Monthly Archives: August 2022

While the Congress party is accusing the Haryana government of abolishing posts of about 20,000 teachers in the state-run schools, Education Minister Kanwar Pal, on Monday, said the states Education Department will neither close any school nor will it abolish the posts of teachers.

Terming the reports of closure of schools and abolishing the posts as baseless, Minister Kanwar Pal said that some schools with low student strength have been merged with the school within the nearest three-kilometer radius.

The Education Department will neither close any school nor will it abolish the posts of teachers, but after these transfers, the posts which remain vacant will be filled through Kaushal Rozgar Nigam and through direct recruitment. Complaints and suggestions given by teacher organizations are also being considered, he said.

On the rationalisation of teachers, the minister said there are many schools where the number of students is very less where teachers are taking only two periods in a day. He said that the Education Department is making efforts to take special care of the science faculty in these transfers so that science students also have an adequate number of teachers to teach them.

On the online transfer drive being run to overcome the shortage of teachers in schools, the Minister said that these transfers of teachers are being done to maintain teacher-student ratio as per the norms of the Right to Education Act norms.

The Minister said that the Education Department is executing the work regarding the transfer drive in a transparent and fair manner. In some schools, the strength of teachers is not equivalent to the strength of students, he said, adding that in view of this, the Education Department is trying to ensure that the prescribed student-teacher ratio is maintained in every school across the state.

Earlier, former Chief Minister and Leader of Opposition Bhupinder Singh Hooda alleged that Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar led BJP-JJP government is pushing the states education system and the future of its children into darkness through rationalization and Chirag Scheme.

He alleged that there has been a severe shortage of staff in many schools of the state due to the new transfer policy of teachers. Instead of filling vacant posts, the government is eliminating those posts and the relevant subjects from the schools, Hooda said.

The government has so far abolished the posts of about 20,000 teachers, whereas the truth is that about 38,000 teachers posts are lying vacant in schools. Thousands of youth are waiting for the recruitment but this government is going to eliminate vacant posts without recruitment, the Congress leader alleged.

Citing details procured under the RTI Act, the former CM said that from November 2014 to April 2022, this government has opened only eight new schools in the state and upgraded only 463 schools. While the government has so far closed a total of 196 schools, three days ago, the government closed 105 more schools. The Congress government had made Haryana a hub of education, he said on Saturday.

Haryana Chief Minister Khattar had earlier this month said that the State government is rationalizing teachers in schools. We are working constantly to bring reforms in the system. The government is taking dedicated steps to help poor children. In the future, more reforms will be introduced in the education sector, he had said.

Giving his reply during the Monsoon Session of the Haryana Assembly, the CM said that under Chirag scheme, the government will give Rs 700 to private schools for children studying in Class I to Class V, while an amount of Rs 900 and Rs 1100 will be paid for the students studying in classes VI to VII and IX to XII respectively.

So far, around 300 schools have given their consent under this scheme and 2700 children have enrolled, he informed.

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Haryana dismisses alleged abolition of teachers post as baseless - The Statesman

How do universities relate to the cities in which they are located? How does the expanding corporatization of higher education fit into the conversation about how universities occupy and reshape local spaces and local economies?

Davarian L. Baldwin, the Paul E. Raether Distinguished Professor of American Studies at Trinity College, is the author of In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities are Plundering Our Cities (Bold Type Books). This very well-written and provocative book discusses what Baldwin refers to as the rise of UniverCities, a phrase which signals the complicated relationship between higher education and urban life and reflects how universities are shaping todays cities in grossly inequitable ways, with class, racial and deep financial implications. Baldwins timely book adds to the growing body of scholarship examining the corporate refashioning of colleges and universities. In this interview, Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt and Bertin M. Louis Jr., co-editors of Truthouts Challenging the Corporate University series, speak to Baldwin about his work, diving into the concept of UniverCities and exploring what an equitable relationship might look like between a university and the town it occupies.

Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt and Bertin M. Louis Jr.: Are UniverCities essentially modeled after the logic of for-profit corporations?

Davarian L. Baldwin: My notion of UniverCities includes a discussion of what we call the corporatization of higher education but also exceeds the normal framing of that discussion. On one side, yes, the ramped-up retreat from the public funding of both public and private higher education forced schools to look for new revenue streams. Many became, in their own words, more entrepreneurial, marked by soaring tuition costs, corporate-funded research, the early push for cost-effective online learning, and the growth of a contingent faculty labor force. But on the other side, this narrative suggests that a sort of pristine higher education was corrupted by economic concerns instead of the new face of late capitalism. We must understand the degree to which colleges, universities and affiliated hospitals drive todays dominant knowledge economy by bringing their research to the private market and, by extension, as the largest employers in cities and regions across the country.

Greater focus on the knowledge economy frame helps us understand my notion of UniverCities, which marks higher educations growing control over urban development and political governance in, specifically, urban America. In this context, the campus as an urban form becomes the central vehicle for wealth capture, not just for schools but for financial institutions and the state. The campus exempts real estate expansion and private corporate partnerships from taxation. The campus converts the profitable labor of students into work study or apprenticeship status which, until recently, made this work exempt from collective bargaining. The notion of campus safety further protects the above wealth extraction by deputizing private police forces with public authority and uneven public accountability.

In short, my UniverCities concept is best framed by the knowledge economy instead of corporatization. Because here, the campus has not been corrupted, but in fact, the campus form is the clearest vehicle for value capture as city blocks are converted into what one developer calls knowledge communities.

In your introduction you state, There is no question that higher education institutions can deliver positive community outcomes for their cities. But the central question remains: What are the costs when colleges and universities exercise significant power over a citys financial resources, policing priorities, labor relations and land values?

It is obvious from your analysis that the growth that universities claim comes at the cost of adversely and disproportionately impacting communities of color (particularly Black and Latinx communities). How should our neoliberal universities address this imbalance, both for low-income minoritized citizens living in these cities and for students who face financial hardships? Furthermore, what are the racial implications of UniverCities?

So first, we must dismantle the presumption that there is a stable divide between the so-called town and gown. As I try to lay out in my book, the very prosperity that we see on campuses ensconced in ivy, glass and steel is directly extracted from the public wealth, knowledge and labor power of the many times impoverished host communities. At a basic level, these imbalances are rooted in wealth extraction, so they can be remedied through reparations. Reparations include scholarships for the descendants of the enslaved and Indigenous whose labor and land made these institutions possible. Reparations means addressing the collusion between universities and both private real estate developers and state agents in the 20th century segregation, demolition, and displacement of communities through a redistribution of university land and its resources. Reparations can also mean pro-rating endowment and property tax exemption based on university commitments to community-driven engagement and investment. These are just a few examples, but the bottom line here is whether its wealth, land, curricula or historical markers, we are talking about a new vision of shared governance where aggrieved communities (which goes beyond simply blood-verifiable descendants) must have a binding say in the university prosperity they help generate. The racial implications for this are direct and profound because while non-white people have been central to campus wealth, they remain largely marginalized from campus possibility whether that be educational access, neighborhood governance or resource sharing.

In your book, you write: Despite the clear racial disparities of a two-tiered system, schools all across the country looked to [University of Chicago] as a model for policing urban campuses.

Post-George Floyds murder in 2020 and calls for creating anti-racist universities and large student protests about the outcomes of campus policing, what has changed? How have private universities responded to these protests while also garnering support from politicians and political forces for increasing police presence (sometimes an armed police force, as endorsed by Michael Bloomberg)? Are there ways in which minoritized students, faculty and staff have been retaliated against due to protesting racist police and policing policies on university campuses?

One of the most powerful results of the Black Spring protests of 2020 was that the broader movement for police abolition turned its attention to higher education, which brought greater light to existing campaigns like Cops Off Campus. Many universities continue to increase their police forces in the name of servicing surrounding Black and Brown communities or deputize health workers and instructors in the name of abolition. But its organizations like the Cops Off Campus Coalition, and others, that call out these tactics and demand a real framework of divestment from militarized policing and investment in trauma care, living-wage jobs, and housing and food security as real public safety, to start.

Private schools like Amherst College and Tufts, or public schools like San Francisco State have been pushed to form task forces or even mandates towards some form of abolition. But we will see. After massive movement work, Johns Hopkins was forced to put a hold on their massive private police department. But during the current backlash to Summer 2020, they are seizing on resentments to restart the policing process and they are not alone. Black and Brown residents pay the biggest price. Community members of color are racially profiled and stopped by campus police at rates that far exceed their population. At the same time, all across the country, students and staff of color have told me stories of being overpoliced because they look like locals. They are also attacked and profiled for protesting general campus policing practices or the very notion that the presence of local (non-white) residents on campus should justify heightened policing. Meanwhile, women of all backgrounds pay the price from over-policing the perimeter and under-policing the campus because addressing largely white-on-white crimes like sexual violence and assault would tarnish the brand of the institution. The only solution is divest/invest.

A significant focus of your book is on urban universities and the ways in which urban universities exploit their cities while claiming urban revitalization and growth. What about universities and college campuses located in rural spaces? Are they plundering the rural communities in a similar manner?

As an urbanist, my primary focus remains cities and their neighborhoods. But there is no question that the issues I explore apply to both college towns and rural communities. This plundering includes the expansion of campus police jurisdiction over entire counties or states. We see the encroachment on rural lands, which includes Indigenous reservation areas. There is also the appropriation of local farming techniques and seed cultivation into intellectual property by agricultural schools for the bioscience market. But the rural story is one that is ripe for further study and political coalition building.

Have universities fundamentally shifted their mission from serving the common good to serving the neoliberal and corporate interests creating unjust universities?

I think universities have ramped up a focus on their profiteering interests, whether that be to counter the state divestment in education, to gain great power and profits with private partners, or both. But, as historian Craig Wilder has pointed out, this contestation between the profit university and the peoples university goes back to the U.S. colonial period and its slave economy. At the same time, the pushback against this unjust university is also hardly new. In periods like the revolutionary 1960s, there were visions of a broader campus community that included police abolition, affordable community housing on campus, free education, and other elements that go beyond some of todays seemingly radical platforms. But one thing that is vital about previous blueprints is that most never advocated tearing everything down but instead advocated for a reconstruction and redistribution of knowledge and resources driven by a common vision of higher education, an abolition of current conditions.

Many universities and colleges opened during the COVID pandemic, forcing faculty, staff and students to return to campus to serve corporate interests (housing, food services, etc.). How have these UniverCities capitalized on the COVID pandemic?

Yes, I lived this! But my privileged capacity to self-protect in this pandemic has far exceeded the capacity of the so-called essential campus workers, a status which perfectly aligned with the conditions of low-wage and contingent campus workers who are most vulnerable and easy to exploit. COVID-19 simply amplified an already existing exploitative relationship that has now been brought into the stark relief of life and death. Campuses placed service workers on furlough, many times with limited benefits. They are pushing fiscal austerity measures while simultaneously stuffing CARES Act money into record high endowments. Schools capitalized on social distancing to shift curricula towards more labor-suppressive (and hence cost-reductive) online learning. In expensive cities, where graduate students depend on university-owned housing, administrators refused to freeze or reduce rates. Elder and immunocompromised faculty have been refused online teaching options and forced into retirement while replaced with more precarious labor.

But the travails of COVID-19 extend beyond campus work. Residents in West Philadelphia made clear to me the health risks that come with introducing thousands of students, with various health care practices, into an already vulnerable Black community so schools can capitalize on tuition, residential life and retail revenues.

How have Trinity College, where you work, and other institutions reacted to your work? What reactions were you expecting?

I think surprising to me, Trinity has actually been quite supportive, providing the seed money for my now very busy Smart Cities Research lab. The broader university reaction to the work reveals the stratified nature of campus communities that defies the caricature of radical snowflakes. Administrators have largely tried to ignore the work or counter with their good projects because they cant contest the research. Many tenured faculty resent that I am broadening the battle beyond faculty concerns with academic freedom, shared governance or simply faculty housing. Junior and contingent faculty and graduate student workers are energized and mobilized as the book came during a vibrant strike wave across campuses. Except for places with unions, campus service workers remain silent in fear of reprisal or find ways to give me the head nod of approval. And most powerfully, community groups have pushed me to convert this research into advocacy because while they live the stories that I tell they say the book confirms their experiences and makes them feel seen and part of a story that is bigger than anecdotes and single campaigns.

So now, through my lab, I am all over the country organizing with groups drafting state policy for property taxation, fighting for affordable housing and just campus labor conditions, working with medical professionals to ensure that university hospitals honor their indigent care mandates, advocating equitable occupancy and use of campus buildings, writing campus histories to push for reparations, drafting new urban citizenship curricula, designing social footprint mapping techniques to assess university wealth and reach. This blending of academic and activist labors has been just as transformative for me as for anyone else and now I see this as the core of my vocation, in the highest sense.

If universities were to take your argument about inequality and exploitations seriously, what are steps that UniverCities can take to address the issues of inequity raised in your book?

Hmmm, I think I have covered much of this in previous questions. But I will give an example that I discuss in the work as an additional example. I was blessed to spend time at the University of Winnipeg in Canada. And there, administrators created a vision of sustainability that included not just the environment but also social, economic and cultural matters for a campus situated in an Indigenous and multi-racial, immigrant community. So, this meant building housing that was not only LEED-certified but also available to both students and community residents with price points ranging from premium rate to rent-geared-to-income without a reduction in quality. Sustainability meant placing the new recreational center under a community charter that guarantees community use of the facilities during peak hours. Sustainability also meant getting rid of one of the food service multinationals, like Aramark or Sodexo, and creating the independent Diversity Foods where 65 percent of workers come from marginalized communities with the push for profit-sharing and 70 percent of supplies come from small family operations within a 100-kilometer radius. Now to be clear, even this model has its limitations as many residents from surrounding neighborhoods still find it hard to gain full access to these resources. In fact, University of Winnipeg professor Jim Silver realized that most Indigenous residents would never come to the main campus. He raised independent money to convert a dangerous boarding house into a learning annex with affordable housing right at the heart of the Indigenous North End community. The point here is that there are no guarantees in any of these projects, but the capacity to organize around a different set of values and the resolve to have those values reflected through the infrastructure of another university it is possible.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

Read the rest here:

Universities Are Plundering Cities. How Can This Relationship Change? - Truthout

Edinburgh council should issue an apology for the citys historic links to slavery and colonialism, a report commissioned in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests has said.

Sir Geoff Palmers report has made 10 recommendations for how the city can address the legacy of slavery and colonialism, including ordering a significant new public artwork.

It says statues, street names and buildings associated with those who profited from the practices should be retained but re-presented in a way that gives a fuller explanation of their consequences.

Sir Geoff was commissioned by the council to chair the review following the Black Lives Matter demonstrations in 2020.

The review group has published its report after working for 18 months.

Next week, councillors will consider how to take forward his recommendations at a meeting of the councils Policy and Sustainability Committee.

According to an action plan drawn up by council officers, from next year Edinburgh will begin observing the International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition every August 23.

The work of re-presenting statues, buildings and street names associated with slavery and colonialism is set to take several years, starting from 2023.

However, the issuing of an apology for Edinburghs past role in the practicesshouldtake place within a year, according to the action plan.

Sir Geoffs report also recommends establishing friendship agreements with cities and countries most impacted by slavery and colonialism.

In his foreword to the report, the Heriot-Watt University emeritus professor said: I was born in Jamaica.

I am descended from slaves and Scots who enslaved them, and there are Scottish names in my family such as Gladstone, Mowatt and Wood.

The baptisms list of chattel slaves belonging to Lord Balcarres in Jamaica 1819, includes the name of my great grandfather.

His name was Henry Larmond. One of my names is Henry.

With so intimate a bond to this legacy, it was a great honour to be invited by the City of Edinburgh Council to chair this independent review and oversee the creation of a set of recommendations addressing Edinburghs slavery and colonialism legacy in the public realm.

Sir Geoff stressed the importance of education in tackling historic racial injustices.

His report said the slave trade had shaped the city but its history had largely been hidden from the public.

It said: Slavery contributed to the flow of wealth into Edinburgh that manifested itself in the elegant construction of the New Town.

Compensation to slave owners was often reinvested in the railway boom.

Statues were erected to honour people whose deeds linked them to perpetuation of slavery or notions of racial superiority.

It noted a number of prominent locations and buildings with links to the slave trade, noting that 74 slave-owning New Town residents received compensation for the loss of their property upon abolition in 1833.

Sir Geoffs report mentions that Bute House, which is now the First Ministers official residence, was historically owned by people who benefitted from the slave trade.

The total cost of the review, which included a community consultation, was 18,500.

Edinburgh council leader Cammy Day said: We commissioned this independent review because we felt it was an important and useful starting point for a wide-ranging public discussion about the modern-day impact of this legacy, and to acknowledge that race-based discrimination has deep roots in our capital.

It still shapes the life experiences of black and minority ethnic residents today, and that is unacceptable.

Racism must be talked about, and action to end it must be supported if it is to be stamped out and we are to be the inclusive and welcoming city that the vast majority of its residents wants and expects it to be.

Original post:

Edinburgh should apologise for role in slavery and colonialism, says academic - STV News

In the early 1990s, Senator Patrick Moynihan campaigned for the abolition of the CIA. The brilliant campaigner thought the US Department of State should take over its intelligence functions. For him, the age of secrecy was over.

In a New York Times opinion piece, Moynihan wrote:

For 30 years the intelligence community systematically misinformed successive presidents as to the size and growth of the Soviet economy Somehow our analysts had internalised a Soviet view of the world.

In the speech introducing his Abolition of the CIA bill in January 1995, Moynihan cited British author John le Carrs scorn for the idea that the CIA had contributed to victory in the cold war against the Soviet Union of Leonid Brezhnev and his successors. The Soviet Empire did not fall apart because the spooks had bugged the mans room in the Kremlin or put broken glass in Mrs Brezhnevs bath, Le Carr had written.

This was one of the CIAs lowest points since its establishment in 1947 (my new book marks the agencys 75th anniversary). It was created with two key goals in mind: thwarting Soviet expansionism, and preventing another surprise attack like that carried out by the Japanese on Pearl Harbour during the second world war. While Moynihans campaign to shut down the CIA did not ultimately prevail, there was certainly a widespread perception that the agency was no longer fit for purpose and should be curtailed.

This story is part of Conversation InsightsThe Insights team generates long-form journalism and is working with academics from different backgrounds who have been engaged in projects to tackle societal and scientific challenges.

Throughout the cold war, many had regarded fighting communism as the CIAs raison dtre. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the agencys role was less clear, and it came under heavy criticism for having distorted intelligence and blatantly pandered to one ideological viewpoint: blind anti-communism. Without the cold war, Moynihan predicted, the CIA would become a kind of retirement programme for a cadre of cold warriors not really needed any longer.

Three decades on, however, Vladimir Putins invasion of Ukraine has put Russias threat to the stability of the world back at the top of the US foreign agenda. With a formidable Kremlinologist now in charge of the CIA and Donald Trump out of the presidential picture (for the moment, at least), the agency might be expected to be an influential player in the US response to this new cold war. But how much does Washington trust the CIA these days and how much influence does it really have on events in Ukraine? To shed light on these questions, we need to go back to the early days of the Ronald Reagan presidency.

As US president from 1981 to 1989, the neoconservative Reagan unleashed the CIA from restrictions that had been imposed on it during the reforming post-Vietnam 1970s.

Like other anti-communists, Reagan saw the agency as a prime weapon in weakening the Soviet Union, which he famously denounced as the evil empire, and preventing the worldwide spread of communism. The new US president was convinced that in opposing an unethical foe, one could not afford to be too scrupulous. He chose as his CIA director Bill Casey, a veteran of intelligence in the second world war a time when it had been gloves off for dirty tricksters.

An outright cold warrior, Casey resuscitated old CIA habits, running covert operations against the left-leaning but democratically elected Sandinista government in Nicaragua from December 1981 to the ceasefire of March 1988. Even the veteran conservative senator Barry Goldwater admitted he was pissed off when, in 1984, the CIA mined Nicaraguas harbours without informing Congress. Accosted with this oversight, the uncompromising Casey replied: The business of Congress is to stay the fuck out of my business.

The CIA worked closely with the Contras, right-wing terrorists who sought to overthrow the Sandinista government. The agency trained these guerrillas in secret camps in adjacent countries and organised munition drops from planes stationed in clandestine bases. In one initiative, a contracted CIA operative wrote a manual for the Contras explaining how to assassinate individuals on ones own side skulls had to be fractured in just the right way and then blame the enemy.

A disapproving US Congress banned these weapons drops and cut off the necessary funds. To get around this, arms were illegally supplied to Iran (then at war with Iraq) via Israel paid for by covert Iranian financial assistance to the Contras. However, fearing the wrath of Congress should this ruse be discovered (as it later was), the Reagan administration bypassed the CIA in administering the Iran-Contra scam. While the president had not lost confidence in the agency, this was a sign that the CIA was becoming increasingly toxic in the eyes of Congress making it too risky to deploy its spooks in the customary manner.

Read more: Venezuela failed raid: US has a history of using mercenaries to undermine other regimes

On the threat posed by the Soviet Union, though, there was far greater accord. CIA director Casey lined up with the secretary of defence, Caspar Weinberger, and the majority of Reagans cabinet in adopting an intransigent stance towards Moscow. They were supported by the CIAs senior Russia expert, Bob Gates, who having gained his PhD in Russian affairs without ever visiting the country, proclaimed that the Soviet Union was an example of oriental despotism.

A keen boy scout in his youth, Gates whether out of conviction or career calculation glued himself to the American flag and offered no challenge to any president who wanted to play up the Moscow menace. Under Reagan, Casey and Gates, the CIA worked tirelessly to undermine the Soviet Union secretly supporting Polands opposition movement Solidarity, and engaging in acts of economic sabotage against the Soviet economy.

Indeed, according to Republican partisans who argued that President Reagan won the cold war (the victory thesis), the US launched its Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI or Star Wars) with the aim of forcing Moscow to respond, thus ruining the Soviet economy and bringing about the collapse of communism. SDI was a multi-billion-dollar space defence system designed to intercept and destroy incoming enemy missiles. According to the victory thesis, Gates exaggerated estimates of Soviet military might were not an instance of unthinking anti-communism but rather, a cunning ploy designed to persuade Congress to fund the Star Wars bluff.

Gates would go on to lead the CIA from 1991-93, the years when Senator Moynihan was campaigning for its abolition. The Senate confirmation hearings that preceded Gates tenure would be the occasion for some bitter denunciations from erstwhile colleagues. Gates later recalled that these charges of 1980s intelligence distortion truly imperilled my confirmation.

Jennifer Lynn Gaudemans, who in 1989 had left the CIAs Office of Soviet Analysis (Sova) in a disillusioned state of mind, accused Gates of seeing Soviet conspiracies around every corner, and of blatantly pandering to one ideological viewpoint.

At the Senate hearings, Gaudemans testified that Sova analysts were deeply upset when Gates suppressed their findings that the Soviet Union was not, in fact, orchestrating mischief in Iran, Libya and Syria. She claimed he had denied them even the opportunity to publish dissenting footnotes. Sova division chiefs were, she said, routinely dismissed for being too soft on issues such as Soviet policy in the developing world, and arms control.

But while the agencys analysts had problems with Gates, more powerful individuals not least, the US secretary of state George Shultz were prepared to listen. Sova-generated data and findings made their way on to the desks of US negotiators.

On November 18 1985, the eve of Reagans summit meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in Geneva, the president and his negotiators received an intelligence assessment to the effect that, while Gorbachev was repairing the economic damage of the Brezhnev era, he would not meet his growth targets. Because of this and the acute nationalist discontent in Poland, CIA analysts told Reagan that Gorbachev was ready to deal with the US.

Through such insights, the agency played an important role in ending the old cold war, culminating in the dissolution of the Soviet Union on Christmas Day, 1991. But in the process, it also unwittingly contributed to the idea that the CIA might no longer be needed by the now-globally dominant US.

A decade later, the USs confident post-cold war demeanour changed at a stroke when two hijacked planes flew into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. And the CIA would be the fall guy.

The attack masterminded by Osama bin Laden glaringly exposed the CIAs inability to uphold its founding mission of preventing another Pearl Harbour-style attack on the US. Under renewed pressure to justify its existence, the agency succumbed to the demands of the George W Bush administration in the war on terror that arose from the ashes of 9/11.

As the US government desperately sought a rationale for invading Iraq, a deal was struck. Senior leaders of the agency may squirm at the charge, but the CIA supplied intelligence to please in exchange for the right to survive. Its leadership endorsed the mythical charge that Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction (WMD). And when the ensuing war was a disaster, the CIA took the hit for having delivered that faulty intelligence.

Even in the early days of the Iraq war, however, the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 had already stripped the agency of its central role in evaluating intelligence, handing the job to a new and independent director of national intelligence, John Negroponte.

With the role of the CIA thus diminished, the US intelligence community became an unresolved puzzle. Demoralised CIA personnel threw up their hands in despair. CIA veteran Art Hulnick, now teaching intelligence studies at Boston University, was at a loss to explain to his students the new arrangements for analysing intelligence. Hulnick complained of an overreaction to what he termed the threat du jour.

Resources were being poured into the huge and unwieldy Department of Homeland Security; the Department of Defence was poaching assets from the CIA; and the agency had even lost its monopoly on preparing the presidents daily briefing (the first item on the presidents desk each morning, memorably described by Michelle Obama as the death, destruction and horrible things book.)

By the mid-2000s, intelligence work was being heavily outsourced to private businesses in accordance with the ideology of the George W Bush administration. Private recruiters such as Blackwater were appearing at the CIA HQs cafeteria in Langley, Virginia, hiring personnel with promises of big salary increases before sometimes subcontracting them back to the agency at inflated rates.

The CIA had never been a fainting lily but now, in the interests of its own survival, its directors agreed to engage in unsavoury practices including torture, illegal kidnapping, and execution-by-drone without trial. Waterboarding, whereby water is poured over a cloth on the victims face to produce a sensation of drowning, was a common practice in the agencys dark sites secret interrogation centres in Poland, Egypt and other countries around the world where kidnapped suspects were held.

Read more: Senate CIA torture report release: expert reaction

Investigative journalism and persistently curious congressional committees are staples of American democracy, and these dubious practices were bound to come to light with the aid of whistleblowers such as Edward Snowden. Snowden had worked for the CIA as a highly regarded computer security expert before moving to a private subcontractor engaged by the US foreign signals intelligence organisation, the National Security Agency (NSA).

In 2013, Snowden leaked numerous files to the Guardian and Washington Post before fleeing to Russia in order to evade rendition by the CIA. His revelations about US internal surveillance practices infuriated the guardians of Americas secrets, and fed the fears of those who deplored the use of dirty tricks abroad and the development of a secret state at home. Snowden was accused of having revealed the identities of CIA personnel on active duty to the possible detriment of their safety a form of treason (should it be proved) that was a deeply sensitive matter within CIA headquarters. It was fortunate for the agency, though, that the main thrust of Snowdens revelations was about the NSAs role in global surveillance.

By 2007, while the Iraq war grew mired, the Bush administration was talking loudly about another familiar Middle Eastern foe: Iran.

In 1953, the CIA had conspired to overthrow the countrys democratically elected but mildly leftist government headed by Mohammad Mossadegh. There followed a period of despotic royal rule by the last shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. His overthrow in 1979 saw a period of priestly mullah rule and of alienation, mitigated only briefly by the Iran-Contra deal.

While the Iraq war continued, the US shared the concerns of Israel, its fellow nuclear power and Irans regional rival, that Tehran was developing the wherewithal to produce an atomic bomb. The hawks in the Bush administration issued strident warnings on the subject, but had to contend with a rising force in the intelligence community: the US National Intelligence Council (also known as Nick).

Read more: US and Iran have a long, troubled history

By this time, Nick was generating national security estimates that informed US security and foreign policy. While it traced its origins to pre-CIA days, once the agency was founded Nick became reliant on the data and analysis it provided an arrangement that increasingly caused resentment on the part of state department officials.

After 2004, however, things changed: Nick could now call in other experts to help formulate its analyses and conclusions. And in 2007, Nick determined that Iran, contrary to claims made by the vociferous hawks in the Bush administration, was not developing nuclear weapons. This was an outstanding example of intelligence to displease of speaking truth to power. The CIA was still supplying Nick with data and with some skilled analysts. But according to Thomas Fingar, who presided over Nick at the time of the 2007 Iran estimate, CIA groupthink no longer prevailed.

As Nick drew on a wider base of experts, it could not be accused, as the CIA had been, of gnawing at the same bone over and over again. Fingars colleagues backed his firm stance on Iran. Overcompliance was avoided in a manner that had not been possible in earlier cases such as the WMD scandal, when the CIA had enjoyed unalloyed supremacy.

Perhaps because of this, many CIA analysts appear to have been at ease with the new arrangement a point stressed by Peter A Clement, who was in charge of Russian analysis at the point of transition to the new system. Elsewhere in the intelligence bureaucracy, however, there was discontent. The CIAs counterterrorism units absorption into a new National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) elicited this comment from former agency employee and sociologist Bridget Rose Nolan:

There is a general sense that NCTC was almost a knee-jerk reaction to 9/11 a way for the government to treat the symptoms, but not the cause, of the perceived problem.

Compared with others within the agency, the CIAs analysts could think themselves fortunate. Though some of them had transitioned to other units, their own team of Russian experts remained intact and unrivalled within the US intelligence community.

Perhaps surprisingly, the CIAs fortunes really began to revive with the election of Donald Trump as the 45th US president on November 8, 2016.

At first glance, Trumps election looked like more bad news for the CIA. In keeping with its mission, the agency was alert to any threat to American interests and security posed by the Kremlin. Trump, on the other hand, was keen to achieve an era of renewed Russian-American friendship an ambition fuelled by his appetite for deal-making, his acquaintance with Russias president Vladimir Putin, and perhaps even his ambitions to make a memorable contribution to world peace.

The indications were that Trump, once in office, would not wish to bolster the role played by the ever-suspicious CIA in Russo-American relations. Yet in the immediate aftermath of his election, the outgoing Barack Obama administration effected a policy shift which saw a significant strengthening of the CIAs Russia capability. This shift arose from the specific circumstance of Russias interference in the 2016 election but in the process, promised a wider and timely refocusing of the US intelligence effort.

In the words of the subsequent US Senate inquiry, a St Petersburg entity called the Internet Research Agency had sought to influence the 2016 US presidential election by harming Hillary Clintons chances of success and supporting Donald Trump at the direction of the Kremlin. It was an attempt to subvert American democracy, and the ease with which the Russians obtained Clintons confidential emails confirmed there was a wider threat to national security.

Trump gave the CIA little support during his presidency (2017-2021) and treated its personnel with contempt. He accused the agency of being elitist and of conspiring against him in the 2016 election. He dispensed with the daily intelligence briefing to which the CIA still contributed, telling Fox News: You know, Im, like, a smart person I dont have to be told the same thing and the same words every single day for the next eight years.

Read more: Donald Trump's fight with his own intelligence services will only get worse

But President Obamas boost to Kremlinology has endured beyond the Trump presidency, and now looks fortuitous in light of current circumstances. Experts on the Kremlin need informers-in-place, and they are scarce assets.

We know, for example, that the CIA had to exfiltrate a key Kremlin mole in 2016, in case they were identified as the source of the agencys information on Russian smear tactics against Hillary Clinton. The mole had alerted the agency that in June 2016, Russian cyberwarfare personnel had released thousands of hacked emails from Clintons Democratic campaign and from the computers of the Democratic National Committee. Time will tell what else this mole was telling the CIA about Kremlin tactics and intentions, up until their hasty departure from Russia.

In 2021, newly elected US president Joe Biden nominated his longstanding friend William J Burns as the CIAs new director. Unlike some of his recent predecessors, Burns was no pushover.

When Biden declared his intention of continuing the Trump policy of withdrawing US forces from Afghanistan, Burns made it known he was unhappy with the intelligence implications. The Taliban who took over in the wake of American withdrawal had a history of shielding terrorists. So when the CIA pinpointed the location in Kabul of Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, leading to his assassination by a drone-dispatched Stinger missile on July 31 2022, the event satisfied both men even if it smacked of gunslinger diplomacy.

But the new CIA director also brings more subtle skills to the role. Crucially, Burns has many years experience of Russo-American relations, making him exceptionally well qualified to help shape Americas response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Certainly, he is a very different character from Casey, his predecessor from the Reagan era. Burns is a formidable Kremlinologist with an impressive negotiating pedigree. His father, Major-General William F Burns, engaged in arms control negotiations and, in the final year of the Reagan administration, was director of the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency.

The younger William Burns served in the Moscow embassy in the 1990s and as US ambassador to Russia from 2005 to 2008, describing it as his dream job. During that period of engagement with Moscow, he repeatedly warned that Nato expansion was anathema to Putin, a leader who back then appeared potentially open to an accommodation with the US.

Burns was capable of empathising with Moscow while appreciating its threat to mankind. He was a devotee of behind-the-scenes diplomacy well before he became CIA director (the title of his 2021 autobiographical study of modern US diplomacy is The Back Channel). According to the Hoar Amendment adopted by the US Senate in 1893, secret agents are not supposed to engage in official diplomacy, but it is a rule that has been much honoured in the breach. As ambassador to Russia, Burns reached agreement with the Kremlin on how to inhibit nuclear-weapon proliferation but he was under no illusions about Putin.

Burns had accompanied Biden, then the US vice-president, on a mission to Moscow to discuss instability in Libya at the time of the Arab Spring in 2011. In his memoir, Burns wrote that Russias then-president, Dmitri Medvedev, was a reasonable man who cared about humanitarian issues and admired President Obama. In contrast, Putin was dyspeptic about American policy in the Middle East especially when it aimed at toppling autocrats.

Read more: Ukraine war: what are Russia's strategic aims and how effectively are they achieving them?

In November 2021, Burns led a discreet delegation to Moscow that signalled, according to the New York Times, heightened engagement between two global adversaries. On this occasion he met Putins adviser Nikolai Patrushev. Their conversation ranged over nuclear disarmament, cyberspace rivalry, Russians hacking activities and climate policy, as well as problems of mutual interest affecting Iran, North Korea and Afghanistan.

Burns efforts did not, however, signify CIA complacency over Russian intentions regarding Ukraine. Together with British intelligence (but meeting with incredulity elsewhere in Europe, except for Scandinavia), the agencys Kremlinologists were convinced that Putin intended to invade Russias neighbour.

Burns is under no illusion about the threat posed by the Russian leader. Having previously likened him to the Romanov czars, he has warned that Putin may resort to using nuclear weapons. When Russias president retaliated against western sanctions by issuing travel bans on selected individuals, Burns was on his list.

From Putins perspective, the US and its CIA preach civilised values but do not observe them. He wrote in 2012 that they had spent decades upholding dictatorships in Latin America, regimes that routinely tortured to death thousands of their own citizens. To Putin, it was all part of a pattern:

The development of the American continent began with large-scale ethnic cleansing that has no equal in the history of mankind. The indigenous people were destroyed. After that [came] slavery That remains until now in the souls and hearts of the people.

The CIA is doubtless operating within Russia, but autocracies are difficult to penetrate and the agency does not have a great record of success in this regard. The extent of its covert actions will likely also be limited because the US remains reluctant to risk being seen as directly involved in the conflict.

While US armed forces are responsible for passing on military intelligence such as that which enabled the sinking of Russias flagship the Moskva, the New York Times reported in June 2022 that CIA personnel were directing much of the vast amounts of intelligence the US is sharing with Ukrainian forces. Though few other concrete details have emerged, the report stated that the CIAs presence hints at the scale of the secretive effort to assist Ukraine.

If precedents are a guide, the CIA will be engaged in intelligence gathering and dissemination as well as black propaganda psychological warfare aimed at Russians, Belarusians, Ukrainians and the wider world. Through undeclared strategies including the secret funding of both Ukrainian and international front organisations, it will attempt to bend world opinion to favour the Ukrainian cause and isolate the Russians.

But there is also no reason why Burns cannot revive back channel diplomacy, should the opportunity arise. Whether or not undertaken by the CIA, diplomatic engagement with Russia depends on good intelligence on both sides. It is reliant on Putin getting reliable analysis from his own people, and being prepared to act in light of that analysis.

In early February 2022, Russias Federal Security Service (FSB) collected opinion data in Ukraine which found that 40% of those polled would not fight to defend their country. Peter Clement, who worked for the CIA until 2017, observed to me that Putin and his advisers should have noted this meant that 60% were either willing to fight or undecided. The Russian leadership paid insufficient heed to such analysis.

How strong is the CIAs team of Russian analysts today? Hundreds of analysts were recruited after 9/11, largely in response to Muslim radicalism Hulnicks threat du jour. Yet the agencys Russian affairs division suffered a relative setback.

It was obliged to ask for volunteers among its analysts to quit Kremlinology and work instead on counterterrorism. According to a senior official who oversaw these sensitive changes, an effort was made to hang on to linguistic and area specialists, but the division had to give up gifted individuals who had transferable skills.

A reorganisation of the CIA in 2015 led to the formation of a Directorate for Digital Innovation, which gave the agency potentially greater capability of assessing Moscows disinformation via social media. This was on the initiative of John Brennan, President Obamas admired pick to lead the CIA from 2013 to 2017. But for civil liberties reasons, the 1947 National Security Act which established the CIA also banned the agency from operating domestically. So it is still not capable of tracking Moscows use of US-based, but Russian-controlled, digital media sources in stirring up divisions in American society.

Read more: Revealed: untold story of the CIA/Stasi double agent abandoned after 22 years of service

Nonetheless, the standing of the agencys Kremlinologists received a boost under Obama and have again under Biden. Meanwhile the distractions of recent decades such as the debate over torture are receding. We still get periodic reminders of CIA ruthlessness, such as the recent assassination without trial of al-Qaedas al-Zawahri. But the leadership of CIA directors Brennan and Burns has set the agency on a path that bodes well for its role in seeking a resolution to the current Ukraine crisis.

The CIA, being the instrument of a democracy, is a broad church and there will always be conflicting voices. One senior source tells me the agency opposed the expansion of Nato that Moscow finds so abhorrent. Another, a veteran of Reagans Office of Soviet Analysis, insists its Kremlinologists are too apolitical for that kind of judgement to be upheld and does not believe todays analysts will be able to contribute to intelligence successes such as those achieved during the 1980s cold war era.

But these competing views reflect a healthy struggle within the CIA to get at the truth. While the agency still has vocal critics and always will do, no one is calling for its dissolution today.

Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones new book, A Question of Standing: The History of the CIA, is published by Oxford University Press.

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Radical gender theory has made sudden inroads in Americas schools. Many parents have watched in confusion as their children repeat the movements slogans and adopt synthetic sexual identities such as non-binary, pansexual, and genderqueer. The next question for many families is: Where does this surge in left-wing sexual ideology come from? One answer: from a network of professional activists, who have smuggled university-style gender theory into more than 4,000 schools under the cover of gender and sexuality clubs, or GSAs.

The main national organization behind this campaign, the GSA Network, is a professionally staffed nonprofit with a multimillion-dollar annual budget. GSA Network serves as an umbrella organization for more than 4,000 gender and sexuality alliances across 40 states. Once called the Gay-Straight Alliance Network, the group rebranded in 2016, reflecting a new focus on the limits of a binary gender system. The individual chapters, which operate in elementary, middle, and high schools, often use the language of LGBTQ inclusion and anti-bullying in their public relations, but behind the scenes, the central organization is driven by pure left-wing radicalism that extends far beyond sexuality.

According to the organizations publicly accessible materials and administrative documents, the GSA Networks ideology follows the basic framework of radical gender theory: white European men created an oppressive system based on capitalism, white supremacy, and heteronormativitythat is, the promotion of heterosexuality, the male-female binary, and bourgeois family norms. In order to fight back, racial and sexual minorities must unite under the banner of intersectionality and dismantle the interlocking systems of oppression.

The GSA Network isnt subtle about its political objectives. In a manifesto, the organization endorses calls for the abolition of the police, the abolition of borders and ICE, the payment of reparations to minorities, the decolonization of native lands, the end of global white supremacy, and the overthrow of the cisgender heterosexual patriarchy. The organization is also explicitly anti-capitalist: its literature is littered with references to anti-capitalism and, during one board meeting, its leaders fantasized about what life would be like after capitalism falls.

SAN DIEGO SCHOOLS WANT TO DITCH GENDER BINARY THEY CLAIM DOMINATES RACIAL, SEXUAL MINORITIES

The specific practices of the GSA Network and its affiliates rely on cult-like programming techniques. A toolkit instructs children recruited into the clubs to do the self work of analyzing how [their] actions, lack of actions or privileges contribute to the ongoing marginalization of the oppressed.

After establishing a baseline of identity-based guilt, the children identify their position on the intersectional hierarchy and categorize themselves as part of groups w/ systemic power (privilege) or groups w/ less or no systemic power (oppressed) along the axes of race, sex, gender, and national origin. Straight, white, cisgender male citizens are deemed the ultimate oppressor; gay, black, trans women immigrants are the ultimate oppressed.

Next, children are encouraged to atone for their privileges and perform acts of penance. Doing the self and collective work to analyze how we contribute to the oppression of Trans, Queer, Non-binary / Gender Non-Conforming, Black, Indigenous, youth of color is tough, but we must commit to dismantling these systems for collective liberation, the organization says. Specifically, the adults leading the clubs are instructed to tell the privileged children that they must implement the use of pronouns, offer a land acknowledgment, listen to the Trans community, center conversations around Black liberation, and use your privilege (and your physical and monetary resources) to support Trans, Queer, Non-binary / Gender Non-Conforming, Black, Indigenous people of color, issues, businesses, and projects.

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All this activity, the group believes, is best kept secret from parents. The GSA Network tells the adult club advisors that they should keep a childs involvement in the club confidential. Know the laws in your state around students privacy rights and what you do and dont have to tell parents/ guardians/families, the organization says in its official handbook. When calling youth, it may not be safe to mention GSA club or another trans or queer reference.

Alternatively, club leaders can say they are from a student leadership program. In many school districts, teachers not only can encourage a childs participation in a gender and sexuality club without notifying parents but can also facilitate a childs gender or sexual transition, including the adoption of a new name and set of pronouns, with the default policy requiring teachers to keep it a secret from that childs family.

This strategy of the gender and sexuality clubs is deeply cynical. As independent journalists Colin Wright and Christina Buttons have documented, many teachers who serve as adult advisors to these clubs are intentionally concealing the sexual and political nature of their activities from parents, deliberately misleading families with vague language about acceptance, tolerance, diversity, and identity.

This might work in the short term, but in the long term, they are playing with fire. School districts that allow adult employees to discuss sexuality with children secretly are creating a dangerous system that could easily be exploited by child predators. Clinical psychologists are already raising the alarm, warning that some of these practices resemble the tactics of such predators.

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One solution for this problem is total transparency and the restoration of parental authority. Schools should adopt policies that parents must be notified about their childrens participation in curricular and extracurricular activities involving sex, gender, and sexuality, with the default being that parents are required to opt in explicitly to any such programs. Furthermore, as Governor Ron DeSantis has done in Florida, state legislatures should ban all instruction on sex, gender, and sexuality in at least kindergarten through third grade. Beyond that, schools should be required to post all training and teaching materials on their websites so that parents can easily review all curriculum and documentation associated with gender and sexuality programs.

Parents should not be fooled: this isnt about tolerance and inclusion. Its about adult activists using the goodwill surrounding gay and lesbian social movements as cover for advancing extreme left-wing ideologies and turning children into shock troops for their gender revolution. Its manipulative, its abusive, and it must be stopped.

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It was a cheerful moment at Vine Heritage Home (VHH) in Kuje community, Abuja when 5-years-old, Kingsley Kabenda who was rescued and fostered by the home due to cultural beliefs (infanticide) reunited with his family.

Kingsley was termed as an evil child in his community following the death of his mother during child bearing in 2018.

The reunion was witnessed by ActionAid Nigeria (AAN) and other partners.

Kingsleys father, Mr Irimiya Sunday Kabenda who couldnt hold his excitement said he came to pick his child from the home because he wants to give him the fatherly care that he needed.

Mr Irimiya explained Kingsleys mother died while giving birth him and he was brought to the home.

He lauded VHH, ActionAid Nigeria and others who took care of his child assuring that he will ensure that Kingsley will be well taken care of .

The Project Coordinator, Mobilizing Actions Towards the Abolition of Infanticide (MATAI) and Programme Advisor, ActionAid Nigeria, Ubong Tommy explained that the objectives of the project is to ensure the implementation and monitoring of existing legal and policy frameworks addresses infanticide practices in the FCT.

He said others are to raise awareness in the FCT on infanticide practices, especially among practising

communities and to establish mechanisms to safeguard unborn babies and infants who are vulnerable.

Through the initiatives, he said AAN co-funded the project with the European Union (EU) with funds from MATAI reached out to community leaders, birth attendants, caregivers, media organisations, as well as various government establishments such as the National Assembly, FCT Social Development Secretariat, Child Rights Implementation Committees, and National Population Commission.

ActionAid Nigeria through the MATAI project has since 2019 been working with five area councils (Abaji, AMAC, Gwagwalada, Kuje and Kwali) to mobilize individuals, communities and stakeholders to abolish the practice of infanticide in communities of the FCT.

The MATAI intervention has led to change in communities which used to reject their twins and other multiple birthed children. Many of these previously ostracized children have begun to be reunited with their families and communities.

On monitoring of children who have been reunited with their families, Tommy said they carry out regular monitoring of children by taking certain vital data and use it to regularly monitor the welfare of the children.

He also said they do follow ups and ensure the welfare of the children who have returned back to their communities adding that they created linkages between various communities and the area councils.

We are also part of those linkages to ensure that we receive feedback as we can on the welfare of the children, he said.

Also, the Head of Operation, VHH, Pastor Stephen Olusola explained that they started their missionary work in the late 90s and discovered that there are group of people in the FCT, which are the Bassa-Komo tribe, where the lives of children are still in danger due to cultural beliefs.

He further explained that five cultural practices were discovered as missionaries among the people, which include multiple births not acceptable, children who lost their mothers during birth are believed to be witches and wizards, children born with albinism are not allowed to live, children who grew the upper teeth first are meant to be evil, children who are born with deformities are also believed to have demonic manipulation on them and so they dont allow them to live adding that the practices cover five Area Councils of FCT out of six.

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Which think tanks are winning big as Team Truss marches on?

Meaty comms gig going at the CBI as a top spinner moves on.

European consultancy Rud Pedersen has big things planned for London.

IN THE TANK FOR TRUSS: Look, were not saying politicians arent incredible policy brains, but we have a sneaking suspicion they dont come up with all these killer ideas themselves.

And so: With a bit of help from agency Public Firsts handy Tory campaign policy tracker, we decided to treat ourselves to a proper look at the major Truss policies to see which think tanks are making a splash as she eyes No. 10.

What jumps out: It feels like a very good campaign if youre working at the Institute of Economic Affairs, the Centre for Policy Studies, or the Adam Smith Institute. A free-market fellow traveler, Truss has long had ties to the IEA in particular, and is a parliamentary member of its Free Market Forum. But there are a fair few ideas shamelessly ripped o sorry, gently inspired by, a wider crop of think tanks too.

Its the economy stupid: First up, Truss headline economic promises are very much in line with tax-cutting calls from the IEA, CPS and ASI. Each has pushed for the Sunak-era rise in national insurance to be reversed, as well as for the planned hike in corporation tax to be junked.

Bank of England mandate: With inflation soaring, Truss grabbed attention with her call to a review the mandate agreed between the government and the Bank of England something pitched by Policy Exchanges Gerard Lyons and the IEAs Andrew Lilico.

Death and taxes: Trusss vow to review inheritance tax whatever that actually means will be music to the ears of the IEA, which has branded the death levy nonsensical and called for its abolition. The ASIs not exactly a big IHT fan either, while center-right Bright Blue just wrapped up a massive piece of work on tax reform which hit out at the current design of IHT.

Wait, theres even more hot tax action: A fair few think tanks can also lay claim to Truss big vow to review the way families are taxed. In case you missed it, shes floated the idea of helping stay-at-home parents and carers by allowing them to transfer their entire tax-free allowance to a partner.

Onward and upwards: Onward, the centre-right policy shop run by former Theresa May adviser Will Tanner, did some serious thinking late last year on exactly this, arguing it would reduce cost of living pressures on families, broaden the base of beneficiaries and further strengthen the institution of the family. Fellow centre-right think tank Bright Blue has called for that transferable tax allowance to be open to all couples with young children, not just those who are married something Truss is on board with. And Policy Exchange made its own big push for a family taxation shake-up earlier this year.

The kids are alright: As well as being the ultimate act of revenge upon Nick Clegg, Trusss promise to relax staff-to-kid ratios in childcare is also an idea strongly championed by the ASI in a report that now looks very much like a mini-Truss manifesto. The CPS has made a similar plea, warning that current ratios are responsible for driving up staffing costs for nurseries, and so piling the pain on parents.

My ports are freer than yours: Truss and rival Rishi Sunak had a bit of a bust-up over who loves freeports the low-tax, regulation-reducing port zones meant to spur growth the most. Truss is going all in on full-fat investment zones, which sound remarkably like the CPS 2019 Opportunity Zones, meant to target neglected parts of the U.K. with simplified or reduced taxes.

Frack to the future: Trusss pledge to allow fracking where local communities support it has a very big caveat attached, but its as pro-fracking as someone No. 10-adjacent has sounded in quite some time. The ASIs been among those calling for an end to the moratorium on the controversial fossil fuel extraction method, while the IEAs gone a bit late-era Rishi, declaring that the the moral and economic choice is to frack amid the current energy crisis.

When the levies break: Moving green levies off energy bills and into general taxes in a bid to provide some relief from the soaring cost of, er, everything is another Truss crowd-pleaser. The CPS called for exactly that back in May.

Solvency abuse: Now were getting to the real party chat. Trusss promise to reform Solvency II banking rules inherited from the EU may sound obscure, but its a big deal in the City and a long-standing gripe of the IEA, which reckons the rules distort the insurance market and deter useful investment. The CPS, meanwhile, pressed for Solvency II reform earlier this year in a report pitched at making the U.K. a more attractive investment prospect and Policy Exchanges Lyons has also been banging the drum for change.

IEA hearts Stalinism: Its not all a love-in between Truss and Tufton Street, though. The Conservative contender made waves with a promise to ditch Whitehall-inspired Stalinist housing targets. But the IEAs Kristian Niemietz, not exactly known for his love of Uncle Joe, reckons government targets are actually a lesser evil in the face of the NIMBYism that has a stronghold on new supply. The IEA also had a right old pop at Truss for promising to outlaw cat-calling.

Gone but not forgotten: What about that brief Truss brainwave to introduce regional pay boards in the civil service? Its actually an idea thats been doing the rounds in think tank land for a while, with Alison Wolf arguing way back in 2010 for Centre Forum that Englands use of highly centralised pay-setting policies for most of its public services has major and negative consequences. Then-Policy Exchange wonks Ed Holmes and Matthew Oakley also warned in 2012 that national pay bargaining damages local growth and makes it harder for the public sector to recruit staff. The idea cropped up yet again in recent research by the TaxPayers Alliance, before being unceremoniously dumped by the Truss campaign barely 24 hours after being unveiled.

Look how shes grown: Truss was once a wonk herself, of course, serving as the deputy director of think tank Reform by her early thirties before getting into parliament and pretty swiftly storming into a ministerial post. Influences achievements by our mid-30s include eating a sandwich and buying, but then losing, several pens.

MISTRY JETS OFF: Senior move afoot at CBI towers the business groups head of news Mark Mistry is off to join spending watchdog the National Audit Office after an eight-year spinning stint, opening up a big gig in lobbying comms.

Its been eventful: Working at the CBI during four PMs, five chancellors, countless meaningful votes post EU referendum, a global pandemic, war in Ukraine and now the resulting economic crisis has been truly fascinating, and a genuine privilege, he tells Influence. I am still astounded by the sheer resilience of businesses the vast majority really are a force for good.

Best of times? Mistry picks working with the Treasury comms team to promote the COVID-19 furlough scheme, a joint effort between the CBI, government and the Trades Union Congress, as a CBI high.

Worst of times? Stepping in as security during the 2015 CBI annual conference, he says. Still, he outlasted that Cameron bloke in the end Mistry will be leaving the CBI in October.

All of which means: Theres now a sizeable job going at the CBI. Might any soon-to-be-unemployed SpAds fancy a punt?

CALLING ALL DORKS: Stack Data Strategy home to Red Wall inventor and graphs fan James Kanagasooriam is teaming up with Women in Political Data for an event next week aimed, according to organiser Jade Azim, at the dorky women in your life. Its the latest bid by Azim, a former Labour aide now at Purpose Union, to help women build their political data, polling and research skills and so level the playing field. You can sign up here.

SUGARMAN GETS SPICY: Apart from that thoroughly reassuring Liz Truss suggestion that government ethics advisers arent really necessary, there has been surprisingly little chat in this leadership contest about cleaning up politics. Max Sugarman, Chair of the CIPRs Public Affairs Group, reckons thats a mistake and hes got five ideas for change, including our old pal more lobbying transparency.

TIKTOKS COMMONS HIRING SPREE: Controversial social media giant TikTok has been tapping up plenty of ex-parliamentary staffers as it builds its U.K. team, the sharp-eyed Beijing to Britain newsletter clocked.

CONTRACTS WATCH: Departments have already spent more than 85 million lawyering up for the COVID-19 inquiry, my top colleague Emilio Casalicchio spotted And Whitehall coughed up 3.25 billion on consultancy fees in the past five years alone, according to Lib Dem number-crunchers (no, thankfully not the bar chart ones.)

WHAT FOI WAS MADE FOR: Hey, heres that FOI-derived lo-fi hip hop edit of every Scottish rail announcement you ordered.

MEET RUD PEDERSEN: European public affairs giant Rud Pedersen is betting big on London, and hoping to bridge some of the cross-Channel gaps it believes its nationally-focused rivals cant. Influence grabbed some time with its top brass.

Potted history: RP, named after its founder and CEO Morten Rud Pedersen, started life in Sweden in 2002. Its spent the past two decades spreading out across the continent, expanding into Stockholm, Copenhagen, Oslo, Helsinki, Brussels, Tallinn, Berlin and Vilnius among others.

The London look: Its been up and running in London since March, steadily stacking up hires (and on the hunt for a fair few more). Among those on board, Rud Pedersen tapped up Jon Aarons, former CIPR president and an FTI Consulting veteran, as group director and managing partner in the U.K., with Finsbury stalwart Hugo Fitzgerald coming in from Hawthorn Advisers to head up public affairs. It poached comms whizz Katie Frank of the Northern Research Group of Tory MPs as associate director earlier this year.

So why now? Pedersen tells Influence the London expansion has been on the cards for a while, as part of a 2023 Plan to definitively bust out of Scandinavia and establish a footprint in all the important capitals in Europe (Madrid and Rome are the next big targets). London is, of course, a pretty crowded field for consultancies, but the founder is confident in what Rud Pedersen can offer, saying its now been tested in 12 other European countries. He stresses its cross-Channel perspective as a key selling point. If you want to connect with issues or campaigns which will take you outside of the U.K. then we are one of only players who can do that, he says. Hes vowing to grow as fast as we can in London, with some of the 500 clients it has on the books in Europe already tapping up the team over here for British political insight.

Plenty to get stuck into: Not least of all the B word. Pedersen says that while Brexit is now a political fact, its not always easy for businesses to work with, and he likens RPs role to that of a firefighter patrolling and running after Brexit and trying to fix things. He adds: There is enormous work to be done in making business work in Europe both British business in mainland Europe and European business in Britain. Keeping track of diverging regulation is, as many public affairs agencies are finding, pretty good for business.

Normal one: RP hasnt exactly picked a quiet time to expand into London, of course, and the tumultuous past few months have given the team plenty to be getting on with. Fitzgerald says theres a huge amount of interest in whats happening in the U.K. at the moment from global clients, who are keen to know what all the Conservative drama means for the countrys policy direction and investment climate. There are culture shocks, too. We had one or two international clients who just couldnt understand the furor around the parties earlier in the year, Fitzgerald says, of the scandal that helped bring down Boris Johnson. Part of the London teams role is to explain to them and educate them about the U.K. system, he says, including the big role gossip and intrigue plays in Westminster life.

Aint no party like a cross-party party: With the polls suggesting a rough time for the Tories ahead, Fitzgerald says clients are also keen to know what Labour and the Lib Dems are offering, and tells us hes trying to build a shop with a balance of people from different parties, as well as a good mix of skills. Pedersen says hes long been guided by the principle that, when it comes to political affiliation, RP is not a red consultancy with one blue elephant, or a blue consultancy with a red elephant, but instead a mix of people who can bounce ideas off each other and run a fantastic machine.

Fighting talk: Asked straight-up whether there are any agencies in London keeping him up at night, Pedersen says no without missing a beat. He wants to take on the big players here in small bites, but is clearly thinking big. The plan for the rest of Europe, in the countries where we are established, was to be among the five biggest, he says. I understand that is quite a big ambition to have in London, at least in the short term, so I would say that the most important [thing] for the moment is to grow, to do good work for our clients and to keep our culture intact internally. And then well be very aggressive.

Go on, convince us its not true.

Former Conservative special adviser and ex-party comms director Amy Fisher is joining WA Communications as a director. Fisher served as a SpAd in the Northern Ireland Office, Home Office, Ministry of Justice and Defra and shes also a former director of comms at Policy Exchange.

George Robinson is the new head of government affairs at mobile provider Three, joining from Trainline.

Katy Reade has been promoted to policy and advocacy manager at charity Hospice UK.

Philip Baker is joining the Energy Networks Association as media relations manager.

David Ahluwalia is leaving the Nursing and Midwifery Council to join the Care Quality Commission as parliamentary and stakeholder engagement manager.

Tom Riley joined Pagefield as a senior consultant after a spell at Teneo.

Alex Rowlands is joining political monitoring firm PoliMonitor in the newly-created position of head of growth. Hes previously worked for Vuelio and Hindsight.

Callum Delhoy is joining the Charterted Institute of Insurers as public policy advisor after a spell in the public affairs campaigns team at the Recruitment and Employment Confederation.

Mike Morgan-Giles ex-head of comms at the Education and Training Foundation is the first CEO of the Cannabis Industry Council.

ICYMI: Westminster Public affairs agencies Atticus Communications and Atlas Partners are teaming up to become: Atticus Partners. The combined client list includes Facebook parent company Meta, MoneySuperMarket and WWF. Snazzy new website here. Atticus just appointed Patrick Adams formerly of Sovereign Strategy and PLMR as a consultant, alongside Alex Tiley, ex-of the YMCA, the Scouts and Dods.

Jobs, jobs, jobs: Inflect Partners are searching for a communications account manager Oxfam are after a U.K. government relations adviser Beefy policy gig going at the International Meat Trade Association Eating disorder charity Beat is searching for a policy and public affairs officer Things will only get better if you become Tony Blairs net-zero policy lead.

Events horizon: Top brains at the Resolution Foundation size up the income squeeze to come in an event taking place next Thursday at 9:30 a.m. before Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi lays out his list of economic wishes for the PM at Policy Exchange the following day at 2 p.m. RUSI then digs into the security implications of net-zero, Thursday, 8th September at 3 p.m. and NextGen Public Affairs try to brace you for conference season, Friday, September 9th at 12 p.m.

Thanks: Imagine this newsletter but even longer and much worse. Thats the harsh reality confronting my editor Jack Blanchard every single week.

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Original post:

London Influence: In the tank for Liz Man of Mistry Meet Rud Pedersen - POLITICO Europe

Date: 25.08.2022

NatRoad will today tell a ministerial meeting how best to fix the driver shortage present in the industry

NatRoad says it is focusing on driver retention at this ministerial meeting

The National Road Transport Association (NatRoad) says it will tell a ministerial industry roundtable in Sydney today that the driver shortage needs to be tackled on a number of fronts.

Federal Transport Minister Catherine King is leading the roundtable to discuss road transport views on skills shortages, regulatory roadblocks and what needs to occur to assist the move to net zero.

It is a forerunner to the Jobs Summit being convened by the Prime Minister on September 1 and 2.

"Well tell the meeting that the current shortage of qualified drivers is one of the road transport industrys most pressing problems not only in terms of quantity but also in quality," says NatRoad CEO Warren Clark.

"Its most acute in regional areas, is intensifying and isnt limited to drivers, with diesel mechanics in even shorter supply."

Clark says NatRoad supports the use of skilled migration to tackle shortages in the labour market in the short term, but accompanied by testing of those skills in Australian conditions prior to licensing.

"Its been a goal for us for truck licensing not only to be harmonised across all states and territories but better aligned with the training system," Clark says.

NatRoad says it supports fast-tracking an apprenticeship for heavy vehicle drivers.

"Requiring more competence at the initial stages of recruitment will add value rather than act as a barrier to more young people joining the industry," Clark says.

"The Commonwealth has put an apprenticeship on the table; we need a commitment by the states and territories to a competency-based licence system that is integrated with the training system."

RELATED ARTICLE: NatRoad annual survey unveils number one issue

NatRoad says the Heavy Vehicle National Law reform process needs to be re-started in earnest, with removal of disincentives to drivers entering or remaining in the industry made a priority.

"NatRoad has called loudly for the abolition of petty offences that are perceived to be revenue raising or of nuisance value but unrelated to controlling the risk of fatigue," Clark says.

"The current rules mean you can be fatigued and still be compliant, but if you breach a petty rule you get a fine."

Clark says NatRoad supports the concept of an industry campaign to enhance perceptions of our industry and attract more women, who currently number 3-4 per cent of drivers.

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NatRoad to work with ministers on driver shortage - Australasian Transport News

In the whirl of digital slavery

WE are experiencing the greatest technological revolution in the history of mankind. This revolution is four times greater in terms of impact than the industrial revolution.

Furthermore, it has only just begun. Slavery is a potent and touchy term recounting repugnant violation of fundamental human rights and should not be functioned carelessly.

Self-ownership in a legal sense and escalating trafficking of personal data to supply algorithm-based analytics and AI is enabling a new form of digital enslavement that has the budding to cut back liberty and perturbing risk of collective and individual autonomy.

Slaves offer free labour for their owners; in return of food, clothing and shelter. The digital slaves also offer free access to their data in return of some services.

Traditional slaves had to pay to get freedom from their ruthless masters. The digital slaves also pay for their shift from one platform or app to another in the form of data.

Both the traditional or digital slaves own nothing. The digital slaves are to some extent more pathetic than traditional salves.

The traditional slaves were under compulsion to work as slaves but the digital slaves are willing slaves.

They are happily and willingly ready to leave their friends and acquaintances, their reputation and all other external aspects of their digital identity.

Users have no assurance that the value of the free data they provide bears any relation to the value of the free services they receive.

We generate data around the clock from awakening to sleep even during our sleep too. Where we are, how we pay our bills, how many there are of us at home, what videos we watch, what websites we visit, what we buy, where we go, who our friends and family are, where we work, what teams we support etc.

With every passing day we generate an ever-increasing volume of data. According to a study published in 2018 by the Harvard Business Review, the value of the data generated by a household of four people is about $20,000 annually.

Data that is valuable not only from the advertising point of view, but also insofar as it is a vital component for Artificial Intelligence.

In the digital world we are all slaves to Tech-giants namely the Big Five. We provide dates free of cost.

This free labor enables digital Big Five (Apple, Facebook/Meta, Amazon, Google and Microsoft) to hoard vast fortunes.

In return, we receive free apps and other internet services. We have no property rights on the data.

This relationship between the digital networks and their users is digital slavery. There is, of course, no assurance that, for every individual, the marginal value of the free internet services is equal to the marginal value of the users information.

Much like the marginal value of slave labour far surpassed the marginal value of the food, clothing and shelter that the slaves received.

Hal Varian, the chief economist at Google, squabbles that presently data is abundant and thus almost valueless, whereas the designers of the networks are scarce and thus generate most of the value of the digital network services.

This self-serving argument is analogous to arguing that slave labour, in the heydays of slavery, was plentiful and that most of the value was generated by the designers of the slave plantations.

The system is also unjust, since the owners of the digital networks exert irresistible authority.

They possess the entre to the digital data on which their users rely, much as old-style slave-owners owned the access to their slaves basic provisions.

The slave-owners were in a position to abuse their market control to their own material gain, much like the digital networks nowadays are doing.

As a result more than 40 million people around the world are enslaved today. Chancellor Merkel suggested that digital data should be priced and users must be able to sell their data contrary to that we are digital slaves and our digital identity is fully controlled and used by organization.

The notion of self-sovereign identity of digital users is at risk. Most of the users are entirely unaware of the digital system.

They consider Privacy in their own hands while it is the other way round. Privacy means that only authorized recipients can entre your digital identity; trustworthiness means that the information enclosed in your digital identity is correct.

The Cambridge Analytical scandal and other misdeeds suggest serious problems concerning privacy.

We are living in the digital regime under powerful digital monopolies, linked to the rise of inequalities in major market economies, large-scale exploitation of digital users for political purposes, and the prevalent incapability of digital users to clutch the business purposes that their data serves intimidation to dent market economies and democratic processes.

It is so easy to be taken in by the positive spin surrounding ICT. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights must include digital slavery in its declaration.

The digital world is shaping and reshaping our beliefs, dictating how and what we consume and enforcing the rules.

International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition is observed annually on 23 August.

This day raises awareness about the gruesome nature of the slave trade and reminds people about the transatlantic slave trade and its implications.

Transatlantic slave trade affected over 15 million people, including children, for more than 400 years.

This day is observed in memory of all victims of the slave trade and also aspires to promote critical examinations of such behaviours that could lead to modern forms of exploitation and slavery.

The writer is an educationist, based in Lahore.

Continue reading here:

In the whirl of digital slavery | By Prof Abdul Shakoor Shah - Pakistan Observer

There is a policy that would, at little or no cost to the Exchequer, increase the sum of human happiness in the nation because it would have made this week, and those that follow, so much less anxiety-laden for thousands of students and their parents. In the wake of exam-result Thursday, we now ought to abolish the GCSE. The UK is in a small minority among developed nations in having public examinations at 16. Few nations divide their student populations as we do at that age. Its time we stopped. And that should be just the start of what we do with education.

The original School Certificate, which is the distant ancestor of the GCSE, catered for a world in which most pupils left full-time education by the age of 16. Since its abolition in 1951, British education has veered between separating students and binding them together. The O-level, which replaced the School Certificate, was split in two in 1965 when Harold Wilsons government introduced the Certificate of Secondary Education (CSE) for the less academically able portion of the cohort. In 1986 Margaret Thatchers government put the pieces back together again with the creation of the combined General Certificate of Secondary Education, with pupils sitting the first GCSE exams nationwide in 1988. But its never really worked for everyone.

The GCSE is fine, though unnecessary, as a signalling device to separate those who are going on to do academic A-levels from those who are not. But every year something in the order of 100,000 pupils do not get five good GCSEs defined as grade 5 or above, and considered to be the basic necessary standard or the equivalent technical qualifications. Most of them will be from working-class backgrounds. They will have gone through their education and effectively been marked as a failure at the end of it. Before students can embark on a path to which they are suited, we force them to fail.

[See also: Tony Blair is right: more people should go on to higher education]

This is part of the reasoning that informs some radical suggestions for reform published on 23 August by the Tony Blair Institute (TBI). Education, argued the TBI report, is staying fixed while the world of work is changing rapidly. The school curriculum, it goes on to say, is not organised to foster the critical and persuasive skills that students now need as they emerge from education into work. Time was when the school gates closed behind a young man (as it usually was then) and the factory gates opened to let him in. Today, we are failing too many students with an education that doesnt match the times. So, abolish the out-of-date GCSE and replace it with continuous but internal assessment.

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In a thoughtful piece for the Institute for Government, Sam Freedman, a former education adviser to Michael Gove (and an NS contributor), makes the valid point that upheaval has costs as well as benefits, and that the GCSE does a good job in concentrating students minds on valuable information. Radicals should always halt and take the conservative objection seriously but surely in the UK we can, as other nations do, provide a valuable education without the need for a public examination at 16. The pertinent question might be this: if we did not have the GCSE, would we invent it? It is hard to imagine what problem it would be designed to solve.

What it does achieve is to split the pupil population along academic lines. On 18 August, an older cohort of nervous students received their A-level results. The TBI wants to be shot of the A-level too, on the same grounds: that it looks backwards to a world before artificial intelligence and automation. The more potent critique of the A-level is that not enough people do it. Six out of seven of British 18-year-olds were not worried about their A-levels on results day, because they didnt take them. This points to the greatest deficiency of all in the UK education system, which the annual obsession with GCSE and A-level results barely begins to touch. As a country we provide a world-class education for the highest-achieving students, but nothing of a comparable standard for their able but less academic peers.

[See also: You dont win over young people by blocking their access to education]

The reason for this is written deep into the history of British education. Rab Butlers 1971 memoir The Art of the Possible is one of the best reflections on being a senior politician in the genre, but that didnt stop his later biographer Anthony Howard giving the book a stinking review for being blind to the failure of the 1944 Education Act that Butler introduced. The Butler Act established three tiers of institution grammar schools, technical schools and secondary moderns.

With the benefit of hindsight we can see that there were two fatal errors in Butlers system. The split between grammars and secondary moderns condemned a generation of school children to an education that was widely seen as second class.

Butlers second mistake was even greater. The technical schools failed to materialise. While grammar schools and comprehensive education dominated the debate thereafter, the technical institutions were quietly forgotten. There have been endless half-hearted attempts to boost vocational educations over the years, but it is hard to think of a minister who ever took that job especially seriously. It is still early days for the new post-16 T-level, which began in 2020. Students take a two-year course with both theoretical and practical aspects, and a work placement in subjects such as design, surveying and planning.

T-levels need to be given a chance to bed in. They have been devised with the full collaboration of employers, so it is not foolish to wish they succeed. Lets hope they do, because radical reform, as Sam Freedman reminds us, is politically hard. Indeed, nobody knows this better than Tony Blair himself. In 2004, a former chief inspector of schools, Mike Tomlinson, conducted a major review of the curriculum, which recommended a four-part diploma for 14- to 19-year-olds, to replace the existing system. It was an attempt to include everyone in a single structure while permitting the specialisation necessary to respond to the variety of talents. When this idea reached the prime minister he instantly responded that abolishing A-levels just before a general election was poor politics.

Any serious change will have to await the new government. The Tory leadership contest continues to throw off policies on which no thought has been expended. Both candidates blithely endorsed grammar schools the indestructible cockroach of Tory prejudices. Liz Truss then went a stage further with an odd proposal that Oxford and Cambridge should be forced to interview all candidates with three A* grades at A-level, which would require the ancient universities to conduct about 13,000 interviews per annum.

It used to be the case that Conservative politicians created a reputation in the Department for Education. Butler, of course, created the 1944 act during the wartime coalition. As education secretary, Margaret Thatcher closed more grammar schools than any Labour counterpart. Keith Joseph picked up a policy left by Shirley Williams and created the GCSE. Kenneth Baker established the national curriculum. Michael Gove greatly expanded the academy schools programme.

But since Gove was forced out of the job by Lynton Crosby in 2014, there have been a further seven secretaries of state for education. Trying to name them all is a parlour game of ineffable dullness. The turnover shows the lack of seriousness with which the government has lately treated the brief. From 1986, when Kenneth Baker began his tenure, to the end of Gillian Shephards in 1997 there were just five ministers. In 13 years of Labour government there were six. The Tories have got through eight in 12 years and one of them, Michelle Donelan, only lasted for 36 hours. At that rate, a week really is a long time in politics. We have, in fact, been waiting three quarters of a century for an education system that matches the times.

[See also: Keir Starmers energy strategy hints at Wilson-like cunning]

Link:

Why we need to scrap GCSEs - The New Statesman