have chosen to legalize, said Justin Strekal, the political director at the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), in an email. In response, Sessions now chooses to operate in secrecy. This is not how our system is supposed to work.

Sessions plans for addressing states where medical and recreational pot are legally regulated have been somewhat unclear due to the glaring discrepancy between state and federal laws. The task forces as-yet-unreleased recommendations along with analysis of apparent links between legal markets to violent crime (if any such links existed) were expected to shape the Justice Departments policies going forward.

In addition, immigration activists hoped to learn from the recommendations just how far Sessions would go to crack down on so-called sanctuary cities that refuse to participate in federal deportation efforts. The Justice Department began to answer that question last week with amemoinforming city governments that they would not receive certain federal grants unless they give immigration agents access to their jails and notify them before releasing undocumented immigrants. Immigrant rights groups are expected to challenge the policy in court.

Jump-starting the war on drugs

The Trump administrations moves toward revving up the drug war have alarmed advocates across the political spectrum.

Many of the [Justice] Departments recent policy changes have been solutions in search of a problem, and are only going to make our crime and mass incarceration problems worse, said Inimai Chettiar, director of the Brennan Centers Justice Program, which is calling on Sessions to publicly release the task force recommendations.

In recent weeks, Sessions has instructed prosecutors to pursue the harshest charges and sentences for drug offenses,reversing an Obama-era policyaimed at reducing incarceration rates. Sessions also reinstated a policy making it easer for local and state law enforcement to benefit from civil asset forfeiture, where officers seize property suspected of being connected to criminal activity, even if the owner has not been charged with a crime. The practice has been criticized on boththe right and left,and there has been a bipartisan push for asset forfeiture reform in Congress and states across the country.

Strekal said Sessionss decision to receive the Task Forces recommendations behind closed doors only plays into the publics growing anxiety over his ability to run the Justice Department.

We have already seen the Justice Department issue new guidelines to rev up charges against those suspected of drug-related crimes, pursue maximum sentences for those charges, and an escalation in the departments ability to utilize civil asset forfeiture to deprive those charged of their possessions, Strekal said. Justice is not one sided. Unfortunately, this department is.

First launched by President Nixon 40 years ago, the war on drugs has failed to deliver on its promises, and instead has destroyed millions of lives. In recent years, agrowing numberof global leaders have called for an end to the drug war, anddrug decriminalization is gaining groundin local jurisdictions at home and around the world. By tying the war on drugs to their ongoing war on immigrants, Trump and Sessions have made it clear that they are headed in the opposite direction.

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Trump and Sessions just jump-started the war on drugs that's also a war on immigrants - Salon

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Children in Duterte’s bloody war on drugs – Rappler

Posted: at 3:35 am

Published 1:43 PM, August 06, 2017

Updated 1:43 PM, August 06, 2017

The Juvenile Justice Law in the Philippines is under question by Duterte. He repeatedly slammed the existing juvenile justice system in various public events and gatherings expressing the need to lower the age of criminality of children from the age of 15 to 9. The present law states that a child who is 15 years old or younger at the time of the commission of the crime shall remain exempted from criminal liability. The offender, however, will be subjected to an intervention program from the government.

The United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEF), expressed its dissent and said that the move of the Philippine Congress to lower the age of criminality is against human rights and would subject children at a young age to become criminals by being brought up in prisons with other criminals.

In May 2017, Pulse Asia released a survey report that 55% of Filipinos believe that the lowest age of criminal liability in the Philippines should remain at 15 years old.

The Philippine Congress, despite its push to lower the age of criminal liability of children, decided to maintain the existing law at 15 various childrens rights activists and organizations remain vigilant on any proposed state policies and regulations that violate human rights and deprivation of liberty.

According to data provided by the Women and Children Protection Centre of the Philippine National Police, a total of 26,415 children allegedly involved in the use, sale or transport of drugs had surrendered to police as of January.

The Childrens Legal Rights and Development Centre (CLRDC) documented and verified 40 cases of children deaths between July 2016 and April 2017. This figures covers 75% of Luzon and 25% Visayas wherein 27 males and 13 females were intentionally killed and assaulted by state authorities and unknown gunmen. 3 among the 27 males identified themselves as part of the LGBT community. In these alarming death tolls of children being shot dead and arrested without appropriate conduct of legal measures, no one was held accountable. In some cases, even, law enforcement authorities arbitrarily arrested children and post threat to families who will testify as witnesses in court.

Proxy and arbitrary arrests and childrens rights violations

The 31st of March 2017 was just a typical play day for Justin, a 16 year-old boy from Navotas City until unfortunate series of things happened. While riding his bicycle outside their home, a group of policemen arrived looking for his older brother Anthony. They informed them that the latter committed robbery. As the group continued to search for him, the parents questioned about their sons alleged offense but the group of police was not able to show any warrant of arrest.

Anthony was not in the scene during the search operations which led to Justins arrest in lieu of his brother. The authorities bargained with the parents that they will only release Justin if and only if they will inform them of Anthonys whereabouts.

Few days after, there was no Anthony that showed up in order for Justin to be released from police custody; but a dead body of Justin was found with hands tied, bathed in his own blood. The family grieved for their sons death but the same group of police officers came back to their home to tell to bury his body right away and was told not to perform a post-mortem examination of their own sons dead body. The family was threatened by the same group who ought to serve and protect the people.

The search for Anthony continues.

The haggle for sex in exchange of release

In a populated slum community in Metro Manila, a 15-year old girl named Elena was mistakenly arrested early morning while babysitting her neighbours baby. She was arbitrarily arrested by the police authorities and accused for being involved in drug trade. She was put behind the bars. The case of Elena, according to childrens rights groups is still a pending case being resolved. Series of horrors in the life of Elena continued to haunt her inside the detention facility. She was promised to be released in exchange for sex.

The party that ended the lives of 5

Mama, labhan mo naman ang jogger pants ko. Gagamitin ko bukas, may pupuntahan kaming birthday party. (Ma, can you please laundry my jogger pants. Ill use it tomorrow at a birthday party), he said.

Patrick, who was a former minor detainee, was just released from a child detention facility previously accused of stealing a cellular phone. He was invited to attend a birthday party, together with a former detainee and three others. The supposed fun night filled with loud party music was intercepted with harrowing sound from multiple gunshots aimed at the owner of the house was allegedly in the watch list of PNP. Everyone was left in state of shock. Patrick, the owner of the house and five others unfortunately ended up soaking in their own blood, lifeless.

The mother of Patrick laments the inhumane feat of the police without proper conduct of search for the person they were looking for that night.

LGBT children in conflict with the law

Some cases of identified LGBT of minor age being caught in the drug war has also been accounted by human rights and childrens rights groups like the cases of Jenny and Gemma.

In a child-caring institution in Metro Manila where juvenile delinquent are taken care of, Jenny, who identifies herself as transgender woman was arrested for a minor crime. Despite of her sexual orientation and gender identity, she was put in a cell for men. Worse, she was even forced to speak in a manly voice. Basic needs werent provided. They sleep on the floor with their t-shirts as protection from the cold at night; heavily-locked in the cage. There were times that she was sexually assaulted by her fellow inmates, and despite her testimony, no action has been done about her case, she narrated.

Gemma was accused of theft. She was detained and later on released after the case for her minor offense was dismissed. Days could have turned brighter for her after she was freed. However, that was not the case. She was brutally shot dead in a police drug operations days after. Perpetrators of minor offenses were instantly tagged as persons who were involved in drug trade. She was one of them.

The rising numbers of orphans

While the death toll of alleged drug suspects killed in police drug operations increased, the number of children who have lost parents is significantly rising. The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) estimates that about 18,000 children were left as orphans. The constant approach of the government worsens the situation of children whose parents were killed in the drug war that put them in the pits of socio-economic setbacks.

According to CLRDs documented data, they only recorded 42 cases of minor crimes in 2014 for Metro Manila and a significant increment of 7 heinous crimes cases attributed to children and minors involved in drug-related crimes in the first quarter of 2017.

Various human rights groups and childrens rights advocates estimate that in every area of police drug operations, a minimum of 30 head quota is required to facilitate the war on drugs regardless, if it includes children as collateral damage operations either direct or indirect violent assaults.

The constant attempt of the government in solving the drug trade issue will be a perpetual series of deaths on the streets including children if the only options being explored and implemented rely on finding ways to legitimize these violent and aggressive schemes against illegal drugs. It is equally important, that civil society groups and organizations should remain vigilant in monitoring state-sponsored impunity; and classify how proposed state policies forward the discount of human life and any potential apparatuses that celebrate vigilantism confined within state fortification. Rappler.com

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Children in Duterte's bloody war on drugs - Rappler

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