Daily Archives: January 9, 2022

A disabled veteran sat in the front row and listened intently as an audience composed of people from all walks of life gathered Thursday evening to remember the attack that happened a year ago at the United States Capitol.

Utah civic leaders and political candidates addressed the audience at Wallace F. Bennett Federal Building in downtown Salt Lake City in what they called an effort to protect democracy and unite a nation divided. The candlelight vigil was held on the first anniversary of supporters of then-President Donald Trump storming the Capitol in Washington in an effort to prevent the certification of Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 presidential election.

Independent U.S. Senate candidate Evan McMullin emphasized the importance of keeping democracy sound and maintaining the public's right to vote alive by speaking out against insurgencies like the one on Jan. 6, 2021.

"Some mistake the Jan. 6 insurrection as a one-time betrayal of our democracy, but it was much more. It was a predictable escalation of the American anti-democracy movement," McMullin said.

McMullin was joined in his sentiments by Republican 4th District congressional candidate Jake Hunsaker, who said what happened that day caused him to pursue a run for public office.

"I sat like many of you in disbelief that day in front of the television, as I watched the unfolding of the events in Washington, D.C.," Hunsaker recalled.

Hunsaker spoke about growing up on a farm in Ogden and being one of 11 children. He told what he was taught about what it means to be called a "real man."

"I believe that a real man prioritizes peace over violence," Hunsaker said. "It is cheap to engage in violence. It is cheap to think that the only way to effect change in this democracy is to take weapons to the heart of our nation's capital and to force your ideas and untruths on others. It takes a real man to understand that in this country, we effect change through peaceful means."

The vigil, titled "We The People" and promoted as a day of remembrance and action, was organized by DemCast USA, 1Utah Project, Alliance for a Better Utah and Salt Lake Indivisible. Former 2nd District congressional candidate Kael Weston also spoke.

Utah activist Darlene McDonald concluded the evening with a heartfelt message speaking on behalf of those voices who were silenced in the beginning, and whose voices were nearly silenced once again one year ago. She spoke of her ancestors, many of whom came to America from a slave trading post in Ghana called Cape Coast Castle, "chained to a tribesman in the belly of a ship across the Atlantic." She spoke about the dream many of her ancestors had to be numbered among those in the statement, "All men are created equal."

McDonald expressed the concern that she shares with so many others, that incidents like Jan. 6, 2021, will once again threaten the ideals that America was founded on and continues to strive for.

"When we read the Declaration of Independence, many of us get hung up and emotional when we remember Dr. (Martin Luther) King reminding us that we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal," McDonald said in her speech.

She reiterated what it means to her and so many others to be an American, and why she feels so strongly to speak out against attacks like these.

"We are not here because we hate America; we are here because we are Americans," she said. "We are not here because we want America to fail; we are here because we want America to live up to its promises. We are not here as blue America and red America; we are here as the United States of America. And united we stand because divided we will fall. We cannot abandon the ideals of freedom."

Original post:

Jan. 6 vigil: We cannot abandon the ideals of freedom - Deseret News

Steve King| Suburbanite correspondent

It was 79 years ago Thursday, on Jan. 6, 1941, that President Franklin Roosevelt delivered his famous Four Freedoms speech to Congress.

It was the main theme the overriding and the only theme, really of his 1941 State of the Union speech.

In future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential freedoms, FDR said. As he saw and described them:

The first is freedom of speech and expression everywhere in the world.

The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way everywhere in the world.

The third is freedom of want which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants everywhere in the world.

The fourth is freedom from fear which, translated into world terms, means a worldwide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor anywhere in the world.

Then FDR added, That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation.

At the same time, Hitler was waging war on Europe and Japan was doing the same in the Pacific, and then almost exactly 11 months afterward, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor to drag FDR and the United States, which had been staunchly isolationist, into World War II.

But though FDRs words were swallowed up then, they survived the war and in 1948, the United Nations used the Four Freedoms as its guideline in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights it adopted.

Its the third freedom the freedom of want that is of particular interest, at least to me, as it applies to hunger, especially children. I think hunger is the biggest need of the four freedoms. You cant live if theres not enough to eat.

I have mentioned on a number of occasions in this space that I work a side job as a clerk at a convenient store. It is a great study in human behavior, most times in a positive fashion that warms your heart and soul, but still too many times that make you grit your teeth, bite your tongue and shake your head in disgust.

The store is located in a generally well-to-do city of 60,000 people situated near a much larger city. As with any big city, there are areas of economic difficulties within, and the biggest one in this particular city sets just four miles from the store.

Customers think nothing of dropping $100, and even $200 and more, on cigarettes, beer and lottery tickets. To each their own, and this is not a general diatribe against those expenditures, but only in the sense that that money could do so much to feed the hungry kids just down the road.

More specifically, if just 10 percent of the sales of the aforementioned items in any convenience store in the area, including ours, were to go instead to the local foodbank, it would fill a lot of empty stomachs.

That those people would, in my opinion, never consider taking that money and donating it, let alone actually doing it, is numbingly disappointing and disheartening.

All these years later, those needs and those resulting emotions persist.

Franklin Roosevelt would be saddened.

See the original post:

Steve King: The freedom of want is still a dream - Canton Repository

Singapore Airlines will launch 3x weekly flights between two great European cities, as it prepares to restart its service to Milan (MXP) and add a Fifth Freedom tag flight to Barcelona (BCN).

With modern, more fuel efficient jetliners, we have seen fewer Fifth Freedom flights, which are flights in which an airline from one country operates flights between two other countries (as part of its connecting service to its home country). For example, Singapore Airlines operates service from New York to Singapore via Frankfurt and sells tickets between New York (JFK) and Frankfurt (FRA) on a stand-alone basis. This is known as a Fifth Freedom flight.

The new Fifth Freedom service between Milan and Barcelona will launch on January 17, 2022 and operate three times weekly (Monday, Wednesday, Friday) using an Airbus A350-900:

(I recently reviewed Singanpores A350-900 longhaul aircraft here)

> Read More: Singapore Airlines A350-900 Review BKK SIN + SIN LAX

The pandemic has also greatly reduced intercontinental flights schedules, but that could actually result in more Fifth Freedom flights going forward. In this case, Singapore likely did not see the commercial viability of operating flights to both Milan and Barcelona, but this arrangement allows it to serve both cities, even if travelers in Barcelona have to make an extra stop enroute.

Generally, these flights are full service, though at 1 hour, 25 minutes service may not be as extensive as you might expect on a one hour flight intra-Asia.

Theoretically, this 448-mile flight can be booked with the following programs on a one-way basis:

But I say theoretically because Singapore Airlines has traditionally been quite stingy in opening award space on its own flights to its Star Alliance partners and thus far, I only see the award space available through Singapores own KrisFlyer program.

Paid fares are about double of Spanish budget carrier Vueling on the same route, but still cheap enough: $122 one-way in economy class. Business class tickets are about $331 each way.

Singapore Airlines is launching a new Fifth Freedom flight between Milan and Barcelona. The service begins on January 17th, operates 3x weekly, and tickets are now sale.

Will you take this new Singapore Airlines Fifth Freedom flight?

(H/T: Travel With Massi)

Visit link:

Singapore Airlines Adds New Fifth Freedom Route In Europe - Live and Let's Fly

CoinDesk has formally joined the legal proceedings between Tether and the New York Attorney General in a case centering on the release of company documents to the news outlet.

The conflict dates back to June of last year, when CoinDesk filed a Freedom of Information Law request, or FOIL, in New York requesting documents detailing Tether's reserve breakdown, which the stablecoin issuer and its parent company iFinex provided to the NYAG as part of a settlement agreement in February. New York's Freedom of Information Law allows members of the public to submit requests for access to government records, including court documents.

The NYAG FOIL officer denied the request after a push from Tether's attorneys. However, CoinDesk won access on an appeal.

Tether then attempted to block CoinDesk's access to the documents it requested by asking a New York court to compel the state attorney general to deny the request on the grounds that the information would compromise its competitive edge.

As the battle over the disclosures continues, CoinDesk has now formally joined the legal proceedings, arguing for the denial of Tether's petition to block access to the documents. Parties may "intervene" in a case if they are not originally named but have stake in the outcome of that case. It allows them to present their own arguments within the case.

In CoinDesk's memorandum, the news outlet claimed Tether's petition should be denied, firstly because the firm has not met its burden to claim an exemption, but more importantly because the public interest outweighs any competitive interest Tether might claim.

"Petitioners have expressly committed to the OAG and the public to be transparent as to the extent to which Tether is backed by reserves and the composition of such reserves, on which they have a documented history of misleading the public," said the filing.

It went on: "Yet Petitioners continue to treat the public with disdain, and this is now extended to CoinDesk, the OAG and this proceeding, as one of TOL's top executives recently tweeted a crude, juvenile meme mocking CoinDesk's Request. Petitioners' evasion of public accountability must end."

The Block had filed FOIL requests similar to CoinDesk's, to which a FOIL officer responded that the requests could be exempt from the disclosure allowances based on a law that allows an agency to deny access to information disclosed to a public agency if that information contains "trade secrets." Tether contends that the requested information would compromise its investment strategy, which it considers a trade secret. Additionally, it claims information in the documents could compromise partner relationships.

For its part, CoinDesk has said that it is only interested in the documents detailing the breakdown of Tether's reserves, which wouldn't compromise the trade secrets or relationships Tether is referencing. Additionally, Tether has already committed to making the reserve breakdown public, argues CoinDesk.

In a response to CoinDesk's intervention, Tether pointed out that the FOIL officer initially agreed with its request to block the release, and argued that the appeal overturning that decision occurred "without any meaningful explanation."

It also pointed out that CoinDesk shares an investor, Digital Currency Group, with issuer of the USDC stablecoin, Circle. Tether claims that Circle constitutes a competitor to Tether, and that CoinDesk's coverage does not disclose DCG's investment to readers.

"Weaponizing the media does a disservice to the ecosystem," Tether said in a statement. "Tether welcomes healthy competition in the space but not when others do so without truth, honour, and respect."

Today, CoinDesk updated its Jan. 4 article on its intervention in the legal case with an "automatic disclosure" of DCG's investment.

2021 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

See the original post here:

CoinDesk formally joins Tether Freedom of Information case in New York, Tether responds - The Block Crypto

A big part of the Texas brand is being a state where you can be free and enjoy a heapin' helpin' of personal liberty. Turns out thats just more hat than cattle.

The conservative Cato Institute released a report ranking the states for personal freedom. Texas comes in second to the last. California out-performed Texas in this list.

To find out more, TPR spoke with Jason Sorens of the Cato Institute and the co-author of the Cato Institute report "Freedom In The 50 States."

Texas Post RoeTexas is one of the worst states for reproductive rights. The last legislative session passed SB8 which essentially is a complete ban of abortion. On Friday the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals heard a challenge to SB8.

The legal issues being brought before the Fifth Circuit are extremely technical. But at stake is whether abortion providers will have any shot in the coming months to get an order that would at least partially block enforcement of the law.

The anti-abortion law has been in effect now for more than four months in Texas. Pro-choice activists says its clear Roe V. Wade is likely to be reversed and they need to prepare for what looks like.

Dr. Deborah McNabb is a retired OB/GYN and abortion provider in San Antonio. She said after Roe v. Wade is overturned Texas will see low income women dying from botched illegal unsafe abortions.

Voting 2022Its a new year and there are new voter laws in place for elections in 2022. Its important that citizens who want to vote understand the new limits and opportunities that exist in Texas.

For example, it's now illegal for public officials to promote voting-by-mail. So independent voting rights advocates will likely try to spread the word, like the League of Women Voters of Texas.

Grace Chimene is the president of the League of Women Voters of Texas.

Read more:

Texas Matters: Texas lacks freedom, Abortion post-Roe and voting in 2022 - Texas Public Radio

Published: 1/8/2022 6:01:04 AM

Modified: 1/8/2022 6:00:13 AM

This latest COVID-19 omicron outbreak has resulted in widespread COVID fatigue and seriously compromised our ability to control the pandemic.

For those who believe that COVID-19 is not a hoax, there are only two ways to control its spread: a proven prophylactic such as a vaccine or a therapeutic, and physical measures that lessen the odds that the virus can enter your body, such as a barrier or distance from infected people.

To strive for a better outcome, we need to review why we are at this point and the lessons learned. The starting point is the issue of whether people should be free to disregard the scientific recommendations of public health experts is this the price we all must pay for some minority of peoples misguided concept of personal freedom?

A personal freedom that has contributed to the infection of hundreds of thousands more every day with kids hospitalized in record numbers, created further job shortages in all industries, exacerbated the crises in goods and services, initiated a new inflationary cycle, shuttered thousands more businesses, once again compromised the education of our children, created deadly shortages in hospital beds and services, led to the exit of thousands of critical healthcare providers, added to our national debtand caused a surge in those seeking mental health care.

The tragic irony of this misguided interpretation of personal freedom is that it has instead taken away many of our cherished freedoms with no end in sight. With billions of people in the world unvaccinated or under-vaccinated, the virus continues to mutate in these reservoirs, posing a threat to those who are protected. With more infectious variants resulting from this mutation process, it may be only a matter of time before more lethal and infectious variants arise.

While some in the minority will not admit it, most, if not all of us have benefited from the advances in medical diagnosis and treatment. To the naysayers, I must ask the question: to what end? How does this disregard of the scientific method lead to a future where we all can live freely in a safe and prosperous country?

(Walter King lives in Dover.)

Read more:

My Turn: The real freedoms lost - Concord Monitor

The idea of people being jailed for their sexual preferences seems like the stuff of dystopian fiction, now, but for older lesbians and gay men, the risk of imprisonment was very real, indeed.

It wasnt until 1981 that Scotland followed England and Wales (which had acted in 1967) in decriminalising homosexual acts. And even then, the freedoms granted had limitations. The presence of a third person in a private place where gay sex was taking place automatically rendered the act illegal. And, pandering to the then widely-held notion that homosexuality was something that could be passed on by predatory older men, the age of consent was set at 21, compared with 16 for heterosexual couples.

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So, legislation in 2014 allowing same sex couples to marry was both hugely significant and long overdue. It was also, at that time, unfinished business. Gay couples in Northern Ireland remained unable to marry. It was only when the UK Government stepped in in 2020 that the law was brought into line with England, Scotland and Wales.

With Northern Ireland firmly out of step with the rest of the UK in 2014, activist Gareth Lee kick-started a chain of events which culminated last week with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) declining to support his case against a bakery which had refused to decorate a cake with the slogan Support Gay Marriage.

Lee had approached Ashers Baking Co. in Belfast to have the cake made but the company refused on the basis that the slogan he had requested stood in conflict with their position. The company would happily bake goods for anyone but would not put messages which contradicted their Christian beliefs on its products.

Lee sued and a Northern Irish court ruled he had been discriminated against on the basis hes gay. Of course, that wasnt the end of the matter. In 2018, the UKs Supreme Court ruled the bakerys refusal to provide a cake bearing a pro-gay marriage slogan did not amount to discrimination.

The ECHR did not, last week, express a view on whether Lee had been a victim of anti-gay prejudice. Rather, it ruled the case inadmissible because he had failed to exhaust domestic remedies.

This, then, may not be an end to matters even though it should be.

Lees campaign touches the liberal heart. Of course, lesbians and gay men should have the right to marry.

But that doesnt make his battle just.

When the ECHR rejected his case, Lee said that freedom of expression must equally apply to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans people and I dont think anyone could find anything to disagree with there.

But freedom of expression does not merely give us the right to say what we believe, does it? It gives other other people the right to do the same and, boy, some of those people are going to say some pretty stupid and hateful things.

In the case of equal marriage, one is perfectly free to express the view that it is wrong. If one is a business owner and the expression of such views negatively impacts on trade, then thats hard cheese.

Freedom of expression must include the freedom not to support any position espoused by another. Surely the right of the company not to back Lees political position is as precious as his right to hold it?

Theres much talk of culture wars, these days, and while Im not sure that a narrative of perpetual division is entirely accurate, it certainly seems were living in tribal times. Our political debate is of the lowest grade, with opposing parties quick to call bad faith in each other.

On social media, we see terrifying orchestrated campaigns against people deemed to hold unworthy views on a range of issues. Often these views are entirely misrepresented in order to maximise outrage. Weve seen countless cases of people losing jobs and having their lives turned upside down after being hounded by online mobs because they expressed controversial opinions.

Its important that during this new era of outrage we dont become complacent about peoples right to hold and express views which might offend us.

Support Gay Marriage is a perfectly legitimate political slogan but so is Ban Gay Marriage. I wonder if those who believe Ashers should have taken Lee's commission would feel equally strongly that a company should be compelled to supply a cake bearing a slogan opposing the right of gay people to wed.

The old saying about disagreeing with someones views but defending to the death their right to express them is a bit melodramatic for my tastes but the principle is sound. My freedom to express my uniformly wise and considered opinions means I must tolerate others right to say whatever bloody stupid thing it is theyre saying today.

Opposition to gay marriage is very much an obsession of a minority, these days. YouGov polling from last month shows that half of us strongly support the policy. A further quarter of people tend to support it.

Perhaps, like me, you would prefer to see greater support than now exists. Perhaps you would like it to be the case that not a single soul thinks it wrong for two men or two women to marry.

All the evidence from past polling shows the number of people who support gay marriage is rising. Theres still a way to go but society is moving.

Doubtless, campaigners such as Gareth Lee have played a part in ensuring the current direction of travel but they will not reach their preferred destination by using the law to compel others to promote views with which they might disagree.

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Gay cake: Freedom of expression works two ways to say and listen - Euan McColm - The Scotsman

Flash back to April 2021, and here we are again. COVID-19 numbers are skyrocketing and masking requirements for Summit County are back in play. Whats a concerned Summit County citizen to do? Follow the mandates for masking and social distancing? Get vaccinated?

Why yes, thatd be a good start!

My advocating for that will likely result in responses seeking to educate me on the ineffectiveness of masking, citing everything from fogged glasses to scientific studies (or the lack thereof) to prove the case. But lets take a moment to consider masking as a component in helping bring this latest surge under control.

While there is science supporting the use of masks as a way of controlling the spread of COVID-19, our imperfect implementation of the protocol is a significant variable in its effectiveness. As a reader pointed out to me, our current practice of wearing a mask into a restaurant only to take it off once seated doesnt make a whole lot of sense. Sure, were limiting our spread of particles between the entrance and our table, but are we negating that benefit when we later unmask?

Maybe so, but whats the alternative? Wearing a mask 100% of the time while at a restaurant or bar isnt realistic. Our current imperfect masking practices may in fact be the middle ground that our country needs to avoid the shutdowns of spring 2020 and keep our economy intact. Might we be sacrificing the health of some of our citizenry in the process by allowing this imperfection? Possibly, but thats one of the compromises weve made in trying to navigate our way through this pandemic.

It could also be that the minimal amount of prevention that wearing a mask in that restaurant scenario provides is worth it from the every-little-thing-helps perspective. Some will claim that the minimal amount of protection that social distancing and masking provide isnt worth the loss of choice for Americans, that were giving up our freedom for something that isnt 100% effective.

Id counter that argument in two ways: First, a Summit County health care provider said even small efforts will go a long way in curbing this current surge. We shouldnt let the quest for the perfect defense against COVID-19 be the enemy of progress toward improved control of the disease.

I also believe that your freedom and liberties end at the tip of my nose. Im not OK with individuals endangering me or my loved ones so that they can practice their own brand of liberty. I think most people would agree that something should be done to stop the individual who is racing a car up and down the street that their kids play on. That racer might claim its their God-given right to drive recklessly, but how does that square with the God-given right the rest of us have to be protected against the actions of others? Whether its putting a mask on to minimize spread or getting a vaccination, your choice to not do so puts others at risk, and your freedom to continue that practice should be viewed in that context.

And now to that big ol gorilla in the corner: the COVID-19 vaccine. While I and most of my immediate and extended family are vaccinated, I must admit that I have become concerned with its efficacy. But given the significant numeric difference between vaccinated and non-vaccinated people hospitalized due to COVID-19 in Colorado, it still seems getting vaccinated should be a no-brainer.

But the push for vaccination has expanded to the need for a booster and now even to talk of a second booster. The vaccination moving target and the numerous breakthrough cases weve seen have shaken my faith in this aspect of prevention, and Im glad other methodologies for addressing COVID-19 are being explored. But in the meantime, I will continue to follow masking mandates in hopes that this small effort will help with curbing the surge.

Tony Jones column Everything in Moderation publishes biweekly on Thursdays in the Summit Daily News. Jones is a veteran of the IT industry and has worked in the public and private sectors. He lives part time in Summit County and Denver. Contact him at eimsummit@gmail.com.

The rest is here:

Opinion | Tony Jones: Your freedom ends at the tip of my nose - Summit Daily

Selma (name changed) was a journalist and activist living and working in Panjshir province in northeastern Afghanistan. She, like many others,lost her job following the Taliban takeover of the war-ravaged country in August.

After being threatened, she left the region and is now in hiding, selling bolani, a local flat bread, on the streets to survive.

"I worked as a journalist and human rights activist," said Selma, who asked DW not to reveal her true identity for fear of reprisals. "As you know, women's rights are strongly related to religious ideologies, so we were always in dispute with extremists. This put us in danger."

Selma is one of the thousands of journalists and media workers who have lost their jobs in Afghanistan since August.

According to a report published in December by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), 40% of media outlets have closed over the past five months with an estimated 6,400 journalists losing their jobs. Hundreds have fled the country. The report added that over 80% of female journalists are now out of work.

Some provinces in Afghanistan have been left with only a handful of media outlets, and those that remain have stopped broadcasting music, pulled foreign content and taken female hosts off the air.

Most have also softened their news coverage out of fear of closure or worse, and now broadcast strictly religious content.

Afghan citizens who enjoyed a variety of media choices over the past two decades now have little access to critical news and information.

"Without a free press capable of exposing bad governance's failings, no one will be able to claim that they are combating famine, poverty, corruption, drug trafficking and the other scourges that afflict Afghanistan and prevent a lasting peace," Reza Moini, the head of RSF's Iran-Afghanistan desk, said in the report.

In the face of a crumbling media landscape, Taliban officials have been telling the international community that they stand for press freedom and that journalists are not under threat.

In a television interview with DW, the spokesperson for the Foreign Affairs Ministry, Abdul Qahar Balkhi, said Afghanistan has a "very free and vibrant press."

"Unfortunately, I do have to say that some media houses have closed down, but that is not because of us," said Balkhi, adding that they were largely the result of a loss of donor funding.

This positive take on the media situation was echoed by Abdul Wahid Rayan, spokesman for the Information and Culture Ministry."We have meetings and collaborations with journalists and media owners all the time, and anyone who has any problem can share it with us,"told DW. "We believe in freedom of the press."

Since the Taliban took power in August, no Western country has recognized the new government. This has made it difficult for the Islamic fundamentalist group to access international capital and funding.

Even in the face of a looming humanitarian crisis and growing calls for support from the United Nations, foreign governments have so far not recognized the Taliban administration and provided support.

Some observers see the Taliban's stated support of a free press in the country as part of a larger strategy to attract international recognition.

One long-time media observer, who fled to Europe in August andasked not to be named as he fears retribution against his colleaguesin Afghanistan, supported this argument.

He told DW if any journalist is arrested or tortured, and it iscovered in the international press, itwould hurt the Taliban's goal of international recognition.

"My organization has documented dozens of acts of violence against journalists and in not a single case has there been anyone brought to justice," he told DW. "We feel that any talks with the new government should include the situation on the ground with regard to press freedom as a basic human right."

Following the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and the relative peace that came with it, hundreds of media outlets sprung up in all corners of the country.

With funding sources ranging from international donors to local politicians, to indigenous advertising revenue, the country's media landscape expanded to become the most diverse in the region.

The largest commercial television station in the country is TOLO TV, which is owned and operated by MOBY Group. The station was launched in 2004 and it, along with its affiliates, continues to broadcast across Afghanistan.

Saad Mohseni, chairman and CEO of MOBY Group, told DW that there are a range of factors contributing to the shutdowns of media outlets, including the loss of grants from the international community, loss of advertising revenue, lack of staff and intimidation in the provinces.

Though he remains hopeful for the media sector, Mohseni said the daily directives coming from various Taliban ministries were making it difficult for broadcasters to know what can and cannot be aired.

"We have to take it one day at a time," he said.

Ezatullah Akbari, a member of the media watchdog Nai Supporting Open Media in Afghanistan, has worked with many of the media outlets outside of Kabul that have since closed.

He saidthe country could soon lose the majority of its journalists, many of whom he trained.

"A lot of journalists are just leaving Afghanistan as they are out of work and out of money," Akbari told DW.

For most female journalists, leaving Afghanistan remains the only option.

One of the few remaining in the country is Meena Habib. She has been a reporter for eight years and publishes Roidadha News, a local news website. She also does investigative work for various other news outlets, often focusing on women's issues. She told DW that the situation is dire but that she is continuing to do journalism because she believes in her profession.

"Journalists, especially female journalists, have faced an unclear fate over the last five months since Afghanistan fell to the Taliban," she told DW. She, too, has faced threats by the Taliban and was beaten when covering a women's protest.

After two decades of being free to pursue an education and a career, women like Habib must now live in a new reality where they are no longer equal members of society. While Taliban officials claim women can continue to work, the reality is that in the field of journalism, this is not the case.

According to the Reporters Without Borders report, 15 out of Afghanistan's 36 provinces no longer have a single female reporter. In Kabul, only about a quarter of the women who were working at the start of August are still on the job.

"The progress seen in the past 20 years was swept away in a matter of days by the Taliban takeover," said the report. Habib acknowledgedthat press freedom does not currently exist under the Taliban but that external pressure could help the remaining journalists.

"The international community should work to ensure that the rights of female journalists who want to continue reporting in their own country are protected," she said.

Unfortunately for Selma, remaining in Afghanistan would mean continuing to live in fear of the Taliban.

Now living alone in a large, unfamiliar city, she is unable to see her family. This has taken a tremendous emotional toll and she is desperately looking for a way to flee.

"I need to find a way out of this darkness," she said.

Ahmad Hakimi and Sifatullah Zahidi contributed to this report.

Edited by: Srinivas Mazumdaru

See the rest here:

Afghanistan: How press freedom has crumbled since the Taliban takeover - DW (English)

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Written by Sam Kovacs

The DFT service has gone through a whole year now. We can make all the promises we want in our marketing content, but do we deliver the goods?

I'll let you be the judge.

In this article I'll review our three portfolios in a very chart intensive manner.

Capital gains are invariably the largest part of returns in bull markets. Stock prices go up, and many investors and fund managers have difficulty keeping up with the index.

When I refer to the index, I'm referring to the S&P 500 (SPY). In 2021, the SPY increased by 26.9% before dividends, and 28.7% including dividends.

Although we're a dividend oriented service, our portfolios have clearly laid out goals:

For the low yield portfolio: To beat the index over time with a basket of low yield high growth stocks which still provides a significant amount of income.

For the Hybrid portfolio: To match the index over time while providing a mix of yield and growth which results in significant amounts of income.

For the High Yield portfolio: To provide a high level of income (6% yield) while offering satisfactory capital gains, all while realizing that it is difficult to match the index with such a strategy.

So how'd we do?

The Low Yield portfolio posted +30% performance in 2021 before dividends, beating the index by 3.1%. The first half of the year saw the portfolio blast ahead of the index, before converging for most of Q3 and Q4.

I guess we were good boys, because the Santa Rally increased our portfolio values more than the S&P 500 and gave us an edge over the index in the last few weeks.

Year

2021

Source: Dividend Freedom Tribe

The Hybrid portfolio increased 26.5%, lagging the index by 0.4% in 2021. Not unlike the low yield portfolio, as the reopening trade got stalled halfway through the year, it started moving sideways before ripping higher in the last few days.

It is good to note, that upwards momentum has continued, as the portfolio is now beating the index when you add the first few days of January.

Year

2021

Source: Dividend Freedom Tribe

The High Yield portfolio was the worst performer of the lot, increasing 19.44% lagging the index by 7.5%. While I'm not satisfied with this performance, it is something that high yield portfolios suffer, because of the lack of exposure to growth names, and the necessity to include vehicles like preferred stocks and BDCs.

Year

2021

Source: Dividend Freedom Tribe

But as you might know, the name of the service is the Dividend Freedom Tribe, and not just the Freedom Tribe.

Dividends have a significant contribution to portfolio performance, and when you follow our philosophy, will ultimately be your source of income.

You can use a capital gain to increase your income by realizing it and reinvesting into something with a higher current yield.

Anyway, let's see the performance adjusted for dividends. As a reminder the S&P 500 is up 28.7% in 2021 with dividends.

When you add dividends to the mix, the Low Yield portfolio was up 33.8%. A number of special dividends from the likes of EOG (EOG) helped increase that amount over the nominal yield.

This amounts to beating the S&P 500 by 5% with a portfolio of value oriented blue chips. Not bad, we'd say.

As of the time of writing (January 6th) the performance gap since inception has increased to 6.4% when including dividends.

Year

2021

Source: Dividend Freedom Tribe

It was a photo finish for the Hybrid vs the S&P 500 without dividends, but when you add in dividends, the Hybrid portfolio's performance increases to 31.5%, beating the index by 2.8%.

A convincing performance.

Year

2021

Source: Dividend Freedom Tribe

It should be noted that the Hybrid portfolio was incepted before the two others, in May 2020. Below is the full chart since inception.

Source: Dividend Freedom Tribe

Remember that laggard of a portfolio? Turns out, when you add back dividends from the High Yield portfolio, you get a total performance in 2021 of 26.5%, or just 2.2% below the S&P 500. Not bad at all for a high yielding portfolio, if I can say so myself.

Year

2021

Source: Dividend Freedom Tribe

Exactly a year after we launched, 2 of 3 of our portfolios are beating the S&P 500 by convincing margins, and the high yield portfolio is neck and neck with the index.

We're as far from closet indexers as possible. Our Alpha has been generated with portfolios which are fundamentally different from the index, as we'll review in the next sections.

We're going to review how our portfolios differ from the S&P 500 on the diversification front.

Below is the diversification breakdown of the S&P 500 according to Seeking Alpha:

Source: Seeking Alpha

One small differentiation is that they have the titles "consumer cyclical" and "consumer defensive", where we have "consumer discretionary" and "consumer staples".

I believe these should match very closely and won't impact the analysis.

The SPY is heavily weighted in Tech, with 26.5% of the portfolio allocated to the sector.

Healthcare, Financials, and Consumer Cyclical follow with 12-13% weights.

Let's see how our portfolios fare in relation.

The Low Yield portfolio has about half the tech exposure of the index, but double the financials exposure.

Source: Dividend Freedom Tribe

We're comfortable with this exposure to financials, as the sector, which is still shunned on valuations, is set to do very well in 2022, in an inflationary and rising rate environment.

The portfolio also has 10% in energy, which is 4x the index exposure. This is the lowest exposure among all our portfolios, as high growth opportunities in the sector are less prominent in the sector.

There are little variations after this, but the overexposure to financials and energy, with under exposure to tech, is likely what needs to be remembered.

For instance, Utilities and Materials are both the lowest exposure, and don't have significantly different weights than in the index.

One of the differentiating points among our portfolios is that the low yield portfolio also has relatively high exposure to industrials.

With the Hybrid and High Yield portfolios, we see many of the same themes: more energy and financials, less tech, but another theme comes into play: a lot more real estate.

Real Estate is 13% of the portfolio, and this is to be expected in dividend oriented portfolios as there are some brilliant REITs which offer good combinations of yield and growth.

In the Hybrid portfolio, the consumer discretionary exposure is a lot lower than the index, making it more defensive in nature.

Source: Dividend Freedom Tribe

The High Yield portfolio is arguably the least balanced portfolio of the 3, due to the high yield constraint.

It is very heavily weighted in Energy, as there are many high quality high yield energy names. It also has big exposure to financials, with BDCs accounting for approximately 4% of the portfolio.

A large 20% of the portfolio is invested in Real Estate. Once again, nothing surprising here, we have to deal with the high yield constraint to build a portfolio.

It has very low exposure to tech, consumer discretionary and industrials relative to our other portfolios, and to the index.

Nonetheless, the portfolio isn't unjustifiably exposed to any given sector, and we're quite content with the diversification.

Source: Dividend Freedom Tribe

Our portfolios have positions in all sectors, and are well diversified across names and sectors.

But more importantly they are different from the index. So while in 2021 our performance was more or less similar to the index, any big moves from sectors with overexposure or underexposure could quickly create divergences.

In 2021, Financials, Energy and Tech all went up by similar amounts, which is the biggest part of why our portfolios had similar performance.

But if the performance in these sectors diverge, as they have so far in 2022, with tech down 3% while energy is up 6% and financials up 3%, we can expect the portfolios to diverge from the index.

We remain cautious, and will tilt our portfolios to sectors with better opportunities over time, by trimming overvalued sectors and allocating to undervalued sectors.

It's active management done right. Patient, cautious, optimistic.

To further analyze how different our portfolios are both from one another, and from the index, it is interesting to compare the top 10 positions.

You'll note that our portfolios include none of the top 10 S&P 500 positions, as none of them match our dividend oriented strategy.

In the Low Yield portfolio, Amgen (AMGN) despite its subpar capital appreciation is our top performance, as we've been averaging down, and continue to believe in the superiority of this management team. Healthcare is a tricky business, all AMGN needs is one good "win" to see its stock price go heading up.

On the other side of the equation, the likes of Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT), and Amazon (AMZN) are all trading at valuations which make them risky bits. The Low Yield top 10 is a pure quality/growth/value intersection. While not all of the stocks are still on our Buy List because of valuations, I'm super happy with how it's set up.

In the high yield portfolio, there are no surprises. The high quality High Yielders make up the bulk of the portfolio. Quite happy with the fact that the top 4 positions are all in different sectors.

Finally the Hybrid is really a mix of both, with the notable difference of Bank of America (BAC) being the largest position, as we bought a large position in the stock when it was half the price it currently is.

You can only beat the index by as much as you're willing to underperform it.

We won't cave in to pressures from high flying names, and believe we can do great focusing on fundamentals.

Source: Dividend Freedom Tribe

These numbers are really just here for informational purposes, and they're not true top performers, as we've sold a certain number of positions, but they show the highest unrealized gains exclusive of dividends in our portfolios.

The Hybrid portfolio which was set up earlier, has a lot of higher gains, which were mostly materialized from very low buy ins in '20.

See the article here:

The Dividend Freedom Tribe's Performance In 2021: Matching And Beating The Market - Seeking Alpha